A resolution approving a proposed Agreement between the City and County of Denver and OraLabs, Inc. for federal coronavirus relief funds to launch and administer Denver’s new personal protective equipment (PPE) program to support the ongoing recovery and survival of the city’s smallest and most vulnerable businesses and nonprofits. Approves a contract with OraLabs, Inc. for $1,490,000 of federal coronavirus relief funds and through 12-31-20 to launch and administer Denver’s new personal protective equipment (PPE) program to support the ongoing recovery and survival of the city’s smallest and most vulnerable businesses and nonprofits by helping ensure the safety of their employees, volunteers, and customers, citywide (OEDEV-202055081-00). The last regularly scheduled Council meeting within the 30-day review period is on 8-10-20. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 7-8-20.
Yes, Madam President, I move that council resolution 200663 be adopted. Thank you. Can we get a second, please? Again. Thank you, Councilwoman Sawyer. Questions or comments by members of Council. Council Member Hines. Did you? Madam President, I was going to say, Madam Chair. Still getting used to it. Congratulations to both of you. I wish you both the best. Because as a body, we will definitely. We will succeed if we succeed together. So the but this particular issue is I did receive a briefing in advance of the funding. At the briefing, I expressed some concern about the bill. This is $1.5 million for PPE, for the most vulnerable of businesses and non-profits. So three days after COVID happened, we provided $2 million in relief for four small businesses. We have provided additional relief. And. And so the question that I had in the briefing was, I believe this is part of a $120 million plus relief package. And I want to make sure that we are if we are really considering the most vulnerable. I recognize that this is Dito that is is providing is is leading this charge. And Dito focuses on businesses, not people. But but certainly we have vulnerable populations. We have our first responders who come into contact with people who are for sure, COVID positive. And and so I wanted to get at two questions. The first is this is more than $120 million of the relief funds. So what's the breakdown of this $120 million of funds? I want to make sure that we're considering all of our global communities, not just the most vulnerable of our small businesses, a nonprofit. So I did I did call this out in advance. I did. I don't know if Dito is here or if someone from the mayor's office can respond. It might be beyond outside of Dito. All right. I believe we have Susan Lee on the line or Jasmine Harper. Not so great. Yeah. Good evening, everyone. I'm Jasmine Harper. I'm a Dito, so I'm going to defer this question actually to our Department of Finance just with the breakdown of the CRF dollars and how that was all allocated. All right, great. So have we promoted someone into the panelists from the Department of Finance? And that's just a question for for staff. So you can give me a heads up or not. Looks like Margaret Daniels there has her hand up in the in the attending. Oh, wonderful. Thank you. Margaret, do we have you? All right, Margaret, we're working on getting you unmuted here. Okay. Market, I'm showing that you're unmuted. All right. Can you hear me? Mm hmm. Yeah. Thank you. Hi. Hi. I'm Margaret Daniels from the deputy CFO. And you may recall a presentation to think back in late May regarding. The city's. Allocation of the coronavirus relief funds $126.7 million that the city received. And we broke it into several different phases or buckets. And phase one was the emergency relief fund of $20 million that went to a variety of really necessary and immediate community needs, such as the rent and utility assistance, mortgage assistance, some food support for vulnerable populations , grant programs for the small businesses, which I think is what is before you today, as well as some other community health types of programs, including PPE and testing. And so that was phase one. Phase two, you'll recall, was another $25 Million release. And we received applications from agencies or use of the $25 million and are focused again on community support. So additional support for nonprofits and small businesses as well as some other types of community organizations. But those have not been released. We're in the final review stage for that and we'll be coming back to you based on the council priorities that that you all provided to us. And then so that's $45 million. And then we've got or reserving some of the funds for what we're expecting to be a fall search so that we make sure that we've got enough resources available to the city to take care of needs in the fall. And if it doesn't come to pass, then we will put in place some milestone dates where we will release those funds for community needs. And then we've got some city operations a lot. As you're aware, a lot of our COVID response is FEMA eligible, but FEMA only pays $0.75 on the dollar for reimbursement. So the coronavirus relief funds can be used for the local match. So where were those are the sort of the four categories that we are planning for the use of the coronavirus relief funds. All right. Thank you, Margaret. Councilman Hines, does that cover your questions? So. I was there in Vancouver when we had that presentation. And and this is the exact same question I asked in the briefing. So not not asking anything new. And I was kind of hoping for more than just this big like ballpark of amalgam of set funds just because, you know, so but that's fine. The second question that I have is, do our first responders have an adequate supply of PPE? I know that while we were we had concerns that our you know, our our public safety officers, you know, police, fire, EMS didn't have an adequate supply of PPE or, you know, Denver Health or Public Health Hospital. I just want to make sure that the people who for sure come in contact with people who for sure have COVID, have what they need to. If we're really talking about the most vulnerable that they have, what they need before we go beyond and and start giving PPE to small businesses. And that's my last question. So thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Councilman Hines. Margaret, is that something you could respond respond to? I can to. The extent that I've been stationed in the emergency operations center for the for 88 operational periods and continue to be involved with the processing of transactions for emergence of COVID related response. And we are still assembling PPE for the city's needs, including our first responders. The PHC doc is still operational and they are the people that are filling in and in taking requests from health organizations for PPE. I don't think I know at the end of the regular activation of the EOC, we saw a significant decline in requests for PPE from health organizations. But for the city's needs, we are building up an inventory. We have it we have a 90 day inventory of PPE right now, and we are increasing that amount to 180 days of inventory for PPE, for city use, including first responders. Does that help? Thank you for. Thank you for your answer. And I don't have any other questions, Madam Chair. All right. Thank you, Councilman Holmes. Thank you. Thank you, Margaret. Next up, we have Councilman CdeBaca had questions and then we have Councilman Black in the queue. Councilwoman CdeBaca. Thank you, Madam President. Margaret, can you. So you broke up the four categories for us and you said it was 126.7 million that those four categories broke up. Right. And you listed 45 million, but you didn't give me numbers for the Category three in category four, what is reserved for Category three, the reserve, and what is being reserved or being used actively? Or Category four city operations? Absolutely. So for the reserve, this is the bucket we are calling the reserve, which is for the potential for resurgence as well as for covering the city's female share. That's approximately $57 million. And again, if we if we don't need to use it, then we will put in place some milestone dates so that like by October 1st , if it doesn't look like we need to use it, then we can release funds to the community. And then again on November 1st and then in the city operations budget, it's $25 million and this accommodates total working expenses that are not eligible. Some other technical consultative services as well as some of the payroll that we have or public health and safety employees that are also not EMA eligible but are specifically called out as eligible in the coronavirus relief funds. And so with this script. I've had some major challenges with the way that we've been doing reporting specifically on our small business relief. Those grants. I was getting significant refusal from Dito to report grant amounts. And I think that when we take an equity lens to what we're doing, especially with COVID and knowing that there are disproportionately affected populations, I'm wondering how do we explain not being transparent about grant amounts and will the grant amounts for this particular chunk be disclosed? So I think that is a question that's best directed to the recipient agencies, and I certainly would not be able to comment on the program itself. Can you explain to me how this money is going to be administered and broken down across vulnerable businesses and nonprofits? Yeah. So no. Okay. Okay. Yep. Just so everyone. Can hear me, okay? Mm hmm. Thank you, Jasmine. So we will be posting. A weekly list of businesses that receive the PPE kits. And so just to kind of clarify the PPE kits, we're directly shipping PPE to these businesses. And so there will be no transaction of money or grants in any way. So we will be 1.49 million that will be going directly to all labs to procure the PPE. That will be given to these small businesses or nonprofits. And so each kits are going to be around $300. And we're trying to serve. Around 4000 businesses. And what comes in the kit and how do nonprofits or businesses become eligible or on the list for these? Yeah. So the eligibility criteria, they have to be located in the city and county of Denver. They have to have less than 25 employees. And they would have had been open prior. To March 1st, 2020. And then in terms of what's in the kit, it's 164 ounce gallon of hand sanitizer, 41 ounce sanitizer items, one gallon of surface disinfectant. 100 surgical masks, nine or one. Non-Contact. Thermometers and. Ten face. Shields. And so businesses. Are basically we have a Web page that is not live yet, but it will be soon. Where they. Go register for the PPE kit and you just face a quick review process. Are they located in the city and county of Denver? They have less than 25 employees. So the test eligibility criteria. And are we prioritizing our minority and women owned businesses at the top of that list that qualify? So it will be a first come, first serve basis, but we cannot legally prioritize based on race. But we do ask the question a registration form, but we cannot open first come, first serve. So but we are going to be doing a lot of outreach in all of your council districts. We will be having outreach meeting next week with the bids and community partners who have been a part of our Economic Relief and Recovery Council to really get the word out there. A registration form will be translated in English, Spanish and Vietnamese to make sure that we are, you know, getting the businesses and making sure that. Successful for them to. Register. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you, Councilwoman. We have Councilwoman Black. Thank you. I just wanted to let everyone know that this was a recommendation from the back in business group that was part of the economic recovery and relief. Well. I was on and we are still meeting. So it's a group of small business representatives and other community leaders. So one of the main recommendations of that group was how can we help our very smallest businesses in Denver? And this was something that the group agreed would really help out those small businesses. It's not going to make or break them, but it's a small part. So I really appreciate all the work that Itoh has done on it and I love how you simplified it and acted okay about getting the word out. I'll be putting it out in my August e-newsletter and making sure that all the businesses. That I can reach out to my district about it. So thank you, Susan and Jasmine. Thank you. Councilwoman, we have Councilwoman Torres, and then we have Councilwoman CdeBaca that day. Councilwoman Torres. Thank you. I think the question that I had, Jasmin, was just about ensuring that somebody with multiple sites or locations might not be able to apply multiple times if they have, whether it's like franchises or something like that. And then just the recommendation if if we can find out when the application is launching so that at our district level, we can encourage some of the small businesses that we know and work with to make sure that they're ready to apply. Yeah. So in terms of process, we will be checking to make sure that the businesses are applying more than once. But I think it's matter of efficiency or speed. So we are going to be checking, but we will be checking for locations in the county, Denver, and they have to self test. So it is going to be an honor. System. To them, self testing. But we will be very. Cognizant of businesses that might be applying once and hopefully I answered your question. And then in terms of the program launch day, we're hoping for the first week in August, so we will be sending more information to council when that date will be and then also when. Our outreach meeting will be next week. All right. Thanks, Jasmine. Councilman Torres. Does that answer your questions? Okay, great. Councilwoman CdeBaca. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a real quick question for Councilwoman Black. You mentioned that this came from a referral. Of the. Small Business Relief or Recovery Group. Can you tell the public. When. Those meetings happen, how they can tune in and get information about those or participate? See Councilman Black. Oh, there you go. You're unmuted. Then the meetings are every other Monday from 1 to 230. Adrina Gibson is and Molly Duplass. Are the staff people heading them up? And did it happen this Monday or will it happen? We did today. So we will meet again next month. Got it. Is it virtual? Yes. And how do we find the information for that? I'm not sure. Probably it's from Polly and Adrina. Got it. Thank you. That's it. Okay. Thank you, Councilman. All right, look in here last time and see no additional questions. Bye. Councilman Hines, are you back in? No, I apologize. I wanted to make a comment. So should I make that now or. Yes, please. You go ahead. So. Thank you, Madam President. So I mentioned that I had this briefing about this particular program in advance. It was on July 2nd. I just checked the calendar and and I asked that question specifically the first of my two questions on July 2nd. And so, in general, while I'm supportive of our most vulnerable of our businesses and nonprofits, I am also supportive of our most vulnerable people, too. And and I'm a little concerned about the process. When when I asked for for information on the July 2nd meeting. And I still didn't get it. So I, I recognize that we want to be nimble. I also if we could have even just given a flicker, stab of how much we were dedicating to businesses and how much we were dedicating to people or whatever, the slices of pie that would be nice to get. The same talking points from a briefing that we got a few months ago is not exactly what I wanted. And then the last thing I heard that we are still assembling the needs for first responders and we're building up an inventory. I'm concerned that the people who are for sure are getting exposed to people who are for sure, you know, symptomatic with COVID, don't have PPE. So I'm I'll be a no vote today because I want to make sure that if we if we have PPE and we have a PPE shortage, that it goes to the people who who are putting their lives in harm's way when we absolutely for sure get covered. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Councilman Hines. Any additional? Comments. All right. Last look there. CNN, Madam Secretary, roll call. Don't. No. Catherine. I. Which I. The novel. I swear. I. All right. I. Black I. Said Abarca. I fart when. I. And then. I. Madam President. I mean, the secretary closed the voting and announced the results. 11 eyes, one nay. Right. 11 eyes one nay. Council resolution 663 has been adopted. Madam Secretary, please put the next item on our screens. Council member CdeBaca Please go ahead with your question on Resolution 707.