A resolution approving a proposed Agreement between the City and County of Denver to be administered by the Department of Safety, Division of Community Corrections in consultation with the Denver Community Corrections Board and Community Education Centers, Inc. for residential and non-residential community corrections services. Approves a contract with Community Education Centers, Inc. for $2,000,000 and through 12-31-19 for residential and non-residential community corrections services (2019-51449). The last regularly scheduled Council meeting within the 30-day review period is on 9-16-19. Council member Kashmann approved direct filing this item on 8-22-19.
As Resolution 880 has been adopted. I'm secretary, if you please, with the next item on our screens, on our screen. And Councilman Hines, if you please. Resolution 81 on the floor. Thank you, Mr. President. I move 881 for adoption. Has been moved and seconded. Comments by members of Council Councilman Hines. Hello again. So I apologize. This is what we get when we get things directly to the floor. So thank you for your clear clarity and that makes the first one way easier. So what's the difference between. This and the contract we had three weeks ago. So. Councilman Hines so resolution request eight one changes the terms of the agreement with Geo Group from 12 months to six months. It's part of the strategy after the vote before Council on August 5th, where we heard the message loud and clear to me and to distance ourselves from both core civic and jail. This was a strategic decision to try to phase that plan and move it forward. It's extremely challenging, if not impossible, to transition away from six facilities and add up to 500 beds or 517 beds. So the decision here is to move in that direction with the GEO Group and this contract takes us through the end of 19 . Okay. So there are 157 residents in GEO facilities, 73 at 1284 at William Street. And it can sometimes there's a 157 beds. The number of individuals in those beds varies day to day, depending upon movements there. And. Oh, geez. Okay. Sorry. My notes were my questions were assuming that we were going to talk about these together. So let's see. So the contract is for $2 million. So that means that the assuming the beds are full, which I would. It sounds like they would be at least close to full. Joe's getting about $100.31 per resident per day for this contract. Is that correct? Councilman Hines? No, that's incorrect. So the funding for community corrections isn't as simple as just the daily per diem rate. You have a base bed rate. So for every individual and residential placement, you will have an itemized per diem. In addition for the specialized program, a two way hall, the cognitive behavioral treatment program, there's supplemental funding that goes and is attached to that. We also have funding for a correctional treatment fund that pays for substance use treatment and mental health treatment. And there's a facility payment that each provider gets to keep caseload sizes down to a minimum of 1 to 20. It pays for prior reporting and for minimum staff salaries. So together, collectively, all those funding lines come up to the amount you see before you. Okay. That actually stands for several of the questions that I had about substance abuse, mental health. But all of that's included in the in this particular contract. Correct. Okay. And. Is there any additional funding source beyond this contract with federal dollars or. Anything else? Councilman Hines No, there's no additional funding provided by an agency of the government per the General Assembly. There is a requirement that residents pay what we call a subsistence. And that amount is authorized in the long bill each year through a footnote. And it requires the facilities to attempt to collect up to $17 per day for non specialized programs. So the William St Center qualifies for subsistence collection rates up to 17. As I mentioned at the hearing on August 5th, those rates are much lower than that. The cognitive behavioral program at Tully Hall does not charge subsistence. The footnote is not also in statute. Is that correct? That's a technical question, Councilman. I'm not sure it's part of the long bill that's passed by the General Assembly. So I, I, it's a legal document that establishes, you know, the funding for the state and then the parameters of the funding. It is my understanding, because I've put footnotes in the long bill before myself, that that isn't that's more guidance than it is statute. But I don't know that for sure either. So. But that's that was the nature of my question. Let's see, so that the cost to residents does not include room and board or classes or, you know, what's the average amount per day that a resident might be might pay for staying in one of these facilities? Councilman HINES So the the the current rate under this contract is $48.45. That's the that's the per diem established by the legislature. So that money travels to the State Office of Community Corrections and then passed through to the city of Denver in this case. In addition to that, you know, the residents of William Street, as I mentioned, would be required to pay up to that $17 a day. If someone is assessed at high risk and has a behavioral health issue. That's where the correctional treatment fund dollars kick in, and that's where the person can be referred for behavioral health treatment in the community or in house. The resident does not pay for that treatment room and board is provided as part of the funding and that subsistence. So there is no additional cost to the residents. So maybe this is answering one of the questions that I had, and that's as I was trying to do just the math on the court, civic facilities versus the geo facilities. And and you're saying it isn't quite that simple. I'm going to give you the simple math and you can help me and, you know, get get a little smarter about the math. So there are a total of 364 civic beds, right, 90, Ulster 120 and Diet 90 and Fox and 16 combined. So a total of 360 beds and then 157 beds and geo facilities. The court civic contract is from today until the end June 30th of 2020. End of the state fiscal year. Correct. Correct. Okay. And. If I did the simple math in the course of a contract is $6,680,446 in $0.70. If I do the simple math again, the core civic math gets $60.05 per resident per day. And again, as I said, the Jio contract gets $100.31 per resident per day. Can you help me understand why one is almost double the other? Councilman Hines So again, it has to do with the specialized program services. So as we've discussed, GEO has the cognitive behavioral treatment program that has a certain rate, I believe it's 5317 on top of the base bed so that those two numbers combine to pay for the CBT program. The William St Center is just the 4845 when we're talking about Core Civic. You have base bed rates across all four facilities. You have a sex offender population at our value program that receives enhanced dollars, you have facility payments. So of course Civic receives for facility payments where GEO only receives two. And then the correctional treatment fund allocation is is proportionate to the number of residents they serve. So, of course, CORECIVIC would have nearly double the correctional treatment fund allocation as well. So in trying to do the math, the way you're you're doing it, you're operating without all the information. And I believe it's similar to a question that Councilwoman CdeBaca asked at the August 5th hearing, and I'd be happy to sit down and walk through the funding lines. But it's not as simple as saying each resident gets X dollars per day. And why doesn't the math work? Yeah. And again, we had more time. It was I was under the understanding that that you were going to send that information out. But had I had more time, I would certainly have asked for that in advance of tonight's conversation, if I might add, this gentleman so I don't have the ability to change the per diem rates or to award more to one provider or another. The providers get the same rate, whether you're GEO or CORECIVIC in Denver or whether you're I6 in Jefferson County or whether you're Larimer County up in Fort Collins that's established by the legislature. So the only discretion that the city of Denver have is how much total money to allocate based upon utilization. We don't have the authority to change rates of reimbursement. Those are established by the General Assembly. Thank you, Mr. President. I have additional questions. I see someone else in the queue. Do you mind if I yield for other people's questions? It would be great. I appreciate that. And we'll come back to you. Councilwoman CdeBaca. Perfect segue. Segway Thank you, Mr. President. My question I understand you don't have the ability or authority to change per diem, but my question is about Denver's community corrections division. What is the full budget of that department? And the councilwoman said, Mike, just to clarify, are you talking about within the Community Corrections Department and underneath the Department of Safety, we administer three programs for the city. We have residential community corrections, which is part of the system or program we're talking about tonight. We have pretrial assessment and release services. And then we also administer the county's home confinement or in-home detention program. So the total budget for all three programs are just for the Residential Community Corrections Program. If you have it broken down into three parts, that would be awesome. I have approximate numbers off the top of my head. So the Community Corrections Residential program is roughly $18 million and that money is received from the state of Colorado. All but $600,000 is passed through to the providers. Again, we have four different providers that operate ten facilities in the county. The city of Denver keeps $600,000 to administer the program. So that's that supports the work of the Community Corrections Board. It funds positions in my office to provide technical assistance to providers as we move in the direction of infusing evidence based principles into the programs. It also pays for regulatory and audit work that's done by my staff as well. So with that 600 annually, how many staff do you guys have in your department? The allocation for community corrections is 5.4 FTE. And then just to just to go back to the question you asked about the total budget, the the direct services we provide, which are general fund from the county is approximately $5 million for the pretrial release and the home confinement program. Altogether. That's correct. And that's that's approximately 5050. Okay. And back to the 600, those 5.4 stuff. Can you describe to me a little bit more about what they do, considering we're primarily a pass through for the state dollars? When you say audits. When you say administration, what does that look like? Councilwoman CdeBaca So the model in Colorado for community corrections is one of local, local support or local control. So they're pastor dollars, but the responsibility kind of center statutorily with the Community Corrections Board. So community corrections boards in our state do two things they decide or authorize which individuals is referred from either the Department of Corrections or the courts or approved for placement. And they also make recommendations on which providers operate in a specific geographical, judicial district or county. Now, the way the ordinance reads for the Denver Community Corrections Board, it is advisory to the Department of Safety on policy matters related to community corrections. And there are roughly 94 standards promulgated by the Division of Criminal Justice, which is the state agency that has regulatory and funding oversight of community corrections. Not only does the state office conduct regular audits and visits to enforce those standards, but that's part of our responsibility as a local jurisdiction as well. So I have three staff that are compliance coordinators. And their job is to measure program performance to those 94 standards. They're also there to support the work of the programs. We view the network of ten facilities in Denver as a single program underneath our jurisdiction. We have a gamut of services. So there are times where they need technical assistance around statewide initiatives like contingency management or you've heard this term before called a matrix. It's a it's a case plan that takes into account offender risk and need and stabilization factors. So they go and watch individuals assessing, completing the assessments and working with clients on their case plans to make sure that there's fidelity to the model. In addition, I have one one dedicated FTE that processes all 2000 referrals each year from the Department of Corrections and from the courts. A portion of my salary is charged to the Community Corrections Fund to do work to support community corrections. And finally, we have a business manager that pays bills and manages the finances. Thank you. Let's see. Real quick before I pass it on. I will let the others ask questions. But I do want to get back to the community advisory group that was agreed to. With these renegotiated contracts and I know that's not something the public is seeing here in the Bills tonight, but we'd love to discuss it a little more. And so I want to save that till the end of the conversation. So I will let the next person speak. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman Ortega. Thank you, Mr. President. Greg, can you just outline the process that someone has to go through to get into one of the community correction beds? Yes, Councilwoman Ortega. So on the Department of Corrections side, there are statutory eligibility requirements that one has to meet for nonviolent individuals, for individuals convicted of a nonviolent offense. They can be referred to community corrections 16 months prior to their parole eligibility date for violent offenders. That's at six months when a referral from the Department of Corrections is generated. It's typically sent to the County of parole destination. It means that person has declared that location is where they want to reside on parole. And after their release from the Department of Corrections, the referral travels to to my office. That single staff person reviews the referral. They score the referral when I say they score the referral. Denver was the first jurisdiction to adopt a decision making tool, which takes the elements of risk assessment and structure decision making to make more consistent and uniform decisions so that staff member scores the tool. It's then presented to the Community Corrections Board, and they have the authority to say yes or no to the placement that they say yes. That referral then travels to a program. Statutorily, each community corrections program also has the right to accept or refuse a placement. So essentially it's a dual yes to get into community corrections from the EOC. Similarly, on the direct sentence individuals. So there's some confusion when I say direct sentence, these are not municipal level offenders. These are individuals who have failed or are failing or not eligible for felony level probation. And the district court in Denver has determined they're appropriate for a community based sentence. So the district court will sentence an individual to community corrections. That referral will then travel in a similar way that I described for Doxey. It comes to my office and then to the board, but the community board and a program has to agree to that sentence up to that placement as well. So an individual can't say this is the facility I want to go to. That's determined by what beds are available and whether or not that opening, whoever runs that facility, is willing to take that person. That's been approved by the Community Correction Board. Correct, Councilwoman? So it's based upon sort of service need. It could be gender responsive. It could be DRC assignment. We're doing a pretty neat thing in Denver with respect to the direct sentence population. Part of the responsibilities to the earlier question that my team does is they'll review assessment data for the direct sentences, or they'll meet with the client in jail and do an assessment. And we've embraced this concept of treatment matching. We know from the evidence that if we can match a client to their assessed level of care, we stand a better chance to have improved outcomes and reduce recidivism. So. When these contracts were not moved forward. There were some suggestions by people that spoke that these clients that are in the programs could be put on ankle monitors and basically be released to go back into their homes, assuming, you know, most of them have homes to go back to. Can you just speak to what authority locally we would have in being able to approve something like that? So let's start with the Department of Corrections population councilwoman. So the parole decision is controlled by the State Parole Board, which is appointed by the governor, the Community Corrections Board, nor the city of Denver has any decision making in the parole decision. So in order for someone to be paroled, whether it be because of a decision or just because they've sort of reached a point in their placement that they're ready, that's done by the parole board. They also have to be statutorily eligible. I just mentioned a minute ago that individuals can be placed in community corrections six months prior to even being parole eligible. So if you have a client that's met that timeline, then they're not even eligible per statute. The ankle bracelet program at the state level for doxy clients is called ASP inmate. That is a decision made by D.O.C. again in terms of statutory timeframes when one is eligible. The D.O.C. has to initiate a referral. Now the Community Corrections Board does have to accept or support an individual moving to ACP, but it is controlled a referral by D.O.C.. The direct sentence population remains under the jurisdiction of the court, so the court can modify the sentence, but it still requires the court to take action. So when we were discussing worst case scenario, if the contracts are not approved, individuals under direct sentences will be returned to our jail. It will create complete chaos within the courts to get them redacted, to look at the sentencing structure and make independent individual decisions on each and every direct sentence. I'm going to ask you one last question, then I have one other question of someone else in the audience. There was an article in the paper this morning, and Christina from the KRC was quoted basically giving sort of an opinion and and sort of summary of the operations of the different facilities. And I guess my question for you is, having having been with the city for so long overseeing these programs. If we did not have community correction facilities in our city, what would be the alternative to people being released from prison? Councilwoman Ortega So if residential community corrections didn't exist in Denver, individuals would have coming out of DC would either reach their mandatory release date and be ordered to parole for a period of supervision by the parole department. Or if the parole board thought they were appropriate, there could be discretion discretionary released on parole supervision. They can also be referred to ISP at a certain point, but in order to be on ISP supervision, you have to have housing, you have to have stability. You typically have to be employed and have some level of savings to support yourself in an independent living situation. So I would say absent community corrections, you would see a potentially higher rate of individuals who released without housing to Denver County. You would see a higher rate of individuals without supportive, you know, care and quite honestly don't have a place just to kind of reside and stabilize while they come back to the community. And we talk about D.O.C., but let's talk about the direct sentences, because absent community corrections is an intervention. Those individuals have failed at probation, are not eligible. So if you take away community corrections is a sentencing option. You're looking at either a county jail sentence in some cases or Department of Corrections sentence. I'm going to ask. I believe he's still in the audience. Reverend Kelly, are you still here? Would you mind coming up to the microphone? I have a question for you. Reverend Kell, you've been working in our community for many, many years. And and you work with a lot of people who have gone into our prison system and then come back out. And I just wanted to ask you your opinion about the value of us having a local community correction program. And then just ask if you have had any contact from individuals that are in the facilities. And what kind of contact that has been since these contracts had been voted down? You know, a lot of folks refer to the communication as half way out. Many of them felt that, okay, they took accountability, the ability of their actions, the crimes, whatever. And they were willing to do whatever is necessary to get to the next point of freedom. And those who are understanding what the guidelines are, who are still incarcerated, they work hard to do what needed to be done to get to be eligible to get halfway house considerations. There are those who feel like they have. Accomplished what has been asked of them. There are those who are feel a sense of redemption. I am sorry. What do I need to do to make this right? How do I go back to my community and deal with, you know, make it in the establishment of a new life? And so once they are eligible and for a halfway house scenario, you know, many of them are motivated and motivates them to continue to stay focused on what they need to do to get there. And there are many who would call me and call my office and maybe somebody could help me understand what a pre you have a prepaid collect phone call that that doesn't even sound right in the same sentence you know, because I'm still paying for it. But but they call me, they say. Rev, man, I. Finally became eligible to be considered to go to a halfway house. And they are doing what? And I accomplished this. I understood that. So it's been a motivator for them to, you know, to get to the point of being halfway free, those who finally, you know, get that call from the controllers. In our case, managers said that because of your accomplishment, you're eligible. You're getting ready to make the next move. And those are just excitement that you would think that these are criminals, these are convicts, these are but they are those people who are really trying to deal with redemption. And so as they find themselves making that transition, getting to the halfway house and being it truly hall and being at William Street, you know, has been two of the ones that I've been dealing with, knowing what core civics Dahlia Fox, you know. Those those guys. And the girls over at William Street, they said, man, I'm finally here. I'm finally able to come back to the community, you know, that I've done harm to and to try to make things right. Listen, in the wake of all of this that have just happened over the last couple of weeks, I've been inundated with calls and of concern from grandparents, from significant others, from kids saying, okay, what does that mean? Does it mean my mommy daddy going back to jail? Does it mean that those who are finally made the oh, and your mate made the did what they needed to do to become eligible for this? That means they're on hold their on state. There's a lot of people who are in jail right now. It's a real what do we do? Grandma said, what do we do? Why? Significant upset. What do we do? We're talking about the wait list. The people that are. Waiting and waiting. Yes, those. So it was just and then, you know, you know, beyond all that, my thing is, even if we are talking about taking it from the private sector to the nonprofit and all of that, the thing is, if that's going to happen, it's going to happen. But what do we do between now and that time? That has been the biggest concern that many of these grandma and people who call me. What do we do within this period of time if they are talking about consideration of putting things together until other things happen? Okay. That's one thing that we look at, you know, but when you've got a couple of people who said, what's the point? I have lost faith in the system. I've told been told what I needed to do to get to this next level. Now, I've done all of that. Now what? Now what? Now. Just like that. The carpet could be pulled from up under my feet. And you know, now, when I say that we are dealing with a big problem of immigration and whatever is a little bit up there. Okay. But I am speaking for those who feel like we are just collateral damage in this war. We are down here, you know, and nobody's talking. And maybe even right now to be in a position to talk with the ground people, the people down here, what do we do? What we do? You know, now, I would like to think that the city council, once you made this vote, you looked at the overall picture and considered that, okay, if we stop this, what do we do? What do we do? So speaking, that is our take. You know, I think those of you who know me over the years, you know, unless I feel really adamant about a cause and reason, I even say that I'm a victim. Won't say a victim. No, no. I take that back. You know, I went through William Street almost 40 years ago. I knew the value I would in to the system. What a college degree. But yet I found myself going through the system. And one of the part of the system was at William Street, the months I spent there, and I had to just understand what I had to do to get to the next point of freedom. Being able to show the city, show other folks here myself that I'm willing to do what it took to get to the next level. Thank you for that input. I appreciate it. I have no further questions. Thank you. Councilman Ortega, before I go to the next councilmember, I know we have some new people have come in since I made this announcement, but our fire code does not allow people to stand in any of the aisles, including that back aisle. So either need to squeeze in or we have overflow next door and 432 down in 391. I know there are a lot of people here for this item. And so if you're not here for this item. You know, please grab a seat and overflow so that folks who are here can grab a seat now. And I'm sure that seats will free up as we move through our agenda. I would appreciate that so that we can just make sure that the fire department stays happy with us. Councilman Cashman. Thank you, Mr. President. Greg, thank you. So what we keep hearing the number of 517 beds. Does this mean over a year's period of time we serve 517 residents in those beds? Or is there more or less? Well. So Councilman Cashman so it's actually more so when we talk in terms of of language of bed, that bed will typically flip over almost twice in a year, roughly 6 to 8 months for a male in community corrections. If they're successful, they'll leave after 6 to 8 months in placement. And for females, it's 7 to 9. So anywhere between 1.5 and two times that bed will flip over. So you're talking closer to 900 to 1000 individuals that are affected. Over the course of a year. Thank you. The other question I have. I've been on a committee for the past year and a half or maybe two years looking at the possibility of reinstituting in-person visitation in our jails. And I know we're moving towards that slowly out at county and a little bit more slowly than that at the downtown detention center. Can you explain today if a significant other a friend, a family member, a child wants to visit someone who's in our city jails? What is the process? Councilman So are you asking about the visitation for the city jails or for community. Corrections city jails? If someone's in jail now. Then I can't speak to. I don't. I would ask someone from the Denver Sheriff's Department or Director Riggs, maybe. He just stepped out. Well, but I believe they're not in person, obviously. So I can tell you for I think the last decade or. More. Because of concerns over contraband coming in to our jails. The option, there's been video visitation. So you go down to the jail lobby and there are video screens and the inmate is on a video screen inside their pod. And that's the the current method of visitation. So it is if someone's in our halfway houses, what's the visitation option there? Yeah. Thank you for that question, Councilman. So every facility is going to have slightly different processes to approve a visitor. But generally speaking, family and even support systems friends can visit in person at the Community Corrections Program as a resident gained stability and progresses in their treatment plan. They are also allowed to go home on short window passes or 4 to 6 hour passes. So as we begin that stabilization of reentry, there is a connection to family. I know it's not a program that's affected by the decision tonight, but I'd also talk about, you know, the contract is coming up for the University of Colorado and the Arts program. Here you have a program, the haven, that works with women who have severe addiction. They can be pregnant or even have infant children that can live on site with mom where treatment is provided, a mom daycare is provided to child and then mom and baby connect. So there's tremendously tremendous advantages to kind of in-person visitation for family and children and community corrections. Right. And I would just offer, since our on this topic that the reason we're looking at returning to in-person visitation is because of the evidence that how important that is to the family members as well as the inmate that that in-person contact take place. Thank you, Mr. President. That's all I have. Thank you, Councilman. Councilwoman Torres. Thank you, Mr. President. I miss tomorrow. Can you talk a little bit about how. Our capacity has changed over the. Years and how long we've been at 700 or so? Has it grown? Has it dropped? So Councilman, community corrections has had periods of growth. You know, the program itself was was developed in 1974, and we started with programs at William Street Center at Independence House because. I believe there were another program or two at the time. And we stayed relatively in that 3 to 400 bed range until about 2001, two and three, where we saw additional facilities come online at that point. Community corrections was again expanded in 2008. There were. Four facilities that qualified for an expansion proposal that required a change of the zoning code, increasing the number of residents at each facility in four locations. So the cap is raised from 60 to 90 a course of Fox and 60 to 120 at three other programs. But since 2008, there has been no additional bed capacity expansion in Denver. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. All right, Councilman Hines. Looks like we're back to you. Thank you, Mr. President. So I realized in my notes that I'd neglected one silly question. Well, one question about. Slavery just about the Constitution. So in 2018, Colorado amended its constitution to remove slavery entirely from the Constitution, including for those convicted of a crime. So is it possible in Colorado to require work for people who have been convicted of a crime in Colorado? You're asking, Councilman, what happens in the residential facilities as far as work assignments? I would defer to a city attorney to interpret sort of a ruling there. Fair statement. Okay. I'll just I can respond to to what happens as far as in the facility. Sure. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. So, you know, as part of living in a home. Right. We all have chores. So that's replicated in residential community corrections programs. Individuals are assigned chores. Wiping down a wall, wiping down a table, cleaning a restroom. They cannot make any facility improvements. They cannot add value to the program. They may paint internal walls and they may do other odds and ends, but they're not there to provide any service that increases the value of the facility. So like painting fences or outside or repairing fences or pest control, nothing along those lines. Yeah. Councilman So I'm actually glad you brought that up because that was reported in an article that there had been an allegation of an individual or set of individuals to erect a fence at one of the facilities. I had my team go out and visit all the sites today and talk to residents and examine what's going on according to the individual that completed that chore. He volunteered to raise a single pole on an existing fence and was happy to do so. And pest control. There's nothing that like they would leave that to a professional or something along those lines. Yeah. Councilman Hines, we've actually looked at pest control records specifically at Corecivic Fox recently and can see that monthly there are exterminator visits. So we pull that information and look as well. So that's done professionally as well. Okay. We've also received documents about the quality of the meals provided to residents there, alleging that the meals are substandard and that there isn't an adequate amount of food available to residents. So just are meals provided to residents, is there? There was specifically about cereal if if someone wanted to eat cereal, is milk available to the resident? If someone doesn't want cereal, are there other breakfast options available to the residents? Councilman Hines So the one of the one of those 94 standards speaks to nutrition and dietary values. So the facilities are required to provide three meals per day. One of them has to be a hot meal. The other two can be breakfast cereal or, you know, a sack lunch if the folks are going out to work. But they're all approved by a dietitian that's reviewed by my staff and the state. So the nutritional value is there. I can't speak to the taste. I'm sure it doesn't taste very good. But yeah, so I think taste is an opinion anyway. So I recognize that. But so because that's a requirement, is it? I mean there's, there's a requirement and then there's what actually happens. You're saying that it actually the requirements are followed through and the Denver facilities. I'm saying that we review those requirements, and if they're not followed through, it'll be a finding in an audit report. Okay. Thank you. So I, I mentioned documents that that we've received. I'd like to give you an opportunity to respond to them. And again, if we could do this in a different form, I would prefer that. But here we are. So one of the one of the documents that received there was a I'll just quote it quote, I'm here I'm currently here on nonviolent charges, and I've done everything they've asked me to do. The problem is, they want you to go through a matrix to get out of here. And the case managers drag their feet to make sure that you have to stay here longer than need be. Is that I am concerned about the quote because, you know, it says the system is set up to maximize the stay and maximize the profit. And I would I certainly think that we, you know, having rehabilitation as a place, you know, has a place. And I think that taxpayers would say, you know, that that's a wise investment of taxpayer dollars. I'm not sure that it would be a wise investment to pay for for profit prisons. So I would just want to give you an opportunity to respond to that. Sure. Councilman, so a couple of things. The concept that programs would extend a placement for profit motive. If you think about it, it's a logical there's over 230 people on the waitlist today waiting to come into the programs. There's 59 in our jail waiting to come into the programs. So there's no shortage of somebody to to fill that bed. The matrix that you refer to is an evidence informed strategy that was developed by the State Division of Criminal Justice in consultation with programs and community boards to standardize how clients move through a program. We wanted to make sure that if you were placed in program A or program C, you received the same level of care. That matrix consists of both stability and risk reduction measures within it, and so individuals are going to move at different paces. I don't know, because it was an anonymous complaint as to that person's status, but if they're moving on the dock side, it might be because they're not eligible or the parole board didn't parole them. If they're referred for ISP, it could be that DOC hasn't completed the home investigation to approve that placement. Typically on a direct sentence, they move pretty quickly to nonresidential supervision. And you mentioned 6 to 8 months for mail, 5 to 7 months for female, or do I have this backwards? You're close to a male is 6 to 8 months roughly for a general population client and 7 to 9 for a female resident. And and you're right. These are anonymous. These quotes are anonymous to me. And it sounds like to you as well. We did have a third party verify that these actually are quotes from people who are in one of these facilities. It doesn't mean that the quotes are accurate, just that someone in one of these facilities said it. So I'm going to give you another opportunity to respond to a quote. Quote Right now, I'm appalled at their behavior as they're using residents all day, every day to make the place look good and presentable. When for months I was here, they had toilets that overflowed. No sitting outside, 20 prairie dogs living in the back, no utensils to eat with many times, not if not enough food for everyone to eat, end quote. So I just want to make sure that we're maximizing treatment and reentry instead of profit for a for profit corporation . Councilman, I can appreciate that. And that's why, you know, the Community Corrections Board in my office take those complaints very seriously. You know, we we touched a little bit upon the level of regulation in addition to the State Division of Criminal Justice and their Office of Community Corrections. You have the Community Corrections Board, you have my office. You have building inspections with the city, you have neighborhood inspections with the city. You have a Department of Corrections liaison that is assigned to each facility. You have a judicial department, probation officer that's a liaison on the court side. You have the Office of Behavioral Health that completes audits of these programs. So I think everybody is committed to ensuring that clients are safe and that they have an opportunity to to make the changes that we all seek. You mentioned a lot of inspections, and I wasn't able to get them all. But but you mentioned building a neighborhood inspections. How often do those occur? I believe for a neighborhood and building, I think they're I believe their annual. And then if there's a finding, there's a follow up. And is that through corrections or is that you saying that's just a function to the city? No, that's to the city. And as a function of the role of these buildings, not as. And just because it's a building in Denver. Correct? I mean, so Councilman. So the I mean, I guess what I made the point that I was making is that the buildings are looked at by the appropriate officials for safety and security. You have correctional professionals locally and at the state looking at it from a client care perspective. You have licensing agents, the division of Behavioral Health. If it's a substance use or mental health program, licensing them, ensuring that the quality of care is too standard. Okay. Still going. Sorry, Mr. President. So another quote that I had and it says, The sad thing is that I work a ten hour day and I have to come back and have mandatory general inspection cleaning every single night in order to have this place looking good. Is is there what is mandatory general inspection cleaning and is it every night, Councilman? I think I wrote that complaint because after working a 12 hour day today, I have to go home and clean my house with my wife. I think we all have chores. And that's the point is, is these are chores. These are not, you know, completing facility renovations because, you know, someone's profiting on me being in placement. They might have to mop the floor. They have to keep their room tidy. These are just basic life skills to running a facility and quite honestly, a behavior that should be reinforced as people reintegrate from an institutional setting into independent living. And see, I think the next quote is, has already been asked and answered. So let's. I think I want to yield the floor one more time to Councilwoman CdeBaca if if she has additional questions or whoever's on the list. Thank you, Councilman. Councilwoman CdeBaca. Thank you, Mr. President. I actually would like to bring up two people, and while they come up are Candace Bailey and Dr. Calderon. I would like to make it clear that we are not the concept of community corrections is not on trial tonight. I think that we all agree that community corrections are necessary and provide an extreme benefit to our our folks reentering society after incarceration. I think the issue tonight is really about the corporations that indeed are profiting off of community corrections. Mr. Morrow said that these chores are not because someone is profiting off of this labor, and I disagree completely. That is exactly why we are working with private prison companies because they do see a bottom line benefit in this work. I would love to ask Candace Bailey, who herself has some experience with these facilities, to speak on her experience because unlike many of the people who may be in this room currently in corrections, she is no longer in corrections. And I think that that is a protection that people who are speaking out don't currently have. A lot of people who are currently in community corrections don't have the luxury of being the whistleblowers. In fact, we have had many who have blown that whistle anonymously, and Dr. Calderon will speak to some of those complaints. But we are very concerned that even after these contracts go through, that those people will be retaliated against for speaking out on their experience. And so I do want to ask what remedies are possible to make sure that our offices are getting monthly reports on who is being sent back and why, just so we can track and make sure that nobody is being targeted for telling the truth about their experience. Ms.. Bailey, would you mind telling us a little bit about what you know of these facilities, specifically the women's ones that you've encountered? So. Excuse me. Council City. So my history goes way back. I was incarcerated. I was in the Department of Corrections in the early 2000s. I ended up going to a halfway house here locally. I ran the gambit and I regress myself. From the halfway house. Many people would say, why you met all the criteria that Mr. Morrow had talked about. You had worked so hard to get everywhere that you wanted to be. You had children to go home to. You had an objective. I had an education behind me. I was ahead of the curve. However, I had a violent crime, which put me way at the bottom of the list. So when you talk about placement into community corrections, you have to think about the fact that the Department of Corrections is an overarching adversary and they have their own set of rules, and then people are funneled through this system that Department of Correction has. And you've got to go through. Could be any of a number of things, many that we won't discuss while I'm at this podium, because it is the dehumanization while within those facilities that carries over into our communities. We're talking about community corrections. We were talking about placing a new form of penitentiary in our community. So I'm looking at some of. My sisters over here because I understand where you are. I have been where you are. I am on the other side of the fence. And I say to you, if we do not examine. Our rules, if you could just address counsel and not the audience. Thank you. I apologize. I believe that what happens next is dependent not only on what the city council believes and what they do next, but also in what we do next as a community, as a city, as a state, as a country. We have the opportunity in front of us to change everything. We have community members who are out here doing the work who have experience from inside of the walls. It is proven that peer to peer advocacy is the greatest impact. We're behind. We're far behind. We are one of eight states who has not adopted this into what we do, into what we do. I actually work in the Division of Youth Services as a family advocate, and so I am the epitome of what we should be moving to because I have the experience, the understanding, the education, the knowledge and the community presence. I know what the issues are that the woman here face, that the men who are in community corrections face. We have the opportunity to have community led co-ops to look into during this time while our contract is now being approved for the next 6 to 12 months. What are we doing? We have a timeline where we need to look at land and zoning. We have to look at this. We are not warehousing human beings. We are human beings. We want our human rights back. Okay? We are not less than you. We are equal to you. We actually pay. We pay taxes for this. And so there is something that is happening when there is a trifecta of payments. So you're getting payment from the federal government, you're getting payment from the people who live in the city and county, and you're getting payment from the people who need to come back out and be supported, loved and embraced by our communities to be healthy members of society. And we are failing with a big fat F based on profits and not people. There are human beings who are affected on all sides of the fence. And during this time that you were looking at these contracts, I implore you to look at the human beings, because those testimonies that you're hearing that are anonymous are afraid of retribution. They are afraid. You get food in these places. This is not for human consumption. Okay? Now we can either feed the system. Or we can do something completely different. Completely. It is our. Choice. We will lead the country and we have to take the steps to do so. We have to. Thank you. Because you. I'm sorry, Councilman, could you just state your name for the record so that we have it on the official record? Thank you. I apologize. Candace Bailey. Thank you. Thank you. Dr. Calderon, can you speak to some of those anonymous complaints that we've been getting via phone, via letter, via email regarding the conditions in the facilities in question? Lisa Calderon, chief of staff. For Councilwoman Candi CdeBaca, also have a doctorate in. Reentry and best practices. First, I want to just say I want to thank the folks who do this hard work of reentry, reintegration, rehabilitation. It is hard work. I know I've done it and I know it's often thankless. And I know that people often critique your your work. You're working long, hard hours. We're also standing up for those complaints, those complainants who do work in these facilities. Who have been afraid to speak out in about these facilities, about their working conditions, about their long hours, about not being fairly compensated, including for the breadth of training, experience and degrees that they have, including hearing from some of them who hadn't been paid until the negotiations for this contract started moving forward. So we're also standing up for the rights of workers. As well as. For the rights of residents. So I want to make that clear. The kinds of complaints we've also been getting from residents. I think Councilman. Hines pointed many of those out, but they run along. They run along the kind of themes of basically labor that when you have worked an eight or ten hour day and having to come home to do chores. These are adults. These are not children. And I would like to see the evidence that shows that making people do disciplinary chores makes them a better person. That's not actually what the research shows. Right. So I'm a big believer in cognitive behavioral approaches. I understand that some of the facilities actually implement that, but chores is not part of that research. We've also heard around having chores that were potentially put people at risk. Such as clearing out prairie dogs and things like. That, things that they should not be required to do and are potentially a violation of labor standards. So for those reasons, we are. When we met with director Greg Morrow and. Executive Director. Of Public Safety Troy Riggs. One of our non-negotiables. Was to. Have a hotline. For complaints. And Greg outlined kind of all of the oversight committees or. Agencies. That oversee the these these residences. But that's a bureaucracy upon bureaucracy. Upon bureaucracy. And what we're hearing is that people don't feel safe going to these bureaucracies. They also don't feel safe when they cannot report anonymously. And people know that they have to go through a process of inquiry. They're not asking us to automatically believe them. What they're asking is, please look at this, pay attention. Please investigate this because we are afraid. In fact, we even had a resident report to us that. Their cell phone. Was taken away by a civic. By civic administration. Look through their emails and texts to see if they had been corresponding with Councilwoman, see the box office. And once it was confirmed that that person was, they basically let them know in a nice way that we see what you're doing. And, yes, you have a right to complain. But the very nature of taking. Someone's phone for exercising. Their rights to be. Heard and their freedom of. Speech is quite disturbing. That is and also also not. An evidence based. Practice for reintegration. And then finally, I just want to say, you know, I want to. Make sure that this false narrative gets debunked, that it's either these halfway houses as we're currently conceiving them or nothing. We know that people do better coming out of incarceration when they have transitional services. That is not in dispute here. The question is what kind of transitional services are effective? And we have a transitional housing halfway house model that is based on an old standard. And so what we need to do is re-envision. How we have halfway houses. As opposed to warehousing. The fact that we. Zone halfway houses in warehouse districts tell you how we value people coming out of incarceration. So let's stop with the false. Narrative that no one wants transitional. Services people do. The question is what kind and should a private corporation be the one to lead that? We are you know, it should be community based. And one last quick point. Our pioneer for halfway houses was the late, great Dr. Elaine Smith, who opened a group living in five points. A black woman. We need to get back to the roots of community based reentry, rehabilitative and residential services. We've done it before. We've had county run community. Corrections as late as. 2013. In our city, we need to go back to that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman Hines. Thank you, Mr. President. So I want to direct to Riggs I'm sorry to her tomorrow. We we had our conversation on the 5th of August, if I'm getting my dates correct. The next council meeting was the 12th, and we discussed two premises on steel in Council District nine. They were zoned i a and we asked several questions about those two particular premises and with regards to whether they could house halfway homes. Are you are you familiar with those particular properties? Councilman Hines I'm familiar with one, I believe, and we followed up to the request from the floor the night of the fifth. 4650 still was the address. And according to community planning and development, there are space and buffer issues. With that site being zoned. It would require a variance from the Board of Adjustments and we provided that information to Councilwoman CdeBaca. Sorry. And, and it was definitely within a space that where that would be granted. It's significantly far from actual residences. It's behind the old pilot off of I-70 and Vazquez and I don't see why the use would be a problem when all of these other facilities are much closer to residences. So I think the question becomes, can it be done without action of the Board of Adjustment? And the answer to that is no. So it would require a variance. Okay. And so I also think you I want to echo what Councilwoman CdeBaca said and Dr. Calderon as well, that what is. And a concern for me is not about reentry services. My concern is making sure that we were stewards of residents of Denver and the taxpayer dollars. And I want to make sure that we put people above profit. And and we've had I mean, it's well-documented that these companies at a national level are problematic. I think that's a very careful word to use. They've been a result of numerous lawsuits, settlements and nationally and even here in Colorado. And we just want to make sure that that we're doing right by the people here in Colorado and by the end and the residents in Denver and the taxpayers in Denver. So I am absolutely on board with with the the concept of community corrections and halfway houses. My concern is, is these particular vendors. So at. I hope that if we do renew these contracts this this evening, that that the message has been delivered that we're very interested in and ensuring that we have vendors that are good actors and good stewards of taxpayer dollars that work responsibly. So thank you. And I'm sorry, would you like to say anything about that? I actually have a question for President Clark. May I respond to a statement that was made by Dr. Calderon? I think it's important to just provide the an accurate fact about salaries that, you know, when it comes to geo, of course, if I just want the council have the information. Good. So if I heard correctly, the statement was that salaries were only increased in during this contract negotiation period. That's not accurate. I will tell you that Core Civic originally and then Geo followed suit with raising the starting salary for both their entry level security staff and case managers long before these contracts came before council. Such as? They're not here. They're in the audience, but they're not at this podium. And I just want to be transparent and honest with this council. What happened there? Thank you. Councilman Hinds, are you all done? I'm sorry. I have one more question. Does a burn? The Columbine facility has 60 men, correct? Correct. How many showers does it have? I don't know. Off the top of my head is the answer one. No, no, no, no. There again, there's a standard. There's a standard that governs the number of of toilets, showers, sink basins. I can ask the corps civic representative who's in the audience if you want the exact answer, or I can follow up. But the answer is not one. That's that's not accurate. I went there. I live across the street from me. And I asked them and they said that there is only one shower, that there's multiple heads. But because of the the the the Rape Protection Act or whatever, they can't shower more than one person at a time. So it's functionally only one shower for 60 residents. May I? May we call? Do we have the folks from course, the vicar in this facility who can respond to this? Thank you, Shannon. Class with Core Civic. To answer your question about showers on top of my head, I am not aware how many showers are, but they do meet the DC standards and there are one shower room with multiple heads. You're correct. And then there's another shower room that has one for 88. So what does that mean functionally? How many of those showerheads can be used at one time? Everyone that's in there. I would say it's a lot more like a gym locker room type shower. That's thank you. But that's not what the staff there reported, nor the residents there. Okay. I'm sorry. That's what's accurate. Councilman Hines Jordan. Thank you, Mr. President. Councilman Ortega. I have three questions. The first one is just by show of hands. Are there any folks in the audience who currently are in any of these programs? Okay. Can I get someone to volunteer to just come up and just share your thoughts, your experience? I'd like maybe just one or two. We're not going to call everybody up because we've got a full agenda tonight. So how about a female and a male? Okay. So we've got one and two is a these these two individuals. Okay. I think we're going to go with these two for the council. If you could state your name for the record and then answer the council women's question. Thank you. My name is April Cotton. And which program are you in? April? I'm in William Street. Okay. Can you just share your experiences there? Are you finding that being in this program is helping you reactivate back into community and get you prepared for when your release date finally comes to that, you'll you feel like you're being equipped with the right tools to be successful. I absolutely do. I just did ten years in DWC. If I came to William Street not wanting to really do anything because I had no guidance even out of prison. They don't have cell phones. So you don't know where Google is. You didn't know absolutely anything. So when I first got to William Street, I was real shut off. I was scared. I was nervous. I just did ten years. So in my. Mind, I was institutionalized. But after being there for maybe a month, still doubting things started changing for me. I ended up getting assigned a wonderful case manager. I was showed how to use a phone. I was showed about Denver, Colorado, because I'm a native from California. I was given resources to get a lot of things done for myself. I was able to get back in the well, good. Good standards of my family. They were offered to come see me. Then shortly after that, I expressed my dear love for the food industry. Well, someone from corporate heard me talk, came down in safe served serve safe, certified me with the manager, served safe so I can go out and get a job so I can be just. Please hold me like that. Please hold your applause so that we. Can be sure to hear everything. He made sure. To believe in me, to give. Me that go when I had issues in community corrections. Because we all do when things don't go our way. We will do things like pick up and email you because we're upset because either we got the class one ride up for being off location or either we was out there relapsing and now we need a scapegoat. And that's where you guys come in. So what we do is when things happen to us, we I picked up the phone and I called Mr. Moreau. I said, I'm having an issue and I don't know what to do. He gave me the best advice that anybody could give me. And that advice still makes me stand before you today. I am somebody now. I am a resident, a proud one at William Street, and G.O. has done everything for me. Community Corrections stands for reformation, preparation for our destination and goes done just that. Everybody said that, but nobody said the good. Nobody looked at the good the guy was doing. I was in prison ten years lost, and now I am one of the best people that I can be. And I thank God for Geo. And I emailed you, Miss Gilmore, expressing that she's sorry. You are rules that you have to talk to counsel as a whole not call individual council member. Councilman Ortega, have you. Thank you. I appreciate your input. I like the gentleman. Before we do that, just a couple ground rules. An important part of democracy is making sure that we have a safe space for people on both sides of an issue. And this issue is is very sensitive and sensitive for everyone. And so I will ask that you not applaud and do those things. We want this to be a safe space for everyone. I appreciate you taking time to share with us. I just want the audience to be respectful of everyone who might have different opinions. Let's hear what everyone has to say. Make sure that we can hear that and create a safe space for everyone on every side of this issue to speak. So thank you very much, Councilwoman here. This gentleman right here, is that who you'd like if you could introduce yourself and answer the councilman's questions? Jeffrey Bradley. So I'm a resident at Solihull. Jeffrey Bradley. Okay. Jeffrey, same question. You know, I've been a and all this and it doesn't make any sense. I committed a crime. I did almost five years behind it. I still got time left on a sentence. Community corrections didn't do enough to help. I'm at a jail facility. I'm at Solihull. And like the lady just said, that people did not bend over backwards for me. I'm one of the people who voluntarily helped do work around a facility. Nobody forced us to do anything. I did it myself, keep myself occupied and learn a new skill that I had no idea I could even figure out. Oh, the food, everything like that. They feed us. They houses. Granted, we pay. When we start working, we pay the $17 a day. We do that as part of being responsible is part of life, not being in a facility. I came home from DC and committed more crimes. I would've went right back to prison. They've done nothing but opportunity award opportunity to us, so I don't see how anybody could have a problem with Jill and me personally. No, I don't think it's okay to make profit off of our dumb decisions. But it's a business. I mean, that's what everybody does. They find somebody find a way to make money. Who can fault. And for that, you know. But as in us, nobody's thinking about, oh, let's consider the contract. Let's let's shut it down. Okay, cool. We're all going back to prison. So, you know, I did almost five. I've got a friend who's a I believe he's at Columbine right now and he's been in prison 23 years. He's outside. He's got a good job. He's getting ready to go to ISP. Like he wouldn't had that opportunity. You're going to take all that from after doing a quarter century in prison and send them back over something that has nothing to do with us. It doesn't make any sense. These people have done nothing but try to help us. You know. Are you are you working right now? Yes, ma'am. So you feel like you're you're being equipped with the tools to be successful so that when you reach your release state near your release, from there you're going to be successful? Absolutely. Totally. How has the CBT program cognitive cognitive behavioral therapy? I believe I mean, cognitive thinking is something we all obviously slack and we we made horrible decisions. We did things. We sent a did we paying a price behind the tools that they gave you there? I mean, it's tools we all sort of had as kids for whatever reason. We don't possess them. Now we have them. We have the opportunity to use them. I mean, it's on us. Everything's a choice on us. You know, we got to make a choice. What are we going to do with it? You know? But I do believe, you know, when the day comes that I am able to be actually back home with my family, with my kids. I'm not going to leave them again. Will I give all that credit to them? No. I mean, I spent a lot of time in prison trying to better myself. But coming home from doing that into this residential program, it is nothing but amplify that. Everybody actually, I love them dearly and I've only been there for three and a half months. From his Louis to Miss Whitney to my case manager. So, Miss, I tell you, like, all these people will go out of their way to try to help you. So why anybody would think they're treating us any kind of way or doing anything like that, nobody's perfect. Are human beings that work everywhere, obviously is human nature. Sometimes people are just bad people. Look at us. We went to prison. But that doesn't mean these people that aren't trying to help, there's not serious issues. All these things that I'm sitting here hearing, I mean, I would rather eat sack lunches they give us every day than eat the food that they give us and D.O.C. And if this contract is a renewed, I'm going back to eat food and see do I want that now? I've spent years trying to fix my life to go backwards. I mean, it is what it is. I committed a crime. I did that. But does it suck? Absolutely. Is a desirable? Absolutely not. Thank you so much for your input. Yes. I'm going to follow up with two quick questions, Greg, for you. There was a comment made about some folks who had not been paid. And I just want you to talk about, you know, when the contracts expired and how long it had been before we were able to actually make payments to the organizations that we've had these contracts with. So the contracts expired because the contracts align with the state fiscal year and the funding source. The contracts expired in June of 19. So the vendors actually have not been paid for services. They have continued to provide services at six facilities on their own accord. Nothing prevented them from closing and returning everybody to custody. They've continued to operate all six facilities. But that's been corrected from the time that City Council approved the receipt of the funds from the State, correct? Councilwoman Ortega No, it has not been corrected that the hope tonight is. Because we haven't had all of these contracts. In place. That's right. Okay. Sorry about that. I think a couple of them did move forward, though, right? The state and independent says correct. So the the acceptance of the intergovernmental agreement from the state moved forward, as did the contract with Independence House. Okay. Last question. Either you or I saw Evan here earlier. I don't know if he left. Okay. Just talk about next steps where we move forward, assuming that we have the votes here tonight for the contracts. To be moved forward as we move towards looking at other options about how we do community corrections in Denver. So, Councilman, the first thing I'd say is we have to get this right. I mean, look at this room. It's filled it was filled on the fifth. So we have to get this right. If the contracts are approved, what we will do from the Department of Safety standpoint is stand up a 13 member committee that will be responsible to sort of look at the options that we have available. We're going to have to work closely with land use and zoning. We're going to have to look at how community corrections impacts victims, how it impacts families, how it impacts individuals. That body will contain representatives from from city council. It will contain reported representatives from the community. I will co-chair, along with a community person, which we will be seeking input from council to sort of move these conversations forward. I will tell you, it's no small feat. We have six months and 12 months to turn a massive ship. I think it's been quoted in an article to move it and turn it on a dime. And that's going to be no small feat. But we've heard council will respect where you're coming from and do everything we can to restore services. But it's going to be painful and we will see a reduction in services in the short term. It's my goal to ensure down the road that Denver's better, better for this and that we have all the services in more than we have today. But in the short time, we're going to lose services. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilwoman. Thank you very much, Mr. President. I just want to make a few brief comments. First, I just want to say that I really appreciate those who are here with lived experience. Those current and past. And I believe that it's quite possible and I believe it's true that we are hearing the true experience of people who've had very positive, affirming experiences, and that as well, it can be just as true for those folks who've either shared anonymous complaints or shared that they had a different experience to meet. And so I think that that full gamut of experience is really important to hear and to believe. And I think that what's most important for us moving forward is that we have the systems in place to ensure that where there are concerns, there are people who can hear them and handle them in ways that protects people's safety. Last time we were here on this topic, I did ask and I did get affirmation that ombudsperson is or somehow some kind of safe complaints system outside the Department of Corrections. Typical systems would be a topic of conversation for the task force. I see Mr. Morrow standing. I Unless that's changed, I don't need any comment from you, but I'm assuming yes, it's okay. So that is still a topic. I just want to make clear that I don't think we have to prove that the operators in town have somehow done malfeasance or bad things in order to decide that these are not the right partners. Right. So I don't think that we have to have a string of cases. We have a strong history in this city of saying that we want to do business with folks who are responsible contractors and their performance in other facilities in other states is relevant. We recently went through a private contractor at the airport that we had to terminate with who had a record of having issues in other communities, and we did not follow some of that evidence and we contracted with them anyway. So it does matter how they conduct business and there are times maybe things have been lumped under one provider's name that's better known. But the truth is that one of the providers does have some use in their custody, the other does not. And there are lawsuits and concerns for both of the providers we've been discussing. And so that is enough, in my opinion, for us as a council to ask questions about who we're doing business with, even if there hasn't been wrongdoing here in Denver. On the flip side, I don't think I have to prove or that you as a community or that anyone on this council has to prove that these providers are perfect in order to extend these contracts. Today, it's been very well demonstrated that there are not other pathways. And so because there are not other pathways, and it is critical that we put the individuals who are residents in a stable environment for the six month or the 12 months. Even if there are some lingering complaints that require investigation and follow up, there is not the malfeasance here that would say we can't and shouldn't extend this to provide stability to four or 500 individuals so they don't have to be, in my opinion, perfect providers for us to say that the right thing to do is to continue these contracts so it's both appropriate to continue them for the people who live there and need the stability as well as for our city to prepare. And then it's also appropriate to say that at some point in the future, when those contracts expire, that these partners don't meet our standards for how they may operate, even if it is outside our community. And I think both those things can be true and we can vote with both of those values in mind. I do just want to put on the record that I heard from several. Individuals who I had talked to prior to our hearing the last time who were, you know, voices for immigrant protection and also voices for saying we couldn't end the contracts immediately. I was surprised that that testimony did not come out in the last hearing. Instead, all of the testimony was about ending the contracts immediately. I have since heard from several of those community organizations who believe that the right step forward because of racial justice and because of the number of individuals impacted is to continue the contracts. We didn't have an open hearing tonight, so not everybody who didn't get called up here was able to testify. But I have heard from those individuals, and I do believe that we have a greater community consensus tonight about the need to continue these contracts for these short terms, for the humanity of the folks living in them while we work to responsibly wrap them down. I believed we could have gotten here last time. We didn't. I think if we'd had a few months under our belt as a council and more practices of talking to each other and negotiating with the administration, we might have gotten there, but we were not at that place. We had folks who were new and the relationships in the communication were new. But we can do the right thing tonight. I'm prepared to vote for those things with a very serious investment in the promises made both last time and tonight about the process. And I will just renew my call one more time for our community. If you care about this issue, it's important for you to open your hearts and minds as we engage in a conversation about zoning for community correctional facilities. There has been no safety related incidents in our communities. There have been virtually no complaints. It's critical for us to open up more of our neighborhoods for supervised protection of individuals. These community members are coming back to our city whether they come under supervision or not. And so it's incumbent upon us to change that zoning as quickly as we can. And that will take support from all of us, including those who may not be here tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilwoman CdeBaca. Thank you, Mr. President. I don't think it's accurate to make people in this room believe that at the last opportunity we were able to renegotiate this contract on the floor. I think that's been a misunderstanding throughout this entire process. There's one entity that has the ability to renegotiate these contracts, and that is our administration, that is our mayor's office and his director of public safety and those who work underneath him. And so at the last opportunity, it was not a possibility for us to get to this place with these with a six month contract and a 12 month contract. And in fact, even with those new relationships and those new people who were on council, we attempted to meet with the Division of Community Corrections prior to our vote to discuss what potential options existed to renegotiate this contract and make sure that we were ratcheting down in a responsible way and transitioning to local management , that we were told that that was not going to happen. That was not an option. And so that is why we're in this predicament. And so I want to be very clear that there was a lot of thought put into this process the first time. There is a lot of thought, obviously, being put into this decision this time. Ideally, we would want to have community or county control over this situation so that we could more be more selective about the providers that were choosing. I would like us to see I would like to see us move in that direction because we need to be able to hold our providers accountable in a way that serves our local government and serves the people in corrections with high quality standards. We have had people testify tonight about what is happening inside, both from the positive side and the negative side. And I think that, yes, we have these decisions in front of us now. But I think that in the last vote, what you heard from council is that we're not willing to renew these contracts after the six months and after the 12 months. And so what I expect from our Division of Community Corrections is that we put that $600,000 that goes into this budget to use to make sure that we're looking deeper into these audits, that we're figuring out how to build our own capacity again, to do this work, instead of allowing corporations to gobble up our services and gobble up our capacity and not allow us to make decisions that are in the best interest of our residents. And so I was going to call somebody up, but I will I will skip that so that we can get on to the vote and the rest of the agenda. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilwoman Torres. I was drawn. All right. Any other comments before we vote on this one? I will just end by saying thank you to staff and that I will second that I feel, you know, I think it was Councilman Hines who actually said earlier that the message has been delivered. And I sometimes change like the change that we need in this space takes a moment where it gets real and we don't have the option to negotiate these. We have an up or down vote. And I stand by my vote last time to vote no and send that message to deliver that message that the future can't look like the present or the past. And I appreciate the work, and I appreciate that it's going to be a lot of hard work between now and then. But I think that through that vote, we've said we've set our city on a different course. And so I do today I will be voting to support these contracts because I feel like now we're on that pathway and we're on that course. And I didn't feel like we were last time. So I appreciate the work that it went into to get us from where we were then to where we are now and now . I do believe it's the right decision to make sure to take care of the people who are currently in the system, in a system that is hard to move on a dime, but we need to move it very, very quickly still. And I think that's really the hard work that has set out now on the path that we're set on. And so I look forward to that work happening and starting, you know, tomorrow. So thank you for that. And I will be voting in support this evening. Madam Secretary, roll call. Hinds High. Black High CdeBaca I Flynn. High. Gilmore High Herndon. I. Cashman. High. Converge Ortega High Sandoval I. Sawyer I. Torres, I. Mr. President. I. I'm Secretary. Please close voting announced results 1339 as Resolution 81.