A resolution approving the Mayor’s appointments to the National Western Center Authority Board. Approves the following Mayoral appointments to the National Western Center Authority Board: Jacque Hinman, Steven McCarthy, and John Zapien (neighborhood resident Board member) for terms effective immediately and expiring on 12-31-21; Robb Brown for a term effective immediately and expiring on 12-31-20; Kelly Leid, Monique Lovato, and Liliana Flores Amaro (neighborhood resident non-voting Board member) for terms effective immediately and expiring 12-31-19, or until a successor is duly appointed. The Committee approved filing this resolution by consent on 1-16-18.
If you can just let us those of us who are not on the committee know when that's coming. That would be helpful. Thank you. All right. Okay. We're going to put up 47, Councilman Herndon, where you put council resolution 47 on the floor. Certainly, Mr. President, I move that council. Resolution 47 be adopted. All right. It has been moved and second it. Go ahead, Councilman. Let's see who we got. Councilman Espinosa. Yeah. Sorry. Thank you, Mr. President. I simply have some unresolved concerns about the composition of the authority board and therefore, will be voting to not approve the slate at this time. Thank you. Okay. Are there any other comments by members of council? You know, we have some authority more folks here today that I'd like to recognize. And then we've got Kelly Lee used to be here as the running the whole national Esther as Lovato. Is she here today? Okay. We also have Liliana Flores from Glover, Larry Swansea. We also have John Zappia on. Here in the in the house as well. And we'll be approving these. And, you know, I think I've been a part of this process the entire time. And, you know, I want to thank everyone from the community for serving and being a part of this board. I think, you know, what we really heard from the community is we wanted to get to vote on council on this authority board. And we have John Zippy on as the voting member of the 30 board from the community. And we also have Liliana Flores as a member of the community, a non-voting member. And, you know, I felt like it was a real opportunity to sit down with the mayor and sit before him and try and get these two votes . And we were not able to do that. And so there is some concern from the community around this. And I want to let that be known that I pushed for the two votes, but we did not get there. I also want to recognize Rob Brown, who's in the audience as well from the community and appreciate you serving. And so, Councilwoman Ortega. Well, you've just said some of the things that I wanted to share. I attended a number of the meetings when the makeup of the board was being discussed at the Community Advisory Committee, meetings of the National Western Center. And yeah, some of us pushed for making sure that there were two community voting members, even if it was maybe one resident and one business. But the meetings were held with the mayor to discuss that very issue. And the recommendation that moved forward was to have only one voting member from the community. So, you know, I'm going to support this tonight because I think it is important to move the the board forward so that national western. Board can do the action that it needs to, you know, take the action that needs to take place in addressing the many things that are happening. There are some things that are yet to come forward. You know, there's been some discussion about a community benefit agreement. There's been discussion about the coliseum, a roll up. That is something that we won't see for a little while until we see buildings on the national western campus. But I think that is something that would generate some dollars that would go into a community investment fund. But those are still some of the details that are are being worked out at this point in time. But I share that concern and was vocal during that process about the desire to have two voting members from the community . We do have two voting members from National Western. We have two voting members from CSU. You know, it made sense to have two voting community members, but that's not what ended up being moved forward. And so what we have in front of us, we either vote it up or vote it down. And I think it is important to move it forward. And I would hope that at any point in time in the future, as any of the the seats change, that this might be something that could be revisited. Yeah. Thank you. Councilman Ortega, I want to recognize Pat Garrett, who's in the audience as well, and serve and represent the National Western Stock Show as well. And doing a great job doing it as chair. Okay. We have Councilman Cashman. Thank you, Mr. President. It just seems to me that on an ongoing basis, there are certain groups in our city that get a full voice in the civic dialog, and there's other groups that don't seem to get as full of a voice. I am a solid supporter of the National Western Center project. I'm excited about what it brings to the table, but I'm nowhere near as excited about the makeup of this board. I don't think two voting members from the community is too much to ask. I just think we're giving short shrift to the voice and the wisdom of the neighborhood so I won't be able to support this. Thank you, Mr. President. All right, Councilwoman Cannick. Thank you, Mr. President. I don't serve on the committee, so I'm not sure how much discussion this got at the committee level, but I was kind of unaware of some of the concerns on the community side until just today. And then I think there are just some other questions about the potential appearance of conflicts based on former employment. And so I don't have any desire to, you know, have a debate about individual qualifications or, you know, disparage anyone or casting doubt on the integrity of the body. But I guess that since I've gotten kind of some concerns that arose at the last minute, I'm not quite comfortable. So I think I need to abstain because I just didn't have enough time to kind of dig into all these things. And again, not serving on the committee, if those on the committee thoroughly debated all that, including, you know, the fact that there wasn't quite community buy in for the community seats, I guess, you know, I want to defer. You know, if there was a full council debate that I missed, that's one thing. But. But hearing about this late, I just don't feel comfortable voting. So I'm going to be abstaining tonight. Okay. Thank you, Councilwoman Canning. Councilman Lopez. Thank you, Mr. President. I just have a question. I don't know if it's. I don't know who to ask him. I'm wondering why. What was the what's the reasoning behind that? I mean, the two community seats not being able to vote. Being a vote. Not being voting members. Krystal de Herrera. Okay. From the mayor's office. Oh, okay. Thank you. Crystal addressed that. Good evening, everyone. It's always good to see everybody here. I'm happy to answer these questions. I think these are important questions. Can you introduce yourself for the. Sorry? Crystal Torres de Herrera, deputy city attorney for the city for the Denver City Attorney's Office. I'm happy to answer these questions. These are important questions. As you guys as all of you may recall, there was actually robust discussion on the council floor when the framework agreement actually came before council. I remember vividly because we did have several members of the community here, which I was really proud to see, because I think it is really important to hear their voices as well. And I know that Councilwoman Ortega and Council man Brooks were very much a part of the conversations, both with the Citizens Advisory Committee, as well as with the other community members that were here. And there was a robust conversation at the time about what was the board composition, what was it going to be? And. Councilman Espinosa, I know you asked several questions that we dialoged about at that moment here in front of this body. Councilwoman can issue might have I wasn't sure if it was right around your recent nuptials. So you may not have been here for that vote. So I think it was right around that time. But at any point we did discuss the importance of having community representation. But ultimately where the agreement ended up was that there was going to be a voting member of the community as well as a non-voting. And I will tell you that when the framework agreement was first. Discussed and put in writing among the partners. We did go to the Citizens Advisory Committee. We actually went to them first before we filed it with council, and it was in those conversations with the community that we actually came up with the non-voting seat and it was at the behest of the community who said, Well, wait a minute, what happens if we have somebody on there and they're either not able to attend that day who votes for the community or what happens if they move on? There's nobody there in the wings who's been there to appreciate and understand the decisions that have been made within that body. And we said, you know what? That is a fair concern. That is something that we need to address. And it was because of those conversations that we added the non-voting member. And so, you know, we didn't. Now, did they get the second voting member? No, but we added the additional non-voting member. I will also say from a process standpoint, not only did we have a lot of conversations with the CAC, but we invited and Councilman Brooks and Councilwoman Ortega can attest to this. There was a conversation with the mayor as well, and it was about hear this, here's the composition and what we are looking for in board members. Here are the attributes, the characteristics that we think are important to sit on this board and fill these seats. And that was really important. I want to thank everybody who contributed to that because that was really, really key. And we took those we took those attributes to heart. And I think you can see that from the people that we have in front of you today that the mayor proposed, that, you know, we want to make sure that whoever sits on this board understands the incredible, valuable role that the surrounding neighborhoods play. And it's not just a one time role. It is an ongoing role. And it is about this project not just being a successful project, but it's about how do we share the opportunity with the surrounding communities and make sure that they benefit as well. The other conversation we had on the council floor that evening when I came to last spoke about this, was about the community benefits agreement. And the mayor did a letter that I read from at that meeting that I had also shared with Councilwoman Ortega ahead of the Monday night. That evening was that the mayor had also included and mandated to the incoming board members that we would do a community benefits agreement. We needed to work with that, but that we had to value and make sure that this board was responsive to and working and collaborating, being respectful, inclusive with the surrounding communities. And I think that we're really proud of that work. We couldn't have gotten there without the help of, frankly, Councilman Brooks, Councilwoman Ortega and the community that we talked with. There were some really important strides that happen here. And so we're excited to get this board in, let this authority get up and running so we can start doing the good work that we've talked about so we can start working on the community benefits agreement because that is what the board, the authority board will do. That is their that is part of their job. So we're really excited about that. But I just wanted to make sure all of you were aware of the process and the conversations that went in to get us to this point. All right. Thank you. I'm sure you can sit right there because we got some more comments in there. Let me see Councilman Flynn, Europe and then Councilman Neal. Thank you, Mr. President. I just want to remind everybody that the the debate, as Ms.. De Herrera just outlined, the debate over whether to have two voting members from the community occurred during the approval of the framework agreement a while back. So tonight is not the time to not fill the seats that we agreed to have on the board. Tonight is the time to fill those seats that we did agree and then perhaps further that debate. But it would actually take an amendment to the framework agreement that we approved a while back to get that second voting member . And I am sympathetic to that cause as well. But this vote tonight is not the place or the vote to say we should have a second community voting member. We need to fill the seats that we already agreed to have and then proceed to that conversation. Thank you, Mr. President. Yeah, good point, Councilman Neal. Yeah. Yeah, I'm in favor of voting. I support this today, but I missed the point. The rationale for the non-voting member. And I didn't quite hear that from everything that you said. Could you can you simplify that? I'm from the South, so you have to go speak slowly. So but I just want to understand the rationale for one voting and one non-voting. Do somebody say that we don't need. A second voting member for some reason. What was the. Reason? So we did have. So when the framework agreement, when we initially were talking to our partners and trying to figure out what was the right balance and the board composition of the seats, there was a lot of priority about having a small and nimble board that could make actions because you have to have a you know, you really want a odd number of voting seats because of that. In the event of a tie, you need someone to break a tie. Right. And we were talking about what was the right distribution. And there's a lot of behind the scenes conversations between the partners about, you know, do the equity partners, do CSU and WCC, do they get two seats? Do they get four seats? What does that look like? So that conversation happened. You know, in the course of the framework agreement, when we came to the community, they said, hey, we appreciate that you gave us the seat. We'd like this other seat. But from a math and other reason standpoint, we decided to go that it was because we'd already drafted the framework or agreement and we said, this is going to be the best resolution to this. We also felt that by having that non-voting seat that that gave, there was no gaps in terms of if somebody couldn't attend the meeting or if there was he or if John wanted to get off. We didn't know what the point that was going to be. John's AP But if John's even decided, you know what, I've been here a year, I'm going to go do something else that somebody could step into the shoes. So it was that was the rationale. They did meet with the mayor. The mayor decided that that was the way he wanted to go as well. Now, I will say this. There are various touch points in this authority that have to have that they have to have with the community. Right. Or it doesn't work. That's just a fact. And so. The board is an important touchpoint, but it's not the only touchpoint. And we have specifically embedded things in the framework agreement and in the instructions to the board members about the community benefits agreement, about the way they're going to interact about the Community Investment Fund. There are other touchpoints because the only way this works is to have everybody's features embedded and to make sure that in order for this project to succeed, the community succeeds as well. And so we've tried very hard to do that. Thank you very much, sir. So it really was the mayor's decision. He felt that was the best way to go. It was. It was the mayor's decision and it was our decision as well. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Councilman Neal. And thank you, everybody, for weighing in. Obviously, this is a tough issue. And I think, Councilman Flynn, you underlined it pretty well that, you know, we agreed to this in the framework agreement. The meeting that I had with the mayor, with members of the community was saying to the mayor, this is this is an opportunity for you to use one of your seats and take care of this with the community voting member, you know, and so that's that what I want to say is the individuals that are here today that the mayor picked, especially from the community and thank you for serving and we're going to need you in the future. This is so, so incredibly important. And your leadership means everything right now. And so regardless of this conversation that's being had right now, I think there's still an opportunity for a lot of success in the future . Councilman Lopez. Yeah. Thank you. Council President Brooks I think Monique just want. Monique Lovato Yeah, it's west, west side right now, right. West Denver in the house. Look, I didn't I was just I got into the. Our cultural norm of doing questions and then answer and think kind of in. Public hearing mode. So forgive me if I didn't say this later, earlier, but I and I appreciate the question being answered. However, you know, when we approved the farm framework, I didn't. Get the peeing like I like my colleague council woman can each kind of realizing this today right tonight that this has been an issue. So having said that, I'm still actually pretty concerned that we don't have that other vote. Are there any other positions on the board that are on the board but don't have a vote? Or is it just a community one? There is another position on the board that doesn't have a vote. It is the CFO of the city. We have a standing spot for the CFO in the city. We think that's important and that person does not have a vote as well. Okay. I appreciate that, Crystal. Look, I just. I'm. I just remain concerned about. Not having that community voice or that vote, especially because this is in Globeville. I think it's Illyria. Sorry. Local area swans and geese. You know, I. I love this talk show. I absolutely love being a part of it. I love seeing it being revitalized. I love seeing it being revived. We went on a tour. My first term in council. And we saw that it was falling apart. We saw that it was not seamless with the community. There was just a lot of improvements that needed to take place. And I was, you know, excited, excited to see it move forward. I'm still excited to move forward. So I don't want anybody to think that this is something as a statue I voted for, to see, campaign for, to see. I think it's a just a great opportunity to keep it here and take it to the next level and create that that seamless experience and then just blended into the community and not have a project where it's kind of like L.A. Live, where it's kind of its own little Disneyland. There's the community, right, and separate. And I think a lot's being done to do that. But. I have a hard time accepting that just the two an extra community member on that board cannot vote. And that just it just doesn't seem like it's it's it's valued enough to vote that that vote voice is isn't as strong as the others. And it happens to be from this community that lives in the shadow of the highway. Right. That has gone three decades without a grocery store, has a home, you know, a lot of a lot of infrastructure needs. So I think, you know, for me, I have a hard time. I mean, the first thing I want to say is. I would love to see some kind of, you know, rehashing of that that agreement. I think, you know, there is definitely an opportunity to look at that. Again, I know this might not be the proper place and I acknowledge that, Councilman Flynn, but. The organizer. I mean, the community organizer me has an issue with that. With not having that vote. So it's nothing against the to stock show as an organization or the work that everybody's put in. But I just think that that voice is critical and especially coming from this neighborhood. Thank you, Councilman Lopez, Councilwoman, in each last word. Thank you, Mr. President. Just to clarify the record, I'm sure the long lived historical record of this very important road. I am just record. I'm not protesting the the the composition in terms of voting in non-voting. I agree with Councilman Flynn that that's been decided. It's because questions were raised about the slate. Yeah. And the who. And so it is not an attempt to reopen questions in the agreement, although the points by my colleagues on that are are well taken. But my personal vote is about concerns raised about the slate. Thank you. All right. Thank you. I will be supporting this and looking forward to to continue conversations of opportunities down the road. This is a big deal for the city of Denver, and it's a big deal for the neighborhood for the first authority board in the city to have neighborhood representation. But I do agree that we should have more. Okay, Madam Secretary, roll call. Espinosa. No. Flynn. I. Herndon. I cashin. Can each. LOPEZ No. New. Ortega I. Sussman, I. Black eye, I. Clarke all. Mr. President. I please those voting US results. I think one is missing. No. We are missing one. Clark. Clark. President pro tem. Eight eyes, three days, one. Abstention, Iraqis, three nays, one abstention. The Port Authority, 47 passes. Okay. We are moving on to Councilwoman. Councilwoman Ortega, would you like to put.