A resolution approving a proposed Memorandum of Understanding amending the 2019-2021 Collective Bargaining Agreement between the City and County of Denver and Denver Fire Fighters - Local 858, IAFF, AFL-CIO, to defer salary increases, suspend the City’s contribution to Post Employment Health Plan, and suspend pay for selected holidays and uniform allowance in 2021. Amends the collective bargaining agreement with Denver Firefighters Local 858 to defer salary increases, suspend the City's contribution to Post Employment Health Plan, suspend selected holidays, birthdays and uniform allowance. The last regularly scheduled Council meeting within the 30-day review period is on 12-21-20. This resolution was approved by the Committee on 12-2-20.
11 eyes. Council Resolution 1356 has been adopted. The next item up is Council Resolution 1416. Councilwoman Ortega, would you please put Resolution 1416 on the floor for adoption and remove the Council Resolution 20 1416 be adopted. Thank you. It's been moved and seconded. Questions or comments by members of Council. Councilwoman Sawyer. You're good. All right. I tried to make sure I. Got about 15 screens happening here. Give me just 1/2. Let me pull up my next screen. Thanks so much. Hang on. No worries. There we go. Okay. Thanks so much for your patience. I really appreciate that. So I called this out for a vote because I'm going to be a no vote tonight. I spoke to Chief Fulton and David Foster of 858 tonight. And we talked through my reasons, which are mostly just consistency. I'm incredibly grateful for all that our firefighters do and the relationship that we have with them. And I don't mean to belittle or demean that in any way. And I want to thank every single one of the brave individuals that our fire department in our fire department for putting their lives on the line for our community. However, just like the Police Protective Union contract, this ammo you includes raises. And given the city's financial status, I just can't support that. While I recognize that this is a different circumstance because Local 858 was already owed raises under the terms of their contract, I'm just not comfortable giving one set of employees raises while others see pay cuts during an unprecedented financial and public health crisis. Council staff and Denver's career service employees were furloughed this year, and they'll be furloughed again next year. And let's be honest, a furlough is a pay cut. All members of this council, except one give back, are raises and salaries for those furlough days in solidarity with our coworkers. And I will commit to doing that again next year. But no raises means no raises. And so in the interest of fairness and on principle and consistency, I cannot support this MRU. Just like I did not support the pay contract. So I'm going to be a no vote tonight on this and I just wanted to go on record as saying that. Thanks so much, Madam President. All right. Thank you, Councilman Sawyer. Councilman Herndon. Thank you, Madam President. In just I will be in support of this, and I'm going to remind my colleagues that this is a different set of circumstances than with the pay of the sheriff's, because Local eight five did not have to come forward to renegotiate. But recognizing the fiscal challenges that they that the city is in, they wanted to be a partner in and recognizing that they wanted to as well make some sacrifices. And so I applaud them for doing that. If we vote this down, then their current contract will remain in effect and the current contract will give them a salary increase next year. And we will lose the savings that we're going to get with this contract if we approve it tonight. So once again, thank those eight, five eight for coming forward. And I certainly hope my colleagues to support this today, as I will. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Councilman Herndon. Madam Secretary, roll call. Sawyer? No. Torres. I. Black I. CdeBaca. I, Clark. I. Flynn. I. Herndon. I. Hines. I. Cashman. I can each. I. Ortega. I. Sandoval. I. Madam President. I. Madam Secretary, close the voting and announce the results. One name. 12 eyes. 12 eyes. Council Resolution 1416 has been adopted. The next item up is Council Bill 1364. Councilwoman Torres, please go ahead with your questions on Council Bill 1364. Thank you so much, Madam President. Perhaps Lauren Harvey is in the queue. Yes. Hi, Loren. So I just wanted to go through a couple of the questions. I was able to email you these earlier so you get a sense of what they were going to be. But because we didn't get to see this come through committee, because it was over the holiday week, I just I had questions about what's been spent so far in terms of rental and eviction assistance and how DHS is distributing this money. And additionally, what does DHS consider to be eviction assistance? Thank you so much, Councilman Torres, and I do appreciate you sharing some of your questions ahead of time. So pertaining to our general assistance program. Within that bucket, the amount of funding that has been spent on the evictions and rental assistance through October of 2020 is $625,131. And we did see a sharp uptick, especially in September and October, which we believe has to do with some COVID related issues. And we anticipate that continuing through November and December, which is why we wanted to request the supplemental to get out as much assistance as possible to folks. We also we do have that broken out into a few different specific assistance under that. But to your question, the way that it's paid out is through direct payments to the landlord in those cases when it's a rental or eviction assistance for a rental. And can you remind me of what your last question was? Sorry about that. Right. How DHS is distributing both the rental and eviction assistance. So kind of the procedural process that you all go through. Sure. So by ordinance, this is meant to be shorter term assistance. So basically we take applications and we look at it through some of our qualifications. So the income qualifications as well as if it's something where the person would be requesting assistance on a short term basis. So the duration by ordinance is for no longer than 90 days of assistance. So it's really a short term assistance for that person. And we also look at if they have, they also have to like show us that they don't have other means of paying for whatever the need is. And if for some reason they are not necessarily qualifying for this particular assistance. We do work closely with partners and other agencies. We work closely with TrueCar to try to connect folks to where they might be able to get further assistance. And is that answering your question about how we get this out? It is. It is. And I guess I'm just I just want to make sure I'm understanding is are the recipients of the funding already signed up for benefits through Denver Human Services or new people walking in the door explicitly for this funding? Just trying to distinguish this portal from that through a portal. I'm sure. So I could ask for that data. I don't know if we. To be honest, I don't know if we ask when somebody applies, if they are receiving other benefits. However, I'm not aware that we disqualify somebody for this assistance just because they might be receiving other benefits. But I can just double check with our folks, if that's a question we ask if they're receiving other benefits. But I'm I'm not I'm not aware that that disqualifies somebody. At this juncture for this assistance. Okay. Thank you, Lauren. Appreciate it. Thank you, Madam President. All right. Thank you, Councilman Torres. That concludes the items to be called out. All bills for introduction are ordered published. Council members remember 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.