A proclamation designating May 18 through May 24 as "Public Works Week in Denver" and congratulating the Denver Public Works Department's ten employees of the year. 
Thank you, Mr.. I have another proclamation. This one is going to be read by Councilwoman Robb. Councilwoman, will you please read proclamation number four, four one. Thank you, Madam President. I'd be happy to. Proclamation 441 2014 Designating May 18 through May 24th as Public Works Week in Denver in congratulating the Denver Public Works Department's ten employees of the Year. Whereas Denver Public Works through its employees consistently delivers safe, high quality, cost effective services to the citizens of Denver. And. WHEREAS, Denver Public Works enhances the quality of life in our city by managing and maintaining the rights of way, streets, alleys, drainage ways, sewers, bridges, traffic signals, street markings and signage and manages contracting, procurement and cash sharing programs that meet the needs of the public. And. Whereas, Denver Public Works makes significant contributions to our built environment managing the planning, design and construction of public infrastructure and multimodal transportation options. Whose efforts contributed to Denver receiving a gold designation this year as a walk friendly community and the city being selected in the intensive two year People for Bikes Green Lane Project, which provides technical assistance in the installation of protected bike lanes. And. Whereas, Denver Public Works is committed to continuous improvement, organizational development and strategic planning and is coordinated the training of nearly 300 public works employees through Peak Academy, identifying 36 innovations with an average savings of more than 10,000 and dollars cities. And. Whereas, Denver Public Works is focused on sustainability and clean air and water with its annual street sweeping program that removes more than 42,000 cubic yards of debris and dust from Denver streets each year. And by expanding its use of alternative fuels, by purchasing compressed natural gas refuge vehicles and opening a CNG fueling station for use by city vehicle operators, and by expanding the city's composting program and pursuing funding to transition more homes to a more efficient, cart based trash collection service that reduces illegal dumping. And. WHEREAS, designating May 18 through May 24th as Public Works Week in Denver acknowledges the important services provided by the 1100 employees of the department. And. WHEREAS, The Council specifically recognizes and congratulates the Denver Public Works Employees of the Year for 2013 for their achievements. And would you stand as I read your names, Jason Winokur Capital Projects Management. Chloe Thompson Finance and Administration. Adrian Coleman Fleet Management. Luis Gallardo Right of way enforcement and permitting. I may have mispronounced his name so much he didn't recognize it. Jeremy Hammer. Right of way services. Cindy Patton Policy Planning and Sustainability. Patrick Quinton of Solid Waste Management. Jesse Contreras Street Maintenance. Ron Smart Traffic Engineering Services. And Moon Pan Wastewater Management. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed by the Council and of the City and County of Denver, Section one, that the Council designates the week of May 18th through May 24th, 2014, as Public Works Week in Denver and congratulates the Denver Public Works 2013 Employees of the Year for their outstanding contributions to the Department and City and Section two that the Clerk of the City and County of Denver shall attest and fix the seal of the city and county of Denver to this proclamation and the copies hereof be forwarded to Denver Public Works and the ten public works employees listed above. Thank you, Councilwoman Robb. Your motion to adopt. Thank you, Madam President. I move to adopt proclamation 441. Thank you very much. It's been moved and seconded. Comments by Council Councilwoman Robb. I always enjoy doing this proclamation. I think it's wonderful that when street sweeping starts again and when we get so busy on our street paving program, when even more people are biking and walking on our sidewalks and bikeways, that we really celebrate the. People who make all of that happen, and I'm glad to do that tonight. I am very proud of the employees of the year. That is an outstanding achievement. And I'm saying this to anyone who is here or is listening because there are 1100 employees in public works in there are only ten of you. So that's huge. Maybe this is making your career, as Jim McIntyre talked about, there just so many things that the department does. And I know many of my colleagues will probably want to chime in, but I don't think a day goes by that we are not calling public works. Talking with Nancy Cohn. Talking with George Delaney. The proclamation lists a lot of this. Do I need to mention also the bond program and all the implementation of that program? So I'm happy to do this. And I want to give a special nod to Cindy Patton, who works in my district all the time. I know she works in many of yours. She should be cloned. I don't know some of the other recipients as well as I know Cindy. But if you're as amazing as she is, you should be clone, too. And then we could have more public works employees, which would be good. So thank you, Madam President. And I know my colleagues will support this proclamation. Thank you, Councilwoman Robb. Councilwoman Kennish. Thank you, Madam President. And I want to thank my colleague, Councilwoman Robb, for congratulating and recognizing this department as a self-described policy wonk. Before I got elected, I thought I would be focusing on really the sexy departments in the city, you know, be about economic development and human services. And I have been surprised by how integral the work that I have done to fight poverty, build communities has brought me working so closely with your staff. And so I'll give my quick highlight list. Regional Policy. You know, we are passionate on this council about pedestrian safety and walkability and multimodal transportation in the regional conversation. Sometimes those things are harder to achieve as folks want to build more lanes on roads. And so I rely so closely on the policy team and some of the experts in the public works department to think about how we talk about those issues regionally and really make the whole region work together. And so you guys staff us at a on a well daily basis probably. And that work, my work to create a open space. Caswell, Monteiro and I work together in an area of Globeville. And, you know, we think of it as a park, which is really something very sexy, but there's so much public infrastructure in terms of stormwater and in terms of even getting down to curb and gutter, which I'm sure you're going to help me pay for. But those pieces, having public works at the table to create an open space out of a blighted area and all the way through the other pieces of the city's work. So so I've been surprised and delighted by what I've learned from working with you, by what I've gained, by having you at the tables that you've been willing to participate in. And I thank you for that broad reaching approach, which isn't just how do we build or maintain infrastructure, but how do we achieve goals for people in ways that infrastructure can support them? And that's that's cool. And I appreciate it. And I know it extends to all of the divisions that I represented today with the priorities. So thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Carnation. Councilman Neville, if you don't mind, I want to riff off of that. I'll give you the last word. I'm not exactly a policy wonk, but I am a city nerd. And Public Works gives me the opportunity to talk about things that bother my friends, sometimes street paving and sidewalks and traffic lights and urban drainage. I can talk a lot about urban drainage and gutters and sewers and and finally, they have taught me how to talk trash. And I could talk trash in a very polite way. And I have enjoyed working with public works so much. It just feeds my inner nerd so well. And this is well-deserved. Councilman Levitt. Thank you, Madam President. Does that make me a policy punk? I don't mean perhaps. Going with the theme. This along with the the hepatitis C proclamation is a is a perennial, but one that I'm always happy to see because it's an opportunity to celebrate the department and its employees who don't often get celebrated. Public Works is is the atlas that holds up the world. So, you know, we spend a lot of time being excited about the world, but we don't give proper credit to the atlas that holds it up and public works does that in. A thousand different ways that are rarely recognized. So it's great to have public works week and to be able to recognize public works for all they do. It's like the the bottom of the food pyramid. Nobody, you know, gets excited about, you know, the whatever the hell is on the bottom of the food pyramid, but nobody gets excited about it. But it's, you know, it's the pyramid that holds up the rest of it. And that's what public works does for us, holds up our world. And thank you for doing it. Thank you, Councilman. It looks like Councilman Lopez going to get the last word. Oh, great. Thank you. I well, I also wanted to to publicly thank the Department of Public Works. You do so much in our city, and I know we are constantly calling the department and in public works is just the department of many different departments. It is the, you know, the quintessential bare bones minimum of the city. If there is one thing we do, it is the work that we do in public works. And if there's one thing that best defines the role of government in the whole purpose of government, to do the things for the many that we can possibly do for the individual right. Public works and public works achieves that right. If you drive down a street, you may hit some potholes, but chances are in Denver you don't. Why? Because they do such a good job. They do such a good job. They did it in a district that I represent. And for 25 years. Some people may laugh about it, but for 25 years nobody had touched it. And because of the leadership in public works, because of the men and women in public works, you won't find a pothole in Villa Park. You won't find a pothole in some parts of Westwood now. And instead, you find neighborhoods that look built right, that are created right and that are built to last. And you see bike lanes on Morrison Road and Knox Core, right? You see different things that are just happening in our city. And this is all done by the hands of the people who call the city home, who happen to work in their public works. I happened to work on West Alaska Place in the Westwood neighborhood while we were paving. We go out every year and think folks are paying pass out Gatorade and and water. And lo and behold, one of the people who was paving the street actually lived on that street and grew up on that street. That's what makes this department so special, right? This year we may talk trash once in a while, but a manager got an AHA. You run a very good shop with a great manager at his helm. So thank you. Thank you, Councilman Lopez, Councilwoman Monteiro. And thank you, Madam President. I also want to take the opportunity to extend my appreciation. I wish I knew all 1100 employees. But here's what I do know that public works does everything from Keep Denver Beautiful this far as graffiti, graffiti removal all the way to major projects. I'm very mindful of the role that Public Works played in the redevelopment of Denver Union Station and the work that you're doing currently regarding I-70 and the National Western Stock Show. And we couldn't we couldn't do wouldn't be responsive if we didn't have the help of solid waste. Also, permitting and enforcement have worked with a lot of people, their street maintenance. And then of course, Nancy, I have an inbox of a lot of emails that you and I have, so I'm going to have to start deleting some of those. I also want to extend my thank you to host Cornell for all of the work that you do and that and for your steadfast, steadfast leadership. And also to George Delaney, who you're there when Jose is away from the helm. And I really appreciate that. So congratulations again. Let me see if I got these names right. Jason, Chloe, Adrian, Luis, Jeremy, Cindy, Patrick and Ron. So I hope I got everybody's name. Thank you. Thank you, Counselor Monteiro. All right. Looks like we're ready for the vote. Rob, I. Shepherd, I. But I. Herndon, I can eat lemon. Lopez All right. Monteiro I love it. Hi, Ortega. Hi. Madam President. I am close to voting out the results. 11 eyes. 11 eyes. The proclamation is adopted, Councilman Roberts or somebody would like to call up to the podium. Yes, Madam President, I expected my colleagues to support this, but I hope no one out there was sort of insulted with some of the comments. I would like to call up the interesting, sexy, cool and strong executive director of the Public Works Department, which is an interesting, sexy, cool and strong department. Good one. Councilwoman Rob. Cook. I'm single network secretary, director of Public Works and I want to thank on behalf of Public Works this proclamation. It is truly an honor to be part of this organization and work with these 1100 people that I would say are fully committed not only to the council priority by the mayor's priorities, but also the stakeholders priorities, and be able to mix all these priorities together and come up with public works priority, which is to create a smart city, meaning a sustainable city, a city that provides mobility in a safe way and attractive city resiliency, and also a process to be the most transparent process that we can deliver. Somebody says, I was reading this book the other day. Somebody says that the public space is the the visible face of society. And I do believe that. I think that that's how we judge cities when we go around the world and come back. I like to talk a little bit, spend a little bit of time talking about the ten employees that we're honoring tonight, because I think it's very important to mention exactly what these employees have been working and being part of. Jason Rediker from Capital Management recently designed two very critical storm sewer projects. One of them have been in neighborhood. And the other one is at first and university, which is under construction in your district. Chloe Thompson from Finance Administration. She is one of our first black built from the academy. She has worked very hard to improve and develop new models for for the financial track in streamlining contracts, contracting and putting in place a more efficient procurement process. Adrian Goldman from Fleet Management. Adrian was very close with our fleet technicians downloading software that helps to better diagnose vehicles and speed up the repair process. Lewis Gardner From Right of Way Enforcement in permitting, Lewis is a very diligent vehicle investigator who goes above and beyond to assist not only the public but also the the in the agency. He volunteers to maintain city's vehicle inventory and has taken the lead role a role a role in making sure that the motors workshop is free of hazardous materials and and mark problems. Jeremy Hammer from right of way services. He's our lead on floodplain issues. He's responsible for very complex flood floodplains and drainage issues. He works very closely with urban drainage, FEMA, Corp of Engineers, etc., to ensure that our flat maps are up to date. Cindy Patton, a very dedicated senior planner who has been instrumental in the implementation of Denver's Strategic Transportation Plan, as well as developing new programs, ordinances and policies to balance the supply and demand of parking in our city. Patrick Quintana. From sort of way. Paddy squeal automated barrel truck driver who continues to contribute to agency success. Paddy is a member of Solid Waste Eating a member of the Supervisory Mentor Program. This is a very successful program in which we are training our staff to become supervisors and at back has been instrumental in mentoring some of these future supervisors. Jess Contreras from St Monans Jessie has been with ST Maintenance for ten years. He made it a personal goal to learn all areas of his department and has been very successful in doing so. Jesse takes pride in the fact that he loves to share his knowledge with other co workers, and recently he was promoted to equipment operator, a specialist. Now in April 2014. Runs Smart from Traffic Engineering Services. He's responsible for replacing all the crosswalk in the south east quadrant of the city. I'm sorry, south west quadrant of the city. He has replaced replace over 75% of the criss cross work with permanent marking since 2011. And he's the person responsible for the green stripes that you see on St Patrick's Day and purpose stripes for the rookie opening. And last but not least, this one being from wastewater management. Moon really enjoys working with the wastewater lab. She's always willing to go above and beyond respect, patient and responsibilities to ensure that the work in the lab is done accurately in support the Mayor's 2020 sustainability goals. So I really want to thank the staff and the 1100 employee that provides work for the city every day. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Say. Hey, we're moving right along. Resolutions. Madam Secretary, will you please read the resolutions.