Business, Arts, Workforce, & Aeronautical Services Committee - Regular Meeting

Welcome back to this monthly meeting of the Parks, Arts and Culture Committee of Denver City Council. Join us in the Parks, Arts and Culture Committee starting now.

Good morning. Welcome to the Parks Art and Culture Committee, and we are so excited to have a presentation from the library today as well as Parks and Rec. And we'll start in the room with introductions. I'll start with the other council member here at the moment. Room.

I'm sorry, Verdi, one of your council members at large, and I know other people are working their way over from the Committee Room. So

Yes. I apologize for that. We were just in executive session in mayor council, but I know there are people that may be tuning in online and that will be here shortly. But we'll start with you all. If Erica, you wanna introduce yourself and introduce your colleague, that would be a great start. Yeah. Good morning, everyone. My name is Erica Martinez, and I'm the director of

communications and community engagement. I am just driving today. So Perfect. I'm Nicole Davies, the city librarian and executive director for Denver Public Library.

And we're so excited to have you. Can you share a little bit about how long you've been at the library and what you did before this?

You bet. I've been in this role now since August 2025, and prior to that, I served as a state librarian for the state of Colorado. Wonderful. In that role for about six years.

Thank you so much for sharing that. Well, take it away with your presentation. We're really excited to have you here for the first time as city council and hear about all the great things that the library is doing.

Thanks for the opportunity. I really appreciate it. I also just wanna recognize I have a amazing support system back here with lots of the team from Denver Library. If you'd like. Oh, that'd be lovely.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. If they could just step to the microphone and let us know who's here, and it's helpful in case there's any questions.

Yes. Thank you. Feel free to ask.

Let's be another faces.

Hi. Gina Dunn, and I'm the director of

finance for the library.

Hello, everyone. Will Shutner. I'm the chief operating officer for DPL.

Good morning. My name is Valencia Callbreath. I'm the chief equity and strategy officer.

Hello. I'm Katie Anderson, the executive director for the Denver Public Library Friends Foundation.

Good morning. Anthony Kaufman, director of facilities and planning.

Wonderful. Thank you so much for bringing the team. That's very helpful in case we have questions.

Thank you, councilwoman. I appreciate it, and thank you for letting them have the opportunity to introduce themselves. This work could not happen every day without the team. So we're gonna take you through a series of highlights, touch base a little bit on our strategic plan, update on our bond projects, which I'm sure everybody's really interested in, take some time to talk a little bit about the Denver Public Library Fund and then what is on the horizon for the future. So we'll go ahead and get started.

Since the last time we saw you, which was back in August, we've had a lot going on at Denver Public Library. Starting in the fall, shortly after I started, we were happy to host our staff day at Central Library, which is an event we bring our staff together roughly every other year. We bring the entire team together for a day of learning and connection. We had over 600 staff members in attendance at that. Then we moved into our hosting our annual service awards, and those include the Latino community service awards and the 2026 Juanita Gray community service awards.

We also recognize blacks in Colorado Hall of Fame, and we were able to do all of these major events in our new Parkview space, which is at the central branch. Last year, we were able to open proudly open our twenty eighth location. That's the Lina Archuleta Branch Library in the Westwood community. And you may know we have a first location there, so we were able to add a second. And Lina Archuleta, as you probably know, was Denver's first Hispanic female school principal, and she was dedicated to improving the lives of all people, especially Hispanic Denverites.

We had close to 500 people at that community celebration, which was really heartening.

Wow.

Yeah. And then just last month, I can't believe it, we celebrated the start of construction at the Globeville location, and it was wonderful to have community come out to learn more about this future location. Groundbreaking is underway, and we hope that that branch will will receive that certificate of occupancy by the 2027, hoping to open in the 2028. And then after more than ten years on hiatus, we relaunched One Book One Denver, and the community really showed up for this event. We had over 5,500 participants in that program over the the series of about four weeks.

We had dozens of programs throughout the system, and it was really encouraging to see the level of engagement that we saw in the community. We heard a lot from program participants just saying how not only have they missed it, but they missed the opportunity to come together over a shared read, especially coming out of the pandemic where a lot of people lost that connection to one another. This really provided an opportunity to come back together, together, build relationships, see neighbors, meet new people, and having that bond over a shared read was really powerful. We were able to bring that author in, and that was really extraordinary. So, again, about a month's worth of activities spread out throughout the system.

So that was wonderful. Our community resource team continues to to support our customers through offering compassionate, confidential support to people experiencing some of life's hardest and toughest challenges, whether that's individuals experiencing homelessness, poverty, mental health struggles, or substance misuse. You'll see this community resource team. In 2026, we began teaching the new Narcan overdose training, which was developed by the Department of Public Health and Environment. And in 2026, we've now trained 80 DPL staff members in this new training.

Just to give you some context, in 2025 alone, we administered Narcan 21 times. And already in the first quarter of this year, we've administered Narcan five times. So this is very real for our patron population and for our staff. And so, really, this the work of this team is extraordinary and so necessary. And then twenty twenty five was really busy.

I love looking at these numbers. We had over 2,700,000 visits in our 28 locations across the system, almost 73,000 storytime attendees in person and virtually. We served over 20,000 people via community connections. More than 12,000 participated in Phone a Story across four different languages. We had nearly 2,500 Bookmobile stops and issued over eight fifty personalized reading lists.

So it's really amazing to see the connection points in our community. Knowing that the service of the public library is cradle to grave, we have different connection points with patrons throughout their lifetime. So you may start in a story time, and then you may find you may find that really personalized reading list is what you need at this point in your life. So we just continue to meet community where they are, and these numbers, I think, tell a pretty powerful story. And then last year, we did launch our 2025 through 2030 strategic plan.

And so you can see it was unveiled last year. We've already begun to make significant progress in executing that plan. And on this slide, you'll see where our investments and our focus is for 2026. So under b here, we're focusing on our library spaces. We're continuing to strengthen the culture of safety that we have in our libraries and then providing advancing continuing to advance our strategic facilities planning.

Discover Here talks about expanding awareness about all of the special collections that we host at the library and enhancing our collection. Engage here is about increasing community awareness about all of the services and programs that we offer and refine refining access to technology and digital literacy, as we know that that is significant for a twenty twenty twenty first century learner and business individual. And then our operational excellence really speaks to focusing on the internal organization, making sure that we've got financial management tools that are being used strategically, conducting a comprehensive review of our privacy and library use policies this year, and then continuing an eye towards all of our accessibility strategies. So bond updates, I know this is you all know that there's a lot going on and a lot going on throughout the city. Thanks to the Denver voters, we have several bond projects that are currently in the works.

So with regard to bond updates, we continue to get creative to ensure our buildings can meet the needs of our community. We're still navigating ongoing challenges with construction knowing that 2037 money 2017 money does not fully or necessarily fulfill the original scope of the projects that were outlined. Our buildings are also aging. And as we start our construction projects, we've been running into significant deferred maintenance issues. So, unfortunately, we've had to close locations throughout the system just due to those aging facilities.

So, for example, in 2025, we had to close over sixty days due to building system failures and roughly eight days due to utility outages. And this year alone, we've already had to close different facilities almost twenty nine days due to those aging facilities. When possible, we've modified the scope of our projects. We're also partnering with our Friends Foundation to raise funds to supplement the original budget and also use the DPL fund to close those funding gaps. So as you all can imagine, with inflation and all of the things that are happening with regard to construction projects, 2017 numbers don't really hold up as well nine years later.

So we're super fortunate to have such a working and healthy collaboration with our Friends Foundation. They come in often to supplement those building projects. For example, we're currently we had the opportunity to walk through the Hampton location recently, and in the scope, bathrooms weren't included. So, yeah, I mean, face right there. You can't touch a building and not touch plumbing in a bathroom or have antiquated tiles and outdated facility pieces in a bathroom when you do a renovation.

So it's it's looking to the DPL fund supplement, and it's also looking to our Friends Foundation to help so that we can update that whole experience for customers in that area. So twenty twenty five project updates. Last year, we were able to reopen the Pauline Robinson branch and the Afmar Park branch library. And as I mentioned, we were also able to open our twentieth location, the Lena Archuleta branch. Those felt like huge successes.

And then we have lots of ongoing projects. We have several locations that are closed for renovation. And due to those budget realities, we had to take some of our locations offline early, some a few months early to help with the cost savings measure late last year. As you may remember, we were asked to cut, I think, million from last year's budget in real time and then another 10,000,000 over 10,000,000 for this year for our budget. So doing that was helping to save with some of those those costs.

All of those locations were expected to be closed the latest by June, some leading up to that. And all of those staff were redeployed to other locations. We were not forced to lay anyone off last year. The Eugene Field, Hampton, and Ross Broadway branches are either under construction or nearing a groundbreaking date. And then the Ross Phyllis Big Pond, formerly the Ross Barnum location, will reopen to the public in June, and we will have a big community celebration in July.

Ross University Hills, Schleshman, and the Globeville location are also all in progress. We recognize that the closure in several of the Southeast branches at the same time is not ideal. Our team has been working hard to bring library services to to the communities while the locations are closed. At the end of this month, we will be rolling out two new bookmobiles that will provide dedicated service to Southeast Denver. We've also been partnering with colleagues in the audience, Parks and Rec, and others to make sure that we're supplementing those services in other locations.

And we're also going to host two coffee and construction open houses for the community to come and learn more about what's going on at their branches and help to answer any questions that patrons may have. We will be launching, we're very excited about this, later this month, a new online dashboard where folks can go to learn and see what's happening at their branches, give construction updates, get real time information about where we are in the process. And when that dashboard launches, we'll make sure to communicate with all of you and your staff so that you can help to get that information out to your constituents as well. And we'd like to take a few minutes now to reintroduce the idea of the DPL fund and share some exciting updates. So you may you may remember that in twenty twenty two, sixty eight percent of Denver voters passed a ballot initiative that established a revenue fund to supplement funds available to the Denver Public Library beyond the general fund for the purpose of expanding and enhancing programs and services.

So as an independent agency of the city and county of Denver, the Library Commission has exclusive authority over the allocation and use of that DPL fund. The ballot measure stated that the DPL fund could be used to pay staff at market market appropriate rates, expand hours, expand the collection, expand programs and services in high need areas of the city, and supplement the general fund library budget to more fully serve our community. The intent was not to the intent was to add the funding to what the city supports the library, but not to supplant. So it's to add the services. And we have to constantly check-in with our commission to make sure our proposals for that DPL fund are in line with the intent of the voters.

So some of those DPL fund wins include giving the public access to new resources and refreshing space thanks to the DPL Fund. The New York Times subscription, if you all are not taking advantage of that, is very popular, and you can see that with the numbers of use over 270,000 accesses to The New York Times. And lots of those that are popular, of course, are news, but also their cooking I know. Their their recipes are very popular as well. That's all for

Crossword access.

Yeah. Crossword. Yes. Lots of those things. So Denver's also streaming music via Freegle and is able to access over 7,000 newspapers and magazines via our press reader.

And then thanks to the DPL Fund, as mentioned, our locations got some updates too, and we were able to complete a restroom renovation project also at the Ross Phyllis Big Pond. That was another branch that in the scope of the renovation, it did not include restrooms, and install EV charging stations at Pauline Robinson. DPL Fund also engages with capital investments. And so, for example, at our Park Hill branch, we were able to give that a little bit of a refresh. It also helps to supplement deferred maintenance that we have through several

of our

branches and supplemental funding in all of the major renovation projects that are going on right now. And then I did want to just take a moment to highlight some important dates for all of you to have. We have our Eleanor Garry's Awards coming up next week on Thursday. Again, you're gonna see those two new bookmobiles hitting the Southeast corner of the community and the county within the city starting in June. Also in June, we will be able to open the Rossvillas Big Pond branch.

Summer reading will kick off in June and and travel throughout August. And then very excited to announce the big one book, one Denver read in August. And, those activities, speaker engagement, and author events will be happening throughout the fall. And then on October 3, we will have our twenty twenty six Latino Community Service Awards. So we'll make sure to get those dates on your calendars. And as always, the invitation is extended. We'd love to have you there. And at this time, I'd love to turn it over to see what questions that you might have, things we highlighted, or questions you might be hearing from constituents.

Awesome. Thank you so much. I wanna welcome councilman Hines, councilwoman Romero Campbell, and councilwoman Lewis who's online. And I don't have anyone in the queue. Did anyone have anything? Councilwoman Parody?

Yes. Sorry. Now I'm reorganizing myself because I didn't expect to be first. Mhmm. So I I first did wanna go back to the construction timelines in Southeast Denver because, of course, those are something we hear constituents about quite a bit. I'm sure you know. Can you recap for me the I think there's there's five branches that are more or less in Southeast that have had closures, right, not just Eugene Fields and New Hills. Right. Could we go back and and talk about the timelines for like, what we know about the timelines for each of those five? Sure. We sure have that at

your phone. Yeah. We can. The other thing I will mention is most of these are attached to either 2017 or 2021 bonds. Yes.

We know

that we legally have an obligation to hit that timeline. And the the great news on the one hand is community says yes to these bonds, which is amazing. None of us well, I shouldn't say that. Many of us were not at the table in terms of putting together these projects that were on the 2017 bond initiative. So in hindsight, it would have been lovely to not have So many at once. So many in the same area at once. We're always happy to take them and do these renovations because that's truly the only way to support these buildings. As I mentioned, I I come from a library background. I ran two public library systems before I was the state librarian, and a gold standard in public libraries is

that you

touch facilities every ten years with a refresh. Many of our buildings are decades decades in to not having been refreshed, so the only way to really accomplish this is through bonds. So having recognized that, we found ourselves having to close five branches in one area based on bond initiatives that were done back in 2017. And, again, thankful to have the money to do these bond initiatives and these renovations, but less than ideal to have everything offline at the same time. The typical typically, and I I'm gonna call on Will and Tony to supplement for me, but you're averaging eighteen to twenty four months on most renovation projects.

I've never seen a renovation project or a building project come in early. So when they say eighteen to twenty four months, I would assume twenty four months and then, I think, is a safe assumption, but we're in the queue with every other building in the city of Denver to get touch. So if we wanna talk about specifics on Right.

Because Tony has more of the details than I do.

I'll just say really quickly that we we we know that the bonds are driving this. So so I'm glad that you've said it for those who may be listening, but we are totally aware of that. Yeah. I'm just curious as things have started to play out, we're getting closer to the dates, like, what the actual timelines are looking like.

Absolutely. Thank you. Because we have good questions.

And if if slide. Pardon. I know you guys already introduced yourself, but before you answer, if you don't mind reintroducing yourselves for the people watching at home. Thank you.

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm Will Scheubner. I'm the chief operating officer for DPL.

I'm Anthony Kaufman, director of facilities management and planning for DPL.

Thanks.

Yeah, and as Eric is pulling up this slide that actually had the renovations. So as we stated, rooms are currently under renovation right now. So Ewingville and Camden are currently under construction as well as well, Ross Broadway is also under construction. If you drive by, you can see all the work being done for Ross Broadway. That's very exciting. And then a lot of this were actually out at Hamden just two weeks ago. So to see the work that's being done. So those three are actually under construction. Slashman has been under construction and will be reopening When does Slashman reopen?

January 2027.

Yep. And then with Slashman, with that so and when we talk about supplemental on other bonds, so a lot of the work did not cover the infrastructure required for Sloshman nor did it it cover the exterior of the building. So these are the things where we've added from our Friends Foundation, from the DPL Fund, and that's the reason why that construction time was extended. So it's a comprehensive renovation and not just what was covered by the bond. The work for the bond is actually done. So now it's about the work that we're doing to do additional work for slash funds was complete. There was literally leaks coming in through the building that the bond did not cover. Wow. So that's the reason why that one isn't until January.

And just a clarifying question, think on Schleschmann, it did not include HVAC either.

That is correct. A lot of the bond work does not include things like HVAC, which is unbelievable because that is the things that is taking things down. When we look at what happened to Mont Bel, it came down because of HVAC. When we look at Blair Caldwell had a HVAC issue that actually caused a fire. These are all infrastructure things that are not included in the bond that we are doing supplemental work that increases that timeline.

I have a follow-up question to that piece. When you say HVAC is not included, I I think about the new building requirements, which require a huge upgrade to HVAC. So are you required to meet the regular city updated city building code?

Yeah. I would absolutely say yes. And then we go beyond that to make sure that they're energy compliant, that they're efficient, and things that I know Tony loves to talk about.

This is my wheelhouse. I really love the different bottom line sustainability. And I'm happy to report that three of our older locations are gonna be fully electrified Wow. Which is amazing because they're older buildings. We brought the electrical infrastructure to the table. We've used our our fantastic building code to modernize things, and we're going to be really on a path to carbon neutrality with those locations. The other locations, if it wasn't fully feasible for whatever reason, we're gonna have a significant improvement in energy savings and energy efficiency and therefore carbon reduction as well. So each building's an opportunity to really make good on that and to make great progress for our city.

So, Tony, while you're at the mic, just to get back to councilwoman Parity's timeline question. So we talked about Schleschman. You talk about Hamden Broadway?

Yeah. Hamden would be next. We broke ground on that sooner just based on its schedule. I think that was a rise bond project, and we're making great progress on it. We have a huge addition for that building too. It's really going to transform how we use it. It's almost a 40% increase in square footage. And so we're looking at q one for a certificate certificate of occupancy for that location. Moving on to

Q one of what year?

Of 2027.

K. Thanks.

Mhmm. And

then moving on to let's see. Uhills is going to take a little longer just because it started later. It's a big project as well. We fully electrified as well. And so we're looking at 2027 for that location. And then Broadway, about the same. That's also a transformational renovation where we're adding about 40% to the square footage Wow. For our staff and patrons, including a huge community room, which is just going to enhance our usage of that space. It'll be almost electric, a fully electric, and about an 80% carbon reduction in emissions. Thanks to the Friends Foundation for their work on that.

And so, yeah, that if you drive by, you'll see that it's very much under construction with some more foundation work. And then moving on to Eugene Field, we're about to break ground on that one. That one's it's not as substantial, meaning that it doesn't have an addition. That construction is going to be very infrastructure heavy as well. And we'll also improve the layout so the functionality will be better for our community moving forward.

And then the timing of fields, knowing that you're just starting, roughly how long that one?

Yeah. Closer to q three, q four Okay. Toward the 2027. Okay.

That's a lot.

Sorry. I didn't catch when was Broadway supposed to be done. I got too caught up in the beautiful community room.

It's exciting. Q three. Okay.

Thank you. And I'm gonna I do have another question, but I wanna let the district council member cut in on this since we're on the line of questioning. Is that okay, madam chair?

Is that

I know it's a lot Yeah. Okay. We can do that. Thank you. Sorry, councilman.

I might have you. Thank you, madam chair. I

might have missed

you at Ross University Hills. What was the timeline for that one?

Q three.

Q three for completion.

'27.

Yeah. For 2020 For

certificate of occupancy, one footnote I should add in detail that's important, it takes time to mobilize to remove into the building between our shelving or collections, getting our staff spaces ready, getting our staff ready for it. So there is a process of mobilization that does take some time once we get that CEO. Okay.

So completion 2027. When does the construction start or the it has it started at Ross University Hills?

At U Hills, it has.

Seven?

Okay.

Great. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you, madam chair.

Thank

you. My other so I did wanna go back also then to the deferred maintenance. Mhmm. Said twenty nine days of closure so far in 2026. That's rough. I think would love to see as an at large member where those closures have been and what the causes have been just since we do have a city budget cycle coming up. Like, that would be helpful for me to know. And then in particular or sorry. Not in particular. Separately from that, given that we have probably a very hot summer coming despite the snow today.

Mhmm. I'm very curious what you all are worried about in terms of HVAC systems for the summer and cooling for the summer, like which buildings you know are old and all that. So if I could get that by email, I would really, really appreciate that. And then similarly, would love to see how you all have used the very sorely needed two I funding specifically. You addressed that a little bit, but just would love to see that broken down a little bit of where it's gone. I know you can spend it six times over. But just curious how you've used it to fill things in. All of that is fine for follow-up. I'm not expecting anyone to know that their feet. And then the the other question that I do wanna ask in person is just an update on the process of unionization.

So I know you guys got a petition and that the union is requesting voluntary recognition. The mayor and city council for for employees that are under us for the first few petitions that we've gotten, they had such high percentages of employees that we recently made the decision jointly to voluntarily recognize those bargaining units. Mhmm. And I know that same ask has been made of the library board, so I'm just curious where in the process that decision making is.

Sure. Before we leave building projects, I I do just wanna mention quickly, though. Tony was really kind to say and we we think our Friends Foundation when I when I say that the Friends Foundation significantly helps us, I'm talking upwards of gifts of $750,000 for a branch renovation. So it is not it is not, you know, bake sales and books book sales. It is A lifeline. It is significant donor courting and aligning those donors with their passion in the community. So I just I can't underscore that enough. We we can't do what we do without our foundation.

Send us those numbers too then.

Yeah. They're they're both Extraordinary. So I just wanna say that. So I wanna move on to collective bargaining, and, Valencia, check me if I'm incorrect about this. But the ordinance has been an experience to navigate. And where was last updated as of last week was that the union, which CWA is primarily who this the library staff, that is their union. They have to have it filed recognized. What is the correct term? With triple a arbitrators of America. Amer yeah. Yeah. So

where we are

I'm sorry. If you could just read

Oh, I'm sorry.

Yes. So hi. Valencia Colbreath, chief equity and strategy officer. So what we understand and where we are

as a part of the process

is where CWA is going to be working with AAA as a part of recognizing the petition. So then we will then receive the petition file with notification. Sorry if I don't have all the words correct. We would then post that for ten days. If we don't have anyone else coming in to want to represent our employees, then AAA would then put out a notice email to all of our employees because we have already provided the list and all of the things on our part, we have done all of our commitments to the timeline as we see through the ordinance.

So those would be the next steps. And then they would convene both CWA as well as us via our corporate authority, which is our library commission, to then make the determination whether they would like to move to an election or to voluntarily recognize.

Got it. Thank you for that. And this has been quite a learning curve because we all wrote this charter thing and this ordinance collectively with outside partners and our attorneys and everything else and have been working really hard to implement it. And so partly, we're going through it ourselves as a corporate authority, and we're just wanting to know how it's working. That that's all the question is is, like, is the you know, if there has been any confusion that came from the ordinance, please tell us because we'll be able to amend that someday. You know? Yes. Yes. Yes. And, again, we're in the thick of it as well, but we just would it would be super helpful just to let us know because it's such a new thing for the city, and council is the body that's been trying to get all those details in place. And so if we've missed any details, let us know. Well, and I yes.

I would be happy to do that.

Thank you.

Thank you. And I I think what something that would be really helpful is just it's been so we're we're not the the library the corporate authority isn't responding to anything yet.

Oh, right.

Because there's nothing that's happened for them to respond to. So it feels there's not always a great opportunity to be able to share that out to say that it's not the library commission holding things up.

Mhmm.

It's the union needing to get with triple a in order to make the next thing happen. There's nothing they can technically respond to

yet. Mhmm.

And so it makes I just wanna be clear that nobody is avoiding or dragging their feet. There's if you're following the process, that's where we're stuck in the process right now, and it's nothing we can do. So just to clarify that, it feels hard sometimes that we can't always say that. Yeah. And it really should be something CWA is educating their potential members on Yeah. That they need to do work with triple a in order to follow the process.

For us as the city government making sure that that word gets out to labor too because I think I think it's been mutual befellament. So good. I think this helps.

Thank you, guys. Absolutely. Helpful, and that clarity

is very important. It's hard. Yeah.

I'll go to councilwoman Lewis online. Thanks, manager.

Thank you. And I appreciate you, council member Perry, for that question because I had a similar one. I actually wanted to know about the deferred maintenance. Do you have a number that you all are operating with in terms of deferred maintenance?

Do we have that yet or are we still working on that? I know it's a goal for this year to have a very comprehensive strategy to our deferred maintenance.

Yeah. Again, Tony can answer this better because he's working on our six year CIP plan that covers our deferred maintenance, but we have those exact numbers in all the projects that would be earmarked for.

Hi. Tony Kaufman, director of facilities and planning. So, yeah, I can speak to the deferred maintenance in that it's somewhat predictable. As we catch up with these current bond projects, it's really going to reset those locations in terms of life cycle. And so it's also then notable that we've got more and we're able to prioritize and forecast those based on their performance and also their age.

And with Department of Finance, we have delivered a draft CIP budget. That CIP budget's for the next six years, but then we've also extended that You can really see the next round of renovations that will need to happen beyond vibrant. So we have a pretty good idea and some good sidelines in terms of where our condition's at, what's business critical required for occupancy for public services, and what we'll need to do next. The numbers are still being estimated, of course, for that because it works substantial. But we have a lot of data from these current renovations, and we're able to have some solid estimates from that.

Great. And I know you all usually come present at budget when we have our budget hearing, so we'll look forward to hopefully having that number then. Councilwoman Lewis, did you have more?

Yeah. That's great. I appreciate you saying that, councilwoman Alvidrez. I just have one more question. And I only see this on Instagram, and I always miss it, and I'm always very excited about it. And I would love to know when you all are doing the partnerships with RTD and the writing and reading on the bus or

on the

train. Oh,

yes. Yes.

Because I only see it after the fact, and I wanna participate. But I also would love to tell my constituents as well.

Thank you, councilwoman Lewis. I love that you touched on that. I I if I could gush for a moment. I'm so proud of the work that is coming out. I feel like libraries have always done an extraordinary job really taking care of our little ones. Like, zero to five, we crush it in getting kids ready for school and ready to read. And then we do an amazing job with our senior citizens, getting them tech savvy. But we sort of we haven't always done the best job with adults. Right? And so we have this initiative around joy of reading, and it is extraordinary.

So One Book, One Denver is in that purview, but these opportunities to get together and read, these silent book clubs, get on a train and read together is amazing. And we're, again, we're seeing that that desire and love from the community to be together, and it's, you know, forty fifth 30, 40, 50 year olds. Like, it's amazing. So there is an adult services newsletter that you can subscribe to on our website, and then you'll get a heads up on all of these. They're also in our Engage and Connuxiones publications.

But there's just so much work. And we have amazing talented staff that are thinking through how do adults want to engage in the library, what does that look like today? And the creativity is off the charts. So so, again, on our website, you can subscribe to different newsletters. There's one around adult services, and and it's us. Like, we're adult services now. It's not seniors. It's this age group that we're trying to be very intentional about reconnecting with. And that library is just that welcoming place that people feel safe and interested in coming back. And and, again, the creativity coming out of this this team is really profound. So lots more to come, but this is a newer initiative that got launched last year with our 2025 strategic plan, and I I'm so proud of their work.

Great. I mean, it's nice to not have to drive, and you get to educate yourself.

And it's free. It's your tax dollars at work. Like, it is the best thing ever. So yeah. Wonderful.

Well, thank you. Councilwoman Romero Campbell is next in the queue. Thank you, madam chair. Are you done, councilman Lewis? I thought you said that was your last one.

Okay. Just just one more. I really I really appreciate that. And as an introvert, I love the idea of being able to be in company with people, but people being very quiet and reading. That's one. And I did not know about the subscription to The New York Times, and so I'm very excited to share that as well with one, myself, but also my constituents. That's it. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilwoman Lewis, Councilwoman Romero Campbell.

Thank you, Madam Chair. A lot of my questions were answered specifically for Southeast Denver, the library. So I just appreciate the partnership in doing the outreach and making sure that community knows about the closures and and timeline, etcetera. The bookmobiles, thank you also for getting those online. Do you know if like, what I know we're still kind of working or you have a general idea as to where those locations would be. What are the hours of a bookmobile that you're anticipating them being available? Sure.

And and I can get this confirmed for you just so I'm not speculating. We so it's really interesting. Normally, a traditional bookmobile service, you go to places that don't have a brick and mortar facility. Mhmm. The philosophy of kind of outreach or bookmobile service is very different traditionally.

We're now supplementing places that have library branches, but those branches are offline. So we have talked about making sure that when possible, we will have dates and times in the parking lot or adjacent to those branches Mhmm. And then going to a myriad of other places that our staff has identified as high need. So, again, making it to some of our senior retirement communities that would have gone to a branch, but they can't go to that branch now. So we're gonna bring the bookmobile there and do what's called lobby service.

So we'll fill holds. We'll take returns, but we'll also bring materials in on book carts. But we're looking at a a myriad of different places to make those connection and touch points. So some of the places we've already figured out that we're doing some programming and outreach with our our rec centers and schools and parks, but where are the other places that we could take these book boom deals? So we will have we can get to you Mhmm. What that schedule will look like. And, again, we'll have two in that rotation in those communities really focused on serving where those branches are offline. So I can get you more detailed information. It's normally a five to six day a week service.

Yeah. Okay. That's that's great. Five to six day a week services. Right.

And and kind of like those bulk operating hours, like nine to six, nine to five, and we'll figure out you know, we can get you that list of because it's a very thoughtful curation of where they're going and why. So we can get you those dates and times of where they're gonna be on what days in those communities.

Yeah. And it's been incredibly helpful. Also, the website Mhmm. That you have for Southeast Denver. I think it's denverlibrary.org backslash southeast. Southeast. And there is a calendar up there. So for those who are watching, I just want people to know that there's ways that they can also connect and that there are additional bookmobile services and just that we appreciate that you're able to get those online quickly. Yeah.

And I think that will really round out the service and make it more comprehensive and less painful for for our patrons who have their branches offline.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you. Also One thing I will add is we will be asking the community for input on areas where we should be going in Southeast Denver, and so there is a survey that we'll be launching, and people will be able to provide just some quick, hey. This is where you should come, and it's gonna be in different languages as well so that we get that feedback Mhmm. From the

community directly. That's great. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you. Councilman Hines.

Thank you, committee chair. You have big shoes to fill. I think director Jaske was a fabulous librarian. Mhmm. I think you're filling those shoes quite well.

So thank you for thank you for giving up your really pushing your spot as the state librarian for this little podunk town called Denver. So two kind of veins. I was really just gonna talk more about renovations, but since council member Perry mentioned the union process, And really, I think the nature of the question is about the process, not about advocacy in any one way Yeah. Or another. Although you are quoted in Denverite in October saying, quote, I support our staff's right to unionize.

So just putting that adjacent to the conversation that the council member Parity had. So other than that, I'll just leave that there. The when you're talking about it astounds you that there would be a renovation without thinking about restrooms, that astounds me too. As someone who many times have to have to I have to make a decision to not patronize a business or institution because I can't use the restroom there. So there are lots of places today in Denver where I cannot I I can't even get in the door of the restroom, much less, you know, access the the the restroom services.

That's kind of important, you know, like if you're going to a restaurant or, you know, meeting friends, it's what goes in must come out. And and so, you know, if I'm having a drink with friends and cannot pee, then that's an unfortunate situation that I've experienced more than once in my, you know, eighteen years. The city did a few years ago, I think this is kind of the nature of the question. The city did an audit a few years ago of the hundreds of city buildings, libraries adjacent.

Mhmm.

So I don't think I I don't know if you were part of that ADA audit, but we looked at every city building, including all the parks buildings, to determine the level of ADA compliance. And so I wonder

Yeah. Yeah. Councilman Ryan, it's a great question. So I saw this right when I came in. And just the libraries alone, we had over 1,000 physical ADA barriers that we need to remediate. We're down to, I think, it's around 400. So we've remediated over 600 of those barriers and continue to remediate those through bond projects, through supplemental DI, and the Friends Foundation to get those down as low as we can. Right now, some of our buildings are old Carnegie buildings. There's gonna be some limitations that we can, but the goal is to get to remediate all thousand of those barriers just for what you're saying.

Yeah. And just as I was putting a quote of yours, you know, associated with the conversation council member Perry had, just another kind of data element associated with the ADA renovation, Americans with Disabilities Act is a compliance law, and it is the minimum. It is, you know, the absolute baseline that that an organization can do to to to follow the minimum. So I I hope at some point, as you take off, you get close to a thousand, the conversation gets more to let's engage the disability community to make welcoming and safe environment for for everyone, including people with disabilities. A lot of times, the disability community is the lowest common denominator.

If someone with a wheelchair can get around and someone with a vision impairment can get around, then it is a broader and more inviting experience for everyone.

We will definitely take that back, and thank you. And when we look at accessibility, not just the physical barriers, but then also digital accessibility. It's very, very broad. And we have multiple teams that actually are working at this in DPL, as well as the team that's overseeing as an umbrella to break down those silos even within DPL as we look at this. Because we understand it is a very, very broad and massive thing that we need to tackle.

Thank you so much. I just want to be respectful of Denver Parks and Rec because we have another presentation because we could talk to you all day, so maybe we need to have you back. I just want to close by saying thank you for all the work that you're doing. I think restrooms is a key thing. We don't have public restrooms around the city anymore, but you all open your doors to everyone, and that's extremely helpful and meaningful. So I know that wanting to get these branches open is also exciting. And also future conversation, I wanna talk about I know you all have previously, and I haven't got an update, but we'd love to talk about how you all have visited, like, the tiny home village in my district to ensure they had tech services and how you all have been working with Urban Peak Shelter for Youth and those things. And I think we can just go on and on about all the services that you offer for free to everyone. So thank you. That's all.

Appreciate your time, and we'll welcome Parks and Rec up next. Thanks so much for your time.

Good morning, council. Joel Clark, executive director, Denver Parks and Recreation. Good morning. Community engagement specialist for Denver Parks and Recreation. What what's your name? Jesus Ronte. Put straight for straight for the title. And then I also have several team members that we'll I'll introduce while we're getting set up on the computer here. Come on. Team DPR, come on up.

Sheila Urban, finance director.

Hi. Good morning. Gordon Robertson, director of park planning, design, and construction.

Hello. Yoli Kasada, director of marketing and communications.

Good morning. Luke Kilorn, City Forester.

Good morning. John Martinez, deputy executive director of Parks and Recreation.

Thank you. Awesome. Well, thank thank you so much for having us. We'll walk you through our presentation and hopefully have some time for questions here at the end. So a couple things just to start, know, kind of reminders of the core mission of who we are. I'm not gonna go through it. You've seen this a bunch of times. I've spent a lot of time on it, but this next slide is one of my favorites because it really does give that idea of scale and scope of our system. I like to look at different things on this and pull it out each time. So the 348 miles of trails and park walks, I did a little looking, and if you were to to walk across the state of Colorado I'm not sure you this is the trail.

It's just the measurement, so it might take longer to actually walk it on the path that we have. But the state of Colorado from east to west is 380 miles, So you can almost walk the same distance as walking across the entire state of Colorado, never leaving our awesome Denver Parks trails and park walk. So and just another thing that maybe you haven't thought about. That's also a lot of walks to clear snow off of when a snowstorm is coming.

Times it snows.

So so, so, getting back to our our core functions and some, twenty twenty five highlights. You can see 2,760,000 rec users, and we have different registrations. We have our My Denver and our My Denver Primes, our our two categories of of special use within that. 23,000,000 park visitors. And, again, we use that data from folks' cell phones that we've presented to you before to kind of be able to quantify that usage even without having gates or entrances on that.

You saw as part of the citywide goal on planting trees last year and the number of trees that we planted, 110 active capital projects. So when we talk about you know, just the from the facilities side, right, you just heard from the library and the facilities we have, we have, you know, just rec centers or 30 about to be 31 rec centers. That's not counting all the playgrounds and all the other capital, programs. So 110 active capital projects. You can also see a little bit of how much permitting we do, how many volunteer hours we take, and then this is kind of our core function of recreation, golf, parks, our playing design and construction forestry, our mountain park system, 14,000 acres outside the city limits of Denver, and then our support staff through administration.

You'll see some of our top level goals. Each of our divisions, again, we're a large organization. So each of our divisions all the way down has goals for the year, and then we pull up some of those goals that either tie into the citywide goals that the mayor's office has or areas that need some cross collaboration with other departments or internally across divisions. And so you'll see here our goals around engaging young people through our summer camp permit program, specifically around P and I zones, really focusing on providing night moves and summer rec kid slots. Our downtown parks, we have a lot of activity going on right now with Civic Center and with Skyline.

And so really focusing on making sure that as those projects continue and then reopen that we're ready to fully activate those spaces. We're focused on hitting 100% of the project milestones for all of our new vibrant Denver projects within forty five days of their deadlines and then initiating 40 acres of landscape transformations, including the area in our front lawn here right at the City And County Building where we've launched the landscape transformation right outside. The game plan for a healthy city is kind of our guiding strategic document. This was that we hold. And so you'll see as we move through here, we've kind of organized the stuff that we're working on and that we're highlighting for you today around our game plan.

The game plan framework is broken up into adapt, diversify and grow, reinvest and connect. And so again, you're going to see those and more information on each one as we kind of go through how we are how that is guiding the work that we do. The other big piece that guides the work that we do is our equity map and the closing the ten minute walk roll gap for our community. And so again, we've had a full presentation on this. I'm not going to go deep into it today.

But as a reminder, we take the city's equity map and then we layer on park specific indicators on top of that. So you might see this and say, wait, those colors aren't exactly the same because it's taking that underlying equity data and we're adding in that 10 walk roll, how many acres of total park acres and then looking at per capita investment in those areas that we kind of overlap to give us our maps that also drive the work that we do. So moving into our ADAPT framework from game plan, you'll see that there are a couple of things that we're calling out, big projects that we're doing. Obviously, right now, despite the current weather outside, we are in a drought. And so managing, to the water use as Denver Water's largest user, customer number one.

So managing our water use to make sure that we are delivering on the savings, that Denver Water needs us to come up with from a drought standpoint while also continuing to provide vibrant public spaces that can be used and permitted and and everyone can, you you know, have all those things. That that is very top of mind for us this year in how we manage. We're just just on May 1 entered that period of time between May 1 and October 31, where we will be actively managing all of those. Just to give you, again, an idea of scale when we talk about this, we have over a thousand different accounts with Denver Water, different meters that are being measured as we come in. And then, again, our landscape transformation program, continuing to advance that work.

The work that's been done in those landscape transformations over the past years is really serving us well right now because we have those landscapes that are more resilient, that do use less water, that are beautiful, that are attracting pollinators and all of the ecosystem benefits, but they also are more tolerant when we experience the droughts that we're doing. So we have a couple of projects this year that are in that, including the Living Land area at City Park, our 56th And Chambers, and then the City and County Building project in that. Also in our Adapt category is a lot of times you'll see a focus on how many trees did we plant, how many trees do we plant, but really from a forestry perspective, we're really focused on how many of the trees that we planted are still gonna be there in a year and three years and five years and ten years and twenty years and beyond, because that is really the value of our can opy as those trees continue to mature. So we are putting a lot of emphasis, especially with the drought, on supporting the trees that were just established that are gonna be very intolerant to, you know, decreasing amounts of precipitation in water.

And so how are we augmenting that with a watering plan to make sure that those trees survive and thrive, but also making sure that throughout as we're making decisions about how to conserve that water in a drought, how are we making sure that we're doing it in a way that supports our existing canopy. Also managing for the Emerald Ash Borer, as you heard last year, it was officially found in Denver. And so continuing to not only plant trees so that as we lose those ash trees, those trees are growing active management and treatment of the high value ash trees that we have. You'll also see forestry rules and regs updates coming through this year. And then we launched the Fires pilot program in the mountain parks with CASR, the Mile High Youth Corps, and the Denver Indian Center as a pilot for F.

I. R. Stands for focused indigenous restoration and ecological stewardship. It's a program that employs local young people to learn about fire ecology, forest health, and really work on fire mitigation efforts in our mountain parks. So those are some of the other things that will be happening.

And then continuing the ADAPT, also looking at the universal recycling composting ordinance and how are we rolling that out across all of our facilities, front of house in the public facing parts of rec centers, but also back of house in our maintenance facilities and those other buildings that we have. We continue to replace and convert our handheld two cycle gas oil equipment and electrify it as we continue to experiment with new technology in our spaces and upgrade our ability to plug all of these new things in. And then we're also working on building efficiency, lighting to LED, converting plumbing fixtures to low flow. And that's on a smaller scale, just renovation projects, but also our larger scale. Like last year, we rolled out our Smith Road facility as the first net zero building in Denver in our parks and rec system.

And then we're also working with Dottie and General Services on that full building audit to really look at what is it going to take to fully support the electrification needs that are coming, whether it's a fleet side, small equipment, it's the larger equipment as those things become ready to make sure that we have a plan to also make sure that our facilities are ready for that as the equipment is available. Moving on to our grow and diversify area of our game plan. Under that, you'll see expansion of our parks and amenities. We have the new Heron Pond, Carpio Sanguinetti Regional Park that is a big and was a partnership with wastewater or stormwater systems. Our Bethesda Park under construction right now, which was the first parcel ever purchased with the Park Legacy Fund that will be coming on is under construction, and also some new pickleball courts coming in at Lowry And Rosemount that the community has been asking for for a long time.

We also have our Swansea indoor pool, so the upgrade of the pool from outdoor eight week to nine week season to a full can be used all year round. There are a whole host of upgrades to the center as well. We invite all of you to come out and join us, I believe, the end of this month for the ribbon cutting on that one and then continuing to move forward also on the Westwood Recreation Center, which is moving ahead on schedule as our newest rec center to add to the system. And then we also have several strategic planning efforts that we're going on right now. One of the biggest one is our recreation plan, really looking at how many recreation centers do we have, how is it serving.

We have kind of a legacy system of smaller neighborhood centers and a more, you know, the way we're building them now is more of these regional centers that have all of these amenities. Well, what's the right fix? What does recreation look like? What do we want it as a community to look like ten years from now, twenty years from now, thirty years from now? So really having those conversations with community and with all of you around our recreation plan.

Also, Park Hill Park as our newest regional amenity. And then we also have Garfield Park, a pathway study, some mountain parks work, and the Kennedy Golf Course in that strategic planning effort areas that are moving forward. And then we're continuing to look at ways that we can activate our parks and our recreation centers in tandem with the P and I zones. So it's supporting that work holistically. We have all of our teams, including forestry, working.

Sometimes these things happen and it's a priority to say, hey, this area is experiencing some negative activity and better lighting would help with that. But without that coordination with our City Forester, office of the City Forester, making sure that when we're putting in new lighting to the community is asking for and that helps with these sites, that that is not at the expense of our tree canopy, that we are replacing it in ways that does the least damage to our trees. And so continuing to collaborate on that while also adding in those activations for young people and for park users. Moving on to our reinvest area of game plan. We as you heard, we have a goal to initiate all 17 of the bond projects from Vibrant Bond that DPR is a part of, so get them rolling in some form or fashion before the end of the year.

There's also construction underway. As you've seen and see every day down here at Civic Center Park, Skyline Park is also under construction downtown. And then we have several in that 110 capital projects, lots of them, I don't name them all here, but some parks and playgrounds and sport courts. We just had the ribbon cutting at La Raza Park on Friday. We have a Ruby Hill Outdoor Adventure Hub under construction and then the mess hall and renovation up at the CCC camp.

They were just I just saw some pictures where they're moving buildings around up there and then several upgrades to different ball fields. And then also continue to do that preventative maintenance, especially here highlighting on some of our pools, making sure that they're all continuing to stay operational as bigger bond projects come in to do the bigger work. You also heard last year about our consolidation of our permitting across parks and the recreation sides of the house. Last year, if you wanted to permit something in the park, so the Wash Park Boathouse or the City Park Pavilion, you called one number and worked with one team. But if you wanted to have your meeting inside at a rec center in the community space, it was actually a whole different system.

So we've brought those teams together. It's now one point of entry for our residents, for all of your constituents to say, hey, I'm looking for to have a graduation party. And it could be indoor, could be outdoor, it could be quasi indoor, outdoor, what are all the different things that you have. And so we've continued to bring that all together in one place. And then our park operations continue to look at our maintenance schedules, our trash automation.

We have some of our districts that have trash that is being collected by a small truck that has an arm on it that makes it so they can get to that trash collection much quicker. And some of them are still where we're coming by and having to handpick the trash cans into pickup trucks. So we continue to work towards more automation so that we can get to that trash as quickly as possible and then continue to work on our placement of porta lets using data to back that up. There was a history of before we had access to all the user data that we use from the cell phone data where it was just, hey, somebody calls in and says there aren't enough porta lights in my park, and the department would just keep trying to address that based on calls. But as we know, not every community feels as comfortable or knows how to navigate the system to get into that.

And so what we found when we really started looking at the cell phone data was that there was not an equitable distribution of portal lists. There were a whole lot in areas where you're and you've looked at how many daily users at peak do you need one portal at for. And there are places where there were way more than would would be kind of that standard and places where there were none even though there was a ton of people in there. And so we now have an this awesome dashboard that the teams put together that allows you to go park by park. It uses the data.

It looks at it across every different month of the year, so there's a seasonality to it. There will be parks that don't maybe don't have a portlet year round, but do once they reach kind of those thresholds for usage so that we can really try to make sure that we have portlets as equitably placed across the city as possible. And that means that we will have we have them in more parks than they were before and continuing to refine really that data. So we have our data team works with our field staff to say, hey, what are you experiencing here? What's happening here? There's this blip in usage here. What's going on there? Oh, that's a permanent event. Well, they're bringing in their own portal so we don't need to bring in or it's not something. It's something that happens all the time, but it's not something that's going to bring in portalets.

And so how do we adjust that and have that both the data side of that, but also the folks working in the field saying, hey, this is my observation. Of course, we've had two of them that were completely blown up and burned to the ground in the last couple of weeks. So we're also combating that continuing vandalism of our plumb dressrooms, which then close them down until we can initiate a capital project, which often is not on our six year CIPs or we're you know, shuffling things to get that on. But even with our portalets, we continue to see a high level of vandalism and loss within that. Moving on to our Connect pillar in the framework.

As you all saw, we are launching full operations at Mount Blue Sky as it reopens later this month. We hope you'll join us for that. And we'll have our mountain parks team kind of taking on not just responsibility for the mountain parks that are up there, but also with operations at the gates kind of for that. We also have our new concession operations that, again, I won't get into a lot because we just talked about that as it came through council at Pahushka, at Lookout Mountain. We continue to expand, and thank you to council for extending removing the sunset from our bison ordinance.

We also are working, with our Daniels herd to expand their grazing area with the Highlands Ranch Backcountry Wilderness area. They're still working out all the fencing and containment and all that, but continue to push that forward to have more land for that herd to graze on. And then we're also have been working with councilman Watson and the entire team with DOTI and JEFCO OpenSpace and Dinosaur Ridge in the town of Morrison, Mountain Parks Foundation, Green Latinos on this pilot shuttle that will work across and connect to different Denver Mountain Parks, Jefferson County open spaces, and then some of those cultural destinations as well. And then we continue to work on activation downtown. As we reached out to all of you earlier, we've launched a pilot program at Commons Park, a community that has really liked having that park be more activated.

And so we have a pilot out right now offering a few dates available for folks to bring ABEs in. We're working with the community to see if that is something that they would like in that format to have more availability on that. And then we're also continuing to look at food and beverage. That's maybe the number one thing that people come up to me and talk about. They're like, hey, I was just in Chicago, New York, Paris, and I could grab a hot dog or a soda in a park.

Why can't I do that at this park that I'm in all the time? And so we continue to look at opportunities for that. Skyline Park will have a purpose built space for food and beverage in it. The boathouse at Sloan's Lake as we move maintenance operations out of there and really build the community It's asking for a rentable community space, which will also be in there, but there's enough room for that and a small food and beverage offering in there. And so we're continuing to do that, and you'll see an RFP going out looking at activation food and beverage activations at different locations as we have the ability to.

And then our adaptive golf program was able to hire a full time adaptive golf coordinator, so really leaning in and expanding on our adaptive golf, developing a strategic plan for adaptive golf and then working with grant writers to possibly look at more money to expand that and kind of the access with golf carts and getting on to the course with that. Our ranger education programs continued to grow in addition to, you know, you hear about them sometimes on the more enforcement side and reminding people about dogs off leash as our number one complaint that we get, but also our rangers do a ton of education programs, fishing programs. And then we are already having one of our biggest years when it comes to volunteer groups coming and adding those hours and cleanup, which is great for our team as we continue to grow and expand kind of that volunteer base that supports us, both through groups that are kind of dedicated to specific parks or a specific garden and also groups that just come in and say, hey, what's your area of highest need? And we can kind of put them to work on whatever area needs the most care.

So we have an awesome showing from our volunteers so far. I think with that, that was our presentation at this point. I wanted to make sure that we had time if you had questions. And so have questions and have the team here to answer what you might have.

Wonderful. Thank you for that. You covered so much that you all do. So we'll start with councilman Romero Campbell.

Thank you, madam chair, and thank you for the presentation. It's a lot that you guys are working on. Wanted to ask specifically we we get one question.

Yes. If you can stick to one. Okay. Got one question here. And maybe we'll get back around.

And then we can get back around. I wanted to talk about older adults and some of the services through the parks that that I've been hearing from my constituents. One is the porta lets and the accessibility for those porta lets. I think we have a few, but just really having it easier, the step ups and stuff, it's just more difficult. And then also for seniors and things that I've been hearing about a lot is around adult playgrounds. I

was like, What

is an adult playground? But I believe that they are, I've been told and what they've been talking about is along the trail having places to do exercise and stretching and so forth. Is there any consideration of putting that or looking at older adults within the larger plan?

I don't know, Gordon, if the team's already looked at any of that yet or if we can get plugged into it.

Gordon Robinson, director of park planning, design, construction. Yes. We are actively working on three pilot projects, discovering locations to roll out a, as you said, a workout area specifically designed for older adults to stretch, to work out, do it together in a park environment. Yep. So you'll see that.

Where are the three pilot areas? This one in Southeastern.

I I will get that information to you. I don't think we've decided it yet, so we can look hard in that area. We are we are geographically trying to disperse them. Okay. So it may very well end up in your area. But if not, think they'll be successful, and we'll do more.

Yeah. We've just got a lot

of very active older adults that are in the parks all the time. And, you know, it's to your point earlier, it's it's just need a place to stop and go to the restroom and so forth and having a choice to look out that's just adding a little bit

of Yeah.

Variety to their to the day.

Totally agree.

Thank you

so much. Thank you. Appreciate it. Your pleasure. We'll go to councilwoman Lewis online.

Thank you. My one question is regarding the cuts for park rangers. If you all can provide to us where those cuts have taken place because I've gotten some concerns in my district about a lack of, like, maintenance and things of that nature. And I just was curious if you can give us a comprehensive understanding of how the cuts to park park rangers have impacted the overall system within the city and county of Denver.

And I'm sorry. Just to I was having a little trouble here. Park rangers or park maintenance staff are you looking for? Just so I just so can keep Sorry.

Were you dead? I didn't wanna interrupt you. Yeah.

Go ahead.

Okay. So a combination of both, the park rangers and the park maintenance. So how the cuts have affected both of those aspects within your system.

Yep. We can follow-up with you on that.

Thank you.

Great. Councilman Hines.

Thank you, committee chair. Since I get one question, I I think my question I mean, some going so many directions. You're talking about adding a restaurant into Skyland Park restaurant into Skyland Park, a restaurant some

Sloan's Lake, but

Sloan's Lake. Oh, yeah. The right word. Right. And, you know, government, a lot of times, works on projects that don't make financial sense from a private for profit perspective. I know that Chisman Park in the eighties had a private restaurant immediately adjacent to the park. There's also another one that that operated about nine months and shut down that was also immediately adjacent to Cheesman. So I guess the one, the restaurants will be part of the park system, not an enterprise. Correct?

Correct. Yeah. The I mean, so we similar to, like, the golf courses have restaurants and there's a concession agreement with the city, that lives in the golf enterprise, but this these would not be in that enterprise, would be and, again, Secret Guard Cafe or its replacement that is working on opening, that is on private property. It just happens to have zero line between it and park, but these would be structures within the park on a concession agreement similar to our golf courses.

And then the second question is our one question.

My second part Wait.

I thought

that was the second one. So

how does parks consider the profit when operating cons you know, restaurants or concessionaires? Because government doesn't have to generate a profit. It could provide a service to the people who go to the parks. But Yeah. But I'm curious about

Great great

We don't wanna just drive the, you know, like, have more park ranger layoffs because we're doing concessions at TZM. Great question.

Right. The the number one driver is the user experience, is is creating a user experience. In the same way that there are people who are like, hey, I wanna be at the park and I want a playground. Hey, I wanna be at the park and I would like, you know, this activity to be their basketball, football. Right.

There are people who say, hey, I want to be in the park and I want to be able to grab a drink while my kids play in this new splash pad at the park at Skyline, or I want to sit by Sloan's Lake and I want to be able to grab, you know, a grab and go sandwich and sit there while I do it. So we are focused, you know, not whereas private enterprise would be focused on, okay, what's the bottom line? How do we make money on that? That gives us flexibility to work out, right, not having land costs, because we are not, work out an agreement with that concessionaire that makes sure that it is sensitive to this is a different place to run that kind of operation. And this is different kind of operation.

It's not gonna be a sit down kind of you know, restaurant necessarily. It's more grab and go counter service kind of thing. So to work that out without needing to turn a profit, but also to make sure that we're covering costs and hopefully bringing some more money back into the system to help pay for those things. And so not at the at the cost of, but adding to the guest experience and maybe adding some revenue at the end of the day as well.

My third question just kidding.

Three. I appreciate that. I appreciate thinking about city revenue. Councilwoman Parity.

Yes. This is such a huge presentation to try to fit into one council meeting. And I there's a lot to absorb about it, and I really appreciate it. I have a question that's I'm trying to open the PDF while I'm which is why I'm not making eye contact. But I have a question that relates a little bit to something that you may be coming back to committee for if it's able to be scheduled. But just as we get into summer, we always get all kinds of constituent questions about rec centers, obviously, because everybody uses them and everybody loves them. So one question I've had from constituents and just wanted to, I think, put to rest, people were concerned that with water restrictions, we might not do some of the outdoor pools this summer. Is that on the

Under under Denver Water's current drought thing, which will be for this season, we are allowed to fill outdoor pools. So all the outdoor pools will be filled.

Great. I will quash that anywhere I hear it. I'm very concerned about the drought, but I'm also glad that it's not impacting

the pools.

Yeah. And we will be just people from doing their home pool.

Yeah. And you can also tell people that we will still deliver on the 20% savings that we need to for Denver Water even with that. So that's the flexibility of having as big a system as we have a thousand different accounts is we can still fill that pool and still, through incremental changes, achieve that water saving.

Great. Yeah. And I know you've made a lot of progress in water savings that I have tracked and appreciate very much. And if it's okay, the second piece of that

Sure. And then then we'll get back. So that's great because we have some time.

Okay. Thanks. Sorry. It's just when when people are Question. I've had a number of I know a lot of parents. Okay? I have one. And people always raise with me the process of registering for summer lessons and swim lessons and all of that. I am sure you hear about that even more than I do. I'm just curious if the system for registration for swim lessons and all of those things, what happens is it opens up at a time that's at noon, and it's just first come, first serve.

Everybody goes in there, and usually the slots are filled by 12:03 because they're so popular. And so I have long wondered if there's ever been a thought to changing that in any way, mostly because, you know, doing it in the middle of a workday and in a way where, like, the speed of your Internet connection really matters. I just worry about the equities of that. I don't know what a better way would be, but I wonder about it every year. Thank you, manager.

I'll have John come up and talk to you about the various iterations of one of the one of the things before John gets up that John's team has has done is found a way to add more slots specifically on some of that stuff. Love that. It's still sold out real quick, so we're not there yet. But one of it is supply and demand, which we would also love to get to, in fact, place where we have better supply. But

Yeah. Because people love the lessons. I mean, I I did look at that. So

John Martinez, the deputy. We have modified our registration over the years, right, to meet that demand. One of the things we did implement was a whole 10% for walk in for folks that did have that digital divide. But it is it's one of those challenges that we're trying to balance with the popularity of swim lessons. But we did add an additional 164 slots this last go around by pausing the private rentals.

So

as you guys remember, we paused the private rentals until we figured out the greater community benefit.

Okay. Thank you. I'm I'm glad to know that. Glad I asked. Thanks,

Thank you so much. I think that's a really important question and something we do struggle with. Are those available, like, only for that day? Is it until they fill up for the in person ones?

They're that day, but they go just as quick as the online. So trying to find that balance again. But my team is always looking at ways to improve our registration system. And so it's it's on one hand, it's a great thing. Our our programs are popular and they fill up. But on the other hand, we we do have folks that are upset when they can't get their kiddos in. No.

Okay. Let me just get in with one question. Just I know we had set aside funding for Asperger Park this year, and I'm curious where we're at on getting the design contract and getting that going.

Hi. Gordon Robertson, director of park planning, design, and construction. That project is gonna be under design later this year. I don't believe it's been assigned yet to a project manager. We have a backlog of projects, but that one is on our queue in our queue and should be underway later this summer or early fall.

Okay. If we could get a list of that queue, that would be helpful. Sure. All right. Thank you so much, Councilwoman Romero Campbell. Sorry to speed along. Everyone has so many questions.

So thank you, council committee chair. I so we recently passed a bond, and

I thought Patrick was in

the room. That's why I kept looking back.

He was, I think.

And there were a number of bond projects that are related to rec center improvements. How do you anticipate that that will start? I know they're looking at tranches and and moving forward. I recently, with our last presentation, the two library renovations for those bond projects closed down both libraries in Southeast Denver. And so we are without two libraries and kind of that surrounding area, total of five that council member Parady had mentioned.

Are you thinking about, like, what that bond rollout looks like and what that capacity would be just because I know for Eisenhower, it's gonna be for pool repair and to update the kiddie pool, I believe. Those are the two things that were being put in there. So just kind of thinking forward, I know you're thinking, you know, about summer and registration, but what does that look like in the next year or so?

The bond projects I'm sorry. Gordon Robertson, director of park planning, design, construction. The bond projects are fairly minimal in in scope. I think Eisenhower is the one that might have some impact, but we will do the pool work off season, and the interior work shouldn't close the building nor should it close Montbello, the other bond project. It's all work that we can do and keep the rec center running.

Great. That's good news. And do you know or do you have an anticipated timeline as to when those renovations would happen for Eisenhower?

The bond team is putting that out publicly here shortly if it isn't already on the website, But that's being worked on right now.

Great. Thank you. Thank you.

Did you have anything? Oh, had another one. That's okay. Councilman Hines, did you have anything else?

No. Thank you.

Okay. I did have a couple more. Maybe one for follow-up is since the scrap metal ordinance, have you seen less scrap metal theft? I'm curious.

No. Our backflows are is our biggest scrap metal piece. Right? John Marcy, his deputy.

That's correct. The backflows, we had a significant increase last season. What my team has now installed is plastic backflows, so they seem to be working a lot better. But we we still have theft of of copper and some of those backflows. It's just an ongoing battle. But we have I mean, we're still early in the season with the drought and the delayed schedule. So I can have a better number come summertime.

Yeah. Think that would be helpful to see. And then, obviously, this is a separate question. With the snow anticipated tonight and the trees blooming, I'm curious if there's a strategy that Parks has on how we save our trees at this moment. That looks like our city So if don't mind reading right here.

Yes. Luke Kilorn, City Forester. Yeah. With the anticipated weather, we we are asking residents to be mindful of their young trees, especially the newly planted trees. If they can and they're they can do within, like, safe means, we're asking that they shake their trees. We'll be sending out some messaging through our comms and marketing if that hasn't gone out already, but, basically, anything beyond, like, the younger trees. If you see a failure, a a damaged limb or something like that, we ask you to report that through 311. But it is on our radar. Our staff are prepared, and we are mindful of what's coming with this weather. And, hopefully, it's just rain.

I appreciate that. And another tree related question. With the drought restriction and with the with the budget cuts, we cut the tree watering. And there was talk about with the tree watering being cut, there was gonna be more education on that. So I'm curious with that, what does that look like for this year?

Yeah. So to be clear, Denver Water is encouraging residents and customers to continue watering their trees by hand. We do wanna make sure that those trees are successful in establishing. Tree planting is also another service that is supported by Denver Water. When it comes to the reduction that we're doing in house, we're doing it strategically across our department to make sure that those trees of significance are continuing to be watered, but in certain areas, it is something that we will continue to monitor. Our internal staff, our operations team is out there watering every single day. We've been continuing to water even through this winter, and we're making sure that those trees are resilient through the summer and the expected, drought.

So when you're watering by hand, is that once a week, once a day, once what is the recommendation?

So it kind of depends on on the tree size, right? So for newly

Like a small baby

tree.

Yeah. Like newly planted trees, it's about a two inch caliper. We're asking residents if they have one. Say, for example, they were a recipient of our Be a Smart Ash where we plant trees in the public right away for free for our residents. We're asking for assistance where they water those about 10 gallons per inch, so that'd be a 20 gallon watering cycle, weekly or biweekly depending on what the weather looks like, and then you can scale that up for larger mature trees, obviously.

Great. Councilwoman O'Rourke, I'll come.

Thank you. I I guess it's tree related, but it's also about the planting beds or the flower beds. Will those be in the parks this year or is that scheduled? I know last year's we had a hold because of budget and they came back,

but maybe you could

just Yep. We will be planting the beds that need to be planted. We have over the years converted a lot of those to annuals. Mhmm. Perennials. I like that everybody on the team coming. I was like, it's a round sound. So those are obviously there. We've been converting, so those are already there. But, yes, we we are continuing planting on

those.

Okay.

Wonderful. Well, super heartwarming heartwarming to see the removal of the grass outside this building. So thank you for the work there, and thank you for all the amazing things that you're doing. Appreciate you all. And with that, do we have any consent? We have one item on consent. Since no one has pulled it off, we'll go ahead and move forward. And thank you for that, and this meeting is adjourned. Thank you. Madam Chair.