A resolution authorizing and approving the expenditure and payment from the appropriation account designated “liability claims,” the total sum of One-Hundred Sixty Thousand Dollars ($160,000.00) to be issued as follows: Forty Eight Thousand Dollars and Zero Cents ($48,000.00) made payable to the Denver Probate Court and One Hundred and Twelve Thousand Dollars and Zero Cents ($112,000.00) made payable to Killmer, Lane & Newman COLTAF Client Trust Account, in full payment and satisfaction of all claims in Civil Action No. 19-cv-02437 in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado. Settles a claim with the Denver Sheriff Department. This item was approved for filing at the Mayor-Council meeting on 8-11-20.
12 eyes. Resolution 767 has been adopted. The next items up are council resolutions 844 and 845. Council Member Clark, will you please put Council Resolutions 844 and 845 on the floor for adoption? Yes, Madam President. And with the Council Resolution eight four, four and 845 be adopted. Thank you. It has been moved and seconded comments by members of Council on Resolutions 844 and 845. Councilwoman Ortega. If you are president, these are two of our our claims. And I was not around when the explanation was provided, which typically happened in mayor council. So I have no background knowledge on either one of these. So I'm going to abstain from the vote. All right. Thank you, Councilwoman. Madam Secretary, roll call on resolutions 844 and 845, please. Ortega. Abstain. Sandoval asked Sawyer. Same. Torres, I. Black. I see tobacco. No. Clark. All right. Flynn, I. Herndon, I. Hines abstained. Cashman. Hi. I Ortega. Sorry. I mean Sandoval. I. Madam President. I. Madam Secretary, please close the voting and announce the results. Three abstentions. One nay. Nine eyes. Nine eyes. Resolutions 844 and 845 have been adopted. The next item up is Council Resolution 829. Councilmember Hines, please go ahead with your questions on council resolution 829. Thank you, Madam President. So this is a direct file. So the Senate Budget Committee and I. I just have a few questions about the panel of arbiters and or arbitrators. Excuse me. And considering we are just wrapping up the DPA contract, I want to be particularly cautious because I believe so. My first question is this panel of arbitrators would theoretically arbitrate should city council not approve the tentative agreement between the Denver Police Protective Association and the city? Is that right? Madam President, I am happy to speak on behalf of our committee. We actually didn't designate which one of us would do that, so I don't know, unless one of my colleagues wants to speak to it how we went about selecting this and how it works. Sure, you all can choose. And then we also have Emily lapel on the line as well. So if there's no objections from the other two, councilwoman. Go ahead, Councilwoman Canete. Thank you, Madam President. And thank you, Councilman Haines. The way that this works is that the panel of five is presented to the parties in a dispute that could be the sheriff's office or the police department. And then each party strikes a name until they get down to one name. So the panel does not sit like a panel in the appeals court where they all hear the case. It is a process of elimination until one is selected. And so we made the decision last year that we felt like three was probably not robust enough and decided to go with five. We had we must have at least three, but we chose to go up to five to include some more diversity of experience and backgrounds. And then this would be only this individual and it would only be one individual who would be retained if this process were needed is retained by that process. So this panel may these individuals may never be selected. And if they if they do, it would be through that process. I think you are the arbitrators, but the cop. Well, I guess the one arbitrator who was selected. Is that person compensated? Yes, they are. And, you know, fees are in an inner range per hour, plus travel. This is a pretty specialized area of labor law. And we do not have very robust public sector unions in the state of Colorado. So we look to ensure that we have a balance where we could find individuals with local experience in the West or the state of Colorado, but also folks who would have public sector arbitration experience and also where possible, public safety experience. So those were some of the factors that we look to, to recruit. And I just want to acknowledge I mentioned them specifically, but this was Councilwoman Black, Councilwoman Zeta Baca. As your boards and commissions subcommittee of the council that did this process along with Emily Lapel doing all the hard work for us. Yep. And thank you for your hard work. I notice that none of them are in Denver and to or from the East Coast, like not even in Colorado. Is that was that on purpose or can you help me understand? Yeah. Again, you will find the most qualified labor lawyers and the most qualified labor arbitrators in markets with more strength in larger public sector unions. We don't have a lot of public sector unions in the state of Colorado, which means we have fewer people practicing in this area. Generally speaking, arbitrators come from careers of backgrounds in this specialized area of law, maybe either working for management or unions, and then they graduate into arbitration. So it tends to be those who are later in their careers. We did a very robust recruitment looking in the state of Colorado. If you can imagine, you also can't have anyone who has any conflicts of interest, right? So anyone who's represented the city or represented our unions would not be a good candidate for this position. So Emily can answer, but because we don't have a very robust labor protections in the West here, there are fewer people who practice in this area. So we aired on the side of doing a heavy recruitment for both experience as well as geographic trying to get folks who may be in the vicinity. And so but but we again, we just don't have a large pool of these people in the state of Colorado because there are not that many public sector unions here. And that's a really good point about the conflict of interest and how probably anyone who practiced in this field in Denver is probably conflicted. So. Okay, I don't have any other questions. Thank you. For the additional context. I just wanted to make sure that it just seemed little. That timing seemed a little interesting. So that's why I figured I'd ask that. Thank you for your help. And thank you for to the to the committee, to the panel, for for your hard work. No other questions. Madam President. Thank you, Councilman. Councilwoman Black. Thank you, Madam President. I just wanted to add a few things. We actually discussed this at last October's financing governance meeting. And it's this small group that Councilwoman CdeBaca and councilmen, Councilwoman and I are on. It is quite a lot of work, and we've been working very hard to get people appointed to boards and commissions, and this one just took a little bit longer. So that's the reason why it's coming to you now is see, the fact that it is at the same time as we're having other discussion is purely coincidental. And I also wanted to add and add that we were looking for some more diversity among the arbitrators. And so that was one of the things that we were looking at. And lastly, for those of you who maybe didn't see the email, Emily Lapel sent a very detailed email last Monday with all of their resumes and a little description of the process. So if you have further questions, you can look there or feel free to ask any of us. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. Looks like we're good on that one. Next item up is Council Bill 759. Councilmember Hines, go ahead with your questions on Council Bill 759, please. Thank you, Madam President. So this, I think, is related to another conversation that we'll have later tonight, and it's certainly related to the movement that we have nationally and internationally. I see that this contract appears to be. It's about mental health and substance abuse assistance. I'm sorry. Oh, so substance abuse and mental health assistance in our jail. And, um, and I want to. I guess I'm curious about this and not necessarily concerned, but but it seems like if we're authorizing more money for addiction and mental health treatment ennerdale, we are further intertwining those two instead of separating. I mean, you know, our our sheriff's deputies. But that isn't really their wheelhouse because they're trying to be sheriff's deputies on addiction or social worker mental health counselors. I'm just trying to get some more context about this. This particular contract. Wonderful. We've got Kerry Stanley here to answer your questions. Go ahead, Kerry. Absolutely. And thank you for the opportunity to speak with you all tonight. I absolutely understand the curiosity around continuing to enhance our services inside of the jail. We are subcontracting the substance use disorder treatment with the empowerment program and the mile high behavioral health care agency in order to ensure that we are providing these services with licensed counselors. So while the uniform part of the sheriff's department is absolutely critical for us continuing to do our work surrounding mental health. And substance use addiction. Counseling, it's really to provide that security and operations of the jail. So as the director of inmate programs, my team, as well as all of our subcontractors, are ensuring that we have the expertize and. The education and the licensure. To continue to provide those services. And I will say in regards to continuing to intertwine the services with people in the jail, I certainly have concern for those people that are in custody to make sure that their need to be met while they're here, even if that's on a short term basis. One of these programs, the device program. Recovery in a school environment. Both male and female units requires only a 30 day stay. If somebody isn't staying with us that long, we have substance use education classes. If somebody is interested, we have plans. We have interactive journal programs. We have individual counseling. We really want to try to meet people where they're at in regards to their services and what they need. And sometimes when they come into our care and custody, they're ready to have those conversations. And we want to make sure that we're here to meet them and meet that need. Yeah, but I guess we can't revolutionize the world overnight. Yeah, but. But I would. I would love for us to provide that funding or addiction and mental health funding to divert someone entirely from. From incarceration so that we can treat before we. Earlier in the process. Then after they're incarcerated. And. But. But I suppose we are where we are today. So. So I will continue to push for additional funding and moving our money to up the. I don't know what the right phrase is up the supply chain. That's not really a good phrase, but closer to the source as opposed to I just really I don't want our sheriff's deputies to be set up for failure when they're having to be around a population. They just don't have training to be around. And they weren't meant to provide addiction and mental health treatment. So that's that's all I have. Thank you. Madam President. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Ortega. Thank you, Mr. President. I just wanted to add that Councilman Cashman, Councilwoman CdeBaca and I serve on the Crime Prevention and Control Commission. This was a body that was created after it was actually a result of the the vote that went before the people to create the funding for the justice center that's downtown. And after the first try, when they when the city tried to put it down at 625, there was a lot of conversation among the community about making sure that we had programs and resources that were focused on preventing people from being in the jail system. And so the body that we serve on has resources that is providing programs that works toward keeping people out of the jail. And so I wanted you, Councilman Hines, because sometimes history matters for folks to know and understand, you know, sort of where those resources came from, that the PCC has the ability to delve out. Some of that is administered within various city agencies, including our our DA's office. But it's all focused on trying to reduce jail bed time for people in the jail system and figuring out which are programs like our reentry program, for example, is one of those. And as you know, we've we have voted on that contract where that program is across the street in the same building that our post office is in, and that's providing services to people who come out of the jail system, making sure that they have access to being able to do the resume again, accessing other resources, for example . So we wanted folks to to just know that so that they're there. There are ongoing efforts and programs that are are doing some of this very work that you're talking about. So thank you. I just wanted to make sure folks were aware of that. Thank you, Councilman Ortega. All right. See no other questions on Council Bill 759. We're going to move ahead. The next item up is Council Bill 836. Councilman Clark, will you please put Council Bill 836 on the floor for publishing?