Finance & Services Committee - Regular Meeting

Exciting budget and policy proposal for us today. But before we get started, let's go around the room and do introductions, and I'll start to my right.

Good science. Perfect, Jen.

Hi. Kevin Flynn, Southwest Denver's District 2.

Hello. Diana Romero Campbell, Southeast Denver, District 4. Chantel Lewis, District 8.

Jamie Torres, West Denver, District 3.

Hi, everybody. Serrano Gonzalez Gutierrez, one of

your council members at large. Rod Vibres, lucky seven.

All Cashman, South Denver District 6. Darryl Watson, fine District 9.

Amanda Sawyer, District 5.

And then thank you all. We have a proposal for oh, councilman Parity. Go ahead.

Sarah Parity, your other council member at large.

Great. Have a proposal for a lobbying ordinance, an update to our lobbying ordinance. So councilwoman Torres, I will let I'll let you take it away. Thank you

so much, madam president. And I'll let the clerk's team, clerk and recorder's team, introduce themselves, and then we'll kinda do I'll do an intro.

Great. Andy Sikaris, chief deputy city clerk.

I'm Ben Schler, senior policy adviser for the clerk's office.

Nick Mayo, the campaign finance and ministry.

So we've been working with this team for the past several months. Council members Gonzales Gutierrez and Luis are also signed on as cosponsors of this effort. Andy and I started talking before last year budget around the need to update the lobbying ordinance. And they've done incredible work diving really deeply into what exactly needs to be updated because having been on council for seven years now, the number of really controversial things that we've taken on, none of them have garnered lobbying activity in their reports as of yet because of the way that the law is written. And so it's giving no visual as to who's lobbying on what issue or how much they might be spending on it.

And so I think that the work that's been done so far in amendments to this really get at, I think, the point of it without being overwrought or cumbersome. But there are a couple decision making points that we want to get your feedback on as well before we file for committee on Thursday. We'll be going to Community Planning and Housing Committee. You think that doesn't relate to lobbying, but it totally does. But it's also the committee we could get in before I'll

try to

go through promptly because I think most of you have received a variation of this, but please stop me. And I also added a slide to sort of explain some of the mechanisms that we get as well that I've gotten some questions about both from the lobbying community and some of the members of council. All right. So, why we really looked at why reform is needed. Our laws are a little dated. They are confusing. I've heard that from the media. I've heard that from you all. I've heard that from the lobbyists, quite frankly. And they really don't provide a lot of meaningful transparency to the media and the public about other than the client lists that the lobbyists represent are really the only things that are getting reported.

There's been some opportunity that we sort of noticed in some policy gaps around some of the high profile lobbying that where there was spending done to influence you before you referred it to a ballot measure. We saw it around tobacco, on both sides. I think we've seen it on some surveillance stuff where they're asking their members or their, supporters or they're going into paid media to tell you to vote no, vote yes. That's not captured anywhere at all because it's not on the ballot, it's not captured under campaign finance. So, they can spend as much as they want right now to influence you all or ask the mayor to veto something or not veto something and that doesn't get captured anywhere.

And, you know, it's just sort of a clear case based on sort of modern reforms to track this. It's we're seeing it as a trend across the whole sort of lobbying community. They're trying to sort of influence it before it goes to a campaign which is more expensive. Really, goals of the rewrite increase transparency in local government decision making, provide clear and relevant information to the public and to the lobbyists quite frankly, align with, you know, other jurisdictions and then really create a fair and consistent enforcement mechanism that is a little unclear in the current law, which we'll talk about in a little bit. New disclosure requirements, compensation, on how much lobbyists make per client per reporting period in a range.

So, it's not an exact dollar figure. We heard from the lobbying community that they were concerned of sort of business issues of dollars and cents. And so we figure a range and then we can run a report of how much was spent on a certain category over the period. So lobbying activity disclosure. So disclose which covered officials were lobbied in the reporting period along with the client represented.

So, we sort of went and looked at how that would look, which I'll talk about in the end a little bit, and disclosed the lobbying topic if it is available. Grassroots lobbying, which I was just talking about, it's also known as astroturfing or grass tops lobbying, activating a membership base. We set a limit or at least a trigger of $5,000 to sort of start that. That's what gets you in the paper, that's what gets you on TV or on radio. We didn't want to scoop up folks with a change.org petition or, you know, small list that I'm sure you get many of those emails anyway, but we wanted to sort of really identify the big spenders.

A little bit more clarification on who can be lobbied. So, elected and appointed officials would be covered under this. It does not include career service employees. And I probably said this joke too many times, but I know you love when I harass you to fill out your searchlight reports for other things. This all falls on the lobbying community to report unless you feel that there has been a violation and you can file a complaint against or a citizen can file a complaint against the lobbyist.

It also clarifies who a lobbyist is. It's only a person that receives compensation for lobbying in a total of a thousand dollars in a year or more. That will also include like government affairs officials that sort of are sort of in a gray area, but if a thousand dollars of their salary goes into lobbying, they would need to be covered under this law. But really we don't want to pick up people that are volunteering as a lobbyist. They're lobbying for themselves in a personal capacity.

They're public officials providing testimony. But really if they make $1,000 or more, they would have to register and be part of this. So that could be, for example, some of the folks that came and lobbied around labor, you know, the labor ordinance, those government officials would have to register that they met with you and on behalf of whom. The creation of a cooling off period, which there's some discussion on timing, I'm going to put eighteen months is what's in the current bill, but, that is a point for discussion for you all. But to prohibit former electeds and cabinet members from lobbying for eighteen months, star, that is up for discussion.

And then really to prevent revolving door influence for personal gain. To sort of touch on the fact that there is also a companion sort of piece in the ethics code that really prevents you from using knowledge that you have in your official role as any city employee to profit, I talked to the board of ethics. They think there should be a clear line of whatever you all decide in this code around lobbying. We will probably have to open up the ethics code at some point to make sure the citing is correct, and you all can have sort of discussions then on that side of the fence. But cooling off period, don't eighteen months is up for discussion in a minute.

And then improve the enforcement language. Right now the enforcement language is pretty vague in what we can and can't do. Really, the only thing that it allows me to do is not allow someone to be a lobbyist for a year, even for a minor offense, which we really haven't ever activated because it tends to be like they haven't filed there, they filed late. So really, the goal is is this is not to be, you know, our goal is substantial compliance, right? Like we know that not everyone's going to be perfect.

So really, it allows us to reeducate, to question, to issue a small fine if they are late, similar to campaign finance. But really, if it becomes blatant or really fraudulent, there is a mechanism that doesn't relate in the regulator's side. There is going to be a hearing officer that this would get referred to that could issue subpoenas, could issue larger fines, that could issue even you couldn't be a lobbyist for a set period of time, but that doesn't it's, you know, an independent body, it's a judge, it doesn't fall on us to do that, to create those lines. But really, our goal is to reeducate these folks and explain and not sort of come out guns blazing like, You didn't file on the first one. You're going to hear, officer.

Right? Really, goal is substantial compliance, and we know stuff's going to get missed. But I think the level of data we're going to get is really going to tell a much better picture. Some bill updates. After stakeholder ing, we did meet with a number of the large lobbying firms. We also did a survey out. They were really concerned about having to report every contact, which we also fully got. You know, I think we thought it and concept sounded great until we started thinking about it. So they would only for example, I'm just making it up, but Andy Siqueiros, lobbyist, contacted Councilwoman Torres and client was, I love puppies in the period, right?

I took that meeting. Right, sure.

And then if There you go. Put it on your gift report. But, you know, so it would just have to you just see who lobbied you, who were their client, and was it in the period would be sort of in the report. We narrowed the cooling off period to elected officials and cabinet members because there's some ambiguity in those pieces, And then raise the grassroots lobbying disclosure to $5,000 not to scoop up small entities that may just be trying to activate their base with some accounting things and nonprofit land. It just sort of got a little questionable.

Items under discussion, and I'm going go one slide forward and then come back. Cooling off period length for you all to discuss and then should counsel aids be covered as covered officials. I will say probably from our agency side, we don't believe so, but that is a discussion for you all because they're not appointed officials. And then implementation, just so I sort of explain this piece as well. Covered meetings, direct contact, and email communications where they are directly asking you to take an official action in your official capacity would be what would be covered.

This is not transferred to, you know, sitting down, having discussions about long term planning information or hanging out just as friends, right? This is if they're asking you in your official capacity to take an official or administrative action, a yes or no vote, I need you to get involved in this, things like that. That's what would be covered in the reporting. In the reporting period, it would, as well as one thing that isn't sort of highlighted in here is when they communicate with you official capacity, they must tell you they're a lobbyist and they must tell you the client that they're reaching out on their behalf. That also includes in public testimony.

So if they come up into the dais and they are paid to be there, they have to say, I am Andy Sikares on behalf of I love puppies and I need you to vote for this. Right? And so that would be what's disclosed, right? Not your personal meetings, not your sitting together at a table. If they invite you to something, that wouldn't be unless they reached over and said, Hey, I really need you to vote on x, y, z thing. That's what it will be disclosed. Disclosed. And then reporting of compensation, this is just a line so you can sort of see this is how we're sort of seeing it. So it would be, Andy Sikaris was paid, you know, $1,000 from I Love Puppies in this two month period per client. Every client will be in here.

This is just a visual range. We expect it to go higher. One lobbyist firm said, $5,000 is way too low. Was like, thank you for that information. So, you know, but it is per two month period and then we can aggregate it all because some of the lobbyists did say like, look, I get paid in a chunk, right, it's for the whole metro or it is just for anything that comes up.

So I may have no lobbying activity in Denver except for two months of the year, how would I report that? And, you know, you just have to sort of look at your contract and figure out how many hours and report those pieces directly. We don't want to scoop up if you're talking to Aurora or the state. So and then we're still continuing incorporating stakeholder feedback as we go through this and really want to make sure we get it right for both our agency and the lobbying community and the public. So that is all I have. I'll move back to items under consideration, but open it up for questions and comments or Ben, who's smarter at all the bill code than I am?

Any final any other additional That's

great, Andy.

Okay. A couple of things that I want to make sure. We took key consideration on, and I wanted to thank everyone for signing up for a briefing. We've gotten through almost all of them. It may be one or two that we've got to wrap up. So I really want to thank everyone for making time about this. We wanted to make sure that folks are still able to participate in working groups as we develop legislation. Councilwoman Sawyer, you mentioned wage theft. We had brought a lot of folks from all sectors around the table for years. That's not lobbying, right?

We didn't have a bill yet. So we want to make sure that we're not circumventing or creating a wall for folks that feel like, I can't participate in this thing because it's a cumbersome process, or it's considered lobbying. I think where I landed on aids, I will send an aid to take a briefing. She'll report back to me, but I'm ultimately the one who makes the voting decision. So that was why we opted not to include aids in this, but very open to your feedback on this one.

And then our language that we've had, even though it's been modified over time, I think we're seeing just a different level of lobbying taking taking place in our current political climate, and we can't be behind the ball and not be able to be transparent with the public and with the media about what's happening when it comes to that so that nothing really falls through the cracks in a major way there. And for things like the Pit Bull ban for flavored tobacco twice as some of the most lobbied issues we've taken on. For there to be no reporting, because nothing met the criteria of the law, is wild to me when we knew that there was lobbying going on there. So that's kind of what brings us to this space, but we don't want to overreach. We do want to make sure that it is sensible, even if over time maybe we come back and modify something because it's not working out.

This is worthy of updating now. So thank you so much, and can I take Yes?

One quick thing. So this will not take effect until 01/01/2027, because about a six month period of technology development. So as we get in there, if we get in there and we're like, we really bit off more than we can chew, we can come back and change things. But this won't take effect till 2027. And additionally, we're planning on shifting some resources around to have a dedicated lobbying support staff to do the education, materials, to be much more supportive of the community as well than currently that we have.

So Yep. Councilman Gonzalez, could you

add anything?

I just wanted to add on that. Like one of the things, and I think Andy mentioned this, but I'm very interested in is the feedback around the cooling off period. At the state, it is two years. When you leave office, you cannot just jump right into a lobbying role because of those, like, connections and and things like that that happen that you still have and that still exist. And so I think there's kind of a difference across the table, but we're really interested in hearing everyone's thoughts on that.

Thank you. We have four members in the queue. We council have member Flynn followed by Alvidrez, followed by Thrayer, followed by Hines. Is there anyone else? Council member Flynn, start

us off. Thank you, madam president. In fact, you have some of what I heard here addressed. What I thought after our briefing was that this was just a ginormous Yeah. Burden on a whole lot of people that wouldn't produce, you know, out on the margins wouldn't produce a lot of useful information. So I think I understood that any time I would bump into someone in a social setting and I say, hey, have you read the thing I sent over about council bill x y z? Oh,

yeah,

I did read that, and you suck, you know.

I hate puppies.

So that so that would be encompassed by one report for two months that I lobbied Councilman Flynn and he wasn't very grateful for it.

It would just show Andy Zakaris lobbied Councilman Flynn on behalf of I won't say puppies, we'll say potholes. And, you know, whatever it is, right? And so but that's all it would be. And it wouldn't be, I met him three times every five minutes, you know, because we did hear, Well, if I send a text chain and they respond the next day, what does that look like? And so, really, we just want to show that you were contacted by them on behalf of a client in the period.

Just that there was? Contact. Okay. And, what constitutes contact, I guess

Yep.

Is a form of art rather than a science?

Well, it would be in whatever format. It could be, you know, via the mail, it could be, you know, whatever.

But Let's say you run into somebody on the sidewalk and they say, hey, have you read that report yet? So, I did. I think we're pretty good, I can use this much Sure.

I can

use a clarification.

That wouldn't be covered. It would be, hi, I need did you get that report? I need you to vote for this. Right? This is it is It has to be yes. So, it has to be an ask of you to take an official action or an administrative action or if it was, hey, I need you to figure out why this, you know, I'm using your your sort of influence, it would be what we covered.

Okay. That gives me a lot more clarity and I appreciate that. As I said during our briefing, I think the cooling off period is way too long. I think two years is much too long. Eighteen months is way too long to deny people the ability to use skills that they developed on the job because and then secondarily, I think a cooling off period does not belong in this ordinance at all.

We should simply if we want to make it longer, we should update the ethics code because the ethics code applies to all city employees, even career service. You are not permitted for six months. And whether that's too short, we can discuss. But it prohibits anybody, our aides, some career service person in Doddy, from engaging with the city on that topic for six months, which is the same thing. So putting it in here, I think, is because this is to regulate lobbyists and a cooling off period regulates not lobbyists.

Can I tell you kind of where

it goes?

We've thought a lot about that since we had that discussion with you, Councilman Flynn, and I think that we still do think it goes in here. Absolutely think that the ethics provision overlaps with lobbying, but it's at the same time more broad and more restrictive under the ethics code because it talks it's kind of like if you look at that provision combined with the conflict of interest provision for an existing employee, it's essentially saying after you leave, those conflict of interest requirements still apply to you to certain extent so that you don't use some specific matter that you took you took an official action on in order to benefit yourself through employment. Whereas with lobbying and so that may encompass lobbying. Right? But it may not encompass lobbying because you may become a lobbyist for client who has nothing to do with any official action that you ever took and that this is more about the, you know, the appearance of or the possibility of additional additional access based on your prior employment.

So we think those two things are different. And then from- and I think from a enforcement perspective, we like having it here because we have the registration process, and so we'll know who are these former individuals and that and that, you know, they're it's specifically triggered if they register with us whether or not they violated that provision. Whereas under the ethics code, I am not super familiar with it, but I don't know how or when the last time it was that something like that got brought up, but I think that that's more of kind of like in front of the ethics board presenting evidence. There's not like that bright line that we're looking at under this, and that's, I think, how we see those two things as distinct and that they should both remain they ethics code shouldn't go away, but that this is different.

I still think it's misplaced

Okay.

In this location

Fair enough.

Because we can ease we if we need to amend the ethics code to say that, again, this is regulating lobby lobbyists. Right. And the cooling off period attempts to regulate people who are not lobbyists. It says you can't become a lobbyist until six months, eighteen months, whatever. So I think if we wanna do that, we should make it live in in the ethics code still.

Okay.

And then finally, madam president, I I do believe it should apply to council aides because they do take meetings and they do get a lot of benefit. I hate that. It would hinder them when they leave for six months or eighteen months that they wouldn't be able to pursue. Of course, they could become a lobbyist, just not with city issues. They could lobby in the state or for other clients of whoever they join with. But but I do think it should apply to

them. Okay.

Thank you. How did I miss I'm taking notes. Did did you say how long you felt like the clean off period should be?

Ethics code is six months.

Do you feel like this should align with the

I'm comfortable with

that. Got it. Thank you. Next up, we have councilwoman Alvarez. Thank you, council And I'd like to welcome councilwoman.

Thank you, council president. Thank you all for bringing this forward. I think it's really important and have heard from people that have worked at the state that they felt like there was some improvements needing to be made here. I will say it has been confusing, particularly one for me was the Xcel Energy. There's people coming at me from all directions.

Some people were paid. I don't know if everyone was. So it is very confusing, I think, as a council member when you're taking meetings to understand the dynamics that are in that meeting. One of the things and I appreciate the conversation about AIDS, I feel very conflicted about that whole piece. There's been situations in my district that I haven't back checked, to be quite honest, but were former government affairs staff for the city, got involved in lobbying on an issue in my district, which then led to a reversal of decisions that were made by a city department.

And so from my understanding in my briefing, those government affairs people are excluded, but they are very counterpart to the government affairs people in some of those other companies. And I I appreciate what you said about aids. I first of all, I wouldn't want my aids to be precluded from making a living for themselves in whatever way they can because they are so poorly paid, especially when you compare it to the mayoral's appointees. And everything I've seen has said that they are appointees, not career service, but I could be wrong there. And so I'm just curious how we're making sure this is fair and how we're not making loopholes for certain people.

You know, to touch on on part of the part of the point, I think in your sort of case as someone left the city and and was paid to lobby, right, they were doing government affairs work, they would be captured. They would have to register as a lobbyist and you would see their income and who paid them from that perspective. I did sort of talk to HR and and there's not a super clear class and comp for like government affairs staff in the city. You know, there's so many different class and codes. It's really hard to sort of nail down.

And I did a lot of thinking of how we would, like, sort of classify that after our conversation. There isn't, a specific job title in the city in a pay class that's just government affairs staff. So we'd have to think about how we would capture that. And so but, you know, in in your case, that person would have had to register as a lobbyist, right, because they were doing sort of that.

Which isn't the question. The question is how much cooling off would they or would they not have to have?

Currently, would have they wouldn't have any cooling off period, but they would still be sort of restricted by the ethics code and that's sort of a different discussion that I'm not qualified to have. But, you know, I think they they would be able to become a lobbyist right away in under the current ordinance. And

I think they have just as many connections, if not more Yep. Than even I do as a council member. And so just that part. So, anyway, that's all I have. Thank you, council president. Thank you.

Up, we have councilman Sawyer followed by council member Hines.

Thank you, madam president. Thanks, you guys. Wow. That was really loud. So I really appreciate this. A little bit of feedback. I appreciate you recognizing that the citizen complaint system that existed before council member Watson and I updated the fair elections fund, and we up kind of took a look at the rules around complaint of that system. So is that base are you essentially just gonna mirror that language? And that we haven't really had an election since we did that. We have not had an election since we did that. Not really. We have not.

We haven't, councilwoman. Although, although the your bill did great work to clarify, that general approach is what we had done the year prior. So for the 2023 cycle, we used that plus some significant administrative rules that we promulgated that create like, spell out the process very specifically to make sure that people have due process once there's an administrative hearing officer involved. It's been really good. It's given us a lot of ability to dismiss complaints directly from our office that don't have validity or just have not asserted enough facts for us to be able to send it off to a hearing officer and pay for that fact from our office.

And it has also allowed us to send real complaints to hearing officers and have those go through the process and put it in the hands of the hearing officer to decide the the penalty once they've they've gotten to the end.

Okay. Really appreciate that. And so this language incorporates that, then you'll do rules and regs development after assuming the ordinance passes? Yes. Got it.

Okay. Cool. In terms of the cooling off period or non compete, I as it relates to aids, I'm a little bit concerned because I will say we pay our aids very little given the amount of work that they are supposed to be doing and the expectations that they have put up on them and the level of confidentiality, professionalism, all the things that they are required to have in this job. I am really uncomfortable with telling them then if you're gonna leave here, you can't go lobby. I have had three aides graduate from my office to go lobby, and I'm thrilled for them.

They should go do that. That's, like, that's why you take a job like this with such low pay because it is about the professional development. It is about the growth and understanding of the way all of these different government structure structures structures work. It's about all of these different things, and I do not think it is fair to them to take away an opportunity like that. We certainly do not pay them enough money where they can cover it for six months.

They can't. And so it literally interferes with their job future job prospects for us to apply this to our aides. As much as I understand why we were we're having the conversation, and think I it's really valuable conversation, it is not fair for us to do that to them. And so I feel really, really strongly about that. And and I think that that's probably true of many staff members across the city of Denver in many different classifications. So I just I'm just gonna register my opposition on that one.

Can I ask you for a clarification Please? Yeah. I hear that. Are you how do you feel about requiring reporting to be done on meetings taken by your aides? That's where we're a little bit more if you are. Are they a covered

Let me just I'm gonna say back to you what I think you were asking me to make sure that we're both on the same page because, like, maybe we're just talking in cross purposes here. So what you're saying is the ordinance will require that the lobbyists, if they are meeting with your aides Yes. Are required to report. Yes. Mhmm. Yes. I have no problem with that.

Okay. That's alright.

That's the name.

Just not included in the cooling off.

Just not included in the cooling off period. Got it. Got it. Yeah. For the timeline, I think the ethics code is probably spot on on this one, and I'm gonna say I have a massive conflict of interest here because I have four hundred and thirty three days left in this job.

But

so two things. The first one is, is that six months the right number right now? I don't know the answer to that question. I think if there's six months written into our ethics code for a reason, I don't know what that might be. I think it's worth a conversation with, with Lori Weiser to see is there some, like, background history there of why it was six months or whatever.

I did ask you in our briefing, and we'll just ask again, when council president Sandoval and I were looking at the potential of switching, from twelve years to eight years to three terms to two terms for elected officials. One of the things one of the pieces of advice that we were given was a concern that when someone runs for office under the understanding that they could run for three terms and then that changes to two terms that impacts the expectation under which they ran for office originally. And so, like, when this happened at the state in, like, late eighties ish, there was, like, an eight year gap between when the voters voted on it and when it was actually implemented. We're a little bit talking about the same thing with the potential optional two year budget cycle moving forward, same kind of a thing that there has to be, like, a lag time. So I'm curious whether you guys had an opportunity to look at that lag time.

I like, concern to see if that's even an issue here.

It's a great question. Very much piqued my interest when you asked about it on Friday. I haven't had time to connect with John or our our representation from city attorney's office, but I have looked into the question. As it relates to kind of your analogy to term limits and there being, like, a reliance interest or otherwise from Courts have generally not found there to be a reliance interest in post service employment, and so they haven't looked at it that way. But there are other cases that have been brought, or at least one case that's been brought, it was out of Missouri, where the Eighth Circuit found there to be a First Amendment interest in lobbying because you are seeking influence on government things, and so And I'm not saying this is how Colorado would do it because it's the Eighth Circuit, but that they've Because of First Amendment, they saw it as, you know, they applied strict scrutiny, so they said you have to have compelling government interest and that the law has to be narrowly tailored.

And the compelling interest in that case, they basically said that Missouri had shown no evidence that there was any type of corruption or any type of revolving door. I think there's probably something a little different here in Denver. And then the other thing was that it was extremely broad. It it covered not only elected officials, but any employee, whether no matter their role at the general assembly, which is what that covered, and so they invalidated it based on that. I think ours is is different, but I think that is something that's, you know, worth you all knowing that it's out there even though it's from another jurisdiction and doesn't apply here, and the two year revolving door here in Colorado has not been challenged.

But as far as a current elected official's right not to have the rules changed on them midstream, haven't found anything that would that's on point for for this type of change.

Okay. That's great. If you don't mind just, like, looking through it a little bit more Yeah.

And I'll I'll

so that by the time we get to committee, we just know a little bit more clearly from the attorneys what their what their kind of opinion on that is. Absolutely. Yeah.

Thank you. That's it. Thanks, guys. Awesome. Thank you. Council member Hines followed by Watson.

Thank you, madam president. Thank you for the conversation. Thanks for the briefing in advance. Also, since I'm thanking, thanks for the clarification on volunteer lobbyists. That's something that I was. At the state level, you must the state of Colorado, I think, is the most stringent on lobbyists and requires even volunteer lobbyists to register at the state level. Thanks for the clarification. AIDS, I'd say yes for lobbyists reporting no to cooling off just because multiple council members have talked about that already. I love puppies. I do.

I love puppies. You know Caucus. Who's in the I hate puppies caucus? I'm not sure. Yeah.

I didn't say I didn't say puppies. He said puppies.

Alright. Okay. Well, so anyway, the speaking of I love puppies, we passed a ban on puppy mills. Mhmm. And last week, the governor signed a state bill, you know, by majority leader Duran that banned puppy mills state lines. The same stuff we were doing here in Denver that had already been done in other cities. And so with that thought process of what happens in Denver sometimes happens. Let's go back to the cooling off period. What about city employees lobbying at the state level or federal level? Is there a cooling off or no cooling off?

It it would only apply to city lobbying Yep. In in Manhattan as well.

K. Just just making sure, I know that Dan Pabon in was majority leader, in his off session, he would lobby at the local level. So an actual thing that happened, not just theory. What about a lobbyist that lobbies on multiple items? I just wanna, like, make sure that that's covered. Sometimes I get one lobbyist and who has a list and we go through six or seven items. I wanna make sure that all like, even though they're going it's one meeting, all those items get covered, the lobbyist, the who they're lobbying, and I'm guessing a date

to Yeah. So it would be in the period.

So it wouldn't Oh, in the period.

So would be in the two month period. So they if you said there were six clients that they lobbied you on, they'd have to list it six times. Right? It wouldn't be like, you know, Andy, I love puppies, Heinz, and I also said, I love kittens, I love dolphins. Right? It would have to be, you know, it would be just definitely trying to be, you know, PC here because if I say something, you're like, oh my god. But, you know, I think it's, but I think it's, so you'd be like, there'd be six entries. Right? Yeah. But it'd be by client.

Yeah. And some lobbies are pretty good at letting us know who they have a financial interest in, and sometimes, you know, they're just talking about. But that I think I think that will help us with the discipline when lobbyists give us seven items and they're paid on six of them. And then, you know, we go look at the list and we don't see that one, that helps us to go, oh, right. You know, lobbyist, us know that you were not compensated by that so that that that interest so that we don't look at the list and not see it and wonder what's going on.

Okay. What about, say, an architect that that is paid they don't really classically see themselves as lobbyists, but I know one architect that's that's, you know, reached out about on behalf of a couple clients. I think we might have to do some education just, you know, to to help some of the people who don't necessarily feel that they're a lobbyist. They're getting paid for architectural work and want to advocate on behalf of that as opposed to specifically lobbying work. So I I think, you know, unless you have comments on that.

Yeah. I I think it will it will definitely be helpful to have an additional staff person to, like, help educate, but, you know, I think we will be relying on on your staffs and and some of this the folks of, you know, we wanna provide you tools too. If they come to you and you feel like it's veering into that you have, like, hey, these are the rules you probably wanna check with the clerk's office to make sure you're not in violation. Right? I mean, I don't want to put on too much work on you all, but we want to give you those simple things because a lot of people don't know what they don't know.

Right? They're not being malicious. So we want to make it as easy as possible. But I think, you know, we want to do a lot more proactive education out there to, you know, and pop by counsel, see who's talking, right? And this isn't trying to be, you know, the bad guy waiting in the bushes, but I think it's- we really want to make sure that we're doing a lot of proactive education and this sort of also period before it launches will help us develop a lot of those materials to start sort of pre inoculating some of the the the folks about the information.

So I since our briefing, I just thought some other, you know, brainstorming ideas. So one other, what if, and maybe this is education too, we have a former, city employee who is a legislative liaison, believes, a wealthy benefactor asks this individual to lobby to change a decision, say, on Alameda, and that person is not a director, not an elected official, and that person talks to not a director or executive, but actually the team that is responsible for that that particular decision, like, is that not covered? I mean, I think we've seen an example of change affected, but I don't see any of the boxes checked from this legislation.

Yeah. I think if I have your hypothetical correct, that they were Too broad. Yeah. That they were discussing

That's right.

That the discussion was limited to those who would not be defined covered officials under this. Yeah. And Yeah. I mean, I I think you are right that that type of communication that that is not directed at a covered official would not be covered under this. And I think that yeah. I mean, I think we have to draw the line somewhere, and I think that's kind of where we drew that line.

I mean, hypothetical, they would be voting on anything. Right?

Well, they did make a change to the I mean, the voting because that's True. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

In that case, counsel no one had a

vote. Correct.

It was past any sort of opportunity for us to vote on. Correct. Yeah. Okay. Last thing, you mentioned delay until January 1. There's something else that's happening on April 5 and then maybe something in June. I wonder if the programming if you're wanting to wait until January 1, should it be July 1?

I think for you could look at the cooling off period for that. I think for us, we need to plan your new registration for lobbying, so sort of changing the program midyear would be tough for us. But if you wanted to look at cooling off starting at a different time, you know, if it lives here or in the Board of Ethics Code, you could also look at that as as a change. But, for us because we do an annual registration that starts January 1, it would be it would be kind of hard for us to sort of shift that around in terms of of launch date for us. Yeah. It's okay.

I think we'd also like to work out the kinks of implementation so that way when, you know, the council council turns, turns, that way, you know, we're ready, we have our guidance, we've got, you know, some reps under our belt to, you know, go in with, you know, if there's new department heads, new council members, we have that all set up. We're not trying to educate new folks and the existing electeds all at the same time in what's gonna be a very, very busy July.

I guess I'm playing counterpoint devil's advocate to my own question, but obviously, perspective, but, really, this is more meant for someone else as opposed to the we elected. So maybe it isn't as as important that it is or is not timed around elections. So thank you. Thank you, madam president.

You're welcome. Next up, we have council member Watson followed by pro temer mayor Campbell.

Thank you, council president. Thanks for

pulling this together. Thanks for the briefing. It was very helpful for me. Cooling off period, my hope would be that we try to mirror what's in ethics. I it's and it's just me, my OCD.

I having different timelines for things that seem similar drives me nuts. And so whether it's six months, twelve months, eighteen, I'd love for those to be consistent. I know we're not changing ethics right now, and but my recommendation is we if we're putting this in the ordinance that it's closer to where ethics is at. Reporting when it comes to council aids, I I cooling off period, I I I don't believe we should have that for council aids and all of the above what was stated by other council members that I agreed with.

I think there was another thought.

And then grassroots lobbying, I'm still struggling. The state has decided to do a lot of housing builds, tons of builds on housing, And we have a lot of folks who aren't registered lobbyists that are providing us direction on things that we're doing, whether it's providing community planning and development stuff, then we're in meetings with them. I just wanna make sure, is it registered an outright registered lobbyist that this impacts or folks who are paid by organization that does housing policy statewide, regionally, or whatever that's working on builds that we're doing in response to some stuff. I I that's where I'm a little bit off on who has to do this if they're an official registered lobbyist.

Yeah. So I'll use I'll use flavored tobacco as as an example, not just picking on them. But I think you saw ads that were paid for both by, I think it was the American Heart Association and the Wyoming tobacco Yeah. Group. Group that were running TV ads, newspaper ads, radio ads asking you to to for people to contact you through their paid system to vote no or vote yes to refer something to the ballot.

We were contacted by CPR, I'm sure you all were, to say how much was spent, why is there nothing on these reports. That's a whole. Right? So, there is there is significant money getting spent actions to get you to vote yes or no on something. That's why we sort of set that sort of $5,000 threshold.

Think if it's an RNO or a community group or or something asking you to say, like, put this on that that that's different for us than if they're running a TV ad saying, like, we need more housing. We need you to change the zoning rules or whatever it may be. So really, we wanna capture the the spending on behalf of of groups, which wouldn't it's sort of a different report in the lobbying report. Right? So it would be Wyoming sorry, I don't forget what it was.

You know, tobacco spent $50,000 on paid communications in opposition or support of the bill. Right? Or if they stopped everything and also went to the mayor and said, We need you to veto this or not veto this, that would also be covered. So, would be asking you to take an official action with paid communications of $5,000 or more that would be covered under the grassroots lobbying. And and it has, like, 50 different names. I would Astroturf is probably the better word in it, but, really, that's what we're trying to capture.

I mean, I wanna spend some more time with y'all on it because I just have so many examples. Wanna call Yeah, please. Really amazing groups out that provide us stuff. And their stuff isn't, like, in writing that they would do, like, or do a TV ad. They would do maybe a campaign that there is some cost to, like, a land use issue that they're trying to get us to support a bill here or there. Are they gonna be tied up into this? So maybe one off, I can we can go through some of the stuff that I see. Does it mean tobacco? Yes. I wrote an ode to the lobbyists for tobacco.

Some folks liked it, some folks hated it. I think it makes sense. But we have a lot of folks that do zoning and housing, and it is in is it it is in response to a lot of stuff we're getting coming to the city county of Denver, and I'm still not certain because I don't wanna call the names out here around the table. Maybe on on another one off, I can Yeah. Show you what folks are doing. And I think it's costing them money to do stuff with us to say vote yes, no, whatever, but Yeah. I I don't know.

Some of, I think, the value of us updating this language Yeah. Is also making it clear to folks, you are lobbying when you are lobbying. Right? When you are asking me to vote up or down a particular item. And we think we're just having a civic conversation, but if you're being paid to do that on a regular basis or substantial amount of money, that's something that we need to get recorded.

If you're doing it on behalf of your group of neighbors who say, we want you to vote no on this thing because it affects our daily life, they're not doing it as part of their job. They're not being employed by somebody else to make that request. Those, I think, are the starker differences, but because we haven't really had a lot of really bright lines creating guardrails, I think it's been a too familiar kind of a space, and we want to have those conversations, we want to hear from groups, particularly those who are representing underrepresented voices. But we have to be able to record it. We're not saying you're doing something bad, because we get lobbied on all sides of issues, right?

Who we end up appealing to and who we end up opposing. We just need it recorded.

Helpful. Thank you, council president. That's helpful. Thank you.

Next up we have council pro tem, Romero Campbell, and then Flynn back in the queue and council Mounceria back in the queue. Thank council president.

So thank you. I appreciate the briefing. It was really helpful. And the gaps when you were naming all of the kind of different instances, was like, oh, yeah, you were right. I wonder, can you remind me what is the reporting cadence that we would have for this?

Yeah. So it's every two months. So it would be caught in a two month period. So a lot of this reporting would actually be probably a lot of times after the bill. So it's not sort of live reporting like similar at the state, but, it would be they they report every two months and we would continue on that schedule.

And then what was the amount to be able to you had talked about upgrading the system. So is that where does that come from? Is that just a budget?

Yeah. We we would be looking to seek a supplemental appropriation for the 2026 one time for what was it? 40

$49,524. But, yeah, it would be a one time expense that we currently can't absorb into our budget, but we will be absorbing in the additional staff person.

And then, so if I understand correctly, part of this is like the education for those who are lobbying with those lobbying activities. So is this intended just to be for information purposes, or would there also be some penalty or if somebody violates what's being put forward?

So when you say will there be a penalty, so if, for example, somebody just failed to report, those types of things?

Failed to report or maybe somebody leaves one of these appointee positions and starts lobbying the next month or something

that? Yeah. Yeah. So there's so we like I was saying in my discussion with councilwoman Sorter, we kind of grafted the complaint process over from, campaign finance, and it's very similar. And it's either one of you all, a member of the public, or even our office can bring its own complaint if we see a violation, and then that leads us to basically an initial review that says, is there a potential violation?

If there is, it goes off to an independent hearing officer who, if they do find that person to have violated the code, can can issue a fine. They can issue a warning. This is, you know, a non sophisticated actor who just didn't understand the system. You know, they can revoke their ability to register for a certain period of time. There's kinda kinda runs the gamut of of what those penalties could be. Okay.

In in addition, similar to Campaign Finance, there would be a late reporting fine of $50 a day. So, if someone was late by a day. But again, similar to Campaign Finance, it, you know, you make a mistake, we work with you. Right? Like, this is to capture the bad actors, not the whoops, I thought it was tomorrow folks. You know, and a lot of it will be, Hi, we saw you didn't file. Is something wrong? Was there something wrong with the system? Similar to I'm sure you get a lot of emails from us of like, Hey, still haven't gotten this, right? Like, you know, to everyone who hasn't filed. You know, I think we wanna be more proactive, which we haven't been able to in our current capacity with the lobbying community as we do with campaign finance.

And I should mention too, since we implemented the new complaint process after councilman Sawyer and councilman Watson's bill, we have a cure period, which basically says, hey, we think you violated this provision. Do you have thirty days to respond to that? And including within that thirty days, you can also cure. And what that looks like is them calling Nick and saying, I didn't know that I was supposed to do this thing, and Nick helps them fix it, and then they send back to us, you know, something in writing that says, I fixed it, and then we say, all good.

Great. And then just around the council aides, I wouldn't include council aides. I also think the reporting for meetings with them, I agree with having that included. And then I don't really have strong feelings about the cooling off period at this point. I mean, I think

if You just don't wanna deal

with the I do like the idea. Yeah. I like the idea of the consistency, but don't have strong strong feelings about it. Okay.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you,

madam president.

Thank you. Council member Flynn.

Thank you, madam president. When I first when I saw the presentation and then during their briefing, I hadn't yet it hadn't yet hit me that one of the expectations I had when I heard of this wasn't really in there. So I wanna make sure I understand this. When I saw grassroots lobbying, I thought it was going to be an effort to capture capture a lot of the campaigns that we are subject to that don't get reported. Sounds like only some of them will be, and it all hinges around money.

I've gotten hundreds of emails urging me to vote yes or no on an issue here or there that I'm clearly certain didn't come from a lobbyist but came maybe from a an organization, maybe a national organization or a statewide organization that activates its members. And in fact and I recognize these because a lot of them are you get down at the bottom, it says assigned your name, and they didn't put in their name. So I know that it's basically it's a form email that they've been given. And I would love to be able to capture where is this coming from so it's not always apparent. But this does not do that.

Is that correct? It seems to me in the same category as the Wyoming petroleum marketers against the tobacco ban and the smoke free or whatever the other ones were that were in favor of it.

Yes and no. And check me if I am incorrect. So I think we don't want to capture so because it sort of falls into then is it every RNO, is it everyone that has an email list. So it wouldn't have to be initiated from a lobbyist. It's the spending on a lobbying activity that we're capturing in this piece. So it wouldn't be if it's Andy LLC lobbying, you know, it is, you know? So so what would happen is if they've spent $5,000, even if it was an out of state group or an in state group, if they spend $5,000, they would have to report that they spent 5,000 or more in this piece to capture that.

Okay. We would never know if he spent $5,000 and didn't tell us.

One thing is is if you get a digital ad that says click here to tell Councilman Flynn to say no, and you click there and it takes you to a form Yeah. The payment for that advertisement would be encompassed in the 5,000. If I've already given the organization my contact

5,000? Yes, exactly.

It's It's

not an email blast. Correct.

If I if if it's ilovepuppies, l c and I have I have signed up for ilovepuppies, so I'm on their email list, that would not be triggered unless they're making an expenditure. But if it's an ad that they are paying for that says, join this, so it it is to hinge on the money. You're right. But the form of the email, how how they contact the person to write the form email, it may be covered by them.

Okay. Understood. It's

Yeah.

It's it would be nice to have information for me, not that it would, you know, sway me one way or another beyond what the words themselves had to say because but they're on the same footing, getting emails from the were sent to the Wyoming Petroleum Marketers versus the Sierra Club or some other organization. It to me, it's part and parcel the same thing. They're asking me to vote yes or to vote no on something. And so it's a I think it's a gap, but maybe it's not that important. It's just it's just missing. Yeah. K.

Thank you. Councilman Swire? Thanks. My comments were kind

of along the same line as council member Flynn's as I was kind of thinking through this a little bit more. So I don't know if you guys remember in 2021 when we were looking at the RISE bonds, and there was a stadium project that was improved included in the facilities of those bonds, and we split it out to have its own on the floor in order to have its own was its own consideration on the ballot, like, own ballot section. And there was a lobbying firm who that sent out postcards to several different council members. Like, there were, like, 800 people who got postcard in my district because they were associated with a certain group. Right?

That's not $5,000, but that is real messy. Now, when they did it, they didn't just do it to me. They did it to several other council members too. So I guess maybe this doesn't need to be an ordinance because it's so specific, but, like, in the rules and regs piece, I think worth considering that there should be, like, a the ability to aggregate because them sending, you know, 800 crappy postcards to District 5 residents was less than $5,000, but them doing it to multiple districts full of residents probably will took them over that threshold. So And

we're envisioning it that way?

Yeah. Is that

It wouldn't be just, I spent 5,000 or, you know, $5,000 lobbying you. It would be the body as a whole. Right? So it would be how much was spent in the total campaign. It's

so for the trigger for registration is spending $5,000 more than $5,000 during a calendar year. So if you so it's aggregating. So if you're spending

On a I'm sorry to interrupt, but just to clarify, on a single issue?

No. Total. No. Total. So not on a single issue, as long as you are making grassroots lobbying expenditures, meaning that you are sending a public communication to members of the public that refers to a legislative matter and that takes a position and says, contact your covered official. If you're spending $5,000 within the year to do that, whether that means you're doing it in chunks for different matters, then you have to register.

Got it. So like issue a, issue b, issue c, they're aggregated? Yes. Okay. Perfect. Thank you for the clarification. Really appreciate that. Thanks. Councilmember Cashman?

Thank you. And excuse me if I missed this. I'm wondering, does lobbying need to include someone ask me for my vote? Because most of the time, most of my meetings with lobbyists are they're just presenting information. I mean, I know what they're there for. Sure.

You know, and I've spoken sort of in-depth with a lot of the lobbyists too to make sure this would work. And really, we don't want to stifle the information gathering, you know, because there are a lot of times the direct source for information about things that quite faster than the city can provide and other things. Right? And that's their job to do so. But I think really our goal is to capture the actual sort of yes or no or asking you to, in your official capacity, to support or oppose something. So and and that is sort of the the goal of the trigger, especially or an administrative action. And so

Yeah. I I don't disagree with you. I see it a little broader than that. And so it talks about influence. The the definition talks about influencing a legislative matter or an administrative matter. We have, just like we do in campaign finance, under this bill, we have some pretty broad rule making authority that allows us to define and implement. And I think that the idea of influence is something we'd love to kinda tackle under those administrative rules, not to necessarily say it has to be a yes or no vote, but it has to be influenced that includes some action. You know, there's a definition in that bill about grassroots lobbying. Can you help me get that out of that bill? That's lobbying.

Right? I mean, I guess for me, it's if someone's being paid by another company to talk to me about a particular topic, I don't care whether they ask me for my vote or not. That's lobbying. Yeah. So, yeah. Okay, thank you. Appreciate the clarification.

Thank you. Thank you all for working on this. I think this is a very big issue. The first that I thought about this was when I listened to the NPR about flavored tobacco, and it was said that a lobbyist had met with me. I was called out, and I was like, what? I meet with that person. And they had attended committee. And they'd literally put that down as meeting with me, and I was like, that's fascinating. I would never and they weren't even in the room. They watched. And so I was like, how does that even count? So I remember calling councilman Torres, and I was like, hey. That well, I don't even understand how this happened. And she was like, I think they watched the committee. And I was like, that's insane.

So I appreciate the the work on this. And I don't know however you all the cooling down period, I think the ethics rules apply to all city employees, and I'm not in a city employee. I I am, but I'm an elected official. So if I have different rules, I do have different rules than my everyone else. I can't take PTO, for instance. My council aides can't. We can't we have to we can't participate in furloughs. We have to write the check back. And so we do have actually live in a different world than our council our council aides. But I do agree if you do include the council aides, I would not want them to have eighteen months.

That's a really long time for them to not be able to go and work in a different job. And again, they don't get paid very well. I mean, I don't my aides only get paid like my all my council aides could qualify for affordable housing. All the programs that we do for affordable housing, all my council aides could actually qualify for. So I think about that oftentimes when we're doing things. So I don't have any other concerns about that. Just wanna say thank you. I think that this helps. Just recently, I was contacted on a weekend, and I didn't know that the person had a contract. And I I just started replying because it was a friend of mine, and I was like, hey.

And then I found out that they were being they were hired. And I was like, that would I wouldn't have never replied on a Sunday afternoon had I known that this was, like, official study business. So appreciate that clarity around that because I think that that's really important. So seeing no other further business, would remind us of the time frame.

Yeah. We'll be in committee next Wednesday, May 19. K. So we'll be filing by Thursday. So I anticipate by the end of day Wednesday, we'll be sending you maybe a revised ordinance that firms up kind of where we've landed on recommendations for the couple items that we were still in decision making around, cooling off and reporting who it applies to. So we'll be in touch. But please reach out if you have any additional questions or need an additional conversation. That puts us at first reading on June 1 and final reading on June 8. In committee, it will have a fifteen minute public comment period.