Finance & Services Committee - Regular Meeting

that really matters to families. I didn't know that this existed.

Every time I go here I see a lot more kids than there was before. Thanks for this park. I think a lot of the children like it and keep building new stuff.

Kids actually just kind of come from all over to come to this rec center. It's nice to see that the improvements are going back into the communities. They need us and we like serving them.

Through these bond programs, you have improved our transportation infrastructure, restored iconic institutions, modernized Denver libraries, enhanced the efficiency and accessibility of city buildings, Develop safe and stable havens for our most vulnerable residents. Revitalize high quality parks and recreation spaces. Built a new outpatient medical center at Denver Health. Improved emergency service facilities for residents and our first responders. and created thousands of jobs, trainings, and workforce opportunities throughout the process.

Second Chance helped me out with a pre-apprenticeship program, which they got me into. Knowing that I helped create this, I helped fix this, you know, it means a lot to actually see the city thrive.

Without something like the Rise Initiative, we wouldn't be able to provide this level of care. Not only do we think that we will change the lives of young people that walk through this door, but we deeply believe that it'll change the future of what our streets look like. Blair Caldwell is community.

We are a space where folks of all kinds come and gather. I think that the renovation really kind of helped magnify that goal. I can't thank the community enough just for input and for support for voting for this bond measure. It really has had a tremendous impact.

Thank you, Denver. Your investment in our communities continues to lift up every neighborhood every day, making a difference for all of us who live, learn, work, and play in the Mile High City. Together, we're building a stronger, safer, and more vibrant city of the future.

It's time for this biweekly meeting of the Finance and Business Committee of Denver City Council. Join us for the Finance and Business Committee starting now.

Good morning. It is Tuesday, July 28, 2026. You have tuned in to the Finance and Business Committee meeting. I'm Chris Hines, and I, as of today, chair the meeting. Council President, I want to thank you for the honor and responsibility of being chair of this committee. And Council Member Cashman, thank you for joining me as Vice Chair in this journey. So we have one action item, 26-1096, and two consent items that will move forward if no one pulls them off. So before we go into a resolution amending the City Council Rules of Procedure, let's start with introductions. Council President?

Hi. Good morning. Diana Romero-Campbell, Southeast Denver, District 4.

Hey, everybody. Serena Gonzalez-Gutierrez, one of your council members at large. Chantal Lewis, District 8.

Paul Cashman, South Denver District 6. Good morning, Darrell Watson. Fine, District 9.

And do we have anyone online? No. Okay, great. So our action item is 26-1096, Resolution Amending the City Council Rules of Procedure. Council Member Lewis, thank you for bringing this forward.

Sure, thank you. Thank you, sir. Yes, ma'am. Thank you so much. So good morning. I'm actually really excited to talk to you all about a proposal to change the city council rules that would require us to read a labor acknowledgement in addition to the land acknowledgement and the Pledge of Allegiance, which we currently do. Many of you are probably already familiar with this because we brought this some time ago, but had to really... have a conversation in terms of bandwidth within my staff to make sure that we can get this going. So let's start with the land acknowledgement, which is presented on this slide. I won't read it since you all are very familiar with the language. If council members are wondering, the land acknowledgement or the labor acknowledgement is not changing as a result of the proposal. And I would like to thank Councilwoman Torres for walking me through the process by which she landed on the land acknowledgement process. and was able to add it to the council rules. And I really tried to model what, to the extent possible, this proposal, what I learned from Councilwoman Torres. And I will note that the land acknowledgement is three paragraphs and 113 words.

You can go to the next slide.

One of the early things I was advised to do was to look at the Office of Social Equity and Innovation labor acknowledgement as a starting point. And so here it is for those that are not familiar with it. For the proposed labor acknowledgement, I've incorporated both elements of this version while also adding some more detail to it. And we'll see what that looks like in the next slide.

Thank you, Jesse.

So here's the proposed labor acknowledgment. It is longer than the OSCEI version, as you can see. And I would like to read the language in its entirety here so you all are familiar with it. We acknowledge that our country's economy, infrastructure, and resulting generational wealth would not exist as they do today without the stolen and forced labor of enslaved Africans and their descendants who suffered the horror of the transatlantic trafficking, shadow slavery, and later on, the dehumanization through segregation and Jim Crow laws. We acknowledge and remember those who did not survive the Middle Passage, as well as those who were beaten and lynched at the hands of white Americans. We recognize the terror inflicted by the Ku Klux Klan, who historically counted among their members numerous government officials in Denver and others in positions of power. We stand with those who are still suffering while fighting for freedom. We acknowledge how these dehumanizing practices have social, legal, and economic legacies that continue to reverberate through the generations, and in so acknowledging commit to truth, accountability, and repair. I want to talk about a few pieces of this. First, the middle section serves to name a few of the ways that the legacy of slavery informs the present. And then second, the reference to Klansmen and historic positions of power was actually incorporated from a recommendation from Councilwoman Sawyer as a way for us grappling with Denver's own history here. And then third, we have added language that reflects not just an acknowledgement, but a commitment from this body that is recognizing these past harms and that we will work to make these wrongs right moving forward. This version was also informed by, which is this next slide. There are groups that we have stakeholder with on the proposal, which was suggested the first time we came to budget policy. And so we took this to the African American Commission, the LGBTQIA plus commission, and solicited feedback from those meetings. We have also conducted outreach from a number of groups, including Montbello 2020, the Black Arts Festival. We haven't heard back from everyone, but the groups that we have heard back from have been supportive of this. In fact, the Justice for Black Coloradans were instrumental in us getting to the version that I just read to you all today. And so in terms of timeline, here's the timeline for the proposal. We first floated this idea back in November of 2025 at the City Council Ops meeting. We have since then conducted outreach and our hearing committee this week. It is our attempt to skip Mayor Council and bring this before Council next week for its sole reading. If it passes, I intend to read a proclamation concerning the labor acknowledgement in the 530 block. And I can share that proclamation with you all, but essentially I would read the proposed language and fill in some history as well. With that, I'm happy to take any questions on this item if you have them.

Thank you. Thank you. How efficient. Colleagues, I know everyone, actually no one's in the queue. Oh, Council President.

Okay. I'm first in the queue. Thank you for bringing this forward. I was looking in and with some of the language that is there and thinking about labor, there are other labor acknowledgements that also do a broader swath of our community. And I was just wondering, was there consideration put into into adding additional labor from Colorado?

I'm not sure I understand the question. You have to ask that more specifically. You know me, Diana. That's Romero Campbell.

So I think about like my family's history and my dad was a migrant worker and grew up working in the fields. And so I'm just, I see this and I also think of an experience of Colorado and of what like my family has experienced. And I'm asking, was there consideration of expanding or broadening to be able to reflect that?

No, I think we thought about it in the same way that we did the land acknowledgement in terms of like foundational, like the foundational experience within this country. And so the labor being specific to those that were taken from Africa onto this continent and that labor being forced. labor is the context in which we were thinking about it. And all of the examples that we have seen, at least the ones that are out of study, and I'm more than open for you to provide me with an additional example, really focused on that demographic and that history.

And then the language that is being proposed is more than an added on from like what is from the mayor's office. I had also looked at what's at the state, like just wondering a little bit more, can you just talk a little bit more about that process?

Yeah, I'm glad you asked. So originally we started with, I mean, this is probably on version 15 at this point, But originally, we had started with having the language from the—from OSCI be the foundation of that. And then as we were stakeholdering, as well as feedback from you all as well, we took that input from what we were hearing from communities and organically, like, built out what the labor acknowledgment looked like. And so even to the point where it talks about us moving away from, like, acknowledgement to commitment was just feedback that we had gotten from community that we wanted to be intentional about not making this simply something that we read or simply something that's symbolic, but to really have some teeth commitment in terms of our commitments moving forward. And so it was an organic process of creation with those that were able to apply. on the foundational version.

I have other questions. I'm going to go back in the queue. Are there others in the queue?

I have questions, but I don't have anyone else in the queue, so perhaps I can ask them.

If you want to ask your question, I'll come back to the queue. Thank you.

Thank you. So not seeing any other questions, please do feel free to get in the queue if you have questions. Is there a major city that has a labor acknowledgment?

So lots of organizations read labor acknowledgements at conferences. They read labor acknowledgement at universities. So, yes, do you want me to provide you with some example signs? I'm happy to.

No. The nature of the question is Denver is okay with being first. But, you know, like with cannabis, psilocybin. But I think...

I had to check it. We were 1st, but I'd be down with that too.

But in my research, I could not find another major city that had a labor acknowledgement of any shape. So, I mean, I think that's. I think that's important to name just as where the idea here is to name systems that. that we should commemorate. Thank you for that. Just because I haven't found it in my research doesn't mean it doesn't exist and I would say that my research wasn't exhaustive. Do you know of another city that names a perpetrator group? So like the phrase, at the hands of white Americans, I know that there are a bunch of labor acknowledgements that talk about systems, like white settler colonialism, but it doesn't talk about groups. Historically, the family of labor acknowledgements tend to talk more about systems instead of groups.

Yeah, so again, the language came from examples from all across the country that we had kind of put together. I would imagine that is probably uncomfortable, but in the conversations that we had had, no one had pulled that out specifically to say, hey, can we look at this language and do something differently? If there's an ask, I think we'd be open to, I'd take it back to the advocates that we've been working with to see if they'd be open to that decision unilaterally.

And my thought is that we certainly want to commemorate and we want to imagine, not imagine, we want to name where we came from and to your point about ownership. our African people who came over on the boat were, there was this idea of ownership as opposed to, you know, the people working in the, working the, laboring in the farms. And I see that as a pretty stark difference and it's not to belittle your father, Madam President, but he wasn't owned. There wasn't that system of ownership. But I want to make sure that there should be some challenge here, which should be somewhat uncomfortable. Otherwise, why do it? But I can imagine that it might be more divisive than commemorative. So I'm just, you know, just asking the question.

Yeah, I appreciate it. It's lynch at the hands of white Americans. Yeah. I mean, it's our history, but we can definitely go back and have a conversation about it. I mean, it's an uncomfortable history, but it wasn't black Americans lynching black Americans. You know what I'm saying? But let's definitely have a conversation. I'm happy to take it back to the coalition of folks and see how they feel about it.

Is there another city that names specific organizations like the Klan? I think the phrasing is true. It was pretty clear that the Klan ran both Denver and Colorado. I just want to make sure that we know what we're signing up for, what we're adopting.

That suggestion actually came directly from Councilmember Sawyer to name the Klan and the history of the Klan in this land acknowledgement. Because the first version, I don't believe it actually had that language. Did it? I didn't think so.

I will just add, Council Chair, that the— Introduce yourself. Sorry, Jesse Carey, Senior Council Leader, Councilwoman Lewis. I will say that the land acknowledgement itself has aligned to the effect of we acknowledge that sort of the systems of government are perpetuating this sort of— this ongoing injustice against Native American and American Indian tribes. So I think it does say it. It just doesn't specifically name the clan. But in the specific case of Denver, there is this history of Stapleton and other members of Denver's government. And so the specificity fell. Sorry. Yeah.

We honor and acknowledge that the land on which we reside is the traditional territory of the Ute, Cheyenne and Arapaho peoples.

Yeah, but specifically the systems of injustice are still... Yeah, so we also recognize that government academic and cultural institutions were founded upon and continue to enact exclusions and erasures of indigenous peoples. So it's the same sentiment. It's just a little bit less specific in the organization that it names. But it's there for the same reason, which is to say it's ongoing. These are structural things.

And I'm asking, just like I asked the first question about a major city with a labor acknowledgement, it's really more to like, this is what we're, what we have, what we're proposing and what we're adopting. So I'm not saying that I have a concern about that necessarily. I just want to like highlight the impact of the acknowledgement. So, sorry.

I'm listening to you. I was saying, yeah, like I was

Yeah. Agree. So I do have a couple other questions, but Councilman Pro Tem, Gonzales Gutierrez.

I'm happy to let you finish if you'd like. That's fine. Okay. No, I know that this is something that you've been working on for some time, Councilwoman, and appreciate getting to see this version of it. And I think it is one of those things that you have to sit uncomfortably with. in a way by calling out the truths. And I think for far too long, we have very strategically have omitted some of these things because of the discomfort that it causes. And I think it is important to name these things. It is historical. It's a fact. And so I appreciate that these things are being mentioned. I mean, even with our land acknowledgment and a lot of even land acknowledgments in general have become words on paper. and hollow in a lot of ways. And some of the, it's like pairing it with action is important and not just saying the words and then how you then move forward with policy, how you move forward with changes in these systems. And so I appreciate like that piece being paired here because even in our land acknowledgement, it doesn't actually acknowledge the broken treaties and stolen land, right? Which are also like things that are historically true and factual. um and so i appreciate how this is being called i don't have any questions but i just am very um grateful that you've like put this together um and i'm just curious to see how it goes going forward with with our colleagues thank you so much can i just say one thing that's all right

because I didn't ground us in this. When we first started having the conversation about the labor acknowledgement, we wanted to be intentional that we weren't just having words on paper, as you said, and that we were working with the different commissions to figure out what were the policies that we might be able to move forward that are actually going to improve the lives of folks within our city. And so I really appreciate you saying that's the intent. So this is just like the foundation, but the intent is really to think about like, what's the pain that exists in our communities and how can we turn that pain into policy that lifts them out of that suffering.

That's it. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you. So I do have a question about, I didn't get a chance to have a briefing, I think from late last week when this came out and be able to kind of go back and forth and have a briefing. Have you had a chance to brief other council members?

We've offered briefings, correct?

Yeah. Okay.

You know how it works. People take them or leave them.

Do we have enough time? No, no. We offered briefings. That's what I said. I said people take them or leave them. Okay. And again, I didn't have my briefing because it just came at the end of last week and we just haven't had time to do that. So I would like to follow up more with a briefing. I think... And the reason why is because I would like to have something that does go a little bit further for recognizing labor and as we've had it. I know that labor and how its impact has been. I think that the impact and the same systems of colonization have impacted multiple communities. And so when I think about, you know, the work of migrant workers, I think of the Japanese, you know, Exclusion Act. I think of the, you know, there are multiple things that could be captured if we're going to do this. I'd like to be really thorough about it and think about it so that it is reflective of a broader, I would say, Denver and Colorado experience. So that would be my ask is to be able to add to, I know that you are talking about, you know, specific to enslavement. And I think that there are systems that still have impacted labor that we see today. I was just going to say, are you open to that and having that discussion? Because I know that there are other labor acknowledgements that also include other groups or at least mention those groups in their labor.

Can you tell me what that looks like, not in concept, but in practice? What are those specific groups that you have in mind? because this was grounded specifically in, back to Councilman Hines' point around the ownership, like this is about Africans that were taken, that were stolen from their lands and forced into slavery and their labor building this country and often not acknowledged and the conditions that existed for those folks that were enslaved. It's a very specific demographic and target that I'm, that we were thinking about. And so I would love to better understand, like, in terms of expansiveness, who are you, who are you thinking about?

So I'm thinking about other systems or other system, the same system. Let me, let me go up there. The same system of colonization has impacts on other people of color, of other groups. So Chinese exclusion, the Japanese internment camps, the labor of migrant workers. So that's what I'm getting at is like, being able to have something that also includes the labor? Or is this just for forced labor? And if that's the case, then do we include Native Americans that also had forced labor here? I'm just saying that process of, again, I wasn't part of the working group or the process that you had. So that's where a lot of my questions are coming from. Just have they been considered? And are you open to having that be considered in this labor acknowledgement? So again, I'd have to take that back to the group.

It feels very much like a conversation that's I'd have to take it back to the folks that we've been in communication with because the intent is not about labor specifically. It's about people being stolen from land and the conditions that they had to survive in in order to build this country. And so it's a very specific demographic of folks and a very specific labor that was unpaid, that had brutal conditions. in which folks were experiencing lynchings and being set on fire and all the other atrocities that folks that were stolen from their land had to endure in order for us to build this country. And so it's very specific to that ownership and the lack of, I mean, lack of many things. But yeah, I'm happy to take that back for feedback. I know the group well enough that I don't know if they'd be open to how expansive I think you've described it, because it gets away at what the intent is.

And those same systems of colonization, the impact that it's had on I will go back to my family of experiences of not being able to apply for jobs, being called dogs, not being able to access many avenues within our society has that same impact as has occurred. So right, it's had that wave and effect within our system. And so that's where I feel like And if you could take it back to your to your group and to the committee to be able to think about How we can reflect I I would appreciate being able to reflect if it's something that we as a council are going to Read every Monday or have in our labor acknowledgement I I would appreciate that opportunity to have not only to have a broader history be seen and that narrative to also reflect who we are here in Colorado or who we are here in Denver. I appreciate that. I don't know if I had anything else about that, but that's what I would ask is that we could have that time to go back. It sounded like in the timeline that you had, this is going to go very quickly and I would just appreciate being able to have the conversation and have it go back to committee and have a briefing and all of that other.

I mean, there's an hour. an invitation for anyone to receive a briefing and so if you all would like a briefing just get those scheduled with my staff we're happy to do that before it goes to the floor that's what i would appreciate i mean that's based on your schedule i'm happy to make myself available yeah um one of the things that i i will say is it sounds like it's what's happening in this moment is the term labor specifically. And so one of the things that we might also explore is maybe not calling it a labor acknowledgement so that we can get, so that it stays specific to the intent that we desired. And we can come back to you specifically, President, with what we might be able to offer as an alternative.

If I may, Madam President, I just shared with the committee solid ground in Seattle has a labor acknowledgement and it starts by talking about the 13th Amendment and then moves into other exploited workers. So it starts with the slavery and the idea of ownership. And so I could, It is less common, but there are labor acknowledgements that could also talk about, I think in the Seattle's version, it talks about indigenous forced labor, Chinese exclusion-era railroad and mining labor, Japanese-American incarceration, Mexican-Latino agricultural and guest worker labor. um, trafficked labor, undocumented labor, prison labor. Um, and so, um, just, uh, offering that as a, uh, as a potential, we have Latino labor as, uh, as council president has mentioned. We also have Japanese American labor, although we had a governor who was more, um, understanding, uh, than, uh, than, many other governors, Colorado governor was, that doesn't mean that we didn't have Japanese American internship. We obviously, we had the Chinese labor, we had Chinatown in Loto and District 10 and clearly indigenous labor as well. So Madam President Potem.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think Councilwoman Lewis, I think you're trying to strike that balance in hearing Council President's kind of requests. I think your thought where you were kind of going along as far as like maybe it's not a labor acknowledgement, maybe it is something that is more specific to what you're intentionally calling out in this statement, right? And I think that that for sure, like I can appreciate all of the experiences that have happened in our state, obviously, and in our country and how our country was founded, what it was founded upon. But I think the intention of this statement is very specific and I wanna honor that. And I think to honor that, then I would be glad to like partner with you on that as well. Like if there was, if you know, you had some other thoughts or your group had some other thoughts on, you know, maybe it is, it is, I don't know what, I don't even want to give any thoughts on like what it could be called, but I will leave that to the group to decide.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Comfortable. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Absolutely. The slave. Yeah. Slavery. Yeah.

Acknowledgement.

And I think, you know, that's for you. You have a coalition. You have a group of folks who've been working on this. I want to respect their work. But maybe that is the avenue to go in order to make sure that this is intentional and the purpose that it was set out to be. Sure.

So thank you for the feedback. Yeah, thank you. If we do move in that direction, then I think Madam President's comment, we might want to consider if there are other organizations or communities that might want something similar, too, and what does that look like? Like are Latino communities who they weren't owned, but they worked for pennies on the dollar. And so if we as council adopt a reading of a slavery acknowledgement, I don't want to tell you what the title is, then it might ask or invite other communities. And so we might want to think about what that looks like before we adopt. this because it might open the door to, you know, the disability community as an example. I don't know. I hadn't really seriously considered that. But I don't want to, if, I certainly want to I feel uncomfortable and I think I should feel uncomfortable. I think I should feel uncomfortable, but at any rate, I just thought I'd name that. So, Council President, what...

Do you have a... Well, and I, thank you, I do. So to be able to have those conversations, what is the timeline that it would take for you to be able to go back and talk with the committee, and I'm calling it a committee, I don't know, the group that you worked with, and be able to come back and so forth? Because they're in the room. But I'm saying what is the timeline to be able to have those conversations so that we're not pushing something through without having time to be able to continue the conversation and let them come back with the conversation, et cetera.

So we can stick to the same timeline, and I would just reach out to folks to have those conversations with them.

Can you remind me what it was? Because I think it was pretty fast. Yeah, August 3rd. So that's next week? It's Monday? I'm in contact with my coalition. Okay. I don't know if that's... That seems very fast for me to be able to get a briefing and have the conversation and be able to make sure that you have that conveyed to your group. I'm just... I'm saying I think that seems very fast. I would just like a little extra time. If you're amenable to doing that so that we can just have the... be able to consider the conversation. I just didn't get... I just don't feel like I've had enough time to sit with it, and it sounds like what I'm sharing and my thoughts around including additional labor, which may not be the labor or may fit into something else or not in this, I don't know if August 3rd coming to the floor is enough time to... give it the the time and the dedication that it needs.

Uh Councilmember Lewis is there a a sense of urgency or um uh I certainly understand that you've offered briefings um but I just wonder if there's uh something that happens August 4th or or afterwards?

There's something that happens August 5th that's important to me yes. Councilmember Cashmere?

Yeah, I wouldn't change a word of what you've written. I am thinking that it is important that we do recognize the entirety of the mistreatment of the married communities that has unfolded since our founding as a nation and as a state. I don't know the best way to do that, whether it's the existing land acknowledgement, the labor acknowledgement as you titled it now, and then a third one or maybe a fourth one addressing the various other communities. You know, the thought that pops in my mind is it might be a good idea to form a council working group to look at that, how we want to really make sure I thought the land acknowledgement was a great first step. I think this is a great second step. But how, I think we all agree there are these other communities that deserve acknowledgement as well, but how that's best done, you know, I don't have that answer, but that just sort of throw my two cents in. But as far as what you've written, I would be the last person to want to change a word of it.

Thank you. I would be open to

to having that conversation or to having some sort of work group or that council really helps and digs in and thinks about how we reflect that.

As we, as Councilmember Cashman said, if we have a third or fourth, I don't want to minimize the impact by having a string of acknowledgements that we, if we do adopt a Chicano acknowledgement and a disability acknowledgement or, you know, whatever the Japanese and Chinese American acknowledgement.

So, yeah, and I just want to clarify that wasn't separately. That wasn't what I was suggesting. I think that what you're bringing forward is a value and wanting to really dedicate and be thoughtful about, like, what do you put forward and how, how can we do this in a way that we are reflective and thoughtful and. And have that voice, I think, as well from council and council members. And I know you mentioned a few that you have spoken to, but, you know, I think bringing this forward is of high value. I also want to be able to be as thoughtful as we can, because this is something that'll be within, you know, what we do and what we say and put it in every you know, I'm saying Mondays, but we say it in other times too, but that we have the uncomfortable conversations, that we go through this and that we bring it forward as As a council, you know And I appreciate you really being the tip of the spear on that one to be able to move that conversation forward I just would ask for a little bit more time to be able to have the conversation with you for me August 3rd next Monday seems very fast to be able to have a deeper more robust conversation and

Chair, Council President, are you asking for a delay of this for this to either stay in committee or for a date certain? I'm trying to understand if you're saying that this is too fast, are you, because this is an action item before us today. Are we requesting a delay of this to a date certain? And if we are, I mean, I'm not calling the question. I'm just trying to get to where we're at in this dialogue.

I mean, I think it's a good question procedurally, and I would look towards... Hello.

It's a resolution, so... Yeah.

So what would that look like? Because, again, I... Because it would bypass mayor council. It would go to the floor for a vote on Monday. And... So I don't exactly know procedurally what would need to happen. So my question, to be clear,

If there is a delay, is this a resolution, the process for delay is just a basic, a request for another date certain for this to come back to committee, or is there a different process for a resolution? And that's kind of my question, and I know Council President may have a different question, but my question is, is there a different process? Because there's a lot of discussion of things that people are talking through. I just need to understand if we're asking for a delay, what's that step?

Sure, Luke Palmisano, Senior Legislative Policy Analyst. It would be a delay, it would be a postponement in committee, delay to a date certain.

And Mr. Palmisano, if that were to be what Council President wants, when is the next available date? Just to see what the... I can check.

I guess the question is if there would be an interest in more discussion or if it would just come back for action, because we could certainly put it on the next committee, which would be August 11th. If we're looking for more discussion, that's a trickier question in terms of some of the other items we have coming up. I know it looks like we do have a couple busy meetings in August. There's potentially time at the end of September, but FinBiz is particularly busy. So there's also the option of starting early or going late to accommodate additional discussion if we needed to go that route as well.

Thank you. Madam President Pro Tem.

Just because I want to make sure this. I'm thinking about this correctly. So if this were to go forward, I'll just be clear, I'm fine with this moving forward. So if we have to take a vote on whether or not it delays, that's one question. I think the second part of that is, If it were to go to the floor, I mean, there is opportunity there. We have our abilities to, you know, request a postponement if if wanted or desired. So this wouldn't necessarily be the like. if Councilwoman Lewis is not able to then go back, have the conversation and then circle back with folks in that time, there are still other levers at that stage that it doesn't necessarily mean it has to go forward at that moment in time. So if the concern is making sure there's adequate amount of time to have the conversations, I think that's still built in the process that we wouldn't necessarily It's not necessary, I would say, to leave it here, because I think, substantively, it sounds like there's more of a question around the name of the acknowledgment of itself that would then, if the intention is to have it be what it is and not to incorporate the other components, and that maybe is a separate thing, as Councilman Cashman was talking about. Does that mean there's looking at a separate kind of, acknowledgement that would incorporate other groups and this is on its own, you know, and this can move forward as its own, but then we still have processes that can go into play if necessary, if the information is not gathered in the time before next week.

So, I think I've followed all that. So part of it, I'm thinking, do the working committee. If it goes to the floor on the 3rd, to me, that doesn't give enough time because then you have to have everything done and set by Thursday, which is two days. I know that it won't be enough time to be able to get a briefing in the next two days just looking at my calendar right now. And then it might be separate. What I had proposed was do we expand it to have the other groups incorporated which it sounds like you were going to go back to committee to have or go back to your working group for consideration and for that discussion and it may turn out no but I just want to be able to give enough time to be able to do the work in committee as opposed to having it wait and do the work on the floor so I would prefer to have to just I don't think delaying, or I don't know if it would be called a delay, but to be able to consider this for a date certain for, I don't know, next week was the 11th? Or no, the week after. That gives us two weeks, which I think is reasonable to be able to connect and kind of determine You know, is it something separate? Do we do another, you know, separate committee to think about a broader expanse? Also probably gives other council members time for their briefings as well.

Procedurally, if it was postponed to the next available committee date, August 11th, and there was still discussions taking place, a motion at the beginning of the committee could move it to another date certain. And then to also answer some of the other questioning, if it does pass out of committee today, I know Councilmember Lewis has asked that it skip Mayor Council and be filed, but there's no requirement that it be filed next week or the following week we could hold it from filing while discussions are had after committee and when when it's deemed ready for the floor we could we could file it at that point as well so what you're asking is what's the next step so we could if again i would suggest to um

The right terminology postponed to a date certain of a meeting on August 11th to bring back to committee, which gives us just a few weeks to be able to circle back and do some of that work and communication.

Is that your motion?

Yes.

Oh, sorry.

I'm making a motion.

So, Council President moves to delay this until a date certain August 11th. Is there a second?

I'll second it. Okay.

That is a proper motion with a second. Can we have a roll call? If I can find it.

All right. Council members, Gonzalez Gutierrez? No. Gaines? I'm sorry. Cashman?

Aye.

Rivera-Campo? Aye. Watson?

Aye.

Mr. Chair?

Aye. So, sorry, thank you. Close the voting. Yeah, so four ayes, the ayes have it. So this is delayed until August 11th. Thank you, Councilmember Lewis, for the conversation. I look forward to the conversation about, I think it's more than just the title. I think it's where it stops, where it either stops here or it is more inclusive, and I think that's a reasonable conversation.

Thank you. I appreciate that.

We have two consent items. Neither have been pulled off, so they will move forward to the full body with no further business. We are adjourned.

Maybe and maybe I'm just getting old and my generation was a lot louder. But I feel that the more time you spend on the screen, the more time you spend talking to yourself. Right. And if the more time you're spending talking to yourself, you're not really speaking out.