Public Works Committee - Regular Meeting

Join us for the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee starting now.

Alright. We're on air, folks.

We're on air. We're on air. Alright.

Good afternoon. It's good to see everyone. Welcome to the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. My name is Chantel Lewis. I chair this committee, and I am in District 8. We'll start with a round of introductions. Councilman Flynn, would you like to start?

Thank you. Kevin Flynn, Southwest Denver's district two.

Chris Hines, Denver's perfect 10.

Laura Vibras, lucky district seven.

Paul Cashman, South Denver District 6. Darrell Watson, fine District 9.

Amanda Sandoval, Northwest Denver District 1.

Thank you. And we might have folks joining us virtually, and once they do, I will acknowledge those council members. So we do have two action items. The second or the first, you may be familiar with. We've had this in committee a few times. It's the scooter bike share contract with BO. And so we you all can give a round and introductions and

jump in. Perfect. Thank you, council chair Lewis. My name is Elena McWharter. I am DOTI's legislative affairs manager, I'll and let my team introduce themselves before we dive right in.

Madam chair Nick Williams, deputy manager DOTI.

Hello. Justin Begley, planning supervisor with DOTI.

Alex Keating, vice president policy and partnerships with VO.

Alright. This may be the quickest presentation of this committee, and I hope you prefer it that way, but certainly wanna dive straight into questions that you may still have. Before we do, we're just gonna provide a quick update on some slides you've already seen. So a reminder, we're actively doing pre enrollment into the access program. As of this morning, over 1,350 individuals are enrolled for pre access.

They can get pre enrolled today at voride.com/denver and they can screenshot if their current access program enrollees with Lyme or Bird. They can screenshot their enrollment and use that to get started with their enrollment with VO in their access program. If on day one you walk out and VO is in the streets and you've not enrolled yet, we have what we're calling instant access where you can self certify that you are eligible for our access program and you can start writing free of charge on day one. We're also in the process of building out an access program coalition group and we've got a letter of signatories that I'll let Alex discuss. And then just real quick, job hiring.

We are actively hiring and continue to hire the W-two labor force that's going to support this program. So right now there are over a 100 individuals already hired, many of them already working out of Vio's warehouse. They had over 200 interviews also scheduled last week that they are actively making offers on so that they are ready to deploy on day one when this contract is signed. Also, a quick reminder, in the last presentation, we gave you an entire calendar of the next few months of community events from big events to small events, district specific events, citywide events, any opportunity where we can get in front of your constituents and program users to let them know of this new program and how to get enrolled and start writing. Last slide is just a quick transition slide that with your approval today, that puts us on track for full council approval on April 27.

The deployment was planned for May 1. So, again, upon signature of this contract, we'll be getting out in the field as quickly as possible. And then our current operator licenses expire on May 16. So we still want to be able to maximize that two week transition overlap between vendors.

Just one thing. If we could go back to the instant access one, one thing I want to, really accentuate that I think folks have told us, we maybe haven't been explaining as clearly as we could have, every single person that walks out and scans, whether it's me, whether it's a previous access writer, I've made the joke, whether it's Elon Musk, will be asked, are you an access writer? I will say no. I can't speak for Elon Musk, but even if Elon Musk did say, yes, I'm an access writer, he would receive that access. And that really is so every single person to try to absolutely minimize, the the chance of anyone slipping through the cracks.

So anyone who walks out there will be asked, and if they say yes, they instantly have their access benefits. We do then expect them over a period of time to follow-up with the actual documentation, but it's really our hope and expectation that will minimize anyone slipping through the cracks on that access program. Thank you.

Thanks for reiterating. And so last slide. What we're going to bring to Denver with this contract is cheaper prices for both for all riders, more ways to ride, a more adaptable and accessible fleet, flexible equity program with the sixty minutes of free ride time every day for access users, and that increased accountability through w two workforce. And so with that, we'll request your approval of 260326 and answer any remaining questions you may have.

My first? No.

But I did get you I did get you in the queue. I'm sorry. We have I I wanted to welcome council pro tem remember Campbell, and we have in this order, actually, councilwoman Alvedrez, councilman Hines, and councilman Flynn. I'll get you in the queue. And because we've had this in front of us on multiple occasions, if we could keep it to two questions. Go ahead, councilwoman Alvedrez.

Thank you. Yes. And we have had this quite a few times already. I appreciate the slide. And I believe we've had past conversations now. It's like going back to try to remember all the things we've already talked about. But if you could tell me more because I thought that this was being addressed about illegally riding on sidewalks. And if you can tell me more about the where people park, how that's changing or how we expect that to improve, that would be helpful. Mhmm.

In terms of the sidewalk riding, as part of the legislation that was passed, the fleet is required to have writing detection. Part of what set VO apart was that they do the GPS technology detection, which is common across. I'll let Alex correct me here. But they also do what's radar detection. So they've got two technology detections to help make that sidewalk riding technology that much more accurate.

So the first is that typical spatial awareness using the mapping. The second is actually detecting changes in speeds. So it can detect if you're going 10 miles per hour on a scooter and you're coming up to a stopped object or a pedestrian who's walking slowly. It recognizes that difference in speed and starts communicating to the rider to avoid those objects or those pedestrians. Anything you wanna add around sidewalk riding technology?

No. I mean, you you got most of it. I it's a it's a priority. The way it's gonna be addressed is through multiple engagements with the rider and technology. I think something that's gonna be new is our vehicles talk. Some of you've probably heard them speak before, but everyone who starts a trip in Denver is gonna hear welcome to VO. Please do not ride on sidewalks. That's the very first thing they're gonna hear when they start a trip. After that, the the the geofencing of of sidewalks and then adding in the extra layers from sensors and lidar, which is a slightly different technology than radar but in the same family. It gets layered into to better estimate and actually slow, stop, immediately report.

And then when someone is riding after that ride, if that has been reported by the sensors and the technology, they see immediately. Those instances also get reported to the city in terms of where that's happening so that we can all as a group better understand where those patterns of behavior happening, the defenders can be moved out of the system. Parking?

Parking is gonna be a similar type thing where with the legislation last year with mandatory parking zones downtown, there will be a combination of physical corrals as well as geofenced corrals where people are required to end their trips and their the app won't allow them to end the trip without being in the dedicated parking area. Right now, that's required in the Central Business District and 5 Points, and I'm gonna butcher it. I think is it called Lower Downtown or there's a third. Thank you. So we're building out those technologies and testing basically how we incentivize and encourage the parking behaviors and educating people in real time on where to parking, where to park.

But then we're anticipating that we'll spread those lessons learned and those opportunities citywide. We just know that with the urban density of ridership downtown is very different than in some of the further out areas, so we don't necessarily want to have a one size fits all approach where people are then feeling like they're stranded in some of our neighborhoods in Southwest Denver or in the Far Southeast or other areas. Are there other technologies and things that we wanna highlight there with parking?

Less technology, more input. I mean, I think it's important to note in in the contract, in the scope, that's a minimum of a 150 new parking corrals. So something physical that's marked and helps people understand where to will be installed by Vio. And that's not going to just be in downtown. I think we're working very closely with UpDonough and Lodonna and all of the downtown folks on where additional capacity is needed.

But I was just out at Jefferson Park United Neighbors last night and they have opinions about where they'd like to see them in their district as well. And I think that's where we're gonna take that kind of approach to to move those across the city as well to where you have a high density of trips ending in areas that otherwise are underserved with that kind of infrastructure. So that's certainly the goal. The the app that you use when you end a trip with Vio, it analyzes that end of ride photo in real time and it looks for a corral if a mandatory parking area and you can't end your trip if it doesn't see that corral and if it's not a mandatory parking area it just makes sure it's not seeing it blocking a sidewalk.

So it will make sure that it's not blocking a sidewalk. That's really important I think specifically the Baker neighborhood which I was mentioning earlier has Atlantis Community, which has a lot of people with disabilities and Hirschfeld Tower, which also does. And so that's been a continuous issue there with parking on the sidewalks. And with the current provider, they've also dropped off the actual scooters on the sidewalk. So will that not be happening?

Yes. Of course. The the you know, all of our in house staff who are trained to deploy, rebalance, battery swap, all of that, they have to take a picture in our technician app when they end a trip when they do a deployment, when they rebalance a vehicle, put it out, and it has to be appropriate. They can't just put it wherever they want. So they every every hub they're expected to rebalance to has a photo of what the proper deployment looks like and they have to match that and they have take a picture proving they've done so.

So they won't be deployed in a way that's obstructing a sidewalk. I do think in areas where there's like I said, where there is some limited infrastructure, but there are lots of trips being generated, that's where we we, you know, we hone in on on that end of ride experience. But we also look for available areas to make corrals and just force the part mandatory, make the parking mandatory in that condition.

Thank you. Thank you, committee chair.

Thank you

so much.

We appreciate it. Councilor Harris?

Thank you. The I'm not sure we ever receive reports from from our current vendors on this. You're you're gonna have a fleet of up to 9,000 vehicles. Some we'd love for them to to all behave the way we want them to. Eventually, there will be one or two or more who don't.

VO is it will be willing to remove riders from from Denver who are repeat offenders. Is that is that a fair statement? Yes. The other thing, just just to verify, as as miss McWharton had said, the legislation actually calls for six months after the contract takes effect for there to be mandatory corrals in the statistical neighborhood of Lower Downtown excuse me, and mandatory corrals six months after that in Central Business District commonly known as Upper Downtown. Are you prepared for that? Are you ready to have mandatory corrals in those statistical neighborhoods in that time frame?

Yes. I mean, obviously, the what has to happen is a joint effort to locate corral locations, permit them, implement them. We came into this having read the legislation and understood the requirements and have baked that into our financial plan for operating this market and into the process for our partner, our local partnerships team to be helping work with Dottie to drive engagement for exact not just which intersection, which corner. Right? Everything has to be appropriate, but we do plan to have those expanded on the timeline.

We have so many you know, more than 30,000,000 trips a quarter either start and or end in in our center city. And I would say upper downtown and lower downtown are very excited to have you on board. Thank you. Thank you, committee chair.

Thank you. Councilman Flynn. Thank you,

madam chair. Councilman Hines touched on what I was what I was gonna ask just one question. About 9,000, and I was looking for

the contract

and I couldn't pull it up on the iPad. But how many devices and how are they apportioned among the types?

Of the 9,000, I think the fleet mix

Yeah. I I don't like doing math on the spot because I'm bad at it, but the the commitment here is is 9,000 is the fleet cap and 70% of that will be our seated vehicles made up of the Cosmo seated scooter and the Apollo by e bike. And then only 30% will be the Astro standing scooter at launch. And we we intend to to keep that fleet mix at the heart of it. That's what we operate across the country with. It's typically 70 or 80% seated. They they draw more rides. They increase the the rider base.

Is it dynamic? In other words, through over the course of three years, the mix could change based on our input, based on customer experience or or what?

I I the way the contract is written, I think that any change any significant change to the fleet mix would require Dottie's approval. Right. But the goal is to tailor it to what is popular, what is safe, what is utilized.

So bottom line, what I'm trying to find out is from May 1 until the sixteenth, we're gonna have the right the right word I wanna use, I can't, but we're gonna have a bunch of mobility devices on the streets. Are we asking the at that point, three vendors to mitigate crowding or oversupply in one area versus another? Because nine are are they gonna do 9,000 on May 1? That's a lot of stuff on the sidewalks.

Yes, councilman. We are actively working with both Lyman Bird on their proposed drawdown scale down plans where which are effectively the transition plans, and they are actively cooperating with us on what that begins to look like in May as their devices over the course of those first two weeks of the month begin to not be redeployed. They've been begin to be collected, and VO begins to deploy more of its vehicles. And we've looked at these numbers, and we feel like there won't be an unreasonable number of devices out on the street at any one time. We have the infrastructure to support it.

So VIO will will scroll up, and the other two will scroll down over that two week period. That's correct. Thank you. That's all. Thank you.

Council president Sandoval. Thank

you, madam chair. Thank you all for coming back. So last two weeks ago so the last week two weeks ago, I asked where in the contract provision is the need for only w two workforce. Can you read that provision and tell me where?

Elena, is that you?

I don't have it pulled up right now, but I could read it. Yes.

Because I asked

that. Right?

Mhmm. Yep.

Okay. Yeah. We sent out an email that described described essentially that

But you only got it. Right? The public didn't get it?

Yes. Yes. Council members got it.

Everything should be public. So Following up on what I asked publicly.

So

within

within

section 3.1 of the program structure, it discusses in bullet point two, all on street personnel shall clearly identify themselves as a licensee representative and wear company branded attire while engaged in operations related to the program, including but not limited to deployment, rebalancing, maintenance, and customer service. Branding shall be professional, legible, and consistent across all field staff. And so to your point, it doesn't specifically say that a 100% is gonna be w two for the entire three year term. But the distinction is that right now with ten nine ten ninety nine workers who are doing the field work, we cannot require them to wear branded uniforms. We can't require them to drive branded vehicles.

We can't dictate what their hours and their location of operations are. And through this model and through VOsw two model, that's what they're proposing to do and their staff will be branded in uniforms and in branded vehicles.

Okay. That's a bit of a stretch,

I

have to say. Lots of ten ninety nine workers, you can require in your ten ninety nine that you can do something like that. If you have a contract with them, yes, they receive the ten ninety nine. Ten ninety nine in w two, just so we're clear, it's all taxes. How do file your taxes?

So I do have friends who are ten ninety nine workers, and according to their contract that gives them the $10.99, you can require certain things. So I I'm a little confused by that because ten ninety nine workers just so we're clear, m w two workers, they're taxes. It's how you file your taxes. It just means you're an independent contractor. And so when you're an independent contractor, you can actually kinda require those things because you're not just a ten ninety nine. You usually do a scope of work, and you usually have a contract for your goods. So just wondering how can that be changed by committee and say that it's going to be a w two worker?

I guess I would add in on there without going into actually changing the contract. I think what we're saying is is is yeah. And you hit it. It is the difference between a w two worker and a contracting worker, an independent contracting. And, of course, an independent contractor, there is a limit on the type of control that the contractor can exhibit over them.

So why can't we have it the contract for w two?

We and so I guess what we're saying is those requirements altogether equals a w two employee. Maybe some of the individual elements of it like branding on that, But when you combine branding with schedule with with all of those things to

saying if we're trying to get to the same extent, with all due respect, why can't you add it to the contract?

We want the contractor to also have or or Rio to have some Flexibility. Flexibility. Exactly.

So it's

not accurate in what you were saying that they will all be w two workers is my point. Because if you want flexibility, say you want flexibility. There's nothing wrong with being clear. But if you say that it's only w two workers, put w two workers in there. So because that's what you had said throughout this whole entire presentation. So that's what I'm saying. Just say be clear. Say yes. We're gonna have majority w two, and at the same time, we want flexibility for independent contracting because that's what I'm hearing. Right?

Yes. Yeah. So it's not so it's it's not accurate saying that all workers will be w two. Probably the majority might be banned. You know, if I'm understanding correctly, you want flexibility in this contract to be able to do other type of independent contracting if needed, if and when needed.

So, yeah, I can I can try to clarify a couple things and I appreciate your your bringing up the the distinction between ten ninety nine and w two? There are some there is some interpretation in the mix, but I can tell you how VO interprets the law, which I would apply to CDLE info number 10, which is local to Denver, which is I I our our approach to operations is we cannot require a ten ninety nine contractor to wear a uniform. We don't see that as an acceptable off answer. That implies some form of control over their of how they do their job, which is not meant for October. But that I just wanna be clear about how VO views that.

And the fact that we have already hired the 135 of the 150 to 60 w two labor that will run this market. We're not asking around flexibility on our core operations. We do think there's a lot of room for when the DNC is in town, hopefully, or when at a game, if we have folks that are out flyering, if we're hiring if we're hiring folks to go out and do more outreach work, more sort of ad hoc consulting work like that, that that that wouldn't those wouldn't be w two in that case. So I think it's just being careful with language to not catch all forms of labor that will affect this this program, but our operations, battery swapping, rebalancing, all that, that is w two and we don't view ourselves as having the ability to make ten eighty nine wear wear uniform.

Okay. That's a really important distinction for the public because when you're out flyering, people still think you're working for VO. Right? And you would still want their identification like when my staff go flyering for me, they wear identification that they're a different council office. So what I hear you saying just so I'm clear is you want flexibility. I think that in the future if Dottie if we want that, you just have to be clear with us. Today, we're gonna have w two workers and we want flexibility because you were insisting it was w two workers and it doesn't say that in the contract. So it just doesn't feel clear to us. Understood. Thank you for that.

And so what happens if the contract if this doesn't work out?

Could you clarify on on

We had two contractors last time, so what we're going let me say this in a different way. Feels like it was flat five hundred years ago, but I think it was yesterday how we used to postpone our general contract for cleaning. We're literally going for in general services from a couple vendors for cleaning all of our city facilities to way more. So we're like doing the exact opposite of what you are doing when it comes to general services. We're going here and we're having a couple vendors and now we're going single source which I can't figure out with this administration which the priority is because they're all over the place I think which is hard for city council to navigate.

What happens if the deal goes bankrupt? Like, what what happens?

We we run through an emergency procurement to bring on one or more additional vendors to come and take their place in the market.

And what we

please. There's also language in the contract about service continuity, and if they fail to meet their service level agreement, we can bring

in a second operator. What we did with the transition from Lyft to Bird was simply assign that entire contract was just simply assigned to Bird, and that's why that was such a smooth transition on there. Now Lyft did go bankrupt on there, but but still assuming there is some overlap, we really felt like that was a good demonstration of the ability to demons minimize any sort of disruption.

And

remind me where that

is in the contract?

The with License reassignment? License reassignment.

I'm not sure exactly where it is in the contract. We can certainly send that because it's specific clause on that, and that's just a general kind of ability we have.

Right. Okay. Thank you. Thanks, chair.

Thank you so much. Councilman Cashman, you're up.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, committee chair. The 150 corrals, is that the number? Don't remember. Are they gonna be in all corners of the city from out by the airport to out towards Littleton and Kalzman Point or Woods?

So I think the short answer is yes. I think that there's a planning process that will be undertaken once this is approved and moving forward. We know about the requirements in upper and lower downtown, and so I think that has an obvious step and timeline. The rest of the city is actively engaging with all of the the bids, the CBOs, everyone to source their input on where they'd like to see them, and that will be part of the plan. Yes.

So how many corrals do you figure downtown?

That that still has to be determined.

I don't think we you're gonna have More. A reasonable number of corrals in in the outlying district that I mean, in downtown, I'm guessing you'll have corrals so someone can take their scooter park and walk a block or Right. Or so to their job. In my district, I don't think that that will happen. And it may, but I I doing the math, I can't see how it would. So my question is, is there something in the contract about how quickly scooters need to be picked up?

Yes. So I'm happy to defer to to Dottie on but the service level.

I'm sorry. I was looking for another thing. Could you repeat the question?

Apologies. Someone rides a Vito scooter Mhmm. And parks their their scooter. It's not in a corral. It's somewhere in a neighborhood. How quickly does that need to be picked up by VO?

We have been working under a two hour after time of reporting. So if it gets reported in our three one one systems, I'm speaking to current day operations, which is gonna be further integrated in the future operations. They they have a two hour to to remedy that situation, and they have to, for all devices in the right of way, within every seven days, do a maintenance check on all of them. So nothing should be out there more than seven days without having been laid eyes

on it. Seven days?

So I might jump in. So I wanna be clear. So for any reported issue, a misparked vehicle, a a vehicle that's causing some kind of an issue, that's that two hour service level agreement that the VA will be out there to remove that vehicle and deal with it within two hours. That's for a vehicle that's causing an issue. It's mis parked, blocking a sidewalk, it's fallen down, anything any number of things could happen by a passerby pushes it or something like that.

If a vehicle makes its way to someone's house and they park that vehicle responsibly and they walk into their house and they go to sleep, they should rest assured it'll probably be there in the morning if they wanna wake up and take it back to the bus, back to work, wherever they're going. So we don't immediately go and remove vehicle that has simply been appropriately parked in a neighborhood somewhere. Those are people rely on those to get around. We have we look at we always are constantly monitoring anything that's a two day idle or a three day idle and they have varying levels of alert for us because plainly put, if a vehicle is not being ridden, we're not making any money. So our incentive is to take that vehicle back to a hub, back to a place where it's gonna generate a trip without disrupting the ability of the individual who rode it to have another ride.

So it's a balance.

Are you telling me you're geofencing the entire city?

I'm telling you, the entire city is a geofence and we track the utilization of vehicles across the city. We'll

in the my district starts at Downing Street, which is close to Central Denver, but goes all the way out past Quebec Street adjacent to Aurora and unincorporated Arapahoe County. So if if a bike is just a scooter is just parked and it's just sitting there blocking a sidewalk, you don't know that through geo fencing. It would need to be reported to 311. Is that correct?

We we would take our first cue from the end of photo. If the end of right photo has to allow it to end, which means it needs to see it not blocking a sidewalk, If for some reason the individual leaves it there and there, you know, walks away and doesn't take an appropriate end of right photo, that does immediately alert our staff to go deal with the situation. So that isn't that is a real time alert if someone ends the trip out of compliance, walks away. Otherwise, correct, we are we're not we are not privy to a trip being ended appropriately parked. It doesn't cause an alert. What happens is the minute it's parked, it's on the clock for its its utilization. How long has it been idle? And so we're tracking idle vehicles across the city.

I I would just say we'll see. These are the same assurances we got last time from from our previous vendors that everything was gonna be cool. No nobody's gonna get blocked. We we understand. We care deeply about your safety, and that wasn't the way it it rolled out. So, hopefully, we'll have a better experience if this moves forward. Thank you, committee chair.

Thank you so much, mister Catherine. Councilman Watson, you're up.

Thank you, committee chair. First of all, thank you all for coming back, answering the questions that I had previously. I would love you to elevate 5 Points, the Art District. What are the differences as far as corrals for the use within District 9?

The difference between in the mandatory parking zones versus the rest of the city or district?

Lay down, sister. All of

it. Yeah.

Is the question

Yes. So for parentals, we we have a specific call out within the law that treats 5 Points and the Arc District differently. Can you elevate what that difference is and how VO is meeting the very specific requirements in the law that we put forward because of the amount of use that those communities have? Yeah.

So this is the mandatory parking zones that we were talking about where riders will not be able to end their trip on the app without being parked in a designated parking zone or a parking corral. It can be either a physical corral space that they have to connect into or it can be a geofenced space, but the goal being that it helps keep the public realm tidy and organized. It prevents the blockage of ADA access, the blockage of intersection curb ramps, and really just that that scattered look that we've heard a lot of constituent and council complaints about. And so this is how we are looking at trip ends for ridership to determine where are people ending their trip and how can we create the physical infrastructure or the geofenced infrastructure as well as the in app coaching to encourage ridership to end in those spaces. Helps protect all of the pedestrians and the different types of people who are moving along our sidewalks and our public spaces.

And then, really, we're looking at the data internally to understand how we scale this up and expand it to other areas of the city.

And to clarify Yeah.

Go ahead.

I was gonna say, to clarify, if I decide, it's like the heck with that, I'm not going to do that, and I just park it where I want, my credit card keeps tolling. Correct? It does not allow me to end the ride, so that becomes a very expensive parking decision at that point. And that's what proven to be a very good incentive to make sure folks are complying with that with their behavior.

Right. And asked that question because folks in my points are asking because we are the number, I think, believe three spot, and we specifically called it out. So wanted you to elevate that so folks are very The other question is on the adaptive use or for riders that need additional support. You have trikes and different types of of vehicles. Of Can you speak to how someone who may need additional support, how do they get a hold of those vehicles? You're not dumping trikes in District 3 or District 4. I mean, talk through what that process looks like.

Yeah. Thank you. That's a good question. So first and foremost, the the trike, which is sort of making its debut in Denver, be the first fully deployed self balancing trike vehicle. And that does mean deployed as in it's it's available to find and use as needed.

Now, we understand that that we think is a huge step forward in terms of accessibility for the program because someone with a mobility impairment who may not be able to balance but can transfer to the vehicle, can utilize the vehicle, can do so. That's not a complete you know, that doesn't address every need on the accessibility side. So we also have wheelchair attachment devices which are available for delivery. And so in that one, you do need to, you know, reserve in advance. It's entirely free as a service.

And it goes through hello at VioRide or it goes through our our standard customer service. It's also something that we would love to be partnering with all of your council offices to have the materials available there. It's also part of all of our outreach material. When we do outreach, it always includes the accessible program, the access pricing program, and how to report issues. So those are always fully, you know, fully distributed. And one of our accessible vehicles is fully deployed, the other is by reservation.

And last question, the highly unsafe practice of the joint rider on the stand up vehicles, what is the what are you doing to make sure you reduce that process that we see everywhere throughout the city on a

daily basis? I'll get another great question. So, you know, education enforcement are are huge. What we've done though is we understand that a lot of people are seeking the ability to ride together. And to help that be safely accommodated, we've already deployed across the country our Apollo e bike, which is designed to safely seat two. So it means the suspension, the braking, all that is meant to accommodate to so people can do the right thing safely and not be on a single standing scooter, is not safe and not allowed and would be subject, you know, to being off boarded from our system as well.

Alright. Thank you. Do have any questions?

K. Thank you. I had two questions. One of them was already answered, so I really appreciate it. So I'm gonna yield my additional question to councilwoman Alvidrez. Go ahead.

Oh, thank you. The my question is around the scoring. Will that ever be released? What is the processes on that? I just know, like, back in my previous life when I was in construction, we were able to see the bid task of competitors after the decision was made. So

So once the final contract is is finalized at that point, and that's what we consider the end of the procurement on there, the overall scoring ranking will be provided. What we don't provide is individual scores. So what I scored, what other people on the committee scored. But the overall ranking and scores, that will be provided as a part of public records.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. And one question for me. And this is in response to council president's question earlier. So, Donna, you all said that you had in the contract a mechanism that you could use to bring in another vendor should VO either fail or prove to be unable to provide ridership needs. That that provision is at six e as I understand it. Would someone be able to read me that provision?

I can read that part. It's actually 16 section 16 c, and 16 a is the assignment versus 16 c is the bringing in a a second vendor. I'll read this the c language first, but I can certainly read a as well. So

The c the c language is the mechanism in order to bring in another venue in the event that feels successful.

Is that what you're about to read? Yeah.

And I was 16 e.

That's what

I said. E. Yes. Okay. Sorry. That's why I clarified. But 16 a is the other provision. So, yeah, 16 e, service continuity. If the licensee fails to meet the requirements of the service level agreements or other material obligations under this license as determined by the city in its sole discretion, the city reserves the right to enter into a license agreement with an additional operator to operate shared micromobility services within the city.

Thank you. And there's a second piece of that. Do you want

me to read this bullets? Please. Yeah. Yeah. Prior to exercising this right, the city shall provide written notice to the licensees specifying the deficiencies and allowing a cure period of thirty days unless the city determines that immediate action is necessary to protect public safety or maintain essential service levels.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Those are my only questions. I don't have anyone else in the queue unless anyone has anything lingering. Great.

I'd like to move this to the full body.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Do I have

a second?

Second. Like. Great. Do you all need a roll call vote? No. Great. Thank you. Really appreciate it.

Thank you, committee. Certainly let us know if you have questions. Thanks. And I'm hanging out here.

Alright. As we shift, Dottie is going to be presenting on the critical facility on call contract amendments. Whenever you all are ready. Sit at the table, introduce yourselves, and let's get rocking and rolling.

If you

don't mind, I've got a team stuck in the transition that I'll get in here. Alright. I'll get us started again. Oh, yeah. Exactly.

I'm Elena McWhorter, legislative affairs at Dottie. Gabrielle Schuler, senior architect with DOTI Interagency.

Cara Sequino, director in DOTI on the Interagency Division. You for having us.

Thanks, Gabrielle. So you will probably recall we were back at committee in November 2025 presenting an on call package then as well. So some of the foundational information about why and how DOTI utilizes on calls is gonna be similar. But what is different today is kind of two things, two primary things. One, what we presented in the fall was for horizontal construction, so our transportation projects, street projects, bridges, things of that nature.

Today, we're talking vertical facilities. So these are our libraries, our fire stations, our maintenance facilities, our all of the above, anything that's growing up that we need to house staff to deliver public services in, we're delivering those as well. So we have today a package of vertical facilities in two categories, professional services and then construction services, which is the same how we deviate them out in the fall. The second big difference is that in the fall we brought you new on call contracts that were reprocured. This is an amendment to our existing on call contract package.

So these were originally approved for three years and we're requesting amendments to add an additional two years to each contractor and then varying amounts to each contract representing kind capacity of work they have and the work they've completed over the first three years. I'll just flag that in the appendix slides we have some tables for you that lay out each resolution number, the firm that is associated with it in the on call, their spin down for the first three years, and then what their amended amount for this amendment package for your consideration. With that, I'll turn it over to Kara to run us through slides and then we can dive into questions.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. As Elena mentioned, this is just an overview of really what we're requesting today. Again, these are amendments to existing previously approved contracts and we've put them into a similar format. There are professional and construction, so I will try my best to just highlight when we're talking professional services ones and when we're talking construction ones, and please ask any questions as we go through.

So the on call contracts that we utilize in the interagency division are for the entire city. They are not primarily DOTI's projects. We do say that we support DOTI capital projects, but we say DOTI as in because the projects get implemented through DOTI, we call them DOTI's capital projects. But as Elena mentioned, these are not the transportation bridge type of projects. These are actually projects for other agencies.

We are holding the contracts implementing the work for them, and then we hand back the library or the rec center or the theater or whatever the project may be. So the purpose of these is to be utilized by the entire citywide efforts and and all citywide initiatives and goals. We do enjoy establishing this pool of prequalified designers and contractors that support all of these initiatives. We are trying our best to be good partners with all of these vendors, I'll say, as a collective design and construction in one in one term there to not ask them every single project. Some of our projects are very small.

They range in size from, you know, a 10,000 project to a couple million dollar project. These are these are in quantity. Our division has about a 150 active projects throughout the city and all all of your districts, and asking our partners, you know, to propose, put put together a team, a unique team, a unique marketing effort on every single project is is not being a great partner. So we try to use these to help the industry be more streamlined and be good partners to the industry to to support that. We also as you know, our funding is usually based on an annual process for most of our at least our capital funding is.

And we have very tight seasonal installation parameters on some of our projects. So if you have a building that you wanna replace the cooling system in the building, we like to do that during the winter months, but we get the money in January. So the amount of time it takes to plan, procure, get designed, get permitted, get construction going, order the cooling equipment, right, all in time for the the right season to implement that work is is a very precise dance. On the flip side, when we wanna replace heating equipment or boilers and things like that, we wanna do that work in the summer. We just get the money in January.

You know, it's a very tight window. So these contracts enable us to really optimize as best we possibly can when a system is failing in one of our buildings with whatever season and constraint that it may have if it's related to seasons, we can best accommodate that with these mechanisms. And so that's that's sort of the philosophy and and the use and purpose of these contracts. Again, they were formally publicly advertised and procured, also approved through council in 2023. They were for three years.

This is the amendment requesting to add an additional two years and some varying levels of funding to accommodate and support our future workloads for the next two years as we anticipate from each city agency and all of the funding profiles. We have three categories under the professional services contracts, architectural design, structural engineering, and geotechnical services. Architectural design is typically what you would think of when you think of a design team. It's multidisciplinary in most cases, architect, structural, civil, electrical, mechanical, you name it. It's a full team, multiple opportunities, multiple firms.

That is the typical what we see on there. Structural engineering is much smaller efforts. Usually, we may find a crack in the wall and get a phone call from the user agency and say, hey, is this a concern? Is this just the drywall cracking? Is this something that we need to evaluate and dig into further? So we use those contracts to do quick, small, structural analyses just to make sure everything's quite literally, you know, functioning and and standing the way that it should. Geotechnical services are highly specialized. Again, smaller effort. Anytime we're digging in the ground, basically, we test the soils, not from an environmental standpoint, that's not what this geotech is. It's the stability of the soils and also they do material testing.

The building code requires certain materials like structural steel, foundation work, interior framing, that will get covered up later. They require certain inspections periodically through construction to make sure that at the end of the project when everything's covered up, they don't know that that everything's compliant. So we have these firms that come and kind of monitor throughout construction. So it's it's very high specialized, but it is a small scope of work as a dollar value. Those are all the professional categories that we have.

We do also have two different categories for our construction on calls. We have an SBE set that is its own small business general contractors that has their own group of on contract set, and then we also have our large general construction, which are quite literally larger firms. Every one of these categories that I mentioned does have a unique MWBE or SBE goal assigned by DISVO that is specific to the market that that those firms are in and the services that they provide. And again, as I mentioned, various sizes, expertise, these are these are meant to be general. The city has several 100 buildings and all of the portfolios that, you know, a rec center I'm an architect myself and architects may spend their whole career being a school architect or a library architect.

Right? And they have this real specialty. There are also architects that are more generalists. Right? And we have the generalist portfolio of we have it all.

We don't have schools, but we have, you know, all the other agencies. And so we are looking for generalized services where they can build really big robust teams to hit on all the specifics that we need. And so we can hit a ton of firms by having the multitude of these categories that allow us to to really tackle a pool project, a roof project, an electrical project, an EV charger, rec center improvement, a rest room, ADA upgrades, anything, you name it, like they can assemble a team based on these these contract sets, they've been a wonderful tool for us for many of those reasons. Typical scope that we see on these contracts is largely deferred maintenance items within all the city's buildings. Codes change every three years.

Code compliance is we are just, you know, chasing our tail. When we've been in this building and three years later, you know, we are back in that building doing something different. Energy code, energy updates. We do interior renovations when an agency says, at a rec center, for example, they wanna re reconfigure the front desk or they wanna upgrade the bathrooms or they need to renovate the locker rooms. All of all of those we call them TI, tenant improvement projects, just little small spaces.

It's not the whole building. It's just a concentrated area of a building that has a specific need. There's a list of projects. Like I mentioned, we have a 150 projects going right now through our division. Not all of them come on our on calls, but but of those projects, some of which are listed here, roof projects, chargers, boiler replacements, fire alarm upgrades, switch gear replacements, septic system, code upgrades, restrooms upgrades, you name it, all of that.

Of our division's vertical portfolio, a design and construction that we perform for the rest of the city, only about 30% of that work does come through our on calls. The large majority of our work actually does get publicly advertised, does come through council for approval for design and construction, and are the more specialized, high profile, very engaging and interesting projects that are by name. These ones on these contracts are typically more deferred maintenance than interior TI. We have the most diverse portfolio, I will say, of many in the city because, again, we're sort of like a funnel that takes everybody else's funding types and needs and scope and we implement the project and then deliver that project back to them. We do that for all the agencies, all the funding types, capital bond, fit money, enterprise funding, we get grant funding.

I mean, all the different types of funding are are are coming through these contracts. We don't actually hold any funding. These contracts are just capacity based until the moment we have a real project that we put out, which we call a task order or a work order. So under the the master on calls, is what we're here for today, is adding capacity but not adding funding. We get the funds from whatever agency calls us today and says, hey, would you please renovate my library? We say, great. Hand over the money and we'd be happy to do that for you. So we don't have the money. We don't don't hold any money. I just I take the money when the project has been approved, either through the council, the annual budget process, or a grant has been awarded to another agency.

We are a very neutral body. Again, even though we live in DOTI, we're neutral. We don't provide DOTI funding. We're in DOTI, but not DOTI projects. We get the money from the agencies and then encumber that specific for that project only. Here's a snapshot of the vertical professional services categories. As I mentioned, architectural, structural, geotech, these are the number of firms that we have available in the master set. I can take you through the top line just for example. Originally, the architectural category had 15 firms. Each firm had a maximum capacity of $5,000,000, which gave us back in 2023, a total capacity under the architectural set at 75,000,000.

To date, we are almost approaching three years. So we're two very close to three years into that set. We have used about a third of that capacity. They have a 14% MWB Eagle, again, multidisciplinary project scopes usually, and then expiration is in July. So that that is what we're here for.

And of all of these professional services categories that we have, there's twenty twenty three twenty I'm not putting that. 23 total firms that we hold contracts with, which actually because of the teams that they build under their on call, provides 277 unique firms opportunity under this contracting set, of which a 128 of those firms are certified MWBE or SBE firms with DISBO and with the city and county of Denver, which is amazing. Again, we're talking the professional services here. So what we would like to request is to extend these contracts adding two years time for each one of these contracts, and then there are other three categories. We have a unique approach for each category.

For the architectural, we would like to restore their capacity back to the 5,000,000. So if Gabrielle is an architect and her capacity is at 3,000,000, we'd like to restore her back to 5,000,000 so she would get $2,000,000 added as part of this amendment. I'm an architect, a different firm. I have 4 I've I've used 1,000,000. I'm at 4,000,000 currently. Restored. I get 1,000,000 back to 5. So we're all back to 5,000,000. And the reason that we feel that restoration, instead of just giving us all the same amount of money, is that we don't wanna artificially inflate the amount of capacity that we need out there in the total grouping. And and we've been really careful to predict and forecast the amount of work that we need and the available capacity that we anticipate utilizing.

We also don't wanna have $20,000,000 contracts out there to 15 different firms, and then they don't end up getting that amount of work. Right? Capacity is not a guarantee of work. It's not a funding amount. So for the architectural, we'd like to restore everyone at different levels, but just back up to the 5,000,000. The geotech on calls, because like I said, they're highly specialized, they're very small dollar amount projects when we utilize them. We utilize them on all different projects, but we would like to give each of those firms 500,000 as a blanket. So those would all look the same when they get to you. You would see an add of 500 k. And then the structural services, again, also very specialized, very small.

We have a total capacity of 1,500,000 and we have not utilized enough to feel the need to increase that capacity. So you will see no dollar amount added to the structural engineering on calls, but in addition of two years time. So we we feel like even though it's complicated, sorry, that these kind of differing approaches to each of the categories is the most fiscally responsible and thoughtful approach based on the work that we anticipate over the next two years that these contracts would be in place for. The construction, changing gears to construction here, we've got the two sets, the SBE and the large. Again, we are through the capacity here.

We would like to add capacity to both of these firms and time. As you can see, the 30% SBE goal on the SBE contracts, the 21% on the large vertical contracts. They both expire also in July. So all of our contracts are at the same moment. So for the SPEs, we'd like to add a standard 3,000,000 to each one of those four contracts.

And then the large, we'd like to restore similar to how we explained the architectural ones. And also, CIO is recommending some tweaks to our contract language. So we're gonna kinda update all of those things all at the same time in the in the one file swoop with the amendments to these existing contracts. There's an example at the bottom. I'll skip that in case you guys have specific questions. Happy to come back to it about it's most mostly math, how we restore capacity. Oh, that's the end. Okay. Questions, please. Thank you.

We have a few members in the queue, starting with councilman Hines, followed by councilwoman Albedrez.

Thank you, committee chair. I wanna thank you for giving this to presentation. The as miss McWhirter said, we did have a conversation about this last November and with a different set of on call contracts with Dottie. And I I think in my the the conversation that I had about the contracts at the time were I I know that Dottie under takes a lot of maintenance contracts, you know, operational kinds of things. As you said, sometimes you wanna you wanna do a coolant replacement.

Might as well do it in the winter when you're not trying to actually cool the building. So, you know, some of that makes makes a lot of sense. We don't know how many times it'll snow or this year if it will snow at all. And so, you know, but but when it does snow, we should have funds in the banana stand for for snow plowing. And so operational, I'm I'm on board with Dottie on call contracts.

Part of my kind of rub or or concern is when we do some strategic changes and we, you know, we want to come up with a new vision for, you know, a thing or a bunch of things, and I have some concern about sending those to on call contracts, because either way, by approving these contracts, Denver City Council has authority to say yes or no to any contract over $500,000, except in this case, we're saying, you know what? Actually, never mind. You know, you can do what what you want with the so we're we're giving you the authority to just move forward. So I the the thought that I have is is, you know, about strategy versus operations. So when I look at and when I looked at the contract the contracts when they were initially, you know, proposed for for committee, I did not have the extra information that you brought to committee.

So thank you for the additional context. When I look at slide five, which says on call project examples, I see them all as operational in nature. Know, sewer repair, roof project, we're not reinventing how water drainage works. We're doing something that, you know, the the sewage we we wanna make sure that our drainage works and and we're not coming up with new aqueducts or wonders of the world. So, like, that to me, operational, makes sense.

You know, roof project, septic system replacement, code upgrades, restroom upgrades. So or is this a a representative list? Are there projects that are perhaps strategic in nature that are in these on call?

Yeah. That's a great question. I would say that largely, this is extremely representative. With the portfolio of buildings that the city has, I wish it wasn't the case, but we are seeing end of life building systems more than we can afford to budget for. Right?

So it there is no shortage of building systems, electrical fire alarms, structural even, that need continual love and TLC. So that is the bulk of this. I will give you an example of a strategic project that we did use under our on calls. For House 1000, that effort was put under our on calls. And that effort was had very unique schedule constraints, and these are typically the durations of procurement are faster.

So that was a decision that we made to say, okay. We can do these because we have to, you know, get these up and running by the end of the year. That, I would say, is a strategic project. We don't typically have many strategic projects that aren't things you guys would already be up, like Loretto and Red Rocks and the Becher and, you know, Swansea Rec Center and Carla Madison. I've been here a long time. Sorry. My brain went to Carla Madison. You know, those are the ones that we don't put on here. We may use the geotech services. Right?

Because again, the geotech services may be $20,000 for, let's say, Loretto, for example. I'm don't quote me on that number on that project, but they're very small dollar amounts. And so we use those even on strategic projects because that the information that we gain from a geotechnical analysis prepares us for informs us for what we do for the rest of it. Then it's like, okay. Let's publicly advertise the design or let's, you know, do that with the construction rate. And and and quite frankly, the dollar values of those projects, they don't fit on here, and we wouldn't no. Everyone wants to propose on Civic Center Park. Right? The the nationwide architects want want a shot at that at Red Rocks. Right?

So that kind of effort is always procured publicly from from our projects. I I I think I think that maybe answers your question. But

Yeah. And to the House one thousand event, I I I mean, I think the strategic in my opinion, the strategic decision was let's buy this hotel. And I think what you're what you're saying is that your projects that went to on call was we bought this hotel. We've gotta make it Yes. Worthy for for this the decision we already made. So so you didn't put a $48,000,000 hotel purchase into an on call project.

Correct. And just furthermore, we are, like, this neutral division. The project justification, the mission of the project, why do we need a fire station right here? We the library in this neighborhood needs something. Those are those are not our needs. There's some some other agencies drive driving the need and the and the reasons for this project, and when they've successfully convinced whoever in in everywhere that they this is a worthy project, then we implement it and we give it back to them. So we don't have a huge part in the why we're doing this project, and then like you said, the buying of the hotel, not didn't involve me. So yeah.

Good. I

I think I have a little bit of exception when you say every project that has strategic, you know, ideas are are sent to bid, but I don't believe it matches this set of contracts. So rather than dig it up again, which I will at some point, but I just don't think it fits right here, I'll just leave it there. So thank you, committee chair.

Thank you so much. Councilwoman Alvidrez.

Thank you very much. I'm curious on the slides. I appreciate that you have the MWB DISBO goals. What I don't see is where are they at on that goal to this point.

Yes. I do have that. Okay. Great. And just a reminder, the way that DISBO goals are tracked are when the project is completed, the goal is fully realized.

So a a typical architectural and design project can take to get through design, procurement, permitting, and construction. We keep the architects on board until the very last day of construction because they like they need to see that we've installed the door and the lights the way that they design them. So these these contracts have been in place for less than three years. We're actually not done with most of the projects because a typical project takes somewhere between one and three years to complete. The DISBO official data is when a project is completed.

So we actually started tracking our own sort of, like, leading indicator that is projected for each project. So you'll see a difference here where the official data coming from DISBO is listed in the second to the right column, and then the projected goal that the vendors tell us when they propose on a project, they'll these are the subs that we're using. This is what their scope is, and it's this percent of the total work. So we can kind of get a leading indicator. It is not official.

It is not tracked by dispo. This is tracked by us gathering the proposals on every single one of our 155 projects. So we anticipate the reason that we would rather a leading indicator than a lagging indicator is that if someone is not tracking where they should be, we can actually help them. And what we can do about that is I said in the beginning that our architectural design categories are largely multidisciplinary. They include structural, electrical, mechanical, plumbing.

Not all of them do. Some of them, we may say, hey, this room needs to be evaluated to make sure there's enough exit points for the amount of people that could max out the space of this room. We need an architect to just do a code study to look at the egress. Right? And so that is just we just need the architect.

We don't need the electrical. We don't need the plumbing. We don't so if we put out a project, some of the architects are gonna get that project, and they're gonna say there's no opportunity for me to hire a certified firm and and help contribute to this goal that I have on this contract. And so we understand that they cannot control the scope of our projects, and we try to kind of track that and give the firm that just did the exit study, we may give them a project that has multiple disciplines next time so that we can say, hey. Here's an opportunity if you're interested in this project where you can actually beef up your percentage. And so we find that having this projected, it's not official, but projected leading indicator helps us help our partners to succeed.

I appreciate that. I think, like, just looking at Studio Trope 1.3 more, that's the only remaining and only having 8.95. That's alarming to me. What about the other contracts besides architectural for that?

Yes. So Studio Trope is the architect in the web restack project right now, which is predominantly laying out furniture and exits and, you know, in the interior finishes, and so it's a heavy architectural. It's also not done yet. So they that's why they're low on capacity, but they they're not they're not, like, officially complete with their work that's tracking. Here's the structural and geotech.

Geotech is proving to be pretty difficult to achieve the goal that was provided to us, which is the 25%. Geotech is, like I said, $20,000 worth of work just for usually the firm doing the testing. They send it to a lab, get analyzed results, and it gets sent back. That the lab isn't 25% of their effort. So we are working with them to try to include, you know, additional surveying and things like that that, you know, is part of their scope but isn't always common on our projects.

So these are, again, things that that aren't fully completed. Walker Consultants, for example, they are a new firm to us, and they haven't used any of their capacity. They haven't proposed on anything. So that's why they're capacity of That's the total capacity on the structural is 1.5. They still have their full value left. Another reason why we don't need to add any money to the structurals. Right?

So why would you extend their contract at all?

Well, so so people will propose on projects, and then they may not be the one that's selected. Right. We we try to take a unique approach to each each project. They they particularly are kind of learning how to work with the city and haven't proposed on a lot, but we are actually just initiated a project with them, which is also why it's registering as zero because it's just kicking it off. And so they do have a project with us now, but it's not they haven't done any work yet.

So we would like to And then the next The construction. Sorry. The SBEs, this is a 30 per the SBE contracts have a a self perform SB Eagle. They don't have an additional MWB Eagle, so their their commitment is for themselves. The 30% is for them to self perform that so that they're doing it themselves. The large construction contractors have to they have to hire out the work. And for example, Whites, they have not bid on most of the projects that we've offered to them. They have of the ones that they've bid on, which they have bid on, they are interested. They have expressed an interest. They are being good partners.

They're just not the successful lowest price. We award to the lowest bidder, and we can't make people be the cheapest. Right? And so we are bidding we bid it out to three contractors. I it's in, you know, it's in their their court to for the price. So we have bid things to them. They have bid on them. They just haven't been the successful lope. Someone's lower than them in all cases.

I mean, it really is good to see some people, like, selling and some people not. And I guess what I'm concerned about extend why are we extending these when I feel like we should have rebid them? And why are we extending them now in April if they're not even expiring until July?

The reason that we should not the reason that we should extend them is that most of our projects are somewhere between two and three years in duration, and we're not even at three these contracts haven't even hit three years yet, so almost none of this work is complete. So we're not registering data that is actually representing the progress that they're making today. It's it represents the project that the progress they make when they're done with the project. The most of these projects are not done yet because we're we haven't hit three years yet. Mhmm.

And some of our projects, you know, like all the things we started last year, they're they're not done yet. So they're it would be unfair to judge them and not re up them if if they don't have the data that is is accurately representing where they are today. The data has to wait until they're done. If we waited until they're done, some of them wouldn't be done for, like, another year in some of these projects, or it would be after they've already expired. And then we would we would have always every every cycle of on call contracts would continually just have to be reprocured every time.

Right? Which is which is a lot of burden on of everyone's resources internally and to the vendors who propose and spend their marketing dollars, you know, responding to an on call procurement. So

they have active task orders. Yes. Those active task orders are not over in July. That's Does that cancel their active task order if the on call has expired?

Not if it's already an executed task order. If I executed a task order with you today and your contract expires two months from now, but the task order lasted for the next ten months, you could continue. The task order is active even though you're mass we couldn't initiate anything new to you after your contract

So they can still finish

what they're working what they're working on.

Not an issue. Why not create a new RFP that opens up new opportunity to new contractors, especially when some of them aren't even bidding on things or aren't winning. And I I guess my concern is that we are not continuing

to look at their performance as we're just extending instead of going out to a new RFP. It it is a very resource intense effort to reprocure a group of contracts this broad and this big. I mean, we got probably 35 proposals in one of these. That time to for CAO, for the procurement team, for the technical team, for the, you know, different agencies, subject matter experts to review all of those, to to evaluate them, to meet with them, to interview them. I mean, it's it's they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars putting together teams and proposals and they have meetings with consultants that, would you be on my team and would you be on my team?

And, they they set up the perfect team that is a big effort in the industry. We have 277 unique firms under these groups which is amazing, I think, and and really quite outstanding that we've had the availability under these tools to reach so many different firms. To do that every three years. It it takes probably six to eight months to get new ones of these in place. And, I mean, July sounds really far away right now, but we were we were supposed to be on the agenda about a month ago, also behind the scooters, and it just took so long.

Right? So we got pushed a month to come, and it's like, okay, if we get pushed another month and then we get you know, we're getting really close to July. So July does sound very far away, but makes me a little nervous. You know, we don't wanna have a gap and have no tools to deliver any citywide work. And so that's why we're here in March. I would have loved to be here in January, you know, or February. But, you know, we have to work within the, you know, agenda. So

Yeah. And I know that what it takes to put together one of these proposals and it is their job and it is part of the profits that they make from these contracts. So Yeah. I I I feel I understand that. I don't know if you know this, but my previous life was construction. Yes. And so I do question this, and I do think that having these more through doing an RFP every this is not that big a deal. If it's They already have three year then we should have been here a year ago putting an RFP forward. You I should have been putting an RFP forward instead of being here now Right. Extending these.

And so I don't appreciate the, you know, lack of communication on this. And I also was looking in my email and I don't see that we've gotten the last quarterly reports for

the on calls. It was attached with the email that had these slides, which would have been like March

For first before of last year or for q one of this year? Q four of last year. So we don't have q one of this year?

No. Q one of this year is due on May 15 under the new requirements.

Okay. Alright. Thank you. Thank you, committee chair. Thank

you. Councilman Flynn.

Thank you,

madam chair.

Just real

quickly, are all of the firms in this bundle the same as were approved three years ago or have we dropped any from the list?

Good question.

I ask only good questions.

Yes. I know that about you. Yes. We have dropped one large construction company, Turner Construction, at the request of we send out an email and say, we would love to extend your contract. Are you interested? Before we go through this whole effort, we ask them if they're interested. Turner, on their own doing, did decline to amend their contract. They said, we've enjoyed working with you, but our availability in the next eighteen months, we're very busy and we don't think we could be good partners to propose on whatever it is we need

to do. Have work in this three year period, Turner?

They did. Yes. And they do have some active work. Yes. Mhmm.

So we didn't drop anybody because of our dissatisfaction? Not.

No. Correct. And and I will add, also to your point earlier, that that some of we love to bring in new firms. Right? We do not just continually repeat the same you know, I mean, we if they're doing good work, and, you know, then maybe they're they show up again, but we love some new firms. Right? When we bring in new firms, it's it's very could go either way. Some of our new firms, they just want this on their resume. They actually don't wanna work on our small deferred maintenance projects. They just wanna say they have a contract with the city and county of Denver, and look at all the great contracts that right? And so we learn

give us any work.

They yeah. Just don't give us any work. And they will decline every opportunity that we send to them, and we've we can't predict that. Right? We're trying to trust everyone from the get go. But we we learn pretty quick who's interested and who's not. And even the ones that aren't successful like, for example, whites, they are just not the cheapest. They're they're interested, they just haven't been the low bidder when they have bid. So I can't always fault them for that, but I think that it drives competition and it does provide the best value to the city.

I was gonna ask when I saw whites there for zero Yeah. For no amendment. And that indicate that that's the other question I had, the last question. Reading this chart was a little

It's too much math. Boggling. Yeah.

So when we have the original capacity, I'm looking at the architectural category one, Anderson House, original $5,000,000, the amendment 1,488,000.000, blah blah blah. Amendment does that tell me is does that mean to tell me that Anderson Hallis in the three years performed about 1,488,000? So we're bumping it up so there's 5,000,000 remaining. Yeah. And the amended capacity is different for every firm because they each had different utilizations. Okay. So

Exactly. So this is just telling you that when you see the contracts come through and they all have different numbers and you're like, why are they all different? Why are they all different? They're all the same category.

We're just leveling everybody for the next two years.

That's exactly right.

Thank you. Yes. Thank you, madam chair.

Thank you. I don't have any else anyone else in the queue. Did anyone have any lingering questions? Great. Lovely. So this is an action item. So if I could get a motion and a second.

Second.

Blen. Councilman Cashman. Do we need a roll call

vote? Okay.

Thank you. Let me remember how many items are on consent. Thank you. There are five items on consent. No one has pulled anything off. And with that, we're adjourned. Out of taxes.