A bill for an ordinance amending the health and sanitation chapter of the Denver Revised Municipal Code to align testing for sexually transmitted infections with state statute. Amends Chapter 24 of the Denver Revised Municipal Code to align requirements for testing for sexually transmitted infections with state statute. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 6-23-21.
All right. Thank you, Councilmember Sawyer. And thank you all for being here as well. We're going to go ahead and move on. The next item up is Council Bill 697. Councilmember Herndon, would you please put Council Bill 697 on the floor for publication. And move that council Bill 21 that 0697 be ordered. Published? So I could. Thank you. It's been moved down. We have the second by Councilmember Flynn, council member state Abarca. Your motion to amend. Thank you. I move that. Council bill 21, dash 697 be amended in the following particulars on page one Strike Online 28 Strike Knows or has reason to believe and replace with nos on page two. Line four Strike others and replace with others or on page two, line four strike lines four through eight. On page two, line nine, strike four and replaced with three on page four, line 30, strike section. And the manager shall may pursuant to state law and replaced with Section An on page four strike line 31. All right. Thank you. It has been moved. Then we get a second. Second. Thank you, counsel. Pro Tem Torres Questions or comments by members of Council Councilmember CdeBaca. Thank you. Council President. This amendment was brought forward. By stakeholders in the industry. This amendment eliminates departmental discretion of ordering testing of sexually transmitted. Infections. For individuals arrested for prostitution by the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment. Thank you, Councilmember CdeBaca. Council Pro-Tem Torres. Thank you so much. I have two questions, just technical ones. Councilwoman CdeBaca. One is on the amendment document. It refers to the designated consumption areas set back requirements. Just wanted to make sure that's an error on the amendment document that's uploaded. I believe so. I think Zach drafted this one for us, and I don't. Have the bandwidth to pull the one that's uploaded, but I believe that's an error. Okay. Shouldn't be. Yeah. Do we need to do anything on that? If the if it's in the document, an error. If it's it, I'll have all double check that and make sure that that gets cleared out for second reading. Okay. The other is numbers number two in in the amendment changes line. Page two, line four is not the one I think that you're referencing. It's page two, line three. But I want to double check that with you. Line three is the one that says others. So let's see. We're getting. You are correct on that. Okay. And then just and I think everything else checks checked out. But I just wanted to double check on impact of these, particularly think of the fifth one where you strike the May pursuant to state law kind of a position. And if there was any kind of legal parameter where that had to be in kind of what either from your side from imposing or the organization that is opposing the changes or even if there was a reason that that had to be in there. I mean, the state law piece of it is. The I guess you would call it the floor. But the point of it is to remove the departmental discretion for the ordering of the STI testing. And so this sentence here combines what the manager may do plus or in alignment with state law. Okay. And I hear that I'd like to hear from you if there's somebody who can testify about whether or not that changes substantially what you were drafting. Just any feedback. Kevin. Thank you, Councilwoman Torres. So you want to introduce yourself, Kevin? I'm sorry. Thank you. My name is Kevin Kelly. I am a program administrator with the Department of Public Health and Environment. Thank you all for having me today. In answer to your question, Councilwoman. What we were attempting to do when we drafted this language was to align with state law. The the former version of 20 4-1 31 was written in 1973, was very outdated and specifically targeted at sex workers, which had a a racist outcome where we saw a disproportionate number of black women being affected by it. We drafted the or chose to draft the state ordinance because it's a more nuanced approach to mandated testing. It doesn't single out sex workers, and it provides people with a path to challenge any order if an order does come through. Why would you need to mandate? A medical examination? It's a good question. It's the biggest concern at first was with so mandate and testing for perpetrators of violent sexual crimes. In the interest of protecting the security. The survivor of the crime, if that makes sense. And also just in case of any other sort of emergency scenario. Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Those are my primary questions. I'll jump back in those of all. Thank you for the tip. All right. Thank you. Pro Tem Torres. Councilman Flynn. But thank you, Madam President. Councilwoman CdeBaca. I just saw this this afternoon, and I was trying to read through it, and I'm not quite where I understand the intent. And I'm concerned about one section in particular. And that was the First Amendment. The first line was being amended, line 28, where the manager knows or has reason to believe because of evidence based medical or epidemiological information that a person has an STI. And your amendment takes out the or has reason to believe. And that gives me pause. Because then the only the only condition under which the manager could mandate a test would be if the manager already knows that the person has an STI. But the purpose of the test is to find out or to verify based on medical or epidemiological information whether the person has an STI. It would almost make more sense to amend out where the manager knows. Take out the word knows because how can the manager know and keep in the has reason to believe? So I'm confused and I'm not quite ready to vote I on this. This is on publication, so I'd be happy to entertain it next week if it makes sense to me. But let me ask Kevin Kelly. What is the impact of. These changes on how we would operate this program? A D for the question. Councilman Flynn So I should leave this up with a caveat. After this bill passed the Safe House Committee. Councilman CdeBaca office and the stakeholder groups she was referring to reached out to to my office to discuss some changes that they would like to see in this. Excuse me. And we suggested an amendment, and I actually did help answer questions within the drafting of these amendments. However, I hope that that office and that stakeholder group, an apology didn't involve the right people with entity to to fully vet the outcomes of that of some of the changes which has led to some concerns with them. I spoke to Bob McDonald this this afternoon about this specific piece and his concern is that it would limit exactly to your concern as well would limit the authority that she has to to mandate testing. Okay. That's that's kind of the way I read that first change. I want to I want to more fully understand what the stakeholders were asking for and whether this amendment actually does that or maybe frustrates that. And so I would vote no on the amendment this week, but be willing to study it more deeply and consider it again next week on final. Thank you, Madam President. And if there's any interest in pulling up promoting Becky to her Blue and Disraeli Collins. They're members of our stakeholder. Group that can speak to why. Eliminating that departmental discretion is. Desirable. All right. Thank you, Councilmember CdeBaca. We can ask the city staff to or our central staff to maybe promote them to answer a question on that. We're going to go ahead and go back to the queue. We've got Councilmember Herndon. You're up next. Hey, man, I was just going to second what Councilman Flynn talked about. This is on publication. So there are opportunities to get more information on time, recognizing that there are multiple public hearings tonight. And honestly, I believe it's necessary now to have these dialogs. But the fact that he doesn't appear to have such a concern gives me pause enough that I wouldn't support these, but also recognizing we have time next week to learn a little bit more. So I will be a know today. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you. Councilmember Herndon. Councilmember Black. Thanks. I'll be really brief for the reasons that Councilman. Herndon just mentioned. But if I recall from when this was in committee, there was a very lengthy stakeholder process. I think it was up to two years long. So I wasn't aware of this amendment until today. So I definitely wouldn't vote for something I hadn't seen before tonight. Especially now that we've learned that Didi doesn't support it and the fact that it was not part of. The stakeholder process. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Black. And in the interest of time, because this is on first reading, regardless of if it passes or fails or will, if it passes, it would be a different conversation. But it sounds like there was a bit of confusion as to the document that got uploaded, and I believe the central staff is fixing that , but we would have time to re entertain this next week on final as well. And so we're going to go ahead and. Move forward. And in the interest of time. Madam Secretary, roll call on the amendment, please. CdeBaca. I. Clark. No. Lynn Bell. Herndon now. Cashman? No. Sandoval. No. Sawyer now. Torres. No. Black. No. Madam President. No. Madam Secretary, close the voting and announce the results. One I. Nine nays. Nine nays. The amendment to 20 1-0697 has failed. We will go ahead and we've got to comments by members of council on council bill 20 1-0697 as it is or I'm sorry. I believe that the. Madam Secretary, can you clarify because I have it repeated in the script, and I just want to make sure you don't need me to do anything additional on this since it failed. That's correct. We're going back to the first motion which would be ordering published. All right. Perfect. All right. We are going to then, Councilmember Herndon, did you have a question? Does it matter that I was just going to raise my hand and say we still need development? Very good. All right, wonderful. Then, Secretary, would you please. I'm Councilmember Herndon. Sorry. We need you to go ahead and move to put this on the floor for final passage or for final. I'm sorry. My script is resetting, as were we're here. All right, Madam Secretary, we are going to do roll call then on the publication of Council Bill 20 10697. Black. I. Slovakia. I. Clark. I. Flynn. I. Herndon. I. Cashman. I. Sandoval. Hi. Sawyer, I. Torres, I. Madam President. I. Madam Secretary, please close the voting and announce the results. Ten Eyes. Ten Eyes Council Bill 20 1-0697 has been ordered published. All right. It's not a good thing when you're when you're resetting and it moves your script where you're at. Councilmember Herndon, would you please put council bill 661 on the floor for final passage? I move that council bill 20 1066 wanted to be ordered. Be placed upon final consideration and do pass. I can. Thank you. It's been moved and seconded and thank you for that catch. It's on. Final passage. Councilmember Herndon, your motion to amend. And move the Council Bill $21 0661 be amended in the following particulars on page one line. 21 Strike. June 18, 2021 and replace with July seven, 2021 on page one line 22 Excuse me, strike 20210056a and replace with 20210059.