A resolution approving a proposed Contract between the City and County of Denver and Sema Construction, Inc. for the design and construction of the 39th Avenue Greenway and Park Hill Detention project. Approves a $78,214,454 three-year contract with Sema Construction, Inc. for the design and construction of the 39th Avenue Greenway and Park Hill Detention project to protect against flooding while improving water quality, multi-modal mobility access opportunities, and creating and enhancing park and public spaces in Council Districts 8 and 9 (201738462). The last regularly scheduled Council meeting within the 30-day review period is on 1-8-18. The Committee approved filing this resolution by consent on 12-5-17. Pursuant to Council Rule 3.7, Councilman Espinoza called out this resolution at the Monday, December 18, 2017 Council meeting for a postponement to Tuesday, January 2, 2018.
Seven ice, four days, 1396 has passed. All right, Councilwoman, can you please put 1395 on the floor? Yes, Mr. President, I move that council resolution 1395 be adopted. All right. It has been moved and second it. All right. Questions for 1395. And I'll go first on this and we'll need the whole team working on 1395 to the to the dies here. So there's a lot of discrepancy on the number of bores. Well, let me just start back. When did the EPA come through? Coal Clayton Global area Swansea and do soil samples. What year was that. Was that 2013. Do. So I'm Andrew Ross with Denver Department of Environment, Public Health and Environment. Yeah. So EPA came through and did the soil testing of residential soils between about 2000 and 2007, sort of a staggered approach. But they did it again in 2012 and 13. Correct. And they did do some follow up sampling in 2012. 2013, correct. Okay. And what was that for? That was just confirmation sampling of properties that hadn't been remediated. Okay. My understanding and for those properties that were refused, what what was the what did the EPA do? Oh, I don't have the numbers in front of me. How many people refused? But EPA went through their Superfund process recently. They called it a finding of significant differences, is the terminology. And they've decided that those properties will just not be cleaned up because those homeowners have refused to clean up. Okay. We'll leave it in the neighborhood of 10 to 12 residences. Okay. So it's gone down quite a bit. So we had a number of residents talk about the testing. Talk about the soil. And I wanted to hone in on the three borings along the 39th Avenue Channel that Kim Morse, Jennifer Eder kind of talked about. But I know that there's been a discrepancy from the administration. So can you talk about the number of borings that you have tested along the 39th Avenue Channel? Sure. So keep in mind, we can only test properties that we have legal access to. So starting in 2016, we took 33 samples along the entire project through city owned right away. And we followed that up last summer. Same right away with 38 more samples. So we've taken 71 total in city owned right away properties. In terms of the private parcels that the city is now acquiring. We're doing environmental due diligence sampling on all those properties. The city didn't start acquiring those properties until November. Mm hmm. And so we've been working through those properties as the city acquires them, and we haven't gotten any of that data back yet. Of the 71 samples. Can you tell us your analysis of those 71 samples which were hot, which, you know, did not meet the EPA standard? Sure. So we did find in terms of two lead, arsenic and then other things. So for lead, we did find a lead detection above the EPA action level at 39th and high. In one boring. And that was it for the for the entire project. Let me just correct you real quick. How many borings did you do along 39th Avenue? 39 from Franklin to High. The whole the whole thing is 71. Okay. Just wanted to make sure. Okay. So we did have to. I did hear you. Right. I just wanted to. Just for the record. Okay. So you found one. I need to correct myself. So out of the 71 samples, there was a lead detect above the EPA levels at 39th and high and one near still street behind the Coca-Cola building. The rest were all below the action, but just one. To 39th and high and behind the Coca-Cola bill. So, too. So. When you found this information, how quickly did you release it to the community? I don't know. I was with Citi at the time, so it's been up on our website since last summer. So it's been on our website for about a year. Okay. I can. Can. Can we get confirmation of that? I think. Sure. Didn't help Gin. Hillhouse was on the team. Gin. When these samples were taken, were they immediately released to the community? We're thinking, you know, Celia was really involved in. Okay. Is she not here? She's not. Here. Okay. So those were taken in the summer of 2016. And I believe that they were up on our website, the fall of 2016. Okay. Let's try to get it up as soon as we possibly can. Speaking to the mic with. Me, we try we work hard to get it up as soon as we can. And being transparent, we'll continue to do that and and report out to the community. We can. I can look back. There was an email there was an email that I received that was requesting that the sample soils be made public because they were not public. And now they are public. They are on our website. Okay. So they were never. There was always been transparency with those 71 samples. So, yes, I believe they've all been on our website for a long time now. Granted, it's not the easiest place to navigate to on our website. Okay. I've tried to share the link with folks that have asked me. Okay. I'll come back. We have several others in the queue. Councilman, New. York. Thank you, Mr. President. From the last comments we had about the soil contamination issues. I was waiting for the consultant reports and I finally received those reports this morning after I asked for them. And I can understand after reading and looking at it in the recommendations, I can understand some of the community concerns about what's going on here. And the thing that concerns me is something that Councilwoman Ortega started to talk about is the materials management plan. It's you know and if you look in the this in the first report, which is 2016, it just starts off by saying it is recommended that a space project specific materials management plan be developed for the entire project corridor. The MMP or the plan can be used to assist field operations is particularly construction. In preparing for the identification and management of impact of soil and allow for informed decisions with regard to re-use options of excavated soil that results from construction very clear as in the the report last year says the same thing about the May materials management plan. And I can't imagine why we wouldn't have that all of a sudden. All of a sudden, when I questioned about this plan, all of a sudden this draft sort of mysteriously was appearing today and saying it wouldn't be ready for three weeks now. Can you explain to me what's going on with this material management plan? Because I look at this is is almost like a hazardous waste plan. The city or a hospital that I'm familiar with would have and is much public concern there is about the the soil and what's going to happen with the soil. Why would we not have this material management plan in this ordinance tonight? So we try to get the materials management plan done prior to actual any dirt moving activities. And we try not to do it too far out in advance in case we find more information in the meantime. Excuse me. So we're on track with what we thought, where we'd be with the materials management plan. Purely coincidental that we got a draft from our contractor today and we'll have a final in about three weeks and we'll get it up on our website. Why is it not in the ordinance? I cannot find it. Mentioned a single word in the ordinance itself. I've looked through there and I don't see it anything at all. I don't see where SEMA is held responsible for this materials management plan at all. Why is it not in the ordinance? I'll defer to my attorney on that. But the materials management plan is a significant part of the contract with SEMA. It's not listed in the contract. I looked in the contract and it's not mentioned whatsoever. Yes. Good evening, Steve Coggins with the P2P team for the Materials Management Plan. There's actually two versions of that. There is one that is required per the contract. But given the unknowns associated with the environmental and to control the cost more properly, we made the decision to hold the materials management plans and the environmental risk is retained by the city. So the city is doing the material management plan to for whatever may be found as the construction is taking place during the project. Well, that's just not acceptable. How is it going to be held legally liable for the work it does with this soil? If if the materials major plant is not in their contract. It is in their contract. They do have. It in the contract we have in front of us tonight that we're actually being asked to approve the. Are the RFP, which is the the request for proposal has a deliverable in Section five of the environmental, which is the part of the contract. That's what we have here. It does not mention that whatsoever. I look through all those documents. It's not. It's in the RFP and it's a reference document to the contracts of the requirements of the contract are in the RFP, technical requirements of which the materials management plan is included in Section five. Environmental. Well, it's not in the contract with SEMA. It's part of the contract is a reference document. But is but. Is there is there. Yeah. Jessica Brody, Assistant City Attorney. So I think Steve's representation is accurate. Also, keep in mind that the materials management plan is is really focused on work practices that the contractor and its subcontractors are going to implement to comply with environmental laws and requirements, which are also part of the contract. The materials management plan, which is something we do on any soil disturbing project is is the how and you know the work practices to accomplish the compliance with environmental laws. But irrespective, the contractor still holds a compliance with all laws, including environmental laws. I understand what you're saying, but it's just not you know, the consulting report just says real clearly. We need to have that plan in place. And and, you know, and who's going to monitor the plan? Who when the construction goes along, who is is somebody being hired to monitor what's going to be happening with the soil and and the testing this required in their actual specific things being required in the consulting report. Excuse me. Yes. So we will have a materials management plan supervisor on site every day. That person will be hired by the city and county. And on top of that, we'll have city staff out there on a frequent basis. I plan to walk the site myself at least once a week. How often? When the soil be tested. So. There's two answers to that. So we'll both test the soil prior to the to the soil disturbing activities. That's what we're doing right now as we acquire the properties. If through that process, the soil is considered to be below EPA action levels, then we'll test the soil every 500 cubic yards of material that's removed. 500 cubic yards is about 20 dump trucks, roughly? Mm hmm. Okay. And then if something is found, who has the authority to stop construction? The materials management plans supervisor has the authority to stop. So that's in the plan that will will begin. Will council be getting a copy of this plan to review three weeks? We generally don't provide a copy for review because it's a sort of a standard document that we do on all sorts of projects. But well, I'd request that we do get a copy of this plan, appreciate it. And also think that this plan needs to be posted for the public to see. This is a very important document, so I think it needs to have some public comment. We'll get it posted to the website as soon as we have it finalized. And I don't I'm still uncomfortable with how can we proceed with this ordinance tonight without some kind of assurance that that management materials management plan is actually in place is going to be in place? I have seen nothing in the documents we have here that even mention this materials management plan. We're just going to take your word for it. Is this there? Right. Yes, sir. Councilman Nu. I mean, it's clearly in the in the requirements of the project. So it is a requirement of the contract that both SEMA creates, the materials management plan that they it's part of their contract. They have to produce that. It's a technical requirement of their contract. Again, the RFP is a reference documents and maybe review in the contract. It's a little bit layered in the back of the contract, if you will. And then also the city is doing a materials management plan as well for this particular project. So there'll be one that will be citywide materials management for these scopes of work, and they'll also be responsibilities of the contractor. And they do it is an approval document of the contract that the city has to approve the same materials management plan. What what hardship would it cause if we delayed this for two months until we got the materials management plan developed and written and approved and looked at and and then we pass on this SEMA contract. What typically the materials management plan is like a health and safety plan and it's a public information plan and it's a project management plan. All these plans and a design build type of delivery method are typically produced by the engineer of record design builder who is hired. So a lot of these plans are produced as part of the design phase of the contract. So that's that's where. I think we're going round and around. What car shape would it cause if we delay this contract tonight for two months until we got this plan written and. The main thing would be cost because we have a current price and contractual schedule from our SEMA design build team. So if we continue to delay the contract and so potential solutions could go up. Let me get our attorney in on this one, because I don't I don't think as we read it in, council secretary just said that if we delay, we'll be past the 30 day shot clock. Correct. Kirsten Crawford Legislative Council. You know what? Let me let me look. We can't until you pass the 30 days, Kelly. Missiles. Do you know if we. My understanding. Okay. Otherwise, it passes. But what is the 30 day date? The date is January 8th next week. Okay. Yeah. So we would be past the 30 day delay next week? Yeah. I think you're on the right line of questioning, though. And can I just can you provide the wording in the contract that you're talking about? Because we we can access it. And I think I think what Councilman New is saying is I'm voting on something tonight and I'm taking your word for it. But I don't have I don't have clarity in front of me. Yes, sir. We can't provide it. And it is in the again, in the RFP, which is a public document. So it is available and has been the RFP. So but we can absolutely provide it. You have a you have a signed document from CMA that they can apply to this plan. Well, the contract that they've signed, is there is there a compliance with it? Yes. Two copies of all. I'm sorry. Give us copies of that. Thank you. Councilman and I just had one more question before I jump to Councilman Flynn. I asked if you can come back. What's your name? I'm sorry. Andrew. Andrew. You're new, so I just. Sorry about that. I've been working with Celia Vandersloot, and she is. She is now a consultant. Okay, so quick question, the boring question again along 39th. So you mentioned 71 and but you also mentioned every five cubic feet. You will be doing testing. Sorry, every 500 cubic feet. This is when we're moving soil. So we're gonna bring soil. Got it tested as we go along. You know, some of the some of the fear, as I'm looking at the map here in coal, which I'm very familiar with, is that some of these, you know. Between Franklin. And. And see, man. I. Hi. Thank you. Between Franklin and High is where we have the most residential properties, where we've. We've not dug up this kind of soil near residential properties. So I'm really concerned about those. How many borings have we tested in those streets? So, again, we're we're still acquiring the properties. Yeah. And as of today. As of today, as of today, I think we've done about seven. But we're we're actually doing trenches because we've learned that we find we get better information out of a trench. So four of those seven, how many are contaminated? We don't have any of the data back yet. We did find building debris and quite a few of them. So when Janet Feder was talking about old houses on on Gilpin Street. That's correct. There was houses there at one point in time. The common construction technique back in the day when you removed a house was to collapse it into the basement or the crawl space. When you have. The contamination record back. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks. Okay. Labs are kind of slow right now with all the construction going on in Denver. Okay. Councilman Flynn. Thank you, Mr. President. I don't know who in the team might want to take these questions. Jason or Steve or Jen, have we potholed 39th Avenue? What have we found, Andrew? What have we found? Yes, those. Those 71 samples are right. And what do you know? But what have we found? Well, we found lead, arsenic and poly aromatic hydrocarbons. In what quantities? So arsenic is ubiquitous in the environment in Denver. So pretty much every sample has arsenic. None of them were above the EPA action level, except for one. I believe I'd have to check my notes. But the vast majority of them were below EPA action levels. Same with lead. We we found lead in a few places, but only had it above those action levels in a couple of places. And then the aromatic hydrocarbons, which was which is a byproduct of combustion. We found that throughout the the site, which is typical in Denver because people used to burn trash in their backyards. So we find that sort of everywhere we look. Do you would you find if you went to if you went to Eastman Avenue in southeast Denver and Councilwoman Black's district, just let me pick on her for a second. If you potholed Eastman Avenue, would you find arsenic? Most likely, yes. There's arsenic in native soils, uncontaminated soils. And. Okay, I've heard that before, Jen, maybe you're the best person to answer this, but if you're not, dish it off. What are just broadly speaking, what measures? What measures are in place in this contract and in our practices to ensure the safety of the neighborhoods? What steps will we follow to ensure the safety? I've heard about the eight foot fence. I've heard about dust control, etc.. Can you outline if there are any more? What do we. Need to do? There are several and steve as the contract admin would probably be best. For. Me out here, Steve. But you know, to start off is you have a lot of permits someplace, right? So they have to maintain and achieve all those permits and there are requirements within the contract such as this MMP. And they also have the noise and dust, fencing, erosion control. So the list of regulations that we have that they must meet is fairly long. And Steve, maybe you can I'm. Sure that's very accurate. Jan, there's a multiple of requirements that is required by the SEMA team per the contract. So there's air quality plans, fugitive dust plans, depending on the scope. First and foremost, I'd like to say that they have to comply with all codes, regulatory requirements and laws. But in addition to that, we require them to submit various plans for all these types of environmental concerns. And each one of those plans are approval documents. For the city to approve. Before they become part of the contract. The deliverable is currently part of the contract. The finalized plan will be as part of the design phase evolves to turn that into a final deliverable. So air quality dust, all kinds of environmental plans. Again, things dealing with endangered species. Where there's. Raptors or prairie dogs and all those types of things are all covered in the environmental requirements. Section five of the RFP that I was speaking of earlier has a complete list of all the different deliverables just from the environmental standpoint that is required. By the contract. Just for the record, there's no prairie dogs out there either. I hope not really. Okay. Yeah. We saved a prairie dog colony when I worked at RTD. So it's a quite it takes a lot of work, quite an ordeal. Those plans are a little thicker than you might think. Yes. And they're very tasty at the gym. Maybe you could explain, because we've heard a lot about global landing outfall and how the testing beforehand showed one thing. But then we took out a lot more. And Jason, actually, you were talking today earlier about what that actually represented, so maybe you could explain that or Andrew. He's the expert. So glows a little bit. Interesting story. So we did do a lot of environmental testing before the excavation started. Most of that was done with boring. And what we've learned through that is boring. We don't get good information on asbestos in soils and that's why we're doing the trenching instead of borings along 39th Avenue. So in Globeville landing as the excavation went along, we uncovered a lot more asbestos in soils than we expected. We made the decision to treat all of the excavation as contaminated with asbestos, which we've done in other projects in the city. So the numbers look like there's a lot of asbestos, but it's the numbers are a little bit elevated because we decided to treat it all as asbestos contaminated. So you're saying that any soil you took out of global landing outfall was treated as though it had asbestos? Whether you verified that or not, did you not bother it? We did verify it. We did okay. Yes. Okay. And so you're doing trenching at 39th rather than pothole ing? Yes. For on the new properties that the city is acquiring so that we get better information on asbestos as we go along. Have you done any of that yet or is that part of this contract? We don't have any of that data back yet. We did find building materials in some of the lots that the city has acquired our experiences. When you find building material, it's you know, it's about 5050, whether there's asbestos there or not. So we'll get that analytical data back in the next few weeks and let folks know as soon as we get it. All right. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman Flynn. Councilwoman Black, I'm going to pop to Councilwoman Kimmich to enter into this discourse between councilman knew in his line of questioning. Councilman Cohen Yeah, I'm not quite sure why no one from the team has a copy of the contract and found these pages, but I went through to try to find them. So here are the references for your question, Councilman, to the first reference incorporating the RFP requirements is on page five. Then if you go to Exhibit A, it once again requires the contractor to follow all of the technical specifications from the RFP. The third reference is exhibit one, and that's actually where the proposer signs a document that says they will comply with everything that was in the RFP as well as within their RFP response. So that's exhibit one and then Exhibit J makes a similar reference. And then there's a special. Anthrax conditions. And if you go to the it's towards the end and in that section, it's all the there's no page numbers in our system. So I can't give you the PDF page number, but in the special contract provisions, it has specific paragraphs about regulations related to hazardous materials. So that's on page six, I believe, of that particular attachment. And it talks about all the hazardous materials, including all the things we've been talking about, asbestos, petroleum, etc.. And so, so anyway, so. These are these are the documents. This is right in front of us. Yes. And again. I looked through it. Yes. Well, it's because they don't use the word materials management, but it is just when you said it incorporates the RFP, but you can't provide us with a page reference or a section. It's very difficult. So going through and then finding where all of those requirements are actually in. So so there are six references that I've counted that incorporate the RFP. Plus there is this paragraph specifically about handling of hazardous waste and following all environmental regulations, including asbestos and all these chemicals. So so the contractor clearly has, in what I'm reading, signed all this. And if I'm getting any of this wrong again, this is your job, not mine. But this is what I found. If it's at all helpful, we do have the vice president, senior construction. Larry Walsh in the room. And if it's helpful, he can come up and also reinforce the fact that this is a contractual deliverable that he is required to produce. Is that helpful? I think I think we have got what you need. I think we got what we need. All right. Thank you, Mr. President. I'm going to go. Mr. President, I would like to hear it because the reference to the RFP is in the contract. Correct. But they are we don't have the RFP in front of us. So I would like to know that the RFP does require and I know that it does, but it would be nice if we had a link to it. Okay. It's reference and he signed it. But come on up here, Mr. Vice President. Sorry, Councilwoman Blackwell, your right to you. Well, thank you, President Brooks. Everything you heard from staff tonight is true. This will be our third design build contract with the city and county of Denver. We did your first to the Central Park Boulevard Project and I-70 and the Peoria Crossing Project. They were both design build. They both had material management plans that we will submit for approval. And yes, everything that was cited that is in the RFP and referenced in the contract we're accountable for. That's part of our contract. We understand that. You tell us your name. I'm Larry Walsh. Thank you. I'm with SEMA Construction. Okay. So you will be you will send us copies of the RFP, which that shows there shows there's a signed documents you've you've signed off on, right? Yes, we've signed the contract. We don't have an executed contract that is pending City Council's approval. You signed the RFP? Yes. What? We signed the contract for issued the RFP. And that's how we prepared our proposal and what it's based on. Yeah, it was. The city should have that. Yes, but but there is. Yes, absolutely. We will look at that. And it's referenced in all the the work that Councilman Kenny did. Thank you. To recite those references. We can highlight where the sections are in section five now. You'll be helpful. We've since we can't see that so be nice to. Yes, thank you. Absolutely. We will send that your way. Thank you, Councilwoman Black. Sorry. Thank you. Most of my questions were answered, but I just had one. So I think the real issue for neighbors is they need some reassurance that it's going to be cleaned up properly and safely. So I just was thinking of other. CITES as a Denver native that I know are now developed that once were industrial, like Lowry, Air Force Base Stapleton, the South Platte River used to really be a terrible place, right, John and Brighton Boulevard. So it seems to me that you all probably have standard operating procedures and I know we now know about amps, but whatever kind of assurances you can give to the people who live near there that they are going to be safe. And I understand their concerns. I also have confidence in all of you and in SEMA, but I think that's what everyone is mostly concerned about. Yeah, no, I think is really good comment and we've heard it through our process. And so, you know, safety to our community is the number one priority. We're going to do everything we can to ensure that they are safe. We've showed how we've gone over and beyond in our contract language to to make sure that that's the case. And every detail that we have, we're going to be transparent. We're going to share it. It's not our standard practice to do that, and we understand the concerns and we're willing to do that. So, I mean, I hope that's enough to just say it is our priority. We will do everything we can to ensure safety. And as you mentioned, we have lots of experience. We we work in an urban environment every day. We have a lot of experience and public works working on things like this as is not anything new. The fuel tanks you learned about the the landfills, arsenic lead, these are all things we run into on every one of our projects. So we're confident that we'll be all handle in a safe way. I don't know if you have other things. I'd just like to add that the Globeville Landing Outfall Project, we've had air monitoring the entire time and not had a single detection of contaminants from the site. And so we feel we can do this project similarly without having any air deposition or anything that's going to cause harm to the residency. If we felt that we were going to cause harm to the residents, we wouldn't be doing this project. How often are you at Globeville? For air monitoring you yourself. I'm not there very often, to tell you the truth. This project will be different. I'll be out there quite a bit. Okay. Councilman Espinosa. What is the LED action level that you're using in the soils? We're using the the EPA, Vasquez Boulevard, a 70 Superfund site number, which is 400 milligrams per kg. So. In the soils. The summary that we got mentions borings. But you said that you did pothole. So is it pothole or is boring? Well, we use those terms interchangeably. So they were borings done in the right of way. So to me, a boring involves a, you know, a soil sample a drill that you. Know, they were done that group that way. So not partly correct. He's just really literally digging up some dirt. Yes. They were done with a physical, boring machine, a drill. Okay. At what depths were the soils taken, the samples taken from? I'd have to check to be accurate because we did two rounds and they were done differently. But we were trying to characterize sort of the top 12 inches and then below 12 inches. So I don't have the exact numbers. Right. I just I get frustrated when we ask for soil samples and we get a summary that just says we took 70 borings and we found two hot spots. And that I much would rather just you hear, give me give me the executive summary. But also I'm sure you get that too. Because that sort of matters because at 400 a 400 is is, is, is, you know, you couldn't use that soil to put on top of the lid that we're going to build. You couldn't stockpile 400, microgram soil, stockpile it, and then put it on the lid. That is going to be the playground for the elementary school. That is that is an action level. Correct. Is it not? Yes, that's correct. So and then this. Area. It gets keeps getting marketed as a park sort of space. Is that play area or not? So those soils that have elevated lead will be removed and taken to a landfill and replaced with clean fill. But so what happens with the soils that don't have elevated lead? And are we talking what is elevated lead story? This is sort of the problem with not having an MP and sort of moving forward without knowing what it is that we're dealing with and how we're going to deal with it is and which is why I actually don't see any problem with saying, let's kill this thing and wait two months while you guys wrap it up, at least an MP, because now I'm confused that we have to amend piece, you know, one that the city is doing and we're going to somehow manage and one that the contractor is going to do and they're going to manage. You know. So I will ask more questions on that. Sure. What is what is the real danger to our community and constituents with with completing your testing, completing your MP before proceeding with a contract? So what is the danger in doing that to. Continue what we're doing right now? There's no danger from my perspective. I didn't think so. So it now comes down to just dollars, right? Is that the concern from public works that it's going to cost more money or might cost more money? We've got the SEMA guy here. How much more can it cost for you guys to wait two months? You'd be surprised, though, those delays do add up. And it's also a risk that he's going. To eat a whole bunch of unknowns. But a risk on our contract, right. Delays in those costs. And really, this is just the standard way that we do business. We do an maybe we will make sure that that's in place before we move any dirt. And MMP is a process that's not going to give you the levels of the lead. And an arsenic is what we do is the process in place. It's very a standard document that comes along with any project. I'm talking about the sort of standard operating procedure of, of, of, of, of. So one of my problems in prior government work that I had done was the lack of due diligence on things that we could know before we entered into any agreement, not saying that we couldn't mitigate anything that we found because we certainly have enough resources and technology and skills to do that. But we could know the problem in the right away and land and we're acquiring and all this thing we could be testing, testing, testing and come up with a full report and say this is to the best of our knowledge, the totality of what we might find. And even this tells us, I mean, has huge question marks on it because we never truly know what we find until we find until we start digging. And what you're simply saying is, well, we're we're just comfortable starting that now, even though we have people that live in immediate proximity to this operation going, we want to know more. So what is the real danger if it's just simply some some dollars to simmer for us doing that extra due diligence and getting people, you know, familiar with this is the level of of of of of lead we have in the soil. Arsenic is is consistent with other samplings that we've taken at other projects that we've completed with no health hazards or what. You know, in doing that. You know, I think it's a great concern. We want to do as much due diligence as we can to minimize our risk as an owner. I think an Andrew can come up here, but I think he would agree that we feel like we have done the due diligence that we need to understand what the risk is and we will continue as we acquire these properties. So we've done everything we can. We've made Swiss cheese of our right away those 71 warnings. Now as we obtain and acquire additional. Say that when the samples haven't even been. Know we. Have we've gotten results on a right away. What he was mentioning is we don't have the results from the private property. Right. So that's what will be coming in in a week's time. Right. So we'll continue to get better and better data. But again, it's just our this is the normal process. And in our normal procedures of when an MP comes into place, you need to move in and understand your procedures a little bit better and move in. What I'm trying to articulate to you isn't, is I get it that that's your normal procedure, but it's not every day. Well, it is sort of every day that we go into sort of toxic, hazardous conditions. But it is not every day that we go in at this magnitude, this scale. And and what is the real danger in fully completing our takedown of land, doing all the, you know, testing that we would normally want to do to sort of ascertain the scope, the level of the best of you know, I know that you're comfortable because that's what you do for a living. But what about the layperson that is like, hey, you're digging up, you're kicking up dust. Some guys are going to go maybe have a hose on it, might be working on a weekend and might not have a hose on it, might be doing it on a holiday. What should I be concerned about and when? Who am I going to report to and why? You know, what in what should I do with my kids during this period of time, you know, is because I can tell you that 400 micrograms of lead is an action level in a play area. And even though it's the limit for the rest of the soil is three times that amount, somewhere between 412 hundred is a lot of lead to be kicking around. And so that's what doing all this testing, knowing the totality of where it's at. Getting it into the cities MP would be beneficial to the public and I don't see what the danger is in that. If it's dollars, I mean we're talking about health and environment and health concerns and stress. So. All right. So if I may, I just wanted to chime in because it is every day that the city does projects in contaminated areas. Carl in Madison Rec Center, which is opening this week, we acquired a gas station. We found a leaking underground storage tank as part of that acquisition. We manage that contamination as part of the Project Lavillenie outfall. We're doing a massive excavation through a Superfund site, through landfill material. This is what Public Works does. Yeah, I'm going to. Tell you the problem with that charge ahead attitude, which is, what, just a few months ago. Questions. Questions. All right. Well, okay. How much did the Shoemaker Plaza was it supposed to cost initially? I think the original budget was around $4 million. It was only 1 to $2 million, actually. Okay. I mean. All right. So how much. Did it vary from the Budget Office? I think the amount was somewhere north of 3. Million on topic, though. Close to 4 million. Well. Well, she's the one that brought up this everyday problem. And here's what we need to fundamentally understand about that. Go at it, go rogue and hope for the best. And we have unlimited funds to do what it is that we're setting out to do because we don't. How much does Shoemaker Plaza end up costing it? It ended up costing close to it, I think was an additional $4 million because of the culture we found. Exactly. That is something we could have tested for. That is something we could have set up a drill rig on top of that plasma that existed there that day and drilled down and found coal tar and got off. I don't know that we have enough money to do this right now because there's a contamination problem. Let's find out the extent of this. Is it everywhere underneath here? Well, first of all, we did test and you didn't find it in the Shoemaker Plaza project. But as is often the case, when you're dealing with old industrial areas or non homogenous areas like low sampling gives you an idea, but it's never going to give you the full picture. But again, sampling is one of the ways we mitigate risk. We also have contingency to address environmental concerns and environmental risks that are not anticipated at the time that we do the testing and develop the plans. But now we're holding contingency. As a city council and approving these things and fiduciary oversight and whatnot. The when we do that and we allow you to sort of take your best guess and march on things that we could actually learn. Just because we want to save a few million dollars and it is costing us more millions of dollars that comes from other projects that we're trying to get funded. And that doesn't help our case when we continue to go down that road, which is, well, our standard operating procedures sort of act with some degree of blindness, and we know that we're blind. You know, when all I'm saying is, what's two more months waiting for these soils tests in developing a better picture? Even with those additional soil tests, we will not have perfect knowledge of what we're going to find when we go out there. We're never going to have perfect knowledge until you actually do the excavation. But we think we have enough information at this point to move forward with a contract. We have budget to deal with the environmental issues that we're anticipating and we have contingency to deal with those conditions that we haven't yet discovered in the event that we run into. Okay. So then that's the difference between where you are as an attorney and where I am as a counselor, because I don't feel like I have enough information. And I think Wayne clearly doesn't even know me. He hasn't seen the map that because it's attached to some I mean, that requirement is attached to an RFP that was issued only to the contractors and never shared with counsel. Well, and it is on your website. We just sent a link to everybody and so it has been on the website and now you have a link that will direct you exactly there. Councilman, can I go to Cashman and you can come back. Okay. You still got some more questions? No, I will look for that. Okay. Councilman Cashman. Thank you, Mr. President. Andrew Please remember, his name is new to me. I remember. His name. Andrew So it is 71 borings. I think you got results from half of those. Is that about right? I know we have results from all those, but it was added to the boards. So no, we have data from all 71 samples. What's the data you said you're waiting for? That's that's information or data that we collected on private parcels that the city has acquired since November 2017. And those are coming up in the near future. You said. Yes. So we started those as soon as the we acquired those in late November. And generally speaking, it takes about six weeks to get analytical results back. And with the holiday and. About, how many borings, approximately, are we waiting for? I believe it's around seven trenches that we did. The trenches is a little bit bigger than a boring. I understand. And so I'm sorry. I just sure if I can add to the question. So we've begun to explore private properties, correct, that we're acquiring. How much more of that are we looking at? Another ten bore trenches, another hundred trenches as we go down the corridor? Where about are we at? So we will do trenches on every parcel we acquire and. And it's about 30, approximately 30 parcels total. And so we're just at the very beginning stages. Okay. Thank you. That's all, Mr. President. Thank you. Councilman Castro. Councilman Ortega. Thank you, Mr. President. So we all received the pinion report information today. So this tells us exactly where certain properties were tested. And these were these were public properties, correct? Yes. Those were properties that were owned by the city and county in 2016. Okay. And who is it that is doing the materials management plan? Is that being done by SEMA? Is that a separate contract? Are we environmental health doing that? So it gets a little confusing because there's two different elements in this. One, the one that was referenced earlier that we just got it today will see the. That. Be released in three weeks. Yes, that is one that we had Pinon as our contractor. Right, for us. And so it will actually be Department of Public Health and Environment document and that will be for the environmental work that will happen before SEMA comes in to do the excavation. Okay. So just to be clear, though. The. The borings that were done that were part of this report is is what the materials management plan is based off of knowing what contaminants we've found in the soil, sort of generally where we've found them. We know we need to do more borings on the private property that we're acquiring because we haven't had access to that, correct? That's correct. But we also did sort of desktop evaluations of the private properties so that we have ideas where there's potentially building debris, potentially underground storage tanks. So those are things that we we think we know from looking at old maps are important. So based on that data, that helps you determine where on the properties to do those borings. Correct? Okay. And typically, how many borings on each property would I assume that that's based on how much land each parcel entails? Yeah, it depends upon that. Tabletop exercise of. Looking at older documents in older, older city documents of what was the land use, you know, going back to the founding of the city. So if if we think that there's only one house, it might have been on a parcel and it's now gone. We might just do one trench. But if we think that there was multiple things going on that property, we might do multiple trenches. So just to kind of put this into perspective, Andrew, the work that's been happening on GLOW and that's what this this document is all about. Because of what was on that site. Is it safe to say that we knew that? Well, first of all, it was a it's an EPA operable unit. So the minute you get in there and start tinkering around with the soils, it it throws you into that EPA oversight, which is different from the 39th Avenue Channel because we're talking about. Parcels that were not residential unless they were some of those where property owners chose not to have work done on them. But so is it safe to say that? That site was far more contaminated. Not to discount the concerns that community folks have raised along the 39th Avenue Channel, but having it been a former operating lead smelter and a landfill that we anticipated finding a lot more nasty stuff in those soils than we think we might over here. I was definitely in the big difference is the landfill. So we knew that we'd be opening up the landfill global and we just didn't know what we'd find. When you open up a landfill, you never know what you're going to find, even no matter how many borings you do prior to that. So. Have we encountered any methane at all? Surprisingly, no. So methane has not been a problem at global landing. Okay. So just the last thing. The federal law, the Resource Conservation Recovery Act really is what ensures that we have some of these various procedures in our contracts to ensure that we're not just making the contractor follow what we tell them, but it's what the feds mandate that we do under and to recruit. Correct? Correct. Okay. And the materials management plan is really a reflection of environmental law and regulations. So all of that is built into the MMP. Okay. Thank you. I have no further questions. Thank you. Councilwoman Ortega, I'm going to ask a question. To my engineer fled. What, Bruce? Yes. In the back. Thank you, sir. So. So. I have a question for you around. You know, we're talking about this issue came up to me in 2018 when the EPA came and said that we had hundreds of homes who they hadn't tested yet. And so the fear came up to me is what's happening on our current environment when flooding occurs in the dirt like. Can some of these arson addicts lead and issues get you know on a flood traveled through our neighborhood in our houses with our kids. How at risk are we in this neighborhood of coal? Council President Honestly, I'm not the right person to answer that question. I deal with the stormwater that kind of can't get into the pipes and runs on the streets and gets pretty deep and goes in across spaces. So I have. To defer. To the EPA and the people on. That. Okay. Can anybody answer that question? My question is, are we at risk? I had this question come from a community member of if nothing is dug up, are we at risk anyway in our own yards and things like that, especially during in May when it's it's the rainy season and it's flooding and things like that? Well, there's always a potential that there could be a problem if there was enough rainfall to wash that dirt into a receiving water and go on downstream. But you have to have an exposure for for there to be a problem in your body. So you have to. Drink that water, which I wouldn't advise him really to be drinking out of the gutters. So, you know, as long as it's, you know, normal processes, it is going to end up in the South Platte and go downstream. But that's going to take a really extreme storm event for that to happen. Okay. And then quick question before I go to Councilman Espinosa and then you can probably answer this. The number of you know, I did get a chance to talk to some of the folks who were a part of the the group that you had of of neighbors, what you call group design work group. How many times did you guys meet? In the past we met. You know, it really was topic driven, but it was basically about every three months. Okay. And how many times monthly? You know, as information came in, if we had that amount of information. But consistently we met about every three months. How many people were in the design work group? It varied. I think what we have on our list is about 17 people and that would vary in attendance anywhere from, you know, seven to the full amount of people. And those were all folks who were in the impact zone, which I call right on 39th, between 39th and 38th, where they all folks who lived in. Right in that area or all around Cole. Yes. I mean, really, you also had R.A. President. We have the pride representative. So it was broader than just the residents. But there were probably, you know, Debra montoya and folks that you heard from tonight were on our design work group. So a lot of them were residents, right, between Franklin and High. Or was there anybody in the design work group? And I don't know, because I know a lot of folks have left because it's late at night. But who spoke in opposition? Do we know anybody from? No, not that. SAT on our design work group. He you know, and would come as a guest and he would speak. And so we had opportunity for that and they could listen. But that was actually on the design work group. So. Mr.. Romney. Okay. Uh. Councilman Espinosa. Yeah. So I followed the link. There are eight attachments there. There is not a single RFP. The closest we get is a reference in the contract exhibit I, the RFP response, which says incorporated herein by reference as amended and supplemented by exhibit, I mean a one sorry which is not attached. There's simply exhibit I, so I don't have a copy of the RFP. You never get them. Okay, well, we thought Angela said that she sent you a link. Did you click on the link that Angela has sent? And so I immediately had responded back to her and said that we what we are looking for is the RFP submitted to the company and issued to the contractors. She sent me a link to the. Hold on real quick. Councilman. Councilman knew that you. Did you see it? I looked through the same. I didn't see the RFP at all. I looked through every one of the documents to see, like a thousand pages, but I didn't see anything. The RFP. Yeah, we just. John McGrath City Attorney's Office. The RFP is a reference document that's incorporated. By reference. And is a part of, of the contract documents. And is binding on the. Contractor. So we can point you to the Met. To the exhibit or to the reference. The RFP is a lengthy document, including the technical. Specifications and technical. Requirements is. Probably over. 300 pages. So physically attaching it to the document that you see in front of you hasn't been done, but it's incorporated by reference in various places. In the contract. And unfortunately I didn't come with. A hard copy of the contract with me. But we're happy to get you the references to the various places. And this is not you didn't do anything wrong, trust me. You didn't do anything wrong. This is sort of normal, right? The RFP is something that gets issued very early in the process and the contract sort of as a result of that. But we're talking about about these hazardous materials and how we're going to treat them. And to Wayne's point, when it brought up this question and then we ended up in this cross talk where it sort of revolved, you know, it also has its genesis in the RFP. And all I'm saying is, at this point in time, we do not have that and we didn't have that. And so we wouldn't have been able to even connect that, Don, until this very conversation, which is, again, why I'm sitting here sort of going, well, what is the danger in us taking a little more time and trying to understand? Because now we now we learn that there is not one but two management plans in place, one that is going to be managed in within the contractors purview, and one that is going to be in the city's purview. And and I don't understand that division of work, to be honest. And so there's there's a lot there that is and that is the crux of the concern that we've heard is about hazardous materials and the impacts that it has. And so what it's done is it's raised more questions and it's answered for for for somebody like myself. And so I'm looking for the source documents and the follow up sort of drafts. If we don't have the one we have today, at least a sort of example of what we might do on a similar project, maybe the gold landing for an example, to sort of see how we merge these two overlapping seemingly management requirement. I mean, management plans, you know, well, I think as has been described. This is a design build project. That's the delivery. Method we've chosen. And in a. Design build project, it's really an evolving process. You you start from where we are today and we're at a limited level of design right now. And I think, as Jessica mentioned, that as the process evolves, you get more and more information and then you act on that information. So material management plans will evolve as more information is revealed. During the course of the of the project, of the project. And so what we have in the. Contract is the requirements. The requirement is for the contractor to deliver a material management plan. The city then has the right to review it and approve it. And it's a again, it's an evolving. Give and take process, so to say, well, let's wait until we get two weeks or two months or some number of days further. We won't get any further in design during that period of time or we. Won't get any further with our. Onsite work. And so we'll be pretty much in the same place two months from now as we are today, because that information. Will not. Be evolving and we will not be learning more about what it is. We need to deal with. We know a certain level. We have done due diligence that tells us what's on our radar. And then as the process evolves, both. In design and on site, work. Will continue to. Fine tune that. So maybe my confusion is actually maybe it's the wrong term. Maybe it's the fact that we've been sort of treating this as to my piece is the way it was discussed. So what is based on what you were just saying, I get a different understanding, which is as we take down land, we are performing , sampling and testing and providing environmental reports that the contractor is then required to do the management plan. We're and then we will review it. We don't actually have or we don't produce our own. Well, in this case, on the land that we take down, we are doing our own analysis. And that will be. As a city, responsibility. For those. Properties. Then as the project evolves and we're disturbing soils. There'll be a. Contractor generated materials management plan that we will then review, approve. And administer. Through separate testing or through. And you doing your further testing. Okay. Thank you. Real quick if if it's helpful councilman new in Espinosa that mishap. Haynes did email the technical requirements to all you guys and it's about 200 pages and on page 45 is the beginning of section number 5.0 of an environmental and on page 52 shows a deliverable in the Contract for Materials Management Plan as well as the other environmental deliverables required per the contract. And one of the things that that may help to clarify just a little bit in typical business that we do a lot of design bid build right in typically the materials management plan is a function of the design . Under the design build. We can't do those types of plans until we've hired the engineer of record and that's who Sema now is. So as they develop the design under the design build delivery method, the materials management plans and all the things you typically would. See in a design bid build will be produced. And approved by the city as part of the design phase. Thank you, Councilman Flynn. Thank you. I think that got to some of my questions. Just some some simple. Yes. In those materials management plan is not a document that tells us what's in the ground. It tells us how we're going to handle what we find in the ground. Correct? Right. Yes or no? That's that's correct. Thank you. So Sema can't develop the map until it has a contract, is that correct? Yes, Mr. Walsh. And not going to do that for free? I suppose that is correct. That's okay. That's an unusual concept. People didn't wanting to be paid for their work. So so the map will be developed by SEMA after they have the contract and there will be a plan review by the city and they won't move a shovel full of dirt until you approve that. Is that correct? That is 100% correct, sir. All right. Thank you. Councilman Ortega. Okay not to beat this dead horse. So we also have our own material management plan that's been done. My opinion, based on the borings that we've had them do for us on the properties that we've already tested and we're starting to do that on properties were acquiring, which is per the contract that we just approved, right? Correct. And so that that's our own guide for what we know is in the soils. Our management plan tells us how we believe they should be handled and then the contractor will go do that as well. And hopefully they're not going in the same boreholes. They're looking at other locations on the on the parcels that they're going to be doing, any of the sampling? Correct. So the MLP that we're developing will be for any remediation work that we do prior to SEMA taking over a property. So if we find something. We're doing that cleanup. We'll do the cleanup under the under the city's MMP. Okay. So where is that covered in the costs? If we're doing that clean up initially. I mean, I, I just assume that was part of the work the contractor would be doing. Yeah. So within the contract we just have what, what's already been in the RFP documents and that's what SEMA has agreed to as part of the RFP. We do have an environmental bucket where we will budget a bucket budget, a budget where that additional cleanup will come out of. So we do have some things set aside outside of seeing this contract for that cleanup for those private properties. So just to be clear, getting back to the big picture budget, do we have a contingency in each of the budgets and then an overall contingency left in the total? We do. Okay. So the way we developed all the projects is every project has its own contingency. So City Park Golf Course has one below 39th Avenue and Park Hill all have their own contingencies. And then we have an overall what we're calling a program contingency. So the program contingency is kind of for those unknown unknowns, and we would expand our project contingency before we would go into that program contingency. Okay. And not to convoluted this, but we have a separate budgetary appropriation that will come to us next week to committee. Right. That will come out of wastewater that will actually cover these costs. So this is the contract with the contractor, but we will be seeing a separate bill come to council that will transfer monies from wastewater into the project that will cover part of these costs. So there will be a another action that we'll ask you to take for issuance of bond money. Right. So as part of the rate increase, there was a bond issuance in 2016. Right. And that was for about 130 million and more is coming up. So I don't say around numbers. And then this will be for the additional amount to get us up to the 206, which made the 206 for the bond part of the 298. Okay. I just thought it was important to mention that. So it doesn't come as a surprise to you when that part of this project moves forward. So, Laura, is there anything else you wanted to add? I just want to clarify. There were two actions that was introduced by the floor Perry Capital Program Manager in the Department of Finance. When we brought for the rate increase to City Council in July of 2016, as part of that six year program, there were two revenue bond issuances that were attributed to the Part two Park Hill project. 115 million were fully. Brought forward to council late last year. The second issuance is planned for to come forward to council in the next couple of weeks, and that is planned to be $77 million. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. All right. Thank you. Just want to take. It tells me. Cashman. No. Okay. I think we finished our questions. See no other questions. 1395 hearing. 439 five is not close. Comments by members of Council. I'll go first. This being District nine in my neighborhood and in a long, long, long conversation with the community and the city. So in Denver. Correct. 2015 or 2016? 2015. January. I'll never forget it. We're in Jake's and there are over a hundred neighbors in there because they're being told that many homes are going to be taken out because of a drainage project. And, you know, and Jennifer and I and the team have gone over this that downtime is probably one of the worst starts to a process that I've seen when folks who were super supportive of what the city had done prior to were all of a sudden skeptical, did not believe, did not believe in the process and all of those things. I will say that the process really improved and it really improved. Getting that group together, that was around the 39th Avenue Channel. The steering committee is what I really call them, 17 members that you heard here. And I think that really was really helpful for the community to really walk with the city to see what was going on around this project. This is this has been a tough one because for whatever it whatever reason at the city, we can never get our process right. We struggle with our outreach. But here I would say that we improved our outreach of the 17 members of the committee. One my neighbor here, Mr. Eddie Armijo, is in opposition and a lot of those neighbors live right there on 39th. And you heard from one of them earlier tonight. Let me let me tell you something. In 2013. And people have always asked me in the community, you know, we feel like this is tied to I-70. We feel like there are all these other issues going on. Why can you why do you see yourself supportive of this? How do you support a drainage project like this? 20 1300 year flood in Boulder. I don't know if you guys remember that 100 year storm, if that same storm would have happened, not just in my neighborhood, Councilwoman Ortega, but in the Mark Moncler Basin, which has proven to be the worst basin in the city of Denver before I-70 was an issue. Everything else that was the worst basin. You know why? Because everybody was calling me and emailed me in 2011 to fix that. Way before. CityLab. I don't know if many people have heard CityLab. With our recent climate change issues going on globally, CityLab just came out with two articles. And CityLab is for folks who are urbanist and folks who are city dwellers to think about best practices across the country. CityLab came out with an article saying. If cities do not start investing in drainage now, they will pay for it in the future. They came up with another article after everything that happened in Houston, after everything that happened in and in Florida, saying that make the proper investments now. This is this is best practices. This is why I am supportive of this project. I'm not supportive of bad processes. I'm not supportive of individuals in my community not having a clear understanding about contaminants. And we must get much better at that. You guys, this description that I've heard tonight has been a good description. But for whatever reason, there are people in my community who do not feel like it's transparent. They do not feel like they have a good understanding of it. And so we've got to improve our process. And that's why you have folks sitting here in opposition. Some of the major issues that I needed to solve tonight for me to be in favor was I've heard from three individuals in my community that we only had testing of three borings. And I think you made that very clear. We had over 71 testing and two contaminants. And so that was incredibly important. Another another important factor for me was that entire steering committee that was around the 39th Avenue Channel. And the specific comments that they made to me of saying why they were supportive when they weren't supportive originally and what got them there. So tonight, you know, I'm going to be supporting this this whole and Councilwoman Ortega said we have to look at the entire the macro program of all of this, the macro of the plans of Parkview for folks in my district. 3500 households have greater flood protection than they would have if we did not do this. 3500 households. So. For folks to understand my reasoning. That's it. At the end of the day. You know, Councilman Espinosa said, how are you going to look back three years from now for for him? He wanted to look back three years from now, three years from now, if anything happened. And I can't look at those constituents and say I voted no because I was scared. That this wasn't the right move. 3500 households. You don't have to be proud of me, I'm telling you. I've looked at the data and that data I have in front of me today, I feel confident in that. And so that's why I'll be supporting. Yes. Counsel Mark Taylor. Thank you, Mr. President. So as I said earlier, you know, this project started looking at how we would address the problem in the neighborhood. And I actually advocated with Diane Barrett that we go to see that and say instead of spent spending the $40 million on I-70, let's address this problem in the cool neighborhood. That's what we started out addressing. It became a much bigger problem than that or project, I should say. So I am supportive of this tonight in working forward to address the problem. I only wish that when all of this came forward, we would have solved the problem for the Globeville neighborhood, because the Globeville neighborhood is still going to see flooding happen on the west side of the riverbank. And, you know, I challenged our our manager of public works at the time that we needed to include money in this budget to solve that problem concurrently with solving the problems that we're doing for this area. I also wish we would have been as focused and concerned about the health impacts to the Globeville, Swansea and neighborhoods with the I-70 project. That is also going to upset what we know are heavy metals in those soils because that's where all the Asarco contamination spread to. And as they were getting to the end of the cleanup in the Globeville neighborhood, part of the settlement was they had to keep testing beyond Globeville. They went to Elyria, they went to Swansea and they went into coal, went into Clayton. That's why this is now the Vasquez I-70 Superfund site. And again, many of those properties were cleaned up. I have a map right here showing which ones had which contaminants. We also know that arsenic was something that was found in neighborhoods all around the city and in the Globeville neighborhood. They used to have a yellow front store that sold fertilizer. That's one of the things that that has arsenic. And so there was argument back and forth between Asarco and CDB at the time as to whether or not that contamination came from yellow for it or whether it actually came from Asarco. And so, you know, that's kind of irrelevant to this conversation right now, but I think it's important to to know some of that history of how it was argued that we saw arsenic throughout these neighborhoods and then they compared these neighborhoods to neighborhoods across the city and found similar contaminants of arsenic. So I think this is a project that needs to happen in terms of solving the flooding problem for this area of the city. And I will be supporting this tonight. I also want to just say thank you to all of the city folks who have met with me on multiple occasions regarding this drainage issue, because I've had many questions and many concerns and just appreciate the time you all have taken to to sit down with me and answer my questions. Yes, Councilman Ortega, it's been a labor of love for the city team. Well done, Councilwoman and Councilman Cashman. I apologize. I don't even go there. Thank you, Mr. President. So I'll be thrilled when 3500 homes get get added flood protection. But I just don't believe in the staff knows this. I don't believe this program's cooked long enough. I truly don't it I don't believe we're worried about delaying for two months because of costs. Other than that, we've got to get this going again because we have an intergovernmental agreement that the previous council signed that has dates where we need to get this done so it doesn't hold up the I-70 project or we pay at least $5,000 a day. And this is this is part of that, with all deference to to this being stock show celebration night, this is not my first rodeo when it comes to Superfund style hazards. I have familiarity with agencies who are charged with protecting the public health but failed to carry out their charge. I cut my teeth environmentally. As a journalist covering the remediation remediation of hazardous waste created by decades of radium process at Shattuck Chemical Company on South Bannock Street, also known as operable unit number eight, and in that case, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment spent a few years telling the neighborhood , this is safe, we're not going to dig this garbage up and carted out of town. We're going to mix it with cement and bury it on site. And they did that. They created this huge monolith in the overland neighborhood until Senator Wayne Allard arranged for Senate hearings that were held at the Washington Park Community Center and John Collins Church. And evidence finally came up after years of looking out at city staff that was frustrated and wondering why the neighborhood neighbors kept complaining. And they dug it all up and they finally carted away in the case of the 39th Avenue Channel. There is no distance from from the homes to the project. That's. That's. A painful truth. And we're looking at the beginnings of getting the information that we need that would make me more comfortable supporting this. We've got part of the borings trenches done. We've got this materials management plan that's going to get done. And I understand that it's going to cook along with the project. It's a dynamic document, but I haven't seen it yet. And like I say, I mean, I've had good people, good, honest people think they had the right, right deal here. If I'm living next to that that channel, I'm not dealing with promises. I want all the information possible before I'm going to say that this is something that I'm going to declare safe. Because like I said, I've heard it before. I've heard it before. So I definitely am not going to support this tonight. And like I say it, it's moving too fast for the wrong reasons. Thank you, Mr. President. All right. Thank you. Councilman Castro comes to this one was first happy. And Angela, thank you for working to get this document. I love this RFP. This is this is all the data. I mean, all the information. I, I, I wish we were getting. I get why we don't, but don't be surprised if I ask for these in the future because it's all here. And I could have known it back in April of this year or last year. Actually, the the the so something I don't know that, you know, I sort of wish the whole room were still here. So something that I think staff may know or maybe may not, but I don't know that the general public knows is that of all of these two basic drainage projects, this is the only one that I actually genuinely love. I like this project. I don't like that. It's a it's a you know, it's a stormwater project for CDOT. I do like the project is a stormwater project for North Denver and East Denver and everything north of 39th Avenue. I do wish we were piping from. The city park. And more from Park Hill golf course over to this because it certainly has the capacity, given those ginormous conduits that we put over at Globeville. But then I don't like what we're doing to Globeville and the Platte River there, because I do think. But I mean, this is. This has got the potential to be a better version of our Lakewood Gulch. You know something? If it were if we were to take better advantage of the development opportunities along the north edge of this, something akin to Speer Boulevard, you know, the Cherry Creek thing. And so you're sort of accommodating multiple. You're creating a good public amenity. You're creating a, you know, a healthy environment. You're cleaning up toxins in the process. And you're you're. You're you're you're. Far exceeding any sort of stormwater needs that we had established in our 2014 master plan buy, buy, buy, buy huge amounts of acre feet. So if it were B and C, that wasn't part of this damn picture. This is the one project, the opportunity we should be taking and we should be funneling everything into this. And but we should also be doing it right. This is our AP lays out an acquisition timetable that goes all the way until mid mid next year or this year. So June of this year. And so to me, there's nothing. It's prudent. It's. Yeah, it's dollars. But hell, this. The market might change and Trump might do something stupid and everything. Like all the things that we do we love and hope and dream for are are, you know, something? The market is is vulnerable. It always has been and always will be. And it's our decisions that sort of help support good things and bad things. And and so what's tough is at a time when we have record high prices in construction and we just leveraged multiple hundreds of millions of dollars in the National Lessner Center and the FAA, the airport and the storm water thing, and now bonds. There's no shortage of work here. There's shortage of workers. There's no shortage of housing. There's a shortage of affordable housing. And this level of investment can be captured, whether it's now or six months from now. That's a job that Semur would be glad to take whenever Denver offers it. And if the only reason is, is again, you know, we have an IGA, we have a commitment and you know, you, the councilmen have a fiduciary responsibility to to rubber stamp this stuff, even with a bunch of unknowns. And that could be knowable and a bunch of information that we could provide the public, but we just don't have it yet is that's not my idea. I'm sorry. Yeah, I adopted it, but I you know, the people of Northwest Denver put me here. You guys timed it such that I didn't have a say in that idea. And and but I do now. And there is if see that's a real partner with us in is concerned about people the way we are they should be willing to amend that ACA if this is somehow a deal breaker because guess what, their own timetable, their own commitments to their parties have not been met. They're missing their deadlines. They're you know, their promises are not on the timetable that they've been throwing out. There might be for a whole host of reasons. Some of them we all know about because I'm going to talk about them right now. Because that's what it boils down to. If we learned anything from the city park decision, is that the lack there, the lack the decision or lack thereof? Because it really wasn't a decision. It was just a ceding of that responsibility to us. Is that the power and responsibility to look after the health and safety concerns of citizens and the environment of Denver lies here in the legislative branch. It's using our charter authority to exercise oversight over the executive branch. The judge basically said that. You know, it's like, you know, I see problems in what we're doing, what's being proposed here, but it's not the judicial job to do this. That's what you have a legislative body for. And that legislative body paved the way through that IGA. And that legislative body needs to sort of correct course. This is a good project. I like this project, don't get me wrong, but I don't like the way we we steamroll and force it down our public's throat. We've done it too many times to too much this recently. And even though this is probably the best of these projects, this is also the one that's going through the most toxic soil in the whole adventure. And it's the one that we can we're requiring all this land that we can know more about, what it is that we're about to undertake, and we can be more transparent and let people know. And make it make a clear case that there's nothing better for for North Denver, even though it does have this seed component. You know, in a perfect world, that sucker would go away and we'd have all this great development and opportunity. And this would dry up the boulevard for for redevelopment and it would be riverfront on steroids. Except for if we do that. I want tools. And I've been fighting them for over for two and a half years here. Tools to address displacement and gentrification. When you bring it, when you put that much opportunity in an area, people are going to get pushed. And that's no different, actually, with this amenity. To be honest with you, people like and who've been there for 60 years. You know, once they start, if you've been there for 60 years, he probably went from a sort of a a life of sort of expanding income to now a point in his life where he's probably on a fixed income. And when we do this sort of level of investment and we his property values continue to go through the roof and his fixed is a fixed income, but it means cost of living in life. Expenses. Expenses go up. That's who gets pushed out. We still don't have tools for that. But it's been stated time and time again that we care about the citizens. You know, it's going to be in the home plan. So I'm going in a whole bunch of areas. But these decision, these investments in infrastructure matter and we're we're blindly going into the dirt here and readily chalking up to the fact that, yeah, we know that there's millions of dollars worth of unknowns there, and that's okay. But that's millions of dollars that could be doing other things for this city. And why not look at this? Because I was just told three weeks ago. That. Yes, that that that that water that is being detained in City Park could actually be put into this 39th Avenue channel. And all the capacity that she needs is it would be maintained. That's a first it's the first time I was hearing that after being essentially acknowledged that that was not the case, that these two components were needed in order to preserve 100 year storm water mitigation for for the highway. So if that's the case, we just squandered another $100 million in in in that effort. And and that is money that could have been done for affordable housing by, you know, granted, this is a completely different thing. But it's an ask of our citizens for a long period of time. And so rather than helping people citywide, we're helping we're doing this one thing for what? So I'm rambling my point. I mean, it's just you can see that I'm frustrated because I want if we if plan support if this 39th Avenue channel is the only project to come forward. I would be working hard to try and make sure that the public was comfortable with what we were doing and making sure that it happened. And but but we're doing this. There's this the thing that, you know, everyone's going to laugh because I'm referencing Chairman Sekou that the thing about he and him talking about the trust issue is because of what happened on that sales job. You know, oh, these things have nothing to do with the highway when they had everything to do with the highway. Had nothing to do with the highway. Had everything to do with the IGA. The only reason we fast tracked those things versus this. You know, and so. So I'm just it's a message to everybody. It is our responsibility on council. We can't rely on people raising their voice, putting their own money and time into suing the city to try and get us to do the right thing when it's just a matter of us going, you know what? What is too much? What is what is going till June 30th when we have them almost the entirety of the soil testing done? We have a very good understanding of what's what's to come, what's wrong? The cost of borings. The cost of these tests are cheap. To get a better profile of what's there. But I can, you know, so it's just, you know, I. So, again, I don't I'm not opposing this because I don't like the project. I am opposing this because I don't think it has to happen right now today. I think it can happen in the first two quarters of this year and we would be better for it and the community would be better for it. And I think if we just started to acknowledge what it is that we're doing and why and we're more transparent and honest with people, they wouldn't they wouldn't feel like we were hiding something. You know, the reference to shell games. And so. Just trust. Trust people that they get it. They support and love this city the way you do. And yeah, there'll still be disagreement. Like, I'm a freaking counselor. I get it. You're not going to please everybody all the time. But I found that, you know, meeting them in a place where they need to be met and being honest with your responses goes a really long way and not trying to sort of obfuscate and obscure what the real motives are in certain situations. Yeah, or in all situations, actually. Thank you. Okay, Councilwoman Black. Thank you. I just wanted to say that I will be supporting this for three reasons. One. It's helping solve a drainage problem, too. It's cleaning up contaminated part of town. And three, it's creating an incredible 12 acre park, which is a huge amenity for the community. I've said it at every meeting. I regularly. Like run ride my. Bike on the Goldsmith Gulch trail, which is a drainage ditch that is I don't even know. How many. Miles it is. It goes all the way to Douglas County through beautiful parks in my district. The Harvard Gulch Trail, which is. In Councilman Cashman's district, but close to my house. I use it regularly. Beautiful opportunity to create a recreation space when we're solving a drainage issue. Also, the Highline Canal, which is not a drainage ditch, it's a different kind of ditch, but it was for a water conveyance and was turned into a recreational trail. And I'm telling you, that 12 acre park is going to be a great thing for that community. I think you can say in black and white New Year. Real quick. I guess I'm against this tonight because just the the situation, the way it was handled, you know, I got so little information today all at the last second, I had to find out what was going on. And then all of a sudden tonight, we get so much different information. And I don't know how serious how the public thinks that what you've said tonight helps them understand the situation. I don't think it does. I don't think a 200 page RFP is going to tell our citizens anything about what's going to go up. But those contaminated souls, I don't know what would seem is going to do to develop this this materials management plan that's going to help them. Is just seems to me is so different than the first ordinance that we did where, you know, I can understand that because city council will have another shot coming at it if something goes wrong here. We don't we approve this. And it's going to go ahead and and we'll hope for the best, especially when something is so sensitive. It's so much concern to our residents like this project compared to the the golf course project. I mean, it's just it's like night and day to me and to be treated so insensitively like this and and it to me, it's just sort of rude to the public. I just I just sort of agree with my colleagues about process. It's just it's not that I don't believe in storm drainage. I've voted for storm drains all the way along for the last two years, you know, but this is different to what way this was handled. And it's just sort of arrogant. And I just I just can't stand that kind of attitude that our city would have with our citizens. So all of I said, enough, and thank you, Mr. President. All right. Thank you, Councilman. I did want to say one other piece about green drainage that I'm excited that we're headed in that direction. And it's not just pipes that we're focusing on. In one of the city labs, they talked about drainage. They talked about learning from the Dutch. And I feel like in certain ways, we have especially with this with this project here, the other piece I want to say is I've had cancer and I have two kids who live two blocks away from this, and I'm very supportive of this project. Madam Secretary, roll call. Black eye. Clark Espinosa. No. Flynn, i. Herndon, i. Cashin. Can each new or. Ortega. I. Susman. I. Mr. President. I have three kids. I'm tired. I was going to ask you about that. My wife just reminded me very hard. Please close the. Voting. Announce the results at almost midnight. Eight days. Three days. Eight, eight, three nays. 1395 has passed. Thank you, everyone, for spending time. We stand adjourned.