A bill for an ordinance authorizing a rescission, a cash transfer, and a supplemental appropriation from the General Contingency Fund to the Capital Improvement Fund. Approves a supplemental appropriation of $1,450,000 from General Fund Contingency to transfer to the Other Agency Capital Project Fund to provide sufficient budget capacity to fund a settlement in support of the National Western Center Office in Council District 9. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 8-27-19.
12 eyes one nay council bill 818 has been ordered published. Madam Secretary, if you please put the next item on our screens. Councilman Herndon, would you please put Bill 874 on the floor? Yes, Mr. President. Move the council bill 2019 0874 be ordered published. It has been moved and seconded comments by members of Council. Councilman Hines. Thank you, Mr. President. May I have someone from the National Western Complex come forward for questions? Good evening, Members Council. Take us all the way. Executive Director of the Mayor's Office of National Restaurant Center. Awesome. Thank you, sir, for coming tonight and thank you for answering questions. If so, this this bill is appropriating funding for a national western complex. So I'd like to I guess first start with a more general question. How is the National Western complex funded in general? I know that's a large project, so. That's the question. Sure. So in part, there's funding from the Regional Tourism Act and then voters voted on to see. So a large portion of the funds, 765 million come from those sources. Got it. Where, general? Excuse me. Where general funds used in the funding of the contract. And I think this particular bill refers to general funds. Is that correct? So the funds that are currently allocated to it are to sea bond funds and Regional Tourism Act. Okay. And this particular bill is about general funds, correct? Correct. And specifically from the contingency account, is that correct? Correct. Okay. Is National Western currently fully funded except for this 1.4 or 5 million for the for the work that it's done to date? That is correct. It is a program of $965 million that just like every large program we're tracking to where we believe the health of the program should be today. The 1.4 or five is an amount of money that we're seeking approval for to use. That was an overage that we hadn't anticipated as part of the rail settlement agreement. So just specifically for the rail portion. And this this is considered a critical path item, is that correct? Yes. So without moving the rail or or without moving the rail, the national western can't move forward? That's correct. And without the settlement, we can't move the rail. Correct. Or at least as we've negotiated so far. Correct. Is it typical to not fully fund critical path items? Yeah. So again, on a very large project such as this, there's unforeseen conditions. We entered into this negotiation with approximately 15.3 million set aside for the rail agreement coming out of that monumental settlement, which was a really good situation for the city dealing with railroad authorities. There was 1.4 or five that we hadn't accounted for. So the program team felt at the time that this was an appropriate request for the use of general fund and Tennessee dollars. Okay. Thank you, Mr. President. I might have comments, but I thank you for your time. Sure. Please. Thank you. Councilman. Councilman Kennett. Thank you, Mr. President. My colleague laid out, I think, a lot of the facts with his questions. I'm just going to comment. I really appreciate how hard the team worked to achieve this rail system. And it's a big deal. And, you know, we often not so jokingly refer to the railroads as the, you know, fourth branch of government. They are impossible to work with except in this case, of course, where they were, I'm sure, very amenable. And we came to a good agreement. So for me, I'm very supportive of the rail settlement. But I, I in this, you know, history because many of this team members have turned over over time. But even early on in this project, there were purchases of land made for the national western site before the voters had a chance to vote on the tourism dollars going . And even at that point, I laid out the very strong expectations since we were headed to dedicated funding streams that the general fund needed to be protected. And it was not appropriate to both go to the voters and use general fund dollars. And so Diane Barrett and some of the predecessors who were involved at that time agreed and made sure that when we got the approval for the voter dollars and through the RTA Act, that we actually paid back the general fund for some of those initial investment. So this has been a principle that I have had for many years. Now I want to acknowledge that, you know, there are different ways to approach large project budgets. We are very early. You know, Councilman Hynes didn't ask, but we've expended a very small portion of the budget for this project because we're just now in the design phase, which means there are hundreds of millions of dollars of costs yet to be estimated and for construction to done. So one way to do it is to go through each section. Of the project and say, Well, we only thought we were going to need this much money for this section of the project. And because we're short in that section, we need help from somewhere else. The other way to. Do it is to. Do each critical path as frugally as you can. And this is a critical path, and it must be done. And then as. You get later in the project. Determine which sacrifices you need to make in design to stay within your budget, or at that point come forward and say, you know, because of the price of steel, because of the price of labor, we can't deliver the project we need to. And let's have a conversation. This is too early in the project, in my opinion, to be asking for outside support. That appropriate time to do that would be when we are much later in the process and we can fully evaluate whether value engineering gives us the opportunity to. Absorb these costs. So it is not my belief that a vote against this settlement transfer of dollars is a vote against a settlement. I'm sorry, I misspoke. I am very supportive of the settlement. We have the dollars in the national Western budget to pay for this. They're just not allocated for this line item. And just like I would not expect you to come here if your electrical bid came in higher than you expected or your plumbing bid came in higher than expected, you have to live within the means of the entire project until you're far enough along that you determine you can't. I want to think finance. They heard my concerns in committee. They went back and they worked hard to try to find some options. None of those were guaranteed payback from the general fund. They were all contingent upon other pieces of the project coming in under budget or having contingency left over. And so because they were not guarantees, I would have been willing if we felt like we needed a loan from the general fund and then we were guaranteed the general fund would be paid back. But as we learned today from the mayor, our general fund is tight. We have a growing city and our budget is no longer growing at the same speed as our city. It is my obligation to protect the vulnerable programs that are in that budget, which we never have enough money to do. You know, our homeless community does not have the benefit of a dedicated ballot measure. Our transportation and mobility needs do not have a dedicated measure. We have two dedicated funding sources for this project. I support it. Our voters support it. But it is critical to live within the means of the project, and it is not appropriate, in my opinion, to use general fund dollars at this time. So with great appreciation for the work on the settlement and great appreciation for the attempt to find potential ways that could maybe be paid back. I need to vote my conscience and vote no tonight. But I and I hope the project does not come forward again for general fund dollars unless and until you are far enough along that we are sure that we need to have that conversation and that there are no other paths. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman Hines. Thank you, Mr. President. I want to thank Councilwoman Kennedy for comments, and I want to echo them. And I want to say that this is for sure too early for for us to go back to taxpayers and ask taxpayers to dedicate additional funds to the National Western Project. We really we haven't gotten there yet. I mean, we are early in the project. There are a lot of expenses, but there's a lot of funding left. And I don't think it's fair for us to to tell our homeless out loud, folks, no, you can't have funding when we're telling National Western, oh, it's okay for you to have additional funds. So I too will be voting. No, I, I hope that the, that the project does go forward, but not with an additional funding stream from from voters. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Councilwoman Ortega. Thank you, Mr. President. So I've been very involved in the whole National Western project from day one, going back to when they started talking about this years ago, wanting to have a new venue at this at this location to when a number of us came onto the council in 2011 and a decision was made that National Western was going to be moved out and be part of the Gaylord project. And all 13 council members wrote a letter saying, No, we will not agree to let them out of their current lease. We think National Western should stay right where they're at. And the mayor worked diligently to get us out of being part of that Gaylord application, and we have worked to make sure that we had resources to do a rebuild of the National Western complex. There have been many meetings in and with the community. The community is a partner in this process. I share the concerns about dipping into the general fund. We actually pay for the staffing for this operation there. You know, they sort of operate as city staff helping us make sure the project gets built. But moving this railroad track is critical to how this project moves forward. And I equate this to when the city worked on planning out the Central Platte Valley and had planned for the Amtrak line to be moved. And the railroad said, no, we're not moving. So we had to go back and regroup and figure out how to reconfigure the Central Platte Valley with the Amtrak line where it's at in this case. Moving this track is critical to being able to have the interface with the river, to do some of the creative things that CSU is going to be doing that will make this, you know, a green campus. And I think looking at the opportunity for how and where resources can either pay back these funds or if there are dollars left over that are not completely utilized to return them back to the general fund. And Titus, I would like you to take us if you could just speak to that point. I think that would be really important to understand that if we do not have to expend the full amount that is being asked for in this particular bill tonight, what happens to any leftover dollars? Good evening again. So what in councilwoman can each refer to as we heard the concerns in committee. The program team and partners discussed that if we could figure out a way that if just for the rail project, the 1.45 million is not needed for that project, we would give whatever unused portion of it back to the general fund. And so I think to everyone's point, we look at each individual element of this program and we scrutinize it and make sure that we are using the dollars that are appropriated to it in the best interests of the public and the program to make it a success. And we'll continue to do that and commit to doing that for the railroad project. And so any portion of the 1.4 or five that is not used in by 2021, we would then give that money back to the general fund that. Is not used specifically for this project. Correct. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. President, I appreciate tike is just clarifying that point. I will be supporting this tonight. I think it is important for the project to move forward. I know we have competing interests. We just got the mayor's budget today highlighting what those priorities are. Much of them aligned with many of the issues this body has identified, homelessness and and housing being right at the top of the list, as well as addressing climate change as as a couple of those priorities. And I'm comfortable with where we're at at this point in time. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman Sawyer. Thank you, Mr. President. I I also will be supporting this tonight, although I. Share. Councilwoman Kenney just concerns about taking money from the general fund and putting it, you know, towards national western at this point. But I think that we need to think about this in many ways as an investment in the community. Moving this rail. Means that that opens up the entire Greenway area. And that is something that the community has been asking for access to green space. There is an incredible plan in place that allows this new access for trails and for all of these kinds of different things that the community doesn't have right now up there. And so I think that, you know, in the cost benefit analysis of this this money, you know, 1.4 or 5 million, it's not ideal. And I and I wish that it had been done differently, but I do think that we do need to recognize that this is in many ways a 1.4 or $5 million investment in this greenway for the community. And we need to to recognize that and be grateful for that because it's something that the community wants. It's something the community needs, and it's something that we should also be providing for them. So thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman Cashman. Thank you, Mr. President. Take us, if you don't mind. So if this. Request. For a. Supplemental is is refused, voted. Down, does the rail not get moved? No. The rail assuming so next Monday is the actual vote on the settlement agreement itself, because tonight is about the the funding, the supplemental. What the program team would do with as partners is start to look to other elements throughout the program to see what other elements could be potentially removed from the program. So it would still move forward, but it would put additional pressures on other elements of the program that are key, that are associated with so key elements that people would like to see at the at the. Thank you to I guess. Yeah, I'm. In a similar place, I think, to. Where Councilwoman Kinney is in that I'm a huge supporter of what you're doing out there. But after looking, taking a first look at our city budget today and realizing all the cuts that have been made to our city budget, and starting now to look at some critical programs that don't have the option that I believe the National Western does, it leaves me. In a quandary. So thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman CdeBaca. Thank you, Mr. President. This is in my district, and I recall the very day that National Western wrote a letter that they asked Community to sign on to. And Community at that time was only a couple of representatives who were part of the Citizen Advisory Council. And so this request for the consolidation of this railroad did not exactly come from community. In fact, it's very far removed from residences in that area and so is not a direct request from community. In fact, came with some protest from community members who felt that we were making this request to Denver Rock Island, about consolidating this railroad under the guise of health and equity and activating the river and helping the community get access to amenities when right down the street we weren't doing the same thing for the I-70 expansion. And so there was some conflict with this. And I do absolutely support the consolidation of this railroad. I support it. I'll support it next week when the agreement comes to us. But this 1.4 or 5 million is is definitely a big amount of money to us when our budget is shrinking, when our general fund is shrinking, and there are so many competing interests for service . So I don't personally support pulling money out of the general fund when we have hundreds of millions of dollars dedicated to this project. I sit on steer comm. I've raised these concerns and I think there's absolutely an opportunity to pull this 1.545 million out of the budget that exists without harming the larger goal and the larger project . I don't know why this came this route, and I'm glad that we're taking a look at it carefully, because we should not be allowing dollars to come out of the general fund for this project at all. We've spent money on on on different parts of acquisition and settlements from our general fund dollars, our city dollars that are not dedicated to this. And so I think we need to really tighten up the purse strings right now for this project, specifically considering it is one of the ones that has two dedicated funding sources. So I do not support this tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman Hines, I'm going to go to Councilman Torres because. But Councilman Joyce. Take us can I ask you a question? What is the likelihood of any of this funding coming back to General Fund, even if it's unspent? Finding it elsewhere and repaying this amount. So in regards to the question of the likelihood coming back to the project, can't continue with any certainty that the 1.4 or five is not going to be needed within the rail project. All I can do is commit to the team working really hard to make sure that their savings at the end of the day of the rail project. And that money then would come back to the general fund. And can you just help me understand a little bit better why you can't shift dollars from line item to line item? So within the overall program, I think to everyone's point, there is additional dollars that is unspent associated program. And we are very early in actually because we're very early is why we want to be, I think, as scrutinizing the details as much as possible and actually asking for the funding where we're seeing a gap that has already existed due to a foreseen actually a condition that we know because of the amount of the rail settlement. So we repeat the question, sorry, I'm off on a tangent now. Why you can't move funding from existing source line items to this one? Yes. Thank you. So that through through steer comm and through an action, I think actions associated with the program partners in the program team, we would, if this was not funded, have to go back and look at other elements of the program and other there's miscellaneous projects within that program and find opportunities to either remove scope from other projects to help fund this gap that we were foreseeing right now on the rail project. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman Hines, back up. Thank you, Mr. President. So a question. So there are two funding sources. Which are those two sources? Again. The Regional Tourism Act and to Sea. And Regional Tourism Act is how much? 121.51 to. 1.5. And to see is how much? Yeah. Yeah. Hi. Hi. Brad Dodson. I'm the deputy director for the Mayor's Office of the National Assessment Center. Thank you for thank you for coming. Oh, thank you. Thank you for the question. The as Titus mentioned, the funding from the Regional Tourism Act is $121.5 million maximum award over 36 years. So it comes in over time. There is funding from from to see that we have estimated to be approximately $637 million. That is based on current estimates from the Department of Finance. The additional funding is from the WCC, the Western Stock Show Association, as well as CSU as purchasing their parcels for their buildings. And so that's to the tune of $27.7 million. 27.7. Yes. The full budget is $765 million for phases one and two. Okay. And how much has been spent so far? We we are approximately 30% through the program. We provide quarterly financials to luti committee and we did that on July 30th. We have we also publish that information on our website, but happy to give you the most current up to date information. So we have at least $500 million available that we haven't spent. I don't have that exact number in front of me. But that that's probably in the in the ballpark. Is it fair to say that we have far more than 1.4 or $5 million available? There is there's money in the program that has been allocated across the various projects that make up the program. And as Tyco's spoke to earlier, there would have to be a we to take a look at scope if we were not to have this funding. We have to look at the scope of those other projects and see where adjustments could be made. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Just as we're. I heard that we're screwed scrutinizing the details of the National Western Project. I heard that just a couple of minutes ago. I also heard that at 10:00 this morning from the mayor, how we're scrutinizing the details of the general fund. And this National Western project is over 36 years, or at least part of the part of it is over 36 years. We're not going to finish the National Western Project this year. It seems to me that we should be scrutinizing the general fund because it's been is one year. And if we if it turns out that our revenue exceeds expectations for for the, you know, the 2020 budget, then that's great. But I would I would prioritize scrutinizing the general fund over scrutinizing the National Western Fund. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Ortega. You back up? Yes. Fred, would you mind coming back up? Can you just highlight what the key projects are that are moving forward that will be under construction in the next year? I know you've got a number of them from roads to a number of buildings relocating the rail lines. Can you just highlight what those are? Sure. Thank you for the thank you for the question. And be happy to provide you with a detailed schedule that I don't have in front of me. The focus for this year has been on horizontal construction and so that is all of the horizontal infrastructure, the pad ready sites that support the vertical. Buildings. That will begin in beginning next year. We reached substantial completion on the Phase one and two program in 2023. And so between that time, we'll be focused again initially on horizontal construction moving in to vertical construction. The work along the river and the east west bridges into Globeville will will also occur in the next in the next three years. And those are tied to the Washington Street project as well as that work gets done as part of a Bond project, correct? That's correct. That those roads will make connections East, West and in D.C. see the North Denver Cornerstone Collaborative is working on the design of Washington Street and the design of those connections to to the bridges that will land in Globeville. So if council did not fondness tonight. What? What would get cut. I can't speculate at this moment exactly what would be cut. The way that we work with our partners is we we scope to budget. And we work within the budget. That we have for those elements. But that would mean that there would be adjustments to scope. And we would prioritize that with our team, along with the SSA, with the National Western Center Authority and with Colorado State University, to see what items could be removed from scope. Okay. Thank you. Sure. Thank you, Councilman Ortega. All right. No other questions or comments, Madam Secretary, roll call. HINES No. Black. Eye? CdeBaca No. Flynn, I. Gillmor, I. Herndon, I. Cashman Can each. Ortega, I. Sandoval No. Sawyer, I. Torres No. Mr. President. I know. Secretary, please close the voting, announce the results. Seven days, six. Days, some nights, six days. Constable, 74, has been ordered published. That concludes the items to be called out this evening or other bills for introduction are ordered published. We're now ready for the black vote on proclamations, resolutions and bills on final consideration.