A resolution approving a proposed Agreement between the City and County of Denver and La Raza Services, Inc., to provide jail to community transition services. Approves a one-year $550,000 contract with La Raza Services, Inc. through 3-31-19 to implement and operate the Transition from Jail-to-Community program to reduce recidivism through community collaboration, access to services, resources and supportive relationships for persons prior to release from detention or jail, and continued through reentry and transition into the community (SOCSV 2017-38562). The last regularly scheduled Council meeting within the 30-day review period is on 4-9-18. The Committee approved filing this resolution at its meeting on 3-7-18.
Okay. Okay. That answers my question. Thank you very much. Sure. Thanks. All right. All right. That takes care. 126 one 2728. Please bring up resolution 145, the La Raza Services Council. Woman Ortega. Thank you, Mr. President. Sorry, I don't mean to dominate the conversations tonight, but this is a contract that came before city council. I just want to explain why I am voting no tonight. This in no way has any sense. Councilwoman, we need it on the floor. We need to put on the floor. I thought you were calling for a question. Councilman Flint, can you please put it on the floor? Sure, Mr. President. Thank you. I move that council resolution 18 145 be adopted. All right. It has been moved and secured. And now as you read about that. Thank you. At that. So I first wanted to say that. The three organizations who are part of this contract tonight followed our city process. And this in no way has any disparaging. Implications on any of them. I have done work with all three of them and think that they all do important work in our community. But I think it's also important to know that when the city had passed our jail bond issue and moved to construct our justice center, there was a lot of work that went into looking at what kind of programs were being offered within our jail system. And there was a lot of restructuring that was done to ensure that we had a comprehensive approach to how those services were being offered. And it feels like a lot of that work that went into ensuring that we had a very thoughtful and methodical way of delivering those services is is being sort of pushed aside. And I'm not aware of any problems with how the Community Reentry Project was operating in our city. I understand the city has a right to put out any of its contracts to bid. You know, we have one with the Rocky Mountain Human Services that has been in place with the city since its inception. And that goes all the way back to, I want to say, 2003. It may even be before that. And we've never talked about putting that one out to bid. So, you know, we need to be consistent with our practices in this city when we talk about what we're going to do and how we're going to do it . And I just think that this was one that was doing a great job. It went through a very thorough review, both internally with lots of people within our jail system, as well as a lot of external partners who were doing part of that service delivery within our jail that created the program that we had in place. And I had the opportunity to be directly involved with that when I worked at the Denver Department of Human Services with our homeless community, which is a big part of that same population. And I just didn't understand the reason for the need to put it out to bid. So for those reasons, I'm going to be voting no against this tonight. And again, I have great respect for Sid Vicious, for the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless and Urban League and the work that you all do. I think it's critically important work. Some of you do work within the jail system today, but I just didn't agree with the direction that the city moved to do this. So I'll be voting no tonight. Thank you. Councilman Lopez. Thank you, Mr. President. This is when this job. It's very difficult. I honor all those folks who raised their hands or their. I know the hard work you put in. I know the work that you do. I know the work that you do for our company that. Has nothing to do with your ability to carry out that work. Has nothing to do. With Servicios de la Raza. It is a great organization. An organization that has been around doing this since before it was popular. Through decades. And we even lost one of our. Executive Directors of service. Just last night. Couple of weeks. Happy Hill. I. I'm not happy. With the way that this contract rolled out. As before. Many people here say this is our jobs, our livelihood. This is a profession what we were doing. Same is true with the current contract with the former now. And they are folks who. Don't look much different from the folks in this room. And serve the same people, our people. Coming out of a facility. Trying to acclimate into society and ready to be given and ready to start a second chance. And sometimes the third chance. And that takes people who understand our community. And I was not convinced in our community meetings. That there were folks in those communities that could not do that. And so I ask myself, why is this contract only a year long? Why are only $550,000? We know that there's plenty of work to be done. We always talk about other doom preventing folks from from being in a facility, the facility, or from being in jail , preventing recidivism. We know that caseloads grow. We know it's difficult work. We know folks who are that are not paid enough that do this kind of work. So why is this only a short term? $500,000 contract. When the need in our city is so much more. Why was it? Put forth to us with a clicking ticking talk clock saying clicking talk. Ticking clock. Ticking clock. Saying If council doesn't do this, services are going to drop. There's going to be a gap in services if we don't move forward. It's very common in our council in the way we do business in our city that you don't bring something last minute expecting it to just pass on a rush. There are very valid questions and in it I didn't like the position that we were put in a city council to say, you either do this or there's going to be a gap in services. I hate playing the card shell game. We're just sitting there like that, asking in a briefing. What's your questions? And you have to guess. What the issues are. I hate that. I want it to be straightforward. These are folks lives. And I think very, very carefully about that. This contract to me is divisive. It is not sensitive of the. The challenges that we have in our community, the politics in the community. The fact that some of these organizations. We're now fighting for this. Just two years ago. Less than a year ago. We're stripped of its workforce dollars. And we went to bat when that happened, saying, you do not privatize those dollars. This organization deserves those dollars. They've been working in the community from day one. And we saw those dollars stripped away. Third party, only to be done terribly worse. And we said, I told you so. The same fight. For the same cause. It did not have to be a contract that said either or. Especially given the times that we're in, i. I made a proposal. It's easy for someone to be a critic. It's easy for someone to say, I'm not going to vote for this and this is my out. This is not easy. There are folks who I respect dearly in this room. I'm here to be a steward of your public dollars and to make sure that the work that we contract for it gets done and is done in a way that that gets more people involved in it. A contract like this should unite our community, not divide it over $550,000 for less than a year now. I'm not here to watch a contract of ours with the intent. Of the people that's supposed to help be thrown at us across the fence and we fight over it. I don't like that in our community. I don't like. The politics involved in it. So why not a proposal that lasts for more than three years? Why not go back and do a budget supplemental? This is what I asked. Let's double it. If we truly wanted to reduce recidivism and we wanted to have all hands on deck and the resources that we truly need. And it really. It's not what we truly need, but. Why don't we make it a million? Why don't we give these organizations the opportunity? To. To do it together. Not fighting over one little piece. But let's get it done. And. This is something that I intend to bring to if this doesn't. This moves forward tonight. You. Mark my word. Come budget season. This is what I'm going to ask for. I do not like seeing our community divided. Especially. When is our contract in the city that's doing it? I don't like that. And I hope you understand why I cast my novel community. It's on principle. Has nothing to do with personalities. Has everything to do. Right here in this house. This is where it needs to be fixed. So, Mr. President, I will not be supporting this contract. It is not a fair contract. And it. It doesn't recognize the bigger picture. This community cannot not be divided anymore. Okay, Councilman. Councilman Cashman. Thank you, Mr. President. I'm nothing but respect for my. Colleagues. Comments. Councilman Lopez. Councilwoman Ortega. This contract process. I have my own questions and concerns for the way it's rolled out and whatnot. For me, it just comes down simply. To. We have inmates every day. Rolling out of our downtown detention center, our county jail, that need services that haven't had them now for going on three months. I will stand with Councilman Lopez if you want to increase the level of service. It's 100% needed. Our jail system, the entire system is woefully underfunded. We don't have the staffing in it now that we need. As has been mentioned at committee, a number of us went out to California to look at the Las Colinas jail and the staffing levels there far surpass what we've got, the the environment that they've got to execute a corrections system that has something real to do about rehabilitation. It far exceeds what we've got here. But we have the system that we have and we have inmates now that need services. I heard it suggested that we could kill this and that the jail staff could just fill in. I don't believe that to be true. I believe that the previous vendor, CERP, was doing important work at the jail. That our understaffed jail staff. Was not able to do. And I believe that work was important. As has been mentioned, I asked our our human resources people what was their. Denver. Denver Human Services. Was there any problem with the previous vendor where they notified of and they weren't doing the job? And I was told no, that was never stated. So I have some issues as to why this was put out to bid when it was put out to bid. But we need services in our jail. Our inmates deserve those services. And I believe that it needs to be done by an organization that is is focused on that as their primary work, not overburdened jail staff. Asked to fill in on overtime or in a different capacity when we don't have the staff we need to adequately supervise are inmates as it is. So with that, Mr. President, I will be. Somewhat hesitantly, but recognizing the need supporting this contract moving forward. All right. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Espinosa. Yeah, I am. I actually believe this is going to be the finest year in transition services we're ever going to have. Why do I believe that? Because the contractors have almost no choice but to do that right. I've already articulated in committee clearly my concerns about how this contract came about and the situation we find ourselves in. But with a one year contract, we'll be here this time next year with now an embattled mayor. Well, under this question that that that my colleagues are speaking to. And so it sort of compels the providers to not only meet the level of service that we were obtaining before, but to exceed it. I think they've committed to that and I don't I think they're going to try in earnest, but now they're really in that between a rock and a hard place. But I do think that you've got three, three capable entities where you had one. So I think the work is cut out for them, and I think they intend every bit of them intend to deliver on those outcomes. So while I still have those questions that I articulated in committee, you know, I am I'm committed to our inmates, committed to getting this new contract in place and seeing seeing those organizations not only meet, but exceed expectations. And so that we can come back, hopefully in a year's time and wonder what this was all about. So thank you all for for enduring this process. Good luck. And I hope that is the case. Thanks. All right. Thank you, Councilman Espinosa. There are probably many people watching try and maybe if you just came in and you're trying to figure out what's going on here. This is a reentry contract for one year, $550,000. And it's Council Bill 145. Our our call our evaluation here is to look and see if the current proposers can do the work. This is what I'll tell you, the majority of the people in that jail over there. Our African-American Latino. And homeless. What we have before us is a resource de la Raza. Who is just a Stallworth in the community who I can point to people who've been through and gone and gotten their services, both in the African-American and Latino community. Colorado Coalition for the Homeless continues to transform people's lives all throughout District nine and the entire city. An Urban League has been transforming folk's lives. The wind program RTD since I've been in Denver for the last 20 years and even longer than that. And so what we're evaluating is can an organization do the work that is called out in the scope of work in this contract? And I 100% say, yes, I'll be supporting this, you know, and also support. And I'll also support not only talk about a budget amendment, but there's, you know, the Crime Prevention Control Commission, which I sit on, which Councilman Lopez sits on, which Councilman Herndon sits on. We haven't been attending those. And that's actually where the work gets done. And if we want to increase the contract, that's where we increase the contract. And so we're as much to blame as anybody else. And so if we want to go back and tell stories of what's happened, we can. But what's before us today is this contract here. And if we want to have a larger conversation with those members on that commission about increasing this contract, let's do it. Because Lord knows, as Councilman Cashman said, there's more work that needs to be done and I will 100% support increase in this contract, doubling the size of this contract. My request to these three organizations. Southwest Denver, near northeast Denver and far northeast Denver. Need you. Please do the outreach in those communities. That's where folks are going into reentry, right? That's where folks are going back into and even now into Aurora and other folks outside of Denver. And so I just would ask that your outreach, that you would really turn that up so that we can really, really serve our community . Councilman Lopez, I see you back up. Yes, thank you, Mr. President. I didn't know that was going to be brought up. That communication was sent to us by the mayor's office in terms of this, the CPS, the Crime Prevention Control Commission. It's not where the contract originates. Those weren't the CPK folks that were in my meeting. Those were other folks that are higher up. In our agencies if this contract was going to be more and would have more juice. And it would. Let's not kid ourselves or sell stuff short. You don't rob Peter to pay Paul and call it progress. You just don't. Progress is when you increase. You raise the bar, not move it from one bean to another. If we really wanted to see progress, we'd raise it. You know, the CPC does serve its role. It has. It continues to. It is exactly what we got because a lot of us didn't want a new jail because we knew if there was going to be a new jail, we'd have to fill the beds. I. My critique is with this contract from before it even came to the P.C.C. There's decision making that happens. It's divisive. I don't like it. I don't like my community being played. That's plain and simple. I hope folks who were at the table thinking about this contract, unaware about what divisions it can create, how it would look in the in the public realm, how it would make normal folks who are doing like work, working together separate. That's the problem. I don't like it and I want folks to know I don't like it. Thank you. All right. Thank you. I like it. So we're about to vote on this. Matt. Madam Secretary, roll call. I'm sorry. Is it time to vote? Madam Secretary? Raquel Ortega. No. Sussman, my black clerk. Espinoza, Flynn. I. Herndon, i. Cashman. Cashman. Can each. Lopez. No new. Mr. President. I announce the results. Then eyes, two knees. Eyes, two nays. Counsel. Bill 145 has passed. All right. Can you put up for council bill four for councilman? Do you have a question on that?