AS AMENDED a bill for an ordinance increasing the sales and use tax by a rate of 0.25 percent and dedicating the revenue derived from the tax rate increase to fund Denver parks, trails, and open space, subject to the approval of the voters at a special municipal election to be conducted in coordination with the state general election on November 6, 2018. Refers a measure to the eligible voters in Denver to extend the sales and use tax to be used to fund Denver’s parks and open space. The Committee approved filing this item at its meeting on 6-12-18. Amended 7-16-18 to specify that canals are included in the intended use of the special revenue monies funded by the additional sales and use taxes, and, to require that the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board to hold no less than one public hearing and submit a five-year plan for the approval by City Council.
the wall you'll see your time counting down. Speakers must stay on the topic of this hearing and must direct their comments to the Council as a whole. Please refrain from profane or obscene speech. Direct your comments to council as a whole and refrain from any personal or individual attacks. Councilman Herndon, will you please put Council Bill 641 on the floor? Yes, Mr. President, I move the council bill 641 to be placed upon final consideration and do pass. It has been moved. Can I get a second? It has been moved and seconded. And we're going to start with Councilwoman Black. You have a technical amendment, so your motion to amend. And move that council bill 18 Dash 0641 be amended in the following particulars on page four, Line 12 After rivers, insert canals on page five, line seven after rivers insert canals and on page six, line 19 after rivers insert canals. Thank you, Councilwoman Black. Comments by members of Council. Councilman Black. Thank you. This is a technical amendment specifying that canals are included in the intended use of the special revenue moneys funded by the additional sales and use taxes. And any other comments? All right. Seeing none. Madam Secretary, can we do a roll call on the amendment? Black Eye. Brooks Espinosa. Hi, Flynn. Hi. Gilmore. I Herndon. I cash in. I can eat. Lopez All right, new Ortega. SUSSMAN All right. Mr. President. I. Madam Secretary, please close the voting and announce the results. 12 Eyes 12 As Council Bill 641 has been amended for one hour. Courtesy Public Hearing for Council Bill 641 is open. May we have the overview from our very own? Good evening, President Park members of council. My name is Jack Rothman, legislative analyst for City Council. Give you a very brief overview on Council Bill 641. If you have questions, feel free to answer those as well. This bill essentially does three things. The first thing the bill does is positive. The question poses the question to the voters of the city and county of Denver. November six to approve a quarter of a percent sales and use tax. This tax will be solely dedicated towards parks and open space. None of the provisions of this bill will take effect unless that tax is approved by the voters. The additional tax will result in approximately 46 million additional funds each year. Next thing the bill does is create a special revenue fund. This fund will be exclusively used for revenue derived by this additional tax and will be administered by the manager of Parks and Recreation. No more than 5% of this fund could be used annually for the administration of this fund. The fund also includes evidence of effort provision to ensure that the funding will be spent on the approved uses. The Manager of Parks Recreation must submit an annual report on the expenditures to council the Mayor, the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board and the auditor. The lesson measure also must submit a five year plan of the expenditures, starting within the first year of adoption. The lesson this bill accomplishes is to prescribe what the fund may be used for. The acceptable uses of the fund are acquiring additional land for parks, open spaces and trails, developing, improving and maintaining new and existing parks, including Denver's mountain parks, open spaces and trails. Restoring and protecting waterways. Rivers. Canals and streams. Purchasing and carrying of trees. And operating. And maintaining any additional acquisitions and capital improvements to the city's parks, mountain parks, and open space. And with that, I'm happy to field any questions on this bill. Thank you very much. Tonight, we do have 25 individuals sign up to speak and it is a courtesy hearing. So we only have an hour. So I would ask that if your comments can be shorter than 3 minutes to make sure that we can get through everybody or as many as possible, please do. If you're sitting in this first seat up here, I'm and ask if you could please move so that we can get speakers lined up and get through as quickly as possible. I will call up the first five speakers and I do apologize if I mispronounce your name. If I call you up, please make your way to this now empty first bench. And as soon as I call your name, there will be a slight delay. But then your time will start as you step up to the podium. So our first five speakers are Harriet Lemaire, Jonathan Capelli, Jesse Perez, Chairman Sekou and Hillary Patel. If you five could come up to the front and Harriet Lemaire, you are up. First. The podium is yours. Go ahead. Go ahead. Okay. Time is of the essence. My name is Harriet Lemaire, and I'm the director of the Highline Canal Conservancy. And I'm here to. Well, first, I want to introduce Alanna Webber and Brianna Winters from our staff. I'm here because of the young people. I'm not going to be around if you see this money invested in the community. I may not be here to see that, but you guys are leaders and you have opportunities sometimes to reach your hand well into the future. And this is one of those opportunities and I think it's so exciting. The Highline Canal moves through now, as you know, 11 different governmental jurisdictions. I wanted to mention that it travels through four counties and Denver is the only county that doesn't have an open space tax, a dedicated fund. And we're challenged as we think about the long term future planning for the canal, what that means for Denver. So the minute I heard about this, I thought, this is true leadership. This is an opportunity not just for the Highline Canal, it's an opportunity for your existing parks, but to find new entities, new miles, new acreage, find old ditches, you know, find all the infrastructure, intertwined nature throughout this community as richly as we can for the benefit of all the citizens in this community. There are 17.6 miles in Denver and over 100,000 people roughly living in the adjoining neighborhoods. And you know which neighborhoods there are. Of that population, that's 13% of the Denver population, 20%, 26% of those people are Latino that live along the Highline Canal, 19% are African-American, 4% are Asian, and 4% represent one or more races. So more than 54% of those people living that close to the Highline Canal are not white. So let's claim these entries. Let's claim these parks, the adjacent old infrastructures, old ditches, whatever you can find. Let's get this on the ballot. Let our voters voters vote for it and embrace this community as one of the richest, greenest communities for all people forever. Thanks. Thank you, Jonathan Capelli. Thank you councilmembers for taking the time to listen to our comments today for your engagement with me and others over the weekend to discuss this and particular thanks to you Council President John because of your obvious passion to about, you know, green space and open space and parks and recreation as evidenced by this bill, our ordinance. I'm not speaking on behalf of DC today, but as a resident of District ten and also as a board member of all in Denver, in many ways we support much of what this measure is trying to accomplish and fully agree about the importance of everyone, including especially children, having access to more open space. On a personal note, parks in open space are a very serious issue for me because of my grandmother's passion for them. This is a woman who lived in a pretty low income area in North Philadelphia, and despite really sort of difficult circumstances in all her free time always took kids in the neighborhood out to the Pokeno mountains and to parks that were even in the in that city that the kids weren't even aware of were in their own city before. There any studies or anything supporting, you know, the connection between parks and childhood development. Intuitively, she knew that it was really important to make sure that everyone had access to this. We're not quite as a park deficit as North Philly was in the in the eighties, but it's still a big issue. So, however, there are some issues with this ordinance that really affect our ability to fully throw our weight behind us. We agree that no person or child should be barred from having access to plentiful, high quality parks. But if we're really about providing access to everyone, then we have to critically examine whom our investments are going to serve. Are we building a green city for everyone or just a green city for the slut class that will be able to afford to live here in the future? Health, transportation, education and housing are not and should not be treated as competing priorities, but they certainly have better outcomes when they're coordinated together. So to ensure that happens, we need to consider a couple of caveats to this ordinance. I believe one or we believe it's all in Denver. One is a lower tax rate potentially, and a sunrise, which leaves room for investment and other priorities. Number two is working in a responsive community and a community investment plan that's responsive to the individual economic situations of different neighborhoods in the city. And three, a comprehensive anti displacement strategy that's coordinated with EADS, anti displacement strategy to make sure that the unintended effects that new parks will have to mitigate the unintended effects the new parks will have and are already accelerating and skyrocketing land values. It's also important to note that there's a slight inconsistency inherent in choosing to not modestly increase sales tax to raise funds for low income programs because of that, because it's deemed too regressive. But then increase in that tax anyway to pay for something that doesn't yet have socioeconomic equity worked into it. If we work in the aforementioned bullets, I believe we'll be able to address that issue and move forward in a responsible way. Thank you very much. Next up, Jesse Paris. And Jesse Paris. Your next city council at large. Black Star action moment for self-defense. Denver out loud. We are against the sales tax increase. Denver currently has the urban camping ban. So how is this going to benefit us if we can't even occupy these parks or these trails already? Spaces? It seems really hypocritical that you want to increase taxes on Parks and Rec, but yet there is no tax for affordable housing or, as we love to say, attainable housing in the city of Denver. So, yeah, Denver, homicidal La Blackstar, some movement. We are against this. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Chairman Sekou. Yes. Excuse me. Chairman Seiko founder organized the Black Star Action Movement for self-defense and also the next mayor 2019 City Council in Denver. We stand. The Post. To this increase in tax, which is no more than a increase in taxes on the poor who can't afford another penny being spent on amenities that are not for us. We need jobs. We need housing. We need apprenticeship programs for the carpenters, unions and other unions so that we can come up and have the opportunity of participating in the success of the city that the mayor conveniently ignores. So why do we pay for this? We work hard for our money, and we refuse to be coconspirator to our own grouping by paying for it. Absolutely not. Now, to consider this as a buddy, you got to be kidding me. Out of all the prior or teasing things that needs to be done and time, you are voting for a sales increase tax, excise tax for the squirrels. Damn a home that we ain't gotten for the ducks to take a shit, but we ain't got no place to sit. Mr. Speaker, please watch your language. Oh, excuse me. A laboratory. What do you call it? What do you call that thing? The little box that use it. And Mrs. Porta Potty. We ain't got a porta potty to do what we need to do, nor a pot to throw in it. But this is for the ducks. This is for the squirrels. You got to be kidding me. What that says as a body is that you have no respect for the poor whatsoever. Whatsoever? Because where's our tax? And how come it ain't on the agenda before all of this mess? Come on, y'all. You got help me? It takes teamwork to make the team work. And you don't do that by excluding the masses of the people and participating in some of their lives. And I've been down there for 12 years. Saying the same thing. Ow! Ow, ow, ow. And over and over and over. And over and over and over. And you don't get. You don't get it. So why should we still come down here? Wow. Well, I'll tell you right now. I'm expanding every possible avenue to give you every opportunity to do the right thing for the right reason. Because. Just zip for me. This is it. This is it. After dip. Mr. Take your time is up. Talking. Your time is up. Next up, Hillary portal. And, well, Hillary, come up. I would invite. But invite Wade. Shelton, Brad SIEGEL, David Richter, Mark Thompson and Ann Elizabeth to work your way up to the front pew. You're the next five. Go ahead. I'm Hillary Patel. I live at 1124 South Milwaukee Street and I'm on the board of All in Denver. Thank you, Councilman Clark, for your lifetime commitment to Parks and Recreation and our community and for meeting with us to discuss our concerns about this proposal. Overall, we support continued investment in the park system. Parks are a critical part of Denver's quality of life and health, and it's clear to us that they haven't kept up with our city's growth. What troubles us is the size and scale of this tax. During an unprecedented time in our city, at a time of widening income inequality, unrelenting displacement, and decreasing federal funding for social services. Is this proposal the best response? Are you going to ask Denver voters to approve the highest sales tax increase in recent memory with no plan for how funds will be spent and no ability to decide in the future if we want to continue taxing ourselves for this. Have unintended consequences been planned for? Shouldn't we coordinate our public investments to enhance our community while reducing the top two expenses for most households housing and transportation? After all, these are your priorities for 2018 and 2019, published and released to the public just six months ago. The thing is, nobody gets everything they want. Advocates go for it. We have many competing priorities. We all go for as much as we can get. And after a rigorous public process, we do the best with what we can. We make the most of what we're able to get. We should leave room in Denver for taxes to support future needs. And those needs are now. The question should be, how will Denver be a city where everyone matters during the Trump administration? Please reduce this tax, add a sunset mechanism and provide a plan for how investments will be aligned with the mayor's new neighborhood equity strategy announced today. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, we'd show. Thank you, President Clark. Members of City Council. My name is Wade Shelton, and I'm here to speak on behalf of the Trust for Public Lands Denver based Colorado program. And as a Denver resident, I wish to offer a strong endorsement of the bill to offer Denver voters the opportunity to create a dedicated source of funds for the city's parks, trails, and open space. The parks trails and open space. The trails and recreation opportunities in Denver improve our quality of life and are an important investment in our future and for Main Street to mountain tops. Denver boasts a diverse park system, including 6000 acres of urban parkland, 244 city parks, 28 recreation centers, and 14,000 acres of land in Denver mountain parks. And over the past 11 years, I've had the privilege, as have many of my colleagues at the Trust for Public Land. I'm working with many of you and many communities around Denver to help complete land acquisitions, to create new parks and activate and create and redesign old ones. Whether it's Quattro Ventures Park in Denver's Westwood neighborhood, New Freedom Park, a park for refugee families and athlete populations in East Denver, the River North Park in Denver's Reno neighborhood, or the Montebello Open Space Park in Montebello. We've been part of a lot of great projects that are ensuring all Denver residents, regardless of their income or what neighborhood they live in or what walk of life they come from, have the same access to the outdoors. But sadly, that many of those projects would be impossible to complete today, given the growth of the real estate market in Denver. We're looking at $200 a square foot for downtown real estate. And despite the best philanthropic efforts, the trust for public land, great outdoors, Colorado and the city and county of Denver. Your great Parks Department cannot meet the needs of our community. The longer we wait to restore and maintain our parks trail open space, the more it will cost us in the long run. By making investments today, we can afford avoid more costly problems in the future and leverage millions of dollars in matching funds. Every front range county. But Denver has local dedicated funds for parks, trails and natural areas. And we're missing out. Our parks and trails provide affordable recreation close to home for everyone. And I get to I'm fortunate enough that I get to experience going to Denver City Park every day because I live close to it. But everyone in this room, every citizen in this city, deserves to have those same opportunities, and that will help create the quality of life that health lifts up everyone. And not just those of us who are lucky enough to live near a watch park or a city park. By referring this funding measure, Denver voters will have the opportunity to approve and maintain our parks, trails and natural areas and quality of life now and for generations to come. And I urge you to vote yes. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Brad SIEGEL. My name is Brad SIEGEL. I reside on Detroit Street in Congress Park. Chairman Clark, congratulations. Glad your mother was here earlier. She's a schoolteacher. She actually impacted my own son and gave him a love for creative writing. She does really good work. Tonight, I am speaking as a co-founder of All in Denver. We are a nonprofit advocacy organization. That believes. An equitable city is where all people have the opportunity to. Prosper and thrive. Overall, we we support. Continued investment in. The city's park system. We view parks as an important. Component. Of a thriving and equitable. City. However, as have been voiced by prior speakers. From our board, we do have concerns with the size and the. Scope of the initiative the council is getting ready to vote on tonight. We would. Be more supportive. Of this. Proposal if it had three. Characteristics. One, if it was smaller, a smaller tax, lower tax, and also had a sunset mechanism. So as. Hillary and and Jonathan mentioned, that voters. Could look at this again in five or ten years and see if it's something they want to. Continue to. It needs to be guided by a community based. Plan. That will make sure that there's investment in our neglected neighborhoods in the city, but also make sure there are. Anti. Displacement measures in place so. That we're not accelerating property. Values with the best of intentions and displacing. More people over time. Thirdly, we also want. To see how this aligns with the top priorities of this council. This council was very. Clear back in January that affordable housing and transportation are the. Top two priorities for Denver moving forward. We remain we don't see how that. Connection has been made in this proposal. One other concern we have. Is opportunity cost. This is an aggressive, aggressive tax proposal. This would be the largest sales. Tax initiated by Denver City Council in modern. Memory. It joins an already crowded ballot with. Transportation. Scholarship and mental health initiatives as well. If all. Of these initiatives are passed or some. Of these initiatives are passed, we are concerned. Where do we go to three, four or five years from now. When we have a whole new series of challenges and we need revenue and we've tapped out the community's. Appetite to support it. So in conclusion, we do urge restraint and accountability. If you decide to move the initiative forward. Thanks. Thank you. Next up, David Richter. Mr. President Council. My name is David Richter live at 252, Pennsylvania. I'm Councilman Clark's representative on the Denver Parks and Recreation Advisory Board. The bill. If you get a little bit closer to the microphone, we can't hear you. So just just right under the microphone there. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. Sort of. No, just keep looking. Okay. So the bill you're considering has been drafted, I think, with more than just an appreciation for the challenges to maintain the existing park system, but also in recognition that because of the growth our city is experiencing and will continue to experience, the concept of a park of the city in a park is becoming kind of wishful thinking . Does Denver need more parks? Well, you've heard the the Park Square rankings from the Trust for Public Lands. I know you've seen the outdoor downtown master plan. Does Denver need more services? Look at our deferred maintenance backlog. Look at the stress on our parks and our pools. Our fields, our rec centers, our courts. Let's not even to wade into dog parks or Scott will get up and leave the room, try to find a ranger when you really need one. Consider the budget impact of threats like the emerald ash borer. Costs like that. In terms of protecting our tree canopy or restoring our river and our streams. And I say all this despite really the excellent work I think the DPR continues to do. In addition, of course, the efforts, the kind of irreplaceable accomplishments of organizations like the Mt. Park Foundation, the Park People, Greenway Foundation, just to name a few. Well, every year Prabowo sends a white paper to DPR as guidance for planning, prioritization and spending. And this year, under the Revenue Goals and Spending Authority section of the paper we sent to DPR. I quote. Additionally and with emphasis. Parab again advocates for a dedicated and sustainable funding source for new land acquisition. Counsel, I know you're engaged in game plan and blueprint as we plan the future of our city. I think this bill gives you the opportunity to put some teeth on it and I support it. Thank you very much. Thank you. And next up, Mark Thompson. Thank you, President Clark, and congratulations. Members of council, thank you for the brief moment. I'm not going to speak in favor or against this tax. I don't know a lot about it, but hey, I, I, and my family enjoy parks and open space. The members of our organization enjoy the parks of our city. Another thing that we enjoy is opportunities for the youth of our communities. And it's been a year now. July of 2017, we came to the City Council. We spoke with individuals regarding requiring apprenticeship. Mr. Johnson rules to require you to stay on topic. On this because again, you are asking for an increase to a sales tax on the use tax and you're talking about building again with it. And I'm asking the city council and I'm asking the mayor of Denver to tie requirements of apprenticeship participation in those projects. We have failed the youth of our communities. We continue to fail because over and over again we got $5 billion worth of work contracted in the city. And we are failing the youth and the citizens of our community. Thank you. Next up is an Elizabeth and I will invite the next five speakers to come to the front. Scott Robson, Darryl Watson. Ian, to for you, Bill Karl and Bart Berger. And Elizabeth, you're up. Members of the Council. I am here to strongly support this text. Some of my comments will be responsive to other folks and I'll ask you to connect the dots. I'm East 50th Avenue and North Washington Street in Globeville. The reason that I support this is because I think there is a maintenance deficit we've recently experienced in in Argo Park over there, an effort to get the water jets fixed and discovered that despite the sincere willingness and availability of folks in the park system to deploy people to do this, there are only two maintenance folks available to to execute the needed repairs. Regarding and I think that what we have here is I understand the potential impact of the use of this money it can through some of the capital expenditures create some improvements. Argo Park certainly can use a bathroom. I've read the very entertaining bathroom master plan for the parks and it's a well done document and I think we can be talking more on that level. I think that the two obstacles that we have found toward toward the bathrooms and the drinking fountain that mean the bathrooms in Argo have been regarding vandalism and the expense for putting in the sewer system. And I think there's ways we can work with this. The favorable way that they use and I agree the camping ban, it would be great to revisit but they use benefits intergenerational homeless within Globeville as an example, we have intergenerational homeless many times. Families are having reunions during the day at the park, even in the evening. This is how they stay in touch. Meet me at the park. We have this program with the city of Denver that is hiring homeless on jobs and eventually leading to more permanent jobs. We certainly are wanting to have when I say we, the miscellaneous numerous conversations I've had with people in my own neighborhood, I don't represent anybody. But anyway, we certainly can look at employing homeless in the parks through relationships with those that are actually our permanent homeless folks who are consistent homeless folks. Also, I think that we can look at the apprenticeships programs as a as an as an affiliated part of this. I would support those sensitivities and those priorities. I don't want this to be an either or with this level of taxation. Our parks do have deficits. And I would ask you to work very closely with parks, have a community community accountability relative to our optimum master planning over time to help us enrich the parks to to recognize that part of the sanity of a city under extreme stress with changes and building environments needs parks systems that are optimized both in the comfortable, the utilitarian comforts, the comforts, meaning bathrooms. And we want to encourage our Elyria and Swansea and neighbors to be coming over to our beautiful developing network of Parks and Parks and Globeville over the next seven years to help with the stress reduction and then the revitalization of their of daily energies and would certainly be wonderful to have this feeling is that your. Time is up. Thank you. Thank you, Scott Robson. Good evening, counsel. Scott Robb Sentiment District ten Resident Congress Park. Thank you for the time on this issue tonight. I'm here to speak in support of this initiative. I serve as the executive director of the Civic Center Conservancy, a nonprofit downtown here, and also had the privilege over a number of years to serve as the director of Denver Parks under Mayor Hickenlooper's administration. So I have seen firsthand the difficulties that this city has without a lack of funding source like is being proposed here tonight to fund the acquisitions and the over $100 million in park maintenance backlog that is necessary for a world class city like us to move forward. I think this bill represents a few things. First of all, I think this help solve inequity issue. The acquisitions that will occur from this funding source on an annual basis will more than likely occur primarily in underserved neighborhoods. And that is where we need to invest our money across this city for the quality of life of our family and children in our most underserved neighborhoods. It also is just a general quality of life answer that we're trying to solve here. We as a city and residents have intentionally helped increase density and growth of this city over time. This bill helps offset that through new park acquisitions, through the the breadth and depth of new parks that we will bring to the city. It helps offset that that density and growth that some of us are feeling a pinch around. And last of all, I think it represents a fair initiative that is at the right level where we stand today. And the point 25 sales tax. It represents a fair level to both citizens and frankly, to those visitors that come to our city, the majority of which pay sales tax. The majority of residents are not taking the burden of sales tax. It is those residents that visit us. And that's a great thing for those of us that live in the city. So I want to let you know that are our board of directors with the Civic Center Park Conservative Conservancy have voted unanimous unanimously in favor of this. That's not something that we take lightly, but we would like to see this move forward. It's long overdue. We've been talking about this in this city for over a decade. And as a world class city, it's time. It's time that we begin to fund our park system in a whole nother way and get to a level that this city deserves our families, our residents and beyond. So thank you for the time tonight. Thank you. Darrell Watson. Good evening, members of council and community members. My name is Darryl Watson. I live at 26th and Lafayette in the beautiful Whittier neighborhood. I am the co-chair of the Denver Game Plan, the 15 year masterplan for Denver Mountain Parks. Denver Parks and Recreation Centers on behalf of the other co-chair, the amazing Florence Navarro, who is not able to be here tonight. We're here to speak in favor of this this bill, the primary opposition that we've heard, the focus has been on the tax rate. Whether this bill will target negative, neglected neighborhoods and communities and whether it aligns with the city's identified higher priorities. I'll hit on each of these within my brief remarks. The 0.25% tax increase places Denver competitively still below at a total tax rate of 3.9% compared to a current tax rate of 3.65%, which is lower than most of our neighboring counties and communities. The game plan process of which I've been involved in over the last 18 months, from its first meeting through now the final meetings of this process, every community outreach, every discussion we've had with community members, they have resoundingly stated that they wanted a dedicated funding source for parks. I've been involved in the parks process for well over 20 years as one of the former presidents of the Parks and Rec Advisory Board. And within that 20 year period, each time each community outreach and process folks have communicated their desire and interest in identifying a dedicated source for parks. Denver And our funding for parks were ranked now 26. We often call ourselves a city within a park. Slowly but surely that is not the case. This plan will align to the city's identified higher priorities of investing in mobility and will have a focus on revitalizing parks and most neglected neighborhoods in the city. I live in Whittier neighborhood. We have five pocket parks. When you exclude Fuller Park, the four other pocket parks that we that we have in Whittier have been not kept up. There are needles. There are broken bottles. The poor children in my neighborhood deserve a parks that they can play in, that they can have birthday parties in . They can enjoy living in Whittier. Every advertisement about the city of Denver. Every rationale for why Denver's a great city is built on this city. Being a city in a park, displacement in affordable housing, all priorities of council. So is reducing non permeable surfaces, increasing air quality and quality of life. This plan will get us to the latter without changing council's and a mayor's office focus on reducing displacement, increasing affordable housing in a great city, in a forward looking city. They all can be done. We are tired of being place in the back of the line. Bringing it to the people of to vote. Finally, it's something that this council is allowing. And we ask you for your support. Thank you. Thank you for interview. Hello. My name is Ian Thomas Tafoya. I'm a resident of LAMB of Lincoln Park in District three. I want to say congratulations. Joe and I had a chance to sit on the park with you. It makes me feel amazing to know that we have a parks advocate leading city council, and I think it's going to be reflected in the choices we make under your leadership. I'm here in support today. I was at the State of the City address and I heard a lot about the city beautiful movement. And 100 years ago, well, today we have another opportunity to seize opportunity to grow our park system. It provides a whole host of issue benefits, including public health. I have been a tireless advocate for public health, and I believe this is an opportunity to build public restrooms and our and that's related to alcohol policy that we're discussing currently. I think it's an opportunity to bring drinking fountains. I was a teacher. I believe children deserve access to water fountains in their parks. I think it's a chance for us to restore and protect our history in our water fountains. You know, most people don't know, but it's the 100th anniversary of the Greek fountain in City Park. I think there's an opportunity to protect those amenities. I think it's a chance to modernize our facilities. The mayor announced he's ready for 100% renewable energy. Solar panels on buildings, I think probably fit into this. I think we've had a conversation around I-70 and air quality. Perhaps it's an opportunity to use this money to improve air quality in the recreation centers. You know, I also want to take a chance and address this equity conversation. And I've been an advocate for a park, a public transit to Red Rocks. I think this ties in to improving the amenities. And if we can get the transit there, we can access it. You know, the arsenal now has transit and we created a little park in between the sliver of land in there and public transit to provide that for people. You know, I want to say, this is an opportunity to buy land. You know, we're not always going to have that opportunity to buy land. Part of a golf course is one. We're out of heights. This one, you know, a few years ago, there was a piece of property here, Soccer River, who was part of the city, beautiful movement. Imagine an entire civic plaza that went from the Platte River all the way to the capital. We missed that opportunity. We don't have to miss that opportunity in the future. You know, we could be like Green Gables and Lakewood where they missed their opportunity to protect a park and instead they haven't. You know, I want to touch on trees and parkways. Parkways and trails. By the way, our transportation, it's not all just about cars. There are people who get equitable transit on a bus. You know, I do think it's a great leveler for the community. Everybody goes and they hang out in the parks. I do think it is connected to housing and density. As we increase density, we need parks. I am in support of impact fees and I'm glad that you ensure this isn't this is a we're doubling down. You're made sure that this isn't money that's going to be taken away from parks in the first place. You know, lastly, I guess I want to talk about some of the concerns. I mean, some of the concerns I've heard are about housing and transportation, which I talked about. But some of the other ones relate to just oversight. And I believe under your leadership, there'll be great oversight. You know, with Denver in her neighborhood cooperation, they've talked about how they'd like to see park oversight invested more in the parks. I hope this doesn't become just a find that you guys are ambivalent to. I'm pretty sure you'll be involved in. And so that's why I'm in support today. Thank you. Next, Bill Carl. Bill, Carl and I actually get to live in a Denver park on top of Lookout Mountain where Buffalo Bill's buried. I'm the concession there. My family has been there since 1956. We've also run the trading post at Red Rocks and currently run the largest echo they come out Evans Tourism Works. And with that, I'm also a member. Of the Denver Mountain Parks Foundation with Under Bar Burger. One of the things that was addressed was training youth to serve in the trades. And one of the things Bart's been working on is the historic core project there at the camp. At Mount Morris. And and every board meeting we have that's mentioned that we would like to develop more. Youth involvement with. Restoration of these parks. I'll give you two things I wanted to say. One is with the parks, how busy they're getting. I've been there all my life at Red Rocks. We used to do about 40 to 45 shows a year. It's well over 120 now on Mount Evans. We used to kind of be by ourselves up there next week. It was kind of lonely. Now, on the weekends, they're lining up from the Bergen Park side and the Idaho Springs side. And you have to you can't even get across the street the power of social media. It's the TripAdvisor reviews. It's the Facebooking at Red Rocks. This is the greatest place I've ever been. These things are going to keep going. And Denver has the best stuff. It was laid out at the beginning that Denver had the best properties west of the west of town, in the mountains. And there's there's parks and land that haven't even been developed yet. And it's going to take some money and. There's never enough of it, of course, but it's going to take some money and the people are coming and they're here this morning just to see the example of how tourism works. My first sale today was $89 at Buffalo Bill, a bunch of T-shirts. The city gets. $8.80 of that. They were here for the Emagine Dragon concert at Red Rocks, which is sold out tonight. It's just this effect of a good place attracting more and more people. We all know what I-70 is like on the weekends. Genesee Park is coming. It's going to be amazing. The Buffalo are going to have a lot of company and it's going to take some money to do that. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Bart Burger. And then I invite the next five to come up. Jim Peterson, Leslie Talk, Gorski, Jeff Shoemaker, Erica Walker and Fabio Hilliard. Gordon. Thank you, President Clark. That has a ring to it. I'm Bart Berger, cochairman of. The Denver Mountain Parks. Foundation. And, you know, a wise man once said that the time to plant trees is 20 years ago. In the early days of the 20th century, Denver's leaders understood the importance of parks for the quality of life in Denver. Their dedication to creating our parks system is legendary. Moreover, they're their understanding that one of Denver's unique characteristics is its nearness to the cool air and open spaces of the front range foothills. In typical fashion, Denver took the remarkable step to build roads and parks outside of its own boundaries to provide for her citizens something no other city in America could. They created this with a voter approved, dedicated funding source, and the result was a 14,000 acre necklace of parks from Lookout Mountain to Daniel's Park, from Red Rocks to Mount. Evans that are unparalleled in their. Popularity, even if people. Don't know. Much about them. The dedicated funding ceased in 1955, then, only until recently began its long, slow deterioration. Out of out of sight became out of mind. But with the city we are beginning to turn that around. And creating a dedicated funding. Source again for the parks and in particular the Denver Mountain parks once again will honor the legacy that we have been given in the 21st century. We have the opportunity to provide a quality of life and a spectrum of park amenities that, quite frankly, people come here expecting. We dream of a great city, and the great city is equal to the sum of its parks. Denver has a reputation for leadership, creating a dependable, dedicated funding source for Denver's parks. Most certainly the mountain parks is part of that, and this small tax will enable us to do what our citizens already are expecting that we are already doing. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next up, Jim Peterson. Thank you, Mr. President. Counsel I'm Jim Peterson, LAKEWOOD. On behalf of the Trust for Public Lands Denver based Colorado program, I wish to offer a strong endorsement of the bill before you today. The Trust Public Land is a national organization whose mission is to create parks and protect land for people to ensure a healthy, livable communities for generations to come. We have a national vision that every resident will live within a ten minute walk of a quality park. Parks are essential city infrastructure. They are central to our quality of life. I'd like to give you six reasons why Council should approve this measure and give Denver residents the opportunity to make badly needed investments in Denver's parks, trails, trees and open spaces. First, community parks connect people to their neighborhoods, to their city, and to each other. Parks help build strong communities and give local residents the opportunity to celebrate diversity and community identity and heritage. Second, environment parks play a key role in the health of the city's environment. Parks protect natural resources. They help us adapt to a changing climate by providing badly needed shade and absorbing carbon emissions. A robust trail network gets people out of their cars helping protect our air quality and by providing kids with close to home access to nature. Parks help build the next generation of environmental stewards. Third economy parks provide valuable services, including stormwater retention. And helping cool surrounding neighborhoods in the heat of summer parks, boost the city's economy and growth by enhancing our quality of life, which attracts new businesses and workers and helps to retain existing ones. Fourth, health parks provide badly needed close to home opportunities for exercise and connecting to nature. This boosts physical and mental health and well-being. Further parks safeguard clean water and mitigate air pollution. Fifth, inspiration parks enrich our daily lives with beauty and nature. They showcase public art, reflecting the cultures, heritage and character of surrounding neighborhoods, and provide parks, provide a respite from the hustle and bustle of a rapidly changing and growing city. Put simply, Parks nurture the spirit. Which is something we all need in this increasingly busy and overloaded world. And finally, our kids. We need to invest in Denver parks for our kids. Today, the average kid spends 7 minutes outdoors in unstructured play compared to more than 7 hours on screens. In an age where kids can hold in their hands devices that connect them to the world in devices that are designed to distract and hold attention more than ever, we need parks that are close to people's homes and parks that are filled with exciting, interesting and fun amenities. For all these reasons and more. I urge you to support the bill before you tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Leslie Tartakovsky. Hi. Thank you for having me. My name's Leslie to our Gal Ski, and I currently serve as the president of the Denver Recreation Parks Advisory Board. Councilman Clark, first, I want to congratulate you on your new chair. I when I first met you as a fellow member of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, I knew that you were destined for greatness. So I'm very happy to see you sitting there, but not the least bit surprised. I will be very brief because Mr. Watson touched on most of my points, but a couple of things that have come up, as is the discussion regarding oversight and one of the parts of this bill is annual revision and and oversight by the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board. Equity is one of our most fundamental concerns in the city of Denver, and I think the job that we did. For the geo bond. Getting funding. For Westwood Park or Sanchez GVS recreation centers and funding projects in areas that have been consistently underfunded gives me a lot of hope and confidence that this will absolutely be a great failsafe going forward for this tax. Finally, I want to thank you for not making the decisions yourself, but for putting this in front of the voters , because, yes, I did hear what Mr. SIEGEL said. This is going to be a very, very crowded ballot. But there is nothing more Democratic than having each voter look at their own household budget, decide what is a priority for them and decide what they can afford to vote on. So thank you again for sending this to the voters in their consideration. Thank you. Next up, Jeff Shoemaker. Jeff Shoemaker, proud resident of the Wilshire neighborhood. President Pro tem gilbert. Congratulations. President Clark msh. Members of denver city council. It is a true honor to stand before you this fine evening, this historical, significant evening. A night I've been waiting for for over ten years. And the time has finally come. 35 years ago, Federico Pena was inaugurated as mayor of Denver on the promise of imagining a great city. And three and a half decades later, it is my belief that Denver is indeed on the verge of becoming a great city, but only if we do a greater job of investing in our parks, be they urban or mountain or investing in our waterways. Speedy, the South Platte, the Highland Canal, Cherry Creek, or its other tributaries. These priceless natural resources are at a crisis. Members. You know this you've got the numbers I put before you $400 million of immediate needs right now, today, just to get our park systems and our waterways up to today's standards. And that's not speaking about five years or ten years or 20 years from now. And that's not factoring in the thousands and thousands of people that are coming into this city every single year, in great part because of our parks and our waterways. And you've heard that we are indeed, sadly, the only county in the metro area that does not have a dedicated source of funding for our parks and our waterways. But tonight, this night, you can change that. You can move this measure forward to allow the voters of Denver to decide if they want to take the passion they have for our parks and waterways and back it with their wallets. And it is my humble opinion that if you give the voters that chance, they will respond strongly and overwhelmingly with a yes vote. If you choose to move this measure forward tonight, I promise you two things this very evening. Number one, I will continue to work tirelessly on this measure over the next four months and beyond. And number two, I will initiate every single one of my requests to any and every voter with whom I come in contact with one word. And that word is please. And so in conclusion, Mr. President and members of city council, as I ask all of you one final time, to move this opportunity forward to our fellow Denver citizens. I do so humbly. I do so personally. With my final word. Please. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you. Next up, Erica Walker. Hello. My name is Erica Walker, and I'm with the Denver Mountain Parks Foundation. Thank you so much for taking our comments today. I am strongly in favor of giving Denver citizens the opportunity to vote to increase support for the parks. It's interesting to note that this opportunity has historic precedents. In 1912, Denver voters approved a tax that provided dedicated funding to create the Denver Mountain Parks System for more than 100 years. The Denver bound parks have allowed residents and tourists alike to enjoy some of the most beautiful land in our state. Unfortunately, in 1950s, this funding slipped away, and as a result, the mountain parks declined significantly. But now we have an opportunity to create another dedicated funding source. I believe that we owe it to future generations to take this step today. More than 100 years ago, Denver displayed visionary leadership in establishing the Denver mountain parks. This was three years before our national parks were established and more than 50 years before the Colorado State Parks were established. By restoring dedicated funding to our parks. Now, Denver will be continuing this important legacy of visionary leadership. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next up for Abby Hilliard and I'll ask the last five speakers to come to the front, Kim Wan Farrell, Brandon Routh, Heimer, David Howlett, Katie Fritz and Frank Roe. Go ahead. Thank you very much. Congratulations to you tonight. I'm just here to say thank you. There's never a good time to do something like this. It's I think it's been longer than ten years we've been working on this. But but it is time to take this step and move this forward to the people of Denver to make the decision. I'm a fifth generation Colorado native. We've been in every park, probably in the entire system at some point. And my children and grandchildren continue to enjoy and thrive in these parks. But they're sad and they're tattered and they need our support. So thank you. I am hoping that you will move this initiative forward and I appreciate your bravery in doing this at this time and look forward to working with you all on this. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, can Kim Yuan Farrow. Sorry about. That. No problem. Good evening, counsel. I'm Kim U.N. Farrell. I live at 41st and federal. I'm the director of the Park People. We are a 49 year old nonprofit organization that supports Denver's Parks, Recreation, Resources, open space and urban forest. We have raised millions of dollars for Denver's Parks and Recreation System, capital improvement projects, maintenance projects. Our Denver Digs Trees program has provided more than 50,000 free and affordable trees to Denver residents. We've engaged with many thousands of community foresters, volunteers, residents across our city to make our neighborhoods more livable places. Never in our 49 years has the park people gotten involved in any political issue like this. But this is an issue that is so critical to the health of our park system, to the health of our city, and to the health of our residents that we felt we needed to bring our voices to the cause. We and kind of the collective Denver Parks and Rec, the park people, other allies of the park system cannot continue to plug with our fingers. The leaks in a sinking ship as $127 million in deferred maintenance alone grows by an added $39 million every year. We need to take care of our local parks, our open spaces, our trails, our trees with adequate stewardship and with new investments so that they can continue to take care of us, of our community as our population increases, as traffic congestion worsens, as air pollution increases, as our paved surfaces expand, and as our cities get hotter. These aren't just nice amenities that we want to have. These are critical elements of green infrastructure that we need in order to keep Denver livable. They are critical for individual health, for social and community health, for environmental health, and for economic health, as so many of our speakers have already spoken to, they impact the everyday experiences of our lives, and every person in every neighborhood in Denver should have access to the benefits provided by these resources. It is an equity issue. It is related to housing and transportation. It is all of that and. These are the things that make Denver a great place to live and to work and to play. And we do not have the resources that we need to properly care for them right now. A dedicated funding source for parks and open space has been a discussion that goes back more than a decade in Denver and actions long overdue. It's backwards that Denver is the only county in the metro area that doesn't have a parks and open space tax. Land is being so rapidly developed. There will never be a time like now to acquire more land for parks and open space. It will only get harder and more impossible and our communities will suffer. So please place this funding proposal on the ballot so that Denver residents can decide. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Brandon Wright timer. Hello. My name is Brandon Wreath Heimer. Congratulations, President Clark on being president. I was the proponent for the Denver Green Roof Initiative, and I'm here today to speak in favor of this bill. I believe the voters should be given an opportunity to vote on this issue. Our parks are severely underfunded. Our green space is rapidly disappearing. The cost of land increases every day and the ash borer is coming, which is something we cannot forget about this bill. If voters pass in November, it would do a huge service for the future of Denver. We're the only metropolitan city in the area to not have an open space or parks tax. And the quarter percent that's proposed would place us in the middle of jurisdictions and surrounding counties. I strongly urge all of you to allow the people of Denver the opportunity to vote on this in the fall. And just to be clear to those who oppose this, this is just a question for the ballot. This isn't set in stone. I believe we should always let the people vote. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, David Hallett. President, Clerk and member of the Denver City Council. My name is David. I'm a Denver resident. I want to thank you tonight for this opportunity to speak this evening on the proposed park funding bill. The park funding bill will provide much needed funding to address the demands of a city experiencing rapid population growth. The need for the additional 46 million in annual funding is important to ensure that Denver is providing amenity for all of its residents. The additional 46 million would help Denver leverage other funding opportunities, including public and private, nonprofit and foundation sources, thus increasing total funding amounts on a yearly basis. Denver's parks, open space, waterways and related needs have clear public support for increased funding, according to recent surveys. The Parks funding bill is broad based and aligns with the city's mobility priority, the city's goal for improved water quality, achieving fishable and swimmable waterways, rivers and streams, and providing access for all Denver residents to new and existing parks , open space, pedestrian and bicycle trails and mountain parks, as well as addressing social justice needs and enhancing environmental education opportunities. I urge the Denver City Council to place the funding proposal on the November six, 2018 ballot to increase the sales and use tax by 0.25% for parks and related needs. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Kate Fritz. Name is Kate Fritts. I am a Denver resident. District eight. I am the co-chair of the. Did you pull the microphone? I'm sorry, I'm short. I'm the co-chair of the Denver Mountain Parks Foundation. First off, I'd like to thank council for bringing this matter to the voters. It is a tremendously important step, I think, forward to protect a cultural resource within the city that is unique and special and provides an amazing opportunity for its residents. I would like to also thank you very much for specifically including the Denver Mountain Parks, which are 14,000 acres of opportunity that I think is unique to any city in the country. We are special and our park system is special because we have these parks and it makes us different and they are important. What is unfortunate is that all too often access to open space for so many people is restricted to their ability to afford to get out of the city. What this bill does, it gives the voters in Denver the opportunity to just say, no, we want to have these opportunities within the city and to close in mountains. It says we want this access to be available for everyone who lives here. Not simply the people who have access to cars and can get on I-70 and go to the mountains. It says, we will invest in the infrastructure of this city because it is important for kids and for people who can't afford to do that. To be able to have parks that aren't broken, that aren't full of needles and that aren't trashed, to have shelters and historic structures in the mountain parks that link Denver's present and its future to its past, that give an opportunity to the citizens to see and understand why Denver is unique. Why it is special. What this bill does is that it lets the voters in Denver step up and say, this is important to us, and it's important not just if you have privilege. It's important to everyone because it should be a level playing field to have an outdoor opportunity. It should be a level playing field to be able to go to the mountains and have access to open space on hiking and fishing and mountain biking, or just standing in a stand of pine trees or aspen trees and understanding that when you do, your heart rate drops and when you do, you understand the beauty and you can go back to your life. That is why this is important. That is why I thank you very much for your support and referring this to the voters so that they can make this decision to invest in their city, both the parks within it and the parks outside of it. So thank you very much. Congratulations on your election. I appreciate it. Thank you. And I believe our last speaker is no longer here, but as Frank Rose here. Looks like not. All right. That concludes our speakers. Are there questions from members of council? Councilman Flynn. Thank you, Mr. President. Zach, could you come up and and take a few questions on something we discussed a couple of weeks ago? I think when this went through my committee and that is under the section 39 to 23 I'm sorry, section 39 to 24 on the fund itself. Paragraph F, maintenance of effort. One of my concerns about this, and I think a lot of the concerns that folks expressed is that this new source of revenue not replace or supplant current effort in the general fund budget for parks. And reading the words in the bill now. I'm not sure that it reflects what I had expected to see. So I'm wondering if you could explain how this would work. I had thought that the maintenance of effort would be set at 2018 funding levels in the general fund and that we would not have the general fund at least go below that level. But tell me how this would work when this new revenue can be used for all the things we're doing now out of the general fund, how will we prevent and how will we monitor from year to year that this new money doesn't end up replacing the money we're now spending? I thank you for your question, Councilman Flynn. A couple of things here. The moneys are still used for the prescriptive uses, so you can't just supplant anything in the general fund. It was sort of it was under it was then the five buckets up in section eight is is common in legislation. Sometimes it's taken out. We went with it, not prescriptive. RO If you remember with the state when the recession, if you have a prescriptive amount and the maintenance of effort, you end up with this ratchet effect. And so this would allow the manager of finance to lower the threshold if there was a recession and the general fund shrunk by that same percentage. Okay. Explain to me again, though, paragraph eight, the number of there's five prescriptive uses, but they all seem to be uses that we now find out of the general fund in particular, what caught me was developing, improving and maintaining new and existing parks. We maintain existing parks out of the general fund. How are we if we can maintain existing parks at this new fund, how are we preventing it from replacing that current effort? Sure. So these do exist within the current general fund. However, there are additional expensive expenditures within the parks and recreation budget, such as recreation that would not be allowable under these expenditures. Not allowable. Okay. All right. Thank you. Councilman Lopez. Thank you, Mr. President. I wanted to ask you, I mean, in in the crafting of the language and the communication with both folks in the community advocates and. Parks and Rec. What I want to address the issue of equity. I had comments were served later and I'll say that for them, but I want to make sure. Denver is very lopsided in terms of its park system and where the acreage is and where it is not. And, you know, it's been a lot of fighting and scraping and politics just to get receive a little bit of that equity. How are we sure what mechanisms are in place in here to make sure that that continues to be the case if we are going to. Contribute every single one of us into this is pot. So we can actually make sure folks live within a mile of any park. What mechanisms and policies are in place to make sure that happens. So, Councilman, I think there are two provisions in this bill that would address that. One is reporting requirements. So every year the manager of Parks Recreation will report back to council on the expenditures of that year. If there's something that the Council feels that is not an approved measure, they can take action at that point. The Manager of Parks Recreation will also need to submit within a year the five year outlier of what they anticipate expenditures are, and I'm sure the Council to weigh in on those. They'll be every five years after that there's a typical five year capital improvement plan. So at the end of the day, we are saying, I'm sorry. I just wanted to jump in. Councilman Locke, as you know, from from the very beginning of the drafting, for me, that was hugely important. My district is a tale of two cities and that I come all the way right up to Washington Park on one side, and I go all the way to federal and Tennessee, where we have a strip that if you look at any map of Denver parks, it shows a strip of parks down Tennessee. And if you drive down there, it is nothing but weeds. And there is a huge inequity in our city. I've spent my entire life before I came to this, taking kids from all of these communities on field trips to the river and trying to connect them with our parks. And and I think that the problem is that we struggle to keep up with our parks and to deliver on those parks. And it's a fundamental tenet of why, when I was helping with the drafting this came for it was to make sure that it doesn't matter where you're born, how much money you make, what zip code you live in. You should have a world class park that you can safely walk to. I was very lucky growing up in Denver that, you know, I got to grow up four blocks away from Wash Park and that was my backyard. And every single kid should have that opportunity. And we need the funds to make sure that we do so. That is, you know, a fundamental importance for me and why this is bringing forward so that we have the money to deliver on that dream for everyone. I also, you know, because you brought up some of the comments that are brought up and, you know, I won't for a second say that we don't have to absolutely do everything that we can. And I was encouraged by what the mayor had to say in his speech today about preventing and providing resources for displacement and gentrification . But I think we have to be very careful to before we go down a track where we start saying we shouldn't invest in these neighborhoods because that's a side effect. We need to cure that side effect. I don't think at any point for you, Councilman, as we were going through the bond process, if someone had said, no , let's not invest in a rec center in Westwood, because because there might be some displacement and some gentrification. I think we all and I won't speak for everyone, but it's my hope that we all would have jumped and said, no, let's solve that problem. Let's not make investments. Not, Oh, it's not. Stop paving roads and building sidewalks and building parks. Everyone deserves that. So I don't know if that gets to the question you're asking or not. You know, it does speak to the spirit in which you've drafted in. And I just hope I mean, I know that I'm here for another year as a councilman to see that a strong majority of the council and future councils do believe and continue and have and protect the pillar of equity. I mean, I like that it comes back here because sometimes it's like like other agencies, it can become a tool and it can be a tool that the executive branch and I want to make sure that we at this that this fund is not just an animal that lives in the executive branch, but it also lives within with multi with the legislative and executive. So that we do have a whatever the makeup of this council in any any kind of council in the future become that that equity is a certainty and that that stops at least here. So I appreciate that. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Zach. Councilman Espinosa. Ex-Im Think you can try these, Zach? But they might be for Scott. And it's more for my comments later on. What are the number of parks that we have in the city and county of Denver? That is definitely not free. Looks like Scott Gilmore is here. And can come up. Scott Gilmore, deputy executive director of Parks and Recreation. Approximately 260 parks, 6000 acres. That is in the metro area and the city and county of Denver. Then we have an additional 40 plus parks in the mountains that make up the mountain park system, and that's an additional 14,000 acres. And those are in five different counties. And I know that you have all these statistics in your head, so I like hearing them. This one less of a statistic. Do you have any sense about what the wait list is for playgrounds, parks that are sort of have aging playgrounds but need them? No. I mean, I could get the information. I don't want to give you anything that's not accurate. I mean, we are working down our list of priorities. We have a we did a master plan for playgrounds probably around eight years ago. And we are working through that list to identify the we identified the playgrounds that were in the worst condition. And we have been working through that list, replacing those playgrounds as we move down the list. But that that is. Would you say that I mean, might get you in trouble? Is it moving at the rate it is necessary? No, it's available. Okay. And are there any do we have any prospective parcels with immediate with no immediate plans for development as a park. Yeah. I mean, we have we have land that we are holding that we do not have funding to build parks on. We do have land in Stapleton. We have land in far northeast Denver, Green Valley Ranch Park Field. We have some areas we probably in the far northeast, we probably have about 40 acres of land that we do not have funding to build park land. There's additional acreage in Stapleton and there are some other parcels throughout the system that Jolan has a park in his neighborhood. I think it's the car dealership parcel that is nothing. So we have ample need for this. Yes, we do. Great. Thank you. Okay. Anything else, Councilman? No, thanks. Councilman Cashman. Yeah. Thank you, Sack. Simple one. So at this point, two 5% on a $10 purchase, that equates to what I believe it's a quarter. On a $10 purchase. It's 2.5 cents. Believe. Thank you. Anything else, Councilman Cannick. Thanks, Mr. President. Congratulations. A couple questions. My first one is about maintenance. And I think this kind of gets at the question that Councilman Flynn was asking about folks. We're talking about things like cleaning up needles and stuff. I think of that as like a maintenance person doing a service in a park. I guess I have the impression from our conversation that we were talking about hard maintenance, i.e. capital, like I'm painting, appealing, retaining while I am maintaining a an area that has soil erosion. And I was thinking that we were more in the capital maintenance realm than the services maintenance realm. And so I couldn't find a definition in the ordinance of maintenance specifically. So I just if someone could help kind of, you know, whether that's in the city attorney's office, but just can you clarify what your intent is? And then let's check to see if the language matches intent. Yeah. Do you want to speak to the language or. Okay. So, you know, on intent, the the the number one intent was to make sure that this was new money and back to what Councilman Flynn had brought up. It is not a lock in where we're in the general fund right now because we did just very recently have a recession that every department, including police and fire, were asked to cut. And it wouldn't be fair. I felt and other members were helping with drafting to say, oh, parks doesn't have to cut because of this money . Outside of that, it has been left fairly broad. And so I would say that while the focus is on catching up with deferred capital maintenance, there was especially a concern with bringing new parks on and with the, you know, things like emptying the trash cans. I told the story in committee that I had constituents who started picking up the trash in the park and were putting it in the trash and called me and said, Hey, can we pick up the trash can more often? Because that same trash is just blowing out and we didn't have the resources to empty those trash cans. So, you know, I'm not sure what the the legal read on that is, but my the intent would be that that's part of the plan. And if at any point this body or proud felt that it was an inappropriate use of those funds, but certainly if there is a park that is not being used and is not safe and accessible for kids, I didn't feel that we should expressly prohibit our Parks Department from saying for this park, that's the need for that park over there. It's a bench that's broken. And for this one, it's a playground. And here it's that they don't have a park and we need to buy land. But for this park, the thing that we need is another person and it is not explicitly prohibited unless the legal interpretation is different. Okay. Kirsten Crawford, Legislative Counsel I would suggest that we do not need to define maintenance in the ordinance, that it's a commonly used term for actually maintenance separate and distinct from capital improvements, which are also covered in the bill. Okay. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that clarification. Second question actually was for you, Kirsten. One of the speakers early on asked the question about, you know, we that we couldn't do anything to change this. And, you know, obviously under TABOR, we need voter approval to increase the tax. I'm just curious about what are the mechanisms for adjustment. So, for example, if if it turned out that tax burden became an issue or, you know, is there what is council's authority and or would it be referred to the ballot like could voters change the amount, for example? So I just wanted to get clarification since someone asked that. So with respect to adjusting the tax, the TABOR requires that a policy change in tax that results in an increase must be approved by the voters. But you all could adjust it lower without a vote necessary without a vote. Or we could refer for voters to weigh in if that was it. Nothing prohibits us from asking the voters about an adjustment in the future. That's right. Okay. That's helpful. Thanks. Councilman Clark, I wanted to ask you a couple of questions, and I will acknowledge they're not they're not just in the vein of technical questions. I think it's like, you know, we had a lot of policy concerns that were raised. And so could you just speak a little bit to your consideration of a sunset? Not a lot of questions about sunsets. Yeah, a lot of questions about that. It was something that, you know, I thought about. I you know, I think as we've been going through the affordable housing, we've learned that there are ramifications to having a sunset. And that limits what we do in some of our suburban neighbors have taken parts of their dedicated sources of revenue and said land will never be cheaper. We should bond on that land. And so I felt that, one, it gave freedom for us to really look at what do we need? Part of the problem is we've never had the money or any future promise of that money to really look at what do we need from a land standpoint? Land can be very expensive, especially when we have such a big deferred maintenance, annual problem and hole. So, you know, I think that was part of it. And I also, you know, I believe that the need for us to make sure that every person has a quality park will not end. And so fundamentally, I felt like that I also, as we've seen through both green roofs and social consumption, this council's not been afraid to jump in and fix things when they're fixed. And, you know, I'll say that the day that every single, you know, person in this city has a high quality world class park that they can walk to safely, that is that is kept at the level that our citizens want. And we don't need this any more than I'll be the first one in line up there to say, Hey, it's time to make a change. I just don't think at the where where we're at and what this level is. There's also a lot about is this too much? The problem is, if it's not this much, then we can't even start the conversation about acquiring land in those park deserts, in those communities that don't have that safe walk. And so I felt like this was the minimum amount to even get us on track, and we shouldn't sunset that perhaps down the road. Many communities have looked at increasing their taxes beyond their .25 to Jefferson County with 0.5, Boulder with 0.6. And perhaps when you look at we've got our house in order and we've started to grow, but we hit the next wall. That might be appropriate in that conversation. But we're so far behind and we've let this go on so long that I didn't feel that it was appropriate or responsible to sunset this. Another thing that was another question that was raised, and I think what I heard from folks is that there are people who are in this realm of of parks and open spaces, their focus and passion, who feel like they've been part of a conversation for a decade. For many others in the community, this proposal came as a surprise. They were not at that table. They did not feel like they were part of that debate. And so what can you share about what other sources that you or others that you worked with thought about? So what made the sales tax the right source, for example, as compared to a development impact fee, which has sometimes been thrown around by the community? So. You know, I'd said and I've, you know, said this and as people have asked me this over email too, that there's no tax that is a perfect tax and that it should never be taken lightly to increase any of those taxes. There are bad parts of all of them. Part of it was looking at where can we model after best practices? Where can we learn from and not invent something new that might have ramifications? Every single one of our neighboring counties has this as a sales tax. There is a clear roadmap. There are organizations like the Trust for Public Lands who have helped multiple jurisdictions craft those, work on those, go back and make edits to those. So it was the pool where we could learn very quickly how to do this effectively. Development impact fees. You know, if you look at the amount and again, how much do we need to generate? We need to we need to stop the annual gushing of resources where we're getting further and further behind. We need to start catching up on the stuff that we are already behind and then we need to deliver on acquiring new properties as Denver is growing as fast as they can and development impact fees would have had to have been so much bigger than what we did for, say, affordable housing to generate the kind of money that we need. And that was a difficult conversation to get through. So that was one that, you know. Looking at again, I think it was lessons learned, best practices. And then how realistic is it to actually generate the money that we need to solve this problem from each thing? You know, some of the other things that were considered was there have been we've talked a lot about property taxes. We've we've re-upped the job on, which wasn't necessarily a tax increase but certainly was more taxes on people would have had to pay had they not. We have activated some property tax for affordable housing. And as we talk about housing, not that all of this isn't connected and everything you have to pay for goes into that. But with a sales tax in Denver, only 24% of that is paid by Denver residents. And so the burden on the Denver residents was also something that was seen as a plus of the sales tax. I guess I wanted to just clarify two questions. And, you know, Kirsten or Jolene. So, one, you had mentioned bonding. So if we had used a different source, like a development impact fee, just refresh me again. Could we have bonded against that if that's something folks wanted to do to build a park? I am not. Generally told she was not available for bonding in the affordable housing realm. So I just want to confirm that that is my understanding. But we haven't I haven't looked at that issue. Okay. Got it. And again, this just gets to we are in some ways today having the policy debate right about the why this source. Last question, I guess is about the timeline. So refresh me again with the latest date. This could be referred in order to kind of be on the ballot. It is. So we're on first reading tonight. Yes, we're actually in final reading. To final reading. Okay. Correct. Sorry. Sorry. So I think the early the latest would be, I believe, September 9th, that needs to be in by September 9th. Okay, great. Thank you very much. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilwoman Ortega. Thank you. I have several questions as well. And Scott, maybe you might want to work your way up here. I'm going to ask a few other questions first, but I do have one for you as well. And Councilwoman Canete, you asked a couple of my questions, but I want to elaborate on them a little further. So on the. So let me let me start with the issue of somebody made reference to being able to maybe use these dollars for recreation facilities as well. And I want you to clarify whether or not these dollars can actually be spent on capital improvements for recreation center buildings. No, they cannot. Okay. I just wanted to make that really clear. So any adjustments that might be made in the future, could recreation facilities be added without having to go back to a vote of the people? I'm looking at you to help answer that question. Uh uh, yes, absolutely. I, I guess I would have to go back and look at whether there's a time frame on that. But, yeah, you could do it without a vote. Okay. Thank you. Um, on the issue of equity, I just wanted to ask Scott if you wouldn't mind coming to the microphone for a minute. What what are the standards that exist? Because as I travel around the city, I see a drastic difference in the quality of maintenance of our parks. Depending on what neighborhood you happen to be in across the city. Is is there a standard of maintenance that exists for the maintenance of our parks? Yes, there. Is a standard of maintenance that we we definitely try to meet. Some of it's based on the use of the park. It's based on the size of the park. It's based on if it's a community park, neighborhood park or a regional park. We we strive to make sure that all our parks are maintained at a high level. So as everyone knows, if there is parks that you see that are not maintained at a at a level that is appropriate. You can always reach out to the Parks Department. You can reach out to me directly, and we will address that. I have one more for you. And this is on. It's how we. Set priorities for. Looking at where we. Prioritize the spend of resources. So, for example, we'll be able to utilize these dollars along some of our R River corridors. As you know, we've been trying to address some flooding issue in the Globeville neighborhood. But if we had, for example, Ilitch is say, well, we want to have some of that address next to our site because we're in a floodplain. And as we look at redoing, you know, a whole new development for that site, we'd like the city to pony up some some of these new dollars to address some of the flooding in in that area. So how would we prioritize Globeville over an Ilitch project, for example? To be honest, I do not know the specific answer to that question. So I'm not going to try to give you an answer that I don't know. All right. Thank you. That's it for you. I appreciate you answering that question. Let me go on to my next question, and this is on me a second here. So I think Councilwoman Kenny asked the question about bonding. On kind of why the sunset was not said is you you address councilman Clark to be able to potentially create the opportunity for bonding. I guess we need to get that clarified. And I'm I'm not comfortable with us just moving this forward tonight without really knowing the answer to that question, because I think if it potentially impacts our bond rating, if if we begin to kind of reach that ceiling on our bond indebtedness, that would be a concern, because if we then find ourselves having to deal with some kind of unforeseen emergency that we have to issue debt for, but we're at our ceiling. Are we? You know, I think that's something we always need to be cognizant of and take a very careful look at. So I would like for us to be able to get the answer to that question, I think. I'm sorry. Can you clarify what exactly your question is around the bonding? It's if this fund that would be created, if the voters pass it, if the dollars can be used to bond. And we want to do that up front, similar to what we're going to do with our housing money. Have we taken that big picture, look at our debt capacity in the city and ensured that we're not bumping up to that ceiling on, you know, being unable to address unforeseen future emergencies that might exist. There's nothing in this bill that says it has to be or would be bonded that would become for or have to come forward as part of the plan. Or the Parks Department would say, this is what we need to do. And that would then have to go through the whole process, including council approval, before we could go through that. So and the question was around sorry, the question was around the sunset and why not have a sunset? So I guess, you know, I had arguments. Beyond just it limits our ability to ever consider that why I didn't include a sunset but there's nothing in here that says we will bond against it now would have to come through. And I guess for me it would be helpful to know, number one, can these dollars be bonded? Because if they cannot, then maybe there's no reason to not have a sunset at some, you know, time set into the future. So for me, knowing the answer to that question would be extremely helpful. It is. And again, for me, that was one piece of a sunset answer. But it is my understanding that any revenue source for the city that is predictable, you can't it's harder to bond against the total capacity of a sales tax because it goes up and down. But certainly taking a portion of that would be eligible to use for bonding. But I don't know, Kristen, if there's something that I misunderstood. So, Councilwoman Ortega, we will take a look and get you an answer. I know this was fully vetted with finance, and so I'm sure if that was a concern that they would have voiced it. But we will get you that answer after tonight very quickly. Okay. And then the last question I have is about. How we make decisions. And I don't know where this gets done, if it's done in the mayor's office or if it's done at our finance department or our Parks Department, where we have large developments in this city that we require, they do, you know, a percentage of their development as open space and, you know, where they are very large. Sometimes we get some fairly decent sized parks, but what happens is they develop the park and after a year they turn them over to us. And then we assume that maintenance responsibility. Yet in the projects that include metro districts, they include maintenance as part of their overall development. And I'm assuming the parks are part of that. But yet we, the taxpayers and the City General Fund assumes that maintenance responsibility. And yeah, I raise this every time we have these big projects, but we never really have a policy discussion around whether or not we should continue to assume that maintenance responsibility or whether those developments should pay their own way in maintaining those parks that are built within their in their development. And is there anyone that can address where that policy decision is made that we just assume those parks? I mean, one great example of that is the little over I-70 that's going to be the playground for the elementary school. I mean, I understand Parks and Rec didn't really even get to weigh in on that decision of assuming that responsibility. I'm not even sure you guys are are up to the task of doing that. But it was part of the idea that got brought forward to this body of council that that's a commitment that was made that Denver is going to maintain what is a cedar asset, which makes no sense to me at all. So is there anyone that can answer that question about how the policy discussion is made around whether we accept these these parks that we require to be built as part of these developments? Councilwoman, I'm not sure if I understand your full question, but I do want to say that I think this is all done, as you mentioned, on a case by case basis. I don't know that Parks has an overarching policy on how this is hand over if it's a small park, if it's a see that project? Director Haines, do you have anything you want to add to this? Good evening. Happy Haines, executive director of Denver Parks and Recreation. Thank you for the question, Councilwoman. And as I said, it does often happen on a case by case basis. The the requirement for open space generally comes out of a planning process, a general development plan that requires a 10% open space requirement. And that can happen in a number of ways, including the dedication of land for a dedicated park that could become a dedicated city park or just an open space. And in some of those instances that could they could be maintained by the private development. So every every one of those cases is unique. I will say this. If the park or if the land is dedicated as a park, it becomes one of ours and we assume the maintenance of it. That doesn't preclude, however, additional agreements with entities around maintenance of those or additional maintenance for those park facilities. By the city or by the. Developer, either by the development or a metro district in this case. So there could be separate agreements for maintenance in any of those parks. Okay. Thank you. I have no further questions at this time. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman Brooks. Thank you, Mr. President. You look good up there, by the way. I have some questions, and I think, you know, Councilman Ortega answer or get a chance to ask some of them around equity. And, and I think there's a lot more conversation around that. Um, but, but I'll just go in the interest of time, just a prioritization and strategy. And, you know, I just want to hear a little bit about. The prioritization of this bill in front of us today. And I know that there's other groups that have been working on it. The Parks Parks Group has been working on this in game plan. But as far as conversations at the city council, 11 level, four hour prioritization, help me understand how you're working on that and include the executive branch as well. And I'm sorry, are you talking about prioritization against non park priorities or prioritization in the completion. Of this bill going through City Council and other priorities that. Prior to terrorizing it and making sure that we support it. You know, like we're working on this for a while. But not the not the difference of priorities within the bill you're talking about done right. This bill. Yeah. All the other issues. And you know, this is a conversation that I have had with the administration since the first day I was elected or the first time I got a chance to talk directly to the mayor. You know, again, I spent 17 years of my life working in Denver parks every single day. And not for the public sector, not for the city. But I got to see firsthand what was happening on the ground floor. I served on the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board with a lot of the great people, came today for a number of years before I came here. And I've also been on the the game plan task force. And, you know, this conversation about this dedicated stream has always been a huge priority. It's always been in the white paper. It's always been in game plan. You know, I don't I don't know. To be fair, I don't know that this council has sat down and gone through it. We just now had Jerry Donato come and present in committee on what the priorities, what our goals even are in the sustainability sphere. And so I think that there is a lot going on and we govern over a lot of different things. And I don't know that this council has had specifically this conversation, but the community has and those the game plan document, the blueprint document, those are all that go out to the community. Now, not every member of the community participates in all of those conversations are certainly people who participate in all the parks ones and haven't been participating in our conversations about transportation mobility or about housing. But those are public documents that have public meetings and have a stakeholder group just like the rest of our plans. And this is in those adopted plans from the city. Now, all of that aside, you know, sometimes, you know, we could sit and say, okay, let's take everything that we need to do and let's put them in 1 to 5000 order. And sometimes you look at where the opportunities are. And Brandon, who's here today, was the one who was galvanizing a group of citizens to put this on the ballot in November. And when we first started talking about that, he was going to go similar to what he did with green roofs and draft something, put it on the ballot and we could deal with it afterwards. But he was very, very receptive to sitting down and talking through this, to working with our legislative staff to do the research behind it, to put forward working with the trust for Public Lands, who's done this in multiple municipalities and say, okay, here is an adopted goal and vision of the city and we're going to do it, but very willing to work with us on it. And then we got to a crossroads, at which point he said, I'm Vaughan, we're going to go start getting signatures. Or if you all would like to take this through the council process, then I will defer to you working it through your process. Similar to there's another measure that is potentially on the ballot that I believe there's a meeting later this week to have that same conversation. Is that item that's coming forward something that was, you know, next in line for this council to take action on? Well, or do we take an opportunity to have input on something that is an adopted goal of our city? And, you know, I think certainly a priority. So I think it was a combination of those things. That's part of what led to a truncated, you know, process specifically around this bill. You know, if we could say, hey, let's do this this bill just like this, then it's a little bit different. But we had an opportunity to be involved in a process or not be involved in the process. We had the experts who have crafted this for other jurisdictions, and we do have all of the people who do participate and do show up to private meetings and do show up to game plan meetings and do fill out those surveys, not just the blueprint Denver ones and who have been asking for this and working on this and begging for this. And that was my world. That was the community that I came from. And so, yeah, it is unfortunate that we are it's really hard to have every conversation with everybody, but I wouldn't discount that this community that has been working on this, you know, I sat with Bart Berger when we first were looking at this, and he pulled out presentations that the community had put together from 20 years ago, from 15 years ago, from ten years ago, from five years ago. But nobody on this council, they could never convince anyone on this council to give the voters that choice. They had done everything from polling and been ready to go, couldn't convince the administration or council to take it on. And so I think, you know, that was the the underlying conversations that were going on in the framework that this came from. Does that answer your question? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a lot there. A lot. And I actually appreciate because I think I think I heard something that I hadn't heard before. And it was, you know, Brandon in the community group as the impetus to speed this up which jumps. I'll leave that for comments, but that's helpful. Let me ask you this, Mr. President. And this is the thing that I'm concerned about. One of the things nine out of ten people say driving in their car. Mobility is the if not most important issue with housing. It is. And and our sales tax is at a place right now where we can take advantage of funding items. And you are totally taking advantage of this with the with the parks, which I appreciate. Do you think about because I know that mobility is really important to you, $1,000,000,000 for sidewalks in the future? You know, I think we're $800 million for bike lanes all over the city if we want to get there. Do you think that this tax will the opportunity costs in the future will limit us from taking advantage of future opportunities in a year from now? I don't believe so. I will also qualify with that with I am I can't see the future and I can't read the future. But I believe that Denver voters are very smart. I think that they weigh everything that's put in front of them and we'll see what they think about this. I think this is a good solution to a problem that's being asked for. And I think that this is something that voters want us to put in front of them. But I don't believe so. I believe voters right now and our citizens in Denver are eager for us to put in front of them solutions to the problems , to the things that they're asking for. And I think that they would be willing to pay more than we expect if those are good solutions that come out of this process that we can put in front of them. So, no, I don't. I also, you know, I was councilman's husband and I sat on the Mayor's Mobility Action Committee. And through that process, there were over 20 possible funding streams that were identified during the year of mobility to take advantage for mobility. I hope we will start moving on those. Only one of those in that bailiwick was sales tax. And so I also don't think that we have to tie all of our future needs to this one. You know, a year ago, all we were doing was talking about property taxes. Now we're talking about sales taxes. I think there are other opportunities. But I personally no, I don't believe that this prohibits us from those other priorities. I agree with you, Mr. President, that the Denver voters are smart. And that's why I'm I'm concerned for the for future. Let me just ask Scott Gilmore, one. There you are. You said something that around the equity of maintenance of parks. And I just wanted to chime in on this. You said. Part of kind of the algorithm to see who gets kind of taken care of is use use of parks. And the thing that made me a little nervous about that is sometime in our neighborhoods, especially the pocket parks, especially in northeast Denver, the parks are so bad . Why would anybody use them? Because they have needles and everything around. So your analysis around use of parks. So it's based on a standard that our department has come out with are our parks team. Some of that standard, what I meant was the type of park more, say, a natural area type park, a more natural park based on versus more a more urban type park. So those parks are definitely at a higher maintenance level than a more natural park that you would just maybe walk through to to look at wildlife. Great. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. Councilwoman Sussman. Well, thank you, Mr. President. Going from the general to the specific about priorities in the ordinance, it has a list of ways in which the moneys can be spent. Would you please talk about is are these the priorities that the group would use to decide how the money would be spent? That is, the acquiring of lands is number one. And the developing and improving and maintaining existing parks is second. And would you please describe who is going to make the decisions about how this money is going to be spent? Yeah, we I'd like to have some clarification about that. So to answer your first question, Councilwoman, the or the rank order number there, it's not a rank order, which is how follows in the DRC, a paragraph different would have been ABCD. They're not rank order. They are all equal priorities. As far as the bill is concerned, the second question is the manager of Parks Recreation. They have their experts on staff. They know the park priorities. That's why the the parab rab, the person advisory board and the Manager of Parks Recreation will have control of this fund with approval from Council on the plans. And to clarify, I did work with the administration to clarify that this money will be budgeted through the annual budget process every year. So we will participate in that through our budget hearings so that parks can have one unified budget. And we don't end up with certain parks that were bought with the new money and are getting a higher level of something, a two tier system. So certainly not in priority order, but also it will be part of the budget season and then the required report out to Parab and to us on top of the budget, how we how we normally budget our dollars for showing accountability of how the money was actually spent and then a five year plan that is renewed every five years talking about how the how the funds, what are the priorities, how are they going to meet the intent of this ordinance over the next five years through the expenditures are additional on top of through the budget process. Okay. This was one of the concerns that you as you heard, too, from some groups about how they are going to prioritize. So let me just make sure I understand the answer to the questions. When you're going to spend this money, all the priorities have the same value. But of course, once you spend money, you're going to have to start creating priorities. We need this, we need this. We need this is it is the order of those criteria going to be left to the Parks and Rec and to the, uh, for, say, a proposal to parab and, and then a proposal to the city. I mean, oh, is that going to run through? I wouldn't say that they're all considered equal because there may be a bigger need or an opportunity that arises. So it allows the flexibility to not say 10% goes zero, 20% goes here. And then the 10% wasn't enough to do something or to provide, you know, uniform maintenance across the system. So they will be based on the need and the priority. And that need and priority in year one may be very different than that need and priority in year ten. And so it also allows the flexibility to adapt that with the you have to show us how you did that every year in real dollars and you have to show us the vision for what are those needs as we see them over the next five. Okay. Because the answer was that they were equal priority. So I was this particular is 5%. Down the line is right no priority is more important on in the as written than any of the others. That they're situational. The priorities are. Absolutely. They're not they're not written here. Right. All right. Thank you very much. Councilman Espinosa. You're back up. Yeah. He sort of wanted to. Well, I. You said a few questions for you since we're asking a lot of the sponsor. Where where do we rank? Again, it was sort of mentioned how we rank among our surrounding counties. So I know you've done a lot of legwork in in trying to get to the point where you would support, sponsor and carry this measure. And I'm happy to co-sponsor it with you as well. But you did all this work. So where do we rank among our neighboring counties? So just on dedicated sales tax, Douglas County is a 0.17. Jefferson County has 2.5. Boulder is a 0.6. And every other county is 0.25. On top of that, there are additional jurisdictions and cities that are not combined city and county like we are, that also have either a dedicated sales tax or another impact fees on top of that. So because it's hard to get an apples to apples comparison of Denver as a combined city and county, what's included if you pull up in this bill in the system as a comparison that is just off of sales tax and some I'm sorry, some of them use that exclusively for acquisition. And then you did some research on Pierce Cities as well, not just our local areas, but other cities that we love to compare ourselves to our peer cities. And what are they doing? So what what did you find there? And I will ask Jim Peterson from CBO if you wanted to. I don't know if you know those slides. The slides are in your deck. They're presented in committee. But they do take us and compare us to Boston and Chicago. And so I can't remember what they all are in terms of per acre, of parks, per person, amount spent per person out of the budget on parks, percent of population living in a ten minute walk to a park, all of those metrics. So there are some specific pure city comparisons in there which do show that we are behind the eight ball. But I think all of that gets aggregated into this park score that the Trust for Public Land and a phenomenal tool on their website where you can pull up any city that you can think of, pull it up and it will show you the map. They'll show you the areas that aren't within that walk. And so, you know, in the last just, I think eight years, we've dropped from being ranked seventh to 28th, 26th. So from seventh the 26, because of the growth with the growth that we're experiencing, we're not keeping up. So, you know, I think you captured it well in saying that in a nutshell, we're behind the eight ball. And in other comments I've heard you make tonight in responses to questioning, you're under no illusion that even this level of investment will, will, will ever sort of fill fully correct course. You're hopeful and you would be happy to see this. You know, future councils address this, ask if it becomes prudent at a later date to remove it. But but at the same time, the reality is, is that if the city grows, we're still behind. Yeah. I believe that this is the lowest amount that we could put in front of voters and realistically say that this has a chance to fix the problem and we can't predict the future and future growth. But if we had done this ten years ago, if we'd done this 20 years ago, that's a different amount. But with as far as we are behind as as as much as that is growing every year and with the growth that we're experiencing, I think this is the lowest amount that we could put in front of voters and say that we could solve this problem. And then one last question. You know, it would be one thing if council were acting tonight to impose a tax on all Denver residents. But but you're simply asking me to ask you to put that question out to voters. Is there is there any fear in doing that, in just letting voters decide? I think that's absolutely correct. That's what we're doing is we're letting voters decide. And, you know, that's that is all that we can do and the rest is up to them. And so I think that they have been asking for us to ask them this question. And now here is the question there. We can put it forward to him. Thank you. Councilwoman. Can each. Thank you, Mr. President. You are in the unenviable position of chairing your first meeting as chair. You certainly chaired many meetings and Councilman Brooks's absence, but your. So I just want to be very transparent, ask you a question. So I have a question I want to ask you, but I need to lay some groundwork for it, which are clearly comments. And so I'm happy to wait and do that in the comment portion, if that's the way you prefer it, versus kind of feeling like I'm laying too much groundwork in the Q&A and we've done this before during debates where you you know, especially with bill sponsors in particular, where questions will continue. We're not in a quasi judicial role here. So I don't know that it's a big deal, but I just wanted to ask your preference on that. How about because I just noticed that we have a council person who's in the Q hasn't gone. How about I just come back to you at the end of questions and we'll use you to comment or question us transition. Okay. How about that? Thank you. All right. So, Councilwoman Ortega, so okay with you, I'm going to go to Councilman Do because he hasn't got a chance, councilman. Thank you. I just want to ask again about make sure I'm real clear about the five year plan on priorities versus the annual budget process and priorities that that Parks and Rec would have. How how do you keep those separate? And how and how is that going to be made sure that this new money's not going to supplant additional operating funds? Yeah, there are essentially and we've gone through this in in different pieces. And so I'm glad you asked that question. There are three places where we have a touch, where the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board has a touch to check in on all of this. Number one is that the Parks Department has to create and then every five years update a five year plan showing, okay, this is what passed. This is how much money we have here. The needs here are what it can be spent on and give us that vision for how they're going to achieve that with the dollars over a five year time period. We then and that will have to be presented to Proud, which is an open and public meeting and presented to council. So we have a touch there on, okay, how are you going to get there? What is that vision? Because right now we don't have this master plan for where do we need to acquire land because we've never had money to do that. We don't you know, we don't have that sitting there. So they're going to have to speak to how are they going to accomplish that? Every year they then have to report out separate from the budget process on how exactly that money was spent as opposed to this five year vision. But how were the dollars spent in this year so that we can again look at what was the intent of the ordinance and how were those dollars spent and was it in line with this five year plan? And then on top of that, the money then also goes through our budget process. So when we sit down and we have our budget hearing with the Parks Department, they'll say our budget used to be $78 million. Now it's, you know, 70 it was 45. And here's our total process. Here's our total department and here's how we're moving everything forward, including those dollars. And that's where we also get that touch on it. Or are they drifting away from preserving that general fund? Is everything else in the budget growing and it's shrinking and they're actually stealing general fund money away when the intent of the ordinance is for this to be new money. So those are all the touches that we get of those same things, go through the Parks and Rec Advisory Board and both of those public processes. So any priorities that Parks and Rec has now won't be used for this new money. Right. I think there's a lot of places where the existing priorities of our parks, they certainly want to get every playground up to date. And I think they want to acquire land where we need it. You know, I talked about the the piece of land in Golden Triangle that they tried to acquire because they knew that was established park desert and just didn't have the money to get there. So I do think that, you know, those overarching goals are always the goals. We just haven't had enough money to put those goals into that five year action plan. How are we going to get there? Where are we targeting? Where do we need a pocket park? Where do we need a regional park? How do we solve these gaps and and and that road map? So this builds a real assurance to voters that this will be new money and new additional money that we do not have now. This is written as strongly as Zach and the attorneys would let me within the confines of TABOR to that end. So without Taber could have made it maybe a little bit stronger, but it is written as strong as possible that this will be new money. Thank you. Councilwoman Ortega. Councilman, do you want to finish your line of questions? Okay. So I wanted to ask either Director Haines or Scott Gilmore if you could clarify whether or not our golf courses are included in the amount of acreage that was defined when you described how many acres of parkland we have in the city. Scott, you were the one that gave us those figures. Can you just tell us whether that included our golf courses? Yes. Yes, it does. Those are acres that are included as part of the 6000 acres of the city that does include the golf course. And then I just wanted to ask you additionally, if if you would potentially see this fund being used for any single project. So, for example, we know there's a need and you all already own the land next to Capo Simonetti Park that potentially addresses some of the flooding issue issues in Globeville. So, you know, building out that master plan or potentially using it for purchasing Park Hill golf course. So help me understand how you all envision that versus. I'm going to let happy come up. Okay, speak to that one. Versus a little bit more equitable distribution of the resources. Thank you for the question, Councilwoman. I think it addresses a number of the questions that council members have had around the equity and the priority setting. And obviously, we haven't looked at that in detail and don't have an answer tonight. But I will tell you that part of the the thinking that we use in establishing our priorities, some of it is based on the data. So we use, for example, Scott mentioned the playground master plan. We do have data around the park desert and where we do not meet the ten minute standard in the city we use . And this is captured in our game plan that will be adopted fairly soon. And it and it goes through a set of priorities which include, by the way, at the top of that list the the idea of equity. And we we use demographics in a neighborhood as well as the amount of parkland, the accessibility to parks. I mean, so these are all criteria that we use. And I would I would mention to those of you who recall the process we use during the most recent bond and when we came forward with our set of recommended projects and priorities, we shared with you a set of principles that guided that thinking, some of it based on data and others based on just principles around equity, access, condition. You know, if we have a historic property or a fountain, it's about to fall down. You know, those those kinds of emergency repairs have us have a place in our priority setting system, but we do share those. And that's something that guides us not only in the recent bond process, but also guides our thinking in terms of our budget, our city budget requests each year. So that would get set out in advance. And then you would have the opportunity as council members and the prob certainly would and do to determine how much the principles that we have recommended are reflected in the projects that we're bringing forward. So we could look at a particular project, but I think we would be applying those principles before we said this money is going to use for this project or that project and have the opportunity for others to weigh in on it. I hope that answers your question. Yes. So let me ask you additional question about comments the mayor made today about looking at race and equity in across the city. How do you see that applying differently than what you just elaborated on? I think it's right on point. The issues of equity we use, for example, health data, we use income data, we use data around the accessibility, the ten minute standard, the condition of the facilities in a particular neighborhood. So all of those, I think, are were really the heart of what the mayor was proposing. So in areas that, for example, don't have the same basic standards of infrastructure around the parks, no curb, gutter, sidewalk, is that going to be something that you see being prioritized in areas where those don't exist? So that may be a little bit different question. We're already working on the issue of sidewalks and mobility with respect to parks and working with public works. We prioritize some of ours. We use some mobility standards. So in a neighborhood, if our park is the only way to provide access, that does become a priority. But with regard to mobility issues, that would be a collaborative process. Okay. Let me say I think I have one additional question. And this is for you, Councilman Clark. You and I had a brief conversation today, and I brought this up when. When we met. Initially when you were proposing this talking about. A separate process for how we would then prioritize. So. And I just want to ask how much thought you've given to maybe having a separate ordinance that maybe more clearly defines the process in which we would then prioritize? So if this passes tonight and this would not be a companion that would go to the ballot, but it would be something that we would do. And it's not unusual for this body. So, for example, in the past, when we would adopt, you know, a. When we would move a bond list to the to the ballot, we would prioritize that in a separate ordinance. And just wanted to ask your thoughts about. About that. So that I think that would give a lot more voter confidence to ensuring that there's going to be more robust public input into how we prioritize the list of the projects that would potentially be funded, because essentially this becomes a windfall of new money to the Parks Department. And yes, we know that we've gone through the bond process. We know we've gone through the game plan process. But, you know, this this whole process was done kind of in isolation of looking at other big picture priorities for the city. And, you know, it kind of leapfrogged in front of everything else. And so, you know, some of the comments you've heard from some of my colleagues around, ensuring that we're going to be able to address some of those other needs into the future. And for me, part of that is, you know, can we be can we realistically fund those if we reach our bond indebtedness, you know, which is a whole separate thing that I think we need to get some some clarity on. But can you just speak to that? Yeah. I mean, I'll start by saying I talk about parks all day long. How long you got? We can stay here all night if you want. And so I'm. Talking to hopefully for setting the priorities. I know. So I am totally open to any any discussion about that process. You know, you and I talked just a couple hours before council, and so I don't know what that process looks like. And we certainly need to loop in our Parks Department to make sure that that process works. I think we also need to take a good look at our awesome probe, which, you know, I pointed out is one of the only oversight board that we have where we get to a point directly, people to it and that is protected and charter and look at where those pieces are. I'm certainly open to having those conversations and what you know, this bill is limited by what can be in it, Per TABOR. And I'm completely open to having discussions about how we tackle more of these issues and specifically how we look at, you know, planning for this money moving forward. Okay. Let me just say that I think our prep board does, in fact, bring some expertize. And I'm not suggesting they not be included. I'm suggesting we have something broader than that that ensures that we've got more robust community input into defining some of the key criteria in which we then set those priorities, very similar to what we did with our housing fund that created, you know, the House, the adoption of a housing plan. And the other thing that I'll just point out is we've just gone through a 18 month process in looking at game plan. And I don't know if everyone has seen that framework, but this is a great time to be coming forward and looking at the framework that the community and all of our stakeholders have worked really hard at providing that framework for some of those and using that to launch with the new lens of We have new money. Should the book, should this council choose to refer and should voters choose to pass? That's the end of my question. Councilman Flynn, did you have a quick one before I get back to Councilwoman Cannick? Yeah. Yes, I. Did. And it came up during Councilwoman Ortega's questioning with Happy Hour Haines, our executive director. So I don't know if you can answer this right now or not happy, but in looking at our under parked areas, our underserved areas, I think Councilman Lopez and I represent what may be the most severely under part in terms of acres per capita other than Councilman News Central City, which is a function of density. Where is the opportunity, however, to add park land in areas that are almost fully developed? Are we looking at possibly using eminent domain to acquire properties? The only open space in my district that I can think of that park right now and it's urgent, is the Loreto Heights College campus that's being sold in the process of being sold and working with the developer to maximize, to the extent possible, new open space there. But elsewhere the largest what swaths of open space in my district would be maybe Fort Logan National Cemetery. So where do you see the opportunity to add parks, for instance, in council districts three, four and three and two? And thank you, Councilman. Great question. And I don't have a complete answer to that, certainly. Um, uh, and say in areas that are, um, fully developed, it takes a great deal of, of creativity to figure out how you can, um, identify the right places and the opportunities for acquisition. So it may boil down to acquisition of private land. And I, and I will just say this we've been engaged in that in any event over the years. Where we where we recognize a parcel or we work, for example, in partnership with an organization like Excel that is has a surplus property or is is looking to get rid of property. We have partnered over the years with our friends at the Trust for Public Land who are diligent about looking for those opportunities for acquisition around the city in in a fully developed city like ours, it takes a great deal of creativity and, you know, we won't have many more opportunities like Stapleton in Green Valley Ranch in the Central Valley, where it was all part of the development plan. We've got to be very, very strategic and and creative on how to get that job done. But I'll point out, one in the southwest area that was once a trailer park, nobody ever thought that. I thought about that as a park. And yet, you know, today it is a it is a reality. So those are the kinds of efforts that we would be undertaking and we would be looking very much at those under parked areas of the city. Thank you. Thank you very much. I would look forward anxiously should the voters approve this to the first five year plan. And I'd ask you to focus particularly on South Harvie Park South, where there are no parks, and Brentwood where there are no parks. Thank you. Think pass first, Councilman. Thank you. All right, Councilwoman. And thanks for your patience. Lay the groundwork. Ask your questions. Thank you so much. Mr. President. So I was thinking about, you know, how a sales tax measures that go to the voters are often approached. And I've I've seen kind of two different categories. I've seen those that have the guaranteed outcomes, which is like our bond project, right? You're going to get this project, you're going to get this many lanes paved. You're going to get this many acres of, you know, parkland, you know, and then and then there's some that are a little more open ended. And I think that's where you get into more of the process. Right. And so our housing fund did not go to the voters, but we did our best to approach it as if, you know, we were doing that kind of thing. And and it was the guaranteed process approach which didn't say whether or how much was going to be for sale or how much was going to be rental or how much was going to be deeply low income. And so and I was looking back at some of the language, but, you know, so the process that we went to had a whole bunch of details that, you know, as Councilwoman Ortega mentioned, are a little bit absent from this one. And I want to just share some of the lessons that we learned in this process that I think this department's going to experience. So the first thing you're going to learn is the money will arrive on day one. And in fact, the plan will not arrive until about when the budget is being adopted for year two, it'll be too late. You'll have already had to start the budget process five months, six months before the plan is ready. So you in theory, will actually have to have two years of spending before you have a plan. So that's something we didn't anticipate and there is a whole bunch. So and when I talk about the groundwork I'm laying, there are things that have to be done within the ordinance and then there's things that maybe need to be done in parallel, even if they're not done. And this is one of them that I think we underestimated the level of distrust, the level of confusion that can occur when you have to spend two years worth of revenue before your plan is inked. So I want to flag that as an example. The second thing, we have a game plan and it's great. I think none of us can imagine the kind of metrics you're going to get asked for. So for every dollar we spend in construction, how much is generated in maintenance needs each year and then in operational use each year? What is the metric by which? Because when people are faced with choices, don't just say, Well, should we build more or should we maintain more? What you're going to want to know from your department is stuff that I promise you they don't know yet. You're going to ask them things like, if we put 20% of this money into maintenance, what standard would we bring the entire system up? Would we bring it up 1%? When we bring it up 3%, would we bring it up 4%? And so there are going to be brand new metrics that will blow your brains that we're going to need to make good decisions and we won't make perfect decisions and some of the metrics won't be available. You're going to need consultants. This is the short story. There's just no way I think you're going to be able to kind of do this. So, you know, is there and this is one of those things that's a little different because this is kind of coming a little bit more from the council community advocacy than a partnership. And that's okay. I don't I hear very open minded partners who say that we respect the. Charter. And if this happens, we're going to be your partners. But for example, to get some commitments about what does good help look like and what might we need to think about in a first year budget to make sure that we're preparing ourselves for success? Another thing. I didn't get a chance. I was trying to pull up the crab ordinance. I think you made a really smart decision, which is to use a little of the infrastructure you've got. But what's interesting about crab is it's appointed based on representation of districts. It means it doesn't have, for example, things the Housing Advisory Committee had, which is finance expertize. You know, since it's not centrally appointed, you can't assure racial diversity because if every council member appoints their own person, there's no way to control for. Right. What the racial diversity might be or what the economic diversity is. The mayor has a few more seats. He can appoint a little bit to account for that. But you've got. And then the question of time and what you know, you know what ability that body has to dedicate. I know they do hold some public hearings now, but I think these are all things that to get to. Councilwoman Ortega's point are things that we learned we didn't know and that, you know, in this context, we as a city would learn. And I think that when you add then this question of the equity layer, I think that what I believe is that this isn't just a value and it isn't just hard data. There is actually a practice here. And it's you know, I think, you know, we just several of us were just in Minneapolis with local progress, hearing about some of their work. And, you know, Seattle is model this. So I think that, you know, one of the things that it might be worth it to do is to think about, so what are the practices and even just language in the ordinance or or whether it's inside the ordinance or outside that we want to be prepared to say, for example, that needs to be that it needs to be considered. And I think that. We are not in such a hurry that it might not be that we can't take a minute to have two conversations. And the two conversations that for me are emerging from this hearing are one. Let's just take a a week, two weeks and look at what the best practices are on equity in parks planning and parks stuff . And we may have a lot of them in our game plan, but let's just peak at what the literature tells us. And let's hear from some of the communities asking this question about whether there is a need to have a reference in the ordinance or whether there's a need to have something we can commit to outside the four squares of the ordinance. That would help put us on the same page, because the communities that have traditionally been excluded from parks conversations are the ones that have not been at the table for the ten years. Right. And so to me, one of the purposes of these hearings is to tell us if we're going in the right direction or the wrong direction or if we have everybody at the table. And I fear that there are some folks we haven't had at the table and they need a minute to catch up. I didn't hear a no, we can't. But and then secondly, to have a pretty serious conversation with, you know, the administration and your community leaders to say. We need a little something to think about what's charting us in year one or two, because I think to say to the voters, like, we'll figure it out in a five year plan that'll be ready for year three. And we don't have any sense of what are the two most impactful things we might be able to do in year one. I think is missing the boat and I frankly think it'll be make it hard to pass. So if if you're here tonight and you're like, I'm gung ho and I want to pass this thing. I think the second piece is really going to be able to kind of give you something to talk to the voters about that's legit rather than just saying, hey, the department will figure it out because it's a lot to put. I mean, I think that that's my experience. It's a lot to put in a department that's running all of the other things. It's running with no preparation. And I think that, you know, so and I think that to Councilman Ortega's point, it may include a few tweaks to the process. And I know there was a quick mention that some of this can't be put in the in the in a TABOR ordinance. And so I don't I don't I don't know if that's a factual, truthful thing that that we couldn't, for example, say that one of the things that needs to occur is there needs to be two public hearings prior to the finalization of the plan. Right. May be one in the beginning. I mean, we put things like, you know, the the you know, the the fact that in the housing ordinance, for example, we put that, you know, there would be, you know, data use a database approach or we put in that there would be a public hearing. And so I wonder if if that kind of language couldn't be bolstered slightly. So so it's I just may throw the Tabor question out real quick and then you can hear where I'd come in for your questions. But. Um, so. Kirsten Crawford Legislative. Council the one thing I would say to this whole conversation is that to the extent you're going to start prioritizing how the money is spent, if it's if it's done in here, I think that's okay. But if you're trying to do it separately as an ordinance, I think you would run into a problem with the charter, quite possibly because they're the charter of the Department of Parks with almost total discretion as to how that money is spent. So I think if you do want to make those priorities, it would need to be in something that is. Referred to the voters. So let me just follow up with that. So would it, for. Example, would it be out of the purview for, for example, for Councilman Clark to be in negotiations or discussion with the department and to say, like, it's going to take us a year to do a plan? Our view is that the primary goal of year one is to set aside a small portion to purchase parks opportunistically should it come, and then to use the remainder for park, you know, for projects, for example, that are already on the list just for year one, and to make that a verbal discussion about intent rather than a legally binding commitment. Again, I think there is things that live outside the language here that that might be helpful for the community conversation. Yeah, I mean, I think that I would always promote from a legal position that you work closely with the administration, and I think that you could do it that way as well. Yeah. And so so I'm just throwing out some pathways. So I think there's some homework. I think it's really important for Prep to have a conversation about how prepared it is for this role. And and this role says it's a receiving role. It's not an advising role. It says Prabhas shall receive the budget shall receive the the proposal. And so the question for Parab is, you know, is there anything you need that would be different to be successful and or is that the right process? Is there you know, are you the should you be holding a hearing? Should we be asking you to hold a hearing to make sure that occurs? And how about expertize parab? How is it that you're going to get the expertize you need? Is that just staff or do you think that you need access to some some expertize and some consulting or something in terms of some of the other folks who've spoken today who are might be very talented but aren't necessarily members of Prep. So I think there's homework for Parab and you know, they can't speak. But you know, I'd be curious if they'd be open to taking a week or two to do that. I think the question for you is, would you be willing to take a little time to have a discussion with the equity community about what the homework is? It might be there's language and it might not be. It might be to say, here are the three things we need to do between now and November so that we can talk about this and have some shared language. And then maybe if it passes, then there's other homework. So it doesn't I mean, I'm not saying talk about amendments, but you might want to be open to that. And then the third thing is, would you have a conversation with the administration? I think about a little more meat on the bones in terms of this process. And it sounds like we do have a charter limitation we're running against. But but just to get some clarity that this is not just I just don't know that you're going to the voters with a blank check will be as successful as a little more and it might mean some tweak to the process in the ordinance. Yeah. So three, three, three homeworks maybe. So I completely appreciate that. And I think that the, you know, especially having gone through that and having that expertize for me, you know, a couple of things that I'll say is I think that one, because this was originally driven by the community and they need time to get signatures and we're committed to getting this on the ballot. They took a chance with us as well. And part of that was a commitment to for us to either do this or leave them time that they can do this. And so. Well, we may have one deadline for actually getting on the ballot. We have another one for living up to the commitment that I made to the community that we would take this on, because they said, even if you're if you're not going to do it, if there isn't the will on this council to refer than we are. And so I do worry about handicapping the promise that and maybe that doesn't affect anyone else because I'm the one who made that commitment. But that's important to me. I also think that it is it is difficult to work with the administration. They're awesome in general, but and especially with our awesome parks staff and appointees, when it's something that the administration hasn't decided, whether they're supportive or not. So it puts it in a place where are they working to pass it? Are they working to kill it and can that be accomplished once it's on the ballot line? So we refer it. Then I think that pulls the lever, that opens the door to those conversations about what do we do in year one? And because now it's real. And so, you know, for me, I think and I'm absolutely open to sitting down with all in and with any other group that wants to talk about how this can. I am very open to continuing the conversation about what else can we do through code or through verbal commitments or through a press release that now that this is going to be on the ballot, the department and the administration can make commitments to what they would do that they might not when they haven't decided where they are on something. So I'm very open to having those conversations. But I do think that at this point, bringing it to a final reading, I would like us to vote on it tonight. And if it is not the will of this council to refer at this point, then I have a different set of homework. But even if it is. The will of this council to refer. I still have a lot of homework and I'm very committed to doing that. So if I may, Mr. President. So I guess this I just would like to then throw the question, I guess, a little bit, too, to my colleagues to say I think I think the point is persuasive about about the departments in an awkward position. So maybe that's too much to ask. But I think that it's quite possible that this language could be tweaked, for example, to include a reference that equity shall be a consideration in the expenditure of the funds and that there shall be a public hearing held, you know, no less than 90 days prior to the adoption of the plan to ensure that there is some public input sooner. I mean, it seems to me and I, you know, I don't necessarily want to write an amendment on the floor. So I think that a week to. And I'm sorry, was that because I'm guessing you're not going to pose that question to each individual. So can we close the public hearing and then you can get into that and. Come and I guess I'll pose it to you, which is to say, you know, we can I can try to draft an amendment to try to add a little bit of what I heard from the community to the bill tonight. Or we could think about a one week delay. And I think folks could probably speak to whether or not they're headed for support and this helps versus whether or not we might tank this thing next week. I don't intend to tank this thing. I'm a co-sponsor because I believe we can't grow without it. But I think that it can be stronger if we take the input and we do a week's worth of work to to add some language. So. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you. All right. Councilman Ortega, you back with a question, not a comment. I'll wait and sorry for comments. Okay. Councilman Espinosa, your questions or comments? What's that? Comments. Comments. Okay. So no other questions. Council. The public hearing for Constable 641 is closed. Comments by members of Council. Councilwoman Ortega. Thank you, Mr. President. I appreciate all of your efforts in bringing this forward and. You know, trying to address what what I think is a great need in our community. I hope that. We can look at a one week delay that gives us the opportunity to identify some of these key priorities that should be in a process that ensures voter confidence that it is not just a blank check to the Parks and Rec Department, and given the authority that's been given by the charter to the manager of Parks and Rec. They could choose to put the money into one project or, you know, create it however they want to apply it. And I think by having some criteria that. Really kind of defines how we prioritize these moneys is is really critical to people having that confidence that there's, you know, some of these key issues are going to be addressed, equity being one, geographic disbursement being another, taking care of parks that, you know, have have had such a state of disrepair across the city is is another key priority. I mean, looking at some of our medians in the city where, you know, depending on where you're at, some are maintained very well and others are not maintained at all. And so it's that equitable distribution of the resources. This is new money. It's a new day. It's different than what exists today. And so we could create it however we want to. And it gives us an opportunity to be a little bit more thoughtful. So my recommendation is that we do a one week postponement and allow for the opportunity to just have that check in with some additional folks to identify some of those process issues and be able to, you know, I want to get there to be able to support this. But without that, I'm I'm real concerned. I feel really disconnected from from that process in terms of ensuring that the public really gets to weigh in. And, you know, that's regardless of whatever input that we've already had into blueprint in game plan, I mean, game plan is a long term look at the needs of the city. It was not intended for us to find a check and just immediately try to knock out every one of those projects. It was to to look at the long term need of the city. And, you know, if we had this conversation with every other city agency, they would all have a list of priorities that they would want to see funded. And so, you know, the fact that this was kind of in isolation of this body really being able to weigh in on policy priorities for the city independent of the budget process that we normally go through. I guess I just. I'm debating whether to just move a motion that we delay for a week, but I want to. Let everybody have a carbon. First. Comments from from other folks. But, you know, I feel that strongly about the process. Of having public input, that we really do need to delay this to weigh in on what some of those key criteria are that, you know, even if per the the comments made by the city attorney, if we adopted a separate ordinance that defined a process, we don't really have the authority to dictate that because that authority's already given to the manager of the Parks and Rec Department. And so how do we get there independent of of being able to fold it in to this process here tonight and have some some serious commitments to getting that done? So anyway, that's where I'm at right now. Thank you, Councilman or Councilman Espinosa? Well, I applaud the efforts to sort of. I don't know. Conflicted. Conflicted or I don't know what the right word is right now. It escapes me to confuse what is a simple ask of the voters into something far, far more complex. Yes, I understand that this would be a tax burden that would then subsequently, in the future years or with all the ballot measures coming forward, that this would increase tax burden to a point where we might hit a breaking point sooner. The fact that we have education, transportation, mental health and parks on this ballot, if this goes through, speak to the need that these things weren't addressed in $5 billion worth of other expenditures by the city. And the fact that we don't have a housing, we didn't have a housing component in the Gabon and we don't have a housing component. I mean, housing bond is because we worked with this administration or others worked with this administration. And to Councilman Clark's point, the administration isn't. The most flexible are amenable to these sorts of things. So sometimes people have to act. And I'm glad to hear that. Brandon People are prepared to act because I know my constituents wildly supported the Green Roofs Initiative and they would wildly support this as well. So. The my frustration is, is that we have, you know, this talk towards the end about equity is important. But demographic, demographic shift. And we can't do a plan based on who is there. The park is permanent. It gets built and it stays there regardless of who lives around it. Who makes up that community? Otherwise, my park at 38th and Navajo Osage or Osage Park before it was Columbus Park, too. And, you know, and cater to the Italian community there or the Scottish community that was before that, or the Latino community that put in the kiosk or who's there now, which is neither of the above but some of the above. So we can't you know, parks are one of those things that is more about mean jump, not demographics, but geographic and access and amenities. You know, these are physical things that that these dollars are intended to address. And we have plenty of public input. There are council representation for every one of these parks except for the mountain parks. But it's all of us. There's there's there's two at large. As that will also represent each one of those council members has a proud member. And there's an essential component of this to go to prep you know in so yeah it's not perfect but guess what. Six months after the vote we can tweak it still so and then if it's onerous and it kills you know the city because there's too much taxes in the future council can 86 it completely go to zero we can't up it but we can lower it and that was made very clear so. You know. It's just it is it is just a matter of getting it on the ballot and it is not as bad as it could be. Sorry, Brandon. You know, we know what that looks like. This is not that. It is. It is. It is. It is been thought about. It is considered. It has the mechanisms and it is not going to be onerous to have it. We have enough need, enough enough demand that we could figure out how to to navigate a struggle. If we're not, we should have the we should have the foresight. I mean, if this gets a voted in November, we can we may we. When I got on the council in July, we made tweaks to our budget before the end of the year. We can make tweaks to our budget to start to capture this, even if it's sort of premature and still get it to private and still get community input. That is not a slow process when there is this much need. So that was my deviation is a frustrated because I just get that way but. Um. You know this. We already talked about that. So our standard operating procedure right now is, you know, I mean, this idea of development impact fee, I'm all for it. Sorry, developers, I think you have an impact and we should be addressing that and have proud to support anybody's efforts towards that end. But when you do a developer impact fee, there's still going to be pressure to locate it, co-locate it relative to those developments. I mean, that they both Stapleton didn't put their parks outside of Stapleton. You know, they put them in their development. That's that's smart. That's logical. Our standard operating procedure to let developers pay for a new park construction is part of their metro district, you know, and then turns over to the city after the fact. That, too, is specific to that community. Those things are not happening with this proposal. This is equitable by its very nature. If we put pressure on the administration to address those needs, and that's our responsibility as as legislators and as taxpayers and as as the electorate in this city. When we did the Metropolitan Football City District, that will be a hearing we have in the end of this month. We did a tax just like this for a football stadium, just one, not a 301 football stadium. And so for a couple of dozen men, men only to play on and half of them are from out of town. You know. And the field can only be used for a fee. It is not a free field. And your tax dollars went to that. So for a little more than double that amount you can tax, we can support to expand and improve a network of over 300 parks and 20,000 acres that are available to everyone. And that in that's art I mean and that and the fact that our lands are not exclusive and there is no goal and there is a goal to make parks proximate and apart. Part of this is a goal to make parks proximate to every resident addresses by very normal reservations about the use of sales tax, because this is a far more egalitarian use than a stadium or a stock show or a convention center or any of the other things we use tax dollars for. So I won't continue to go on my tirade. It's just that this is this is a fair thing to put before the voters. And, yeah, it'll be a lot of asks and people will really have to dig deep in my own personal preferences. We put it on mental health and we put it on parks. I believe in mobility, but this is tied too much with roadway. I would put that down and then come back, but we make it very clear. So that's me rambling on a whole bunch of ballot measures. This one is one that I wholeheartedly support just getting to the voters because the community, just like other needs, have asked. And I'm happy to help with a housing portion as well. But that's my $0.02. Thanks. Thank you. Councilman, it's a weird night to be in this chair. As Councilman can already pointed out, generally as the bill's sponsor, I would have gone first in my comments. I was going to defer to go last, but I'm now going to jump in just to say a few things. I appreciate the conversation, just to speak specifically to the conversation about the delay. I appreciate that conversation. And it's hard because every time we talk about something that isn't easy, which is pretty much everything we talk about, there's always an argument and to delay and it's hard to tell what what is behind that. Some people who are going to vote no ask for a delay because that gives more time to convince other people to vote no. And sometimes there are real and legitimate reasons to delay. For me, the person who I am. Everything that has gone into my life to define me is about equity in parks. I took literally thousands and thousands of kids on field trips to the South Platte River. I was on top of Ruby Hill when there were bullet holes in the playground and the trees had been tagged. And when a car pulled up at 10:00 in the morning and started doing donuts and I had to run for shelter with 60 kids trying to add positive engagement and introduce kids and create a space in our third largest park, right behind Wash Park, where there was not equity, there was not the investment that we were making . We were able to make that investment and we started to write some of those wrongs. I, I took a group of teenagers who had been expelled from the Denver public schools, and half of them had ankle bracelets on, and they showed up to do the field trip that I usually did with fourth graders, where we were going to go and paint for gold and look for crawdads. And they were all swearing left and right and mad about this, except for as soon as we started turning over rocks and they found their first crawdads and we found a praying mantis climbing on a tree, and they were then posing for pictures, doing, you know, like gangster photos with a praying mantis on their shoulder. Everything changed because for the first time, they had access. I for me and who I am and the commitments that I made to the community that was looking at running this and to the community that has spent their lives waiting for this moment, waiting for a council that had the courage to at least take this on and refer it to the voters. I can't get here and then delay, because if it's not enough who I am and the fiber of me to believe that I will work I will work with our equity partners. I will work with everyone between now and hopefully when the voters pass us to address these. I don't think these are things that need to be solved in the ordinance. And for people who have waited decades of their lives to get to this moment. We need to have a vote. And if it is the will of this council to vote this down, then I can go back and I can talk to the community and I can say I delivered on my promise to get it as far as I could and we can sit and decide whether they want to take this directly to the ballot or take a second shot and refile it and take a couple extra weeks. So as the sponsor of the bill, I am 100% committed to solving the things that have been brought up. I don't think that they need to be solved here. I think that we need to give this community the answer about whether we are ready to do this or not and then give them the time to work on this for November if we are. So that was my comment. Just because I want us to go too far down the path of delay or not delay without people knowing where I am on that issue. Councilman Cashman. Thank you, Mr. President. If if this is an either or vote about housing our people or expanding dollars invested in our parks. I'm voting no on this. But it's not that. And I think the Denver electorate should be under no illusions that whether it's sales tax or bonds or impact fees or tourism fees, we need more money for housing. We need more money for transportation. And so I think this does need to go to the voters, but the voters need to be aware that there are are choices that they're going to have to make depending on how they feel they can spend. This is on $10. If you're making a $10 purchase, it's going to be $10.03. If you're making $100 purchase, it's it's going to be $100.25 and $1,000. It's $1,002.50. Different people in this room tonight and certainly watching this on TV and among the electorate are going to have differing opinions on how that impacts them. I'm willing to commit to spending this extra amount of money and also willing to consider some additional requests on other needs that our city has right now in my district. We're looking at developments that will come, one particular development that will come before council, one that didn't need to come before council on a total of about 2425 acres of former sea dog property that. The city was unable to buy. Because we don't have any money to make those level of purchases. Now, I don't know that I would have recommended that we buy 25 acres and make it all parkland. There's other needs. I would definitely want part of that parcel which is projected to have for affordable housing. But it would have been nice if we at least had the option to say, you know what? Why don't we take five acres? And by that. For Parkland. And then look at developing housing and retail and commercial on the rest. Today, we don't have that option. This is not a case of taking a park system that is a one primo shape and really pushing it to the next level. We've got enormous deferred maintenance on our park system right now. We as has been stated in a number of ways, we need to add additional acreage. This is extremely important. I mean, we're looking at Parks Department right now is considering a major change to our alcohol policy in the parks. Where once it was 3.2 beer and now we're looking at possibly allowing full strength beer and wine. In all our parks, we're looking at adding the ability to permit hard liquor and the sale of hard liquor and beer and wine in 180 additional parks. Right now, we have permitting of that sort in about 20 of our parks. We have. We don't have the Rangers to begin to enforce the existing laws in our parks. We need additional humans. We need additional land. We need additional policies. I. Councilman Clark, I think you're right on the money in the need for this. And as far as equity goes, if previous generations had not thought to give us Paco Sanchez Park, we wouldn't be prepared to do the improvements that are being done in that part of town. That being said, I would support a week. I this is my view. I would because I hear the questions that have been raised tonight and. You know, I really think for the at least the vast bulk of us on council, I have a hunch that we're preaching to the choir on the need to to expand our parkland . If we take a week. I would be stunned. If we didn't end up with a stronger bill that passed with a greater majority. That's that's just the way I assess where council is on this right now. Yeah. You know, we're not going to improve equity unless we come up with extra dollars, that's for sure. But I do think we could strengthen this bill so the voters outside this room that may have more questions would be more likely to vote for it. So thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilwoman Black. Thank you, Mr. President. I will be supporting this tonight. I. Support everything you just said in your comments. Councilman Flynn, I just want to bring up the Trust for Public Lands Parks Index, and it may surprise you to know that my district is actually the worse off for parks. Councilwoman Sussman is second and yours is third. So I. I encourage everyone to be acquainted with some facts. I do have two golf courses in my district, but they are not open to the public, so they don't count. So I don't have a lot of parks in my district. My own neighborhood doesn't have a park. And 20 years ago I personally raised the money and I worked with Denver Public Schools to landscape a place or a school play field. And it was a big battle with DPS because they don't always play nice for that sort of thing. No offense happy, but you know what I'm talking about. And today it serves as our community park. And without that we no one had a ten or 15 or 20 minute walk to a park. I have another neighborhood that is under growing great, great density near the between the Yale and the Colorado light rail stations. Hundreds of new units are going in. And I've met when I first was elected, I met with Trust for Public Lands. We talked about it. They said absolutely there is a need. And since then we've had hundreds of new units built in that neighborhood. I've had happy hands out Scott Gilmore, the mayor. That neighborhood needs a park. And as far as the priorities of this council, at our retreat we had last winter, I suggested that all of the priorities for the city are all related to growth. And I very much supported that day that parks should be a priority. And I think Councilman Clark and I might have been the only ones who voted for it. Maybe Councilwoman Gilmore, too. It didn't make the cut, but. Green space is a huge need for a city that is getting more and more dense. And so I don't I don't think it's accurate to say it wasn't one of our priorities, but because it was for for some of us. I also have read the draft game plan, which has been alluded to a lot tonight, and it does indeed talk about a lot of these values that all the speakers are talking about and also more parks. I've met with people a number of times and I'm very familiar with all of their studies. And there they have a park score for the 100 largest cities in the United States. Councilman Clark referred to this earlier. Denver spot on that list has fallen to 26. Aurora, Colorado, is 20th. Of the top cities. They spend some of them more than twice as much per resident on their parks than we do in Denver, Colorado . And that's not a coincidence that they would be tough when we're spending half or less than half that their park score would be so much higher than ours. Most of them have a dedicated funding source, and almost all of them have a parks foundation, which is something I'm also working on. Hello, all of you right here, which serves a complementary purpose and is also recommended by game plan. So just want to say thank you for having the courage to do this when a lot of people told you not to. But I am happy to support it and I know that you will work hard to address some of the issues that people have right now. Thank you, Councilwoman Black, Councilwoman Gilmore. Thank you, President Clark. I have spent like Councilman Clark. My almost entire adult life educating. Children and communities about nature and the environment. And I did that for almost 20 years. And I share with you. A short little story, because. We had a parcel of land in the Montebello community, which is in Councilman Herndon's. District. That was five and a half acres of land. It was zoned for up to an eight story high density apartment building. The catch. Was that it was directly across the street. From another very high density. Apartment building that had a very high crime rate and lots of different issues. And there was no money to buy this five and a half acres. So my small nonprofit started talking to Great Outdoors Colorado, The Trust for Public Lands, anybody and everybody that we could talk to. We started talking with them, but it was still. A very, very heavy. Lift for a small community based organization to try to cobble together $1.6 million to buy this five and a half acres of land. And the reason that we wanted to. Buy this five and a half acres of land. Was not to. Benefit the nonprofit. It was to benefit the youth and the families that we serve. Because every single time we would take a group of students. From Montebello. Commerce City or Aurora, we'd take them up to the mountains. We take them to some place to recreate. Every time that we were driving out of our own neighborhood, they were looking around saying, Why don't we. Have the beautiful parks, the beautiful trails? Why don't we have this in our neighborhood? Why do we have to get into 15 passenger vans and leave our home to go see nature and to see beauty and to reap the benefits of being outdoors? We shouldn't have to. And at the end of the day, nature doesn't discriminate. Nature doesn't discriminate. So if we don't invest in future generations, in our generation by buying parkland now, we're not going to have it and we're not going to get it back. And we can't have asphalt parking lots that we're trying to reclaim and create. Great wildlife habitat or parks. It just you're talking about exponential costs instead of doing this the right way first. And so with that short story, in my entire career as an outdoor educator before I was on city council, this is an investment in youth, families, seniors. It's an investment in our neighborhoods in having beautiful green spaces. It's an investment in health, our mental health, our physical health, our spirit, spiritual health and opportunity in our fast paced lives to disconnect and just be outdoors. And to recharge. It's an investment in communities of color. This is an investment in equity because we don't have certain amenities that other parts of the city have for a multitude of different reasons. And we could debate that for days on end why that has occurred. Or we can do something right now and refer this to the ballot for the voters to actually decide. This is an investment in the environment. We're going to have more trees for air quality. We're going to be able to mitigate the heat island effect. We're going to have better water quality. And we haven't even started talking about the community gathering spaces that our parks create. Talk about equity in communities of color. Community gathering spaces are basically nonexistent. Our parks become a great community gathering place with a beautiful shelter, with grills, to to have a cookout, to have a barbeque, culture, art , mobility, greenways, trails. And we have, you know, around food sustainability. I don't believe as a city, we have fully been able to explore. How parks could help. Us with food sustainability and access, because we don't have enough we don't want to take an entire beautiful field and try to grow food when kids are trying to play soccer. So the dueling needs are too much. But if we had. More resources to buy more. Parkland, we could maybe really think out of the box. And if there is affordable housing. Projects, how do we partner with those projects. And make sure that their green space is act is adequate, that there's trail connections so that folks that are living in a high density unit can actually get out of their unit safely and go walk or bike or ride and have a park very close to them. And so that's all of these reasons beyond, you know, wanting to have a little bit more say every year, each council office creates a VIP list. We utilize what lists we get from parks, but then we add to it. We constantly are adding to it because our constituents are sending us concerns, ideas that we add to that CIP list. And so I feel like there's plenty of different touch. Points for us to. Ensure that the voters will know that this money is used in a responsible way going forward. And so I will be supporting this tonight. Thank you, President Clark. For your tireless work and persistence. In making sure that this goes forward. But I feel comfortable. Making sure that the voters have a. Chance to really look at this and weigh in on it. Thank you, President Clark. And thank you, Councilwoman Gilmore, Councilman Lopez. Thank you, Mr. President, I. I've been waiting to see something like this happen. Especially with our parks. You know, a of all the uses and functions of local government and. This. Parks is essential. Parks is essential. We have to maintain it. And we can't rely on bake sales for the things that make us that make us healthy and that are important to us. That was the case with butter. Relentless. But it didn't come automatically. I don't want some I don't want folks in this chamber to think that in the narrative that is Quatro Windows. And how were you able to get through Windows Park? Was it some automatic or it was born out of a recession. And those of us that were around in these chambers during the recession know that there was not a dime to be spent anywhere. And when I went through the council process, there was a. When I said, look, we need to pave alleys and we need to take care of our parks and we need to maintain our infrastructure. So it was met with the reply that we don't have diamonds in our pockets. And my reply was, Well, what we're asking for is a little bit of fertilizer and some asphalt. We've had to struggle to get these parks. As a matter of fact, it wasn't park money that first paid in, fund it for the bill for quarter. We had those. It was a different administration. It was a process over three mayors. I don't know how many different councils or iterations of the council. And we had a because the oh eight bond is 0708 Bond was not kind of council district three or the West Side at all. We didn't have a representative sitting on council at the time, and I guess it was just easy to pull a fast one on us. And the West Side, we made it a point not. To take $400,000 that we moved from the bond. With another some other money from already. To make it happen with the trust of public land. We shouldn't have to rely on outside third parties to fund our public. Parks. We shouldn't have to rely on our fees. To pay for something that's absolutely should be free to anybody. To enjoy. We are still very lopsided in this city. Golf courses don't count as parkland. They don't. I'm sorry. I can't go throw the ball around. I get kicked out of a golf course. We've tried it once. You can. We have to be equitable around the city to do it. And the only, the beginning phases are to make sure that we have the resources to get it done. And it's also because we also have to make sure we have the landscape architects, I tell you. So many the part of the park acreage that we have in Council District three. So much of it can be redesigned and so much of it is on is in the queue years and years away from just getting designs done because we just don't have the the resources to actually fund the personnel to do it. Right. So if we are serious about our parks, we love quoting Robert Spear and and demonstrating how much we we we are in love with our park system and let's pay for it. Right. And so this is a good way to do it. However, we are now in a we are not in a post race conscious society. We are constantly trying to talk about equity in this city in every sense of the way, whether it be economically speaking, whether it be, you know, racially, whether it be gender. And we still have a lot of work to do. Right. And yes, these neighborhoods will change in the makeup of these neighborhoods, but they change in Denver. But at least the one constant thing is, are our public infrastructure that which we can do together, that we will not be able to do individually, and that is local government . And it is our duty to make sure that it's equitable. So. You know. Do I support this? Yes. Do I support it moving forward? Absolutely. Do I support extending it a week so we can have a process, so we can make sure that we're we're working all the things out of it to make sure there's an equitable component. If there is language that we can use that's nuanced language is a language that reflects modern day governance. Absolutely. But remember at the end of the day. I could I could say this. That this this and this Parks Administration were very good to the district, have been very responsive for the last, you know, five years, six years. I sense certain since we all had come into the mayorship, they listened to our district just tell us what to do. Right. So we have the gains that we've had in our parks. But at the end of the day, our policies should survive. Whatever administration, whatever employees are in the city is should they should live to make sure that there's equity. We may have equity now, but we may not have equity later. That's why the policy is important. That's why the discussion has to be much more than just something spiritual and in the chambers. So I definitely get it. So if there is a friendly moment in the coming weeks, I'm down for it. If there is a small delay, hopefully a short delay. And I say, Sure, sure, sure. But let's get this thing moving forward. All right, let's let's let's this one to our park system. The one thing I will say is. It survives every mayor and survives every council. It will survive. Every administration. But the one thing that is constant is good old fashioned organizing. And that's what we all go to. That's what we all Paco Sanchez to. That's what we owe the rec center to. It doesn't just happen because some council person or some, you know, somebody, it touched their heart in a decision making position. It happened because of good old fashioned organizing. So if you don't have parks in your district, organize that district. You will soon as those votes start, as soon as those voters start coming into these chambers, reminding you and your colleagues and the administration that they're serious with their votes. So thank you. I supported move forward. I'm supportive of of a whatever as long as it gets approved. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Flynn. Thank you, Mr. President. I don't mean to get into a race to the bottom of the misery index with Councilwoman Black, who always. Well. Who always talks about the closed Kmart in her district. And I always point out that at least I have a close target in my district. But with all due respect to the Trust for Public Lands, our own City Parks Department gave me the following figures. As far as in equity and Council, District two has six developed Park Acres per thousand. Council District three Councilman Lopez, District five develop Park Acres per thousand. Residents Council District four has nine developed Park Acres, not counting golf courses per district and only councilman news central Denver district has lower and that was four acres per thousand probably due to its density and smaller area as a result of the density. So there's definitely a need to look at our under partners and I don't mean to exclude the southeast Denver as well because I think the Trust for Public Land used a different yardstick, which was parks within a ten minute walk. And that's a different yardstick. And by that measure, I think South Southwest Denver's pretty, pretty much and equitably treated as well. I am I'm generally supportive of forwarding this to the voters because this is truly a municipal purpose. Councilman Lopez says providing for parks, among other things, is is one of the basic city municipal functions. And so this is well within the the realm and the ability of our voters to make the decision whether they want to tax themselves to do this. As Councilman Clark knows, however, I have had some some anxiety over the choice of the sales tax as the most regressive choice we can use. And yes, I know that in Denver, a lot of our sales tax has come from visitors and from people from outside the city, and not just from residents. But I do think about when I mentioned Brentwood, not have there's no park at all in Brentwood. And that's one of my more struggling working family areas that probably don't want to dig deeper in their pocket when they go to the store and buy school clothes for their kids and and pay a little bit more in taxes . I think the last time I actually looked at this, it's very outdated. Maybe 15 years ago when I was writing a story about a sales tax going on the ballot that the average household in Denver at that time spent about $36,000 in taxes, taxable retail transactions, if that's true and let me rounded up to 40,000 is probably in excess of that now. And I know a lot of our households don't even make that much in total, let alone spend that much on retail sales. But a household that spends $40,000 in in taxable retail sales under this measure would pay $100. We usually have when we have bond issues on the ballot, we're usually able to say with great specificity how much a mill levy increase would mean to the average house worth $300,000 or whatnot. So I just wanted to throw out there that that an average household that spends $40,000 in retail sales would spend would pay about $100 annually into this fund, not just for some perspective, I don't know how I feel about a one week delay, and I don't know if it's if it's needed. But there's one thing that we could do here on the floor right now as far as a very simple amendment that would help me get to a higher comfort level with the equity issue. And that would be if I could. Mr. President, just. I have a simpler one, actually. So we have we have competing friendly amendments. In on page five under I planning if what would really help me and I think maybe given some of the other remarks here tonight would really help me and maybe others feel that we could have more of a role in here would be if that paragraph included when the Parks and Rec Department does the five year plan, it doesn't just submit it to the Crabb and to the council, but it actually submits it for a required public hearing and adoption by the council as we do neighborhood plans . That would then mean that we don't just receive the plan in an email at some point say, Oh, thank you very much, and we read it, but it actually comes here for a public hearing and then we vote on it. And I could offer that very simply in a floor amendment, if that's acceptable to the other members and maybe subsequent members who speak might weigh in on that to let me know if there would be support for that. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Brooks. Yeah, thank you, Mr. President. And I just want to say to for a start, just to everybody who's here, I appreciate you being here. I appreciate you staying for parking and going through security and sitting in these hard seats. Everyone that I see in these seats right now are some of our most staunch advocates in the city, either on both sides of this issue. And you guys are the reason we're going to be great as the city. So I appreciate you being here. Mr. President, I'll just say this to you that I love the story about and Councilwoman Gilmore saying the same thing. I love the story. Stories about what we used to do with what you guys used to do with young people. And I did the same thing, taking young people up in the mountains for ten years of my life and allowing them to enjoy, you know, the beauty and open space and get out of the hood of northeast Denver to enjoy that. And I think everything you said is spot on. You know, but that's not the issue before me tonight. All of those things are right, but that is not the issue. That doesn't help me to get to. Yes. Tonight, I think the Parks Department of my last seven years has improved over 95% of the parks in District nine , and it has transformed our district. And I want to thank you all for that. And I'm a big believer and advocate for parks. And, um, but as I, as I think about, you know, where we are as a city and as I think about as a, as a, as the President of city council now in this seat for as president for two years and now in this seat. I think about effectiveness. How can we be as effective as possible? And we're effective as possible by being strategic and making sure our priorities are in line. And we get our priorities in line through a really hard process of 13 really different individuals trying to come together and figure out what they're hearing from the community and when we can do the hard work of figuring that out. We are successful almost every time. Now there's always isolated situations where there's individuals from the community who say they want to push this forward, and that is what our democracy is all about, allowing those things to happen . I guess where I'm struggling here and you guys hurt me in the in the council meeting is I'm really struggling on how we're far behind in parks and we know that. But I'm really struggling by how far we behind. We are in mobility and housing and some of those other issues and how much people agree in the city of Denver. How much we keep hearing about it. And so I said I wanted to get some more data just for my district alone, because what no one is talking about is what happens when you have a great proposition on the ballot around parks and homeless mental health services, caring for Denver. And some would say in our day that the school ballot, the paying for the college ballot and what all these other things. So I said, let's just put them head to head in a district in District nine, very diverse District 17 neighborhoods. And this is what this is what happened. As I scroll. Get it up. So we had 265 people from 17 neighborhoods. 54%. And I ask those three questions. What would you support out of these three? 54% say caring for Denver. 31% said the Denver Public Parks Fund, which is before us today, and only 13% said the college affordability. The reality that is before us is that if we're not strategic as a city and as individuals, we will put competing issues on the ballot. And what I'm trying to it's not whether we like this or that, people do not judge like that. They are in silos. They're going to they're going to put things against each other. And my district just proved it. And so will that will this pass this council? Yeah, probably. It probably won't go on to the ballot whether we delay nor delay. But if this dies because of a lack of preparation, because we didn't have the hard conversations that everybody I'm just telling you as the president of council, I got the full language at the end of May. So how can I get my folks, all the people who are advocates on either side on board this and even understand where they are? I can't. So just because we didn't do that and it fails, then we're back here again. And so. I love parks and think we should fund them and think we can fund them. But we've got to have a much more inclusive process. And I know that's so frustrating for the prime members who talks about it every year. I know that's frustrating for you, but it's also frustrating for me as a president who as a former president, we have a president as a former president who wants and loves and think we should be doing more for parks. So we all find ourselves in a frustrating situation. So that's where I'm at tonight. I cannot support this even going to the voters. And the reason why I can't support this going to the voters. When we were in committee, I was going to support it, gone to the voters and let them make a decision. But now I have more evidence that shows me that we're just piling up on this ballot and there's a good chance that it might not succeed 50%, unless someone can give me some really good data of a head to head with the other issues on the ballot. So I will not be supporting this. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman. Councilman, new. Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you for bringing this bill forward. I really appreciate it. And I know our citizens will appreciate it. And in my district, we serve a lot and we get a lot of comments and and favorable opinions about our parks. They love our parks. And and we're so glad that we just had a recent plan by the Greenway Foundation to help develop the Greenway Cherry Creek Greenway, which is a spectacular plan. And so but this plan is no different than a lot of our other capital improvement plans we have in the city. You know, we have a great plan, but we don't have a way to fund them. We have no money to implement. And that's the thing that I think so attractive about this bill here is finally a dedicated revenue stream for our parks. Here's some plans we could have for our parks, and we will know that we'll have some money to implement. I think that it'll be very appealing to our voters. I think the two and a half cents for $10 is not a lot to ask. I think that there will be seen as a good investment for one of our greatest assets in our city, our parks. So I think it'll have great appeal. Some of the process questions we were talking about tonight, I think we could probably work out whether you vote for this dinner tonight or nine, but I think there are important but I think it shouldn't delay this bill tonight. So I'll be supporting this bill. And then I just surely encourage all our residents to have that great opportunity to vote, to make their own decision and put it on that ballot in November and let them decide. They may have competing issues and maybe a problem, but the voters can decide. They're smart enough to figure this out. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman. Councilwoman Sussman. Thank you, Mr. President. I tend to be pretty practical about things like this, like this, and thinking through some of my colleagues comments, which I appreciate very much, and I've enjoyed listening to all the different points of view. I don't think a week is going to change much. It's not enough time. It's going to still come back next week. The busy lives, I just I just don't think that it makes sense just to give it one week. I, too, have had great pause on a bill that's going to require sales tax because of its aggressiveness. It it means that those of lesser income will pay a greater proportion of their income on the tax. But at the same time, I know, practically speaking, that getting a property tax is even is so unpopular and is, you know, rarely ever can happen, although we have very low property taxes. The argument that visitors will pay most of that. All right, that's fine. But that doesn't mean that the that the residents aren't going to pay more in taxes. It doesn't it doesn't reduce their tax obligation. It just adds to the pool of money, just, you know, practically speaking. So I think that and our big decision is here, are we going to refer this to the ballot? And so I think if you refer to the ballot, then the citizens can make up their own minds if they want to spend their money in this way, if this is something that is of value to them, that, yes, they are going to have a lot of things to choose among on the ballot. And many of them, not most of them that requires some funding, require it in a sales tax. I don't know if you add up, if they all passed, what the increase in our sales tax would be, but it'd probably be noticeable. But anyway, just allow the citizens to decide do they want to spend their sales tax money this way? I wish there were more details about the criteria. I know. We've had conversations about that and the expenditures and how that's going to expand. I, I think that is one of the the important things about this initiative that's lacking. But we had that dilemma with green roofs. It needed a lot more detail and we gathered quite a number of people from different points of view, certainly lots of different perspectives. And we hammered out a lot of details in about six months. So the concern that, well, we're going to get the money right away, we won't have a way to spend it. I think that many of these details can be worked out as we go along. And so I believe that is probably a good a good thing for us to put it on the ballot. I think parks do mean a lot to people. I trust the voter to understand what it means, and I trust the voter to know what the thing is they're going to be choosing between. And therefore, I'll probably I will be supporting this this evening. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman Flynn and Councilman Lopez. I'm going to go to Councilwoman Canete because, you know, in a way. All right, Councilman Flynn. Okay. I don't know what your desire is here, but I would like to offer an amendment. I think we can get this voted on final and get it on the ballot tonight with a simple amendment that that for members to consider. I know some folks on this side of the dais already have indicated they would support it. Very simple amendment that adds city council adoption of the five year plan as one of those sort of safety vows in looking at how the money is spent. If I could offer that now or do you want to hear from. Let's let's get through everybody and then I'll come back to you. And can I get clarification from our attorney over there that this amendment, we could still be voting on this at final if an amendment was passed, as Councilman Flynn is proposing? It's within the title. Yes, that's right. It doesn't change the title or description. Thank you very much. All right. Councilman Lopez. Thank you, Mr. President. I just wanted to make the point, I think, you know. Oh. You know, I just. I just wanted to make a point here. I mean, I think, you know, democracy is messy. Our ballot is going to be long anyway. You should see the ballots of other cities and how long they are. I think there's going to be an extraordinary amount of people who are going to be, you know, if the last three years that's two and seems like three years, at least at the last two years of really showed us anything and done anything is agitate people into action. And I think a lot of you can start seeing a lot of people really paying a little bit more attention. I hope I hope these to that ballot and Denver's changing in a way that I think a lot of folks are are showing not just appreciation for. For our public assets, but wanted to take it to another level. And I think this is just smart preparing that we have the finances and we have the mechanisms in place to do just that. Our city is growing. Our parks are going to be used and they're going to be activated. And I think this is a a way to finance them. I'm good to go tonight. Must be. But I'm very curious about this, the amendment, and I'm very curious about any other ideas moving forward. But I don't want to I don't want to belittle our voters. I don't want to belittle the ballot. I think folks are able to read through a ballot and do it in a way that that's intelligent and do it in the best interest of something other than themselves. I have a lot of faith in that. So thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman, can you. Thank you, Mr. President, for your forbearance earlier. And then I also want to thank the folks who came today. I was somewhat surprised. I think I've been out of town since last Wednesday, and the only folks I had heard from up until that point were parks advocates. And so I wasn't totally prepared for the number of concerns and questions and other things that emerged over the last week and caught up on those. And so I don't like to bring up new ideas on the floor. It's not ideal, but I, I benefit from hearing this public debate. Councilwoman specimens questions were the ones that prompted for me some of those lessons we learned from the housing fund that frankly, until we're having the debate, I didn't get to. And so that's the value of the public debate. And because it brings up creative thinking and it triggers things. And so, you know, I apologize to make to my colleague because when you you know, you ask your colleagues where they at and how they feel about things. And some of these questions I didn't have fully formulated until I was listening and engaging because it came up here at the end. So that said, I am supporting this measure tonight and I want to just describe the two things, because I really respect council president and Councilman Brooks. It's going to take a while to get the titles right. Councilman Brooks is weighing of several different priorities. And so for me, just to say how I went through them on the housing question, this would be a different discussion if we didn't have a path towards a $300 million housing investment. Is it is it enough? Is it everything we need? Perhaps not for sure or not, but we I knew that we were on a path to a proposal that I could probably live with if a few details are hammered out correctly before I learned about this proposal. So to me, it wasn't it wasn't that this leaped ahead of housing. Housing was on a path. You know, we have we have a significant portion and it's on a path to being doubled. And I knew that at the point at which this arose. So so it would be a different debate if we maybe did need to look at the sales tax for housing. And but we were on another path by the time I heard about this second on transportation. You know, we haven't talked too much about the fact that there is a state measure on the ballot. That measure passes. It's going to bring some share back revenue to Denver directly, as well as the potential to get some state funded transportation within our jurisdiction paid for again. Will it solve all of it? No. What if it doesn't pass? Well, if it doesn't pass, that same sales tax capacity exists for us to consider for local use. And we're no worse off than we would have been if the state measure passes. So that's one consideration just about the transportation piece and the sales tax. So I also continue to hear that the administration is working on a package of other funding ideas, and I haven't seen that. But, you know, I mean, perhaps there are more creative ideas coming, but I do think that those are the trifecta of growth. So when I hear from the community about needs, housing, transportation and parks and open space for the healthy, balanced community that we need, I am thinking about those other pieces. So for folks who care about those, I just want you to know that I did think about them and weigh them coming to my decision on supporting this . The other thing I'll just say on the personal side is that, you know, I have been working with the community in Globeville to create an open space for eight years, and in part it's taken time because it's a brownfield and newsflash. That's where parks are going to come from. They're going to come from places that are dirty or used for something else, and that's frankly, where they've come from. In the past, many of our parks were, you know, dumping areas or, you know, landfills. So it's not what's new is what's old is new again, which is that it is the land that is in rough shape. But the second reason was this community had to fundraise. So the nonprofits are out there using settlement dollars and grant dollars, and they've only been able to fundraise for one phase of a multi-phase project. So it's not going to get funded. Is internal sidewalks that would make it more accessible for the disabled. What's not going to get funded is, you know, the play area for children to have rocks to interact with. So it will be a very passive open space, which is an asset in this community, has fought for it, but those later phases are not yet funded. And so the very first community led, you know, has an at large person. I work on policy a lot, I don't work a lot in projects. But the very first and primary community led, place based project I worked on and I'm still working on is, is only, you know, a third or half funded and it's because there is not this capital. And then the other thing, you know, and thinking about, I, I do believe that we I believe that given a little more time, we might be able to find a few word changes that might give folks some more comfort that they had been a part of shaping this. I think there's value in people feeling like they shaped something, but I accept my colleagues feedback that they're not interested in that delay. And it's at least by my count. And so there's no need to force that I will. Just say, though, that in my mind the lack of the of the wording tweak doesn't relieve us of the responsibility. So when I judged a poster contest for all Latino and African-American youth that participated in this poster conference defining neighborhood to them, every single one of them put in a park or an open space. They didn't put houses. They didn't put schools. They they really when they they define neighborhood each of them. So. So I believe this is in the heart of the youth of color that I've worked with. And I think it's our challenge. And I frankly think, you know, as the sponsor, when if, you know, if we don't take the delay, then it's going to have to work three times harder to show folks how the the practice will come into this and how those voices will come in that haven't been at these parks tables and how we make proud of inclusive without changing the structure of it. And so we got some work to do. I. I. So, so the lack of the wording change doesn't relieve us the responsibility. I'm committed to trying to bring ideas to the table and how to do that. I've named some technical challenges I think we're going to get over. I think this would be better maybe if we had a plan for year one and two. But but I because I have lived the need in in in the very communities that folks are concerned about being underrepresented. And I've interacted with those communities. I believe that there is a need and that they will benefit from this. And so I will be supporting it without a delay, since I don't think that's the will. But I do appreciate that humility is one factor in leadership, but boldness is another. And I think that boldness doesn't always come with perfection, but hopefully it comes with growth. And, you know, maybe we wouldn't find ourselves here again, but that if we do get a lesson from the voters, we'll learn it the hard way. And if they grace us with their permission, then we will do the very best we can to make up for anything we lacked on this front end. So thank you, Mr. President. I will be happily supporting this tonight. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman Flynn. Excuse me. Thank you, Mr. President. I would like to offer this amendment and just explain what it does. A very simple amendment that will ensure that tonight isn't the last time that the city council has any more than just a glance at the way these funds would be spent going down the line. It would it would require that instead of just the five year plan being submitted to us that the Parks and Rec Department would work with the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, as they always do in developing the plan, including a requirement for at least one public hearing and then submitting it to the Council for our adoption as we adopt neighborhood plans. So there's already there's already precedent for how we do these things. And it means that once this goes out the door tonight, we actually get to play a play another role in how the funds from the special revenue fund will be expended broadly, broadly, and we're not going to dictate projects or whatnot, but the way we adopt a neighborhood plan. So it might even be possible after we adopt this, Councilman Clark, that that the hillsides at Ruby Hill Park will finally get mowed. Right? Right. That's inside baseball. So. So I would like to offer the following motion. A following amendment. I move that council bill. What is this? 641 Council will 641 be amended in the following particulars? And I'm using the the version of the bill that is in our granicus system because the pagination is a little different on the print out on page five at line 34. After the word charter. Delete the words. Must submit a five year plan to the City Council and the Denver Parks and Recreation Advisory Board. And insert the following language. Shall work with the Denver Parks and Recreation Advisory Board to hold no less than one public hearing and submit a five year plan for the approval of the city council. That's the end. That's the end of the amendment. I just want to check with our council secretary. Is there anything else we need to do for Councilman Flynn to get that amendment on the floor? Second. I just wait when? Sorry. I get something. More than just saying. Well, technology catches up. Councilman Espinosa, are you in the queue to talk about the amendment? Yes. Okay. Could I because members don't have Mr. President, because members don't have the text in front of them. Can I read the paragraph as it is now so they understand the change? Yes, go ahead. Okay. The paragraph right now is paragraph II and a reads planning within one year of the adoption of this Article 12 and every five years thereafter. The manager of Parks and Rec actually says Park Manager Parks and Recreation as designated in accordance with section 2.2.4.2 of the charter, must submit a five year plan to the City Council and the Denver Parks and Recreation Advisory Board on the planned revenue uses in the parks trails. Open and open space fund. So what we're removing is the clause that just says they must submit the plan to us and we're substituting the language that says they shall work with the Parks and Rec Advisory Board to hold at least one public hearing and then submitted to the Council for our adoption. So that's the only change. And do you have any comments that you want to make about the amendment beyond reading it? Yes, Mr. President, just to reinforce that, what I've heard tonight from many of the members is that there's a need for it to. There's a need for someone to oversee and to have more voice in how these funds are spent. Having a public hearing in this room, having a public hearing at PARAB allows the public to have more input into how that spent. So we don't just send it out the door tonight and never see it again. And I think that would help to address some of the equity issues and help ensure that a public voice is put into this five year plan as it should as it's re adopted every five years. I don't see how any member of council. Could oppose giving ourselves more authority in this area. Thank you. They have to be. Thank you, Councilman Flynn. Madam Secretary, so we do have the motion on the floor and it's seconded. Ah, well, good for me to move to questions. Yes. Okay. Questions on the amendment, Councilman Espinosa, or comments on the amendment. Sorry. So I want to redirect to our city attorney, uh, to our legislative council because. I heard two things there. One was actual language to write in approval, but then the intent was adoption. I don't know if there's a difference in it, but I'm worried that if we get to a point where we formally adopt a plan, does it now become binding in such a way if it's all articulating very specific projects and that we could only deviate if we amend that plan? Because it's not going to be recommendation. I mean, advisory in the normal sense, I don't think. So I guess. My perspective is, is a concern more about the charter and that it vests a great deal of discretion with the person recreation. And so I think the best possible way to achieve a council is doing is to achieve it through an amendment to the charter that would go into this bill. But, you know, doing it on the floor, I think, can be difficult because we haven't had an opportunity to go back and look at the language in the in the charter and make sure that we're not conflicting. You have two issues here. One is approval of a plan by council, but then also adding in a process that doesn't exist in the charter right now. And a quick clarification on that, because I was told because of TABOR, we cannot amend the charter in another way as part of this bill, because you had mentioned about putting it in the bill in a as a charter change, but that's not allowed per TABOR because then it's not single subject. I'm not sure where you got that information, but I, I think that this is the substance of what we're talking about tonight could be put in this bill and not run afoul of Tabor. All right, Councilman Espinosa, anything else. So I can get out? And the question to Councilman Flynn, so is your intent to really have that direct action over parks or would you really just rather have the formal public input? And could we just do it with a required public hearing and not an actual adoption? No, the the the motion and I'm not really keen on taking taking out the council vote on it, but for the I would keep in the approval of city council. I don't see why we would hold a public hearing and then not a vote. Okay. Thank you. No further questions. Councilwoman Sussman. Okay, is this, like practical, this coming back to me? You know, we had the ballot issue on marijuana several times. We had the ballot issue on green roofs. And we did take time to look at it, to make a plan to execute the plan. And the council has the ability to change things six months after any ballot issue anyway. And I think that a lot of the processes that we established, both in marijuana and all the marijuana bills in the green roofs bills were probably even more detailed than your amendment has suggested about Council Council's ability to alter something. And I think our concerns about worrying about the criteria and how the money is going to spend, how are things that will be worked out afterwards. And I would not want to limit what I am hoping will be a representative committee from all sides looking at how to implement this in the best way to this kind, to just this way of encouraging or of allowing council to engage because council's going to be able to engage no matter what. And this amendment might create a process that a group that we got together to discuss wouldn't want. And so we don't need to make this happen now because we can make it happen later. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilwoman Ortega. Thank you, Mr. President. I think the major difference between this and those other. Processes that you spoke of, Councilwoman Sussman, is that currently the manager of Parks and Rec under our charter, has sole authority to make these decisions. And what we're talking about is giving council and the community a voice in that process for how we define those priorities with these new funds. And so I want to speak in support of the amendment that is basically asking for this body to approve the plan, and that we have the public hearing at Parab and the public hearing before city council that gives voice to the community who has not been privy to being involved in this process, in being able to weigh in on what those priorities should be, and looking at some of the criteria that should be in in that plan. And so I think it makes perfect sense. It's no different than when we adopted our housing fund and said we need a housing plan by which we will set priorities in terms of how those dollars are going to be spent. And this is this is very similar to that. So I think this makes perfect sense, and I think it gives even more confidence to the voters that we have a more clearly defined process that they get to have some input into. All right, Councilman. Mechanic. Thank you, Mr. President. I just want to just speak to the amendment for a minute, and particularly the concern. Plans are not they are not binding in the sense that it is not a list of funded projects. And so to the extent that, as we've learned, you know, whether it's an area plan or whether it's the housing plan, they're aspirational. And so I can't imagine that there'd be a way to violate it because you have to report on it. You can, you know, in the annual reporting, but there's there's nothing binding in the plan, legally speaking. And so I think that it's a good way to counterbalance the lack of certainty upfront with a a aspirational approval process that says our aspirations are this much on purchasing land, this much on maintenance. And then, you know, if it turns out that there's an amazing parcel that manager maintains her charter authority, she will be required to report to us under this. And so you can say here's what didn't go the way you expected and here's why. And it just it just I think, to me, creates the kind of, you know, transparency this body often requests and in in because there is so much less detail in the process here. To me, it seems like the simplest fix that we can do on the floor to just create a little more certainty in the process. And for me, it was important in working with Councilman Flynn and on this language that it moves parab up in the current language, Crabb receives the plan. This says The department shall work with Parab to develop the plan. And so that's the other component that I think is is helpful in in making it more community co-lead and then council check in at the end. So I'll be supporting the amendment. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Espinosa. Yeah, it was my my concern was that Parks already sort of operates, I hope, with our aspirations in mind. And that's what game plan is. And so my my thought was this would be more granular, more use of funds sort of the as we knew things were coming in. That's why we we have a sort of dialog with people more about projects. But if it's not that, I certainly have no reservations about getting to an approval. But I do think that this is going to really sound distorted from my own sort of feeling, but it respects the charter. Maybe what we do is we sort of put ourselves in a planning board role in that. We just actually make a recommendation to the manager of parks with an approval, approval, a comment or deny based on what we get out of that public hearing, because it is the manager of parks purview. But that's just food for thought things. This is a charter. All right. Thank you, Councilman Espinosa. Councilman heard it. It was really I'm just I'm trying to understand. If it's because, as Councilwoman Kennedy talked about, it's not binding. So couldn't council just do this without even adding an amendment? Like if we are concerned about the direction that the funding will go to can't council in just some capacity issue a statement or something. That's what I'm I'm trying to understand the the purpose of the amendment and and help me out, Councilman Flynn, if I'm just if I'm just missing a key component because as because as I was, I was sitting here thinking, well, what happens if we disagree with the recommendations of the parks manager and councilwoman? Can you answer that question and said, well, it's non-binding. So adding this to the language, well, is there something that council can just do right now? And I think Councilwoman Sussman was kind of implying that and just just thinking out loud, you know, if you. Had response to that. Councilman Hurt and. Thank you. Excuse me. This process. This amendment, rather, is modeled after Councilwoman Kennedy. You and I were conferring here earlier. It's modeled after exactly how we do neighborhood plan approval for the housing plan, which came to us for approval. So it's exactly the same processes that if. If the manager. No, it's not binding. If we don't do this, then there is no mechanism for public input other than I imagine the manager would come up with a process under her rulemaking. I can't imagine that there would be no public process, but this kind of sets the framework in which that would occur properly under the charter, through the Parks and Rec Advisory Board, and then come to us in the way the housing plan came to us for our adoption or not. We don't change any of it. As Councilwoman Keech said, it's aspirational. It's not doesn't list projects. So we don't change any that our option is only to vote yay or nay on it. It ensures that there is an open and public input process into that plan. That's the purpose of it. And if we don't pass it, then if we don't, if we see something in the plan that's given to us, then our recourse is, you know, to shoot off an email to the manager and say, gee, we don't like that. And but it's not out in the public. I would rather have that occur in the public than not. I do think Councilwoman Sussman was I see her. Side, but I appreciate I appreciate you saying that. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you. Councilman Herndon, seeing no other comments, I will just add that I think I think you and I think Councilman Flynn. Councilman, can you tell us or take I don't know who all came up with this down to the you have done a fantastic job. Hit the nail on the head just like game plan. And we have a game plan right now for a $78 million budget. We're going to add $45 million to have a plan specific to that, that goes through an established process that we have for plan adoption and allows everyone in this room to come back and to to come back to this microphone and say, are we on Mark? Are we not? Did we miss the equity piece? Did we do all of that, I think is really a fantastic compromise. I want to thank you for that and I will be happy to support it with that. Madam Secretary, can we do work on the amendment? Flynn. Hi. Gilmore. I heard in Cashman Can eat. Lopez I knew. Ortega I. Sussman No black eye. Brooks. I. Espinosa. No, Mr. President. I am our secretary. Please close the voting. Announce the results. Sorry. One person is still missing. Somebody has been located, but. I. All right. Now, closed voting in those results, 11 to 11, nine two nays. The amendment passes. Councilman Herndon, can you please make a motion to pass this bill as amended? Name is president with the council bill 641 be placed upon file as amended. Be placed upon consideration and do. It has been moved and seconded. I think that we have had a lot of discussion for tonight. Is there anyone who just can't live without us going straight to a vote? Councilman Brooks? You know, it's not going to be 20 minutes like some of my friends, but I just I just wanted to explain to the voters or my constituents right now. I did vote for the amendment because I think, you know, it speaks to equity. Much more community input should this pass. But because of the process, I cannot support this. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Councilman Brooks. Madam Secretary, roll call. I'm sorry. Oh. Councilman Herndon. Names. President, I'm. I. I was. Everybody else spoke. And it's just. And I will. I'll be briefer than others. I appreciate the the sentiment. And I can tell you right now, I think about multiple neighborhoods in my district where we have concerns about funding for parks, and that is a reality. I wish this process was more thorough. No one discounts this for parks, but no one discounts the need for sidewalks. No one discounts the need for other ask. And I wish we would as a body have done that because I. Do look at council. And Brooks and says something's going to get dropped because of this ask. And my fear is that it's going to be something that we cannot we can we don't have another way to fund. Like we're funding parks right now. And is it enough? No, but we're funding parks right now. There's some other ask on the ballot that the only mechanism we will have to fund them is through going to the voters. And so something I fear that's crucial to the city's progress is going to be. It's going to be. Dropped. And so I wish we would have taken that into consideration before doing this. That being said. We're not approving it because if it was an improvement, I would be a no. Not to say that no one loves Parks more than I do with my think about taking my son to Parks frequently. But I just really hope that as voters, we take a hard look at this come November, because it is something that there there will be some. It will be an interesting time for the next few months. And so I, I, I struggled with this because I've heard both sides of a very, very thorough, thorough debate. But sending this to the voters for a question for them to decide in November, I think this is worthwhile. But recognize the repercussions of each vote you make because you will be making multiple votes come November. So I will be supporting this. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman Herndon. Seeing no other comments. Madam Secretary, roll call. This is to pass as amended. Yes, that is the motion on the floor. Black eye. Brooks Espinosa. Hi, Flynn. I feel more Herndon. I Cashman can eat. Lopez. I knew Ortega. Sussman Hi, Mr. President. I. Madam Secretary, please close the voting, announce the results. We're missing one somebodies person. Push their button. 12 eyes, one name, 12 eyes. One day accountable. 641 has passed as amended on Monday. August 13th, 2018. Council will hold a required public hearing on Council Bill 8.0617 Changing the zoning classification of 2500 East 44th Avenue 4348 Combined Street 4301 and 4349 Elizabeth Street in the Illyria Swansea never had any protest against Council Bill 80617 must be filed with the Council no later than Monday, August nine. So you no other business before this body? This meeting is adjourned. The.