Approves agreement with Denver Duty Free, JV for a period of seven years and $116,799.34 monthly to develop, operate, and manage the new Tax & Duty Free/Duty Paid locations in Concourse A Center Core and in Concourse B, Mezzanine Level East-side, along with a specialty retail location in Concourse C Center Core (PLANE 201415388-00).  Goals assigned is 33%. (BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT) Approves agreement with Denver Duty Free, JV for a period of seven years and $116,799.34 monthly to develop, operate, and manage the new Tax & Duty Free/Duty Paid locations in Concourse A Center Core and in Concourse B, Mezzanine Level East-side, along with a specialty retail location in Concourse C Center Core (PLANE 201415388-00). The last regularly scheduled Council meeting within the 30-day review period is on     .  The Committee approved filing this bill by consent on 8-7-14.
Any other questions on 641? Scene nine will bring up the next one, which was 642, called out by Councilwoman Fox. Councilwoman Fox. Would you like for us to do with this? Please put it on the floor for a vote. Early council members, will you make the motions for us this evening? Certainly. Mr. President. Could you please put 642 on the floor to be ordered published? Thank you, Mr. President. I put Council Bill 642 on the board on the floor to be published. It has been moved and seconded. Comments from members of Council Councilwoman Fox. Thank you, Mr. President. This is a contract for duty free shops in DJIA, in RFP situations, and there was an RFP that more than one in this situation. I rarely raise issues about process, but this contract does concern me. There were allegations of improper contact from one of the applicants to airport personnel seeking confidential information. The airport says the RFP process wasn't dated, but they canceled that. RFP changed the parameters away and issued a second RFP. Key to me is the applicant with the alleged improper behavior was on the first RFP, but not on the second submitted by the winning contractor. I have concerns about whether that second RFP was to accommodate that PURP, that group that was applying for the contract. Also, around the same time, DeLay addressed its allowable ownership control percentage, an action which could ultimately benefit this contractor. I really do not have strong feelings about whether ownership concentration should be 20%, 24%, even 50%. But the timing of the change is very troubling. This council has received a letter from a losing bidder alleging serious concerns. Now, while receiving that kind of communication is not that unusual. The allegations get my attention because my own prior due diligence raised two of the issues. I fear there may be some truth in some of the allegations, and if so, I sincerely hope they are not indicative of a larger bidding problem at DGA. I'll be voting no. Thank you, Councilwoman Fox, Councilwoman Canete. Thank you, Mr. President. May I ask a question of a staff member? You going to give the go ahead. Great. Thank you, Mr. President. I don't like Councilwoman Shepherd. I don't serve on this committee. And I have tried to do my due diligence. But can someone from the airport come ask a question? Well, Neil is very close. Perhaps you. Thank you, Mr. Maxfield. You're welcome. So my question is, I, too, was concerned when I heard questions about the changes that were being made to the ownership maximum ownership calculations. Can you clarify for me how that piece was scored in the RFP or how it could have affected the outcome of who was selected and what the connection might or might not be between those two? Sure. So concentration of ownership is a policy that the airport has in place has been in place since 2007. It limits essentially the amount of square footage one entity can own at the airport, just so we don't put more concentration in one entity's hands at the airport. So the concentration of ownership policy, I get it can be murky at times. I understand that. I think it did. We acknowledge it is a little murky and difficult to understand. We are going through a review process right now with our concessionaires in a third party, and we intend to hopefully release some additional changes to the policy or a revision in the next few weeks. But it has no really no bearing at all on the selection criteria that's used in the RFP. The concentration of ownership policy comes into effect after an award has been made. And essentially, if that potential awarded party, the recommended party from the third party panel evaluates that proposer and says this is the recommended awardee, then that award then has to go through the concentration of ownership calculation process. If they're determined to be over the concentration limit that the policy sets in place, then we ask them to divest of their current holdings before awarding them the contract. Okay. So if I may just follow up and make sure I understand that. So there's no points awarded in the selection criteria based on this calculation? That's correct. Not scored. And if someone would have been over, would they have been prevented from bidding? Did it have any impact on who could bid? No, it doesn't prevent anyone from bidding. We do as a courtesy request that somebody identifies if they won that RFP, if they would be above the concentration. So we can understand what their divestiture would be if they were awarded the contract. Okay. And then my last question is just it sounds like you have learned some lessons about the policy in terms of how it's updated. And so you're taking some steps regarding that. It you mentioned very briefly, but can you clarify? Yeah, clearly we understand that square footage, you know, how it's measured, how it's quantified is something we need to look at. We also understand that the policy, the calculation that's contained within the policy creates some ambiguity. So we're trying to find a way, and we've been working with our concessionaires for the last few weeks to identify a change to that calculation, which gets us to the same sort of tenor, but makes it a little bit more clear for those applicants in future of peace. Okay. But and just one last clarification. None of those changes would have any impact on the scoring or selection in this case. That's correct. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilwoman Kennedy. Councilwoman Ortega. Don't go too far now. So can you help me understand what the timing of the change was and what the involvement from the concessionaires was at the time that change was made? Because it's my understanding it was a 20% threshold and then that was changed to 24%. So what's the timing of that as it applies to, you know, the RFP being out to bid and all of that kind of stuff? Sure. And it's what we need to make sure you understand is clear, is that there were two hour fees, as was suggested by Councilwoman Fox when RFP went out in April of 13. That was terminated and another RFP was started in October of 2013. During the period of time that the first RFP was on the street, we were working with the concessionaires. We had several meetings and conference calls to engage them in the revision of the of the policy. And the policy change was enacted just before we released the October of 2013 RFP. Okay. And so it wasn't done specifically for the release of the RFP, or was it? No. Okay. So it just happened to be that's the timing of when it got done. And so that new policy would have applied to that or any other contract that was being awarded at the time, is that correct? Correct. In the new policy requires changes in the RFP documented required the. Creation of what we call Exhibit L, and that is a concentration of ownership exhibit. And so we didn't want to release that new duty free RFP or any other RFP until after that policy had been confirmed. So you guys are engaged in a conversation right now with the concessionaires about having yet another change to the same policy? Correct? That's correct. Okay. And so anybody that is currently bidding on any, do you have our PS out on the street right now? Just clarify that first. No, I'll clarify that for you. We we will not be issuing any RFP until the concentration of ownership policy is finalized. Okay. Okay. So whatever that goal or that threshold is will apply to any new RFP that are submitted. That's correct. The limitations, as we are currently discussing, will not change. It's just the mechanics of the calculation. Okay, great. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Councilwoman Ortega. Any other comments or questions from Councilman Lopez? Thank you, Mr. President. I had been watching and following this issue and. With great frustration. Yet again, we have another contract at the CIA that is under scrutiny and heavy scrutiny. A lot of controversy. I have been contacted by a lot of community members, some of the folks from the concessionaires groups, some one of the concessionaires that came in second on the bid. And today I was able to meet with folks from the airport to get a lot of questions answered. I've been contacted a lot lately about this particular, particular bill. What bothers me, and I don't believe that the winning contract should not move forward. I'm going to support this contract moving forward. It came in first on both tries and most objective selection objective panel. But I'm concerned about the airport. I'm concerned about the process. I'm getting a little tired of hearing about it. This airport is a great airport to be in. Business at the airport is a great feat. There are a lot of people that have been there a very long time and have been very successful. Chances are if you have a business as a if you have a business or businesses at the airport, you can do pretty well . It's a pretty lucrative opportunity and a lot of people are in line waiting to have that opportunity. There are a lot of folks who are at the airport who are doing just fine. And who are continuing to do well. What I worry about is, are we using that space in the airport? Adequately. Are we maximizing our opportunities to create more business opportunities? Are we finite in the spaces that we are putting out to bid? Can I tell you what? I go to some of these other airports and they are packed. They have kiosks everywhere. I come to die and it's empty for a long walk. And past a certain hour, most of everything is closed. I don't understand why we are not maximizing our opportunity to create new business opportunities so we don't have to see bidders fight against each other. I'm amazed why some of these processes are so so questionable. And you know councilman fights I your argument is very compelling and I'm actually you convince me I'm very concerned about it. I don't think I don't think we're here and the whole story. And I think there are some truths are being told on their side. I don't think that's the applicant's fault. In either any of the bidders. I think that's our process that's flawed. And I really think that we need to concentrate on making sure that not only is the process solid, right, but we are looking at opportunities to create more business opportunities for folks, for local businesses. Denver's great. Our airport has a great feel to it because it's Denver, right? You have Denver businesses there. I want to continue to see that there are a lot of people in line that would kill for that opportunity. Why don't we maximize that? Why don't we spread that around? Our airport is not floundering. It's doing very well. Price per square foot is really high. A lot of these smaller businesses that. They can't even compete because they can't even get in on that. It's triple what is in the city. The insurance policies that they have to buy. Are insanely expensive. I don't I think we really, really have to commit. And after meeting with the folks at the airport we're working really hard on I really commend you, but I, I really think that we should be doing more. I think that would help prevent a lot of the issues that exist. Let's create more opportunity. You sound like a broken record. That's opportunity. I'm going to support this moving forward. But I'm I still have a lot of questions about this process, and I don't know if I'm going to support it on the final consideration because I'm still going to be meeting other folks. So I would like to cast a yes vote tonight. Now I want to try to figure out. Well, we're missing the point here where we're not creating opportunity, where we could be creating opportunity. We shouldn't be fighting over this at the airport. We should be plenty of contracts to go around. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman Lopez. Any other comments or questions from members of council seen on Madam Secretary? Roll call. Fights. No carnage. Layman Lopez. Montero, Nevitt. Hi, Ortega. I brought Shepherd Susman. Brooks Brown. Mr. President. I. Madam Secretary, please close the voting and announce the results. 12 one nay. 12 one 9642 has been ordered published. Madam Secretary, go ahead and tee up the next one. And before we move on, I forgot to scan the audience this morning and acknowledge I want to acknowledge our former mayor, Wellington Webb, is in the chamber. So thank you, Mayor, for for being here. I apologize for not acknowledging you earlier. We're ready for Council Bill 686 called out by Councilwoman Fox. Councilwoman Fox, what would you like for us to do with this? Please put on the floor for a vote. Certainly. Councilman Brooks, could you please have Council Bill 686 ordered published? Certainly, Mr. President, I move that council bill 686 be ordered published. It has been moved and seconded. Comments from members of Council Councilwoman Fox. Thank you, Mr. President. The issue in front of us is a change in United Airlines lease. And these changes are part of a larger package of ordinances, not all coming at the same time. They include restructuring DIA debt, plus changes to the lease and that the latter part of what's in front of us. As I understand it, the United Airlines lease is actually dependent on our restructuring the debt, even if we are taking action on it. First, when this proposal was before the Business Development Committee, I asked the position of other airlines since United Airlines gets far and away the most benefit from this package.