A bill for an ordinance amending portions of Chapter 28, Article III, Article V and Article VII to extend sunset dates. Amends Chapter 28 Articles III, V, VII of the Denver Revised Municipal Code relating to nondiscrimination in city contracts for construction, professional design services and covered goods and services, to extend the sunset date of this ordinance from December 31, 2019 to May 1, 2020. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 12-4-19.
Hours counts. Bill 1259 has passed. Councilwoman Torres, will you please put council bill 1289 on the floor? I move that council bill 19, does 1289 be ordered published? Thank you. It has been moved and seconded. Councilman CdeBaca, do you want to put forward your motion to amend? Yes, I move that council bill 19, dash 1259, be amended. I'm sorry. We have a typo in there. 89 is 89. Great massacre. Where? 89. This one. 1289. This be amended in the following particulars on page one, line 21, strike July 1st and replace with April 1st on line 24, strike July 1st and replace. With April 1st. And online 27 straight July 1st and. Replace with April 1st. Thank you. It has been moved. Can I get a stand seconded on the amendment comments. Councilwoman Watkins, do you want to make comments on your amendment? Yes. Thank you, Mr. President. This amendment changes the extension date of the ordinances concerning the three Division of Small Business Opportunity programs from six. Months to. Three months. So factor in the many conversations I've had with ditto other council colleagues, disadvantaged. Businesses. And current contractors with the city. I'm proposing that we meet in the middle somewhere. I have an amendment in front of you all that would extend the current ordinance until April 1st and have a Second Amendment prepared for a sunset of May 1st ready to vote on if the three month of amendment is not satisfactory with the three month amendment on the. Floor first and the. Scheduled. In testimony, I'd like to let my colleagues comment and debate the three months first. The three month extension is not only meeting literally in the middle of the six months, but is also based on the projected timeline shared with us from Dito. This timeline clearly states that a final draft will be ready in January or February and that the final ordinance will be absolutely ready by April 1st. The DITO timeline goes beyond April 1st to include the rulemaking and promulgation process, which does not typically happen prior to passing an ordinance. This open, public, participatory rulemaking window is not only expected and standard, it typically does not happen prior to passing the ordinance because that would then presume that council was passing the ordinance before we actually vote on it. So my thoughts are that the bill could be filed in March and voted on in April. If the timeline they provided is accurate, if a compelling reason tonight is provided to explain why the final draft slated to be done in February could not be filed in March, I'm willing to put the May 1st extension on the floor. Thank you. Thank you, councilwoman. And you, we are going to keep this amendment open so that members of the public can also speak to this during the hearing. All right. So I think with that, we're going to open up the hearing with the amendment open. So if you're here to speak on this item, we'd love to hear your thoughts on the extension. And the amendments are the courtesy public hearing for Council 1289 is now open and we're going to jump right in to our individuals. We have nine, I believe, signed up to speak this evening. So I'm going to call the first five, if you wouldn't mind, coming up to this front bench so that we can get through everybody. When I call your name, you can step right up to the microphone. But the first five, if you want to come up to the front bench are Veronica Barela, Heather Noise chairman, say coo Helga Grund or sorry if I got that wrong and Adrian Sanford, if you want to come up to the front and Veronica barela, you are up first. Good evening. My name is Veronica Barela and I reside at 151 South Stuart Street. I'm here representing the Committee for City and Airport Fairness concerning the Division of Small Business Opportunity Ordinance. We are supporting Councilwoman C.D. Baucus amendment to extend the Dispo Ordinance programs to three months instead of the proposed six months. The council woman's rationale is the ordinance is 95% complete, but the rules and regs is the part that is taking a little bit longer. I want to point out that some of the responsibilities of the division of small business opportunities, and I quote, is to provide technical assistance and outreach that focuses on educating small businesses and capacity building to establish and monitor small business participation mechanisms to remove barriers to contracting opportunities with the sister city, fosters successful partnerships and whole comprehensive compliance programs. And I want to thank Audrina Gibson, who's done an excellent job, done a really good job at Dana, and it given a new life to dispel. In my opinion, there are important aspects of the new ordinance that need implementing sooner rather than later, such as lowering procurement procurement thresholds as to increase mwb participation, improved prompt payments plan to increase and formalize monitoring, compliance, reporting and oversight of the procurement process. Increasing outreach and communication efforts to increase program parties participation better define define good faith efforts plus many new significant features of the ordinance. The current status quo does not fully benefit minority businesses, and I encourage you all to support Councilwoman C.D. Baucus amendment to shorten the time frame to three months. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Heather Noyes. Good evening. My name is Heather Noyes and I am majority owner of studios TPG. We're a WB certified business located in Northwest Denver on Tennyson Street, and we provide landscape architecture services to the city and county of Denver, both as a prime and as a sub to several different city agencies. I'm immensely proud of my firm's contribution to the evolution of this city. It's really important to me personally and professionally. My firm has consistently struggled for since I've been in business, which is 15 years, with the impacts of delayed payment under city contracts. And I will say two current examples, and I am going to call these flagship projects because I believe that they are positively contributing to the daily health and welfare of every resident of the city and visitors. A flagship project number one. We are sub consultant to a national firm. Our last payment on this project was July 22nd for work performed between April 1st, 2018 and April 30th, 2019. That's one year's worth of work without pay. Our contract is still active. We continue to provide services for this project and we remain unpaid for six months of work. And there has been no information forthcoming from the Prime regarding when I can expect payment. Flagship Project Number two I'm a sub consultant to a huge international engineering firm. As of December 11th, 100% of fees for project initiated in April and completed in October were unpaid. The amount owed to me equates to two of my firm's payrolls. DeLay in payment means this to me. In order for me to meet payroll and pay my bills, I have to dip into my line of credit. And when payment is delayed past 120 days, four months on current concurrent excuse me, concurrent projects. My line of credit often gets maxed out in this cost me money, I'm paying interest. And when my line of credit gets maxed out, I've got to turn over. I've got to turn to my credit cards. And that also costs me a ton of money. And the bottom line, I believe, with respect to delayed payment, is this when my invoices go unpaid by my primes and these are huge firms, these are huge, huge firms that I'm referring to. I'm bankrolling them and I'm bankrolling you. And I'm bankrolling the city's projects. And my profits, which are not big to begin with, are eaten up by interest payments. Your time is up. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Next up, Chairman Scoop. Yes. Chairman Sekou. Oh. Lecturer Action Movement for Self-defense. And you're next United States senator in 2020. I would be remiss if. This party did not acknowledge one of the most trusted and humble servants in this room. Sister Stephanie O'Malley. And you'll know who she is. So we need to at least acknowledge her like we've done other books. Great service. Thank you. What the previous speaker was expressing is one of the caveats to what we experience. As small business folks. And it's really a shame. Because what has to be done is more than just extend this. Particular bill would also put some teeth in it. That requires women, small businesses, especially, quote unquote, minority businesses. And I don't like that term because that assumes there's a majority of business partners up with these bigger companies who seek to not help them grow, but to seek to eliminate them. So. A City Council's responsibility is not to set up small businesses for failure by not putting things in the ordinance that allows them to grow and thrive so that one day maybe they may not be so small, maybe they might join the majority. And if we're talking about equity, which is one of the fundamental principles behind coming up with these bills, then we should make it a responsibility that the folks who ain't got it have to subsidize everybody that do got say. And so I salute you for your integrity and your willingness to go through this, because I know he's right. But you got to keep on pushing, all right? And you got to keep on pushing them and tell them the truth, because I'm looking at the faces now and they listen. They heard you. They heard you. All right. So that's the importance of everyday folks participating in this kind of thing. Democracy requires us to speak on behalf of the things that impact us so that we don't die silently as they eliminate what it is they say they do. Sorry. Time's up. Thank you. Next up, Helga Grund, the rude. Good evening. I'm Helga Grunwald. I am the retired executive director of the Hispanic Contractors of Colorado, where I served for 17 years. I probably have more hours of but in the chair time working on. The Mwb ordinance than most. Of the people in this room. First appointed by then Mayor Hickenlooper to work on the first ordinance in 2004, which was implemented in 2007. So for years, the city has struggled with trying. To make this program work. And I can tell you, after working with many. Small businesses, you. Have not succeeded, but you finally, finally have a young woman in the chair to guide this program. And she comes from RTD, which most small businesses will point to as the model for the city to utilize for your programs and the ordinance. And what it needs to do. Is very, very complicated. And I would urge you to give Adrina. The six months that. She would like to have, to make sure that all. Of the. Dots are aligned, that everything points together, and that finally, after 12 years, you can maybe have a program that. Really, really. Develops your small businesses. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Adrian Sanford and I called the next five up if you want to make your way to the front bench. James W Jensen, Jr, Jesse Paris, Andrea Mosby, Mina McCollum and Lacy Getz. Go ahead. Good evening, council members, and thank you for allowing me to speak to you this evening concerning this most important issue. My name is Adrian Sanford and I am a small business disadvantage owner, principal of the Sanford Group LLC. I want to first thank Eric Maraga and his extraordinary team for the awesome job they are doing and most importantly, for their commitment to the small and minority business community. I have worked in the design and construction industry for 25 years and have been part of the Construction Empowerment Initiative Committee for a long time. And this fairly new leadership team, Adrina and Stephanie Smiley, has been very engaging and committed to the small business community. And this is the first time I have seen this team really engage the Small Business Committee. We are requesting that the city council supports a four month extension following the submission of the ordinance to include a 30 day prom pay. I feel like if we can get the ordinance submitted in February with a four month extension in order to write the processes, this option will be an appropriate period of time for coordination and development of policies and procedures and IT system revisions to support the ordinance. Revisions to be completed by July 2020. As Helga has said, I have been part of the ordinance subcommittee for an awful long time and I don't believe people really understand how difficult it is to write an ordinance to be involved in it and to quickly just go through it. Not only will it provide the ability for Desmond not to be successful, but if they're not successful, they will not make the small business community successful. In addition, in order for Desmond to do their job well, we are requesting that the City Council support and commit to meeting the challenges by ensuring that dismal has all is required to be successful with this effort. Again, if dismal is successful, then the small business community is successful. I want to keep reiterating that this is the first team that I have seen in a long time that is helping small businesses. But if we don't give them the resources to continue writing these processes and procedures correctly, then it won't help us as small businesses to ensure the success of the program. It must be agreed that the MWB program be considered to be one of the highest priority by the relevant stakeholders inclusive of the Mayor's Office, City Council Belt Team, Denver Economic Development Opportunity and a set equal commitments by all of the stakeholders will ensure the required collaboration necessary for the success of the MWB program. Again, our current Mwb departure excuse me again our current Mwb ordinance revisions ensure that all of the small minority business have an equal opportunity for the economic growth and benefit of our tax dollars. So I ask the City Council to please take into consideration the difficulties a lot of us small business leaders have dealt with over a long period of time to get this. Orton is right. Time is up and to remove the barriers. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, James W Jenson Jr. Good evening. My name is James W Jensen. My firm is James W Jensen Photography. I'm a Colorado native. I would like to thank City Council for allowing me to speak. I am in. Total agreement with the previous. Speakers regarding the good work that Adrina has. Done and also Stephanie O'Malley. I would like to request that City Council considers the. Four month extension as far. As getting everything with. The ordinance written up. And including. The prompt. Payment clause, that is very important as a small business, I wrote down a few things. Regarding payment. That would help me as a one man operation. It would allow me to have more consistent cash flow if a prompt payment is done within 30 days. It would also make the primes. More. Accountable to the city and. Also committed to the small businesses. And it would also. Give the small. Businesses the opportunity to. Grow and prosper. Thank you very much for letting me speak. Thank you. Next up, Jesse Paris. Good evening. Members of council members, our audience, those watching at home. My name is Jessie Paris or Bradford City Council where a large got almost 15,000 votes with no money this past May election. And I'll be running again in 2023 to be your next mayor and I reside in county seat of Baucus District District nine and I'm representing for Denver homeless low black star. I am all for self defense positive action in for social change as well as the Unity Party of Colorado and the Universal African People's Organization. In Mile High News. We are in favor of this sunset extension. I just had a few questions in regards to this because I keep hearing all this stuff about minority business contracts. We need to stop using this minority term because you're lumpiness in other groups, meaning black people are being lumped in with other groups that have just arrived here or have not been systematically disenfranchized and locked out of such businesses and contracts. So I want to know exactly how many black owned small businesses will benefit from this sunset extension, and also exactly how many black owned small businesses we have in the city because they are dwindling. I see fewer and fewer each and every year. I am a Denver native. I was born and raised here when I was coming up. There was a lot of black small businesses. Now there's very little to any mom and pop shops. They are being literally bought up such as like Downy Superstore is now going to be a King Soopers and their Scotts Market is closed down and we're literally in a food desert and the city's priority is not on black minority owned businesses. So I would like to know exactly what businesses this is going to benefit. And thank you, Stephanie, for putting this forward. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Andrea Mosby. Hi. My name is Andrea Mosby. My company is Urine Fresh, and it's a janitorial supply company. And just this past week, I was in New York visiting my son, and he came up with something. He said, there's no compression algorithm for experience. So I said, okay, then I'll give you my experience. And as a small business is interesting because I recently got a contract with the city to do their air fresheners. But when I got. The contract, I had to come up. Initially with some money quite a bit for me, for a small business. And once I came up with the money, I found myself calling them on a regular basis, like, look like the job, cut the check, you know what's going on. And I realized that with the ordinance and everything that we're talking about, sometimes understanding that our electric bills and everything like that come every 30 days, that not only do we need to get paid, but also I think was important. That's also a part of the ordinance is for cars because I was at a CII meeting and one of the gentleman there made the comment that he didn't think that a company, a small company, could handle $100,000. And and what would they do with all that money? And I thought it was interesting because he was the liaison for Prime. And I said, isn't that interesting? Because he's probably going to go and give his time sheet to somebody else and he's probably going to go and get two weeks vacation. Not to mention, he's probably going to have health care. But when I went home, I got to do my own H.R.. I have to figure out how I'm going to pay my own medical bills. See, I don't have a liaison to come because I have to come to meetings like this. All right. So what I'm saying is, not only do we need you guys to support this ordinance with the vote, we need you to support it with the money. The disparity study made it very clear that we are not in alignment with small businesses, specifically black businesses, but we're not in alignment. And I have set through four disparity studies. So what I'm asking you to do is not only to vote for this the way we need it, not the way you want to give it, but the way the small businesses is asking you to do it. But I'm asking you to vote for it. I'm asking you to also put the money in that needs to be in place to make sure that this bill can make sure the small businesses have an opportunity to be able to grow into larger businesses so that we don't have the tale of two cities in this particular city . But we all get the opportunity to participate in the growth and the opportunity that everything that comes with being a part of Denver. After all, over 50% of jobs are are given by small businesses. So take it serious. I've been here a long time and we desperately need you guys to move forward. But you're taking what we need. And I appreciate it. And I know my time is up a really quick, a very, very important. First person I do have to move on can either do what's next to me and then McCollum. Or you can do. It so you. Good evening. Hello, council members. My name is Mina McCollam and I am the President and CEO of San Energy, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering Firm. I am requesting the Council to allow the extension of the ordinance by four months to incorporate a 30 day, 30 day prompt payment clause. I know this is sound like a broken record, but payment is absolutely imperative to ensure that we are able to grow our companies via paying our employees and continuing to contribute to the city and county of Denver's economy. Unfortunately, the current ordinance does not have the language dictating this necessity. As a result, many companies, including my own, have been subjected to financing city projects at a sunken costs. In this scenario, the best case is taking an unnecessary loss. So a cut to our profit margin in the worst case is mortgaging our homes and or laying off staff. These small business pitfalls will be and can be prevented and mitigated with the prompt payment 30 day clause. Therefore, again, I am requesting for a four month extension. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Lacy gets. Thank you and thank you for saying my name correctly. First of all, I want to thank each and every one of you here for listening to the situation, for listening to the small businesses, and for considering this important. There's nothing, in my opinion, that can build a city like supporting the small businesses, because when you do that, the money stays local. We hire local people. That money then gets spent here. When you hire larger firms, the money goes to their headquarters and their profits. And to pay for those salaries and vacations that we heard about. I own and run an mwb structural engineering firm, and I am here to ask that you support the division of Small Business Opportunity in particular. Stephanie O'Malley and Adrina Gibson in whatever it is they need to get this done and get it done correctly the first time because we've already done it wrong a number of times. I think that this is absolutely critical. And again, I'm going to stress the prompt pay portion of it. I want to give you a little bit of my story. I want a huge project with the city absolutely excited to be a flagship project. We started work in January. We submitted our invoices every 30 days, just like we were supposed to. Eight months went by. We still have not been paid. I found out that our prime had not submitted a single invoice to the city, and because I had a pay win paid clause, as is normal, they had no obligation whatsoever to pay us. I had no recourse. I took out a mortgage on my home. Now my house is in danger. If there's something wrong with any of the invoices which there turned out, there was. This is my first big city project. Then it got delayed in the city's process. So now I'm another 60 to 90 days. I have a project that I haven't been paid for since January, and I recognize that it's not necessarily your fault you're not it. But the policies and the processes, the rules, regulations, the I.T. support that are behind that to make this payment happen. And more importantly, the huge shift that we're working toward in the culture of each and every department is a monumental task. Right. Getting people to recognize that small businesses are important. Paying them promptly is important. And that's something that I know that Adrina has really picked up on and has really tried to pull the city and all of its various departments together to work as a unit. And I would I would really ask that you support that. Quick check of my notes to see if there's anything else I wanted to say. And I think that's it. So thank you for listening and thank you for supporting Denver and small businesses. Thank you very much. All right. That concludes our speakers this evening. We're going to get into questions from members of council and I will ask members of council to attempt to keep your questions focused on the item that we have in front of us, which was which is the extension of the sunset. We could spend a lot of time digging into the future ordinance, and we will have that time in committee and on the floor when it comes forward. I understand that certain things will overlap, but as much as possible. If you could try to stay on topic of what we're considering because we do have another hearing and people waiting for that one as well. All right. First up, Councilman Black. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, all of you who attended the public hearing. I have a couple of questions for either Adrina or for Stephanie or both. So just to reiterate what President Clark just said, right now, we're just contemplating to vote on your six month extension, and Councilwoman CdeBaca is proposing that we shorten that. Can you explain to us why you need the full six months? Some of these speakers describe some issues that they're having. Will you have with the extended time? Will you be able to address some of the issues that they're concerned with and make sure that we quote Lacy gets that we get it right this time. Yes. Good evening, council members, president. And I first want to thank all of the small businesses. They came out this evening and taking time away from your business to be here on such an important matter. And I wish I could invite Lacey back up to do that presentation again, because you spoke right on everything. But thank you for asking that question. Council in Black with regards to. So could you quickly introduce yourself, everybody watching on TV every time? Adrina Gibson I'm the director of the Division of Small Business Opportunity. So thank you again for the question. Councilwoman Black, with regards to the extension that we're proposing for six months, I just want to reiterate that that six months is truly intentional, necessary and well thought out. And we spent only being at the city of. For a small amount of time. We've spent a concerted amount of time just writing the ordinance. That was just one phase of it. The second phase is with regards to the rules and regs. If we don't have and I understand with regards to the rules and regs coming typically afterwards, if we don't have time to push the rules and regs forward and to provide considerable time to looking at our technology systems, being able to coordinate with the many city agencies that we're going to need to coordinate and bringing many of these changes in the ordinance through. There's going to be inconsistencies and even larger than that, it will make it extremely difficult for dispo and our partner agencies to actually implement the changes and the concerns that have been brought forward by our small businesses. Things as simple as well, not as simple things as difficult as prompt payment, which I'm very, very excited about. If we can't implement that, we're going to find ourselves in the exact same situation that we're in right now. Yes, it will be law. But being able to implement it without a technology system, without process and procedures that we've been agreed upon among city agencies and being able to write that into all of our contract boilerplate will put us at a deficit and will be helter skelter. So those six months are detrimental to being able to ensure that everything is thoroughly aligned, not just the ordinance which is law, but our policies and procedures, our coordination efforts, our involvement of small businesses and training. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Flynn. Thank you, Mr. President. Adrina and Stephanie. Whoever needs to answer these for full disclosure, Adrina and I were colleagues at RTD and very happy to see you here running this office. Now, explain for us the difference it would make to your agency and other city agencies if the six months were shortened to four. And then also if the six months were shortened to three. Yes. How how would that impact you? So essentially, if and I'll speak to the three months first and I don't know the exact dates of how that would be broken down, but if if we originally, which was intended for the six months, would be bringing the rules and regs, the ordinance process procedures and systems all aligned and everything essentially ready to flip the switch on July 1st. Keeping in mind that we've already started putting many of these key themes into procurements, it would just allow for everything to be lined up perfectly so that we could implement these changes and begin enforcing them as an agency if we saw them two, three months. Essentially what we're doing is we're tying up the ordinance at right at this point right now where we are still under legal review with the ordinance and submitting that without having any process and procedures in place and having the ability to coordinate with the many city agencies like DPW Goods and services I'm General Services, I'm sorry, ten arts and venues, etc.. So we're pushing an ordinance through where we haven't had the time to do final review to bring that back out to the community, to let them read through it and let city council read through it as well with four months. So three months assurance our time to really do anything except for just submit the ordinance with the four months we are still submitting the ordinance without any policies and procedures and without the understanding of what's going to happen with our tax systems. However, with it being relatively close to our six month timeline of submitting April 1st, again, we are cutting off any time to write the policies and procedures and to train our staff. And it's not just disposed staff, but we're also training all of our project managers to undo culture. We're training all of our prime contractors to understand what these clauses in their contract means now and additionally cutting off that time to train our Mwb ees on what their rights are at this point in time. And I would say again, I just want to reiterate the most important and impactful component of this six months. It's not only the roles in reds, but attack systems. And I just have to keep reiterating that because every individual brought a prompt payment and that prompt payment mechanism will need to be accomplished in our tech systems. And as we all know, that takes time. Adrina, I, I suspect that I what I hear you saying as well is that if you if if the current ordinance were extended only for three months and you were compelled to institute the new ordinance on April 1st, or we would go through all this again and do another extension, which I would hope to avoid. It could be disastrous rollout. You wouldn't have the training in place. You wouldn't have the technical technological system in place. Yes. That would be less true at four months than at three months. It's curvy. It's just shy of a little bit of time. But typically, I mean, relatively speaking, three, three months or four months is about the same. Now, here's regards to the lack of. Thank you. Now, here's a crucial issue to many folks up here, and that is during this six month extension, there's a lot of business that's going to go through the city. Are you doing anything to include in contracts and slips, solicitations that are going out? Are we able to include some of the updated procedures in some of these contracts, even without the new ordinance in place and under the authority of the old ordinance? Yes. And I'm happy that you asked me that question even prior to springing or thinking that we were going to need this extension for the ordinance disposal in partnership with the city agencies and Stephanie O'Malley. We've already begun putting this language with regards to Mwb compliance plans, good faith efforts, termination for a good cause, and so on and so forth in many of our megaprojects as it stands today. That language is actually in our and RFP is for great hall amendments for the convention center for the National Residents and I'm sorry for the Elevate Bond Central Library. And as of most recently on Friday when the RFP went out for the NWC Triangle P three. All of that language is is in that RFP as well. And then we have additional procurements that will be coming out soon. With respect to livestock, the din janitorial that I'm sorry, the din janitorial services contract and many others. So they're not getting through our shop without this language being in there because again, this is just as important to me as it is to these small businesses. We have to be able to ensure that we're doing right by our small businesses. So we've been very, very diligent in our efforts in coming through the procurements that are coming out to make sure that that language is there. Last question, Mr. President. If you were to receive a six month extension of the curtain ordinance, but things went well enough that we could pass the new ordinance in March, April, and you could implement it sooner. That could come to this body and the old system could be thrown out sooner than July 1st, assuming you're ready. You're asking for the six months so that you're sure you have adequate time. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Councilman Cashman. Thank you, Mr. President. Let's see. So, Gina, the one thing that you didn't mention there when you were listing all the things that were going into projects that come before this now was Trump pay. Mm hmm. How is how how is that approached? So that is the one clause that we have not included. And that, again, comes back to the tax systems. And so that you guys have a little bit of background on the payment clause that we're pushing forward it we're moving away this bill with regards to Mwb certified businesses working on city contract activities. We're moving away from paid when paid to regardless of pay. So that mwb is ones that once their work is accepted and completed and their invoices are submitted, prime contractors have a certain number of days to then make payment to their subs in order for dispo to actually enforce that requirement. We have to be able to add that into our tech modules. We don't use paper as we did at RTD and actually missed the paper, but we don't use paper because we have thousands of contracts. So whatever invoices are being submitted, we have to be able to track that in one of our tech systems, whether it be work de, texture, BTG, those are just three of the three of the different tech systems that we have, just three. And so of those we have to figure out how we can track that, how we can flag it and how we can enforce it. I don't want to make any empty promises to the small business community again because I'm fighting for them. So if I'm putting something in an ordinance, I want to be able to ensure that my team is standing by that. Sure. I guess what I'm wondering, though, is would it make sense to put the wording in now and show that when the tracking system is up and running, then you're legally authorized and however you need to be. And I may be missing something, so please explain. Now, so we are keeping the payment mechanism and provisions in the ordinance. And as the procurements, again, as the procurements are coming up now, we are leaving space to allow for payment requirements. But the procedure is not there for us to quite literally specify that out in the contract. I see. Thank you. The other thing I just wanted to clarify, there were, I think, three people, Mr. Jansen as and one I remember your name. Woman sitting to your right and. Adrian. Thank you. And the woman to your right. All She seemed to be asking for whatever time Desmond needs to get it right, but asked for four months rather than six months. I just want to be clear whether you meant to give them the six months they're asking for or whether you do want the shorter four months. Six months. I was. Yeah. I'm sorry. You have to come up to the microphone so that everybody watching on TV can also hear your answer. If all three of you wouldn't mind. Just so I'm clear, ma'am. Thank you so much. If we're able to submit the ordinance in February so that the 30 day prop pay is in is in, then allow dismal additional four months to write the procedures, the processes and the rules and wrecks. This will allow the 30 day prompt pay to be law, but it would give dismal four months to get it right so that they can implement the process and the procedures along with all the other aspects of it and etc.. That's what I was speaking to. She was saying four months after February. Correct. Thank you. And you, sir. I'm saying the same thing. Okay, so six months is what you're saying, sir? That's correct. That would allow dispo to get all the systems and everything in place and working. Thank you. And you, ma'am. I'm sorry. Thank you, Councilman, for asking because we weren't clear. So, yes, I am requesting for the time that's needed in order for Katrina and Mrs. O'Malley to incorporate the prompt payment clause. That would be six months. Okay. Thank you so much. I must get you if you have something. Again, my name is Lacy and I would like to say that I'm not happy about the delay at all. And we've brought up a number of things about how to protect small businesses with these huge projects coming out. And I really feel like a drain in particular has accepted those challenges and stepped up to the plate. So I'm truly comfortable with the six months that she needs. Sure. Yeah. I mean I mean, I share the frustration that that has been expressed by some people that wanting this done sooner. And I was pleased to work with Councilwoman Ortega and Councilman New on and I think a lot of the beginning of where you are now, what I'm hearing. Well, I'll say that. Thank you. I appreciate the clarification and to the witnesses who spoke. Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen. Councilman Hines. Thank you, Mr. President. Of some of the questions already had had have been answered. I do want I as I understand it, we should pass laws, then make the. Rules. And I guess I'm I'm a little unclear as to are we waiting to pass the law until June or are we passing a law sooner than making the rules? Or is there a reason why we should wait till June to do all of it? I mean, I think that in the past we or at best practice in general is to pass a law and then do rulemaking. So can you help me work through that? Thank you. Yes, for clarification. Our proposal is to wait to pass the law until the rules and regs can be aligned with the ordinance. So April 1st, we would submit the ordinance, file it, and then at that same point in time, we'd have the rules and regs draft ready to go as well. So thereafter that time period would be for training. We would be working on our tech systems as well as working back with the community for public input and comment. So you say submit the law in April. Does that mean that April, the first council meeting in April, it would be in for introduction and then the second council meeting in April would be there for final consideration and do pass. So I don't have the dates broken down as such. I just know with regards to wanting to ensure that the ordinance is done, we blocked out the timeline for that to be April 1st. Okay. And then the next quick question I have is you mentioned that you're already incorporating language into contracts like the Great Hall and Convention Center and Central Library and National Western. Thank you for doing that. I think that's important that the people who live here can continue to live here. And not everyone looks like me, a middle aged white male. And I'm glad that I and I'm glad that we're protecting the diversity here in our city. So that but what language are you including in the contracts? Are you including and I don't mean let's read all of the contract, but I mean, just, I guess to to give better nature to the to my question, are you saying you're including in the Great Hall contract that the the legislation and rulemaking that you're considering now will will be in the see the Great Hall contract in your and in the contract it says once this passes into law that you have to know now. So but thank you for asking that question so that I can clarify that as well. So now we're putting quite literally in those blanket provisions. So rather than saying once the ordinance goes through X, Y and Z and giving the Chapter 28 articles to the today, we're trying to make it a lot clearer for contractors and small businesses to understand expectations. So many of the themes that you'll see in the new ordinance are called out in the RFP is the RFQ and the contract, for example, like a compliance plan. This is something that's new that now contractors are required to design, create work with liaisons and coordinators, small businesses to explain to us how they're going to meet their commitments to small businesses. So that's something that we're actually calling out in the contract language as well. It's being laid out in the ordinance. And prompt pay. Is that also something that certainly that appears to be a topic of of concern and and based on testimony, I would agree is is prompt pay also something that you're incorporated into the RFP for Great Hall, Convention Center, Central Library, etc.? Right. So because the prompt payment tax system hasn't been finalized, we did not include that in the RFP in our Qs. However, we are going to include it in the contracts so that it's still obligated thereafter because we would have a better sense then as to how we are going to enforce it. Does that create a gap between the responses from the RFP and then the contract itself like, well, we'll see a vendor who gets selected based on an RFP. Will they say, well, we weren't told that we had to pay promptly. We're not going to do that. Now because at that point in time, once it's in the contract and it's in the ordinance, it's law abiding by then. Okay. And the last thing that I, I think we've covered this, I just want to ask it anyway. So the the prompt pay, I totally understand. I mean, people mortgaging their homes, maxing out their credit cards. Why wouldn't we pass the bill ASAP so that let's say we were to pass it today, which obviously is not possible , but we just pass it today and then these vendors are on the hook. These large multinational corporations are on the hook. And, you know, if we wait until June of of 2020 to pass it, then they're not on the hook until June 2020. And then they can hem and haw for the bill that comes through May 31st of 2020. So well, because technically it would be in the contract, so they would still be obligated to to abide by those requirements. The difference being that putting it in the ordinance versus keeping it out of the ah, can I keep you out in other words. But rather than putting in the audience and then setting it and not being able to implement it versus having the process and procedures for us to therefore enforce it. Those are two different things and that's what we're trying to get to, is being able to enforce it now because we have the systems and the procedures whereby to do such a thing. If we put it in the ordinance without any systems governing it or any procedures and different agencies understanding how to assess dispo and making sure that they're meeting those payments. That's where that inconsistency and inefficiency comes. And then we could get phone calls from small businesses saying, you're not enforcing the payment, but we don't have the system in place to do so yet. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Councilwoman Ortega. Thank you, Mr. President. Adrina, first, I want to thank you and other folks from the city for meeting with me to walk through some of these provisions under general services, because the ordinance currently does not speak to them. Do we have any idea how many big contracts they have that are expected to come through during this window of time between now and the time that the ordinance actually gets adopted? Yes. So I don't have that actual number on hand now, but I did send an email to all of the council members, which we can send again with the listing of all of the procurements that we have slated for the first quarter of 2020. And General Service is also included in that. We've got quite a lengthy list here, and this is just a touching on some of the procurements that are going to be coming out. So I don't have that that solid number, but we can resend it and we can resend the list. So. If the if they come out in the first quarter and the ordinance does not speak to goods and services because we're extending the current ordinance, we're not adopting the new ordinance yet. Correct. Those are contracts that will not get covered. Correct. So we've actually been in conversation with regards to goods and services with our city attorney's office. And obviously we have a city attorney's office here now. And so what you're asking is, under the current ordinance, where some contracting opportunities wouldn't be quote unquote, covered goods are covered services, would we have the ability to still recognize them for a goal or an SB defined pool? We've been combing through that legally to see if that's something that we can do. That's like probably the only caveat with the exception being quite honest, that we're looking to see if we can do okay. One of the contracts I'm aware of is a big parking contract. And when we have small businesses that want to partner, you know, with with larger premiums on some of those, these are some that go by the wayside that otherwise would could have a minority partner. But because the current ordinance doesn't cover goods and services, that's part of the concern about the urgency in time. Right. And we talked about that when we met. So help me understand how we're able to put language in current contracts. Under the current ordnance contracts that will come through. You talked about a number of the big ones. It's not in. It's not covered in this ordinance. But you're trying to cover it in the contracts. How can we realistically do that if it's not spelled out in the ordinance? So there's a couple of different questions that you ask there. The first one I believe, that you're speaking about is the parking management procurement. And because that has already gone out for solicitation and is already currently pending contract award. What we're doing doesn't retract any of that. So unfortunately, that was not a covered good or service contract and whereby we couldn't include that language because it was already out for solicitation at that time. And I believe that was back in August and it's pending award now. And that's something like a $50 million contract. It's a pretty big one. I don't know the dollar value on that, but I know which one you're speaking about because it was after the fact many, many, many months ago that we were going to put language in that. All right. So process and procedures are anticipated to be in place by the time those contracts come forward. So the contract language is already in the upcoming. So as stated, we started putting that contract language in many of the megaprojects. Unfortunately, the parking management was much earlier on, so we did not have the opportunity to work with the team to get that language in. But now all of those procurements are being flagged for us to review internally. We actually have a subcommittee with many of the city agency, project managers and executive directors that we're going through in coming up procurements for opportunities for mwb safeguards. And does that include some of the general services upcoming contracts? Yes. So as stated, the DIN janitorial services that's coming out, that was previously with ISIS, this one is coming out again. And we're working with PBMs to ensure that that language is in the actual solicitation for the RFP. Okay. And then just lastly, the new ordinance will have the 30 day prompt pay language. Yes. Okay. All right. I have no further questions. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. Do we need a clarification here? When? Already out for. Solicitation prior to us. Oh, we need some additional clarification. We were just clarifying if the parking was a covered good or service and I was explaining that we didn't apply a goal because it wasn't covered at that time and we didn't get the language in there. Yeah, I mean, that's a little concerning because we've, we've extended this contract already, a couple I mean, this ordinance a couple of times as we, you know, went back and added goods and services to the disparity study. And by the time we get this adopted, we'll we'll already start get close to starting the disparity study for the next five year round, right? Yeah. In two years. Yeah. So that's an evolving process. A little frustrating, but thank you. I share your frustrations. And again, I want to see this happen as soon as possible. I just want to make sure that we do it right. Thank you to Councilman Hines. Thank you, Mr. President. I have a question for our city attorneys, our city council attorney. This is so I want to in in general, it's best practice for us to pass a law, then make the rules. I guess that's question one. And the question to is, is, as I understand it, what we are doing right now is we are passing the law before, but making the rule first or making before we pass the laws. I guess. I guess is that your understanding of this as well? Kirsten Crawford Legislative Counsel I have been asked this question a number of times in the past few days. It is not uncommon for us to proposed draft rules prior to the adoption of an ordinance. I think we did it in in the situation with green roofs, if I'm not mistaken. And also we've done it at times with marijuana. And I think some of the reason behind that is to let stakeholder groups understand how the ordinance and the rules might function together. Specifically as to the timeline for dispo in this particular situation, I might bump that question to Jason more. If you have more specifics, it it is, I think, more conventional to draft an ordinance adopted and then have the rules come behind. But we've done this a number of times in the city and in other jurisdictions. I know it's done. That was that way as well. Okay. And then I just want to give Ms.. Stewart, do you have any anything that you want to add? You don't have to. I just want to give you the opportunity to. Should you want to. STEWART. Sky. Sky. I'm sorry. North Sky. Stewart Mayor's office. No, I think Adrina and Stephanie O'Malley have covered this. And Kirsten said what I would have said about we have on occasion sort of gone down a parallel track with rules and regs and ordinance to make sure we're offering clarity to. Particularly newer, complicated things to. Stakeholders so they'll know exactly how it will work. And so that we have staff trained up on how enforcement and implementation will work together. Okay. Thank you, all of you, for your input. And thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman. Set of questions. Just a quick point of clarification. The examples you brought up were actually citizen. Led ballot initiatives. Up. Green roofs, some marijuana. So green roofs, yes. Was a citizen's initiative when we put together a stakeholder group to make changes to that. It was a city led. Process and that included development of some of the rules and regs in a parallel. Track. Short term rentals is another place. We talked about some additional rules and regs. At the same time, we are moving forward with an ordinance. They weren't adopted at the same. Time, but the development of them was somewhat. Concurrent to give people a. Better sense of what happened. So the you are correct, green roofs. Was a citizen's initiative. But not every example we have of talking about concurrent rules. And regs. Is a citizen's initiative. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. All right. Seeing no other questions, I just want to follow up because I'm not sure if I just missed it or if Councilman Ortega asked a bunch of questions all at once. And I was waiting for the answer to one of the later ones, and I'm not sure if I missed it, but can you talk a little bit to so we don't have the ordnance, but you are building a lot of what will become the ordinance into existing contracts. And so you don't have the ordnance to do that with, but you're doing it. So one, I think the councilman's question was, how are you doing that? That I was waiting for an answer and might have just missed it. And then second, why not pass those things if we're doing it anyway? You know, often I think we get this ordinance done. It's set in stone, but it's not. We can come back and amend it along the way, so why not put into ordinance those things that we are already doing with other contracts, even if not everything is ready instead of wait all the way until everything's ready. Can you speak a little bit to that? Thank you for that. So as it is right now, it's pretty much a la carte. So the projects that we see coming down that have mwb opportunities where on one hand rushing, getting all of the necessary mwb safeguards in those specific procurements, as well as trying to restructure and revise all of our boilerplate language. So we're working we're frantically working on two things at two different times. This additional time that we would have with the six month extension allows us to put this language in all of our contracts so that it's consistent rather than working on them as we find out a procurement is coming down the pipeline. The language is more consistent. We ensure that it's boilerplate for all procurements and solicitations coming out, and it's not a grab bucket of what to put in this procurement versus where to put in this one. So that six months allows us the time to work with the various city agencies to revise all of their libraries of boilerplate language. And you asked how we're doing that at this point in time in terms of process, like sitting down with the PMS and. Which is without the ordinance as that guide, who's making those decisions about what gets in which one? So we've already we've already been working on and finalizing a lot of these themes in the ordinance. But as the procurements come down the pipeline, it really comes down to what kind of opportunities are available. How can we safeguard mwb ees with whatever goal or sub defined pool we're laying out? It's really a caveat of what fits best for this procurement as a PO, and that's because we're again trying to get things in. In the meantime of this ordinance being out versus having the time to create a boilerplate language for all mwb is regardless of procurement. Okay. So answer your question, Councilman Ortega. Yeah. So just to piggyback on this a little bit. So any of the contracts that are moving through. Will they have the 30 day prompt pay language in them? Just to be clear. So as it is right now, we don't have the systems in place for the prompt payment. So the payment is the one item that we have not been putting into the RFP is our Qs. But we're hoping to amend the contracts to ensure the prompt payment is there once we have the systems in place. Okay. And that's being communicated with anybody that's getting awarded these contracts. Correct. So they know that's. Yes. So as an example, with regards to the compliance plans that we're asking for, for many of these megaprojects, there are having to explain to us how they are going to promptly pay their mwb is what mechanisms they are going to use to ensure payment and speak to their commitment towards ensuring that small businesses are there, that they are contributing to the success and growth of small businesses. So we're doing a play on words by getting their commitment rather than putting that provision in there, because we don't have the systems yet. And then just one very last question, if I may, on the general services. Is there a threshold level that's been identified in terms of how we determine which ones? I mean, obviously, the disparity study is is used to determine, you know, how many people are in those various categories. But are we setting a threshold level or is it just for every contract. At threshold level four with regards to if it's going to have a goal or be in speed? If I'm. Paul Yes. And I'm very excited to bring that back to all of the council members to lay that out. But yes, we've actually increased the thresholds so that we have the ability to apply a goal versus and speed. If I am Paul and on in the current ordinance, those programs live separate from one another and the future ordinance they're in concert with one another. So on the parking management, we would go back and look at the number of available firms that can do that type of project and say, Hey, we have a large pool of firms, let's make this an sbe defined pool or there's not a lot of prime opportunities for IMW BS on this. So let's make this let's put a goal on this so that there's subcontract able opportunities for small businesses. So yes, we've changed the threshold and we've also removed the covered term and we'll be bringing that all back to you once we begin the reauthorization process. So as we have contracts moving through the process, has there been a concerted effort to look at shorter time frames so that we're ensuring that we're capturing the opportunity for in the DWP participation as opposed to like the parking contract doing a five year contract with the five year extension, but yet no opportunity for minority or, you know, women participation in in those. And yes, and that's the main reason why we need time for rules and regs, because we have to be abled. So we've actually been working with our city agencies on citywide language and saying why it is one agency do it this way and why does another do it this way? Why are the timeframes different? We've been having those conversations, but that right there is a perfect example as to why we need that additional time so that we can shore up the processes and in many instances streamline them. Okay. Because, you know, with with the contracts, we either vote them up or we vote them down. We don't get to amend them. So, you know, I'm going to be looking at a lot of these contracts with a a much more careful eye as they're coming through, especially if they're high dollar contracts. I would encourage you to. Please. Thank you. Thank you. Captain Kels. Behind you of something? Yes. Apologies. One more question. Why can't we pass the today and delay the effective date to July 1st? I don't. That's a city attorney's office. Can you ask the question one more time, please? Why can't we pass this today and delay the start until July 1st, 2020? Good evening, guys. Jason Moore, City Attorney's Office. The ordinance is largely administrative. This is for you know does about authorizes disabled to operate. So at least as far as the agency, we kind of got it up to a certain point until we confer with the rest of the administration. And then that's when we got our recommendation to delay it to get the payment issues put into the ordinance. So as of right now, the ordinance is not ready to roll out. We're going to get it get it ready to roll out as quickly as possible, the reauthorization rather than the extension. So we got to a stopping point before before we could proceed with it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you. All right. Seeing no one can hear you. Ortega have we procured the system that we're going to be using to do the prompt pay and to be tracking? We we have not procured them yet. We are looking to utilize an existing system rather than bring in a whole new one. We want to obviously advance what we currently have in place and we've already begun our convening with tech systems, the data, the data analysts from each of their agencies, as well as our PMS and our financial app folks to look at how we can add these modules to our existing systems. Which system is that? So we are deliberating between right now Workday and B to G and texture. But we're most we're we're hopeful that we can proceed with work day being the system that allows us to do this compliance. And do we have a consultant working with us to help us try to figure all that out? So there are two. So we've we've brought in tech services as well as the data analyst that each of the agencies have done, in particular has two consultants that will also be a part of that process. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. All right. Now seeing no other questions. The public hearing for Constable 1289 is now closed. Comments by members of council and I will because we have the amendment on the floor, comments about the ordinance and about the amendment and the timeframe. I think we can do all the comments together and then we can get through the voting without doing a comment section for each time. So, Councilman Flint. Thank you. But I would defer to Councilman CdeBaca to go first. Thank you, Kelly. I was just faster on the trigger. You're a fast trigger figure there. I assumed. Thank you, Mr. President. First, thank you so much, Adrina, for the work that's gone into this process. We've been in the process of reviewing and updating this ordinance for quite a while, and you've been here for less than a year and have really done an excellent job making sure that we get the new ordinance we need. After over a decade of stumbling through the status quo, we've heard a lot of testimony about how small businesses suffer because of our delays and processes. The current ordinance, which is sunsetting at the end of this month as a result of an extension that Dito asked for in February of this year that my colleagues approved, is is a it asked for a lot of time to begin with. The original extension was to allow more time to discuss community recommendations and to identify needed changes to the ordinance, rules and regulations and internal policies and procedures. A lot of what look what looks like we're doing again later on in this six month proposal, I'm well aware of the need for time to carefully implement such an important ordinance. We have indeed foregone significant opportunities during the height of our growth to build to build up our disadvantaged businesses. Through this ordinance, we've watched our disadvantaged businesses shrink and disappear while systematically being excluded from competing for our largest contracts paid with taxpayer dollars, simply because of the way our current ordinance was written. Goods and services are. One area. That we are most deficient in and is still one of the areas that will continue to suffer, especially during this delay. In the last decade, we've watched our policy businesses decline along with our policy populations. Every single day and month matters to our disadvantaged communities. We have a 2018 disparity study that very clearly indicated we have significant disparities that we need to address immediately. The disparity was very the disparity study. Study was very thorough in its recommendations and with a generous eight month extension from the previous council. I do not understand why, in good conscience we continue to further disadvantage our disadvantaged businesses, knowing that another extension is costing them dollars, contracts and interventions we should have began implementing eight months ago without the immediate unbundling. Wherever possible, minorities in this city are still relegated to second class contractors or what we call subcontractors rather than primes . In many cases, they cannot even compete, and we end up with teams that have no disadvantaged representation until they're forced to. I'm looking forward to seeing the new ordinance codified and the implementation of the recommendations in the DISPARITY study from 2018. And I speak for many in the city when I request that my colleagues make the disadvantaged businesses their priority tonight rather than our own convenience, and cut this extension down to the minimal amount necessary. Based on the testimony, I ask my colleagues to vote no on the three month amendment and allow me to put the four month proposal on the floor where I'm requesting that you vote yes again. Adrina stated that April 1st is when this ordinance will be completed. There is a separation of powers and branches of government for a reason. Our branch of government, the legislative branch, should be passing the ordinance or law prior to the executive branch, allowing the agencies to promulgate rules and regulations. I encourage you all to vote yes on a four month extension, no on the three month extension and no on a six month extension. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Flynn. I think, Mr. President, I would speak in favor of of allowing a six month extension and acknowledge that, as Councilwoman CdeBaca had just said, this is needed as soon as possible. But to implement a new ordinance before all the processes and especially the tech process, the the the systems by which we're going to enforce it, are able to handle the mandates of the new ordinance. That's a recipe for disaster. We've seen enough things in this city. That have been implemented before they were ready to be administered and enforced. And that is not good for our small businesses. However. The six months, what we were told in our committee, the six month extension is the maximum amount of time that the agency believes it needs. It could be ready before that. And if it is, we can supplant the existing ordinance as early as May or June and not wait until July. But in the interest of not having to come back here and have this debate again on well, not on April 1st now, but on May 1st, if they're not still not ready, I believe that we should trust the Dispo Office and Ms.. Gibson and her in her professional judgment and give her the time she believes and many of the small businesses believe is is needed to do that. If this were an agency, if dispo is that dispo, it's just sounds weird. If if the dispo office were an agency that were fighting this. If we were dealing with an agency that was fighting this reform tooth and nail and was reluctant, if it was if it was the sheriff's department, it was the public works department pushing back on on some reform we wanted to do. I could see holding their feet to the fire. But here we have an agency that's the principal advocate for these changes. That's not the situation where we need to hold their feet to the fire. They're already holding their feet to the fire. The biggest question mark that I see here and what I've heard in the testimony is the technological and the administrative processes that need to be in place. And I think we should vote in favor of granting the dismissal office the time it believes it needs to get those. The worst thing that we could do would be to force the passage of the new ordinance before that office can get administered. So I ask that we pass the pass the bill on first reading or order it published as as it is presented and not amended. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Councilwoman Gilmore. Thank you, President Clark. I appreciate the dialog and the questions from my colleagues and Adrina and Stephanie, thank you for your work on this. I, you know, came from a place of compromise and wanting to allow additional time for disabled to do their work, but then also honoring the work of our minority and women owned businesses and small businesses in Denver. I've heard from many of them that do business out at the airport, that do business throughout the city. And I understand the six month extension is for you all to get through this process. We could do the ordinance ordinance earlier, followed by the rules and regs. And small businesses have been floating loans to the city of Denver for years. And I want to honor and in good faith hear from them and look at a four month extension so that we can get the ordinance in place and that there's. A line because to order new technology, to order, you know, applications, to make sure that we're able to track and the prompt payment piece is huge. I cringe to think about how many possible maybe we be. Businesses have gone out of business trying to do work with the city and county of Denver because they were never, ever paid by their prime and we didn't have the systems in place to track that. And so I would ask my colleagues to not only support dispo and the important work that has happened, but to also support the small businesses. And we had a few of them here tonight. There's no way that we're going to hear from a majority of them because they are there at home trying to do their payroll, do their end your books right now, you know, legal, everything else. And so I want to honor them and hear what they're telling me and that I am in support of the four month extension to May 1st so that we have a definitive time because we can't float this anymore. And I want to honor the small businesses that are keeping, frankly, the city afloat and keeping us diverse and inclusive. Thank you, President Clark. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Cashman. Yeah, thank you, Mr. President. And I passed the president a note a moment ago saying how proud I was that I caught myself during questioning as I was slipping into comments. That doesn't happen all the time. So I'll make my comments now. What I started to say was I was pleased to work with Councilwoman Ortega and Councilman New. I think we started a couple of years ago on on the, you know, issues like prompt payment and strengthening the the goals from minority and women owned businesses and and heard many small business owners come in and talk about, as we heard tonight, the obscene amount of time it takes to get paid for for work that's been completed. And so I, I understand the frustration, but what it feels to me is, is that the frustration is about what's happened in the past. And what we've got now is is the the team in place to correct that finally. And for me, the additional two months, the way I'm interpreting the testimony that I'm hearing tonight, is there there's minimal risk to small businesses in granting the six month extension so that we get it done right and and completely. So I'm I'm in favor of the six month extension. I ache for the businesses that have been injured along the line. And but I think we've got things in hand at this point. So. That's my words tonight. Thank you, Councilman. Councilwoman Ortega. Thank you, Mr. President. First, I want to thank Katrina for the incredible work that you've done in the short amount of time that you've been with the city. You really get this stuff. And I'm excited about your your role in helping move this along as far as we've gotten. So I want to say thank you for that. Stephanie, I know you've been playing a huge role in, you know, the disparity study process and in helping to draft the current ordinance as well as Jason. This is not new to the city. We have had an mwb ordinance since the pioneer days. In the last two administrations, we have had seen part of our Gillespie office fall down in terms of strong enforcement, strong outreach and training. And I'm excited about the fact that we've really staffed up and are working to address all of those kinds of issues, because that is critical to making sure that we are not seeing small businesses put out of business. You and I have worked on one of those out at the airport, and I think when we have agency folks that take a hands off, like, well, that's between the prime and the sub, and we're not holding that prime accountable for not doing their job and making damn sure that the people they brought to their team, which is part of why they got the contract in the first place, are I mean. This is where it's broken. It's why we need the ordinance. It's why we need to. To make these changes. But our agency people have a responsibility in this as well. They can't just keep taking the hands off and and still allow these contracts to move forward without accountability to those people who got selected to follow our ordinances and to make sure that their premiums are getting paid. Given the fact that the ordinance is about 95% done, I am in support of the four month delay because the changes that were made that Councilman Cashman just talked about, the councilman knew brought forward, were supposed to help address part of these issues. Right. By making sure that the information was being submitted at the time of payment to the DSB office so that there was transparency in the payments. And to realize that we have businesses still waiting eight months. You know, I dealt with one that was $5 million outstanding at the airport for almost a whole year. And you know, what ends up happening in a lot of cases is they have to settle for pennies on the dollar, which is absurd, because that is not why this this ordinance exists. It's to make sure that we create these opportunities where people get to participate in city jobs and make a little bit of money and support their businesses and grow their businesses. But just the opposite is what we see happen with some folks, like the one at the airport that, you know, basically not only had been there for 27 years, but lost everything. And that's not what we want to see happen. And so I'm I'm excited about the changes, but I am anxious for us to move these things along. We we have a tracking system today. I mean, we we have to track how all of this gets reported. And and, you know, but what I hear is we're shoring that up to handle the new volume. And I know when Eric Maraga took over as our OMB director before the name was changed, I said, this is one of the things you need to step in and deal with because we have over $6 billion worth of work that's going to be coming through this city. And and, you know, it really was when you came on that we started beefing up the staffing and all of that. So I know I'm sort of getting into part of the ordinance and we have another public hearing. So I will stop. But I'm in support of the four months because we need to get this done as soon as possible. And I appreciate the all the work that's that's been done not only by you guys, but all of the BWB partners who have sat through many, many meetings with reviewing the disparity data and the drafting of the the ordinance that is yet to come forward. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman Hines. Thank you, Mr. President. In committee, I mentioned measure twice, cut once. Turns out our predecessors already gave you that second measuring opportunity when we we as in the previous we not me, but gave you the an an extra eight month extension. And so here I, I want to, uh, we in the legislative branch, we make the laws and, you know, so I am totally supportive of allowing a delayed start so that you can make rules. I'm also in support of the four month extension so that you can take the laws from 95% to 100%. So I am in support of the four month extension. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Hines. All right. Seeing no other comments. And then again, we're going to race through some voting. So if you have something to say on. The point of order, just a quick point of order. You can, as the introducer of the original, can you just withdraw that and resubmit the second one? Sorry to do that, but first, I have a few comments to make before we get to that. But yes, excellent. Okay. So I will just add my thanks to everyone. You know, Stephanie, Adrina, Susan, whole team, this is exciting and I think that you're really onto something when city council sits around fighting over how fast can we have it, right? We want it. We want it now and we don't want to wait. Anymore. That's a success. That means that you are headed in the absolute right direction. And so I don't want that to get lost in the middle of this. Three months, four months, six months. Right. We were excited. And this is important work and we want this now. And I think that that's a good thing. On the city council, you know, sitting up here, we don't have a lot of levers that we control. Right. And I know that also gets frustrating when we're not in the weeds like you are. And then all of a sudden we are up here saying, but wait a second, we we think you can do it faster or we think you can do it better. And I know that's not easy on that side. It's not easy on the side, not having a lot of levers when there's something that we believe in and we want to move forward. And one of the levers that we do have is how long do we make this extension? And, you know, I, for one, absolutely do not want anyone to take any reduction in this time as we want less than perfect and everything. Right. I still want all of that. But one of the levers that we can pull is to put that fire on a little bit more. And, you know, I do think that sometimes when you get a goldfish that grows to the size of its container, and if we gave this a year, then we probably wouldn't get it eight months early in committee or four months early or two months early or a day early. Right. And I think if we set it as six, then that's probably where we'll get it. I appreciate Councilman Flynn's, you know, hope that we will get it earlier, but I think we definitely don't get it earlier if we set the date out there just because that's how we all work. And we work towards those deadlines. And I think setting a deadline that's more aggressive maybe helps us actually get it there earlier. And if it doesn't, then we continue to have a conversation. And this is another touch point for council to have in this work. And so for those reasons I am excited. I want this now. I can't have it right now. And so I am in support of shortening that time frame and continuing to push and light that fire and and hoping that we can get it sooner and continue that conversation and continue the touch points that Council has as we go on to make sure that we can get this fully enacted as soon as possible. So I am supportive of the shortening of the delay as well. So all right. With that and thank you, Councilwoman Ortega. We are going to we don't need to vote down the amendment. But Councilman said, like, if you want to propose a withdrawal of your original amendment. I would like to propose a withdrawal. Of my original amendment. Can we get a second on that? As the second, I agree to withdraw. All right. And so we have that moved and seconded. So, Madam Secretary, that one's cleared out now. Good. Okay. Now, Councilman said, what do you want to make your motion to amend? Yes, I move that council bill 19 Dash 1289 be amended in the following particulars on page one, lines 21, 24 and 27. Please strike July one and replace with May one. Thank you. All right. Are we all set? Madam Secretary. Yep. All right. Excellent. So that has now been moved and seconded. And unless someone really has a burning comment, we're just going to go through to the vote. Looks like it. All right. Madam Secretary, roll call on the amendment. CdeBaca. I black. Flynn. No. Gilmore. I. Herndon. No. Hines. Hi. Cashman. Hey. Kenny Ortega. I. Sawyer. I. Tories. I. Mr. President. I. Madam Secretary, please close the voting. Announce the results. Five nays, seven ice. Five nays, seven ays Council Bill 1289 has been amended. And now, Madam Secretary, if you would, roll call on 1289 as amended. And again, unless there's a burning. Oh, nevermind, we're already going into roll call. Go ahead. Black. I see tobacco. I. Flynn. I. Gilmer. I. Herndon High. Haines High Cashman. I can eat i. Ortega, i. Sandoval. Sorry. Sawyer. Guy toys i. Mr. President. All right. Madam Secretary, please close the voting, announce the results. 1212 Eyes Accountable. 1289 has been published. All right. That brings us set last to our final courtesy hearing of the evening. Councilwoman Torres, will you please vote count about 1176 on the floor.