A bill for an ordinance modifying Article II, Chapter 18 of the Revised Municipal Code of Denver by adding a Division 5 titled COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate Bonus Program for the purpose of providing a one-time $400 bonus to eligible employees who complied with the vaccine mandate on or before the September 30, 2021 deadline, or were exempted from the mandate and have not been disciplined or had discipline proceedings initiated against them for violating their accommodation requirements through December 10, 2021. Amends Article II, Chapter 18 of the Denver Revised Municipal Code by adding a Division 5 titled COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate Bonus Program for the purpose of providing a one-time $400 bonus to eligible employees who comply with the vaccine mandate on or before September 30, 2021, or receive approved exemptions for medical or religious reasons. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 10-5-21.
Yes, Madam President. I move that council bill 1058 be ordered published. Thank you. We need it to be moved and seconded. Thank you. Comments by members of Council on Council Bill 1058. Council Member Sawyer. Thinks Madam President, I called out this bill so that I can vote no on it. Before I say anything else, I want to recognize our incredible city staff who's worked so hard over the last 20 months under extraordinary circumstances. And I fully support the premium and hazard pay proposals that are also on first reading tonight. But our city doesn't have unlimited funds, and I believe that the taxpayers would prefer we use this money to invest it in our community. So let's talk about what else could be done with this money if we chose to use it differently. This money is $5 million. It could build five miles of sidewalks. It could install seven new stoplights, depending on the cost, renovate four city playgrounds, fill the funding gap needed to complete the renovation of the Downtown Central Library Fund , the city's financial commitment on at least three affordable housing developments through host. This is five times the amount of money that the city has set aside from ARPA funds for small business safety and security grants. With this $5 million, we could staff foot and bike patrols and implement community policing programs in ten unique neighborhoods in our city for a full year. As grateful as I am to our staff. I find it difficult, difficult to allocate money to bonuses when there are so many outstanding projects that need to be funded in our city. And for this reason, I'm voting no tonight. Thanks, Madam President. Thank you, Councilmember Sawyer. Next up, we have Councilmember CdeBaca. Thank you. I echo the sentiments of my colleague, Councilwoman Sawyer. I feel it's inappropriate to provide bonuses for people to do something medical with their body. It feels like this is something we should have thought about when we were forcing people to be deployed into shelters. Or we should have done other things to let our workers know that we appreciate them. This feels inappropriate. And so I'll be a no on this tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember CdeBaca. Councilmember Hines. Thank you, Madam President. And I want to thank my colleagues. They've said some of the things that I would already say. I'm very happy to support our employees and in Denver and intend to do so with the bill that is here in introduction tonight. This particular one was a confusing rollout. And in addition to the things my colleagues have already said, and even in the press release that the press release talks about how much our employees have sacrificed. I agree with that 100%. I'm not sure that we should have that in the press release, when in fact all this is meant to do is a reward for those who have already been vaccinated. So if we wanted to do a reward, I think that we should have announced that earlier. So it's just a very confusing rollout. Again, and in addition to all the things my colleagues have already said. Thank you. Council President. Thank you, Councilmember Hines. Next up, we have Councilmember Clark. Thank you, Madam President. I have tried to get there on this proposal, and I do want to thank the staff who worked on this to make it better than it was when it was first proposed. I also want to say that I'm fully supportive of the hazard pay proposal that separate from this. But a bonus for getting vaccinated, I believe, is missing the mark for many reasons. First, as I've stated before, giving a bonus for something that everyone should be expected to do furthers the idea that getting vaccinated is a bonus or an extra thing that people can do if they'd like. We should be focused on letting all residents of Denver know that getting vaccinated is not an extra. It is the responsibility of responsible citizens in our community to get vaccinated, to protect themselves, and to protect the rest of us. Hundreds of thousands of Denver residents have done their civic duty and have gotten vaccinated because it's the right thing to do, and they're not getting bonuses for that. Also, as I've shared before, I've been told by many of my constituent that Denver, my constituents, that Denver rewarding city employees for doing the right thing feels to them like a slap in the face. Furthermore, rewarding employees who got vaccinated only when they were required to. At the same financial level that employees are being rewarded who did the right thing the first day they were eligible to do so also feels like a slap in the face for thousands of Denver city employees who did the right thing the first opportunity they had and didn't have to be mandated to do it. I do think that is really important after a really rough over year to make sure that we tell our employees that we do value them. In the past year and a half has been really hard and that we appreciate what they have done and what they continue to do. That's really important. And I think that there are a lot of ways that we could have done that in a lot of ways that we could have structured this to reward employees without it being tied in the way that it is, to the same reward for people who voluntarily did this when they first could and provided months of extra protection for Denver residents and and folks who who didn't didn't do that and possibly got other people passed COVID on to other people before they were mandated to get a vaccination. So I think that this is ill conceived as proposed, not the intent, but in in the mechanism of how we're doing it. And so for those reasons, I will also be a know this evening. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Councilmember Clark. Next up, we've got Councilmember Cashman. Thank you, Madam President. Unfortunately, we while the math is correct and the dollars would allow for a variety of other projects to be completed, mathematically, we don't have the employees to complete the projects that are on the books now. We were not picking up the trash in our parks as frequently as we would like to in the maintenance in our parks. Hasn't been up to the standards that I know our parks department would like were down. Police officers were down. Sheriff's. Every department is down. And we're in competition with in the industries across our city, private industries and across the country. So we're in a real world where we've got to stop the bleeding. This program, which I opposed when it was initially presented and as I've considered it, gave us a dual opportunity to stimulate, increase the percentage of our employees who did get vaccinated, to reward all people who got vaccinated, as well as those who met the criteria for legitimate exemptions. We've got to compete with industries that will offer our people more money than than we can offer them in our annual budget. So I'm willing to offer this thank you to to our employees. It is not. I wish it could be more. It could probably have been structured in a different way. But I'm going to say yes to this. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Cashman. Next up, we have Councilwoman Ortega. Thank you, Madam President. It's taken a minute for my camera to turn on. I'm not sure what's going on with that. So I also want to weigh in in support of this particular piece of legislation tonight. I appreciate the extra work that was done by our finance department after listening to input from members of the City Council. I think. Folks need to be reminded that our employees took 2020 a number of furlough days and we're scheduled to have furlough days in 2021. But those were canceled, but they took a huge financial hit in 2020 at a time that many of them were having to work at the vaccine sites and at the testing sites and at the food distribution sites. And some of the very families, some of our employees or some of the very families that were having to be in line at DPS and at our food banks because not everybody makes you know. Affordable living wages that works for our city. And so I think this is an important way to reward our employees, not only who have taken this. The hazard pay, I think, is an important element of this. And for those who have chosen not to and have not provided any kind of. Waiver that's been approved. Those are people who are lucky to get this. You know, this this extra pay. So I just appreciate the work that is being done and has been done by all of our city employees. And I'm going to be supporting this through. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Councilmember Ortega. Next up, we've got Councilmember Flynn. Thank you, Madam President. I would rather have all employees vaccinated. And if it means offering bonuses as incentives, the goal is to get people vaccinated and tamp down the virus. That's going to be with us for quite some time. We want to get our as many folks vaccinated in our city and our region and our state as possible. And I support this, as do numerous other entities American Airlines, Aldi, Kroger, Target, Wal-Mart are all offering their employees bonuses to get their vaccines so that we can beat the virus. It would be a Pyrrhic victory to say we're we're not going to pay bonuses. You should do the right thing and get the vaccine and then put up with the continued spread of the virus through our community. So I will support this measure tonight. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you. Councilmember Flynn, Councilmember Clark, we have you back up. Yeah, thank you. Madam President. I just want to make a quick clarification. Totally. You know, all of the time we disagree up here and totally respect all my colleagues in all of our disagreements. That's part of democracy. I just want to clarify, we talked about this in committee, but didn't want this to go and end up in the media. I want to clarify that this is not a bonus for people to get vaccinated. In fact, in committee asked very directly, will this get one more person vaccinated, one more person with the vaccine closer to the end of COVID? And the answer was no. This is a reward for things that have already happened. This is not an incentive and it will not increase the number of people vaccinated one bit. So I just wanted to clarify on that point, which is again, part of why I'm. No, thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Councilmember Clarke. Councilmember Hines, you're back up. Thank you. Council President. The only thing I would add to Councilmember Clark's comment is that this was announced just a few days before the deadline for the end of vaccinations if there's really want it. If this was meant to be an encouragement and incentive, it would have been presented months before. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Hines. Madam Secretary, roll call on Council Bill 1058, please. Ortega. Sandoval. I. Sawyer. No. Torres. I see tobacco. No. Clark. No. Flynn. I. Herndon. Hines. No. Cashman. I can eat. I. Madam President. I. Madam Secretary, please close the voting and announce the results. For his eight eyes. Four. Nays. Eight. Ice. Council Bill 1058 has been ordered published. That concludes the items to be called out this evening. All other bills for introduction are ordered published. Council members remember that this is a consent or block vote and you will need to vote. Otherwise, this is your last chance to call out an item for a separate vote. Councilmember Clerk Will you please put the resolutions for adoption and the bills on final consideration for final passage on the floor? Yes, Madam President. I move that resolutions be adopted and bills on final consideration be placed upon final consideration, and do pass in the Bloc for the following items. 12291156. 1129113411351136111311141115111611171119112011211122112311241125112611461152122310251029113711441150115110851109106411111105. Should be. All right. Thank you, Councilmember Clark. It has been moved and seconded. Madam Secretary, roll call. Ortega, I. Sandoval, I. CdeBaca I. Clark, I. FLine. I. Herndon Hinds. All right. Cashman Can each I. Sawyer Torres, I. Madam President. I. Madam Secretary, close the voting and announce the results. 12 US 12 ays the resolutions have been adopted and the bills have been placed upon final consideration and do pass. This evening Council will serve as a quasi judicial board of equalization to consider reduction of total cost assessments for two local maintenance districts West 44th Avenue and Elliott Street, Pedestrian Mall and Tennyson Street Skate portions of 38th to 44th in Council District one. Anyone wishing to speak on either of these matters must go online to sign up during the recess of council. Sign up. Opened online at 4:30 p.m.. If you've already signed up to speak, please do not sign up again as we've already received your submission. If you have not already signed up to speak, sign up remains open until the end of recess. If there are no objections from members of Council, we will take a ten minute recess.