Governance & Charter Review Committee - Regular Meeting

The TPC that was not previously identified in your approved plans. Get in touch with the city's silviculture office and with your assigned project manager. They can help identify techniques to reduce compaction and ensure that water and oxygen continue to reach the roots of the trees through methods such as de mantillo y placas de acero para el acceso de maquinería a través de la TPZ. ¿Ya recibiste luz verde de tu contratista para excavar una zanja en la TPZ? Ojalá no te hayamos hecho sentir desarraigado, pero queremos asegurarnos que estas lecciones se arraiguen en ti. No te olvides de las raíces de los árboles. Puede que ni siquiera te des cuenta, pero las raíces están ahí y son vulnerables y valiosas. La excavación de zangas no solo puede cortar las raíces, sino que puede crear un riesgo de que el árbol se caiga. Si tienes que excavar una zanja en la tepezeta, existen maneras de hacerlo reduciendo el impacto en las raíces. Por ejemplo, se puede hacer una excavación con aire o agua para poner el sistema de riego debajo de una raíz. También puedes excavar a mano cuidadosamente una distancia más corta para dejar al descubierto las raíces. En caso de dudas, consulta con la oficina de silvicultura de la ciudad, que podrá hacerte recomendaciones para proteger mejor el árbol. Todos a tu alrededor pueden recibir el mensaje, pero un árbol no puede apartarse de tu camino. Golpear un árbol o una rama con un vehículo es más común de lo que crees. Por ejemplo, un camión de volteo de altura elevada puede golpear o engancharse fácilmente en una rama y arrancarla sin darse cuenta. Y si un vehículo retrocede y choca contra el tronco de un árbol, puede causarle daños significativos. Dañar la corteza de un árbol lo hace esforzarse demasiado y puede matarlo. En caso de duda, respeta la valla TPZ. Es la forma más fácil de evitar chocar contra un árbol y de protegerte a ti y a tu equipo. Al lanzarte a tu proyecto, recuerda pensar en nuestros árboles y sus raíces. Consulta el plan de construcción para conocer los puntos de acceso a la obra y los árboles cercanos. O habla con el contratista o el director del proyecto para familiarizarte con el plan. Y, por supuesto, si tienes alguna pregunta, el administrador de proyectos asignado y el equipo de silvicultura de Denver están aquí para ayudarte y para asegurarse de que puedas realizar el trabajo.

Calling all future scientists. Whiz Kid is back with a brand new season to spark your curiosity and show you the wow in science. From cool at-home experiments to awesome expert guests, every episode is packed with fun and learning. So grab your goggles as we explore the lab, head into the field, and learn more about CSU Spur, located right here in Denver. Adventure awaits right here on Denver TV. Whiz Kid, Sundays at 9.30 a.m.

It's here. Street Sweeper. From April through November, we're asking you to stay ahead of the game by keeping our city streets clear for our Street Sweepers. Street Sweeping helps us clear the level and keeps our air and water clean by removing dirt and debris from our streets. To find out when it's your turn to play, check the red and white signs on your block. Or check in with your player to the city's chatbot Sunny for your Street Sweeping schedule. Move your car to the correct side of the street on your sweeping day and level up by avoiding a ticket. Denver Street Sweeping, April through November. For more information, visit denvergov.org slash streetsweeping.

Welcome back to this monthly meeting of the Governance and Intergovernmental Relations Committee of Denver City Council. Thanks for joining us for the discussion. The Governance and Intergovernmental Relations Committee starts now.

Good morning. It is June 16th, 2026. Interestingly enough, that would be 061626. You have reached, it took me about a half hour to make sure I was right there. You have reached the Governance and Intergovernmental Relations Committee of Denver City Council. My name is Paul Cashman. I serve as Vice Chair for this committee and also represent South Denver District 6. And before we get into the meat of the meeting, we will let council members introduce. Start to my right with Council Member Flynn.

Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. Kevin Flynn, Southwest, Denver's District 2. That would be 2. 2. We try harder.

Good morning. Stacey Gilmore, District 11.

Good morning. Amanda Sawyer, District 5.

Chantel Lewis, District 8.

Good morning. Flora Alvarez, Lucky District 7.

Well, thank you. Do we have anybody online? Nobody online. We have a couple of action items that we're going to be looking at in a pair, looking at Denver's budgeting process. And then we have an executive session following that. We do have a couple folks signed up for public comment. on the action items. So with that, the items are 26-0864 and 0867. I will turn it over to my colleagues at the end of the table to explain what we're looking at.

Good morning. Thank you for welcoming us to committee. My colleagues and I have been working on this legislation for close to two years, and we're excited to be here in committee. The legislation is budget together Denver and thank you. Vice Chair Cashman, and we are talking about proposed changes to Denver's budget process. And so we'll get into the slide deck, but I would also like to thank sincerely the mayor's office. very involved, Catalina Flores, the Department of Finance, Justin Sykes and Nicole Dohe and then two amazing city attorneys, Megan and Matt from the city attorney's office that really partnered with us to get it to this amazing spot to present to you this morning. And so, we'll have the agenda, we'll have a little bit of background current budget requirements and timeline, the proposed changes, a new timeline that just to not spoil it but gives council members and the public a little bit more time to review the budget and understand it and then the legislative timeline and questions and discussion. The next slide is an overview of the city and county of Denver fund structure and so Really, I was sharing with Councilwoman Sawyer this morning that from members of the media or others who are interested in how Denver's budget works, this slide deck is so important because it shows you an overview and all of the different funds and we're specifically going to be talking about the general fund this morning. The next slide takes us through what the uses of the general fund is. And people really think of that as Denver's budget. And so it's the largest city financial fund. It has great flexibility in what can be spent, how it can be spent. And, you know, it's always over $1 billion easily. And so that's a lot of money. to be tracking and to be understanding exactly the uses of it. And so primarily the general fund is for staff salaries, benefits, city programs and general operations. And then this next slide takes us through Denver's fiscal policy. And in the annual budget, there is always a schedule 100. which takes you through a high-level overview of what has been spent in the city. And so there's really three buckets that we're going to be talking about. And so it's contingency, it's the general fund, and then it's the TABOR reserves or the general funds unassigned fund balance, excuse me. So those three. And so the required fiscal policies is that the fiscal year is January through December. It's a calendar year. The budget must be balanced. It has to include short and long-term planning and capital improvement funds are only supposed to be used for capital uses and planning only. Members of the public will understand that as the six-year capital improvement plan that we have within the city for those bigger projects. Contingency must be at least 2%. of those general fund expenditures and then the unassigned fund balance must have 15% of the annual general fund expenditures held back. And then also the state requires a TABOR emergency reserve which is 3% of all those covered funds. And I want to point out on this slide before we move from it that when you look halfway down and it takes us through the beginning budget unassigned fund balance, you'll see that there's a negative. there in the parentheses, and then the percentages at the bottom there, the 13.5, 10.3, and 11%, those become very important in what our fiscal policies outline as the percentages that we should have available within these funds. And Council Member Sawyer might have more to add on this when it's her time, but I know that she really did a lot of work on this. And this is one of these documents for anybody who is working with city government and policy really needs to understand how this works. And so our next slide talks about the Constitution and the Charter and the required reserves, which I was talking about, are part of the general fund. The contingency must be at least 2% of the general fund expenditures, what we're projecting. The unassigned fund balance must be 15%. It's a goal. It should be 15% as that goal. And then the annual, of the annual general fund expenditures. And then lastly, as I stated on the previous slide, the state required Tabor emergency reserve which would be 3% of all covered funds. And so contingency uses are unexpected events. An easy one is whether or not we get snow and how much the snow hangs around, how much we need to spend on overtime hours to clear the roadways, etc. didn't have that this year, but that would be something that contingency funds would be used for. Also, if there are a large number of retirements or payouts that an agency maybe didn't plan for, and that they would have to come and that money would come out of our contingency funds or if there was a change in a work program that was initiated by the mayor's office or one of the agencies, And then a prior year's budget with a specific item that might have lapsed could be used for it. Technical corrections, change in legislature, such as we create a new law or the state creates a new law that we have to put additional IT dollars in or hire additional people to manage that change in legislation, that would be something that contingency would be appropriate for or a one-time expenditure of advancing a programmatic or financial outcome. And so those are really important because we talk a lot in the city as to all the contracts that come through, but understanding where that source is, people will just say it's the general fund. The next question should be, out of which portion of the general fund? Is it contingency? Is it the unassigned fund balance? Is it the CIP? Or is it the Tabor Emergency Reserve? Where is it originating from? And so the unassigned fund balance uses are for funds that are above that goal of having 15% as our rainy day fund, that could be used for one-time capital expenditures or reducing our debt. Funds that are between the 10 and 15 percent mark are one-time expenditures to stabilize the city, during a normal economic cycle or when revenue is below historical averages or should only be used after expenditure reductions or further reductions would harm essential services. And so we have all lived this in the last two, two and a half years where we saw a lot of actions and transactions happening and limited ability for this council to maybe slow things down in an appropriate way so that we were sure where we were at financially and that we could fully understand what the implications were going to be by moving contracts forward without really understanding where we were at as far as the contingency or the unassigned fund balance uses. And so lastly, funds below 10% can only be used in response to severe economic or other crises, only used in an unusual situation. And I will let Justin correct me. But I don't believe that even during the pandemic, we had an instance where the funds might have been below 10%. And so this will be really great to hopefully move this on at some point to the full council to considerate. to consider this and then hopefully to the November ballot for the voters of Denver to really for the first time in Denver's history have an opportunity to change the charter and then have a companion ordinance that will have more levers for city council to maybe slow things down, speed things up, but just fully knowing where we were at as far as these fund balances because it really makes a difference as far as having enough people employed within the city to deploy essential services and I'll take a really easy one but recently the city asked folks that if they see a stray dog running around in your neighborhood, if you can get them on leash to please catch that dog and take it yourself. to the animal shelter because we only have now 11 animal control officers in the city whereas before the layoffs, I believe we had 18 and I just actually met somebody and talked to them recently that they got bit by a little tiny dog in a park that was off leash that they were trying to gather up and they got bit trying to be a good Samaritan out there. And so an impact to services ripple out far beyond those high profile issues that we see when maybe when there's a reduction in the budget. And so thank you for the opportunity to share kind of the perspective after almost 11 years on City Council and where I'm really excited about the opportunity that this will bring us to. And I will now turn it over to Councilwoman Lewis.

Thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you, Councilwoman Gilmour. I really appreciate that context. I wanted to spend a little more time talking about the background for a few more slides. So here's the current budget timeline. You all know the drill here because you're council members, but for the public, I wanted to make mention of a few dates under the current system. So there's a July 1 deadline for the mayor's office to provide council with the base budget, which is the prior year's budget plus anticipated FTE growth. It usually changes by the time the proposed budget is transmitted to Council. The proposed budget drops on September 15th, and so Council typically has less than a week to analyze the budget before hearing from the agencies in the budget hearings. Last year we had four days, so four days is not enough to go through 800 pages Some of us go through all 800 pages of the budget. And then late October, amendments to the budget are required to be submitted at the same time and the only time that the public is formally included in the process, meaning that often the amendments are baked before the public comments, before the public has the opportunity to comment. So I wanted to ground us in that. Wanted to talk about the why, and Councilman Gilmour did a great job of that as well, but I'm sure you all have had your own complaints with the budget process. But briefly, some of the biggest challenges with our current process are as follows. So one, city partners and nonprofit providers can't plan their operating budgets for things like staffing. over the long term without confirmation of future funding, because we do it on a year-to-year basis, capital improvement projects frequently take longer than one year to complete, which, hence the CIP. There's no community engagement in the development of the budget, and so the opportunity for residents to give public comment only exists at the late October City Council budget hearing, and so it's merely a courtesy, not actually an opportunity for us to have our budget amendments informed by, or our budget overall informed by the public. Again, I mentioned that council has very little time to analyze the budget prior to proposing changes, and then there's very little staff time available for the ROI analysis and the process for improvement. Now it's not all bad, so we wanna talk about some of the benefits to the current system, notably preserving flexibility, and our proposal aims to strike a balance between what we want and what the current system does well.

Thank you.

So that brings us to the proposals that we have on the table. There are four, so one moving to a biennial budget year cycle, the second is enhancing the public process on the budget, third is to move up the budget timeline, and then fourth is to define what happens when revenue does not meet anticipated levels, and we'll look at each of these. Great. So the proposal allows us to use one or two year budget cycles depending on the economic situation. And that would be determined by ordinance subject to the normal ordinance process. So seven votes, nine to make it veto proof. That's what we're aiming for. I won't read the language because I think you all have the actual language on the charter that you have access to and you can read. That's how you got this job, I'm sure. You can go to the next slide.

Okay.

So this proposal puts some meat on the bones regarding the public participation. Public outreach could include surveys, it can include community meetings, hearings, or other methods of outreach, but in likelihood will utilize all of the above. The public process would occur annually when we are in a one-year phase, and bi-annually if done on a two-year cycle, so in the off year. The results of the public process would be presented to council by the third Monday in July, which is both more helpful in having public input shape the budget, as well as helpful to us on council to keep track of what or what was not included in the budget for the public process. And with that, I would kick it over to Councilwoman Sawyer. Do you want my drive?

Thank you. No, I got it. It's okay. Thank you. I appreciate the offer.

The clicker's not working, so this was a little bit, we had to pivot.

So moving up the budget timeline, you'll see in a couple of slides what a two-year budget cycle would look like and what a one-year budget cycle would look like. So stay tuned for that. But it's essentially three changes that get us where we want to go when it comes to changing around the timeline. The goal with changing this timeline is 2 fold. The 1st would be to buy some extra days at the beginning of the budget cycle. The budget process when we get the draft budget for us and our staff and the public to review the budget for more than 4 days before we start budget hearings. So that would be the 1st. piece we're trying to solve for in changing around the budget timeline. The second would be to provide additional time on the back end for amendments. What we see happening used to be in the city and county of Denver that city council never brought amendments. to the budget. The mayor created the budget, city council approved the budget, and everyone moved on. Times have changed, certainly in the seven years that I have been here, and that's fair, but because this is in charter, it's very difficult for us to have the flexibility to change with the times. And one of those examples is that there are significantly more budget amendments now than there ever have been in the past. So sometimes, because we only have a week to present those budget amendments, create them, stakeholder them, work with the city attorney's office on them, and we have some, in some years, we have had something like 58 budget amendments, I think was the maximum that I ever saw. That is just simply impossible to do for our staff to write those properly, for the Department of Finance to vet them properly, make sure that they're the right accounts that things are coming from and going to, to vet them with the public, etc. So, the goal here would be to change up the timeline so that we address those two different challenges that we see to make this process better, more thoughtful, and create the opportunity to have better conversation around these things. So, how will we do that? Three ways. The first one would be to remove that July 1st charter date. So there's a July 1st charter date that says that the Department of Finance needs to provide City Council the base budget by July 1st of every year. The base budget is essentially last year's budget plus any FTE growth that is anticipated over the course of the year. The July 1st budget and the September 15th budget look nothing alike at all. And so the challenge with the July 1st budget is that DOF spends the time and energy to get it ready to go and then they give it to us and they put it out in the public and all it does is create misinformation and confusion because it doesn't actually actually mean anything and it's not right at all. So getting rid of that date sort of allows us to, DOF has got a little more flexibility there. The July 15th date that council member Lewis just mentioned is with regards to the mayor's office presenting their The results of their public engagement lines up with the charter requirement for two things, inauguration day and the state of the city. So what it does then is it provides the mayor's office the opportunity to present that data to the public as well at a time when they're already presenting to the public what's going on. So we're going to move that forward. September 15th date forward to the first Friday of September. That means the date will move around, right? And we've gotten some questions and briefings on like, why would we do that? Well, the short answer to that is because it provides flexibility to DOF in some years and it provides flexibility to city council in some years, but it always provides us more days than we have right now to take a look at the draft budget that is presented to us and make sure that we understand it and we have thoughtful and in-depth questions prepared for when city council has our budget hearings. And then what we would do is have the final budget, right? So if we go back to the timeline process, the city council has gets the budget, has budget hearings, sends a letter to the mayor saying we'd like these changes to be made. The mayor has an opportunity to reflect on those changes and DOF provides us the final budget right now, the third Monday in October. what we'd like to do is move that back to the second Friday in October. So again, what that does is it provides more time in between, because we would leave the council hearing for the last Monday in October, which provides us more time for budget amendments and more time for kind of the things I just talked about, sort of thoughtful reflection and community engagement piece. So that is the shift. there is a trade-off here. There's no perfect answer, but we have met over and over and over again with DOF and the mayor's office and the city attorney's office and have really, I think, come to a great space where we all are in agreement that this is the right way to move forward. And this is the way that kind of gives us the flexibility we're looking for, addresses the two things we're trying to get to. And also benefits our staff who, I'm just going to speak for DOF staff here, but they've never, if you work in the Department of Finance, you've never had a Labor Day holiday, never. You've also probably never had an indigenous people's day holiday, which is new relatively over the last couple of years, but DOF staff works through all of those holidays to ensure that the budget gets put out on the charter required budget timeline. So the ability to have a little bit more flexibility for them is really, I think, attractive and something where maybe in the, in a couple of years you would get to have a Labor Day holiday off. So congratulations. But I do think that this is a good balance and sort of that's why we came to the space where it moves around a little bit. And I think that everyone's really, really on the same page and really pleased with that. All right, I'll stop talking about that. And then finally, our last slide is on sort of what are we going to do when we see one of two things happening or both things happening. And this is what has happened over the last couple of years in the city of Denver, which is how we know last September, when we received the September 15th budget, we saw that there was a little over 10% in our reserves and that is supposed to be 15%. right, according to our fiscal rules. How did that happen? How did we kind of get here? And the answer is twofold. When your revenues are anticipated to be a certain level and they don't reach that level, right? That's number one, that's how you can kind of get to a space where the budget is out of whack. Number two is when your expenditures are more than your appropriated and anticipated expenditures. Now, either of those two things or both of those two things can happen at the same time. And so when either or both of those things happen, that's how the budget gets out of whack. And we have a requirement in our charter for a balanced budget. So what can we do to put a process in place to ensure that this is tightened up? A little bit. The answer is twofold. And I really want to acknowledge Dom Moreno in the mayor's office for suggesting this, because I think this is right. And this came from his experience at the state. So what we have done is essentially put a tiered process into place. If the budget is out of whack by 2%. then the Department of Finance would be required to come to City Council and have a conversation. Written into the ordinance are bullets that are mirrored after the state's bullets of what happens between the governor's office and the JBC when the state budget is out of whack. And it's specific pieces of information about how the budget is gonna be balanced, how expenditures are going to be reduced or how revenue is going to be raised, all of those different pieces to come up with and publicize to city council and the public a plan for how we're gonna bring the budget back into balance. Now, the second tier is a little bit bigger than that. And that is when revenues are lower or expenditures are higher. And we see that the budget is about 5% out of whack. That's about a hundred million dollars. And in that case, when that happens, and that happened in 2024, we need to have council reappropriate the dollars by ordinance. and have a much deeper conversation. So what we have done is sort of set up a tiered system where when we're $40 million out of whack, we need to have a conversation. When we're 90 to $100 million out of whack, council is gonna re-appropriate those dollars. And we think that what this will do is really help ensure that our projected expenditures cannot outpace the projected revenues by significant amounts. And we saw this in 2024 because of the migrant crisis, right? That was an absolute challenge and it was $100 million out of whack. In 2023, it was about $70 million out of whack, which just for your reference was about 4% difference between anticipated and actuals. In 2025, it was 50 million and that was 2.9%. So we think based on those numbers, 2% and 5% is about right in terms of where this procedure would come into play. And that's written into ordinance. So if we find for some reason that we don't get where we wanna go with it, that those numbers aren't the right numbers, we can change that. But, This does create a process which has not, up until now, existed in the city of Denver. So for those of you council members who were here during COVID, you'll remember we had a conversation with the Department of Finance in 2020 where we talked about $55 million moving out of our reserves and into the general fund to help cover the losses during the shutdown before the CARES dollars from the federal government came in to save us. And we did that and it was great. It was public and the conversation was there, but we didn't move that by ordinance. That just happened. The Department of Finance just moved those dollars around. And so in this case, that would be a little bit different. particularly if it was the higher number of $100 million. But what it does also do is respect the Department of Finance in that, like they're running a city here, right? They're gonna be ebbs and flows and sometimes it's not gonna be perfect. And so this gives them the flexibility to run the city while also putting some procedures in place to make sure that we've got a better information sharing and a better process in place for when the budget is out of whack. So this is a very busy slide, but the proposed timeline is here. This would be what it would look like for a two year budget. Now, remember the state constitution requires that we vote on a budget every year. So what would happen in a two year budget would be the first year budget, the year one budget would be official when we voted on it and we would do the long bill in November. And then in the second year budget would be a draft budget. And we could make tweaks or changes to that budget in the second year because we would have to vote on it in the second year and do a long bill in November, early December, just like we do now. That is required by the state constitution. That has to happen. But what it does do is provide us the opportunity to maybe we don't need full budget hearings the second year. Maybe we don't need all of the kinds of, maybe there won't be any amendments or maybe the amendments would be much smaller because we already know what that budget, that year two budget is proposed to look like in year one. So that's kind of the goal is to free up staff time, free up our time, free up the Department of Finance's time to do things like make determinations on return on investment or programmatic success, all of those different kinds of things. And then this is what a one year budget would look like. So if we were to choose a one year budget cycle, this is what it would look like. And I will just say, we've had a lot of questions around, well, when would this start? And the answer to that is when council and the mayor's office decide that it starts. because if the voters approve it, if it's referred to the voters and the voters approve it in November, we could start it in 2027 for the 2028 budget. But we know that 2027 is an election year and we know that 2027 is a year when given sort of what is happening on the federal level and international level with inflation and all of those different kinds of things, we know that it's probably not going to have the economic certainty that we would want to do a two-year budget. So in January, we can move an ordinance that says this year we're going to do a one-year budget. And this is what that year would then look like. And then in 2028 for the 2029 budget, the new council will be able to have a conversation with the mayor's office on what do we want to do? What does the economic outlook look like? What does this feel like? Do we want to do a one-year budget? Do we want to do a two-year budget? And then we move an ordinance in January and we set the expectation for what that's going to look like. And so it might be

that we never go to a two-year budget.

It might be that we go to a two-year budget for the 2029 budget in 2028. That's up to the mayor's office and council who are sitting here at that time to make that determination and consultation with the Department of Finance on what the economy looks like and what makes sense for our city. And then just a quick reminder, we've been to budget and policy twice. We've done two community meetings. We've had conversations with a number of different people, agencies. The clerk's office is really excited about something like this because the clerk's office budget in particular changes significantly from year to year, depending on how many elections there are that year. So something like this would be very, very attractive to the clerk's office. The auditor's office we've also met with, they were very concerned just to make sure that the requirement that the city's financials be audited every year has not changed. And I just want to be very clear, it is unchanged in this charter change. The city's financials would be required to be audited every year just like they are right now. But that's the feedback that we heard from everyone and then just the legislative timeline. So I'm going to go to questions and stop talking.

And we offer briefings. We do have two people signed up for public comment. Before we head in that direction, I will welcome from the fine District 9, Councilman Darrell Watson, to the table. As I said, we have two people signed up. And my list tells me we have Mouth Basho, supposed to be here in person. Is he online by any chance, promoter? No, he's not. And I'm also expecting Jesse Paris online. Is Jesse online? He is. Jesse, if you're there, you will have two minutes, and there should be a timer appearing on the screen. Are you there, Mr. Parrish?

Yes, good evening members of Council or good morning rather. My name is Jessica Sean Paris. I'm representing for Black Star Action Movement for Self Defense, Positive Action Command for Social Change, as well as the Unity Party. Oh, I'm muted. Am I muted?

No, we hear you. We hear you.

We got you, Jesse. Okay. From Black News, Revolutionary Agenda, Sabaccos Black Experience Enhanced, and I am a candidate on the ballot for House District 8, as you can tell from my background, for the Carl State House of Representatives. And I am excited to hear about these changes to the budget process. This has been a long time coming. So, any efforts that y'all can have to try to chip away at the mayor's power and make this a more participatory process. I'm all in favor of my question is. When you have a whole, you don't have to take this to the full council. We're going to have a public hearing at the. at the um for council or is this just it one two When can we expect this stuff to be implemented? You said 2027, 2028, around that time. There's no guarantee we're gonna have the same council. Some of y'all are termed out. So if you get a new council, is that still gonna be in effect? Or are y'all gonna have to vote on this every year until further notice? If you can answer that question, I would really appreciate it. And yeah, I think this is a good thing. We need more active participation in our budget tutorial process. The process needs to be easier so people can get to these meetings and put their input in. So, I'm all in favor of this. Thank you.

thank you jesse that concludes our uh public comment so we'll move on to uh questions from members of council i've got council member flynn up first council member alvarez following thank you mr vice chair and thank you for the briefings that we've had along the way and when this was first brought to us i've dived into it i've done a lot of research on it and you all know how i feel about The biennial budget, I'm dead set against that. If that weren't in the package, everything else in it I find really good and could support. But I could use a little more clarity on the process for revenue decline or expenditures growth. And in the event that expenditures are expected to exceed total appropriations by 2% or more, first, just to be clear, expenditures cannot exceed appropriations because they can't spend one single penny more than we appropriate. There are instances where the use of general contingency is anticipated to be used above the appropriations level, so collective bargaining, which is going to greatly expand in the next year. The contingency has typically been used to backfill whatever the collective bargaining agreements provide. So in that case, by definition, the total expenditures would exceed the appropriations. And instead of triggering budget reductions, I would suggest that there be some acknowledgement that it doesn't trigger a reduction. It triggers a use of the contingency to match the amounts that were agreed to in collective bargaining. So that's just one suggestion on.

Justin's here from the Department of Finance. Justin, do you want to say anything to that or no?

And so when we appropriate the annual budget, a portion of what that amount is, it includes the 2% required to be set aside in contingency by charter. And so the full appropriation includes that 2%. Often what we will see is that We don't spend 100% of our budget. And so we'll build in half percent to 1% of estimated unspent expenditures. And so that's reflected in that estimated expenditure number in the Schedule 100.

in appropriations, even though it's not an appropriated line item other than contingency.

You're correct. I think if Councilmember Gilmour were to pull up that slide with Schedule 100, we'd delineate that contingency amount, which you can see then. adds up. If you look here, it's very small, but under the use of resources line, you can see that under the 2026 proposed column, that $34,351,000, that is set aside in contingency and is flowing into the total estimated expenditure of $1,661,000,000.

And that's my point on Schedule 100.

General contingency is not included in the annual appropriations. It's included in total use of resources. the 34 million for 2026. So as long as it's clear that in the ordinance that appropriations is including general contingency and Schedule 100 is not.

You make a really fair point, Councilmember, and that might be something we should clarify better in that Schedule 100. If you were to pull the long bill, Council is appropriating that required 2% contingency. And so, I see what you're saying, and I think that is something I'll take back, and we can clarify that better.

If estimated expenditures are estimated to be 2% greater than total use of resources, I think better.

I don't have the language in front of me, but I see what you're saying, and I think something we're happy to sit down and work with the sponsors on if we were to need to clarify further. Okay.

Thank you. Thank you.

And Councilmember Flynn, I will just say, to be clear, there is nothing that stops the Department of Finance and the city agencies from spending Let me be really clear about this. What you said was that they cannot spend a dollar more than what is appropriated to them. That is correct. But this is the difference between budgeting and actuals. So when we budgeted $1.75 billion in expenditures in 2025, but we didn't collect $1.75 billion in money in 2025. We had collected 1.66. And that is that 4% piece where I said the difference between what came in and was appropriated and what was spent is off. And that's why our contingency went down to 10.3% in 2025. what this would do, this language does, is make it so that when the budget is off like that, there has to be a conversation that happens or reappropriation if we're at 5% to make sure that Council is aware of that disconnect. Um, so that when we are making the decisions to approve contracts, we know what the broader financial picture of the city looks like, because once we, in the long bill approved 1.75Billion dollars of appropriations, they can spend up to 1.75Billion dollars of appropriations, even if it's not coming in. And that is what has happened over the last couple of years that has led us to the space that we're in right now. And so what this charter change and budget and companion ordinance would do is ensure that that doesn't happen again without a conversation with council. So it's not that it won't happen. I mean, we're running a city here and like actuals are never gonna be perfect, right? But what this is meant to do is address that. So I just wanna be really clear that you're right, but also that doesn't mean that there's not a problem there. And that's the problem we're trying to.

I'm not saying it wasn't a problem. I think when I look at it, bottom line, what happened last year, had this been in effect, it still would have happened. It just would have been more formalized in how we treated it. There might still have been layoffs, furloughs, or some measure to make sure that we stayed within those total appropriations or under, right?

Yeah, I mean, I can't say, right? Who knows? It might have been that council members might have been aware of that disconnect and we might have said, this is a sacrifice we're willing to make. It might have been that council members Disagreed and right and and then there would have been more kind of conversation with the Department of Finance in the mayor's office So I can't kind of look back what I can do is propose a process moving forward that will at least ensure that there's a very clear and transparent conversation about it with everyone When we can't solve all the problems, right? But we can try.

Yeah, I think what happened last year when it was discovered and brought to us in April and May, that still would have been the timeline if this had been in effect. So we would have been dealing with it, but in a more formalized basis, right? All of that said, I'll just repeat what I've said to you all privately in our briefings, and I think biennial budgeting makes all of that worse, makes all of it more hazardous. Every source I've looked at, more jurisdictions have moved away from biennial than toward it, like we're proposing here. And the reasons are, according to I don't remember if it was National Congress of State Legislatures or the Congressional report. Forecast accuracy, we would have to be projecting revenues and expenditures up to 32 months out. And no offense to Justin or the good people from the Department of Finance, but we don't even get an annual budget right. And so we will have to be going through a re-adoption process, as you noted, because we have to adopt, the second year budget has to be adopted annually anyway. I would much prefer to stick to always annual budgeting, always do the public engagement every year. And I could support everything else in here except by annual budgeting. Forecast accuracy as the budgets grow larger, accurately projecting them is difficult. And frankly, I think the research I saw is that biennial budgets protect status quo and reduce the governing body's flexibility. I would not want to hand a mayor a two year budget and expect everything to go smoothly. when they don't even go smoothly with a one-year budget. So bottom line, I could support everything except the biennial budgeting.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman. Councilmember Alvarez.

Thank you, Committee Chair. Thank you all for all your work on this. I know you've been working on this for years, it seems like now, correct? I just have a few questions around things that I just don't understand yet. What would happen if there was an emergency like COVID?

So there are, I'm going to take it out to the bigger picture, right? If I make $100 a year, 20 of those dollars always stays in my bank account in a rainy day fund. And it's split up between three things. It's split up between contingency, required TABOR reserves, and unassigned fund balance. So $15 of that is unassigned fund balance, $3 of that is required TABOR reserves, $2 of that is contingency. So in the event that we have a fiscal emergency like we had during COVID, we have those reserves set aside. They are always required in the charter and they're always required to be there. the $3 or the $15, right? That 15% unassigned fund balance that our fiscal rules require. Right now in our city, that's only $11. And that is sort of because we have been spending up to the appropriated amount of dollars, even though we haven't been bringing in the appropriated, what we would have had to come in to meet those appropriations. So we have spent into our reserves now, instead of $15, we're at $11. And so we can, we can, We know about that. We've made changes to structurally change the finances of the city. This is kind of that last piece of that. So we have those dollars set aside. They're required. Right now we're already low on those dollars. Well, we're low on the $15. We're not low on the $2 and we're not low on the $3. So we have $14 instead of $20.

That somewhat makes sense. I just have seen since my time that we keep dipping into those for other random uses. still somewhat concerning. I'm curious about the revenue shortfalls. Why did you pick two and 5%?

We picked two and 5% because of the, we tracked 2023, 2024, and 2025 actuals to see what the differential was, like how far we were out of whack with the budget. In 2023, it was 4%. 2024, it was 5.6%. 2025, it was 2.9%. So we sort of looked at those trends to make a determination of based on what we've seen since 2023, then what would be reasonable space where we, where the Department of Finance has the flexibility to run a city and pay our bills and all the things, but also put some kind of clear guardrails in place. And so we felt like 2%, which is. somewhere between $40 and $50 million, and 5%, which is somewhere around $100 million, is the right spot.

That makes sense. And then my last question is just, what about putting good energy out into the city if there is a huge surplus? Or how would those funds be appropriated in a two-year budgeting cycle?

Yeah, it's a great question. So the charter already addresses that. Council member Kniech brought a charter change in 2021 that addressed that piece of it. When there are unexpected windfalls in the city, city council is required to appropriate those dollars as well. That was charter amendment 2G, I think, in 2021, November of 2021. Thank you. Thank you, committee chair. That's all I have.

Thank you. Council Member Watson, you're up.

Thank you so much, Vice Chair. I don't have any questions because we had briefings. We talked through those things. I just wanted to elevate what Council Member Flynn stated. My initial reflection when Matt told me about this, I think, two years ago or something from your office. I was like, hells no, we're not going too over by annual. I'm like, I have night sweats even in our annual budgeting process. However, As sponsors, you all put in so many things in this that I think are essential that we don't have. The trigger process for community involvement and community input. The dialogue based on percent of change for shortfalls that we have to have. Some of those are happening organically, but it's not structured. Those are helpful. And then the agreement between the administration and council. That created, for me, a sense, because the estimates would be the next three years, based on inflation, based on supply, based on shortages, based on boondoggles in the federal government, we're going to have, maybe in the next three years, we will be trying to dig out of the economic situation we're in. So we're not going to be running into, I would assume, proposals that would be agreeable to counsel or the administration to your budget. We're going to be doing annuals. So this is for the future when there may be some level of sanity within finance and kind of forecasting projections may be a little closer than they are now without the governmental impacts that are creating kind of an upheaval in our financial systems. One of the things I do want to say as a council member that does give me night sweats, this has nothing to do with y'all's process. is us as council, and I'll say what Councilwoman Alvarez has said, we have in our process each year that I've been here, we have proposed spend that brought us to 10%, even no matter what actuals and projected is, we have done that. And I think it's important if we're going to have an honest discussion as council, When I say we, I mean as a council there have been amendments that would have brought us down to levels that would take us to or near 10%. There was a proposal actually I think for us maybe even under We have to have that discussion as counsel, though, because it is our purview to provide amendments. And if we are saying we need to have more fiscal responsibility, this provides it, love it. But also as counsel, I think we also need to have a greater discussion on what we are proposing that has impacts on the budget and takes us below that 10%. I will stop there. I think this is great work. I appreciate the process and the listening, and I think it's really smart to make sure if we are hitting these shortfalls that that dialogue and that trigger requires communication. So we are involved in that discussion if there are stuff that we have to do that impacts career services employees or anyone else. Thank you, Vice Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember. Okay, seeing no more questions from my colleagues, Councilmember Sawyer.

Thank you, Councilmember Cashman. So, recognizing that Councilmember Flynn does not want to vote yes, and that is his right, and that is okay, we do have a challenge because there are only four voting members present in committee today. There are three members of this committee who are out of town this week. So what I would like to propose is to delay this vote to a date certain of June 30th. So for the public, the Excel franchise agreement will be coming on June 30th. We are going to have an extra gov committee June 30th specific to the franchise agreement and that vote. That will take up the entire committee, but I would like to propose that we move these two action items in a block to June 30th out of respect for council members Flynn's desire to vote no, but because we have to have four votes in committee in order to move this forward to the full council. So we're trying to find a balance here and that is what we've come up with. So I move to delay these two items in a block to a date certain of June 30th.

Do I have a second? I read through the draft ordinance, the companion ordinance, and I didn't get to the end, so I'm wondering is it

Conditioned on passage by voters.

Yes. Okay. Yes, we are.

So it doesn't go into a fact.

No, no, no. This is a charter change and companion ordinance that would what council's role here would be referring it to a vote of the people in the on the November 2026 ballot. So.

Okay. So the ordinance then would be effective upon passage by the voters of the Charter Amendment? Correct. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. And do we need a vote? Do I have thumbs up on moving this to a date certain? Looks like that is the case. So 864 and 867 will be seen again. The date again is?

June 30th.

June 30th. Thank you so much. Let's see here. I'm looking for my teams. There we go. I will now entertain a motion to move us into an executive session. pursuant to DRMC 2-34A3 and 7 for the purpose of discussing ongoing litigation in which the City is a party and privileged advice related thereto before we reconvene for consent items and to adjourn this meeting. A two-thirds vote. of members present is required to enter into executive session. May I have a motion? Council Member Sawyer, may I have a second? Council Member Gilmour? Seeing no objection, we are in executive session.

One day you feel great and the next day you don't. Don't be afraid to just stay in bed that day. You don't feel good.

I just want to say that it's okay to manage your own life. It's okay to make whatever decisions you feel are appropriate.

But sometimes just knowing yourself and your body and how it functions and how it works is really what you need to connect with internally to be able to make that first step to try and find support.

At a certain point, I was comfortable with my status, but I really didn't know anyone else who was positive, so I didn't know who I could talk to about it. Finding groups and talking to other people who are HIV positive helped me in ways that I couldn't have imagined.

I've been pushing, and I really want something, I want to do this now, is to be a peer...

support person for somebody that's newly diagnosed that may not want to go into a group situation not all people are comfortable going to support groups with other folks who are living with HIV but if somebody can connect to that one person reach out to one person that might be able to connect or feel to actually know what you're going through somebody who has lived experience and somebody knows that might be the one solution that will help that person to overcome fear and the stigma that comes along with HIV.

I can tell you the energy I feel is joy.

I never thought that I would be in grad school, but here I am.

You can still get an education. You can still get married. You can have kids. You can pursue your career. You can climb a mountain. You can plan a parade.

My diagnosis kind of led me into the kind of work that I wanted to do. I wanted to help other people like me.

I do a lot of voter engagement work. I do a lot of door knocking and phone banking and calling people and talking.

And you will find yours and your story.

the thing that makes you feel complete if i could speak to my younger self i would tell him to not be scared to not be anxious and to just face the reality because the reality today is that we are so much more than our diagnosis we don't have to live in fear we can live long and healthy and normal lives and we are going to find love we're going to find support

What I would say to someone that's newly diagnosed is you will survive. You will not die. HIV is no longer a death sentence. It's not the end. There's a lot of hope and just keep going in your life.

I was diagnosed with HIV in 1989 when I was 13 years old. I am now 46 years old and still thriving with HIV.

So I've been living with HIV for about 14 years. I was actually diagnosed on December 1st, which is World AIDS Day.

I was diagnosed with HIV on May 24th, 2019 at about 3.30 in the afternoon.

I met a man who said he was HIV positive. So I went to be tested, and I found out that I was HIV positive. There was a black woman. She was a nurse, and she's the one that told me my diagnosis. And she says, honey, can I give you a hug? And she gave me a hug, and it was a very motherly hug. I felt like I was... hugging one of my aunties.

When I was diagnosed with HIV, I was scared. I thought I was going to die. I thought everybody around me was contracting and passing. I thought that was my destiny.

I felt like if I avoided the diagnosis, it would go away.

My stomach went through the floor, I can tell you that. I'm going to die. I grew up in the 80s. That was the thing.

There was a spirit of assurance, but at the same time, that hug made me feel like, wow, this is the beginning of the end.

I felt like the world had just screwed me over and that I didn't care about anybody or I really felt like I needed to find a way to numb myself.

At that moment, I was kind of numb to it.

I was so scared at first. I didn't know anything about the virus.

I had no idea. about medication, I had no idea about anything.

I was very ignorant about it and I didn't want to find out more because it was scary.

About a week later I came down with pneumonia and then two weeks later I woke up and couldn't stand up. I was in the hospital for about nine days and then I still had to relearn how to walk anyway. That was the moment that it became a reality to me.

I eventually told my friends and family. They were very supportive. And they were the ones that encouraged me to seek treatment. I felt like I couldn't run away from it anymore.

I went down a road of self-destruction for a long time. My path to self-destruction ended when I was diagnosed with cervical cancer and the provider that I was seeing told me that if I was going to have children, I should probably do it immediately. He basically told me that I was going to die at that point in time in my life. I did not want to have children at that point in time. I thought I had to because I was going to die. When I decided to get pregnant and I had my baby, she was diagnosed with Down syndrome. It was another fear, like, am I adequate enough? Can I do this? Am I going to be alive in five years to watch this baby grow? And it was really my aha moment. She was my angel. She saved me. I needed to find support. I needed to find other folks who were living and thriving with this illness also. I needed to find support.

An extraordinary event happened in my life. I was asked to serve as president of the San Francisco LGBT Pride Parade. At the time, I only had 22 T-cells. My doctor told me that I had one year to live. And I took on the gay pride parade knowing that I could die at any moment. But I didn't die. It gave me a reason to live. We're talking a parade of a million people, 250 contingents, live television, live radio, the excitement of all of these people coming together, celebrating themselves. And at the end of my first event... I went down to Civic Center and I sat down on the ground and I just cried and cried and cried. And that's when I realized that my life had a purpose.

I found a great program here in Colorado that helps people like me who never thought they could have children, but now there's research and the science and this amazing program that helps me and other women that are interested in having children and living with HIV to be able to overcome the fear and the stigma. and maybe even the shame that's behind being HIV positive and wanting to have children.

The medical advancements are amazing. We're able to use medication to bring your viral load down to the point where they cannot even detect HIV in your blood.

An abundance of data shows that when the viral load is durably suppressed, meaning six months or longer, sexual transmission of HIV does not occur.

You cannot pass HIV on to your partner if you're undetectable, if the virus is suppressed.

And once the viral load is durably suppressed, the immune system can stay strong. Life expectancy is the same as it is for people who don't have HIV. So we don't see the serious side effects that we used to see with the older HIV regimens.

It really helped because I knew that I couldn't transmit the virus if I was undetectable.

The one thing that I do regret is my dating life. Because I had HIV, I'm one of these people that was afraid to pass HIV along to my partners.

I learned that through medical care and taking medications, I would live a long and healthy life.

My patients and my friends with HIV tell me that knowing about U equals U decreases the feelings of stigma and calms their fears about transmission.

I have come to a place where I've been undetectable for years.

So if you are falling in love, go for it. Enjoy your life. Enjoy that relationship. Be in love. Get married. Have kids. Raise kids. Create your own family. And just go for it. Experience love.

And now I feel excited today. I'm excited to meet other people. I don't live in fear anymore. We are more than our status. We can live full lives. We can do whatever we want to do.

I just want to tell folks who are living with HIV and interested in having a child that they can absolutely have an HIV-negative child. I have two. My children live happy, healthy lives. So parenting is difficult. but it's not because of my HIV status.

Although it's a simple message, we know that some people have a lot more barriers to getting a suppressed viral load than others. And we know that people have many other health issues, both physical and mental, aside from HIV.

My current health is, I think it's pretty good. I've been undetectable by today's standards once, and then I go, and then I fluctuate and go up and go down.

because there's so many different elements that come along with being HIV positive and the depression, the anger, the frustration.

Having a suppressed viral load is just one aspect of good health. And we want to support our patients to have good health so they can live their best lives. So it's important that we treat our patients holistically and show them love and support no matter where they are in their health care journey.

Everybody's story is going to be different. Everybody's healing is going to be different. But as far as one day you feel great and the next day you don't, don't be afraid to just stay in bed that day. You don't feel good.

I just want to say that it's okay to manage your own life. It's okay to make whatever decisions you feel are appropriate.

But sometimes just knowing yourself and your body and how it functions and how it works is really what you need to connect with internally to be able to make that first step to try and find support.

At a certain point, I was comfortable with my status, but I really didn't know anyone else who was positive, so I didn't know who I could talk to about it. Finding groups and talking to other people who are HIV positive helped me in ways that I couldn't have imagined.

I've been pushing, and I really want something, I want to do this now, is to be a pure person

support person for somebody that's newly diagnosed that may not want to go into a group situation not all people are comfortable going to support groups with other folks who are living with HIV but if somebody can connect to that one person reach out to one person that might be able to connect or feel to actually know what you're going through somebody who has lived experience and somebody knows that might be the one solution that will help that person to overcome the fear and the stigma that comes along with HIV.

I can tell you the energy I feel is joy.

I never thought that I would be in grad school, but here I am.

You can still get an education. You can still get married. You can have kids. You can pursue your career. You can climb a mountain. You can plan a parade.

My diagnosis kind of led me into the kind of work that I wanted to do. I wanted to help other people like me.

I do a lot of voter engagement work. I do a lot of door knocking and phone banking and calling people and talking.

And you will find yours and your story here.

thing that makes you feel complete if i could speak to my younger self i would tell him to not be scared to not be anxious and to just face the reality because the reality today is that we are so much more than our diagnosis we don't have to live in fear we can live long and healthy and normal lives and we are going to find love we're going to find support

What I would say to someone that's newly diagnosed is you will survive. You will not die. HIV is no longer a death sentence. It's not the end. There's a lot of hope and just keep going in your life.

Hi, my name is Colin Lee. I am a 27-year-old professional. I'm also an herbalist, hiker, adventurer, what have you. I live here in Denver, Colorado. When I was first diagnosed, I was around 24. My family is very religious. I grew up in a minister's home and I shared my status with my family along with coming out. So things were kind of hard that really kind of stunted our relationship, I believe. And really wasn't the same after that. So I really kind of restructured what I thought my support structure was. Growing up, I was always the glue with my whole family. So now with this role shifting, with me having to place boundaries, with me having to kind of like step out when I need to, it's different. It can be hurtful. It can feel like, it can feel like You want to question who you are. You may want to question how you present yourself to people. You may want to question everything about yourself, but remember that if you stay true to who you are and trust that, that you can find your own community. That sense of family doesn't have to come from the people that you've always envisioned it did. I've always had this idea of family. You know, it's supposed to be with the people who you're related to. And I think out of that, to me, created this expectation of like, well, they're family, so they're supposed to understand XYZ. They're supposed to support you through XYZ, but that may not always be the case. And so when I kind of got that support from someone outside of that traditional support system, that really opened my eyes to know who truly can be your family, who can truly be there to support you, to know that There are people that you may not be related to. There are people that you may not even thought would be a part of your support system, but here they are ready to support you.

My name is Diego Andre. I'm 32 years old. I'm from Peru. I live here in Colorado. I'm a case manager. I've always worked with the community as a case manager, and now I'm also helping people who come from abroad as a leader in refugee shelters. I didn't start taking medication immediately. I started feeling much more sick because time passed and I didn't take any medicine. I had one more disease related to HIV because I didn't take the medication. But then the doctors beat a part of the disease I had and they gave me medicine, they started giving me medicine. And I think HIV changed my life for the better. I began to become more aware of the things I was doing, what food I was eating, how much exercise I was doing, and I dedicated myself to that. The HIV for me improved a great part of my life because I focused on continuing to be or continue to strive to improve my health. And now I feel very good. I am 32 years old and I have been living with HIV for 17 years. And it is something for which I feel proud. I have done many things in this time to face HIV.

So this is Juliana, my daughter. She's just shy of 17. It's been mostly just the two of us for most of her life. She is thoughtful and super compassionate and has all the skills that we've worked on together, and occasionally they show themselves. But she's also a teenager, so she is a bit sassy.

This is my mom. I'd personally say that we've been to us just pretty much all my life. I don't really consider everybody else that we've had in our lives like part of our family really anymore.

We are each other's ride or die. I worked in HIV when Juliana was young. We've done a lot of cool stuff.

I don't know what I thought we were doing. when we would go and sit in like which we would go sit in like office rooms for hours and i would play with my baby dolls when i was a kid but now after i think she told me that and i found out it kind of all clicked and we're drafting bills made more sense that's what she told me we were doing and i found out that and i thought it was clear i think when it comes to disclosure it's really it's really personal for me i felt like

All right, well, if someone can learn from what I have to say or if someone can hear what I had to say and maybe not have a misconception about HIV or realize that people living with HIV might not be or look like what they thought that was really important, And I saw a lot of clients and other people living with HIV who just weren't in the space to really be loud and proud and bold and open. But I felt like I could handle it. And so that was really all part of making that decision. All of that shifted a little bit, though, when I found out I was going to be a mom, because then it wasn't just me that had to go through that. Then it was my kiddo. When she was really young and we had that first sort of disclosure conversation, we did create sort of a safety circle or a circle of people that she could talk to who wouldn't be me, that it would be okay to be honest with and talk about HIV and ask questions. When you're talking about disclosing to your kid or having kids and even navigating this, like, Nowadays, you might not need to disclose to your kid. For me, it was really important. And I know people who have kids that are the similar age to her that haven't disclosed. For me, it was important because I don't feel like it could be really my organic, authentic self. Because HIV is a part of who I am. I don't know. It's really about gauging your kid. Like, you can't control... who finds out to some degree. Even if you decide, oh my gosh, we're never gonna tell anybody, like your kid might find a pill bottle and Google it and then tell everyone they go to school with with no dialogue around that, which to me was always way scarier. One of the things for me and one of the things that I learned, which was very cool in sort of navigating disclosure with a kiddo as a parent living with HIV was really about finding the right sort of emotional, like, maturity place for your kids. So like I said before, like telling any teenager things is not usually ever smooth. So waiting until then might not be great. But, you know, seven was great for my kid and where she was at emotionally. And then being able to sort of reevaluate and grow with that was really important. So I think parenting is difficult enough, you know, hardest unpaid job around. I think when you talk about HIV, the lack of education and the stigma is the hard part, and that doesn't have anything to do with being a parent. No one needs that extra layer. As a person living with HIV who maybe is going to become a parent, The advice that I guess I would give to folks is you have to be thoughtful about what's right for you and knowing your kid, so like where they're at developmentally, like who they are as a kid. There's no, again, one size fits all. You have to be really thoughtful about what works for you as a person and your kid, whoever they might be.

If you have somebody that you care about or a loved one that just found out that they have HIV, don't be afraid. They're not. Just give them a hug. They're going to need it. Just love all of them. That's all that matters. My life and my mom's relationship and I is chaotic. I don't think it would be as strong as it is if I didn't, if it wasn't for the things that she went through and if it wasn't for the things that I put her through or I went through myself. But it's pretty great. It's awesome. I wouldn't trade it. I wouldn't trade her for anything, period. She's, she's everything.

Solo recuerda que no importa de dónde vengas. Puedes venir de cualquier parte del mundo y decidir vivir aquí. Puedes ser una persona que siempre ha vivido aquí, pero no tengas miedo a poder ir a cualquier hospital, organización, en donde tú puedas averiguar sobre el VIH. And that's going to be very important. Remember not to be afraid to pay a doctor because you're covered. The health insurance, you're going to have it covered. Medicine will be an important part of the process with your doctor. And if you're doing some kind of documentation to have a migratory status in this country, nothing is going to affect the fact that you have HIV and resort to organizations.

So I think now that I'm actually listening to my body and paying attention to the signs, post-diagnosis, my health is actually much better now that I think about it. I do feel like socially and emotionally I'm way more fulfilled just because, again, I've taken that moment to really step back and hone in on the things in my life that I need. So that looks like me putting up boundaries that I need to put up. That looks like me not communicating with the people I don't need to communicate with anymore. That also looks like me seeking out the support that I need. So what kind of communities do I need in my life now? What kind of support do I need in my life? If you've just been diagnosed and all you hear around you is that Well, your life is over. The life as you know it is over. I'd have to disagree. I'd say that it's just now beginning. Know that you are not limited. You still have the power to change the course of your life. And to realize that this diagnosis does not hold you back can help empower you to work.

So Goldilocks was charged with four different counts. They were breaking and entering, or what we commonly refer to as burglary, trespass, criminal mischief for breaking Baby Bear's chair, and theft of porridge.

Quorums to Classrooms is a 30-year-old program and started in 1995 where members of the Denver District Attorney's Office go out to fifth grade classes, Denver Public Schools classes, one day a month. And we basically teach a curriculum. It's really just an orientation for students with the criminal justice system and the people that work in it.

It's also an introduction for them to everyone's responsibilities from the judge and the judicial staff to the defense bar and the defense attorneys that represent clients and then our role as the representatives of the people of the city and county of Denver.

These are 10 and 11 year olds and they're learning about the world and we get to go in and be a part of that. We have teams of three or more that go into fifth grade schools and try to just broaden the students' understanding of the criminal justice system. They have a mock trial with Goldilocks.

They seem to really enjoy and get excited about the opportunity to not just put on a mock trial at a real courthouse. We're here at the City and County Building and they will do trials in civil courtrooms, they'll do trials in criminal courtrooms over at the Lindsay Flanagan Courthouse.

Ladies and gentlemen, today we are here for the trial of the people versus Goldilocks. I present the people in this case against Goldilocks.

He is charged with breaking and entering, criminal mischief, theft, and criminal trespass at the door. We will prove that Goldilocks is guilty, and we ask you to find him guilty beyond a race within a doubt. While the prosecution will present their versions of the events, the evidence will show that Goldilocks is not guilty.

They do take it extremely seriously. They have fun with it, but there's nothing wrong with having fun as well as being serious. So they will dress up for their roles. They'll commit their witness statements to memory. They'll practice opening and closing statements, how to give directs and cross-examinations. So they really strive to put on a full trial. And the other most interesting thing for me is every year I've done this, They're very creative. It's remarkable the sort of theories they come up with, both in their prosecution and defense, things that never even crossed my mind. They really will dive in and build their entire case around the flaw of the DNA evidence or whether or not there were footprints in the snow in December when this crime allegedly occurred.

The jury finds the defendant guilty.

I hear my player catch close.

For the whole year, we talk about choices. And as we know, when students turn 10, which is perfect for fifth grade, choices change. And when they're making, when they're doing things, they have to be thinking about, now that I'm 10, how's that gonna impact me differently? So this whole program is just about that. It's about how do I make good decisions about my friends? How do I make good decisions about choices that I make in my daily lives? They talk to their parents about choices that they've made. So then this culminating activity shows which side of the courtroom that you want to be on. Yeah, I don't think civics is taught enough in the education system. I know once you're in high school, you only have to take one semester of civics, so I figure, why not start it earlier? I know it's a huge part of creating good humans, which I believe in and which Park Hill believes in, and their civic duty or understanding how our city and how our state work through laws is really important.

They're not that far actually from potentially being participants in the system as jurors or otherwise. And so having the sense of what the system is and how it operates at an early age, I think is a very valuable thing for them to learn. We operate in a democratic system and as such, jury trials are one of the fundamental aspects of being an American. Participation in the jury system, while it is compulsory by virtue of citizenship, is also a privilege. I think it's a great chance for them to put a face to our office and see that we really are here to serve them. They're members of our community, and maybe consider this as a career one day, or at least when they get called for jury service after they turn 18, they'll at least have an idea of what to expect.

it's a wonderful program because we deal with some really important but really heavy stuff at the district attorney's office and we love doing it but i would say just as much as it is a little break for the kids you know to have something different it's something different for us and and i love i love kids in general i think they're great and i think Just being able to kind of get out of the office, get out of the courtroom and just do something fun in the community. I mean, it's just a nice extra for us.

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Each jersey, each season, each championship means more at Denver Parks and Rec's Citywide Sports Adult Program. Here, every touchdown or run scored helps to give back to youth sports by funding purchases of gear, jerseys, and officials for kids across Denver. So gather your team, get in the game, and help the next generation get off the bench and into the starting lineup. Score more by giving back. New leagues start each season. Sign up today at DenverCitywideSports.org.

Platt Park is a charming and vibrant neighborhood located just south of downtown Denver, offering a harmonious blend of historic character, modern amenities, and a strong sense of community. Centered around the picturesque James H. Platt Park, the area features tree-lined streets, a mix of architectural styles including classic craftsman bungalows and contemporary homes, and a pedestrian-friendly atmosphere that invites residents to explore its many offerings. The heart of Platt Park is South Pearl Street, a lively commercial corridor renowned for its boutique shops, diverse dining options, and cultural events. Highlights include the acclaimed Sushi Den, cozy coffee shops like Stella's Coffee, and the South Pearl Farmer's Market. The neighborhood also hosts seasonal street fairs and art walks, fostering a vibrant community spirit. With its blend of historic charm, modern conveniences, and a strong community vibe, Platt Park stands out as one of Denver's most desirable neighborhoods.

I'm the director of shelter services, so I help oversee our young adult shelter, our minor shelter and our neighborhood bed spaces as well. I worked at the old shelter building and the difference between our new building that is intentionally designed for our population versus the old building is I can see the impact that it's had day to day with just how our youth are able to manage their lives and how our staff are able to support them in this new space. What we're really trying to help with in terms of supporting youth at this stage is so they don't end up chronically homeless as adults. And so we really feel like this building helps support us with our prevention model of assisting youth into becoming independent, self-sufficient adults. A building like the Mothership shows the power of community investment because without that investment, Urban Peak couldn't do the amazing services that we've been able to.

We are out of executive session. Back to Governance and Intergovernmental Relations Committee of Denver City Council. We have a dozen items on consent. If none of those are pulled off, they'll move forward to the full council. Seeing no further business, we are adjourned.