A resolution amending the Denver City Council Rules of Procedure. Amends the City Council Rules of Procedure to promote an anti-racist culture. Councilwoman CdeBaca approved direct filing this item on 2-20-20.
Ten days, two days. Resolution 68 has been adopted. All right, Madam Secretary, if you please, for the next item on our screens. And Councilmember Hines, will you please put Resolution 182 on the floor? Yes, Mr. President, I would love to move that council resolution 20 dash 018 to be adopted. Thank you, Councilmember. And this is the first of the rules of procedure at council. You didn't see you call them out so they would have gone through on consent. I do have a couple of them. We had discussed these in committee, a couple that I thought needed a little bit more time, one that I had never seen before. And so I wanted to call them out so that we could discuss those and vote on them separately. But since they're yours, I didn't know if you wanted to take any time. First, if you had intended to call them out and dismissed them, or if you were hoping they would go through on consent. Now, why would I call them out if I wanted them to go through? That is a fair that is a fair thing. I just wanted to double check. But thank you for calling them out and some context for why they're in front of you and getting called out. These were proposed in committee as a single bill. What I heard in committee was that there were a lot of issues with replacement rather than additions. And so what we did was to reflect the conversation that happened in committee. We made additions instead of replacements and broke it up into separate bills for each one so that you all could vote on them individually. I thought this was a more effective use of our time than sending it back through the committee process, considering the amendments and the changes were a reflection of our conversations in committee. Thank you. Councilmember Torres. One question actually for the language on 182 is it proposes to modify G of 12.1. There's already a G of 12.1. There's actually a G, H and I. So that should probably read G. Yep. That's a typo. And it is an addition, not a replacement of the other one. And this is encompassed in the intent section of our rules. So there is no need to for it to be enforceable. But it is really about promoting the spirit and intent of what we're doing with these rules, which are not laws, they're group agreements for which we should be agreeing on as a group. And so this is just to add in there another layer of of what I believe we should be striving to do, which is promoting an anti-racist culture. Do I need anything? Yeah. So do we need to have a motion to amend on that or no? Jonathan Griffin Deputy Legislative Counsel So we do mention in 12.1 that to remember all in subsequent sections, so this will be inserted as G and then everything else will just go down a letter. Okay. Okay. Okay. I do have one more comment, but. You want to go. Ahead. Sure. Okay. So when this was brought to committee, my initial hesitation was that this was a rule to be enforced. And while I feel like we are progressive as a body, we may not understand how to enforce a rule of anti-racism and dismantling white supremacy. I do think we are building towards that. I see Kim Desmond in the office, who's leading the city's office on Equity and Social Innovation, directly responsible for this work and city departments. And so I do recognize that while we do have work to do ourselves, Kim is carrying forward a lot of this responsibility with city departments. I do support adding this and we may not fully be able to figure out how do we make that work in this body. I feel like we need to start including language that is explicitly anti-racist in what we hold our our own standards to, of ourselves and what we aim for in the work with you all and in the forum that you have here. There's any number of times where folks will make comments in council that we cannot counter, we cannot contradict, particularly in public comment. This is that for some First Amendment space and some of it may be racist in nature. And we have to be able to identify that, recognize that that's taking place. And this is an open forum. So we want to hear from community, but we also want to make sure that we're holding ourselves accountable to something in when it comes to decorum. I will support this one in particular, but I do look forward to us having additional training, discussions, conversations about how we internationalize that in our daily work, because we have to work with each other, because we have to collaborate. We need to be able to figure out how do we do that, how do we make it real in our daily work and not just language on a page. So I look forward to both that follow up and to my colleagues edition. Thank you, Councilmember. And I appreciate that. And I can't wait for us to build on our first training that we did with Kim Desmond, because I do think that it takes intentionality to make it real. So thank you. All right. Councilmember Black. Thank you, Mr. President. Oh, microphones. Time just for some context for all of you people who are here in the audience. It's really unusual for council members to direct file bills. I'm the chair of the Finance and Governance Committee, and we did discuss some of these at our February 11th committee meeting. Committee members did come to consensus on some of these amendments, and we actually amended a bill and agreed to move that forward. But that is not what is being brought to us tonight. There are other amendments that the committee agreed needed more discussion. I'm personally happy to support the amendments that we did have consensus on, but I think the others deserve some more discussion and the committee agreed with that. So I'm not saying it's necessarily that I'm opposed to them, but I want to honor the committee members that were there that day and agreed that they needed further discussion. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Councilmember Gilmore. Thank you, president clerk. I went back because I unfortunately was out of town traveling when the committee happened and went back and rewatched the committee. And I appreciate the conversation of my colleagues during that committee. And to echo Councilwoman Torres as comments, we we need to start this work and we need to start around education and really allowing all of the council members that are sitting up on the dais the opportunity to explore power and privilege and, you know, anti-racism, anti oppression, all sorts of different topics and work that we need to do. And I've been working directly with Kim Desmond and her team to set up an equity diversity and inclusion working group. We thought we were going to be able to kick off in March, but with scheduling, it's going to more so look like June. And so I invite my colleagues to definitely be part of that process. We had an. Initially reached out to committee chairs to start that because they can direct to the course of a meeting and and that we want to bring everybody along on this journey and that it's not a destination. It's truly a journey. So there's ongoing learning that folks need to do. I did want to in the spirit of being inclusive, ask the the bill sponsor, the resolution sponsor. If we could insert anti oppression as well into the definition. So it would promote an anti oppression and anti-racist culture that interprets relations of racial and equity by naming and challenging the norms, patterns, traditions, structures and institutions that keep oppression and racism and white supremacy in place. And then we might need to go back and tweak it a little bit more because we might want to not only call out race, but then also gender able isms such as sexual orientation. And so there's more work to do, but at least having an anti oppression in the definition, I think it sets a good table for how we're going to interact with each other as colleagues as well, but then how we're going to work with the public and the citizens of Denver. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Councilmember. Sorry. Thank you, Mr. President. I just want to thank Councilwoman CdeBaca for bringing this forward. I think this is just an incredibly important conversation to be having. And I'm so glad that Councilmember Gilmore just brought forward the idea of including oppression in this. I was actually going to ask that specifically sexism be brought into this. But I think oppression is a better conversation to word to bring to it. But I think, you know, I'm I've been shocked since beginning this position at the amount of racism and sexism that I have seen. It is real in our community. It is real in our jobs. It is sad. And it is really important that we start talking about it and we start leading on these issues because it's not acceptable. And so thank you, Councilwoman CdeBaca, for bringing this forward. And I hope that we can add oppression to it and start these conversations in our community. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilmember Councilmember Flint. I thank Mr. President. The discussion we're having here demonstrates why I believe we should re refer this to committee. This is one of those provisions in the original resolution that was amended out by Councilwoman Cannick, who has left the meeting, and she specifically wanted to have more discussion on it in committee, as did the majority of the committee when this was amended out. So I would like to make a motion that we refer this to committee. And I believe that this time legal is going to agree with you that that now supersedes all. I thought last time I did, too. But I think this time you're going to get a legal thumbs up as well. I'm putting in for a new. Lawyer to. Kirsten Crawford, legislative counsel. That's right. This this is a different. Set of rules and this can be rewritten. Okay. So now procedurally, do we pause everything and only talk about that, even though I've got other people in the queue to talk broadly, is that procedurally where we go from here? Yep. The motion would have to get seconded and it has been and it has been delayed. Oh, we got a motion and a second for re are already ahead of me. All right. So now comments and questions on the referral, which we will vote on first. Councilman Flynn. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. Just just to amplify it, the meeting was adjourned. We ran out of time before all the folks who were there had the opportunity to ask questions. I have questions on all of the items that were amended out. And I believe that there will be another committee meeting at which we would continue the discussion. And to have this discussion on the floor and basically make our legislative meeting, a committee meeting, I think is is not a good use of our time tonight. But this requires some more thoughtful discussion, and particularly with Councilwoman Quinn each having been ill and having to leave. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Councilmember Cashman. Thank you, Mr. President. Yeah, you know, I've certainly everything we're doing in the city right now has equity at the heart of what the policies that we create. But the intent of our rules is to help us to do our business. So I had a little bit of trouble with this, but for me, if we were able to add at the end of of G as written in the amendment in the conduct of our business. That would put it in the context that I feel it needs to be. I do support Councilman Flynn's desire to bring it back so it can get tweaked. As far as the the gist of what's there, the thoughts of adding oppression and whatnot, I think we can get to something that that is is is real worthwhile. And I would support it, but I would like to bring it back to committee to finish the discussion. Thank you, Councilman. Councilmember CdeBaca. Thank you, Mr. President. I I want to point out that this feels like a game of moving the target. So it was mentioned by Councilwoman Black that it's unusual for a council member to direct file. And what I would like to point out is that these rules initially came before us through a direct file by Councilman Herndon . I followed the process as recommended to to raise some of my concerns through the committee process. I am amenable to both of the amendments that were put in front of us. And I imagine that our legislative council here can make that amendment tonight on the floor instead of sending this through the committee process to make the very changes I'm agreeing to tonight. And I also feel like it's not. I feel like the amendments, as with other things that come before us, could have been proposed prior to tonight. I filed this with enough time and an entire weekend notice. Like everything else that comes before us, and I recognize that the motion is before us to delay this or re refer to committee. And I would ask my council colleagues to recognize that I have followed the process that was set before me the last time, and I have made every attempt to accommodate the concerns raised in committee and tonight and I'm amenable to the amendments suggested. Thank you, Councilmember. Council member Herndon. Mr. President, I do want to point out some differences that what we were doing before and what I did, one, I sent this out to my council colleagues via email. So and I specifically said, if you have any moment or if you have any concerns, please, I mean, please let me know. And I receive feedback from them and I maybe I missed the email. I'm not a voting member in finance. We brought this to the APS meeting when I had the decorum rules and everyone had the opportunity to speak to that. So I do think there are some differences. Certainly everyone on this chamber wants to make sure we address in anti-racism, but hearing other people say, Hey, can we add this word or can we add this word? For me thinks if we take some time to sit down as a full body, have all the members come and do it one time versus making changes on the floor, I don't feel that that in any way will damper the spirit or the moving forward of this, the quorum rules, because it's certainly something that I want to add. So I am comfortable referring it to committee so that we can take a deeper dove as opposed to the one time shot that we had at the Finance Committee. So but if not, I certainly if the motion to refer preferred committee has failed and I'll take another look at what the full answer will be with the particular amendment. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilmember Councilmember Flynn. Oh, thank you, Mr. President. I also I want to let folks know that I also intend to move to re refer to other of the amendments that were direct filed, one of which never came to committee or was discussed. But I wanted to point out that the outcome of of the fingers of committee was that we would continue the discussion. And so I was I was surprised to see them on Friday that they were filed. And on Friday I did email some questions. But I have to Councilwoman that I have not heard back yet. So I don't think it's really a good practice to do amendments and committee work here on our at our legislative meeting. But that given the fact that the folks had amended this out for specifically to have a I in additional robust discussion in committee, I think that's that's only appropriate. I think there are three amendments here separately filed that were contained in the bill that was moved out of committee but then was never filed. And I'm perfectly fine having votes on those three because they were approved by the committee. Thank you. Councilmember Councilmember CdeBaca. First. Thank you, Mr. President. First to respond to Councilman Herndon. There is a difference. You sent an email and then direct filed. I actually raised concerns the night we voted and went through the committee process, requested feedback, incorporated feedback, even broke them down into separate bills so that we could address them individually and separately on their own merit. And that is also a response to Councilman Flynn. They are refiled so that we can vote on each of them independently and don't have to kill a bill because we disagree with one of them when we agree on several others. And so that is the reason that it is before you. The one piece added was the final one about revisiting the rules as the body changes. The these are designed not to be law, but to guide our processes as a body, as group agreements. And you can't have group agreements to guide our body if the group doesn't agree on them. And so that is simply to put out there that we should be reconvening every time there's a need. We're going to that one's called out separate so we can put that comment in there just so that we keep that with that item. Is that okay? Yep. Okay. That's it. Those okay. Comments. Councilmember Hines. Thank you, Mr. President. Well, I'm pretty sure that I'd be fine with this as it is. I also had to leave while when committee was scheduled to end, and I don't know what discussion transpired. I don't have the opportunity to go back and rewatch the end of the committee. And so I would also be supportive of referring this to committee just to make sure that we have the discussion that, you know, it sounds like we've got a couple amendments, at least one, and I want to make sure that we get it right. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. All right. See no other comments. I'll just add on this one. First of all, thank you to Councilmember CdeBaca for bringing these forward, for bringing them through committee. Well, all but the one that we'll get to. And I appreciate that. And again, you know, as we work through this, I apologize if I misunderstood some things as we went through my understanding on this one, hearing the the debate that we were having in committee, which I think was awesome, was that there was the potential of more discussion, getting the language right, where does it belong? And some of those things that I thought we were going to discuss again, either in committee or in some fashion. And I never saw any of that. And then it was filed. So that was this one for me. I was expecting another. Conversation. I also, you know, huge shout out to Kim and team for the awesome training that we did. And it's hopefully just the beginning for us. But for for the city and the work that Councilmember Gilmore is working on for for our our committee or whatever task force that we're doing on that. So, you know, I think that there is there's a lot in here that I like, but I am eager to hear from everyone else about these additions of language. And again, I do in this agree with Councilmember Flynn that this is not the easiest or the best place to do that. We've got, you know, a family waiting for a hearing tonight who are staying out later. And this is work that I think we can effectively do through conversations in committee. And and I think that it warrants that. I think this is a really important conversation and really important language for us to be having. And so since we we kind of got to that, what I thought was that at the end of committee that this one wasn't quite ready and there were more conversation to be had. And then I didn't see what changed between then and there, but missed that conversation piece. I'm hoping that we can continue the conversation on that. So for that reason, I will support Councilman Flynn's motion to refer. All right, Madam Secretary, roll call on 182. And the motion to refer on the. Motions are on the motion to refer on 182. Thank you. Flint. Black. I see. Tobacco. No. Gilmore. I. Herndon. Hi. Hi. Cashman. Hi. Ortega. No. Sandoval. No. Sawyer. I. Torres. No. Council president. All right. All right, Madam Secretary, because the voting announced results. 8 hours, three days. Eight days, three days. Resolution 182 has been referred back to Committee one. My Muslim. What's the. Ortega's done up there, Mr.. President? Oh, we're missing somebody on the Ortega.