A resolution approving a proposed Contract between the City and County of Denver and Denver Great Hall, LLC concerning design, construction, finance, operation, and maintaining certain areas of Jeppesen Terminal at Denver International Airport. Approves a thirty-four year contract with Denver Great Hall, LLC in the amount of $1.8 billion to design, construct, finance, operate, and maintain certain areas within levels 5 and 6 of the Jeppesen Terminal, and the corridor from the terminal towards Concourse A, which includes the airline ticket lobbies, passenger screening checkpoint, concessions space, baggage claim area, and all associated public circulation space for a guaranteed price and schedule at Denver International Airport (201735867). The last regularly scheduled Council meeting within the 30-day review period is on 8-28-17. The Committee approved filing this resolution at its meeting on 7-26-17. Pursuant to Council Rule 3.7, Councilman Flynn called out this resolution at the Monday, August 7, 2017, Council meeting for a postponement to the next regularly scheduled meeting of
13 eyes council bill 810 has passed. Thank you, Tracey. Thank you. All right. Moving on to the. Last. Bill of the night. Councilman Espinosa, will you please put Council Bill 822 Council Resolution 822 on the floor? I move that council resolution 822 be adopted. All right. It has been moved. And second it the one hour courtesy public hearing is open. May we have the staff report? Kim Day. Denver International Airport. Thank you, president brooks. Council members. I just want to start by thanking each and every one of you for the enormous amount of time that you have devoted to try and understand this very complex project. And I will give you, I promise, a very quick overview tonight. As you have heard me say many times, this is a transformative project. It prepares the airport for the future. It enhances safety and security, increases the capacity of the terminal, improves and replaces aging infrastructure while elevating the passenger experience. Since we opened in 1995, we have almost doubled the passenger traffic and we expect to continue to see growth into the future. Our airline partners have requested almost 30% growth in Gates. That means we need to, in parallel, increase capacity of the train that connects the terminal to the concourse, widen parts of Penn Boulevard, look at possibly accelerating the seventh runway and increase the capacity of the drop off curb and, of course, the terminal itself. And we expect our tremendous growth to continue as we expect to in 2017, above 61 million passengers. The current level of passengers, along with the projected growth, is straining our existing infrastructure. To construct and finance this project, we have chosen to enter into a public private partnership with the Great Hall Partners, an association of three firms bringing equity to this project Ferrovial Saunders and Magic Johnson Enterprises Loop Capital. This team will take full risk to bring the project in on its price and schedule. But and let me be very clear the airport still owns and maintains control of the terminal. The Great Hall Partners will bring to us their expertize in running award winning concessions programs, community outreach and training and development. And they will bring $378 million in equity and debt to the deal. They will guarantee price and schedule, and for this they will get a license to operate the terminal concessions for 30 years, retaining only 20% of the concessions revenue. The airport will invest $480 million, which is approximately the cost of the non concession construction. We will receive 80% of the revenue from the concessions program. We will reimburse the Great Hall Partners for the operations and maintenance cost over the 30 year operational period costs that we would have incurred if we were to manage the concessions. We will also repay the Great Hall Partners investment at a 4.8% return over the 30 years. The Great Hall Partners are also assuming risk of the success of the commercial program. If and only if it performs as estimated, they will generate an additional 6% return on their investment. The contract before you tonight is for 34 years. Four years of construction, 30 years of operation. It includes the $480 million investment by the airport that I mentioned. We're also maintaining a $120 million contingency for potential changes in the industry. Passenger processing. Security processing. Things we hope we never spend during the 30 years of operation we will pay predetermined amounts to reimburse the Great Hall Partners for operation and maintenance and to repay their investment at the 4.8% return. This results in a maximum contract value of $1.8 billion. Just to remind everybody, none of this is taxpayer dollars or general fund dollars. All will be paid from airport revenue. The construction project itself is $650 million. And with our $120 million contingency, we're identifying a range of 650 to $770 million. This image shows the most compelling need for this project reducing the vulnerability of our checkpoints. And while we do this, we will improve the security, effectiveness and efficiency, as well as the experience of passengers. We also need to increase the capacity of the terminal to balance the increase in gates requested by carriers and to address our aging facility with its increasing failing systems. This project will give us new elevators, new escalators, upgraded restrooms and systems, a new welcome area for international passengers, a new south entrance and meeting and greeting area for domestic passengers, right sized check in and security checkpoint areas. More curb drop off capacity on level six and will end with an elevated passenger experience. And this project prepares Denver International Airport well for our future while raising the bar as we look at our industry peers. Thank you. And the team and I are here for questions later. Great. And Ms.. Day, that's your entire presentation. That is my. Oh, wow. Okay. Here we go. All right. We are into the hearing portion and this is how we do it here at city council. This is a courtesy public hearing, meaning that this is not a required public hearing. It's a one hour courtesy that the council listens to the public on some of these more in-depth issues. And so it will be one hour will keep the clock. The pro tem here will look at the clock to make sure we're keeping it on time. And we will go through 25 speakers attempt to go through 25 speakers, which puts us over an hour. So what we're asking so that everybody gets to it. There's going to be a lot of folks, perhaps, if you're speaking on this, condensed your comments because folks that you're speaking with are going to say the same thing. So if you can condense it to about 2 minutes, we can really get everybody in here and get it through. So I'm going to call the first five speakers up. Please let me get this bench to call these speakers up. That'd be great. Ralph Bluefin. Joyce Foster. Bill BOLLING. What a hidden filter. Sorry, Hayden filter. Sorry if I mispronounce that. And why Livingston? So those are the first five. Ralph Lupine, you are first. And introduce yourself when you're ready. His counsel. My name is Ralph Bluford. I represent the Rocky Mountain Chapter National Electrical Contractors Association. I want to thank you, first of all, for allowing me to address you tonight. Our contractors perform a variety of work throughout the state of Colorado in the commercial, industrial, institutional and residential sectors. And we would like to go on record in support of this project and the positive impact it will have for the city of Denver and the surrounding areas. Job creation, sustainability of our pension, health and training programs will also come into play as a result of this project. And with respect to training, our contractors, along with our IBEW partners, offers some of the best educational programs for supervisors, electricians and apprentices that the industry can offer. Such training goes a long way to ensure the quality of the electrical installations that will be required for this project. As an association. ECA will also make every effort to support our contractors who may become involved in this critical venture. Thank you. Thank you. Resolution. All right. Joyce Foster. Thank you, Mr. President, and members of the Denver City Council. My name is Joyce Foster. I'm a former city council member and a former Colorado state senator. In 1993, when I was elected and. We were here until 3 a.m. every Monday night discussing airport issues. Someone very smart told me never to allow the airport to become an authority. I'm afraid this may be the back door into one. Many nights, it would. Have been a lot easier since we were dealing with pretty hostile concession contracts. People elected me and you. To represent them. And make decisions, not a private company. By supporting this contract tonight, the citizens. Of Colorado will no longer. Have anybody to complain to. I know that sounds tempting, but your hands will be. Tied along with the next. Three decades of elected city council. Members. One airport vote I remember vividly was that of our baggage contractor VA. He wanted us to buy a $30 million maintenance contract. The lobby was strong and they had their seven votes. I merely asked a question while sitting. Where you are. Why should we buy that. When you haven't even. Made the system operational yet? Well, I was able to convince a couple more. Colleagues and we didn't buy it, thank goodness. And United Airlines. Had to take the entire system over. You know, the one that never worked. The airlines are the largest concessions. They must have input. And because the airports had to do everything differently after 911 when our airport was already operational. We all needed the flexibility to make changes. Maybe there's language. To make minor changes, but you won't be in the driver's seat. I promise. Future council members will assume the contractor is correct. And do as they say. No one will have the history. I've only contacted a couple of you and yes, I know I'm a Joyce come lately, but I'm here now to hopefully change. A few minds. In 34 years, I'll be. 107 years old. If I'm still celebrating birthdays. My grandchildren will range in age from. 46 to 51. This is the most. Important asset we in Denver. Have. I strongly. Urge you to. Reconsider your. Yes vote. Support Councilman Espinosa's suggestion. Pay the $9 million. And then my suggestion run like hell. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Honorable Joyce Foster. All right, Bill Bolen. Good evening. I'm Bill Bolen. I'm with Paradise Leggo. There we are, an airport concessionaire. While new to Dan. We've been around for three years. We're in the Southwest project, and we have brought 120. Jobs to the airport. And we just we're getting ready to open up in East and bring another 50 jobs to the airport. And we look forward to this great hall project to bring more jobs. Here done and why we've been successful with the current RFP process in the. Airport. We also look forward to this new public private partnership and. Continued success at it. Dan Airport, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Bolen. What what heightened filter. Oh. Not here. Okay. Why Livingston? Good evening, everybody. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today as a member of the business and the traveling community. I'm honored to be a current member of the airport community. Ms.. Livingston, can you introduce yourself? I'm y Livingston and I'm an airport concessionaire and also the owner of Whitestone World Teas. I have been a certified TB firm for over four years and have seen the growth and improvement of our airport over that time. I support the continued improvement of the sixth busiest airport in the country by supporting the Great Hall Project. With the proposed changes, my support really centers on four main areas security. The new plan reduces our overall vulnerability very dramatically and at a time that's needed for the times that we live in. Secondly, the Esthetics Airport is aging, and we need to be proactive and thoughtful in our approach to transform the space from good to great and to be timely with this transformation. Opportunities from multiple firms is my third main goal operations for women and minority firms, for all of those that have an opportunity to participate in the concessions program. And then finally, the size of this project produces tremendous growth opportunities in our area for local businesses and additional employment opportunities. This project, in my opinion, is the right undertaking at the right time, and I don't want to see our airport fall behind in terms of its capabilities and capacity. Thank you. Thank you, Ms.. Livingston. All right. I'm going to call the next five folks up here. Nick Hostetler, Hush Bleu, Herman Malone, Steven Jagannath and Gavin Malloy. And one more. Michael Kiley. Nick. Just Stetler, your first. Hello and thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. Thank you also. I really appreciated earlier when you guys took the stance against racism and discrimination at the very beginning of tonight's session. My name is Nick Hostetler. I'm a union organizer with Asthma Council 76. A group of city workers and myself came tonight to speak about working conditions at the airport and human services. But considering the topic, we will come back next month for that. So tonight I I'd like to stand in solidarity with Unite here local 23 workers out at DIA in opposing the Great Hall Project. We know that without a retention agreement, concession workers will lose their jobs. And what's more, city jobs in the Great Hall could be it could be jeopardized. And those are some of the members that we represent that could be jeopardized as a result of contract language that gives Ferrovial a great deal of control over the Great Hall . If FERROVIAL has control over the Great Hall, they could potentially use that control to outsource city jobs in the area. Ask me Local 158 is concerned about appropriation of city funds for capital projects which impact these city jobs. And this is city money being spent on a questionable contract that displaces workers and constricts a budget that could otherwise be used to improve the lives and workplaces of city workers. So we're very concerned about that. We therefore ask the city council to do they consider the importance of these employee jobs and also in the future for Ask Me, Local one, five, eight and other unions to be more actively included in the next contracting contracting discussion. So thank you very much for your time tonight. Thank you, Mr. Stettler. All right. Herman Miller. Good evening. Council President Elvis Brooks and distinguished men and members of City Council. My name is Herman Malone and I reside at 8136 East Fairmont Drive. And here in the city. 80230. Oh. It's a pleasure to appear before you this evening to briefly discuss the most important part that is before you tonight. As one of the founding members of the Colorado Black Chamber of Commerce, where I served as its chairman for a number of years, in addition to the Rocky Mountain Minerals Supply Development, the Development Council. And in addition to being a business owner for the past 40 years, I have witnessed some significant milestones, including the hard fought campaign and passage of the land acquisition vote, which led to the development of the international airport. Proudly. Our community plays a significant role in the mayor opinions vision for a great city and airport and the way of administration. We witness the construction and completion of the day and the establishment of a minority and women owned business participation goals . These significant goals essentially put them on the map for a progressive city. Ready to include all of the citizens and an equitable opportunity to participate economically. Today we are faced with another milestone the renovation and expansion of our terminal dubbed the Great Hall. As a proponent of this project. And the approach that the management has taken to build it. I think there are synergies at play between the public and private sectors and I also think is a definitely a unique concept and trust that the team will preserve the integrity. Of the Minority Business Enterprise. Program. In a manner which allows the DBI community to be fully integrated and the public private partnership terminal development. Including establishing goals that are clearly defined and therefore be accountable for any shortages in achieving those goals. And also the local minority business development center and the local community to be included in the utilization of achieving those established goals. With that being said, thank you very much for the opportunity. And thank you, Mr. Malone. Steve. Check it. The reason why. Mike up. Here you go. Good evening. My name is Steve Jake with the vice president for United Airlines at DIA. Thank you all very much for the opportunity to speak with you today. As our President, Scott Kirby, stated here last month, the DIA and United Partnership is one of our strongest airport airline relationships anywhere in the world. We have a very long track record of working together. We appreciate the collaboration and engagement between the city teams and United. Over the last few weeks to resolve issues arising from the current Great Hall redesign. Significant progress has been made, but we remain concerned with the proposed level six design. We respectfully request that the DEA and United teams continue to work through these significant and outstanding operational concerns. We simply cannot afford months or years of operational disruption for additional construction or projects if the proposed level six design fails. While we do not diminish the value of the simulation work that was undertaken, it is virtually impossible to predict real world customer and operational behaviors with complete certainty. So it's best to plan for contingencies. Day's last round of simulations indicate that the current level six design does work. However, as we've previously articulated, computer simulations focus on a future single standard day that can rarely capture changes over an extended period of time, let alone anticipate the numerous variables in the highly complex environment of an airport. The simulations for the checkpoint area requires a 28 of the 34 plan lanes and the current design must be open and fully staffed or else a security queue begins to overflow into our lobbies. Based on our extensive experience of delivering new check point facilities across the country, we do not believe this TSA scenario is realistic on a consistent basis. Our lobby operations as well require additional study to ensure they have customer friendly flows with minimal congestion and acceptable lane wait times. We ask that any cost associated with day two construction to alleviate congestion or additional address additional problems created by the level six design be borne by DIA and their design partners. Airlines should not have to bear the burden of additional costs to fix the operational deficiencies in for Louisville's Great Hall design. As these issues have been brought to the day's attention in the pre-development stage. Finally, the proposed P3 deal with FERROVIAL requires the airport to maximize the amount of concessions revenue available to Ferrovial. To accomplish this, the airport needs to maximize the amount of available space awarded to Ferrovial and the concessions program. Mr. Jacquie. Yes. You've run out of time. Very good. Well, thank you very much. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Gavin Malloy. Good evening. I'm Gavin Malloy from United Airlines. Available for questions. Great. Michael Kiley. Hello. Good evening. My name is Michael Kealy. I live in Council District one and I'm also a candidate for the Colorado State Legislature, House District four. I'm here tonight representing the Committee for City and Airport Fairness. Veronica Barela is here tonight or was and she's the chair of our committee. So we support the renovations, the need for renovations for the Great Hall. We understand the benefits from sales. Tax and for safety, but we have concerns and we're asking that the deal be amended. The concerns are as follows We believe the contract is far too long. How can anyone possibly. Know what is needed from the airport 30 years from now? Ferrovial hasn't been needed for the first 20 years, and we're not understanding why they're needed now. The city can finance these renovations at much lower cost than the current terms in the deal. All the profits will leave our state. Rather than being reinvested in Colorado. And why are we guaranteeing for over a profit? We should be guaranteeing a living wage for the citizens of Denver and affordable housing and affordable health care. We should never guarantee a profit to a corporation in a commercial venture. We need 100% assurance that the jobs created by this project will pay a living wage. A prevailing wage. Excuse me. Paying less than a living wage means those workers will require city or state services to live in the metro area. Paying anything less than a living wage amounts to corporate welfare. We need the. Project to have high goals. For engaging and bringing equity to the minority business opportunities. And we ask that local concessions be prioritized to keep the character of DIA. In summary, we strongly recommend that the City Council vote for an. Extension and make essential adjustments to get this deal done right. Take bold action. Maximize the benefit of the great hall renovations for the people of Denver. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Kiley. All right. We're going to call the next five up here. Monica Stringer, Kevin Abels, Tiffany Patrick, Mark Thompson. And Nick Sullivan. Monica Stringer. You are first. Stringer. I'm sorry. But. Good evening. Good evening. My name is Monica Stanger. I'm the founder, president and CEO of Server Tech Electrical Contractors. I am here to tell you that I have earned the opportunity to have my own business in this city because of Denver International Airport. This airport has been a huge economic engine for our city. I started my company 17 years ago within dense walls. 17 years later, I employ 20 full time individuals and we had gross revenues in 2016 of $9 million. This continued growth has allowed us to train our workforce beyond industry standard. This would not have been possible if the opportunities were not available to us. This project is a great, thriving opportunity for this small business community. If they are granted great participation in it, thank you for your consideration. Thank you, Ms.. Dinger. Kevin Abels. Good evening. I'm Kevin Abels. I live in Harvard Park neighborhood. Denver City Council District two. I'm here speaking as the Denver chapter president of Unite Here, Local 23. We represent 2000 hospitality workers in metro Denver, including 500 at the airport. Our union supports responsible airport development. However, we do not support this contract. Our members are the dishwashers, the cooks, the servers, and the bartenders that make our airport great. And we want to make the airport even better. That's why for over a year, we have talked to you, the members of council, about how we want to be a part of the redevelopment of the terminal. And we'd like to thank you all for partnering with us. You have given us a seat at the stakeholder table, and we appreciate you for that. We look forward to partnering with you and all the officials at the airport on future projects as well. On the other hand, Ferrovial has refused to partner with airport concessions workers. Our union reached out many times to engage Ferrovial in a discussion about our members most important concerns. Number one, after being laid off, will displaced workers receive the first right of refusal? Once equivalent concessions, jobs become available. And number two will Ferrovial and its concessions. Subcontractors respect the decision of a majority of workers on whether or not to unionize. Sadly, over the past year, Ferrovial did not seriously engage with us, let alone come to an agreement on these concerns. Ferrovial is lack of good faith means that we cannot support this contract. This company has shown a disregard for workers who have been at the airport long before they ever will be. Ferrovial has not done what it takes to build worker support for this proposal. Airport concessions workers are very concerned that if this contract is approved for Rovio, we'll have a 34 year pass to ignore us instead of partnering with us. Regardless of what happens with the contract tonight, please see concessions workers as partners of the city and the airport. Our cooks and servers will continue to take a seat at the table. We remain hopeful that we can make the airport even better by all working together on the next projects and contracts. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Abels. Tiffany Patrick. My name is Tiffany Patrick and I represent U.S. Engineering, a local union mechanical contractor. And should the contract pass tonight, I will be managing the mechanical and plumbing portions of this project in partnership with the Great Hall Partners Design, Build, Joint Venture and our minority and women owned mechanical and plumbing contractor teammates. I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank the Council for their support of this project. Thank you, Mr. Patrick. Mark Thompson. Council President Brooks. Did I do that? You might have, but that's okay. I do that. Members of council. I considered opening my comments tonight with a song selection from the musical Annie. However, the kids stole my thunder. I do want to take the first bit of my comment and thank you for providing that opportunity to the youth of our community. I realize you've been seeing a lot of the Carpenters recently. I'd like to thank you on behalf of the Carpenters and our community for the time and the opportunities to meet with you individually and again tonight. I'm here tonight on behalf of our members to talk about the Great Hall Project. I'm not here to speak in favor or against. This is another project that means opportunity. We do have a real concern about our city pumping money into an industry that is polluted with labor brokers, wage theft, payroll fraud and cash pay . Cash pay meaning? No taxes, no workers comp, no unemployment. We are an organization of carpenters, and we've been building this city since 1884. We just want to make sure that we build it responsibly. Unfortunately, we have had some fraud issues, some payroll fraud issues on recent projects at the Denver airport. We have discussed with most of you about apprenticeship opportunities, about career training that we believe would ensure that we are building the Denver airport the right way. We're asking for your help in promoting the creation of good jobs in Denver, in the Denver construction industry, as well as developing a well-trained local workforce. Again, we're looking for opportunities for the citizens of our community and in apprenticeship training, the youth of our community. I'd like to thank you for your leadership. I'd like to thank you for your support. Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Nick O'Sullivan. Good evening. My name's Nick O'Sullivan. I live in Sloan's Lake. I'm the co-founder of Brothers Barbecue and Nugget Ice Cream. My brother and I opened our business 20 years ago here in Denver, a little place, about 900 square feet. We didn't have any employees. And now we've expanded to seven locations and we have over 100 employees. We've also been selected now to open up a brother's barbecue at the airport and terminal at the Den Lounge. I just like to say that, you know, the exposure and the sales volume will take our companies to the next level . And we're really thankful that Denver is bringing local businesses like ours with them as this amazing city continues to grow and thrive. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to say thank you to the City Council for recognizing us as a Denver original. And we look forward to serving you in February at DIA. We support the Great Hall expansion as it will give other local businesses like ours a chance to show the world what great companies Denver has. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. O'Sullivan. All right. I'm going to call the next five individuals up. Rob Prince, Michelle Verizon's, David de Villa and Howard Arnold. One more. Zach McNeill. Rob Prince. You're up first, sir. Members of the council. I hadn't really come here to speak, to be frank, but I'm so concerned about this issue that I decided that I would. I've done a little research, some I I'm against this proposal. And I just want to state it clearly and just to just give you a few explanations why. First, I've lived in Denver for 42 years. 3187, West 40th Avenue. My wife is a nurse at the Colorado State Veterans Home. I have two daughters, one who's a therapist at Kaiser, and the second who's taught for 19 years in the Mapleton School District. I was a senior lecturer of international studies at the University of Denver's Corbell School, and I retired from there two years ago, or at least I thought I retired and then all these things are coming up. What are my concerns about this issue? Several. First, the length of the contract. This ought to have been mentioned, a 15,000 page contract, I've heard. And also the size, the financial size of what we're dealing with, 1.8, 1.8 billion. So there's that. I'm also concerned, just given the research that I've done about one of the companies that's involved and its record, and that is ferrovial that several people have mentioned. So some have mentioned it's labor issues, but there are other things just that you ought to consider. First of all, it's been cited specifically in a recent Amnesty International report for for a facility related to off the coast of Australia, in which it's one of the main players, ferrovial, that is, get houses of people trying to become refugees there. And the human rights abuses there have been well documented. So that's something you should consider. Secondly, recent news suggests that they're having problems in in Great Britain. When Great Britain privatized their they're their airports Ferrovial is part of a larger consortium became ran seven of those airports recently I believe they were asked to to end their contracts with three or four of them. And you might want to look into that. And finally, there have been they had major problems, labor problems in Canada with with contracts, with airport contracts. So I really think that that that needs to be that needs to be looked at, really. The person who spoke for for me the clearest was former city councilwoman Joyce Prince. Okay. And her comment about how this place is going to be run and who's going to be running it. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Michelle Burstyn's. Did I get that right? That's right. Okay. Hi, I'm Michelle Burns. I work and live in northwest Denver and I'm currently living on 20 something CLAYTON In your district. Mr. Brooks, I am here representing the Millennial World Traveler. I travel several times a month. I was just in Europe a month ago, took a trip last weekend, and I'm flying to Vegas on Tuesday, so I kind of fit that category. I fly by the seat of my pants and I am really proud to call DIA my my airport. I do think that the flow is a little inefficient and it doesn't feel that is it is as safe to me as it should be seeing other airports globally and seeing how they have the flow set up, you know, really brings that to my forefront of why I am in favor of this project. I just don't understand that we're such an international airport and we have so many people at risk. Safety wise. I do think that it is time to improve as it was mentioned. We've basically nearly doubled our foot traffic since we've opened. And now is the time. As a millennial, we also love our options and we really love local retail. We're excited about some of those new places that could potentially be coming in. More convenience, better safety and efficiency in general speaks to. Kind. Of the millennials. With this project, it will bring a lot of jobs for people who need it. Obviously grow the economy and we do think that that's very important. Also, another thing I'd like to mention is taking the airline from Union Station to ticketing through TSA. It just feels like it's, again, inefficient and and feels like it could be better streamlined. I just ask that you consider this plan. It will make us feel more safe, streamline travel, save us all time, and of course, bring jobs and local business into DIA. Just ask that you look at the bigger picture and vote in favor for this project. Thank you, Ms.. Persons. David de Villa. Good evening. Thank you. Council President. Members of council. My name is Dave de Villa. I'm a fifth generation Denver native. I live in Denver currently. I work for a board of directors who install mechanical and plumbing systems in commercial projects, much like the one envisioned here at DIA. We represent about 7000 workers in this state. I'm told as of today, that number may be closer to 7500. I have 150 members in the state who build everything from homes to hospitals. Airports in particular at our vendors and vendor members were about 180. We are have been around since 1886. No, I'm not the founding executive director. This project contemplates a $650 million price tag. What that means is it will create 11,800 construction jobs. Those are local jobs will be created here in part with Ferrovial. We've met with them a number of times. Contrary to some of the comments earlier offered by another speaker, they have been open and receptive and been good to work with. But I'm also here to talk about our friends. Saunders Construction. There are a local contractor who hires local subcontractors, like the ones that employ me. We thank Saunders for their continued partnership. They reinvest in this community and they're great partners to work for. Should you choose to approve this contract, not only will it generate 11,800 new jobs, it will also return two and a half times or $1.2 billion to the economy, although we don't know Ferrovial as well as we do. Saunders Everything from our meetings have been positive. We look forward to this project. We ask you, please vote in favor of this bill and this project. And as a former city council person, I know the role that you are in. I will tell you that P3 projects not only are the wave of the future, but the world is watching on how we handle this project and additional investments are made possible by how this is handled. Sure, there are some things that in hindsight may have been dealt with a little bit differently. But what I would say to you is I think Ferrovial and Saunders have helped us work through those. So again, I would ask your support in favor of this project and this bill. Thank you. Honorable Dave de Villa. Thank you. Howard on. Mr. President. Honorable City Council. My name is Howard Arnold. I'm currently the business manager for the Rocky Mountain Bike Trails District Council. I'm also the past president of the Colorado Building and Construction Trades Council. We also belong to the MMP Alliance that stands for Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing Alliance. These are the union contractors and respective labor unions for the mechanical, electrical and piping trades. They typically make up about 60% of the cost of a project. This project will put hundreds of construction workers to work. These are jobs that come with a five year apprenticeship and continued training for the rest of their career. They'll provide health care for the workers and their entire families. They'll pay prevailing wages and they'll pay pensions so that at the end of their working career, they can retire in dignity. These are large these large public works projects that hire union contractors are transformational for people. Often times, for generations, it lifts people into the middle class. 30% of our membership are minorities and women, and we're working with a local community organizer, Servicios de la Raza, to recruit more folks who've been disadvantaged into our trades. This project will put bread on the table for hundreds upon hundreds of craft workers and their families. I appreciate Ferrovial has experience in building these types of large projects, and I applaud them for selecting an excellent Colorado local general contractor. Saunders Company. Saunders Company will hire Colorado subcontractors and will employ local Colorado building construction trades men and women. Please vote to make this project reality. Working people need it. The city of Denver needs it. And the safety and welfare of millions of people. The cross through our city needed as well. Please note. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Honor. All right, Zach McNeal. Mr. President, members of the council, I want to thank you for the opportunity to come before you and speak. I am totally for this project at Denver International Airport as a small business concessionaire for the past ten years. I've seen a lot of growth in our airport years ago. A few years ago we were rated number one in the US. I want to get us back there and do everything that I can. I am all about giving back to the community and when I started at DIA, that's one of the things that I did heavily was invest in our youth and put together a program. So you want to own your own small business. I'd like to think we were fairly successful with that, but now we have the opportunity to put that on steroids, not just for the youth in our city, but also for other small businesses that we have the ability to mentor. So. The commitment that I will like to make to you tonight is that we will work tirelessly within optimal concessions to make it work for youth, to mentor them, to give them jobs, to grow and nurture other small businesses so we can share the success. But we have to seize this opportunity. There was only one other opportunity where we had the ability to do concessions, do outreach, touch small businesses in a major way. That was 22 years ago when the airport opened. This is the only other time that it is occurring. We have to take advantage of this opportunity. So I'll make the commitment to you that we will work tirelessly to get that done and to help make then become number one again. And I would ask you guys to vote in favor of this project and not let this great city down. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. MacNeil. All right. I'm going to call the next five up. Thank you all. Rob McDaniel. Andrew Rusty Gonzalez. Trinidad Rodriguez. Walter Eisenberg. And Tom Allen and we are complete. Oh, you guys did a great job. Okay, Robbie, now you are first. Thank you for the opportunity to speak here this evening. Council President. Members of council. My name is Rob McDaniel. I reside at 22nd and Huston Hudson. In Park Hill and our offices are headquartered at 25th and Washington. And council president Brooks is district. I'm here tonight to speak in support. Of the Great Hall Project and everything that it represents for our community. In 1994, I was an intern in Governor. Roemer's International. Trade Office, and one of my many jobs was to do the check at the Christmas. Party at the yet to be opened Denver International Airport. During that great event. I was able to actually enjoy a little bit of the speeches and the festivities. And Tom Clarke spoke very eloquently about what DIA meant. Despite all the problems we had with the baggage claim system and everything else. And he said that Denver was going to. Be Denver International Airport was going to be not. Only a gateway to the world for Colorado, but a gateway for the 21st century. I think the Ferrovial project and what's going on with the Great Hall today absolutely carries that vision forward. US as a company, I went on my own as a small subcontractor to a company here in in Denver working at the airport in 2009 as a one person shop. I'm happy and proud that we've now grown to 12 full time staff in. The Five Points neighborhood. We have projects. Now in Seattle, Tacoma at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, San Francisco International Airport, and we just opened an office in Cincinnati, Ohio, to represent our activities in the Eastern Seaboard. All of this activity, all of these jobs, the. Revenue we've been able to. Create has been. Facilitated and helped by the work we've earned and delivered at DIA. So we thank the airport and we look forward. For what this project means going forward for our company. I think the numbers speak for themselves, but sharing one small story from our company, Ferrovial, like all big companies, has many, many subcontractors. And we've been working. Diligently with one of their subcontractors to form a joint venture alliance here. In Denver and also to help represent. Our company and our services and solutions in Spain. So they have not it's a 500 person company headquartered in Spain. They've never had operations in Colorado or anywhere in the United States. And this project is helping them enter this market, so much so that they're actually considering. Putting. Their offices, their US. Headquarters here in Denver. And for us, that is a huge opportunity to grow our business in. Europe. And hopefully in other parts of the world. As this as we continue to become a global passageway. I urge you to support this this bill and support this project for the local economy and for small companies like mine. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. McDaniel. Andrew Rusty Gonzalez. Good evening. Rusty Gonzalez 35 years ago, I made a conscious decision to leave the Big Apple, Cheyenne, Wyoming, and move to Denver, Colorado, to start an electrical contracting business. In that 30 in that 35 years, I've learned a lot about construction in Denver. I've owned my current company for 21 years. I've owned electrical contracting businesses for 30 years. And that 30 years as a small business owner, I've written over 1000 W-2s as a small business owner. After starting my business, I learned the importance of getting involved in fair wages. I've been a union contractor my entire time. I recently sat on the Auditors Prevailing Wage Ordinance Committee and was successful on that. That's the last time you all saw me. I also became active in the organized labor for the electoral industry. I'm on the board, vice president and board on the board of directors of the National Electrical Contract Association, who works in collaboration with the IBEW to create over 2000 construction jobs. Additionally, I'm the past president of the Hispanic Contractors of Colorado, formerly known as the Hispanic contractor Colorado. Now Colorado's diversity leader, which we represent over 100 small business construction owners, which also has hundreds of jobs. So. I guess what I'd like to say is one thing I've learned since I've left the Big Apple was the importance of being a small business owner in Denver and working with the city on these large scale projects. I've been very, very blessed, very, very fortunate, as I said, to have been part of working to help create in excess of 2000, 2000 jobs. And I see this project as another opportunity for many of the small and bedbug species, the ease to benefit from this project, not only short term, but long term. So I encourage your support on this. As always, it's great to see you. Peace out. Thank you, Mr. Gonzales. Best joke of the night, Big Apple. All right. Trinidad Rodriguez. Good evening, Mr. President. Members of Council, thanks for the opportunity to address you this evening. My name is Trini Rodriguez. I'm an investment banker. I live and work in Denver. Just a few short minutes away from where I was. Born and raised and. Villa Park neighborhood. And I'm here in that capacity as a resident and employee who works in the city. And county of Denver and uses Denver International Airport. Regularly, both with my family and for business travel. I was thinking back. To when Denver International Airport opened and remembering sort of my first experience with it. And that was when I flew out. To begin a semester. Of college and flew out of Stapleton and then flew back. In the Denver International Airport. And I remember. The, you know, significance of seeing the great new facility. But so much has changed since then. This is a key opportunity to invest in Denver International Airport as an asset to create capacity for many years to come, to accommodate. The very rapidly growing. On the origin and destination traffic that flows through Denver as the city itself grows. As you considered with the bond many this investment has a very similar sort of business case and rationale to be able to accommodate continued significant growth in our region. I I'm also urging support. You know, public private. Partnerships are a unique tool and they are not the right tool for every job. But based on how the transaction and the terms of the deal are structured, it can be very beneficial to all the parties involved. And I believe the team. At Denver International Airport and the city and county of Denver. Administration and management have have worked to that. Goal. I understand that. The for. As one particular measure, as an investment banker, we look at credit rating. Agencies and credit ratings. And I understand that the city team has very much briefed the three nationally recognized credit rating agencies that rate the. Bonds on Denver. International Airport and that by virtue of the transaction structure in terms and the way those terms fit within the flow of funds of how Denver International Den's obligations are met, that this only works to enhance the credit. Worthiness of the airport's capital financing program and enhances the ability to achieve the all important credit rating metrics that determine the rating on. Bonds such as downs. So with that, I just wanted to lend my perspective. Thank you again for the opportunity and I urge support of this spell. Thank you, Mr. Rodriguez. Walter Eisenberg. Thank you so much. Thank you, counsel. My name's Walter Eisenberg. I'm president and CEO of Sage Hospitality. I'm a member of the Visit Denver Board of Directors. Member of Colorado Hotel Lodging Association, which is supported this. And a trustee of Metro State University that has entered into an agreement with the Great Hall Project for job training in advance of this evening. I live in Denver, have been here 33 years 1984 moved here to start sage hospitality. Today we employ about 6000 people, a thousand of who work in the city and county of Denver. 22 years ago, we opened DIA and I would tell you that my view of the last 33 years, by far and away the most important economic impact investment that we have ever made. And I cannot imagine what our city would or would not look like, perhaps if we still had Stapleton. The airport is now 22 years old. Four years from now, when this project is completed, I think that we would all agree that it is time to reinvest and update the facilities as have been described. I think that there's been some discussion about the term of this agreement and we have firsthand experience with P threes at Denver Union Station. I think we would all agree that it is a wildly successful P three. We have a 99 year agreement with an option to extend for 50 years. So this seems like a pretty short deal to me. So I would encourage you to think about this opportunity to take private dollars in partnership with DIA to reinvent and improve our airport and bring it up to current standards. I would encourage you to be bold and vote yes in favor of the project. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Isenberg. And last but not least, Tom Allen. Thank you, counsel. My name is Tom Allen. I am the president of Intermountain Electric. We are a union electrical contractor here in Denver. We started in 1946. And we've been out at the airport since it opened. In the last nearly two years, we've been providing pricing to the Great Hall partner team to. Help them through this initial pricing process. And should council. Support this. Project. And I hope you will. It will hopefully. Mean a lot of jobs for my company and for many companies. For the years to come. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you, Mr. Allen. Um, I just got to say, 25 speakers, 50 minutes is very impressive, so thank everyone for keeping your comments concise and to the point. Yeah, very effective. All right. We're going into questions, questions by members of Council Councilman Cashman. Thank you, Mr. President. If I. And Commerce Day up to the microphone, please. It is. Council. You said that the private partners assume full risk. And I'm wondering if you can explain what you mean by that. They assume full risk for price and schedule. So they are giving us a firm fixed fee of $650 million to build the project. And they have a schedule that has us opening the fall of 2021 for completion. Okay. So and I think at least one of my colleagues will talk a little bit more about this. But the one area that seems to be left open is change directives that that Dan might require of the project. And I understand we have $120 million set aside to cover that. Is that correct? That would be for changes that happened in the industry. Ferrovial takes responsibility for opening the ceiling and finding a surprise that's on them. But if something changes in the next couple of years about how you use your phone to process, and that means we need to redesign part of the Great Hall. We would pay for that out of our contingency, right. Or any other design changes we want to make along the way. Okay, Mr. De Vere, I have that right. Would you mind? And Mr. President, I've got about 90 questions, but I'll ask three and then give it up, if that's okay. Yes, sir. Go ahead. Q Thank you. 11,800 jobs. That sounds like an awful lot of jobs from one speaker talked about 500 carpenters jobs, I think. Tell me more how you get to that number. Go ahead. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. We commission as the electrical contractors, the sheet metal contractors and the mechanical plumbing contractors. Every other year, an economic impact study that I can send you a copy of with Colorado State University. They're the only accredited construction management program in the state. They do a research project for us. And this January they conclude or we release the last installment of that for every million dollars you spend in construction. It creates 18 direct jobs. What I didn't quote you was the indirect figure, which brings that closer to like 28. So if you just take 18 times 650 million, you get to 11,800. And are we talking a job year, a construction jobs? So for every six, every million dollars you spend, you create 18 construction jobs. Direct construction jobs. Indirect things would be items like suppliers, downstream partners, other other supporters that feed the industry. I can get you the exact study with all the metrics that are used in order to calculate that, if that would be helpful. Well, I'm not going to beat this. And I'm just like I said, I'm trying to understand what a job means. You know, as far as is this the length of the project? Is this someone who may show up during the project for a limited period of time? So there are sometimes in projects like this, there could be upwards of 60 contracts with construction firms. Mechanical and plumbing would be either one, or in this case, it is one. But everybody who hits that job site, the way that the economic multipliers work is it calculates a job is created, eight of them for every million dollars you spend. I'll make sure that we get your copy and everybody else on council copy of that as well. That's okay. I'm guessing after tonight I'm not going to want to read a lot about this project. Thank you, Mr. President. I'll pass the microphone. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Cashman. Councilman Ortega. Thank you, Mr. President. I've had lots of questions that have been answered, and I appreciate all of the folks who have been involved in getting my questions answered, but some of them have raised additional questions. So let me first start with safety and security. I asked a question and I got a response back, and I'm not sure it was completely accurate about what our safety or security rating is for the city of Denver's airport in terms of the vulnerability of our airport and. Not necessarily just related to checkpoint, but in general. Um, and I don't know if this is, what's the word I'm looking for. Maybe protected information, but. So so the question I want to know the answer to my question is, are we at the highest level of the security rating on the scale that is used by federal government agencies to rate the security risks of airports around the country? I'm not aware of any particular rating system that is used that's applied to our airport. What I will tell you is that the TSA every I believe it's three years, does a vulnerability assessment. And the last two or three of them, they have pointed out that our Great Hall is indeed a vulnerability that we need to address . Not sure that directly answers your question. Yeah, I'm just trying to figure out where we are on that scale, because I understand there is a a rating, if you will. And so that's why I'm asking the question. And none of us here at the from the airport are aware of a rating scale for the airports. Okay. Well, let me go on with my next question. So it sounds like the issues have not been completely resolved between the CIA and the airlines in terms of concerns about throughput traffic on level six and how those will be resolved. Is that accurate? And it sounds like there are still ongoing conversations. I'll let Mr. Malloy come up and tell you from the united side of things. But I think we've worked really hard the last couple of weeks. I think they're planning team agrees that the simulation showed that it all works. What we are focusing on now is if it shouldn't work and let's just say things change, right? There are there are other aspects that could happen in the next couple of years that we have not anticipated. We are looking at what we are jointly calling relief valves, ways that we could add even more capacity. But I think it might be good for you to hear directly from United on this. That would be helpful. And in the meantime, it's my understanding, if you would just please come to the microphone that the. What I heard pretty loud and clear was that the open TSA lanes that are managed by non airline or airport employees are federal government employees would require 28 of those lanes to be open and staffed. So if you can help address where we're at in the process and whether those issues have fully been resolved or are there still ongoing conversations with DIA about addressing the concerns that were, I think, pretty eloquently expressed when we had our committee meeting about. Backup and co-mingling of TSA check in traffic along with passenger ticketing and baggage check in traffic that would be all located on level six. So to answer your first question, conversations are ongoing. I think we've been encouraged by those conversations in the last couple of weeks. We do have an ideological disagreement about when you pull the relief valves. We would like to see those valves incorporated into the Great Hall Construction Program so that we don't have a situation that the design fails. We'd prefer for those relief valves to be built now so that if something does happen, they're ready to go. And we don't have congestion. We have a genuine operational concern here. We want to make sure our customers can get through the airport efficiently. Your question, in terms of TSA, the simulation study does say that with 28 lanes of the 34 lanes, that the queuing should not back out into the lobby. That's only six lanes that can be unstaffed by TSA. And we have seen through our implementation of checkpoint projects throughout the country, that's pretty aggressive staffing by TSA. So we remain pretty concerned. I know the the airport feels pretty convinced that we can work with TSA and solve that problem. We have not seen that in reality in other airports. So can you and Kimmel ask you the same question? Help address what we see as normal staffing levels today? Are we are we operating at 100% or are we at 80% with TSA lines open? So it varies. Every day we review the schedule of the day with TSA as to the ebbs and flows of traffic, and so they attempt to staff it as best they can in terms of using their resources. I think they do a fairly good job. We have had amazing growth in the last year and we have had occasions here recently where we have been beyond the queue. But it is not because they're not staffing lanes, it's because currently we don't have enough capacity for this growth that we are seeing. I'll also just to comment as as Mr. Malloy said, we do think the TSA is going to want to staff this facility. This is their new prototype that we have an IMU with them. They are working with us on the design and developing this new concept for screening, and it is in their best interest to make sure that this doesn't fail. So I think they have a an unusual commitment to staff this airport that they may not have in others that are in the United System. And Kim, just from having the opportunity to travel and review the technology that we're going to be utilizing it, it is very apparent that that would assist with the traffic throughput, but it's still contingent on how many lanes we have open. Correct? Absolutely, yes. Okay. Mr. President, I do have other questions. I know you've got people in the queue. If you could just put me back in. I'll come back later with some of the other questions. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Councilwoman Ortega. Councilman, New. York, you. Let's just talk about the project review process. Can you describe how the proposed projects are going to be reviewed on an ongoing basis and reviewing the cost and the schedule and the quality of construction? Certainly. Well, we are at 30% design right now. So with with the optimism that this will be approved tonight, we will take that 30% to 100% between now and next summer, working very hard with our our partners here. Once we begin construction, then things change a little bit. Gisela has a third party who relates who directly reports to her, who will be overseeing the construction in terms of change orders and anything financial. On a regular basis, they'll be doing that oversight. We will also have an executive committee that will have representatives from this body, as well as representatives from the mayor's office and other city agencies that will be briefed on a regular basis on the process, both in terms of the construction and the cost. You also know we have an elected auditor that has the responsibility of making sure that everything we do at the airport is done in a legal and efficient manner. And I am assuming that Auditor O'Brien will periodically put this project on the list of things to audit. So there will be that outside audit as well. I'd also say because of the structure of a P3, there is additional oversight from the investors on the Ferrovial side who are very concerned about the investment and making sure there's a return so that there's that level of oversight. And then additionally, all the bondholders put yet another level of oversight. So there are a number of layers that will be looking at this project for the next 34 years. And I should say the Finance Department will be involved with that review process as well as the auditor. You know, they own their they on your review committee are the guys learned and the individual the structure of the project manager is going to be part of that with the finance department. Yes. The Brendan Hanlon, our CFO, is actually a member of the executive committee. And the person in Portuguese. Is that more of a project manager person that will he actually this person be going to the site or is it really more of a financial individual is looking at the financial details review. It's more from the financial part perspective. Well, there'll be a person, a project manager that will be looking at the construction as it goes along and working with partners and and everybody. That gives you reports about construction progress. And. You know, Stu Williams, well, he will be living and breathing this job 24 seven. One of the things that's been very effective with the National Western Center is is Kelly and his staff coming and giving quarterly reviews to our city council committee. And I just want to know, would you be willing to do that for our Business Development Committee to just brief the city council so that all council members can, you know, get an opportunity to to listen to how that things are progressing during the construction period. We'd be delighted to do that. Be great. Thank you. Now, my colleague brought up change directors, you know, being a cause that, you know, the city may occur if it happens, if you start getting into the 100 million, $120 million contingency, is a red flag going to go off or what's going to happen with them? When you start thinking about when you start getting into that contingency, especially if you if you if a if some major design situation occurs where you may even exceed that 120 million, that's the you know, we want to safeguard that. How do how do you plan on monitoring that? Well, first off, we are going to be very transparent about any use of the contingency. Let me start there. If we were to exceed it, we would actually have to come back to this body and get an amendment to the contract, because the contract has a maximum amount that we can spend. But yes, we are going to be monitoring it closely. I think these are not going to be little teeny things that add up. This contingency will be used for large issues that we have to deal with large industry issues. So they will be very obvious and transparent to all of you. Okay. Ask very good question about the concession agreement. You know, if if Ferrovial decides that it's not working out for them, do they have the right to transfer this agreement or or move this agreement to a third party outside of this? Or do they have the right to discontinue as a company and allow the rights for concession management to a third party? I'm going to ask City Attorney Dan Reamer to answer that one, if I might. Counsel. Good evening, Dan Ramer, City Attorney's Office. The short answer to the question is that the the developer's ability to transfer control and equity investment in the project is quite limited. There are two specific time periods. One is between the effective date and two years. So within the first two years of the development agreement, the ability to change and change control is subject to the city's essentially sole discretion. And after that two year period, it is up to the city's reasonable discretion. And there are conditions that have to be satisfied, such that the the substitute entity is equal or better capable to perform the services of the development agreement. Now, you know, we're not talking about construction. I'm talking about the concession agreement. That's what you're talking about, right? Yes. Okay. This concession group and with city council being involved with that process of approving that change of responsibility. It would not technically be an amendment to the development agreement because that power is conferred upon the city in the authority that the council would be granting this evening. So it would not require that the airport come back to the city council for that change in control. Would that be brought to a city council committee at least for discussion? So the city council would be apprized of that before it occurs? I am I am sure that it would in the ordinary course, but if you asked the CEO, I'm sure she would agree, just as she did a moment ago, to bring it to you, regardless of whether or not it would be standard. I think that's comforting. Last question for Gisela one. This I appreciate so much the last three weeks providing financial information to me to understand the deal, and I think it's a very attractive arrangement. So I appreciate stuff. Just a real simple question. I know the answer to this and I trust you explicitly. I just want to make sure that all the cost information that you've given us is accurate. And then in all the 15,000 pages of addendum or appendices, there's nothing in there. There's a hidden costs. It's going to come out all of a sudden later on down the road that's going to exceed the cost of this contract. That 1.8 is a good number, billion dollar number for our project, right? That's correct, Councilman. All of that is contained in the development agreement. And in that 1.8 billion other than the airports financing costs that we've discussed. But yes, nothing else in the 15,000 pages. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Brown. All right. Thank you, Councilman. New council mechanics. Thank you very much. I so appreciate the responsiveness that Kim, your team has had very, very responsive and prompt. So my question I think for is for you in the discussions you've had with the airports, airlines so far, have you agreed to any changes in the construction projects that differ from the plans to date or whatever it is that's being considered tonight? Not at this point, no. Okay. And do you have any sense or can you estimate for me what the potential total risk is? So there's things they may want that are not even on the table. And then there's a range of things that, you know, that you all might be discussing. I guess what I want to get at is what is the maximum risk for cost changes related to the negotiations that are going to continue after this contract is approved. So I wish I could give you a number. We are not there. I will just tell you generally what we are talking about. We're talking about extending the baggage system to level one are the hotel and transit center so that they could possibly have a group check in at that level. We are talking about the possibility of locating some additional ticket counters on level four of the HTC served by that same baggage system that I just described. That would require some modification to level four, which right now is is empty, as well as an escalator that would come up from the from the level one up to level four and then also an escalator that would then get you up to level five. We're also talking about something that we refer to as modern zero. If you could imagine the area on both, you could do it on both east and west side, just to the north of the end of the ticket lobby that, you know, today we could add on in that area there. We could add not just ticket lobby space, but we could potentially add the level below so that we could add more bag claim space. All of those are just conceptual ways we might expand, and we are truly just doing, you know, freehand drawings at this point. And over the next few weeks, what we hope to do with the United is to refine them more and get to the point where we actually have costs, but we don't today. I'm sorry. Okay. And then this may be a question for Diane, but I want to understand, if we assume that some or all of these changes get made, are these all eligible for and with the costs come from the contingency, considering the fact that none of the costs would be known until after this contract were executed. So to be. Clear, owner changes are changes in scope. Mm hmm. They are not unforeseen circumstances. They are decisions made by the owner to change the scope of the project. The kinds of things that Kim just described could be added to the developer's scope or could be treated as entirely separate projects. It depends upon when the triggering event might be. If it's within the four year construction period, they may be owner changes and the airport may call upon the contingency in order to fund them. If they are simply plans that are that are developed and then put on a shelf that could be procured as an entirely separate construction project due to be resurrected when they may be needed. Five years, ten years, 15 years from now. Okay. Thank you for that information. A different set of questions. And this is one that I guess is a little less technical and a little more philosophical, because one of the fundamental questions we are grappling with is the role of the public sector and the role of private sector. So Kim, I guess I'd like to start with you and then I'll follow up with the similar questions for Ferrovial. But, you know, this is don't I don't expect you have a real number, but how many outside stakeholders would you say that you know, that you have met with throughout this process, as in people who are not part of the airport or the city family, but external stakeholders. People with an interest. People with an opinion. From the public. Well, I. Stacey is here somewhere. She might be able to tell me how many public presentations we have given. It's. Maybe 30 public presentations. I'm thinking more about meetings where you've really met with groups, whether it be CAF or whether it be contractor associations, folks who've said to you, I have an idea, I have a concern, I want to sit down and talk. And it may not be you personally if there's someone else. George I don't know if that falls more under your team, but I just trying to get a sense of how the airport as an entity operates as it relates to stakeholders. So I would say both ourselves and Ferrovial, independently and sometimes together have met with multiple groups, whether they are formal or informal groups here in Denver. You heard earlier this evening from CAF, we have met with CAF. You've heard from a number of a number of groups who have special interests that we have met with. We have tried to touch anyone we could. I would say that I don't know how to quantify it, but we have tried and tried very, very hard to do broad outreach. And do you want knowledge or do you want to say anything? But I want to just follow up with you first. Okay. So would it be safe to say that in some of those meetings you've heard ideas that you didn't agree with or met with groups who have publicly criticized the airport? I think that's fair to say. And I guess this you know, again, I'm just trying to get a sense of our role as a public entity. Why do you keep meeting with folks who might criticize you or who have ideas you don't agree with? So I think it's fair to say we also hear ideas we do agree with. So it's not all negative. And I think that's really important. And even if we don't agree, I think it's very important that the public understand why we're trying to do this. We are a public agency. We are your airport. We are everyone's airport. And while we're not going to get everybody on board, we certainly like to take the time to explain why we're doing it. Okay. Thank you. So I will now ask some similar questions to Rovio. And then after this set of questions, Mr. President, I, too, will see and let someone else take a turn. But so you heard our airport director talk a little bit. So is it your sense that if you all are awarded this contract, that you will be stepping into the role of, in some ways serving as a liaison or representative of a public airport, that you will be no longer just a private company, but you'll be doing something in the public sphere. Is that with that? Would you agree with that statement or. Every every public and private transaction that we carry out, we always take into account that fact that we will be working in an asset that is heavily exposed to the public sector, to the public service. So we are totally aware of that and have a long experience providing services to the public in the context of our concessions , lease leases and privatizations. So you you know, we had a mr. de Villa and a couple of others mentioned how very many meetings they had with you. Did they share some ideas with you that you maybe didn't agree with or that you weren't quite able to act on, but you kept meeting with them and found other things to talk about? Would that be? We have held many meetings with different stakeholders in the community with respect to construction, development, concession management and training centers. And we have found many ideas very interested or that can be accomplished. And developing this project or their ideas perhaps are less interesting or cannot be achieved in the context of this project. There's one particular community organization that has tried to meet with you and, you know, had one meeting and was told that you wouldn't meet with them any more. And that is you might hear the representative of the service workers, which is different than the construction workers. I would like to hear your explanation as to why you didn't feel that you had an obligation to continue to meet with them. Yes, we we have held at least three meetings and a number of conferences, a number of telephone conversations without a specific association. And what I would like to confirm is that Rubiales, a company that guarantees the rights of employees, is an employee of Ferrovial. I have the right to strike the freedom of association, collective bargaining, having the right to collective bargaining through representatives of employees or unions. I have access to prevailing wage framework agreements we consider trade unions as our partners. We have signed agreements with more than with more than 350 unions representing more than 12 million members, including 35 countries . So we are a friendly company with respect to unions. What has happened with this company is that the approach of this association was a good result into removing the right of choice of the union that would represent the future employees of the concessions in the Great Hall. And that's something that we will not be sympathetic or could agree with. So there was something you couldn't agree on. Did they ask to continue to talk and meet again? Excuse me? Did they ask to continue to meet and talk? Have they asked for meetings that with you? After the three meetings that we held and that meeting at Boeing that we could then. Except with decided to stop having more conversations, especially taking into account the aggressive approach of that association against the company they represent. Is there any other community organization or business that you've refused to meet with? No, no, no. Just one representing workers? That's correct. The community for airport fairness. Have you met with that organization? Sorry. The Committee for Airport Fairness. Have you met with with that organization? It's it's a group of folks interested in contracting and other. I think we held a meeting with then. I was not there personally. Yes, that's correct. Okay. Thank you. Sir. Councilwoman Cami. Is that okay? My screen is open. Councilman Espinosa sort of along that line, Tom Allen and any of the other union people that spoke. Could you. Come up? Are you all familiar with the Unite Here 23 group? And their requests for worker retention provisions. No. We're now more in the construction industry and those are collective bargaining. When you speak into the mic, please, whoever speaking. Councilman, identify yourself. I'm Ralph Llewellyn with the National Electrical Contractors Association. And we hold the bargaining rights for our electrical contractors who sign letters of assent to our agreements. I'm not familiar with that organization that you mentioned. Our main focus is with the IBEW electricians. Do you feel that workers that have that have worked at DIA and made it successful? I mean, you one of you cited its rankings and it's currently very well ranked in the world and in the nation. Do you feel that there should have been worker retention provisions in the contract for people that are currently employed out in the airport? I have to say I'm not that familiar with the demands of the players in that group. So I. I really have no comment on that. Go ahead, sir. Sure. Councilman Espinosa. Council. Mr. President. So, actually, I met Dave, DVR, contractor, exec and myself. Got to meet early on with representatives from Saunders and Ferrovial. And before I did that, I knew I had this meeting coming on and I did talk to Unite here. I talk with Kevin. I talked with the president of the Denver Area Labor Federation, Josh Downey, and told them I was going to have a meeting with Rossville and Saunders and ask them if they're just exactly what their what the problem was. If there was an issue there so that I would I would send them I would carry the message for them. When we met and I did that, I said, well, what I was told was that they were the they being the unite here their main their to me they only had two main issues then. One was that they is that they would not be interfered with if they tried to organize the workers in the new shops. And the other was that the workers would have jobs still, so they wouldn't lose their job if they if their shop moved out of the terminal to above or moved out to somewhere else in the airport. And I carried that message to Ferrovial and to Saunders. And what they told me was that they would not stand in the way of the workers if they wanted to organize. They wouldn't, they wouldn't. They would stay neutral. They wouldn't get involved in that. And they any of the people that were union out there now would still be union. If they wanted to be in the union, they would not interfere with those guys. I what I understood the main crux was the, the shops that were going to be built that weren't built yet. There was some disagreement over whether they would require them to be union or not. I think that was what at least what I understood was the crux of the conversation. And I appreciate, you know, sort of putting you on the spot. But, you know, as somebody who's, you know, an architect by trade, I'm not a you know, I. Wish architects had. A union. Right, because we worked long, long hours for lower wages despite what everyone thinks or what you see in the movies. The the so I'm trying to figure out how we got to a situation where there's union support on the labor, the on the construction labor side, but actual organized employees or, you know, struggling with this this with these terms or getting terms. So I appreciate the background. I probably still don't understand it the way I do. I'll probably ask Kevin later to sort of come up and collaborate. Yeah. So I think there was an agreement with the hotel out there that they wanted to model agreement with for political reasons, as I understand. But I don't really understand all of that. I know the issues. That's what I was told. So yeah, but there is no sort of blanket brotherhood across unions to say. Look, we're. Labor is labor. We know that we're in the construction phase of it. Certainly we I would like to see everybody via the union. I would like see everybody, even if they're not in the union, have good wages and fair pensions, health care. Those are things that we should all have as people here in this great country, in our great city. It makes our it makes our city better. It makes our communities better when we have those sorts of things. So I don't think that I think from what my perspective was, this was a contractor that was going to offer those types of jobs for the construction industry. And I think that's great. Okay. Well, some of that I right. I respect it. I mean, I understand that significant portion of the responsibility actually falls on us. We could have we could have as council sort of made provisions of that, that they would have to sort of incorporate into their agreements. And we didn't do that. So now we're in a situation. Where we're looking. For voluntary compliance. So I mean, our inclusion into their their agreement. So thank you all very much. Sorry to put you all in the spotlight. Anyone anyone else have something to say? A quick comment. Councilman Espinosa. Yeah. As a as a union, we do support dignity for all workers. We support that. And we'll fight for that. I will state that, you know, all of our construction trades issues have not been addressed as of yet. And still, you know, we're looking to all on the apprenticeship language as well, which is being talked about, concerned about timeliness of that. But as far as unite here, we haven't met with them, but certainly we support their them and their workers in their fight for dignity. Great. Thank you very much. So. Sure. I am here representing small businesses. I'm also an electrical contractor. Electrical contractors or small businesses usually are not union members. So. I guess that the city of Denver is kind of like to try to accomplish a perfect balance to give opportunities to small businesses and big businesses and working together. So I ask for the consideration of this job not to be closed just to union members, because that will take a big chunk of the small business community. Out of the participation of this job. Thank you. Thank you. So to Ferrovial, did you. Did you at some point do an analysis and have some sort of understanding of the economic impact if you had made sort of any sort of concessions or labor agreements. Of some sort? Council Member Yes, we analyzed the proposal made by Unite here. You know, to understand the terms and conditions that they were proposing. And the first point that I would like to clarify for the benefit of everyone is that our great hall partners will not be the employer of any of the workers that will be working, hopefully, if this project is approved in the future. Concessionaires of the Great Hall. We are not that we are not going to be a master concessionaire. We are just developing procurement. Those units and the future concessionaires will have to hire to recruit those employees. What we have always stated from the very beginning, more than a year ago, we proposed creating a training center for those future employees of the concessionaires in order to help in the development. And we even committed ourselves to injecting money on day one. And I'm sure you will have seen in the financial model money contributions on an annual basis in order to foster the development of those future employees of the concessionaire. So we are very well aware that having those employees being developed, been retained that can develop an excellent career in those units is critical for the community. But what we cannot do, what we cannot accept is signing on behalf of those future concessionaire exclusivity agreements, to have those employees of the concessionaires being represented by one trade union, because that would neglect the right of those employees to decide who is the right representative of those employees. So do you have. That number on what you thought. It would, the economic consequence it would be to this agreement? We don't have I couldn't estimate the number to the economic standpoint of that agreement and. And I'll finish this line of questioning and I'll see. I had other topics, but. So you did the grant, the analysis in the green. So where I struggle with that, having read the entirety of the contract not I will admit to not in all the appendices is that there are that. You there are a. Lot of. Provisions that you are requirements that you are obligating any of your concessionaires to adhere to through the terms of the contract that are flow that are, you know, carried out. I mean, carry. Through pass through from. From Denver to your. Concessionaires. Writing additional provisions is not prohibited. So long as they don't they don't. Jack mean they're not illegal. So there certainly would have been the capacity whether, you know, it's not something it is. I want to stress that it is your choice to not have. That is not. There's nothing that we're. Doing that's preventing you from from making those requirements of your concessionaires. You simply do not want to put. Those sort of requirements on your concessionaires. That is correct. Correct. You understand that we we must keep the right of choice, of the right of the representatives that the future employees of those concessionaires want to want to have. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Espinosa. Councilor Lopez. Yeah, thank you. I wanted to continue the line of questioning with with Labor and in particular with the conversations with the concession workers and well, I guess the know here and not sure if they will be I mean drivers at all. I guess so. I want to come back to this. The the situation where you said you've met with the folks from Unite here. How many times? Yes, we we. Had a very long conference call with then in order to understand their approach with a representative from the East Coast. That was a very long meeting in order to understand what they were proposing. I had a physical meeting in in the Westin Hotel at the airport with three representatives from Unite here. And after that meeting, I had a very long conversation again in order to provide feedback about that meeting. Now, do you. Were there any kind of middle ground that was achieved? Was there any kind of I don't want to say this is believed to be redundant, but was there any kind of concession made or any kind of middle ground achieved? I mean, it seems like there's been ongoing conversations. Has there been any proposal? Basically, we council member. We received an email you. From Unite here. What we were told was that if we were going to if we could accept that you. Completely that John would support from really in this process. There were a number of clauses in that MRU that I don't understand if could be cited through negotiation or not . That's that's something that we don't that we've been approached that would not be acceptable, especially neglecting the rights of the future employees of those concessionaires to decide who is the right representatives of those employees. Now I understand that ask for unique exclusivity. I want to get away from union exclusivity. And, you know, I don't want to it's a slippery slope. And when it starts using language that third parties, workers in the union, I don't like that. I think it's. You mean we don't throw our third party ourselves as folks in the United States? Right. As one union. And I want to in unison and I want to focus on that word, but I. I mean. Were there any counter offers or proposals? It was. I mean, we understand that retention is an issue. We understand that that wages are an issue. Have there been anything any commitments to those issues? Not necessarily to to an organization. But to have those issues out there that they are bringing up. Right. And what are those what are those proposals or what are those counter ideas or offers? We we understand with respect to jobs that the issue that the concessionaires are going to have in the Great Hall Project is to attract and retain talent, as far as we know. In the airport, there are more than 400 job opportunities available. So we all understand that the problem is going to be job destruction. There is going to be job retention and attraction. That's why we are focusing all our attention, commitment and investment in developing that training center. That is an obligation for our team according to the development agreement that you will have seen. With respect to your second question. Could you please repeat your point? Councilmember Yeah, I'm wondering since in talking about the issues of retention and talking about the issues or mostly job retention, then and then, you know, the living wage piece, right? Aside from exclusivity with a union? Yes. Right. Have there been any commitments to meet those two concerns? Right. And what commitments are those are those written commitments? Is there something in writing that says that this is something that you will honor? Right. But prevailing wage obligations are included in the development agreement. As you know, council member. So that's an obligation that our thing will have to comply. That's an obligation that we are used to complying in every year where we work. As I was explaining to Council member Kanis before. And that that applies to the concession workers. As far as I understand those, cos those workers are workers of the concessionaires and they will have to deal with their employees the kind of salaries that they will have. Access to and as those jobs are coming up. The retention issue. Is there a commitment of ferrovial or operators to those employees to keep them? To give the first right of refusal, what they brought up is their commitment. We have a commitment to make interviews, at least three interviews. That is going to be done by the future concessionaires to those persons that have lost their jobs because of this project. What would be in a circumstance where they would not be employed anymore? Like you said, it's three interviews. Is is there something that would prevent them from gaining employment if they've been working at a concession in the airport for a long time? And let's say that the concept changes or whatever. Is there anything that would prevent them from getting that? As far as I understand, the issue in the airport is retaining. So having an employee that is available to be recruited, that has experience working in the airport, that has been but not not getting a job when there are now more than 400 job job back answers. And we are going to develop through the future concessionaires on 800 positions. I think that is a very unlikely scenario, taking into account the skills of that worker that has been there for ten years. Yeah. I understand. I just. And, Mr. President, if you look. I understand that. I just want to make sure that that that that that that employee that worker knows that because, yes, there they're going to be 400 jobs. As you guys are talking about. There will be 400 jobs. Like, hey, man, there's there's a bunch of jobs for you to choose from. Don't worry about it. But that doesn't necessarily get the guarantee then the first right of refusal. Is there any been any kind of agreement that addresses the first right of refusal? Right. Aside from the three interviews. There are no more counter guarantees in the development agreement on their behalf. Okay. Thank you. Thank thank you so much. And, Mr. President, if I just have one more on another topic, that's fine. This has to do with contracting with mwb and also well, in this case, activity. Right. The program and I don't know who's most appropriate to answer this question, but 34 years, right. We we all talk about, you know, 34 years. I think, you know, my daughter's ten now. She'll be 44 when this when we have a next the next crack of this. In those 34 years as minorities and as women, we would hope that, well, as the population grows. We would hope that the the number of entrepreneurs that are women and minorities also grow. What are we doing to make sure in that 34 years that where we're at right now, that that number, whatever it is, 33%, whatever percentage that that number doesn't stay flat. Those 33, those 34 years that it grows with that. And what are the determining factors and what's the commitment from the airport and ferrovial, I guess, with this with this contract to ensure that that stays in pace with population changes and growth. So Councilman, to answer, I just want to separate the maybe be ordinance from the act. And that's why you asked it in both the MWB and then KDB program. So that the maybe ordinance clearly applies to the design and construction, the four year design and construction phase, the $650 million project that the CEO described before goals have been established 33% for design, 18% for construction put forward by the Office of Economic Development and presented by the Mayor. So those goals apply to the design and construction phase of the project as KDB, the AC, KDB, the Airport Concession Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program, which is a mandate of the Department of Transportation. That is what will control active participation in the concession program going forward during the 30 year operating period. That goal has been established within the development agreement at 26%. So would you say that the feds control that? We don't we don't determine that. That the number is a locally derived number based on disparity and other factors. The program itself is overseen by the Department of Transportation in the Federal Aviation Administration. So that goal has been set at 26%, but that goal will be revisited. So what I'm trying to get at is the answer to your question with respect to KDB. The goal will be revisited during the operating period and we've set that that period at ten years to correspond to the likely length of the individual concession agreements. The contract requires that concession agreements be no longer than ten years. And so we've set ten years. So the AC DB goal will be revisited during the operating period. Okay. I appreciate that. And, you know, council president, my concern with this questioning is that it would I'd be hopeful in 34 years that there is no more disparity to have to argue about. But as you've seen and the disparity continues and I don't want to pretend like there wouldn't be disparity in 34 years. Right. It hasn't gone away recently. And I don't want to I want to make sure that we keep that in mind. So that's an important value of the city in this council. And I want to make sure that that's reflected in every movement that we do in this. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. You're getting in the comments there. All right, Councilman Flynn. Thank you, Mr. President. I don't see the fellows here from. Ask me, are they is anyone still here? That was Nick Hostetler. Okay. He had made a statement that I maybe I wanted to make sure I understood it correctly, but he seemed to indicate that there were city jobs that were in jeopardy. He left. Okay. Yeah. There's Kim. You don't know what that was about, do you? I can't imagine that we would be reducing the number of city jobs on this. No, not to my knowledge. Is there any discussion around that? Thank you. And Mr. Jack Quinn from United might be able to answer this along with Kim. In your talks, you've made some progress. But if we vote on this tonight, the agreement is is approved. And what I'm wondering is, do you see is there room within this agreement after it's approved, assuming it is for you to conclude what the matters that you are after? Within the framework of that agreement. Once it's at once it's approved, because once it's done, we live by those rules. This. So to make sure that I answer your question properly, just to restate what you said. Are we comfortable that if approved tonight, that there's enough within the existing format to be able to affect the change? Yes, of course. I wanted to reach to reach a satisfactory conclusion to your issues. Yeah. Actually, Gavin would probably be better for that. Thank you. I think the short answer is it will require change orders. If we were to implement any of the levers we have identified, they are not in scope of the current contract and I know that they could be treated as a different project, but at the end of the day, there's one payer for that and that's the airline community. So it will cost more money to implement any of the changes that we've suggested. Okay. Kim, would you agree with that? If. If we were. If we get to the point that we believe we need to implement them. Now, that would be true, I think, though. Well, let's start with we're still working. We're still trying to define them. Number two, the question is, do they need to be built now or not? I think we as the airport have a great deal of faith in the work that we've done with the planners in the simulation that we can't see today, investing millions of dollars into something as a relief valve when when we don't see a need for it. Right. We also because this project is being done in phases. The ticket lobby will be up and running while we're building the the checkpoints. So I think we feel there is a period down the road where we can evaluate this and see how it's all working. So I would say to you in our mind, it's not something we would do to modify the contract today. More likely, if a few years from now we decide we need to do it, they would be standalone projects if indeed they're done. Okay. And I think what I'm hearing is there's a couple of ways to do that. We could do it as a separate project. We could do it as change ordering through the through this contract. But either way, approving this tonight doesn't stand in the way of resolving these talks. It does not. And I'll just remind everyone, you know, United is our major carrier. We know they're our future. We know they're growing here. We want it to work and to succeed with them. So we're not fighting that. We don't want United to be successful and grow and have the the space that they need. We just don't agree on how this plan impacts them right now. But we will do everything we can to make sure united to successful here. Okay. Thank you. Kim, on the in the concessions development and the management program, there is a every two year review of market trends and ability for ferrovial to modify the direction it's going in consultation with with us as the owners. I correct. That's correct. So. So in approving something that will be in place for 30 years of the of the on M period does not mean that whatever is there on day one is there on year 30. In fact, would probably be highly unlikely that it would. Absolutely. And we are sharing the benefit of the revenue. So both parties have incentive to work to continually improve what we have there in the Great Hall. Mm hmm. And could you describe briefly, just briefly, the recourses that the city has for nonperformance or, you know, for. My understanding is there are penalties for nonperformance. And remarkably, in my view, there's no bonuses for for better performance. I'm reminded that you might have negotiated that. Yeah. So to take the last part of your question first, with respect to bonuses, there is only one bonus, early bonus, which is early completion of the TSA security screening checkpoint. That is the only financial bonus with respect to payment deductions. There is a scheme in place where if the developer fails to perform in the manner that's prescribed in the development agreement, then there will be payment deductions made against their supplemental payments. So they they do have to perform. There has been some confusion about the guarantee of their profit. It is not guaranteed in the sense that if they fail to deliver and make the project available according to their standards, they will not achieve that anticipated rate of return. Right. And just one word of advice. I won't use the word scheme when talking about this. Kevin Abels calculation. I've I've met with you several times. I've also met with the concessionaires in the airport. I'm having trouble understanding. So I keep hearing that the principal problem with the concession operations is keeping people there in the first place. And the concessionaires are telling me that they can pretty much guarantee that workers will be displaced and terminal will be able to be positioned elsewhere. And if it's not on the airside, if that person can't get an airside badge for some reason that most concessionaires have operations in town and would be able to place them in town. Do you have any notion of how many workers you think unite here? Things might not be placed. Well, I mean, this the renovations in the very terminal will impact between two and 300 existing workers. Mm hmm. Whether or not they are placed or not is now, you know, totally at the hands of chance. The agreements that we've come to with other, more responsible airport companies like the Westin and midfield create a pipeline and a system for people to land in a job that they're qualified for that that simply will not exist in the Great Hall Project, unfortunately. Okay. Thank you. That's all for now. Thank you. Councilman Flynn. Councilman Black. Thank you, Mr. President. I have three questions, but I'm going to add one for a fourth to follow up on Councilman Flynn's last question. Can someone from the airport comment on what Kevin said about there not being a pipeline? Because I thought there was a direct pipeline to provide jobs for the displaced workers. For. Thank you, Councilwoman. I'm George Merritt with Airport Government Affairs. So we spent last fall working with our concessions association and to look at the number of employees in the Great Hall and working with them. What we found is that most of the concessions there were part of an ownership group that were ready and willing to bring those workers out onto the concourses, or, as Councilman Flynn said, moving downtown. And for those that were not part of the of that of an ownership group, we even instituted programs at the airport specifically with those people in mind. So we created that website that all of you have seen a job website at the airport to bring people out there. And then again, our concessions association is eager to talk about. There are 400 vacant jobs ready for people to fill at any given moment. So I think it's fair to say that our concessions association has embraced this challenge to make sure that the people that want to work at the airport, particularly those that are badged, are valuable commodities and we want to keep them out there. Thank you. And number two. That? No, that one didn't count. Okay, one. I know I've heard about three different opportunities for professional development, the Great Hall Academy, which is in cooperation with Metropolitan State University and Emily Griffiths Technical College, and then apprenticeship programs. And then also about an engineering apprenticeship program with the Colorado School of Mines. So is there someone who can just talk about some of those professional development opportunities? Council member and I can talk with respect to the Great Hall Partners Training Center. That's a. And a training center that will be developed, by the way, told partners that that that activity has been included in the development agreement. As part of the document that was referring, Councilmember Flynn of the Council of the Concessions Development Management Program. So that's an obligation on our site, although was something that we already proposed one year ago as part of our proposal, our bid to the airport of our to Denver International Airport, that training center. I would say that if this project is approved is a reality. There is a budget already allocated. We are committing $100,000 on day one and 50% of the marketing fund to that training center. We have the tools and the partners, the tools we have been working. Without different associations, the concession associations and the existing concession as the airport, in order to identify the right framework and the right needs to recognize that training the standpoint of the future employees of the concessionaires. And secondly, we also have the tools with respect to the partners. We have been working with Metro State University, with Emily Griffith Foundation and with the community college in order to have the right partners that can help us put in a facility standpoint, logistics and also to put the courses together. We have also had discussions with the airport in order to have venues available in the airport, in order to get the most efficient training and avoid that the concessionaire employees can use, that time can waste time going from one place to the other for training purposes. We think that we can develop these 14 years ago. We start something similar like pivotal right now that Heathrow Academy has been able to put into work more than 30, more than 3200 employees because of our efforts putting that together. We also have an internal university call for our university that has a massive institute and developing this training center. So with the right partners, with the right assessment and with the Budget Committee, that we think that this can be a reality if these facilities of. Thank you. Is there someone who can comment on those other. Apprenticeship and car. School of mines. I think I think Howard talked about apprenticeship. Councilman. Councilman Black. Councilwoman Black. So apprenticeships are a great, great tool for us and for a lot of people. And really and I'll speak specifically about the Pipefitters because I know about that apprenticeship more than I do the others, although they're they're all based pretty much the same way as I understand it. And what happens there is is it's a five year apprenticeship. It costs the student $200 a year for books. The local union subsidizes the rest of the cost of that school year. And it's an accredited course. It's an accredited college course. So at the end of five years, they have 45 college credits for about $1,000 and no student debt. They actually get a raise every year, a pretty good raise to 10% a year, which and 15% the last two years. So it's a really a pretty darn good deal. You could actually get your associate's degree with just the general education classes. There's 17 general education classes that that if you could take them, Simon Tinsley, if you'd like to, you could also come out. And if you get the right jobs and you hit their breaking up over time in the right places, that you can make a pretty darn good living. $100,000 is not unheard of. So it's apprenticeship is a great a great opportunity for a lot of folks. So are you going to be actively recruiting people to be apprentices to do work at the airport? Yes, ma'am. We already are in airport in many other places, too. We are actively recruiting every day. So that that's one of the reasons we have a grant with the state to do community outreach, specifically to reach out to folks that have been disadvantaged for one reason or another, whether it's where they live, whether it's they're a minority or whatever that might be. It lists people into the middle class. This route is truly transformational, and not just for that job. Oftentimes for generations down the road, it's made a difference in people's lives. And we had members here today that could tell you that they retired and went home. So but I hope that answers your question. Thank you. I think that's great. Right. Thanks. That was only two. So the last question is for someone from the airport. And it's a two part question. Eisenberg said his is the Union Station public private partnership was 99 years. And at the committee meeting we talked about how, for example, the Elway's concession agreement was for ten years. So can someone come in and why this agreement is for 30 years? So, Councilwoman, typically when you invest in a project, you depending on the size of the investment, you need a certain amount of time in order to recover that investment. So if you take some of our smaller concessions that may be, let's say, 100,000, 200,000 or even up to a million or two that we'll invest to outfit a concession at the airport. Typically, 7 to 10 years may be adequate for that. But if you're talking about a project that's in the hundreds of millions, it is not unreasonable to have a 30 year return. If you think about the bonds that we issue at the airport to fund our projects. Those are also in the hundreds of millions. Those are 30 year bonds. And that gives you the appropriate period of time to ensure that you can recover your investment and make the payments. So it really is tied size of investment, length of return. Thank you. You're welcome. Ah. Anymore. Okay. Uh, kill some black councilman Clark. Thank you, Mr. President. Sorry to keep bringing us back to some of these. First of all, I just want to thank the entire team for being available for questions and helping us navigate through this contract. I want to start with airport. I'm guessing this will be a George Merritt question, but I'll let the airport team pick back two workers at the airport. You've heard a lot of questions about this is obviously something that's really important to a lot of us. And, you know, I had had the opportunity to meet with people, some of the awesome people who work at our airport and make it the great place that it is out in the Great Hall. Also concerned that Great Hall closes for four years. That's a long time to wait in line to have a new job in that same space. So I just want to get real. You know, we've talked a lot about it, but people right now who are employed in the airport, in the Great Hall, will they have a job when this construction goes under? When this goes under construction? Thank you, Councilman. So the short answer to that is yes. We worked very hard last fall with our concessions association to look at, and you've. Already covered that. I'm looking for a commitment here in public. Well, the workers who are in the Great Hall, who want to continue working, will they have a job. Particularly if you can pass a background check to or B badge to go out on the concourses? You know, if you had to move from a from a great hall out to the concourses, that that would be the hurdle. But, yes, I think if you are ready and want to keep working at the airport, we've put in place several systems. So that. Yes, that is absolutely correct. Okay. And then for Ferrovial. Yes. I know that there were issues and negotiation and things that you didn't want or feel comfortable committing on behalf of future concessionaires. But will ferrovial respect workers rights to organize and form a union should they choose to? So will Ferrovial respect workers, the workers right to organize and form a union should they choose to. And will ferrovial interfere in any way with the workers rights to organize and form a union so that you. Will not. Interfere? Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Wow. Councilman Clark, that was quick. Okay, we are back to the top. Councilman Castro. Thank you, Mr. President. Someone from the airport. About the concessions. So, as I understand it, part of the agreement is in the Great Hall. No one can have more than 20% of either the restaurant side or the retail side, and no more than 30% combined. Is that correct? My understanding that correct. Yes, that's. Correct. Okay. And for for someone from the airport. So does this agreement allow Ferrovial to be a concession owner in either the Great Hall or on the concourses? No, it does not. So two part question. With respect to the concourses, the development agreement has it says nothing about and provides no rights, contractual or otherwise, to the developer in connection with concourse concessions. But it doesn't prevent them from bidding for the concourses. No, it doesn't prevent them from from bidding on on any concession contract. But the second part of your question, the development agreement does prohibit the developer from being an owner in concessions in the Great Hall. So they are not, as the representative from Ferrovial explained, they are not a master concessionaire. Typically a master concessionaire is the owner and operator of some number of the concession locations. The Great Hall Partners will not be the owner and the operator of individual concessions. Okay. And I think you alluded to it before. Michael Kiley made this statement. Why are we guaranteeing of overall a profit? Are we guaranteeing for overall a profit? No, we are not guaranteeing ferrovial a profit. One thing I would be clear on is that there's always mark up in construction contracts and various contracts. So we do guarantee profit in the same sense that we are guaranteeing profit here. But my point before was simply that the 10.8% return is realized only if the Great Hall Partners team performs at the level that is identified within their baseline financial forecast, and that includes their 20% of the concession revenue. So that is doesn't come close to being guaranteed. They absolutely have to perform in order to get to that rate of return. Even with respect to the 4.8% rate of return, that is contingent upon great hall partners delivering and making the facility available and satisfying the performance standards. And if they do not, then there will there may be performing payment deductions that would take them below that 4.8%. Okay. Thank you. And one question for Ferrovial. One of our speakers alluded to the fact that you may be ending contracts at UK airports. Can you address that? Yeah. Thank you for the question. Council member Ferrovial led the consortium that took over a company called B.A. in the UK in 2006. That after we after that transaction was completed, the antitrust authorities in the UK forced our company, that consortium, to divest a number of airports in that country because of a potential monopoly, because of a potential monopolistic situation in two areas of the UK, in southern England and in Scotland. Because of that decision of the antitrust authorities, we were forced to sell two airports in England, Gatwick and Stansted and one airport in Scotland, Edinburgh. So yes, there were those divestment, those day when this happened that we were forced to sell those airports because the antitrust authorities of the UK forced us to do it. And that's right. When was when did you get out of Stansted? Stansted transaction if I am not wrong happened in 2000, late 2012. Okay. Thank you. That's all for now, Mr. President. All right. Thank you, Catherine. Catherine, council member. Take a back up. Thank you. So I want to go back to the. Issue of potentially solving some of the airline concerns by looking at level four of the hotel and transit center. So I would like to know and know it's something that I was able to see and it was talked about when I did a tour of the airport as a potential future project that may come on. But it was not part of the discussion of the build out of the Great Hall. And so, number one, is any of that covered in the existing costs for the Great Hall right now? If that ends up being a solution for how to address some of the throughput issues raised by the airlines? No, it is not in this contract. Okay. Does that require TSA approvals and or financing? What if we move down to to proceed with that? So any time you inject baggage into the system that then screens baggage, we would certainly be working with TSA to make sure that they agreed with the system that we designed and built there. Not sure if that answered your question. Well, we would need their involvement if we're looking at any TSA check in point under level four or are we only looking at baggage? We are only one point. There was some discussion about potentially some TSA lanes, if you will. Yes. Level four two, we are not looking at putting in TSA lanes that would actually check people in. That's not part of what we're talking about with the United. We're talking about ticket lobby, space and kiosks. That's what we're discussing. What you're talking about in terms of TSA use of level. Four years ago when we built out the HTC, we thought that the fourth floor might be a place where we could relieve TSA by adding additional checkpoints. Right now, using these automatic screening lanes that we're proposing, we don't need to use that space for checkpoints. So we're talking about ticket lobby space in level four. Okay. And in doing that, it would free up some of the space on level six if that were to be done as a. Potential no, this would be in addition to what we're building on level six. Okay. All right. Let me go to my next question. I had a comment on that one, but I will leave that for later. I want to ask Diane Durfee if she wouldn't mind coming to. The microphone. Deanne was brought on to assist some of us who had additional questions around the review of the contract. And I know you had an opportunity to look at that. So my first question is related to a comment that was made earlier by Mr. Reimer about. Let me make sure I've got the right question in front of me. So transfer of concessions. And I think Councilman New asked this question. It's my understanding that any concession that would be. Transfer the ownership would be transferred would require our DSB office involvement. Is that correct? Because I know you work directly with our oversight of our DSP office. Can you can you respond to that? Greenly Diane Durfee with the city attorney's office. We have, as was discussed earlier and Mr. Reamer already discussed, this contract involves both the CDB program on the concession side and then on the construction side, our MWB program and has established goals for felt for both of those aspects of the project. The activity is a federal program, as Mr. Bremer identified. The MWB as our local program. So with respect to your question on transfer of concessions, I think that the concession and I'm not as. Familiar with the A.C.T. program as I am with the MWB. Program, but my understanding is that they would still have to comply with all the federal requirements. Regulations regarding how the ACP programs. So nothing is being done in this contract that alters the federal requirements. And rules and regulations that have to be followed. And same with our BWB. And that is true. We added as part. Of the contract a compliance plan on the Mwb side for the construction. Establish the goals for that, and we have not altered anything in that compliance plan that runs with our current laws on the MWB program. Okay. Thank you, Dan Reimer, if you wouldn't mind coming back up. So I want to get back to the issue of concentration of ownership. Someone who currently may already meet that threshold, that 20%. Limit for concentration of ownership. If they meet that on A, B or C, are they then allowed to also have a concession in the Great Hall? So are we playing with two different standards for both locations? So we may need to call up Patrick Hecht, the chief commercial officer, who's more familiar with how that concentration of ownership would would work under the development agreement. Okay. As a practical matter, that will be helpful, because one of my concerns is that we have ongoing changes that happen with how we have regulated the the concessionaires. We've had changing rules, I guess is is the terminology I want to use. So can you help clarify the answer to my question? Sure. Thank you. Councilman Patrick Hecht, chief commercial officer for the airport. We have a concentration of ownership policy that dictates how much a any one concessionaire can own of our concession program that we have under our control and concourses. A-B and C for OVL is going to have a very similar. Program, but the two don't have. Overlap. So someone has 20% on A, B and C and couldn't necessarily bidder would have to divest in order to bid on A, B, and C, they could actually get 20% of the program in in the Great Hall as well without having to divest in A, B and C. So the two programs operate separately from that respect, but they're modeled very similarly so that any one person in Great Hall can't. Control, say, 80%. Of the Great Hall Project under under for obvious proposal. But potentially somebody could control 40% and total at the airport 20% on the. Main terminal and 20% on A, B and C. Yeah, but the the main terminal isn't even. Remotely close to half of the. Concession. Space at the airport, something a bit closer, say 20%. So you're talking about 20% of 20% that they could control. So they wouldn't control 40% of entire airport space. They'd still be limited to what would be 20% of the airport space in that case. Yeah, I guess I'm talking concessions as opposed to space. But I'm in our our programs are built around space, so it's built around square footage. Okay. Thank you. And I do have just a couple quick more, if I may. So. Mr. can stay home, if you wouldn't mind coming back up. So it's my understanding that some of our labor unions have been in conversation with you there. I don't know that there are actual agreements, but I'm not sure that all of our trades, both labor and non union and nonunion apprenticeship programs, have sort of received the green light permission approvals, whatever the right terminology is that Ferrovial will work with have have your contractor work with all of the apprenticeship programs that exist in the city. So can you tell me if this is something that you all are asking your contractors who will be doing the work to be working with our trades? And this is this does not take away from any of our in the DWP programs. This, you know, I see this as complimentary. So. Thank you for the question, Councilmember. I would calling someone from the BJP that can help us to address this question. With respect to apprenticeship programs. With respect to apprenticeship programs that are sort. So what I'm asking is if Ferrovial is committing to. Ask your contractors who will be working on the project to work with the Colorado approved. Apprenticeship programs. And why this is important is because we have a labor shortage of skilled workers in this city with all the construction that's going on and where we can ensure, especially with publicly financed projects, which I consider this to be, we should be doing everything we can with all of our trades to. Develop those skills, ensure that folks in our community who are sort of left behind have that opportunity to be raised up. And so I'm asking the question of you, because you've selected that team of contractors and subcontractors that will be working on this project. Okay. May I ask? My understanding is that. That's correct. But if you can please confirm. Good evening, council. I'm Angela Berry Robertson, the director of diversity for Ferrovial. I can say that we've worked with the apprenticeship programs and workforce initiatives for this project, so I can say that we will definitely actively work with the apprenticeship programs as well as not in lieu of and in consortia with the MWB programs that we have on the project. So any that are not already connected to you all, you you have that open door is what I'm hearing you say. To work directly with them as well. Between ourselves as well as our contractors, we would definitely encourage the utilization of apprenticeship programs and understanding the Labor needs as well as initiatives here in this in the city and county. So. Yes. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. My last question is, it's actually for Gisela. Who wouldn't mind coming up? So I know Councilman New as sort of a version of my question, but I'm wondering exactly how DeLay plans to track the spin on this project, especially given that part of the funding for. Some of the build out is being included in bond financing that has moved through this council. I want to make sure that we're able to track it in a similar way that we did with the Hotel and Transit Center, even though it may have different funding sources. So can you just sort of elaborate on that in a. I mean, you may have already said it and I just didn't hear it in the same way. Absolutely. So we'll be tracking the expenditures of this project like we do any other project. We have a number of requirements through accounting standards and the city's fiscal policies, which require us to track the value of any asset we build, regardless of how it's funded. So whether it's airport bonds, airport cash reserves or actually funding that the developer brings to the table, much like when the city has developers put in infrastructure that then comes to the city as an asset to maintain. The exact same arrangement exists here and we will make sure that we track every dollar spent on the project. We'll have a project controls team can mentioned earlier that will be very much engaged on a regular basis to review all of the invoices that come through the project design and construction phase. We will be paying our portion of the progress payments on a monthly basis. A requirement of that is a very stringent report that we placed as a requirement on the developer that they will need to provide to US monthly because we will not make the progress payment until our construction team is assured us on the financial side that the work that the invoice represents has actually been done to the performance standards that Dan mentioned earlier. So there's a number of checks throughout that process. Performance standards, construction standards, financial spend, all of that will be reviewed on a monthly basis during the entire four year construction period. So is that a city team or does that a combination of city and consultants working with us to. A common mission? Okay. And then this is just part of this. So. In addressing the issue of change, order or change directives. In the past, there was someone who had served on that committee that was actually the requester of the change orders. And I know there were changed recommended changes by the city auditor around that. So can you tell me who the Change Management Committee is made up of that is supposed to look at those change orders or change directives? And again, this is important because this is where we begin to eat into the $120 million jersey. I agree with your concerns as a CPA and a prior auditor myself. I share that concern and separation of duties. I think all my colleagues at the airport can tell you and probably a pain for them on most days, because I do have that concern. So we will have a committee that has no one from the construction side serving on the committee, which includes our internal staff. I respect very much to William and his staff, but they will not be on that committee. There will be finance staff from the airport. There will be a representative from the auditor's office. There will be a representative from the Department of Finance within the city. And we will also have some outside experts yet to be identified. But to your point, there will be no conflict of interest. Okay, great. Thank you, Mr. President. All right. Thank you, Councilwoman Ortega. Councilman. Councilwoman can eat your up. Thank you, Mr. President. I would like to go back about, oh, I don't know, 20, 30 minutes to clarify something that occurred in the exchange with Councilman Lopez. So I think it was you, Nacho, where he asked about the cause that you mentioned this not a question for you, actually, but you stated that the prevailing wage applied and he asked. That covers the concessionaires and almost the whole front row nodded. And you said Yes. So can I get please Dan Durfee or Dan Reamer to clarify what, if any, wage policies apply to the concessionaires at this airport? One sec. Sorry. Then I said. I didn't say yes. What I said is, as far as I understand, those salaries would be negotiated between the concessionaires and the employees. The prevailing wage, according to my understanding of the agreement, will be explained by by but would apply to the NC works and on M works. Okay. So there are a lot of different workers and there's a lot of different pieces of the project. So what I think we've tried to work through is the application of the prevailing wage ordinance during both the design and construction and the O&M phase. And what I have assured the Council and we've worked through the development agreement with the developer is not just agreed. The prevailing wage ordinance in the development agreement clearly applies to the extent it applies during both the design and construction and the onam phase. So great hall partners will have workers, they have O&M responsibilities, there will be janitorial contracts, there will be other classifications of workers who are subject to the prevailing wage ordinance. And so prevailing wage will apply to them. Prevailing wage right now does not typically apply to the concession workers themselves. That's not a category of worker that is subject to the prevailing wage ordinance. So again, I don't mean to sound too much like a lawyer, but the prevailing wage ordinance will apply through the development agreement to the extent that it applies, but won't cover additional workers beyond what's provided for in the ordinance. Okay. And I think that's a really important distinction. So and here's my shorter way of saying it back. If concessionaires do construction work. You know, to build out their space. They will be covered with that wage ordinance. But their servers, their retail workers, the folks who clean their they're they're they're bus people, the service workers who are employed in concessions do not have any wage standards at the airport at this time. They do not have wage standards. They have market forces. And market forces right now affect wages and are right now in the process of increasing wages at the airport. But correct over 34 years, I think we can be guaranteed that market forces will change. And so I want to ask Kevin Abels to come up. I know a lot of my colleagues have been asking a lot of really detailed questions about proposed agreements and what folks liked and what they didn't like. I actually am not interested in that so much. I've approved many contracts in this chambers where there were no agreements. What really I'm trying to get at and I still am not quite satisfied with, is understanding this idea of whether or not people are expected to meet and talk. And so I just want to ask you very clearly, did you receive any ideas, proposed changes, suggestions or any constructive ideas from Ferrovial or the airport and how the ideas you had proposed might become more acceptable? No, we didn't. And we specifically asked for them. We told them that the agreements that we were offering and the ideas we had were but a starting point and that we would really look forward to a constructive conversation. But they chose not to give us anything concrete back. Thanks, Kim, and I appreciate that. So, Kim, I want to just chat with you a little more. And so I have seen you all meet with concessionaires who have sued you. I've seen you meet with groups of minority contractors who have done press conferences and rallies criticizing the airport. I'm imagining a scenario whereby you would say to United, I don't agree with your idea that we shouldn't move, you know, some of this security to to level five. And so therefore, I won't meet with you. I've never seen the airport say because I don't agree with you or because you've criticized me. I have no obligation to be in dialog. I've never heard the airport say that. And so here's my question. You're asking us to approve this partner stepping into your shoes. Who else are they allowed not to agree with or to meet with? Who else might they say? I don't have to meet with you. You've criticized me. I don't agree with you. I guess I want to understand where the limits are, because we now have one situation where there wasn't. They didn't agree with the first idea. There was one in-person meeting, two phone calls, but there was no desire to continue. I guess I want to understand who else would that could that happen to in the course of 34 years and how or why? Or help me understand. Are we okay with that when it's not the way that you all do business? I am struggling and I want you to help me. So. So. I was not part of any of those conversations. So I can tell you what went down there. What I can tell you is in the last two years, as we have worked with this developer, we have found a group that supports our value system that has ad nauseum held meetings, listened to people, listen to us , allowed us to change things. I think this is a very open team of people that we have a great deal of confidence will be a good partner for 34 years. I just can't comment on this specific thing because I have no personal. I wasn't there. I just don't have any. What if it became a pattern? I mean, is there anything and if they if there was a pattern of them refusing to meet with and I mean, we've all in my six years, I have seen more concessionaires and groups of contractors criticize the airport and criticize the contracting process. It's going to happen when they start choosing who's didn't do business with them and who's not. There will be folks who are upset. And I guess I guess I just want to understand, is this what if it became a pattern? So what we have to we have the right to terminate for convenience. And that might be, you know, one of the reasons it's since us to that termination. I hope we never get there because I truly do have faith in these guys. But we do have outs. We are not we are not stuck for 34 years. That's not what you're doing tonight. You're you're voting on a contract that has lots of out if things do not turn out the way we anticipate them being. So I just want to ask one more question in our show, and then I think most of my questions have been answered for tonight. So can you tell me. Yes. Do you believe you have an obligation if you step in and serve as our public airport manager, do you have an obligation to meet with external stakeholders with whom you may not agree or who may have criticisms about your company? Do you have that obligation under this contract? And I have had that obligation for the last two and a half years in which I have been working in this project. Will you meet with Unite here following this meeting, regardless of the outcome? We have met with Danica as explained before, the point that you were making with respect to trying to develop or making counterproposals. The core part of their agreement proposed by that association to us was forcing the future concessionaires to have an exclusivity with respect to the session or the choice of those employees that will be working at the concessionaires. That was the whole point of that union. So that was something that we could not accept. Secondly is very easy to say that there cannot have a meeting. In a meeting that we are not taking as many meetings as we are requesting and simultaneously having a campaign in the press against our company and simultaneously having that union protesting and picketing in the airport against our company. So in order to have meetings, you must have a friendly approach for both sides. And we didn't see that friendly approach from Unite here. So you will not meet even after this meeting, regardless of the outcome you will not meet, is that. I just want to make sure I understand. We are happy to take meetings in a friendly way, you know, to understand the request of anybody so we can address their concerns and try to reach a common position as simultaneously we are continuously attacked by that party. Can be difficult to have a meeting in that context because you are being threat. Through the meeting. We know a little bit about having meetings with folks who are mad at you and attack you up here. So that that's a part of what we do every day in the public sector. We take meetings with people who have really harsh things to say about us. And if you have this contract, that is what you're signing up for. And we have taken those meetings despite those attacks. Thank you, Mr. President. Okay. Council members, it is 11 p.m. and we're starting to get down to the nitty gritty. So now we have council managers gone. Councilman Espinosa, you're up and then Councilman New. This is that's interesting. This talk about this conversation or lack thereof with Unite here sort of illustrates one of the core problems with this whole. Structure. People go to their representatives on council in the elected government to listen and hopefully affect change and answer the question in that. Well, no, but. So remember that I'm going to come back to that because, you know, it's it's worth saying. So the question I have. Let's start with this one. This and you've mentioned that you've been working with them for two years. This RF process predates my time on council. So the wheels were set in motion for ap3 years ago. Where were those? The RFP is that you you obtained and you shortlisted and got to ferrovial. Were any of them at this to this magnitude on cost? You know, at the 650 to $770. Million range. And delivering essentially the same thing, you know, because we have this issue of going from 400 million to 770 million is the top end. What did you see back then that did that mean was there any indication on those prior proposals? So maybe it's worth me just taking a second to explain the process we've been through for the last two years. We first put out a request for qualifications. We asked for teams to submit their qualifications. They came to us as entities that had a contractor and equity partners. From that RFQ process, we then a short there were, I believe five five that that first applied and we shortlisted to four. We then worked to work independently with each of the teams over the course of nine or ten months. We met with them independently. We told them what we expected in terms of the physical plan. We told them what we expected in terms of the agreement we would have to operate it. We specified certain things like the length of term. We eventually got to a point where we specified some physical requirements, but we basically let each of these teams develop an independent design and put in an independent proposal to us that had a deal structure that they preferred, a financial structure that they developed. So we didn't lay out a requirement necessarily. We then took the proposals and evaluated them. Out of all of that process came our selection of the Ferrovial team to be the best person partner for us to then go to the next phase, which was the pre-development agreement, which was an attempt for us to negotiate exclusively with our number one choice to see if we could get to a deal that we could then bring before this council. And that's where we are today with this deal that we have negotiated with Ferrovial all of this time. My point in going through that is this is sort of evolved and the design has been done together. The $650 million construction cost is related to a project that we have designed with FERROVIAL over the last six months or nine months. I hope that makes sense. Yeah, that does. But what worries me in that process is not seeing. Having not been privy to all the work that you did with all the four that were shortlisted and seeing essentially. You know, where they ended up and how you ended up selecting Ferrovial. Is, is, is, is sort of concerning because, you know, last year you came to us with a different sort of end game, essentially a much lower cost total project that would have had a much lower cost to two, you know, much lower impact to your bottom. Line. This and we ended up here and so I just wonder if if there was any information in what was submitted back then that would have given us any indication that this is this is where we would be. Where we would end up. So let me say we can. My recollection is there was no real cost talked about when we brought the PDA contract to you at that point in time. We so I'm not sure where this 400,000 or 400 million is coming from. There was a there was a letter by a proposer that we did not choose that had some numbers in them, but we did not bring you a cost when we brought you the Ferrovial team because we didn't have a design at that point in time that was finalized. What we wanted to do during this period, which we have used in the last year, was to design the right project and then price it out. I will say we've had independent review of this price. Stew Williams, who is the program manager, has brought in an outside third party. They have sat for hours and hours and hours. They've gone through unit cost and and refined the scope and made sure that this is a tight price and a tight project. Why don't we? So, again, you've made a commitment to to calcium and knew that you would do some sort of update. The fact that we are. We weren't updated when you were doing the maybe you were. I wasn't here. And the fact that it feels like we were not updated during the negotiations about the different models and the different things that were being presented, we weren't. Updated about. The the order of magnitude that might be in the final. The proposal, as this thing was being developed over the last six months, I mean, we could have done a monthly report or even two quarterly reports that said, look, are the scale of this project is is on the order of magnitude of this. But this is we're only 15% designed. And we still have all these unknowns. The you know, to me. Might be indicative of how transparent you will be going forward with with the. With. The amount of latitude that we're getting. Can you because of lot in the contract for OVL is required to do a lot of this reporting on a monthly basis in a sort of real time. Could you commit to a sort of written report on the contingency, a written monthly, monthly written report on the contingency status, along with a quarterly report at Committee on the Status of the Contingency and Construction Progress. A happy to do that. I do want to clarify two things you just said, though. So last year when we brought forth the contract to negotiate with Ferrovial and the PDA, we showed you in the in the in the business committee at that time that the other proposers designs, we have not hidden that from anyone that's been that's been out there for anyone to look at. I would also say that what we've been doing in the last nine months is negotiation. And so we have not been sharing this information because it is a negotiation. It is confidential. We have allowed various sources to participate after signing a non-disclosure agreement, but we really have had this under wraps for a very good reason, and that is so that we could negotiate the best deal for us going forward after today. Yes, everything is public. Yes. We're happy to give you a monthly report. We're happy to go to the committee and brief you on a regular basis. We'd be more than happy to do that. What's frustrating there is, is even members of council after the contract was was in our position, it was in our wheelhouse for consideration. Members of council asked for essentially the let you not issue enter into the non-disclosure agreement to sort of review everything that was reviewed that was never offered, you know. So I'm not sure what was offered, you know, in the reading room we had. You had everything. We had extraction. We had financial models. Yeah, but people were doing other people in the city were reviewing these things over the course of those nine months that you were doing and negotiating. And no member of council was and no member of council will be part of the committee, as far as I know, unless you're going to commit to it right now that a member of council will be part of the committee going forward. We have had to, I believe both council member Herndon was and Councilwoman Ortega have been serving on the executive committee for this project. And we we will agree to go forward with that same group. Wow. Why don't we have an updated maybe. Maybe I'm in the wrong committee to have gotten that update. So then one last question on sort of related, Debbie Ortega. I mean, Councilwoman Ortega had a. Question. In writing that said, I am reading the contract. Am I reading the contract correctly? That Den will pay ferrovial $1.8 billion. Over the life of the agreement, plus 20% of the. Concession. Revenue generated by the Great Hall. The answer was yes. The airport will pay $1.8 billion over the life of the development agreement. Airport payments were split. Well, then there's detail on the airport payment. The a member of the administration just this morning in response to a similar question, said the developer takes all the risk for the price of the schedule and construction. The airport pays back the developers $380 million investment for it at a return of 4.8. Is that. Is that summary, get us to $3.8 million. Is that accurate portrayal? Does that get us to the 3.8 million billion. Three $1.8 billion. So 380 million at 4.8%. So the 1.8 million is the construction cost. It includes our contingency. It includes 30 years of operating repayment, of financing, which is the 4.8% return, plus us reimbursing them for operations and maintenance. That is what is in the $1.8 billion contract. Can you elaborate on maybe. Where the number is, 380 million and a return of 4.8 came from is a response to. The developers investing $378 million. I think we have rounded that up to the three eight. Okay. That's a combination of equity and debt. Okay. I just take it that the rest of that will go into comment, but it just seemed to imply that that was essentially it was sort of minimizing the cost of this when instead we are proving if we approve, this is a $1.8 billion payback. That is the contract that's before you tonight. Okay. Thank you. No further question. All right. Thank you. Councilman Espinosa, California. Real quick, Gisela. Please. Let's go over some numbers real quick. Okay. If you split this the split contract into the construction piece and the concession fees. Okay. And we're looking at our contribution of, say, 600 million and the partnership put in 170 million for the seven services, assuming we spend all the contingency. Okay. And that's so our contribution is about that 78%. You know, on a on a non P3 contract, what would that percent be? 100%? It would be 100% unless it's funded partially by the FAA via grant or another granting agency. So strictly from a financial viewpoint, that's the vantage of the P3 agreement that we're actually spending less on the construction than we normally would in a street construction contract. That's correct. That allows us to use our resources in other projects. Of a concession agreement where, you know, it looks to me, you know, the numbers we've been working with, the profitability is coming out of that concession agreement. And so and FERROVIAL has value. It looks like what what I've been told is, you know, we're on the existing concession agreement. We're getting about a dollar $0.41 per square foot. In the Great Hall concessions. That's correct. And Froebel is going to be able to generate $3.34 about, you know, two times. What, approximately. Less so. And we're going to get 80% of that increase in the revenue that they're going to generate through their rental arrangement. Yes, 80% comes to the airport. So in a normal. And in what kind of arrangement is there with the concessionaires on the concourse? Is it what percentage do we give there? So the percentage of the sales that the concessionaires generate is approximately the same collected by the airport versus the developer. The difference is the airport retains 100% of the percentage that we get from the concessions in the concourses, and we receive 80%. In the case of the Great Hall via the current arrangement under the development agreement, so approximately 20%. Okay. So just from an existing standpoint, we're going to earn more money from the concession agreement through the Great Hall. It looks like to me and you're estimating about $100 million profit on this whole project. And, you know, which I think is typical CFO, very conservative. And I think it's going to be a lot more than that, but it's going to be I want to assure the public this is a very profitable arrangement that we're entering into with this great hall. So correct. That's correct. So we are able to generate revenues that flows into the top of our waterfall, which gives us additional capacity not only to cover our current debt obligations, but also to reinvest in our facilities. And then we make the payments at the lower end of our waterfall or the way our funds flow through, which again gives us the flexibility to make sure that we can use our resources where best deployed. But yes, we do anticipate currently, based on the base financial model, that we will have additional funds that will be generated as a result of this project. We will then reinvest in the remaining programs, which includes gate expansions for our airlines, widening of Penn Boulevard and other projects that will help make the customer experience at the airport much better. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman and Councilman Cashman. I know maybe the third time's the charm. You know, sometimes you're in the game and you're watching your teammates strike out, but it's your turn up. So I'm going to give it one more try. Ferrovial. The whole thing with Unite here. It feels like a schoolyard fight. It's where somebody says something and the other person gets hurt. And that's it. You won't talk anymore. And I'm aware of the aggressive campaign that Unite here has waged against your company in an attempt to stimulate negotiation. Yeah. I'd be angry, too. It got pretty tough. The problem that I'm struggling with. Is that Mr. Ables and the management of of. That union represents several hundred people. That have legitimate concerns. Over their future employment. So I'm going to ask. Is there any way? That you. Recognize that sometimes things get heated. And that you can agree. To reopen. Communication. You're an open spirit to try to hear their concerns at a new level. Or if you just refuse to talk. We are happy to open any channel of communication and understand their requests and try to address them. That's why you have our commitment for that, for communication, collaboration and trying to understand and address the legitimate needs of every stakeholder in this community. Including you. I appreciate that. I feel like that's some degree of movement. But I want to be real clear, because I think it's important. Would you say? Commit to. Six meetings, one a month. Six one hour meetings one a month with unite here with an open spirit. Putting that. Difficult time. Behind again. If it were just one person involved. I probably wouldn't be as concerned. But it's a few, several hundred families. And while I understand there's processes, I mean, I look at the job market and I figure it's going to be a lot of jobs. But I'm also looking at as counsel McNeil said you as the face. If not at the airport of the Great Hall of somewhere. And I'm getting lost in the in the in the number of 10 to 20% of the concessions in the airport, depending on when we build out the the concourses. So yeah, six meetings, one a month, one hour in person sitting down with. Mr. Abels you have our commitment for that council member and I understand your query. Thank you very much for that. That's all, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman Cashman. Councilwoman Ortega, I'm not sure we've heard from Councilman Herndon yet. Are you? That's fine. Has been heard in. Kim Are we asking Ferrovial to do our current concessions that we have at the airport? Do they require worker retention with the concessions? No. So what the current policy is right now at the admin, we're asking for over all to do the exact same thing. Yeah. In fact, we were we were very careful to do pass through of all the requirements that you have given us. We have passed all of those through to Ferrovial. So Unite here is trying to get ferrovial to do above and beyond what every concessionaire on A, B, or C concourse doesn't do right now. So cancer. I haven't been in those meetings. Understand? Tell you what, you might hear us. Asking, but that is certainly mine. So if there if there's an issue, why wait? I'm going in the comments. I'm done. Thank you, Mr. President. I, i respect the ability to catch yourself. Councilman. All right. Councilman Ortega. Okay, this is my final question. And it's you know, I've raised a lot of questions about the risk to DIA, and I would like to know what contingency plan the airport has if the Great Hall does not operate as designed or simulated. And so what I want I'm aware that we have step in rights for the contract, but. I want to know that we actually have a step in ready plan if you know the wheels fall off the bus and we have to step in. Do we have the wherewithal, staffing expertize to to be able to do that? At whatever stage we happen to be in, whether it's, you know, during construction, during the operations, do we actually have a real plan that we can just step in and do that job? So I'm to let the city attorney talk about, you know, our rights in terms of the contract. We are not sitting with 20 plans in the drawer that we can just pull out. But things like this don't happen overnight. If we see a trend that something is happening, we're going to go put a plan together. That's what we do. So so Kim, let me just address that briefly, because we rely on certain aspects within this contract to. We rely on self-reporting. And if things are happening and they're not reported, how do we know what's going on? I'm not sure we're looking each other. Maybe you could ask that again. We're not really understanding. Okay. So if there are, I don't know, breaches of the contract or we're not meeting the I don't know the goals of what is anticipated to be collected in terms of revenues or you know, I'm just making some of this up, but under the management of these concessions or oversight. We rely on self-reporting from this contractor. From the from the developer. But if those reports, those self reports are not being forwarded, we were not aware of certain things going on. That's what triggers any of the step in rights if there are certain things that are not. Reconcilable. Right. So my question gets back to what contingency plan do we have that? You know, in place to be able to step in and take control. I mean, I get we have step in rights, but what is what plan do we have? Do we have the expertize in staffing and in. You know. Just the skill sets to be able to keep this we'll keep this bus rolling if some of the wheels do fall off. So I just I want to be clear about the manner in which the wheels may fall off. So first, the airport believes that they have a plan that will work and can be implemented. The developer's responsibility with respect to the level six improvements is simply to design and construct those improvements. And they walk away from those areas outside of any warranty work. So if future changes are required, particularly to level six, the ticket lobbies, the security screening checkpoint, the airline offices, and those improvements on level six, public circulation curb that all remains within the discretion and exclusive authority of the airport to bring another contract to develop it through the AIM team to engage in planning necessary to put forward a construction contract and a plan that would be presented to this body. That is not a matter of step in rights. That is a that is a question about the termination of the developer's responsibilities. So with respect to level six improvements, their responsibility will terminate upon substantial completion and the expiration of any warranty work. So if the wheels come off of that bus, then the airport would deal with that through a separate contract with. So we're looking at them exclusively then. Is what. What I hear you saying in terms of the construction of the build out of level six. From the construction of the build out of the concession area so far. Correct. So with respect to level five and the island that the developer will be responsible for, they will be responsible for both designing and constructing those commercial areas, as well as managing those commercial areas during the operating period of the agreement. If there are shortfalls in revenue, the development agreement provides mechanisms by which the airport and the airport's consultants can review the plans and the documents and that concession development management plan to try and establish why the developer is not making the revenue that they had forecast. So there are there are provisions for both minor shortfalls and material shortfalls, and the airport's responsibilities obviously increase in the event of a material shortfall. So if the wheels come off the bus in the sense that developer is not performing and the sales are not what what have been anticipated, and that is attributable to acts or omissions on the part of the developer, then we know precisely what will happen. It will be a combination of the airport and its consultants that will review the plans and develop a remedial plan to try and get those revenues back up to where they should be. It is also important to note that the Concession Development and management plan is intended to be a living document. It's already been mentioned here, but with respect to brands and brand mix and and performance and what's working, the airport and the developer will have that opportunity on a on a two year basis every two years that CDP document will be updated and that will be an opportunity to review maybe, maybe not terrible deficiencies, but sort of minor tweaks that may need to be made in the program in order to make sure that it's achieving its maximum potential. So if for whatever reason. We've got legitimate reasons to terminate the contract because of all the out clauses that are in it. After that point, if there is some new entity brought in, does that reengage council in the process? Because technically this deal would be null and void at that point, correct? Well, there are a couple of different termination provisions. We've already talked about termination for convenience. So that's the airport's option to terminate at any time for any reason. And there is a formula for calculating what would be owed to the developer in the event of termination for convenience. If it's termination in the event of a default, then there is a separate formula that would be established for for termination. But the short answer to your question is it if the agreement if the development agreement is terminated. Then the airport has every right to do whatever it wants, whether that's to take on the management of the program itself or to find a master concessionaire, to find a new developer, to find somebody who would who would satisfy the need, whatever it may be at the time that the development agreement terminates. Okay. Can I just add one thing? Sorry. I just wanted Patrick to come up. We obviously do have the talent and the ability in-house to run a concession program. And so, Patrick, maybe you could talk about stepping in if we had to. So, Councilman, I think to Dan's. Point, there's a number of different ways. If we got to a point where Ferrovial is no longer involved in not running the program for us, that we could go you could certainly replace Ferrovial just with someone else who is very similar to Ferrovial. But I think in the case where from a contingency perspective, how we would actually step in, we run 150,000 square feet of concessions on the concourses. Now in this contract, we have required for OVL to have a lot of things that look and feel a lot like us. The concentration of ownership we talked about PDC program as a number of things were required. And I think very importantly, a contract that has a number of provisions that are exactly like our provisions in our contracts that have to. Be in their contract with their concessionaire. So if we take it over, it is now essentially. One of our contracts and we have staff because we do that on the concourses that can now take it over. Would I maybe need more staff potentially to run this program now as part of it? But in all ways, it's. Going to look and feel a lot like what we do today. So I feel very confident that we could take over and run this program because it's very similar to how we actually operate in the world today. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Yeah, thank you, Councilwoman Ortega. Councilman Espinosa. Two tiny one, tiny one. One ones are the single standard de. The model. The mountain. The model with the single standard de. Does does that. What was mentioned in the comments was at 28, you require it requires 28 lanes. Is that true? So. So we. I'm not sure exactly how to answer this. We're designing a facility that has 32 automatic screening lanes. They are they have a lot more throughput, almost twice as much as our existing checkpoints. Do we believe that with the 32 lanes, we can get to about a 30% increase in capacity over what we have in our terminal today? It's not based on a given day. So when you model it, you don't model for a typical day and model for sort of different conditions. And so when they do a simulation, they do simulations for different conditions, right? Peak peak hour of an average day, things like that. So they model all of those elements. So how many lanes are needed on a typical day? I wish there was a typical day. That's the problem with this question. It isn't a typical thing. We don't designed to a typical day. We designed to a peak hour of an average day. And so how many lanes in a peak hour on an average day. So to get a 30% increase in the capacity of the terminal, you need 32 lanes, which is what we're putting in, 34 lanes, I'm sorry, 34 lanes. On an average day at your peak. Our peak hour. Your average day. Yeah. Sorry that got they got to five. And each day of a peak month. So my concern is. I'm looking based on. A lot of the conversation. I'm looking for a commitment from built in which always does it and ferrovial who's new to this game to work with the airlines. It sounded today or in our earlier conversations that, you know, there are concerns that we're close to resolution. Since you have 70% of the design to still complete, can both Dan and Ferrovial agree to absorb the changes needed to address the concerns that have been raised thus far with Arrow by the airlines? So we're continuing to try and get to a place where we understand the plan and how it works. We've done simulations. We are looking at these relievers, but there isn't. There is nothing that I can stand here today and say we could invest in and that would solve the problem. We are still in a study phase. So I can't commit to you that we are that any of these elements are going to be built. We're just not there yet. What I will commit to you is we have spent the last two weeks working very closely with United. We will continue to work with United. It's really important for us that they agree with us that we're building the right thing and that this is successful for them. We will get to that point. I can't tell you, though, what the answer is to get us there, whether it is changing the design or building something else or just doing 20 more simulations so that we all agree. We've tested all of the possibilities and we feel comfortable in it. And as I said earlier, that the ticket lobbies are going to open before the security screening checkpoint. So we have it we have an opportunity there to test it, really to make sure it works. So that's your that's the track record. I mean, we obviously care very deeply about United as the given the number of gates that they have. And I assume Ferrovial is also very much aware that the traffic that goes through that the main terminal is largely driven by United in their success here. Can I hear the same comments from Ferrovial because that has been the concern today. So just keep in mind, we will contain ownership and operation of the ticket lobby. All they are doing is building out what we are asking them to build. They really don't have a dog in this fight. So you're going to continue to listen and capture these needs. Okay. All right. Think they don't have any more questions? Thank you, Councilman Espinosa. Most of my questions. It's my turn and most of my questions were answered. I have some very specific questions for you, Kim Who is actually the dad PM on this? Williams Mr. WILLIAMS Great. Who is the security consultant on the project? Who is the security? So when you, when you, when you start looking at the security lines and things like that, not that TSA, but are you do you have a consultant that you're working with to for the feel of the rooms, the you know, the esthetics of the location? Good evening. Stu Williams. Senior vice president of special programs in the Great Hall. So, Councilman, to answer your question. On the Ferrovial design. Team, they have a company that. Is done all the modeling and has done additional modeling. As we've been working with United to try different scenarios. To come up with this. So they do. Modeling of both ticket. And security lines nationwide. You answer it. Thank you. That's what I want to know. We didn't get to that. And I wanted to make sure. And so last question is around equity partners. And so, Natalie, I think I'm going to ask you this. So, I mean, we've been asking questions for 2 hours and we really haven't got into the equity partners. And I really want to answer I want you to answer this question of the equity partner Saunders and Magic Johnson Company. What kind of role will they have play in shaping the airport? Are they silent partners or they just investors? Obviously, Saunders is doing construction as well, but what kind of role will they have? Thank you for that question, Mr. President. We have a set of hold this agreement executed among federal airports, GRC and Sounders, and that agreement is confirm that we retain 80% of the equity and 20% is owned by a baseball owned by GRC. And Sounders GRC has 95% of that vehicle and 5% is owned by Sounders because of the agreements that we have as part of that sort of hold this agreement, Sounders FC through that they call, we have a number of rights in the corporate in the future corporate governance of the SPV that will be the developer signing the the concession agreement. That is. Right. So what I'm trying to get to the crux of it is Sounders a local company? Yes. Well, they. And I'm assuming this is. Yes, but will they have the right to get their subs? Get their folks connected who are connected here in Denver? Make sure they're employed? Are they they're okay to do that? Sanders is also is not only part of the developer, he's also part of the DJT that's design and build joint venture. Get that so they can hire. They can either subs down. Joint venture is owned 70 70% by federal agreement and 30% by Sanders because of the algorithms that they have among the two companies. I'm sure that Sanders will be heavily involved in the future development of the program. That's why that was the most important reason why more than two years ago we decided to work with then and they decided to work with us. Will Magic Johnson's company be able to with concessions and folks like that? You know, I want to see will they be able to have influence over the concession individuals that we bring on specifically with AC DC. That's our intention and commitment. And I would ask you to, you know, to confirm that because we have. Great. Thank you, Councilman. Jim Reynolds, managing partner. With Johnson Loop Capital. We have approximately. 19% of the equity asanas as 1% of Rossville. Has 80%. I think my partner. Magic Johnson came and addressed this body around our commitment to Mwb and HDB at the airport and in the city. And we expect to have a very prominent and active role and working with, selecting, speaking to and encouraging the growth of Mwb businesses here in Denver. It's our view that just as this will be an absolute showcase. For the Denver International Airport. We expect that for Mwb participation, it will match that same standard. Great. And specifically, the folks in the community want to know. Access for black businesses. Access for Latino businesses. Access for female women owned businesses. Well, it's not lost on me that nine nine out of your 13. Members are minorities and women. And in my conversations with the mayor, he made it very clear that this is one of the most important issues on his plate. And we absolutely agreed that it is one of the most important issues on ours. I had an opportunity to speak to maybe a couple hundred folks that either were concessionaires wanted to be concessionaires, wanted to grow their concessions. I know my partner, Magic Johnson came and also spoke. I know several of the council people were there. With also groups that wanted to be. Concessionaires. And so we have been very. Active in that role. Magic himself also owns concessions at airports and has built them. As you know, I'm an investment banker and has built businesses. We also are both mwb businesses that both started our businesses from scratch and built them to pretty substantial businesses today. So we understand how is done. We understand the commitment. We also understand that the biggest impact on the city of Denver is going to be growing those businesses here in Denver. It's not our expectation that you will see a lot of mwb come from outside of Denver, although you may see some. It's our expectation that the growth will come from right here, from every forum that we've given. And there have been several. The appetite and the energy around the minority and women owned businesses around this project has been about the highest I've ever seen, and the focus and the commitment from them is here. So I think you'll see an amazing result from from this project and our participation. Mr.. REYNOLDS Thank you. You answered my question. Thank you. All right. The public hearing is now closed. Comments by members of council. Councilman Herndon. Yes. Okay. So don't get too excited because this is the easy part. Thank you, Mr. President. I need to offer a technical amendment to this resolution so I move that Council Resolution 820 to be amended in the following particulars. On page one, line 18 Strike City Clerk's Filing number 201735867. And Replace with City Clerk's Filing number 2017-0375. It has been moved and second it. Tell us what happened. You want explain that. Yes. Thank you, Mr. President. The purpose of this amendment is to correct the clerk's filing number and to fix a typographical error in the development agreement. Okay, great. Other members of council. Can we correct this without going into comments or. Is that right? Um, I have a question about this because I think it was more than just one typographical error. Councilwoman. Well, other folks have questions on this. Okay, let's do. I'm going after them. Councilman Cashman. No question. FLYNN okay. LOPEZ No, not on this. Uh, Councilman Gilmore. President Brooks, I have a comment I need to make. Okay. Go ahead. Go ahead. All right. I will be abstaining on voting on this due to my. Brother in. Law having an interest in the Great Hall Project. Thank you, President Brooks. Thank you. And thanks for sitting through this public hearing. Okay, let's see. Council. Councilwoman Canete. Councilman Ortega. Okay. So I'd like to ask you, if you wouldn't mind coming up, because it's my understanding it was a result of your review and finding some of the issues that resulted in this change, this amendment. So will you just clarify that it is more than just a typo? There were a handful of typographical errors that were found in our review that were cleaned up as a result of discussions between myself and Dan Laycock. Yes. But. It's my recollection from our discussion that involved a little more than just typographical. I'm going to defer to Mr. Remer, if there was one there change that was made with respect to the last section in the contract regarding the delegation. There were maybe two changes in the amendment that are. More than typographical errors. One has to do with the proper articulation of the nondiscrimination requirement to make sure that it it it accurately captures the the the direction that the city is moving with respect to gender variance and gender expression. So that may or may not, depending upon your point of view, be a typographical error. And the other change that borders on substantive or materiality is a request to simply delete a provision about council's delegation, something that is already covered within the Denver Revised Municipal Code. And it was something that we was put into the development agreement to add clarity and turned out to increase confusion. And so we've struck that provision. I think they could generally be within the realm of typos, but that I understand that's a subject of discussion. But I think that is. I appreciate you explaining that because the last two items clearly explain that it's more than just typographical errors in in wording that is in the contract. So I think it was just important for my colleagues to hear that. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Councilwoman Ortega. Councilman do. Councilman Herndon, I think. Okay, it's been moved. And second, it we're voting on the amendments. Madam Secretary, roll call. Herndon. The freshman carnage. Lopez. I knew Ortega. Sussman. Did you say no? I like black eye. Clark, I. Espinosa, I. Flynn. I feel more. Than. Mr. President. I police force following announced results. 12 one abstention. All right. 12 eyes, one abstention. The amendment passes. Councilman Espinosa, we need you to make a motion to adopt an amendment amended. Sir. Bill number I. I move that we. Eight 2230 a move the council adopted Resolution 822 as amended. It's been moved and seconded. All right. Now we are commenting on this bill as amended. Councilman Herndon. Thank you, Mr. President. And I know what you all are sitting there thinking at almost midnight. That was a great video Councilman Herndon showed at the beginning of this council meeting. You know, so everyone has experience with the airport, but mine is pretty substantial. I represented the airport for four years and I worked at the airport for for two with United Airlines. So I know the airport extensively. I could tell you a bunch of boring facts that would be great at trivia. If you're wondering about the spinning fans as you drive through from the Great Hall to the different terminals, we have 5280. In case you're wondering, because we're 50 to 80 mile high. So I've been at the airport and I think about how good of the how important of the project this is what? Kills organizations is complacency. The belief that you don't need to improve and that you need to continue to find ways to better yourself. And I applaud the airport and the team that we've had over the two decades that the airport has been around, because we have always sought ways to better our airport. And the amazing thing about this is that we have a huge reason why we cannot be complacent when it comes to the Great Hall Project. And that's my first reason why we need support. This is safety and security. And you cannot overstate that the vulnerabilities that we have with our current configuration need to be immediately addressed. And that is the main reason why this should move forward just from a safety and security standpoint. I think of many days that I've walked around that airport and I just stand on level six as a veteran and look around and thinking we have some challenges that need to be addressed. And shortly after getting elected to represent the airport in District 11, sitting down with Kim as she explained her vision for how this needs to move forward, it was very refreshing. So safety and security is, number one, why we need to move forward with this project. Number two is modernization. We have a 1990s configuration and a 2017 and beyond airport. It just doesn't fit. And there's not a lot of minimal things that you can do to fix that. I thought a great slide that came out in committee was when Dan showed the other airports that are investing billions of dollars in infrastructure. Los Angeles, 14 billion. San Francisco, 6 billion. LaGuardia, 8 billion. Billions of dollars in their infrastructure because we need to improve that. The airlines have given back 150,000 feet of ticketing space, 15% that they have given back to the airport because they don't need anymore. You see that when you are walking on level six, all of this empty ticketing space. What are we going to do with that? We have to modernize. Kansas City, where I'm from, is having a conversation right now about creating a one main terminal. And I remember being in Kansas City. I was either reading about us talking about on TV. They were talking about the pros and cons and the con was not to do it. They said, We don't want to be Denver because you have this idea when you come out to level six and you look down and this is my third reason why this is important for efficiency and improvement, because when we take TSA and move them up to level six, we're not using the same technology that we're going to have right now. We're using state of the art. We will be the first airport to use this technology in this country. As Kim was talking about working with the TSA to make sure that this works. Had the pleasure of traveling overseas to Europe to see how modern it is, how efficient it is, the throughput we will move people through quicker. So from an improvement and efficiency standpoint, that's why this is so important. Airports create experiences. It's more than just people getting on a plane and traveling. We are competing globally with airports. The Houston's the LA's. They're not our competitors. We are going against Munich. We are going against Incheon. We are going because those international airports, because that's who we want to be. The world class airport. If you think about Skytrax and if you're not familiar with Skytrax, that is the standard when it comes to airlines and airports, when it comes to ratings. If you think about the top ten airports in the world, none of them are in the United States of America. If you think about five star airports and none of them are in the United States or in this country. But when Skytrax did the 2017 top airports, one I want to congratulate then because they were fourth when it came to regional airports. But number nine of the best airports in the world was London Heathrow. Guess who runs a terminal at London Heathrow? Ferrovial. If you want to be the best, you hire the best privately. Now, let me quickly talk about some of the reasons, if you will. This is a great deal. But if you're striving for perfect, we're not going to get there. Do not let perfect be the enemy of great. And if you look sure, there are things you can find wrong with this. Why is it 30 years? I think he's like, I have a great answer for why, for that time period, this council in 2012 approved a ten year contract for L.A. and also threw down 2012. This council will not weigh in on that. The next council is not going to weigh in on that. So we have already made decisions that future councils aren't going to be invested in. We don't choose every retail right now. Provenzano The seven year contract. 40 kiosks right now in our airport. This council has never weighed in on it. So the implication that we always make decisions is not accurate. But if we are going to give away that ability, we have hired a partner who knows how to run and manage airports, and their experience is a testament to that. And the last point I will say is this. The concessions. Why would we ask a ferrovial to do what we don't ask of A, B and C concourse? If you enter with all due respect to the unite here, what they are asked are they are trying to do is change policy. That is our job. Sit down with council members and push for a new policy with concessions that does that. Let's have that conversation. But to make Ferrovial do that and actually not ferrovial future concessionaires, because as they said, we're not going to run them, but we're going to hire companies to do that. Why would they do that? Why would we create that double standard where it's one standard on the main car, on the Great Hall and not on A, B and C. But that's a good conversation to have. We have had it. Previous councils have talked to us about it because I remember those conversations and briefings from David Rodwell. So that's why to me that doesn't make sense. Yes. Sit down and have a conversation with them. And I appreciate you doing that. But if you reach a fundamental disagreement. I'm not sure how you go forward with that. But I appreciate you having those meetings and explaining why this is why you're choosing not to do that. So thank you, Mr. President. I'm a huge supporter of this. I would urge my colleagues to do so for the reasons that I noted. And I look forward to voting, hopefully before 1:00. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman. We all hope to do that. Councilwoman Black. Thank you, Mr. President. And I only wish I could be as in as energetic as Councilman Herndon just was, but I'm a little more tired than he is. Last week I met here in this room with students from our sister city in France, the city of Brest, which is a very old city in northwest France on the Atlantic Ocean. And we talked about the similarities and differences between Denver and Brest brass. Entire history has been formed by the fact that it's on the Atlantic Ocean. It's a port. It's a naval city. And we talked about what it means to be a landlocked city like Denver in the center of a continent. And how does Denver connect to the world? So a century ago, it was railroads and later interstate highways connected us. But it was our visionary mayor, Federico Pena, who asked Denver eight to imagine a great city by investing in our city and in a new airport. I'm a Denver native and I grew up in southeast Denver near Monaco. So for a lot of my life, when we went to the airport, we left, I don't know, an hour before our plane left, drove down Monaco, jumped out of the car, random airplane. I thought it was great. I didn't understand why we needed a new airport. But it didn't take long for me or the critics to see that Mayor Pena was right. Our new world class airport put Denver on the map and it connected us to the world. It invigorated our economy. And according to an article in the Kansas City Star, DIA is the linchpin of Colorado's tradition to a global 21st century economy flush with high paying jobs. The airport is our port. After 22 years, Denver remains a world class airport, but the world is changing. It is much more connected. Airports are different today. Just as Councilman Herman Herndon pointed out, retail is changing and airports are more than just places that you pass through. They're becoming places that you want to be with movies, bowling, beer, gardens, and so much more. Investment in infrastructure pays off, and it's important to maintain and update our airport to keep it fresh so that airlines and passengers want to fly to and through Denver. Like Mayor Pena, our airport leadership is visionary and is anticipating the future and planning for increased security and for 80 million passengers just to go over what we've been going over for 3 hours. First and foremost, security is the driving force of this project. But there's really two parts of it. And I have explained this in phone calls and emails to constituents who have contacted me, but there is the remodeling of the terminal, and I explain it as a 66, $650 million gutting of your house . You're redoing your bathrooms, your floors, your walls, your stairs, your elevators. You're redoing it all. And most importantly, we're moving and redesigning security to increase. Safety. As we've already said, Great Hall Partners will manage the entire project and guarantee the $650 million price tag and a completion date. The risk is theirs, not ours. The local construction company, Saunders, who will hire local subcontractors, will build the project. They are honoring prevailing wage, minority and women owned business contractors. Trade unions are in support. We talked about the professional development opportunities, which I think are really terrific and also any future changes, as Councilman Herndon pointed out, to any policies that we might make about minimum wage or any labor agreements would apply to this contract. In addition to this. The airport is also doing other capital improvement projects. And when Councilman Herndon just listed how much all the other airports are investing, we're investing more than the 1.8 billion. I think it's three and a half billion because we're we're adding 26 new gates. We're widening Pena Boulevard, major runway maintenance, name maintenance, redesigning baggage systems. Lastly, the other part of the contract is for the Great Hall Partners to manage and maintain the concessions. We've we've already talked about it. They're motivated to to succeed. They only make money if it succeeds. So what's best for them is also best for us. Lastly, I know you all have met with us so many times and have answered so many questions and I have a lot of confidence in you. I also know you have relied on the top experts in the world and the country. You hired the top three law firm in the country to develop the contract you're working with to, say, the airline's top engineers and designers. I have confidence in our design team to do what's best for our airport and for Denver, and I will be supporting it. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Black, Councilman Cashman. Thank you, Mr. President. And I was right. I was telling people yesterday we would not be voting on this Monday night. We're not going to be. This. This has been a fascinating process of trying to come to yes or come to no on this contract. I've spoken to people I have great respect for who think this is a terrible idea. And I've spoken to people I have great respect for who think this is a spectacular idea and that complicates things. I've spoken to experts on legal matters, financial matters, labor issues, business practices, both on city staff and outside of city staff. And I'm pleased to say, you know, my my friend, Councilman Herndon and I often find ourselves on different sides of issues. But what I agree with him wholeheartedly is and have from from the first time I heard about this is this project needs to get done. As has been talked about, our security process has for flaws as far as crowd safety and control. Our screening process compared to other airports we've seen is antiquated. At this point, we can get people through the TSA lines more quickly and with so much less stress. With with new with new technology. And to use the the entire floor of the Great Hall for a travel related cattle call is is offensive at one level. I mean this is a world class beauty. You know, the are the jets and terminal is just stunning. And we it should be a place where people can relax, wander, shop if they care to have a drink while waiting for someone to come in off a plane. The interior of the Great Hall should at least begin to approach the elegance of the roof above it. So as I said, I'm clear the project needs to get done, but the project is only part of the equation. The big thing is the deal and trying to understand if this is or is not a good deal. I mean, first of all, what kind of lunatic would sign a 30 year contract? Right. Many of us, many of us buy our homes on on 30 year mortgages. And over the course of that mortgage, you know, I'm still I think I have about eight years left to pay on my home. The past couple of months, I bought a new dishwasher. I'm paying off my mortgage. I bought, you know, a new a new refrigerator. And I'm going to paint my house. And in the course of the 30 years that this contract runs, God knows what's going to happen to that airport. I mean, we may be building an entire other terminal within 30 years. It's almost assured we're going to build at least one more runway and things are going to break and need to be repaired while we're doing this. So that concept is not all that far from. The good thing that I've come to to believe about this contract is as opposed to my mortgage, there's a lot more protections built in for the airport in this contract than I have in my mortgage. If the economy goes south, I could be in a big time jam. If I get sick, I could be in a big time jam. I doubt any of the staff sitting here today is going to be here working at DIA in 34 years. But there are protections for the airport during construction. If something goes awry there, there are protections for the airport. If three years into it, Ferrovial decides they've got another project and they want to head south. So I think that is awfully important. The taxpayers. This is important to me as I look at this contract is DIA and I excuse me for a day and then I'm still back in the old school days of DIA. The airport is an enterprise, and this project, if something happens that we can envision and it becomes a big problem, that does not roll back on Denver taxpayers. And right now that's important for me because this for me is a test case for P3. And I know we've had others, but this is this is a whole different level and. You know, I look at the fact that and I appreciate ferrovial expressing a willingness to reopen contact with our friends at Unite here . But, you know, I don't know you guys. And if this were a contract where Ferrovial was going to have control over 40% of the concessions or 60% of the concessions, I don't think I'd be considering this contract. This this is, as I understand, this Ferrovial will be looking at around 15 to 20% of the concessions. Okay. We we've got full ownership over the airport. We've got full ownership over the Great Hall. We're trying this out to see how this goes. I remain I have concerns over. Giving up that oversight. While I fully agree with Councilman Herndon's interpretation of exactly how much oversight we have currently, but it is a give. We're all learning about P3 and what that means, and I've said it before, but I feel it's important. I mean, I see this as a major alteration to the way we do government. You know, we we've added to the judiciary and the executive and legislative, and we're bringing private business into an area making decisions that previously have been legislative. And we're going to have to see how that goes. So. You know, I came in here tonight leaning towards. Yes. And that whole discussion of the labor issues. Your answer, sir, was really important to me. And I appreciate that. As I said, the project needs to get done. I feel we have enough assurances that it's financially sound, that the airport's protected and the taxpayers are protected. So. I'm leaning towards? Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Castro. Okay, Councilman Flynn. Thank you, Mr. President. And I appreciate Councilman Herndon's recounting as he represents the area where the airport is. He's naturally very familiar with it. I could probably tell him where the where the aliens are hiding out, though. Councilwoman Ortega and I probably recall the groundbreaking back in 89 and going out there almost every day. When there was nothing but a Grange Hall at some lonely country crossroads. And this this last major airport to be built in the United States. Since then, no other airport has been built new from the ground up. And it's become, what is it, a $26 billion economic generator annually for the state of Colorado. And I remember those first years. I remember those some boneheaded decisions. The toll gates. Everybody remembers the toll gates. Everybody coming into the airport had to pull a ticket even if you didn't have to pay on the way out. It took about an hour to get out. I remember I remember asking the mayor why you were putting a fountain in the middle of the terminal overtop of a 25,000 volt electrical train system, and they ended up putting a stainless steel drip pan under it so that it wouldn't short out the train. But by and large, it turned out to be. You remember that, right? By and large, it turned out to be a very good decision. And and I think it proved it refuted most of the criticism. It didn't go financially belly up after 18 months. You know, we've had some issues with the soils. We've replaced a lot of concrete, but it is 22 actually the concrete's, about 25, 26 years old when that went in. And Councilman Ortega probably remembers going out there in the first years and enjoying the gypsum terminal as this wonderful place to go and sit and wait for your wait for your party to arrive. And and then one one day in September of 2001, some al Qaeda terrorists hijacked four jet airliners and changed our world. We designed an airport for the days before 911. And suddenly that airport had to adjust and we couldn't use the jets and terminal for the way it was meant to be used anymore. It became, as Councilman Cashman so aptly put, a cattle call. When I look when I look in there and I don't remember the days where we used to be able to go out and enjoy that space, it's just amazing that we're we're cramming this function into a space that was never designed for it. So for the folks who think that we're changing the Great Hall and we're messing with the airport. The Jeppeson terminal already was messed with. It was messed with on September 11. And I see this project as us reclaiming the Great Hall and making it better than even than it was in those first days. 911 changed where the hotel went. You know, I wasn't real happy when the whole I actually ran into Kurt Fentress last night and I knew who the architect for the airport. And I'm not real happy that the hotel went there, but where we were going to put it initially, 911 said, we can't do that anymore. So we had to adjust to make changes. So I believe what we're doing today is taking the Great Hall back to what it was supposed to be when it opened in 1995. Long term contracts, as Councilman Cashman mentioned, the 30 year mortgage. The same thing applies to the $1.8 billion cost because that's not $1.8 billion today. That's over the 34 years, just like my home mortgage. In addition to paying the mortgage for 30 years, I'm also paying the heat, the light, the gas. I'm fixing the roof. I'm changing out the kitchen over time. This that 1.8 billion includes 38 years. When you go out, the other three, the one on which I worked after the newspaper closed and I worked at RTD, the Eagle three project, the train to the airport, the 34 year cost of that concession agreement is significantly more than this $1.8 billion paying for 30 years of operations and maintenance, running electric trains in and out of the airport, and then Arvada and Westminster. So it does not scare me that this is 30 years. It has to be 30 years. There's a reason mortgages are 30 years in. Car payments are well, they used to be three. I don't know what they are now. Seven year car loans. There's a reason for that is because you need to earn back the investment. We have made long term deals before. Bill McNichols, when he was mayor, made a 99 year deal with the Winter Park Rec Association. Are we still in that agreement? No, we're not. We've renegotiated that, I think, twice now. The Denver Broncos are no longer playing in Mile High Stadium. But guess what? The lease that they signed in when they added the skyboxes was supposed to expire next year. That stadium hasn't been there in 15 years. Walter Eisenberg stole some of my script earlier today when I was going to point out that the Union Station Alliance has a 99 year lease on on Union Station with an extension. In 1990, we entered into an agreement with the National West, with the Western Stock Show Association for the Stock Show to keep it in keep it in Denver for 50 years. And right now, we're renegotiating all that as as we speak. We've renegotiated the Winter Park deal in 2002 with interest, and that's now a 50 year lease. So the long term nature of this contract is is just an essential part of it. It's not something that should scare us off. If you were troubled, if you're out there watching or if you're sitting here in the chamber, if you are troubled by some of the cost issues, the cost increases on the hotel and a transit center project that we did. You should like this deal because now we're turning that all over to Ferrovial for a guaranteed maximum price, and they are responsible for any of those cost increases unless we add some scope out of that contingency. You should like that because hopefully you won't see those kind of headlines from our management of this project as we deal with the inevitable changes. When Ferrovial takes down a wall and finds something that. Is that their risk? That's their issue to fix. The biggest concern that I had going into this was that this takes away the city council's authority to approve or disapprove concession contracts for the 30 years of operations and maintenance. And as I sat down, I read through the concession agreement and found it is a living document that the the pyramid that the Ferrovial and the airport will sit down every two years and say, where are the trends going? How can we changes? How can we maximize the return on this project that makes more sense than what we're doing now because we lock in our concessions for much longer than that. And they're all staggered. This is a much more coordinated approach to doing to redoing that great hall and managing it in a more holistic way. It makes makes much more sense. Great hall partners can have much more flexibility and be much more nimble in responding to market changes than we could be even out on the concourses. And then I realized that for as long as I've been here covering airport concessions here on the council or at the newspaper. We have never turned down a concession contract at the airport brought to us. Not that that's a reason to turn it over to you. But the only two contracts concessions I can recall being pulled were two concessions in 1993 that that I and my partner, the Rocky Mountain News, wrote about some some kind of issues that had that existed with the proposals. And I see you laughing again. And Mayor Webb pulled them. Those are the only two concession agreements I've ever seen not go through and had nothing to do with the council. So turning this over to Ferrovial for that 30 year old M period, along with the parameters and the safety that we have in the concession development and management program. I have a lot of confidence that that this will be a very good and beneficial project for the city. And so, Mr. President, I'll be happy to support this. And I'd ask my my colleagues who are still on the fence to consider all the all that I've just said and vote yes. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Flint. Councilman Lopez. Thank you. Council President Brooks. I had to struggle with this decision and have made my myself clear to the folks in the airport community. The advocates. For me, having a say is a big deal. Not because. Because of a power dynamic. Because it's public. Because this is a public airport. It was our time as a public that built this airport. And it is our oversight over the years that built the airport, the public. At this council and one previous but us. And that that's that's who we are. You know, I did get an opportunity to see some of the other airports. And I was impressed by so. But their private. And we cannot compare apples and oranges when it comes to private and public facilities. I want to make something very clear before we start and before I make some additional points. Being that we are a public airport. However this shakes out. We are the public. This council represents Denver. That's the interest that we have at this table. And it's nothing to laugh at. It's nothing to sneer at. It's nothing to be taken lightly. This is something that is sacred to us and our say. In these matters are absolutely sacred. And that's something that you can't take lightly. And not only affirming that we are public, but we are also watching. A Labor violation, we will know about it. Discrimination either as a concessionaire. In a contract, an unfair process and unfair labor practice. We're watching. And we have the authority to act and we will maintain the authority to act. And that's something that we will always have. That is the difference between a private entity and a public. And let's not get that confused. Right. This is a contract. But we don't give up our ability to make policies that govern the our our our asset as a public. So I want to make that absolutely clear. And knowing that, have a little bit more assurance. Of our role. Now, 34 years is absolutely a long time. My baby girl will be 44. Right. But what are we getting for those 44 years? You know, I know some houses that I wouldn't. But I would detest. Having to pay for for 34 for 30 years on a loan like that. There are some bad deals that we can get locked into just because, you know, there are other deals out there with the same amount of time doesn't mean that we can. My other issues labor. And it's dear to me because I've organized workers at this airport in my previous life. I know what it is like. I've seen it. But I also know what it is like when somebody is respected on the job. You've had a lot of different fights. And every single one of them, they've been settled. Why? Because it's public. We don't have the. The the. If you would call it. Right. We don't we don't have the the luxury. I wouldn't call it a luxury. They just ignore it. Right as as some practices are in the private sector, I will just ignore them, let them scream their lungs out. We'll have security deal with them. Absolutely not. This is a public airport. And in this public airport, the dishwasher is going to get the same amount of respect as the ironworker, as the greeter. A job is a job in the eyes of the airport and in the eyes of the public. And it is with the exact same dignity that we treat those jobs. So although I very much applaud the what's written in the contracts, the prevailing wage, you know, the incentives, the benefits, the apprenticeship opportunities that's given to one part of labor. I would expect that to extend over to the folks that are making a third of the way. Your dishwasher's. Your cooks. Your preps. The cashiers. We brag all the time about how our airport is beautiful and sparkling clean. Well, it doesn't happen automatically. It doesn't happen with elves at night. These are real people. My father was one of those real people in downtown. Let me tell you a little story. Every time my dad and his company as a janitor making minimum wage. Would be outbid at a building. They'd have to leave. He'd have to find another job. And with that, we'd have to find another house. I look at George because he wrote about this one time when he was a reporter. There's no secret. That I bounced around from one place to the other to the point where it was actually an issue when I was running for office, because they couldn't determine exactly where the hell I lived. That is because my father had to change houses every single time to the point where we actually moved in a home where I didn't fit anymore. And with that was a new level of poverty. To the point where I was out by 17. That's what happens when you don't have retention. That's what happens after ten years of or a few years of working. And then all of a sudden you're let go and you've got to start anew again. Making minimum wage. These aren't just issues of ideology. These are real lives that we're talking about. And in 34 years, that's a few generations. And are we going to sign a contract that's going to be 34 years of poverty or 30 years of 34 years of prosperity for people who are working at the airport. Right. These are the maintainers of our airport. When it comes to the concessionaires. I want to make sure and I've made this clear. That if you're a CDB. You or a small business person in Denver. Whether you sell burritos or hamburgers or yoga or whatever, you have that idea. When somebody asked me, Hey, how can I get into the airport? How can I work at the airport? Oh, my God, that seems like a killer opportunity. I said, Well, first you got to win the lottery. You have a better shot at winning the lottery than working at the airport. I'm sorry. As a concessionaire that needs to change. And this this program needs to be. Impartial. Right. When I go to different airports, I don't want to go to the same old stores at every airport in every city. I want to see I want to taste that city if I'm if I am there just on a layover. I want to experience Denver. Right. That's what it's about. I. I wasn't. No. I want to make sure. Ferrovial. You were on record. People here testified on record. When it comes to somebody wanting to organize. I don't believe in exclusivity, but I believe in Fox's opportunity and the right to form a union. I don't care if it's at an airport. I don't care if it's at a farm field. I don't care if it's in one of our buildings in this very building as well. That needs to be maintained. That needs to be defended. And again, in the public sector, there are other practices. But here, that's not our practice here. That's a value of our city. Right. And you're seeing this over and over again. And I've been part of different councils to see how this has grown. It is essential. That freedom, that opportunity. Right. And. With that. And we have our job to do as council now, as council members announced to be that check and balance. Now, last thing I will end with. We will have a retention ordinance. If you cannot create that policy. Which was told to us in committee. We will. And as a matter of fact, we have begun. And so that is something that is that is essential to us. I don't want to wait till you have to do it. I want to see the steps being taken before we have to make it policy. And that goes. Also, it surprised me that the prevailing wage that we offer for some folks in the building aren't extended to the least among us. The least paid. Right. There's a lot of people that look like me. I want to make sure that they have that that. That opportunity as well, too. We can we shouldn't pick and choose what jobs deserve, prevailing wage and what don't. So I think that's something that I really, really want to look into at the end of the day. I am leaning towards a yes. Thank you, Mr. President. All right. Thank you, Councilman Lopez. Councilwoman Cannick. Thank you, Mr. President. Councilwoman Candace, let me just say this real quick. The air is off in here and we're working on getting it on for you. Incredible people. Okay. One thing. I noticed that as I took my sweater off and it's a very strategic move, Charlie, to get things get things. Going. Turns off it at midnight. I've got zero steps up here for the this state in August. So thank you to all those who testified. Thank you to the contractor and the team and to to the good good questions from my colleagues there, I think, are three things that we're obligated to explore here. One, is this the right project? Two, is this the right contract? Three, is this the right partner? And I think that from the questions we had, you may not think that we're concerned about some of the financial components. That because for me personally, I didn't ask a lot of questions about that. And that is because I spent about 6 hours of time, both with various members of the team and talking to other folks and experts looking at that. And what I found was really encouraging. Councilman Lopez described the checks and balances, and I start with a fair bit of skepticism about P threes because they throw off the balance of the public sector transparency, accountability, ability to control and evolve. And so I start with skepticism about that loss of balance in that check in the system. But here are some of the features that that I think are important to note. We retain ownership, right? We're not turning over the asset. We get approval over a number of components, the concession plans and other things. That is not a feature in all of these agreements to be able to have approval rights over some of these personnel and especially over policies. Our key policies do apply, be them contracting policies or the auditor's ability to audit worker policies. I shared a lot of concerns in committee and probably spent a lot of time asking questions about the compensation event. One of my top concerns with privatization of public assets is the fact that if we have to change our approach, then I it appalls me that we have to pay a contractor for things that we have to do to protect the public interest, safety, whatever it is. So I spent a lot of time and even as late in the day as I forget what it was. 420 today learned that the compensation events do not require us to pay this contractor if there are changes in policy that apply to the entire airport and aren't just focused on them in terms and it took six definitions sorted out at the exact same time to get there. So in my defense, that's why I didn't get it till 420 today. But but because it looks like we'd have to pay for those things. But when you sort through the definitions, we can change the policies we need to. To Councilman Herndon's point, there is responsibility on the part of this council to take responsibility for policy, not just on worker issues, but it might be on other issues, safety, for example, in the future. But we will not have to pay for those changes. That is a key. I could not vote for this contract if that were the opposite. And we are going to have public auditor access, which means beyond my expertize during the years of this contract, if something's going awry, there's an. Expert team that can have. Access. So that is a fair bit of protection, control, influence and standards for a deal like this. So I appreciated Councilman Herndon's comment that no no deal is perfect. The part of this deal that is concerning is the lack of a final design on the airport pieces or the airline pieces. That's a concern. If there were support in this council to delay this contract to get that resolved, that would be the prudent thing to do. The prudent thing to do would be finish your design, enter into your contract. This is not a best practice to be knowing that you're looking at changes when you sign a contract. It's just not. Having listened to the comments tonight and watched the vote in committee, I don't think there's the votes for that delay. So this contract isn't perfect, but but I am weighing that risk right about that piece. The design. Is this the right project? So we talked about the deal and it's a it's a better deal than many public private partnerships. Is this the right project? I share the analysis of my colleagues about the need for the redesign of security. I spent, what, 36 minutes waiting for it for a6am flight to get through security? That's not an acceptable wait time, I don't think. And I think that I was not a fan of the walk through retail. I will share the key factor that got me there because I and I heard from constituents on this, I probably heard from more constituents on that fact than any other aspect of this deal. Right. And there are wide walkways and we actually have a written standard about how wide the walkway has to be. So people actually aren't trapped in a sense that they can't get through with their bag. They are trapped in a in a narrow mall place that they can't get out of. It's not like an IKEA. Right. And so I don't love that piece of the design, but I am satisfied that we have a standard so that people who are in a hurry can get through quickly. And so I'm there on that piece of the design. Obviously, the airline piece applies to this project as well, so then we get to the point of the partner. So I was surprised how far I was able to come on this contract. Coming into this meeting today. But I was stuck on is this the right partner? And, you know, again, I just want to clarify for members of the public who may not be aware, why is the council asking all these questions about workers and labor? There's values involved, as Councilman Lopez said, but there's actually an economic interest. The airport is a revenue generating economic enterprise for the city and county of Denver. We have a labor dispute going on. That labor dispute has resulted in bad media. It has resulted in protests and, you know, other actions at the airport that are, frankly, a turnoff to the traveling public and they represent an economic threat to our asset. Right. A major I mean, in fact, labor disruptions are such a risk. They're named in this contract as an economic risk. So we have this financial interest in the airport and disputes, lawsuits, things like that are a risk to us. And I believe that risk needs to be managed. We are neutral on what the outcome of these conversations are, right? That's for the parties to figure out. But the fact that it's my expectation that public entities sit down and talk and they sit down and listen. That's the kind of partner we need to be doing business with. And I you know, it's rare to see a conversation move in this chambers the way that this one did tonight. But but I think that is is really for me, the important part is that I got to know because we I mean, I meant what I said. There will be people mad at this contractor. There will be there will be legal threats. There will be disputes. And I need to know that no matter who those parties are, if they are minority contractors, if they are my active contractors, concessionaires, that this partner will do what our airport would have done, which is to meet , talk, listen and not a not not shut the door. And so so that's the part I was stuck on and I heard move movement on that tonight. So. So I am ready to support this agreement. It's not perfect, but it is strong. And the agreement, you know, the project is strong. And I got to get to know this partner better. Councilman Cashman, I hate following you because you cover everything, but I too, you know, need to get to know you better and know that this commitment isn't a fleeting in the chambers kind of moment, but that it's really who you are and that you are going to stick through hard conversations. So. So, you know, I'm taking that leap of faith, but and I expect the folks you meet with to do that in good faith and to call a cease fire on, you know, negative press and other things and have a quiet, private conversation. So I expect that of them to. Okay. With that, I'm ready to say yes. Thank you. All right, Councilwoman, can each thank you. Councilwoman Ortega. Thank you, Mr. President. I'm sorry that we're spending all this time doing what most folks would observe as committee work on the floor. I appreciate the time that we are taking because we actually only had 30 minutes of discussion when this came to our committee, and it only came to committee one time for us to actually see the. Tales of this steel. So the fact that we're having that we have this many questions and we're having this much discussion is a result of of feeling like this was a rushed process. We did extend this contract one time at the request of the contractor because there were some things that were identified that resulted in, you know, having to make some additional changes to the design. And we could have done the same thing by this council asking for an extension to allow us to get all of our questions answered. I think the fact that we had an extra one week delay because the public hearing was postponed until tonight, gave some of us a little bit more time to get our questions answered. I do appreciate the time that airport staff has spent with me and and others within the city to get my over 70 questions answered. I tried to do my best to plow through the contract. There were several of us who. We're really feeling under the gun. So we actually hired an attorney or we consulted with an attorney who had followed up with our city attorney's office until we were told that we had no jurisdiction to. We didn't have the authority to do that. But that's how how. I guess uncomfortable some of us were in trying to really understand the details of this legal document, this legal contract. And it was very much written in legal terms. You know, you read one page and it refers you to several different sections. And unless you had a hard copy in front of you, it's hard to do that. Or you have to have multiple screens to be able to jump back and forth to the different sections to really completely understand what we were obligating the city to . I have no doubt that Ferrovial brings the expertize to the table. Having seen the work that they do at the Heathrow Airport, and I appreciate the fact that DIA took several of us to see the security systems in both Heathrow and Schiphol Airport to understand what we were looking at as part of the new technology for this airport. I think that will be. An incredible. Improvement in addition to to our airport that will, to a large degree, help with some of the throughput concerns that were expressed by our airline folks. But I think we're still sort of at the mercy of TSA to have adequate staffing to ensure that we can move and process people quick enough to ensure that we don't have the backup and the co-mingling of traffic on level six. Everyone that I've talked to that's had any direct involvement with P3 deals has been very clear, and we've read this in many of the articles that it is more expensive to finance these deals privately than it is to use our public financing tools to do them. I understand why DIA is looking at this because of the other improvements that we're looking at that will add more debt to to this important asset. I am the sole member on this dais who was actually here when we built the airport. I serve on this council with a team of colleagues who believe that this. Airport was going to be the economic engine that it truly has become and will continue to be for for a very long time. And I don't think there's anyone here that's more committed than I am having, you know, had that history and involvement. And, you know, I take the time to go out to the airport and to meet and talk with some of the concessionaires and to to better understand what some of the issues are from from their perspective, as we have, you know, those contracts that move through our process. Councilman Herndon mentioned that. You know, we shouldn't have complacency. And I don't think anyone here who is raising questions about this particular long term deal is is saying that we're settling for mediocrity or that we're not committed to some of the changes that I think are important that need to be made. And, you know, over time, we've seen many changes to this airport and will continue to do so. As we expand, we build the seventh runway, we add the extra gates to keep growing as this airport has. So I don't you know, and when you look at the fact that we have had some ten year contracts, those are basically for those concessions that are doing restaurants because of the capital investment that they have to make and looking at the opportunity to recoup some of that investment over over time. Some of the key elements of my concerns have. We're raised around transparency and the process. Councilman Herndon and I did sit on a committee. This was completely different than a negotiating committee that Kathy Reynolds and I sat on where we were basically closing down McNichols Sports Arena and working with cranky sports to open the Pepsi Center. We were actually members of that negotiating committee. We were thoroughly familiar with the details of the deal. We were keeping our colleagues, you know, informed of the changes as they were moving through the process so that we didn't get so far out, that we had to take, you know, ten steps backwards to bring everybody along. This process was informing us of some of the timing changes that were that were happening, but we were never involved in any of the details of the deal as it was moving through the process. I think that might have been extremely helpful to, you know, better understanding this. Obviously, taking the trips, looking at the the technology we were looking at was extremely helpful in understanding the the technology that that we wanted to install at our airport. That, again, I think, will will move traffic quicker. But. The fact that we're only at 30% design, we still have not addressed the airline concerns thoroughly. I'm concerned that we will begin to eat into our $120 million contingency fund. We don't know what that is going to look like until those discussions and those issues get resolved. But the fact that we're. Moving this forward with that completely unresolved is is very concerning to me. The fact that we had a 15,000 page contract that we basically had a week to review before it came to committee. That was part of why some of us looked at, you know, trying to get some additional assistance to help us figure out, you know, what this this obligation meant. I appreciate the fact that there are provisions in the contract that provide greater protections for the city of Denver and for for the airport as. This project moves through its various phases. But I, I don't have that comfort level that some of my colleagues do in terms of. Where where this deal is at. And I appreciate the work that everybody has put into it. I guess the last couple of things I want to say is that. When you look at the fact that we've got additional expense that we're going to incur at this airport, we are extending a lot of debt on this project and would. You know, and again, it's part of evolving and the airport wanting to. Be able to be that magnet for the region and be able to bring in more more airline traffic. Both. You know, domestically as well as internationally. But. I want to see that our concessionaires. So so one of the issues that we talked about earlier is the fact that we will allow a concessionaire who may already be at that concentration of ownership in our terminals will in our concourses will be allowed to bid. And I would love. I think it's important that people who have concessions on A, B and C can bid to be operators on the main terminal. But at the same time, if you already have a concentration of ownership, you know, I think that gets to a place where maybe we're looking at more of a monopoly for some of our concessionaires. And I don't think that's fair as we want to bring in more of our local businesses to participate in this airport. So I you know, I could probably go on and on with some of my concerns. I've been very vocal in this process during. You know, during committee in when this came to us last week about some of those issues. But I am just not there taking counsel out of having any review. And in really it's future mayors and city councils from being able to look at the concessions that will be selected. And I just want to say, having having met the folks that are part of the Ferrovial team, I think you all are nice people. I appreciate having had the opportunity to to meet with you, to ask questions. But. That that doesn't have anything to do with where I've landed on this. And so I just am not going to be supporting this tonight. And again, thank you, everyone, who has taken the time to be here until this late hour. But. I will not be supporting it tonight. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman Ortega. Councilman Nu. Thank you, Mr. President. I think we've had very little discussion about the safety improvements. There's no question we're all comfortable that it's going to be a much safer environment for all our passengers and residents. So I think we're all very clear about that. The also, we've had very little discussion about the quality of four wheels merchandizing. I think it's going to be a higher level of quality operation there. And so to me, a safer environment and a greater customer satisfaction to me is going to lead to greater profits in that and this whole deal. So I think it'll be a better experience for all customers. It will lead to greater profitability. And to me that profitability is the future of our airport. We need those resources to help develop our airport and accommodate our growth and expansion. So I'm just pleased with the deal and are pleased that we're going to manage it because most important to me and to our citizens is this whole review and evaluation system and this process we're putting in place. I'm very pleased with Gisela and her financial staff. I trust them. They're going to be very good to help monitor this. Our CFO, Brendan Hanlon, is a great guy and he's so sharp he's going to be involved and our city auditors, unbelievable. He's going to be ordered in. Right, left. Paul, for Kim I to stay up late at night worrying about what he's going to look at. And most important to me is, is we're going to include the city council in this review process, give quarterly reports, answer our questions, everybody monitoring issues. So I'm very comfortable with this whole arrangement. And and I think it's going to be the Air Force, just such an asset for our city. And I think this investment in infrastructure is just going to bring us up to a higher level of quality and recognition of the city, which we deserve. So I'll be glad to support us tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. New Councilman Espinosa with 3 minutes before one, you know. Sorry, Chris. Councilman Herndon. I'm going to eat up here. Your goal. First, I want to thank Dan, Kim, Stu. Aaron, George Keesler, everybody. You know, if you've anybody has seen me in meetings. No, sort of. I'm I'm fairly abrasive at times. And that was no different here. But I appreciate you sort of entertaining me time and again, both here. At my own home and out it. Out at the airport to sort of scrutinize the design. You know, like, you know, I've. Lamented not having a similar sort of time with the contract, not that you guys haven't been available. But it's just that and my district has a. Lot of things going on with it and a lot of irons in the fire, no different than anybody else, but I really still wish. I had more. Time. That said, I don't think it would change anything because. I want to also. Extend some appreciation to the Ferrovial team. Talking with you guys on the three occasions that we did sort of more in detail dialog. I felt like I always got. You know. You know, very, very. Quick, capable answers from very professional people that understood what exactly what it was that they were trying to deliver. And and so I just want to before I go further in my comments, just to express my complete and utter appreciation for the the involvement in this very intense time period. And you're willing your willingness to sort of accommodate us in the capacity that you did. But for me, private money isn't cheaper than bonding with our stellar credit rating. I know that we can pay the $9 Million termination fee, then design and deliver this project without a P3 arrangement. That position is actually a consequence of your work. Denver Airport near the victims of your own success. This is not the first time I said that you put it best when you said regarding capital projects, quote, Dyn is extremely well positioned due to its size, thoughtful planning and financial stability. You guys Denver Airport achieve that without any P3 arrangements. Today, Dan is ranked by industry publication, their World Airport Awards ninth. Best airport serving greater than 50 million passengers. Third best airport staff in North America. Second best domestic airport. Second best airport in North America. Third best regional airport in the world. And first best regional airport in North America. Those are titles, you know, that you guys achieved today without any three arrangements. And so congratulations and kudos. We really appreciate that because it is the economic engine that it is and vital to this area. I agree with the landside concept completely. You know, the physical design of this in approach and solution is, is, is, is. Is. Is, is. Stellar high, but its success is vulnerable to TSA performance, and that is an unfortunate reality. The contract is not an issue from a technical standpoint as it is very, very good. I mean, I have no issue with the documents that I have reviewed. And the whole thing as as stated and presented here today is very, very, very doable, exactly as promised in the timelines and the terms. And there is a clear availability for the airport to avoid a boondoggle or to address any impediment. So I don't fear going forward with this. But given the strength and given the strength of Din, if I was the seventh vote, I would be hard pressed not to support you guys in this request. But admittedly, I have the luxury of being able to vote my conscience on this one. And because not every loop is closed. Labor Airlines. TSA design and the transfer transfer of risk means an expensive delivery method. This approach is not about to me. This approach is not about saving money. It is simply providing predictability at the expense of hundreds of millions of dollars. Now I get why you would want to do it this way, but I still don't see any need. Cutting out council is to me authority like. And it puts distance between people and their assets. And that is not what my constituents are asking for. I'm glad that the analogy of the House was brought up, but to me it's more like giving a contractor with worse credit than you a bedroom in your house to operate an Airbnb for 30 years and to all to help pay for the kitchen remodel you really need. That is to me in a nutshell, what this arrangement is and unnecessary. So again, everything I've said it for that I'll, I'll be voting no. But it's not, it's, it's not lightly. And so I do. I don't fear going. Forward if council chooses to move in that direction. Thank you. Thank you. Guzman. Espinosa. Guzman. Clark. Thank you, Mr. President. Councilwoman Kennedy said about five people ago how hard it was to go because people have covered everything that you had to say. And I think people up here have covered a lot and it's late. And so I just wanted to say thank you to the air. I guess it's technically early. I really want to say thank you to our airport team. It is it was not an easy process to get this put together. It was not an easy process to get to here. And it certainly was not an easy process to get the 13 of us with our unique personalities and unique needs and how we needed to dove into this all of the information that we need to be able to vote on this tonight. I remember one day after having a bit of a mini meltdown on how many trees were being killed with the pages of print documents that were being brought to me. And I had a little mini meltdown on air and back there. And then I ran into him in the hall the next day with just boxes. Full of binders. And I my eyes got this big and then his eyes got this big and he said, There are other people who asked for this. There's not one here for you. And it just put into clear perspective just how hard a job you have and in getting us what we need. And you did a spectacular job of of that and making yourselves available at the Duffy role in the spare room here. And so I just wanted to say thank you. I will say that I don't think that it's. Possible that any of us could fully understand the 15,000 pages. It needs experts. And you are experts. I think it's even challenged Councilman Flynn, who generally catches all of our typos in the back parts of the document. And so anyone who's voting yesterday, as I will be, is doing it in large part because we are putting a lot of trust in our airport team. And and I think that you have shown time and again that you have earned that trust in running the airport and how you've brought this forward and the hard work that you've done to help us understand this work. So I just wanted to say thank you and thank you, Mr. President. All I have. Thank you, Councilman Clark. All right. Say a couple of words in this. Thank you all for being here. You went through security. Some of you pay for parking and you sat and wouldn't seats for a long time. So I really appreciate you all. And I think on behalf of all the council, we really appreciate you guys. You know, I think about what we've done tonight. We approved $937 million in a very equitable and inclusive fashion for the entire city through our go bond. We approve over $300 million of of wastewater redevelopment opportunities for the worst basin in the city of Denver. And we're taking the sixth busiest airport to the next level in the country. And there's a lot of concern over those things. And the community is obviously alarmed because we're going from a small town to a small, big city. We are becoming an international destination. And this is what international cities do. They make bold moves. And this is bold. But in the in the grand scheme of things of of international destinations, New York, LaGuardia just approved a $4 billion . And they need to do it a $4 billion improvement to their airport. So I know a lot of us keep doing those comparisons to our homes and our living rooms. It's not apples to apples. We're on a new level. We are competing globally. So the vision that our great mayor, Mayor Paine, you had is coming to fruition. And so it's hard for all of us, but this is the right direction. Let me just tell you why I'm supporting this. Authority versus influence. See, we have authority over a lot of things. A city council. And we think we have authority. But really, what we do is have influence and this P-3. Gives us and remains, you know, maintains that influence. I think. The authority of having every ten years a concessions agreement come through city council. We will lose that. But the influence for me to sit with Nacho and his business partners and say, I don't like how this is being run, I will still have that ability and I don't think people understand that or get that. I still can go to any. Even though they may not come through city council, any agency, head and even business in the city and say we need to get this done for our community. And that is the influence which we hold as City Council. So to say that you've taken our power away is not accurate authority versus influence. We still have an incredible influence. I talked about the world class airport, Sanders construction as a kind of clean it up a little bit in Denver and I love what you guys do. I love that you connect with local contractors. I love that you connect with local unions. And to have these contracting unions come in and speak about you being connected to them, I mean, that already had me so excited. So thank you guys for being a local organization that is serious about employing local folks and contracting business. And then no one really has been talking about this. And I think people are afraid to talk about magic. And but I'm a I'm going to tell you why I'm excited to talk about an African-American investor in this city for the first time at this level, I am a static because there are African-Americans in this city to do not feel like they are a part of the success in Denver. And I'm holding on to it because now there is an there's a gateway. There's an opportunity. And we have. Research Magic Johnson, not just when he played, but his actual business and his actual dealings in other cities. And we're excited about that opportunity in Denver because it's much bigger than just the airport. It's about the community. And thank you for already coming to the community and engaging in the community and Ferrovial, I appreciate you being honest and working with the community. I think Councilwoman Canete had some points of, yeah, we got to continue to work with folks even when they're not. Being the best. You know, they're they're protesting against us and things like that. We deal with that all day. I got people protesting me right now. Right. But we continue to engage because in public life, it's our duty to be kind to people in their misunderstanding or their understanding of us. Right. And so that's the way we want to be. That's who we are as Colorado. And I sense that you're going to do that. I sense that you're going to be a part of that. And so to the airport, thank you so much for your hard work. I feel like you guys worked like crazy. But now the real work begins to get this thing done. So thank you all for being here. We are going to move this thing for. Madam Secretary, roll call. Hi. Clark. Hi. Espinosa. Hey, Flynn. Hi. Gilmore. Abstain. Herndon high fashion can each. Lopez right. You. Something happened. Okay. Ortega. No, Sussman. I. Mr. President, I. Got the following results. Ten eyes two. Nays one. Abstention two. Nice to net two names. One Abstention Council Bill 822 has passed. Congratulations. See no other business before this body was manager.