Public Works Committee - Regular Meeting

Denver, it's time for this biweekly meeting of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee of Denver City Council. Join us for the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee starting now.

Good afternoon. It is boy. I should have had this pulled up. Thank you for tuning in to Denver City Council and our Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. My name is Chris Hines. I serve at Denver City Council representing District 10. I'm also the vice chair of the committee. Chair Lewis will not be here today. We have an action item and a briefing. Action item is from our airport about a contract with ACTS Airport Services, security and public spaces, and then the briefing will be from our Department of Transportation Infrastructure and the 2026 work plan.

And I'm sorry, I did not mention what today's date is. For the record, today is Wednesday, 05/20/2026. So before we go into the action item and then the briefing, let's do some introductions from council members, starting to the distinguished gentlewoman to my right.

Laura Alvidrez, lucky district seven. Good morning.

Good afternoon. Madisonville, Northwest Denver District one.

Good afternoon. Darryl Watson, fine District nine.

I believe we have at least one member online. So Councilmember Flynn.

That was the chair. There are actually two, but I will refer to Kevin Flynn, Southwest Denver's District 2.

Good afternoon. Stacy Gilmore, district eleven.

Great. Great. Thank you, council members Flynn and Gilmore. So without further ado, director Washington, please introduce yourself, introduce your team, and and take it away.

Phil Washington, CEO of Denver International Airport, and I'll ask my colleagues to introduce themselves.

Good afternoon. Dave Laborde, chief operating officer at Denver International Airport.

Good afternoon. Sarah Marquez, senior vice president, airport operations, Denver International. Thanks for having us.

And we will dive right into the presentation, the action item, if that's okay, mister chair, of public area security contracts.

Once again, thank you for your time this afternoon. We are bringing forward to you a contract with ACTS in the amount of $79,553,656.26. The contract term that we're asking for is five years. That's a three year with two one year options. And the purpose of this contract is to provide comprehensive security across dens, curbside, and public area interfaces.

A little bit more about this contract. The services provided under this contract are oversight over our trap our terminal traffic management, our access control and security, our main terminal, our airport office building that some of you are very familiar with, our loading dock, patrolling event access management that includes our new center for equity and excellence in aviation, otherwise known as SIA, security incident resolution, patrols within the main terminal as well as our hotel transit center, and then monitoring our sterile area exits. You'll see that near the trains in the main terminal. Vehicle patrols in our public lots, so all of our public facing lots are patrolled by this company, and enforcement of our trespassing rules. With Vision 100, this contract aligns with our pillar three, maintaining what we have.

And really that is this contract would continue to offer security presence in our public areas, supporting DEN and maintaining its security stance, ensuring compliance with not only all rules and regulations, but with all applicable transportation security administration regulations. A little bit about our community outreach. We partnered with Commerce Hub, and RPM performed targeted outreach for this contract. We did DEN taking flight meetings in February, March, April, June, and July 2025. We hosted a virtual outreach in August 2025.

We also required a mandatory sidewalk in which 40 vendors attended, and that was hosted in September 2025. For MWBE, working with the DSBO, they assigned an MWBE goal of 5% for this contract. The existing contract also has a 5% goal, and that vendor is averaging over 6% on the current performance of that. The subcontractor performing that MWBE service is advanced professional security, otherwise known as APS. And DSBL reviewed and signed off on the MWB plan on 12/17/2025.

About our selection process. So we went out for a competitive request for proposal. We received eight qualified bidders. Our selection panel was made up of various city and county of Denver stakeholders as well as security and operations subject matter experts and our community members. Interviews were held for the top three out of the eight.

And as you see there, ACTS Airport Services was number one and was selected by the panel. A little bit more about our contractor. ACTS is dedicated to becoming the most trusted aviation security provider in The US with an exclusive focus on aviation security, so that's great. They leverage extensive US industry expertise along with global aviation insights. They actually have a parent company, ICTS, in Europe, and they definitely tap into those resources.

They have a strong commitment to rigorous hiring, comprehensive training, and employee retention to ensure high quality security services. This includes thirty two hours of classroom training along with up to forty hours of on the job and annual recurring training. And we also provide the Denver Security Guard license at no cost to the employee. Seamless integration of exceptional customer service within our security operations, we work well with them. And proactive internal compliance teams maintain continuous vigilance that uphold all airport rules and, again, federal regulation.

Some impacts or benefits of this contract. The current contractor is in place right now, so this would be a continuation of that contract. So there's no disruption in our services. They have established connections with both corporate and local management teams and provide strong oversight. Those relationships are very well established.

The primary focus is aviation security. We got a myriad of vendors, but ACTS primarily focuses on aviation, which is a huge plus. And ACTS currently employs 140 personnel at DEN, so it's a great bonus. And ACTS guards are represented just as a footnote by the United Federation Law Enforcement Officers Security Police Benevolent Association or otherwise known as LEOS PBA Union.

I love your acronyms every

every slide. Sorry. So in conclusion, we're seeking your approval for this contract to move forward. It's an essential contract that will ensure the provision of security guard services across DENS public areas, parking facilities, including alarm response, and enforcement of rule and regulations for Denver, and compliance with all federal regulations. And so with that, we can move on to any questions you have.

Thank you for the presentation. We do have two people in the queue. I do want to welcome council pro tem Romero Campbell online. So let's start with questions with council member Albitres.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate the breakout down here and talking about small business utilization and all of those important things, so thank you for that. I think one of the things that I'm curious about over the years, it's come up and it's gotten a lot better, which is the car thefts. And I'm curious what is the relationship between your security and how they're communicating with the DPD that and the first responders, the fire department out there. How do they how are they working together?

So this excuse me. This contract does assist us with that. It's a very great partnership. Sorry. The relationship is they patrol our lots. They assist with sighting. They assist with inspection. They assist with or assist with patrol. And then if we have action to be taken, we work with our Denver Police Department in making sure that all necessary steps are taken. So if there's an intervention that needs to happen, maybe someone's cited as trying to break into a car, you name it, we work with both those partners for for that.

And what does that look like? Do it are there officers at the airport at all times? Police officers? Yes. And then just coordinate and get them to where the security guards are. How many officers are there?

I'd like to get you the official number later, but it's it's North of a 100. I think we're allocated somewhere around a 130, but I'll get you an official number of what our headcount currently sits at.

That would be helpful. So I'm assuming that these security that was so kind. Thank you. Was awesome. I'm assuming that these how do they communicate? Do they call 911, or

do they have a direct line of communication? Great question. That all goes through our communications center, which works as a dispatch center, very similar to our 911 center with the city. And we have airport emergency dispatchers that are in constant communication with this security provider, and they dispatch the resource directly to whatever location is needed. Okay.

So it doesn't have to go through the 911 system is

what It does not. It does not have to go downtown.

That's great. And then if there is, like, a medical emergency, how is that handled? Is there paramedics also on-site?

Very similar in the same vein. That same team in the communications center, our airport emergency dispatchers, they receive through radio communications, phone calls, etcetera, and they dispatch our medics, and we use Denver Health paramedics at the airport.

That's great. And then if I'm there, you know, as just a normal person at the airport and there's an emergency, do I call 911, or is there a separate number to get to that call center? Or is it only the security that can call that?

You can absolutely call 911 at any time. I will say that call will be directed towards downtown first. When they realize your location, that will transfer out to our what's called a secondary PSAP. That's the communication center, and then be dispatched from there. They will transfer the call. You can always call (303) 342-4211, and that will be a direct resource to the emergent line in our secondary PSEP. That's also printed on the back of all of our badge holders, and we trained to that for our 44,000 badge holders this time.

Great. Awesome. Well, that's really helpful. Thanks for walking me through that. I appreciate that, and grateful for your efforts and working and coordination. Appreciate the question. Thank you, committee chair.

Thank you. And what is PSAP? Oh.

Oh, now you're really testing me. Primary I'll have to look it up. Primary answering service point. Help me out here.

I don't

oh. Can

make stuff up, but that's what we're asking.

I can do

it for you.

No. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Council president.

Thank you. Thank you all for the the presentation. It's a huge amount of money. Right? When I saw that, was like, woah. That's a lot of money. I think this might be one of the bigger contracts that I've ever looked at, maybe. So for that amount of money and for the security guard, what kind of service so let me say it a different way. When you enter the City And County Building, when you all came through here, you all have badges. We have two forms of security here.

Right? We have the sheriff's because the sheriffs take have the City And County Building under their control. We don't have the police department. And then we have Securitas. When I've had some issues with Securitas, I have had a hard time navigating where to send my complaints to because it's a third party entity where when I've had an issue with the sheriff, I just go to chief Dickens. It's easy. They go go to the sheriff and so I can call him. Literally, I'll call him and I'll be like, hey. I just had this incident. I could just wanna bring it to your attention.

So how does that happen with a third party security company? How do we make sure that if there is an incident, what are the parameters to to complain? First of all, that'd be my second one. First one. Second one, how do we follow-up on discipline? Because I'm just thinking about so I think you'll remember. Remember when they had the incident at RTD, you weren't there, but they had the incident with the security of I mean, literally, he violated, like, somebody's amendments. Like, it was really bad. Mhmm. Like, serious.

And that was the which gave me pause for hiring when I first got on council was there was no mechanism for a third party security company in a public place where it was RTD at Union Station. Someone totally got it was egregious and really hard to have be held accountable. So can you walk me through that? Absolutely. Great question. We take contract compliance incredibly seriously. So we have a

lot of language written in this contract, and we have continuous inspection program that is administered through our airport security team. They are continually hand in hand with the management company or management team of this company to not only address any issues if observed, but also if reported. And to your other points of your question, how how does one report? There are several avenues to report any type of behavioral issues or interactions at den. One would be calling our our secondary PSAP.

That's right away. We can we can dispatch someone out right away from our operations team

K.

To check-in on the situation if the situation is currently active. Another way is we work very closely with our customer relations team, and that includes everything online, in person, and on the phone. So they also have a call center, which is virtual or over the phone with with the hats. Yeah. With the hats.

Yeah. They they anyone can address anything they need to with one of them. And then I would say the the other way is reaching out directly to airport ops administration, myself, the airport security team, any type of form of communication, whether that's phone call, email, you name it, we absolutely take all of those inquiries seriously and investigate them thoroughly. And one other thing I forgot to mention, we have a Dear Den platform that you can anonymously also report or ask a question on, and we turn those around within five business days. If it's something emergent, we obviously take precaution and answer that very quickly.

Oh, and one other thing I forgot. We also have an application called CSAY. Many airports use this app across the nation. You can select Denver as your location, and there is a host of selections that you can make, including security, and you can report any type of event there. That will get dispatched through our communications center, and our security team, our compliance team will follow-up as well as our airport operations team.

Great. So I just wanna say thank you all to the the individuals that you have with matching hats and the and the vests. I send so many people to them. I mean, every time I go to the airport, I'm like, oh, find the person with the black cowboy hat and the the purple and white vest because they are so helpful and so knowledgeable. So that would be a that would be my first stop is to always talk to someone because in the land of automated, like even with 311 Mhmm.

People feel like it goes into a a hole and then they contact my office and they're like, hey, got no response. And so I'm just always like, that's my staff will call them and they always appreciate that that that individual time to talk to someone. So that's great because that's where I would send someone if I I had a problem. I'd be like that's where I send everyone, so you all know. I send everyone to those people. Sure. Because they feel like I feel like they have a plethora of knowledge, and they've actually called people to help. My one other question is the training. So I see that they have training, but are in the contract, are they required? So oftentimes, a third party entity security company, they won't have to put their name or so for instance, if you have a police officer out there, they have their name.

Mhmm. They have a badge. And if you ask them for their identification, they do. Oftentimes, party security companies don't require that because then they feel a little bit nervous, and I'll tell you why. They feel nervous because then they feel like they're didn't take a oath. Right? Where other uniforms do take an oath. And so how do we distinguish that? Because oftentimes when I have had I'll say on my I statements, I had an issue at the web building with a Securitas person and I said, okay, I have my badge. You're totally berating me.

Like, what's happening here? Can I get your name? And they were like, oh, I didn't even provide you my name. And I was like, excuse me? And I was like, he was like, you're being paid with tax dollars. I was like, how could you not provide me your name? And they're like, no. And I was like, that's in our contract? And they were like, that's what our our boss told us. And I was like, so you're not gonna provide me your name. You're providing security. There's no way for me to know you. Mhmm. And they said, no. So how do we make sure that that doesn't happen?

One of the things that I have found with with safety, right, is there's this world at post George Floyd where people question people especially in uniforms. I don't think it's everybody. There's 10% on average that are bad actors. But how do we make sure that the people who are coming in through because we're such a a regional hub. I mean, what are we? The third most, like, busiest now? Yep. We're such a regional hub that I would hate for something to happen where somebody was wanting to get that person's information. So is that required? Is that required a one in the contract?

Do you know if that's required? One with the vendor. And third, do they how how would if if that happened if I had an incident and I asked for somebody's name, what are the requirements in the contract that make them give their information so then I can say not I don't know, homie on Concourse C with the black with the uniform on and then everyone has phones and then what am I gonna do? Take your your picture. I'm not gonna do that. I'm not that I'm not that lady. Right. I would just call someone else. But how do we how do we prevent that from happening? And the reason I asked that, Phil, is that's what I heard had happened at Union Station, is that what that's what partly starts. If they already had an altercation then that individual said, hey. Who are you?

And they wouldn't answer.

And they wouldn't answer. And then it totally escalated to where, you know Sure. Awful.

Yeah.

And so how do we make sure that we're we're preventing that?

So I'll need to educate myself if we have formal language in the contract. Okay. We'll get back to you on the formal language piece. Yeah. But we work very closely with the vendor on the training, and customer service is a heavy component of that and ensuring that the not only that our employees that are an extension of DEN act like DEN, and everyone is a customer, whether you're a traveler, an employee, anyone just seeking assistance.

We are really mindful of that. And I do feel that this contractor and vendor is incredibly supportive. We have had a great working relationship. Anytime there is interaction much like you described, which I can't think of one, we have multiple resources that we can dispatch to the location and ensure fair and equitable respectful exchange of information and notation of the event and resolution of whatever is going on happens. I can't think of one that has happened, like I said, but we will get you a formal response on what the language says within the contract.

Yeah. I would just encourage putting your name on Mhmm. Like, even when I was working for the fire department, I was just a like, in the Denver, we have career service or whatever. Right? I was a career service person. I was not uniform. I was a program operation person. And everywhere I went, because the fire department has their name on everything, I got shirts that said a sander val. So everybody just knew my name and there was just no question about it. And I remember going to the chief and I was like, hey, I need to buy a couple shirts.

And he was like, why? And I go, I keep being questioned everywhere I go. Rightfully so. Mhmm. I'm showing up with these rigs and with these firefighters and they all have badges, they all have uniforms, they all have everything and I don't. And I was like and they're questioning me, which they should. Mhmm. Why am I there? Why am I took why am I helping their kids? And so we did.

We just bought, like, little t shirts and I put a Sandoval and then I put program director on it and I it would just help because then everyone was, oh, go find Sandoval. So I would just really and I any I just want you all to know I'm not saying this just for your vendor. I've had a couple conversations with other vendors who because the secured cost contract is coming up in expiration soon in Denver. So when I've sat down with these other vendors, I've said, that just should be a standard operating procedure so that we can just easily identify them. And we it's just clear because when somebody asks us for identification, I'm gonna hand it over.

So just just some food for thought because I just wanna make sure that this is such a large contract that we're holding them accountable. My last question is it's over three years with one year of it says five years, but then it said

Two one year options? Two For extension. So is the is it including the five years including the Five years for the full full term. Term. That's three base years with two one year options.

And that's the whole 80,000,000? Correct. Okay. So it covers if we opt in for the fourth year and fifth year, it's still covered under the Correct. Okay. Awesome. Alright. Thank you. Thank you. More

I was just gonna add one more note for you that I didn't mention. Everyone is required to wear their security badge, which does have a name and identification on it, and they have to wear that above the waist outermost garment at all times.

I've seen it. They they sometimes they they flip it on the backside. I've noticed it. So because we're supposed to wear our badges here. So I did notice that a couple weeks ago when I was going through the airport. I was like, that's weird. Why why did they have that? So anyone could flip over a badge and not and not wanted to. That's true. Yeah. And I just don't and really the reason I'm asking these questions is I would never want something to happen at Union Station like happened as which had caused a ripple effect in the private security industry that was major. And then if you remember during George Floyd Mhmm. Remember that individual? Yeah. Who was working for Pellet?

And he was a third party security, and he shot and killed that man. Killed him. Yeah. Yeah. And it was all on third party security Yeah. So that has just I've had to learn a lot of lessons.

Well, we'll make sure those protocols are in place. That's easy for us to do. And by the way, PSAP, public safety answering point Thank you. Is is the The acronym. Is the acronym. So Awesome.

Alright. Thank you. Thank you, mister Chard.

Alright. Thank you, council president. And the most recent I individual you mentioned was also not was carrying a firearm. Obviously, he shot and killed an individual right by the central library, but that person was not licensed to carry a firearm at all. So

Nobody was working for a third party agent? Correct. Yeah. Third party security company.

Council member Cashman, welcome to the committee.

Thank you, sir.

And council member Watson?

Thank you so much for the presentation. I think the laying out the specifics on this contract is very helpful. I wanna elevate and, you know, applaud you all for the security you provide at Dent. We are one of the most busy airports in in the country. I know the incidence rates that that that you identify as far as security breaches are low.

I wanna ask you about one that you may not be able to go very much into specifics on because it may be a ongoing investigation, but we are all aware of the breach that occurred at the perimeter at Den. What information can you share, and how does a ACTS and AP you've got a lot of APS. APS. How would they what roles would they play going forward to ensure that the perimeter of the fencing for the airport is protected, reviewed as far as height or whatever the changes you need to make. So Right.

Whatever you can share on that, that's public information. Obviously, I know there may be some investigations. I'm just curious on your security contracts and how that informs making sure that that perimeter is safe.

Well, let me let me just say that this was one of the updates that I was gonna provide after this action item. Alright. The contract that we're presenting right now is not related to perimeter security. Okay. But I will cover that update in a few minutes, or I can cover it now if you want, but you might wanna get through this action item first. But happy to do that, but it is not related to this piece here.

That's good. I can I can hold that question until we go through, but I I do appreciate the work and I appreciate the clarity of this contract that you provided?

Thank you, committee chair.

Alright. Thank you, council member Watson. Thank vice chair. Sorry. Thank you. Technically, Brett's that's kinda correct. I I have one question. $79,552,656.26. How does one come up with the dollar and cents amount for this contract?

It's all based off of hours and post orders. And so without going into security sensitive detail on each post, we work that based off of twenty four seven, three sixty five, what's required by regulation by TSA, and then the hourly guard rate as well as contract management fee.

Yeah. So council president called it $80,000,000, but the contract is actually quite specific. So just kind of an interesting observation. In in many ways, I'm glad that our taxpayers are getting every dollar and every cent and no more. So so, again, technically correct is the best kind of correct. So if it is the best contract to have and 26, thank you for that.

Noted. Thank you.

I don't see anyone else in the queue. I let me check to make sure online. Nope. No questions online. So if members, would you like to move this forward to the oh, okay. We've got council president moving this forward to the full body. Second

I'll second.

By council member Alidres. Any abstentions or dissension? Great. Okay. Well, this will move forward. Director Washington, you had a couple of remarks you wanted to make, including answering the question council member Watson after.

Did call me George Washington? Oh, okay. Director.

I think I said director Washington. You look grim for your age, sir.

Don't know. I know.

One years one quick point. This is not taxpayer dollar. I think you mentioned taxpayer dollars.

So Thank you.

I just wanted to to mention that. Yeah. A few updates very, very quickly. For anyone that may have missed it, we convened a news conference for on May 11 for the breach of security on the perimeter fence, and that is tied to the Frontier Flight forty three forty five incident. We have initiated a number of things.

One is a perimeter physical security assessment to include law enforcement, to include security consultants, to include then operational leaders as well. We have also reached out to other large airports to conduct a peer review of our perimeter security. Unfortunately, breaches of fencing or security is not unusual. It happens at other airports all over the country, but we want to look at our perimeter fence. We've got 36 miles of fence.

We have obviously the largest airport land wise in this country. Yeah. The second most land in the world in terms of land for an airport. So we are doing this assessment. It's gonna evaluate current conditions, potential vulnerabilities, recommend enhancements.

This work will complement the investigation that is currently being done by the National Transportation Safety Board. That is going on right now. And this is, of course, a constant priority for us at DEN. Perimeter security is a constant priority. Regardless of size, I think airports are are all continuously managing this issue.

It actually happens more in urban environments, airports that are, you know, in cities versus, you know, what we're dealing with here. So we answered quite a bit of questions. We remain committed to strengthening the security posture. We are scheduled to come to this committee on July 1 to provide additional information related to airport security. I would say that and I would temper that July 1 presentation by saying that there is some information.

Obviously, we don't want to divulge in a public setting, and so but we will do the best we can to provide that. If there is an opportunity to do an executive session, we'll do that too. But that is where we are. We are working hard to put those together, put those groups together to include that peer review of other airports to take a look at what we have here and see if they can suggest recommendations as well.

Any other comments, director Washington?

Yes. Just a couple of quick Sorry.

I just wanted to share one thing. Thank you for the correction about these our taxpayer dollars. I know it's a bit of muscle memory since most of what we work on is funded by taxpayer dollars. Sometimes people say citizens when they're talking about the people that Denver serves, and I make that correction sometimes. You know, we serve everyone whether, you

know,

visiting, living in Denver, whether you're a citizen or not. So so yeah. So that I've again, technically correct is the best kind of correct, so thank you for correcting me.

No

problem. And your your other comments?

Yeah. The the other updates is just wanted to mention that we have four new members to our airport community advisory committee or CAC. We have that committee. It's an ad hoc volunteer committee that we hear from the public with, and that's been working very, very well. We've got those four new members.

And also the DEN Reserve Program, we are going to suspend or sunset that DEN reserve program. The reason is that our new east and west security has been so successful. Okay. And so people get through security very, very quickly, and so we're gonna sun set that. We were spending a little bit of money on that, and so that's gonna be savings for us as well.

And then a couple of other quick ones regarding our airline partners. Southwest Airlines celebrated twenty years at DEN. That was a wonderful thing. There was a celebratory event. There will be a celebratory event on June 25 that you all should get National Western Center.

And then also and lastly, we we celebrated with RTD the ten year anniversary of the 23 mile a line, which is hard to believe it's been open ten years, but 59, almost sixty million people have used that service since it opened in April 2016. And I will say it is an incredibly successful project. It is a project that people did not think we could do, and we opened it about $300,000,000 under budget. Not just the a line, but the whole Eagle p three, which included lines to Urbada and also lines to Westminster. And we use that $300,000,000 to build rail in the city of Aurora, and a lot of people don't realize that we use that savings to do that.

That is why there's rail in the city of Aurora. And so hugely successful, and so we're proud of that. We've got, I think, the best direct line to any airport from a downtown anywhere in this country. Go up the escalator and you you end the terminal. So no other direct line like that. And that concludes my remarks.

Thank you, director Rushing. Council president?

Thank you. So I don't know if you heard my staff was on that flight of Frontier. So I was just wondering when something so I I woke up in the morning to pictures from our team's tech our on on my personal cell phone not knowing anything had happened Mhmm. And seen, like, this horrible text from my counsel aide, like, horrible, horrible. I'm just wondering when incidents like that happen, you can't predict them.

I was just so astonished at how the lack of services that she got. She was on the tarmac for two hours. Then got shuffled into the airport, then got interviewed, got and I know this is frontier. I know this isn't out you all, but I was I was thought I literally thought maybe someone would come up to her and, like, provide her a place to talk. Yeah.

Like, she was in the airplane and saw the engine explode and, like, had smoke, had to go down the slide. I mean, I can't even tell you when she came back to work what how shook up she was. And then they put her on a flight, like, three hours later. She had not slept. She'd not done anything.

She got a $20 bag like Voucher. Food voucher. And they were like, deuces. So I thought that airport would have intervened a little bit. So is when when some when there's an incident that happens like that, like I was just trying to support her and it's like like a like a mentor. Right? And say, hey, how are you? Like, what happened? Like and she was telling us all these things. Like, her hair is her like, hair smell like smoke.

The things that she told me, I will never like, she had to live through it. I just had to hear it on my staff. Like, how do we how does DEN support that group of people? Like, is it is it just solely on the on the airline or do you all play a part in that Or was it because it was so egregious of a thing that happened that and it doesn't happen that there's not a a coordination between there? It's

a partnership. It's an absolute partnership. There are certain roles that the airport plays and certain roles that the airline plays. There are certain regulations on the airline to provide certain levels of assistance in these types of events. We will get back to you.

We we are pulling all the information together, but we have pulled a lot of data points in timelines, etcetera. And I should have started with, first, I'm so sorry that your aide had to go through that. And we really appreciate the comment because any type of experience less than stellar is not something that we want to happen at our airport. Right? And so we we apologize to everyone that had to experience the event, including our own team members who also work work the

event. Absolutely.

100%. Yeah.

And and

and let me just add

Some of the things that she said, like Yeah. People were going by the engine and taking photos and, like, all these things she didn't. Thank God. Like, it makes me wanna tear up. Like, thank God she didn't like, she stayed away. But then, like, her getting on a plane, they got her on a plane at 06:00 in the morning and she got off the tarmac at 01:30. And so I was just like I mean, I just I just I don't know if I would have been able to do that. I'll just say, I don't know if I would have had. She was going to home to see her mom for Mother's Day. And so she did and just, like, saw her mom.

Thank God. I was like, thank god you went and saw your mom and thank god you were in a safe space and you were with your family and you needed to do what you needed to do. But I was just I just have to say I was just really so surprised at the lack of, like, that she just didn't receive. So just wanna say that. True. It it felt as somebody who I didn't have to, but having someone in my office and my whole team woke up to that. Like, I woke up at 04:00 in the morning and saw that and I was like, oh my god. What happened? And I hadn't hit the news yet. And so I knew something had happened that wasn't public yet.

And so I didn't even know how to deal with that. So just saying that I think that you all if you there just could be not saying we ever want that to happen again. I just I hope that, Dan I know that you all are caring people and really care for the the passengers. And so how we could just play a different role in that situation, God forbid, it ever happened in the future or if something like that ever happened in the future.

We do have a passenger assistance plan. We did deploy water, formula, diapers, snacks. We worked with several of our airline partners. Shout out to Southwest and United. They helped us, procure snacks pretty quickly. But I completely hear you, and we absolutely take that as as paramount. And so we we wanna make sure that we're caring for everyone involved. So absolutely noted.

More like talking to someone, having her just sit down and process what she saw. Sure. Because she had to be interviewed by five people. Right? And that was very different. It was, like, very formal, her interview. Mhmm. But I just wanted her to be, like, have someone to talk to about what she saw and what she experienced and having to get on a plane the next day and then having to get on another plane to get to work to Monday to my office. I just was hoping that someone had reached out to her to say, hey, You need to talk. Right. You saw an engine blow up and found out what happened. Like, how can we support you mentally and, like, to her heart. Right? So that that's what I was mostly concerned about.

Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. It's you know, we obviously, we worked all weekend on this. We were at the airport, and it's just a terrible event. Terrible. We we were very, very concerned about the passengers. Of course, our maintenance folks who were unheralded as well and actually went out and cleaned the runway. Yeah. It was about a 4,000 foot debris field that was cleaned up, and the runway was open at, what, 10:30 the next morning as well.

So but, yeah, we we we we understand, and we look to provide counselors that night and that day. We were concentrating on our employees initially because a lot of the passengers were taken off and leaving. We knew about your aid. I knew about your aid. We all we all knew about your aid that was on that flight.

Yeah. The hub.

Right. Yeah. And so we knew about that, but we'll we'll come back to you. We're doing that after action review. Okay. I'm meeting with the CEO of Frontier next week. Okay. And so we will convey that. Thank you. I will convey that.

Thank you, mister chair. Thank you.

Thank you, council president. And, yeah, there are many events where it might be the airline, you know, that takes weight in some of these conversations, but people still see happens at DEN. I know the disability community has talked about DEN a fair amount when, in reality, it's not even just the airline. It's a subcontractor of the airline who helps people with disabilities get onto and off a plane. I know last year, I took a flight from here to Austin, and that airline didn't put my wheelchair on the plane at all.

And and so fortunately, we were in an extremely busy airport, there was another direct flight five hours later. But I just, you know, had to change my schedule so that I could have, you know, that, like, I it's it is these are my my wheelchair is my legs, so it isn't as if I could just go about my business. And it also happened to be I got there on Sunday because the check-in for the conference I was actually speaking at a conference about universal design, so a little bit of irony. The reason why I went in on Sunday is because that's when the check-in was, and I was speaking the next morning. And so I had to miss some of the events because I was waiting for the chair.

So I didn't reach out to Den because I knew it was the airline, but everyone has that kind of knowledge about where the airline and where the airport and where airline subcontractors are in the in the grand scheme of things.

But feel free to reach out to us, though. Even though we may not be directly, you know, responsible, we can call somebody. So, you know, please do that.

Council member Gilmore online has a hand up.

Thank you, chair. I I really send my thoughts and regards to, of course, the family of the deceased and all the folks who were affected by that horrific occurrence and issue that we experienced out at DEN with the individual. And knowing that there's, you know, different responsibilities and that, you know, back to the contract that we're talking about, want to really thank the security folks who will be providing the security in public spaces because they are also the first eyes and ears of airport security and that is super important and they really are dedicated and have dedicated their lives to this work. And so I wanna, you know, say thank you to them first and foremost. And then, Phil, in regards to, you know, it's a huge airport.

And, you know, what are the expectations that this council should have of you around what are the plans to harden that perimeter, and is it double fencing whereby you have a middle portion that will be the, you know, the the truck patrols that happen. I know there's a lot of sensors. I know that this is sensitive conversation, but common sense says that there just needs to be a hardening of that perimeter, especially as development increases out around the airport. And so would like to understand beyond, you know, the hot wash that you do with your team, how, you know, you're looking at real changes to prevent this from ever happening again. And, you know, wildlife could cause a similar occurrence.

And we know that wildlife are out there and that, you know, you all work very hard on that. But beyond removing wildlife, there are different tools that can be employed that urban airports have to look at to prevent any issues with runway and passengers on a plane. Wanted to give you an opportunity to address that directly.

Yes. We we we are going through the various investigations before we come up with recommendations for solutions. And so we believe that it's important to let NTS be the National Transportation Safety Board, also TSA. We're bringing in a peer review of other airports. This task force, if you will, or advisory committee will consist of, as I said, military, law enforcement, and others.

And so we want to gather that information very relatively quickly, and we've already started that to come up with a set of recommendations that we can put forward and sit down with TSA as well. You know, these kinds of incidents, you know, are, of course, relatively rare. And so to to prepare for things that obviously didn't know what that was coming, we wanna just really check all the bases in terms of the investigation that's being done before we go out and do something that that might not be a good idea. So we're gonna come back to this 10 committee on July 1, and our hope is that we will have many of those recommendations in already, and then we will present what we can to the committee either in this committee or a executive session sorts sort of setting.

Perfect. Good deal. I appreciate that. And then to to shift in the conversation, wanted to I know we've been in communication. The request for information for DEN's current and future energy needs closed the end of March. And we've been waiting to hear back on what the recommendations will be and hope you might have an update as to when first, I'd appreciate an individual briefing on that since I'm the representative for District 11, but then also when you're gonna come to committee to update the council.

Yes. Yes. Can do that. The request for information for alternative energy options closed on March 31. We got 31 proposals from all over the world.

We are pouring through those proposals to determine the path forward. Our intent is in our commitment that we made was to bring that back to this committee. And, of course, that includes District 11 and to the community and talk about what we found in an effort to become energy independent, if you will, in the next ten to fifteen to twenty years. So we will bring that back.

Great. Appreciate that. And then my additional question is I I would like to have you or somebody from DEN share with the entire council who the members are of that community advisory committee that you've put up and then share the link as well so that we can get more information out to folks about how they can get active in what's transpiring out at the airport around the Pena Corridor where people are really clamoring for more rail access, more bus and multimodal options versus just widening Pena because we can. And so if you would share that contact information so we can share it out with folks to know who's serving and providing that energy and time volunteer to help us out. So thank you.

Thank you, mister chair.

Thank you, council member Gilmore. Any final comments?

No. That's our twenty minutes, actually.

Great. Thank you for compressing the twenty minutes into the last few. So thank you so much, Den, for your presentation, and and we'll see you on the floor with the action item.

Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

Next presentation is from the Department of Transportation Infrastructure. We have a bunch of DEN employees who'll be exiting. We have a bunch of Dottie employees who'll be coming in. But since there's only one door, we have to wait for the DEN folks to get out before the Dottie folks can come in. So it'll take us a second for the transition. Thank you.

Thanks, sir.

We're too often. Right? It happened to be on that one.

Great. Nick Williams is first, so he's gonna he's gonna run it all for us.

Hi.

Funny as heat spring days. We do. Cough and hot.

Exactly. Exactly. Alright. So our next item is a presentation, a briefing from the Department of Education department of Transportation Infrastructure twenty six zero six eight five regarding the DOTI 2026 work plan. Director Ford, thank you for being here. If you'll introduce yourself and your team, and then you can take it away.

Thank you, chair. Very excited to be here. And I I was gonna introduce my team sort of in context as we go into the presentations, but just very quickly. This is our city engineer and the chief infrastructure and delivery officer at at Dottie. We have Cindy Patton. Sorry. Jim. I didn't even say

his name.

I just said what he's done. This is Jim Potter. Cindy Patton, who is our chief operating officer. We have Nick. And Nick Williams is, as you are all aware, our chief of staff, major legislative. And you have Tycus Holloway, who is our chief transportation officer. And then you have Matt Briner, who is, effectively our chief regulatory with right of way and services and right of way enforcement. So we're happy to be here. Wonderful. Well, listen.

I know you guys have already had a a good long first part of the today. Usually, we're the ones who take that session and make it go long. Today, there are a lot of slides that you saw in this presentation. So we are going to do our best to be very efficient in talking through those and really open the conversation up. You know, we're gonna talk a little bit doing this based on goals rather than talking about sort of individual divisions, which you'll hear about, but you're gonna hear us talking about goals.

How do we continue to make Denver the Denver this vibrant street and our part of infrastructure and maintaining and and ensuring that. How do we look at our overall climate goals and our our parts to play in those roles as well as that of safety? So as we get into it, just a few things. You know that our goal is to be this ideal department of transportation and infrastructure. And ideal isn't always a loaded word. Right? You know? Is it the best? Is it ideal? And for us, the way we translate ideal is truly that we are doing the best delivery, the best opportunities that we can to improve safety, mobility, sustainability for the residents of Denver, to also promote and use infrastructure investment to promote economic development and to to create truly this vibrant city.

And so if you flip to the next slide, when we talk about that, we talk about all of the things that DOTI delivers. But I wanted to take a little bit of a point of privilege and and and and reshape this slide just just a bit when we talk about it. Councilman Heinz, you and I, we've had a few good conversations over the last, you know, year or so, you know, asking questions. When you see a chart like this, you say, gosh. Is is DOTI too big?

You know? Is there too much under DOTI's purview and and remit? And, you know, as as as, you know, originally, Department of Public Works and then as we transitioned into becoming a Department of Transportation and Infrastructure, You know, in the last many years, I think that what you've seen is you have seen DOTI grow in complexity and work and obligation. You know, you've seen us grow in regards to new sidewalk enterprise. You've seen us grow just in the nature of the relationship that we have with the city.

You see and Jim will talk about this. CASR became created and how we do and implement infrastructure improvements that work with CASR or host for that matter. You've obviously seen a lot of the work that we do take on that additional complexity as we roll in with our solid waste programs in a new form and in fashion with recycling and compost. I bring that up because you see the world of what we do from plan to design to deliver to operate and maintain. We've spent a lot of time in DOTI too spending the time to think about the efficiencies about how we work and organizing ourselves around our business enterprises.

And so the introduction that I was going to make, and I'll just sort of reiterate, is we've spent a lot of time about, as we have grown in complexity, not grown in staff, and in fact, decreased in budget in many ways, how we create efficiencies inside these business enterprises. So I'm just gonna point him out again. Jim is responsible for the infrastructure and delivery enterprise, which includes procurement and how we deliver all of the citywide infrastructure when it includes wastewater. Cindy is responsible for all operations and that entirety of the enterprise, and that enterprise crosses all of our different efforts. So the work that our budget team does and our performance teams and our HR and all of the efforts feed all of these other enterprises.

Nick is responsible for the people and the staff and the policy and the strategy. Tycus is responsible for transportation, the entirety of what that enterprise is, and Matt is responsible for the regulatory. So we've also created the structure so you have these individual businesses inside of Dottie. And, you know, as we get going, we look forward to continuing the conversation about us and how we're due and how we're structured, how we do all this work, the synergies that happen across the organization when we plan and design and deliver together. There's a lot of things when you build from the substructure all the way up to the top structure.

Everything in between is captured in these kinds of worlds. And so but we'll look forward to that conversation as we continue. As last time we talked, we had I sort of left it at a quick note, and I wanted to expand on it a little bit. So we'll go to the next slide. So we've talked about our philosophy again, maintaining what we have, that core service, continuing on project delivery.

It is important for us that we spend the money that we have and get it out to the public for their benefit as fast as we possibly can. And frankly, we've spent a lot of time working on that, even with budget changes and others continuing to focus on that delivery. And we've got a lot of our teams sitting here today. Brittany, for instance, who raises her hand responsible for transportation delivery, how we do that as efficiently as we can. And then continuing to ensure that these investments make a difference in people's lives, knowing that the investments we do make right now are not nearly the entirety of where people would like us to also continue to make investment.

So flip to the next slide. I'm not gonna belabor the Denver Moves, everyone. You all have seen this before, but it still remains, and I think this is important, our guiding north star about how we look, how we manage, how we invest, And every piece of what we do, from the spending in our discretionary capital programs to the SRF, to our transportation mobility, are designed to try to meet these goals and how we can best deliver. So if you flip to the next slide, I'm gonna close this out by just talking about our goals. We are very definitive about clear, hard deliverables and what we try to accomplish in 2026.

Not just that we do the work, but what are we doing? So we have very clear focus on projects that we're delivering, ones that we start and ones that we open. And if you like, we can provide you those project lists and such later. We are the way we track our maintenance, so when people ask us about the work we do repairing sidewalks or, well, you know, doing potholes or how we repave our roadways or restripe and otherwise, is measured through spend for us. We spend money, that means we're out fixing it, and that's how we sort of capture our progress.

And we we note when we're spending and if we're not spending. And if we're not spending, that we're not doing our job. And so this is part of how we're looking at it. You know, and we've talked a lot about solid waste, and we'll talk more about that in our 99% completion and the entirety of where we go from our from back to the economic side about our permitting and on time permitting, and the work there is captured inside of what Matt's team does. From a climate perspective, our focus is really, and we'll talk more about this here in just a couple of weeks on the second the second day of the month, the shift to programs and how we continue to encourage people to think differently about how they travel.

As we think about our fleet, which is a much larger discussion and the investment in our fleet and what it does and the trickle effects of our fleet and what that means for how we perform the jobs that we have, and then our safety measures. And we spent a lot of time here in this committee a couple of weeks ago talking about safety, so I'll leave those off. So flip to the next slide. I don't want to think also that the type of work that we do and the way that we do work is also a merit of who yells the loudest or screams the loudest or reaches out to so and so and so and so. So every investment that we look at is also continually evaluated based on how we think about our equity considerations and the investment across the city.

What you can see here on this map is an updated map about ongoing implementation projects for us, especially how they fit also for us in the inverted L, and that is, again, we have really clear criteria on where and how we consider these investments about safety, about equity, about sustainability. This is a measure of how we do that. All right. And we go to the last. And then what I'm gonna do is turn it over to Cindy, and she's gonna start taking us through how we look at these different goals, really.

Yeah. Thanks, Amy. Cindy Patton, COO. DOTI's lot more than roads. We all know that. We manage transportation. We now have a whole new sidewalk program, facilities, wastewater. There is a whole list of things that we do across the entire city, and our capital program really drives a lot of that. We have over 200,000,000 invested in preservation, safety, modernization of of our system, and long term stewardship. How are we being stewards?

And I use that really intentionally as a word because there is an art in a constrained environment to how you're choosing where those investments go. It's an art and a science in DOTI. And transportation and mobility is the largest share at a 126,000,000. That includes 33,000,000 in our new sidewalk fund, which is a really major shift towards preservation of that specific asset. But no matter the asset, really the biggest theme here is life cycle management and really trying to invest in systems before they fail and before that infrastructure reaches a crisis condition.

And I I Amy said it, like, you can say what you want about Dottie's breadth. We are quite broad, but that creates leverage. And we are incredibly integrated within the department in ways that we can leverage and see the benefits from that that stand alone departments couldn't achieve because we are so close to each other every day and constantly communicating. So really, the capital program is about protecting this foundational system that everyone relies on every single day no matter what road what what mode you're on. Next slide.

And and what's really reflecting two priorities that we have in DOTI, which is one, managing the infrastructure we already have and then improving upon it and modernizing the system. But the majority of our funding goes it's orange, goes towards maintenance because, like I said, if those systems fail, everything gets harder. Everything. So it's not that glamorous, but I promise you, maintenance is so sexy. It is what we should be concentrating on all the time because it's what makes the city function. And the paving program's a really classic example of this. You got a couple examples, traffic signal safety. Again, embracing that stewardship principle, directing directing resources resources where where the

conditions and the risk and consequence analysis tells us

to go because there's never enough, but really putting the worst first. Our streets carry everything, freight, transit, bikes, walking, they convey water. Again, So everything's more complicated than it used to be. I've been here for eighteen years. I can attest, like, are just super complicated now, and they've seemed very simple back then. But we have to own our maintenance responsibilities. And then I'll start with next slide. My favorite. I know it's only in the, what, 02:00 hour, but I wanna talk about cocktails. And our two cocktail in Dottie is people and fleet.

Because it's the people that deliver the service, but the fleet that makes that possible, that sends them out to do the thing we told them to do. It's the silent backbone of everything we do, whether it's snow response or pothole repair. You can say this about any other department too, and we manage all of it except for safety. So we got 2,500 different pieces of equipment that we manage across the city, and we are seeing the strain of deferred replacement cycles and disinvestment. More than half the fleet is beyond or nearing its useful life.

In in programs like solid waste, it's even higher. So with that aging equipment, our teams are trying to manage to that 86% fleet availability, which is our our goal is 87. We are at 86. We are not far off. That is a huge testament to the incredible work that the team is doing. It's also costing us a lot of money to do that because we're basically trying to, like, revive old vehicles all the time. And we're applying the same asset management principles to that too. So we're we have a very robust asset management system, and we are applying those principles to what we want to modernize, convert to EV. I just got word today that we have a new stake bed truck that is going to be for our solid waste program that gets delivered next week. That's super exciting.

One of our first that we'll be testing, but we own it. And we're not just adding to the fleet, we're also deleting, which I think is really important. We've got a number of pretty egregiously underutilized vehicles out there. A lot of them are light duty that we are reclaiming, and we're saying these are not doing anything out in the system, and they're mucking up our facilities. They're parked. They're not doing anything. They still are taking up preventative maintenance dollars and time. So we're taking them back, we're either surplusing them or we're redistributing them somewhere where they could have a higher and better use. And we're up north of 60 vehicles right now and counting. So fleet, promise I we do a lot of things to pay attention to in DOTI, but please don't miss fleet.

So important to what we do. Next slide. Paving is also just a really good example of what modern asset management looks like. We use pavement condition index to drive that. Again, the fundamental principle here is preservation because if you go too long, you have to start over. So keep what you've got good, being good longer, and there's a lot of different ways to do that. Mill overlay chip seal, hyper, which is hot in place recycling, our just typical bread and butter contract mill and overlay. Every dollar that we spend in that prevents more dollars down the road if we don't spend it on this preservation. And not every road needs to be reconstructed. It just needs to be assessed, which we do all the time, and we use that PCI almost as our report card.

And when you've got that from foundation, it's a smoother ride for everyone, again, no matter what they're doing. It doesn't take it doesn't happen by accident. We're doing this really intentionally all the time, and when it works, you don't notice, and that's our goal. Right? We don't want you to notice the the pothole or the cracks. And our KPIs, next slide, are constrained. That's just a reality. We've got fluctuating staffing. We have fluctuating funding. And so we're always wanting to really clearly define the service that residents can expect from us.

And we have for the PCI, for example, that's our our goal of '73. You start to dip below 70. You start to see it and feel it, and so we wanna stay north of that. Street sweeping, pothole response, we're on track for a lot of these things. It's taking a lot of time, effort, sometimes overtime, but we are staying on top of the the constrained KPIs that we have. Sweepers, I'll call out. Sweeping, you you heard me last year. We had some real challenges with our sweeping fleet. We had some that caught on fire. We were very low in sweepers. This is my Cinderella story. I have had a couple delivered already this year. I'm expecting two more. I have 11 more that are coming. It is a revived program.

So I'm very excited to and just give the example of what it means to have reliable vehicles for a program like that that people care about every day, they're watching for it because they call me if they don't see it. Our snow response, also really important. We did not have to do a lot of it this year, but I think that is coming to an end. So we we are potentially looking at a Super El Nino year next year. We don't know exactly what that means.

No one does, but we are getting prepared and making sure that our our plows are ready to go, and we have the upswell of a 100 plus people that culminate at those surge event locations that can respond really quickly. Last slide for me is just to call out some of our really exciting things that are happening behind the scenes. And I'll highlight some of our DNC work because we had the selection committee out two weeks ago, and we did a lot of refreshing downtown to make sure that everything looks ship shape because we want that economic boon. We want it because we know it goes into the general fund, that's where we need it. And we had a huge number of teams out just making sure everything looked really great for that visit.

We're also working with Xcel right now who have identified a number of poles that are in bad condition and sometimes unsafe condition to replace those through our relationship with Xcel. So that's happening over the next year or so. And I have to call out our innovative approach to innovative paid parking and thank councilman Alvidrez and district seven for the work that they did with us to design this for 7th Avenue and Gov's Park. So I want everyone to look me in the eye and understand that paid parking's not scary. It is what actually unlocks access to the places that people want to go, and we've had almost no negative feedback on this.

Very similar to what happened in LoHi, very little negative feedback. It was time. It was ready, and we would love to look at this. This was the first time that we did something kind of out of the box where the third hour is a little bit more expensive trying to give people options. They don't want it. They don't have to have it. That matches more of the two hour scheme in other places. So really excited about introducing that. That just turned on Monday. So I'll wrap up. Maintenance matters. I think it is glamorous. It's the basis of all we do, so don't forget it.

Alright. Good afternoon. Texas Highway chief transportation officer, Dottie. Wanted to walk through a few slides around the transportation projects that were

It's tough to go after Sydney.

Thinking of like where the It's tough. Something that's

cocktails is sexy. I mean, you know, you're

But we we do have over hundreds of projects that are in various phases throughout the city, and that includes in different phases of planning, design, and construction. The graphic that's on the screen onto the left is a illustration of those location of projects. And so just to walk you through a few examples, and this is a GIS interactive map that you all can go to and members of the public. But the blue lines give you examples of major multimodal projects such as Morrison Road, Bucktail, Federal Boulevard Medians, Iowa Underpass, Peoria multimodal projects, Washington Street project. You'll find all of those on there in the multimodal major blue lines.

Orange dots are pedestrian intersections. Think of things such as crosswalks, signs, curb extensions, pet refuge, and flashing lights and beacons. And then in green, you'll find our safe and slow streets with bike lanes. And so we've got a couple networks that are scattered throughout the graphic to help improve and maximize the benefits of accessing neighborhoods and jobs throughout the city. And then in yellow, we've got the transit corridors.

And so these are corridors in which either, you know, the city of Denver is actively managing an effort along the corridor and think, of course, Colfax BRT is the one that we always think of that's currently under construction, but it's also including some of the projects that we're partnering with CDOT and RTD, so Federal Boulevard, Colorado Boulevard, and then some of the regional stuff with Doctor. Coggins Spear and Leedsdale. You can find those on there. And then the red dots are the signal projects. And so we've got hundreds of signal projects throughout the city.

And so you can zoom in and find some of those locations, which can include a variety of improvements from rebuilds to left turn lane improvements or turn improvements, trying to address some of those severe crashes throughout the city with some of those improvements or outdated signal that needs to be rebuilt. Next slide. Colfax BRT, you all are very familiar with it, but we continue to make great progress. And this slide highlights a couple of the key milestones and stats for the project. Of course, this project will continue to move people more reliable, safely, and sustainably along East Colfax and is of regional significance to the metro area.

It would enhance affordability and choices for those that seek the transit option and or connections to and from the straight line. Schedule and budget, the project is on schedule and performing under budget. Couple key dates. So substantial completion late next year, q four of twenty twenty seven. But another major milestone here in September, we anticipate having from Broadway to Colorado, the fifteen and fifteen l will be operating in the managed or in the exclusive lanes.

And so you get a first taste of how well those buses start to operate as an early incremental option open for us. So it was a little bit of a soft launch, but we wanted to start to provide some of those benefits as soon as So you start to see that. On the DBE participation exceeding in the design and construction goals for the project, the project has been very disruptive in terms of this amount of construction, a very long linear project, a lot of business frontages. The team actively took on the task and goal of minimizing the impacts to businesses. And so we modified parts of our construction contracting as a result of wanting to limit the amount of time that we spend in front of businesses.

We've taken a lot of those practices actually and implemented other parts of the city. So you'll see some of those same techniques on Washington Street, on Morrison Road, and as we continue to forward just to try to help support the small business. We understand that it's a very difficult environment to operate in. We've also, with our partners Indito, with the BioFund and other small business grants, over 125 have been issued along the way. And then we've held a number of celebrations with either the raising of the arch or other events that the community and business community has put together to help celebrate and also provide a form of economic activity and excitement, probably cocktails associated with something that was out there.

Should have started there. Ridership, anticipated ridership will grow by 10,000, so weekly, daily trips. Are riders. So right now, it's around 20,000, anticipated 30,000. So 10,000 additional trips on this corridor, we believe will continue to improve and stabilize the business and economic development on the corridor while also providing more safe and reliable and efficient transit operations in Denver and in Aurora both.

Let's see. I think that's a pretty good deception of what's their description. Sorry. So sidewalk program, looking forward, so this is a, as Cindy was mentioning earlier, you know, the maintenance of our existing sidewalks and the challenges that we have, I mean, you all know it very well, the graphics up to the top right shows the sidewalk network, it includes the gaps, the sidewalks that are less than five feet. Over the past year, the team has been actively establishing the program.

So that's setting up a lot of initial policies, the resourcing, the staffing, but we continue to implement projects. And so we've done over 30 plus miles where, you know, poor conditions existed to continue to move forward and then 10 plus miles that were bond related sidewalks. And so while we are continuing to stay out the program, we continue to partner with our internal operations division with Cindy and team to continue to fill in spaces to do repairs. And so in '26, in the bottom left is really, you know, the bottom side of the graphic, where we're really starting to focus in on our implementation plan. And so trying to develop or we will develop later this year what the next few years look like for the implementation and have thousands of input from folks across the city to help us identify not only where we should start, but why we should start in those locations.

One of the challenges that we're seeing early on, which we we knew would be a challenge, is not all sidewalks are the same. Every street has a story or a history to it. And so as we're starting to see our implementation of gaps and locations or replacement of sidewalk, we have the utilities that are there, whether it's someone's sprinkler system or electrical utility or a tree. And so, what we would like to do is start to partner or build a program of projects that are like so that if contractor understands this is how you operate in that environment, it's going to be more efficient for us. Some of those areas are going to be just put the forms up and put a concrete in.

And so a lot of what we're doing right now is really trying to, with our contractor, figure out what are our best opportunities for efficiencies and combining our sources that are there. And then down to the bottom right, we'll continue in '26 to fill in gaps. The majority of our work in 7.6 will be in the Clayton neighborhood here starting up pretty soon. We'll do some fill fit, so another technique where we're going to try to continue in the field to do some of the sidewalk implementation and a little less of having to fully design something. But as I mentioned earlier, the challenge with that is if you don't know what's under the ground or, you know, near that location, you could disturb something that then causes additional challenges or you have to come back later.

And then lastly, we do have the sidewalk stamp contest, is launching a competition in June asking for ideas for community members to help us design some of the stamps and concepts for the sidewalk program.

Alright. Good afternoon, counsel. Jim Potter again. I am your city engineer and deputy manager of our infrastructure team. So we're I didn't know we were doing cocktails, so I'm gonna try and see if I can work it into more of like a road trip here. We're gonna take a little bit of a road trip through several different parts of our infrastructure. We're starting with the bridges category here. A couple of new things this year that we're pretty excited about that we're implementing. So we have a parks and regional trails category now that we're really focused in on. That has a couple of bridge projects that we're doing in the Bear Creek area.

One of those we're hoping on Webster to get to construction here late this year. We have a old timber bridge over on Confluence Park kind of area that we're replacing inside of that program as well. And then moving into our vehicle kind of transportation bridge space, there's a ton of different rehabs that we're doing, rehabilitations to existing infrastructure up along Cherry Creek. We're also taking out of our asset inventory a bridge structure that's inside of Dottie's central plant campus behind the Wastewater Building. We're gonna continue doing our inspections for annual program types of things that we do.

We inspect our major structures every two years. Our pedestrian facilities now, we do those every three years for condition assessment and structural capacity. And then we're gonna be doing the annual maintenance kind of programs that we typically do. So both of those will feed together to make sure that we're strengthening all the data that we have when we collect to use for our systems and our our looking forward nature of maintenance work and other things. Finally is the second and the last of the new things that we're implementing within our bridge program, and that is the major bridge replacement side.

So now we're intentionally focused on identifying those bridge assets that need to have certain carve outs so that we can make motions on doing things like what is in this this year is a little bit of design money to move forward with Mississippi over the South Platte River construction in the near future. And we also have the three bridges up along Quebec, if everybody's familiar with those, that were recently low restricted just south of by 70. So those are just a couple of the highlights across that part of the program. We're going to move on the road trip here to the next piece. We're gonna focus in on our interagency team.

It's our kind of our vertical implementation space. Not something that we typically have highlighted here, but we thought it was really important for the group to see that we have a lot of work that happens through construction works, if you will, project delivery that's happening for other agencies, departments across our city. So arts and venues, Denver Parks, CASR and Host, which Amy noted as new agency, new departments in our city, real estate, public libraries, safety, all those projects that they need to deliver are rolling through our interagency team. There's about a 145 projects on our books right now this year that are actively being managed. It's a value of around 800 to $900,000,000 in active total project value.

Some of the highlights of the work that we're doing there are shown in the pictures. Some of the bigger ones doesn't mean that anything else inside of those 145 is less important, but we're doing the work at Civic Center Park, as I'm sure you're all aware, across the street. Ross Branch Library, Westwood Rec Center has been kicking off pretty good here, and, of course, Red Rock's Visitor Center, we continue to do refurbishments and expansions there for that portion of it. Alright. I'm gonna move a little bit quicker here into the wastewater realm.

So our wastewater team is on the end of our road trip. I don't know why we ended here. But about $63,900,000 total investment that we're doing across our storm drainage, sanitary infrastructure, our green infrastructure. It's also waterways. So think gulches, creeks, our South Platte River.

It also includes systems, so billing system and upgrades to the vertical side for our wastewater facilities. So this is our fifth year of what we call our fiscally constrained six year plan in the wastewater space. Team is really focused on those things that you see down there at the bottom in the green boxes. But in general, that's maintaining the existing capital infrastructure that we have so we make sure we don't quickly go off the cliff at the end there with our assets and making sure that we're focusing on the continued replacement expansion for those projects in the community so that we're improving public safety, meeting community needs, and ultimately, we would hope providing a better level of service, maybe consistent, but some areas don't have a great level of service in the storm drainage area, for example. So those are parts of our goals.

Wanted to highlight off on the right hand side here, this was just a fabulous project. We recently received our substantial completion for this project. The public is using it. It is a replacement of a bridge structure that was failing. You can see it in the top picture there. And connection for mobility, we did gulch improvements along Harvard Gulch there. This is the DeBoer Park project up along Harvard Gulch. So great partnership between our wastewater team, Mile High Flood District, Parks and Recreation, and, of course, our Bridge team here in Dottie. So four partners coming together to make a really good transition to an area. With that, I'll turn

it over to Matt for right of way team. Thanks, everybody. Matt Matt Briner, deputy manager of right of way. And I certainly like to speak cocktails, but I'm a humble engineer, so I'd I'd probably stick more to Denver's craft beer scene and tell you about what right of way services is brewing up this year.

Clever, clever. Enforcing about

a fifth of Denver. The right of way division supports all Dottie Folk series, predominantly vibrancy. But I've got some highlights here for the two divisions that I'll share. So certainly, like Amy spoke about, we're we're all about efficiency. So innovating in the space of, you know, helping our contractors and small businesses and and developers to, you know, do their work more effectively as well as updating our governing documents to align with some of the safety standards that are coming on board.

In the right of way enforcement space, we have been able to hire 12 new agents this year, so our strength there is at 94% and certainly appreciate the interest and and efforts that the Mayan Council have gave us in the last couple years. So through those agents, we've been able to provide essentially parking access for, you know, employees and customers, helping keep our streets clean through street sweeping operations, enforcing, you know, the right of way basically to ensure movement and safety for all the users. And one little key factor that I wanted to add to this slide is to indicate for all of our parking programs that we do, right of way enforce enforcement issues 78% of all the license plate violations in the city. So just a kind of a point there. Next slide, please.

So just a little over a year ago, the the mayor created the Denver permitting office DPO with the goal of creating of moving permits through the process much more quickly, and and right away services is is definitely a key member of the DPO team. Right? So and and things that we're doing in the space to help support the permitting efforts are both managing work on a daily basis and, like I said, innovating. And so the managing I'm I'm sharing just you know, we have so many different dashboards and stuff we use, but showing some gauges here that our supervisors use on a daily basis to help their teams get the work done in time frames that we've allowed for them. And in addition to the the management of the work on a daily basis, we're doing a bunch of innovations.

One of the big ones that we've already have in place and we're just finishing up right now is is creating a consolidated permitting team. So bringing disparate permit teams underneath the auspices of one manager to help have some more surge potential and some efficiency gains. So looking looking forward to seeing that that that team really fly. And then other process improvements, engaging with our customers customers, AI's potential. And June 22, we're gonna work with our partners to to launch the prop one, three affordable housing fast track process, which I think will will have good good impact.

We've been successful working through the pilot and looking forward to going into the full full full deal here. Next slide, please. And then since my last slide here. Since last summer, the only way for someone to dispute their parking site parking is to come in person for our final hearing. And that's had a significant impact on those individuals who are wanting to dispute their citations, and it's also had a significant impact on right of enforcement. The disruption has meant that there have been less overall appeals, but obviously a great number of increase in the number of in person hearings. And so that's not sustainable. It's not sustainable for the city. It's not sustainable for right of way enforcement. And so we've been charged with standing up a whole new program.

And so we've been working on that since the beginning of the year, creating a new program that will allow for an online portal portal and and more defined parameters for customers, for those who are cited to dispute their their citations. You know, things like, do they think the citation was valid, or do they think they don't have ownership liability? And, you know, I've I've got some some steps here to create the program showing on the right, and we're we're working on it. And certainly, we wanna get the program set up as quickly as possible, but we also wanna make sure the program is set up correctly And right now, I'd say we're we're on track for a late late summer launch for that program. And with that, I think I'm turning it over to mister Williams to speak about climate.

Yes, sir. Good to see you all. Nick Williams, deputy manager here. I'm just gonna talk about two items, and I'll keep our pace cooking here. We're gonna talk about solid waste and microtransit. Starting with solid waste, of course, one of the most critical services that we provide to the city. Also, one, think we've had some challenges in the past year, but feel like through some operational changes and some other items are starting to really operate pretty smoothly on their goal of maintaining 99% route completion. You'll see in the top right, we are maintaining that right now. So just staying just about under a 100% on trash recycling and compost. What that means is we do about a 124 daily routes on there.

And so each day about 99.8% of our trash, those routes are being completed and so on and so far down there. Also, I think you should remember with the volume based trash pricing program, of course, this introduced a lot more carts to a lot more people specifically around compost carts on there, and that had a, impact. We had started to lag, I think, taking over 30 to get a cart either upsized, downsized, replaced, or repaired on there. That team, part of the Denver action team that I think you guys have have, visited with prior to that, they've got that down to nine days now through making some operational changes and improved tracking, on there. Our 2025 diversion rate is 28%, and that's good.

The the services that DOTI provides, residential comprise about 17% of the overall waste stream. Of course, city goals are 50% by 2027. That'll start to bring in the ballot initiative that I can't remember the name of on there, happened the same time. Waste Waste more. Thank you, councilwoman.

On there, we'll start to bring in that commercial and nonresidential services on there, but we we are pleased with how the diversion is going. And then also contamination rate on compost. And contamination, of course, is very important both with recycling and compost, but almost, well, really more so with compost, of course, because not only do we want to make sure that that stuff gets processed and doesn't get turned around at the compost facility and sent to the dump. Compost, of course, the final product ends up in our homes. We end up, you know, as mulch.

We don't we want to make sure that we don't have glass in there, other types of contamination on there. And so that contamination rate of 1% is we're very happy with that. I think a very a good testament to the folks that are composting out there and the discipline around there. But of course, both diversion rate, we want to keep that increasing on that and then contamination rate, we want to keep that low or decreasing on there. So, of course, mentioned volume based trash pricing.

Just as a review, we serve about a 180,000 customers, residential hauling, and then single family up to seven units plus, the Denver, Housing Authority and then, Denver Public Schools. There's an asterisk there. Our contract with Denver Public Schools will conclude in June, the end of June of this year on there after a recent procurement. They've decided to go with another vendor, on that. And so we'll be able to redistribute both those staff and those vehicles either back in well, the staff will all remain in the in the system, but some some of those vehicles are some of our older vehicles, that will either be, gotten rid of or put into to full service on there.

Right now, about 81% filled on our full time employees for the trash collectors and then, reference the Denver action team, which does graffiti abatement and, engages with the encampment activities. They are a 100% filled right now out there and and have been doing putting up great numbers on there. Continuing priorities for the year, of course, is to continue a trend of exceeding 99.99% completion of route. We'll be implementing nine new electric vehicles through a few different vehicle types. Cindy referenced the stake bed that will be used to do cart deliveries.

We'll also be getting six ASLs automatic side loaders. So the ones that do it on the side and then two rear loaders that will be used by that Denver action team on there. And as I said, wanna make sure that we're continuing to grow our diversion rate. A lot of that comes down customer education and engagement and continue to start to whittle that cart maintenance and cart replacement time down. The other one talked about today is our Denver Connector.

This is I think one of our favorite programs, seems to have been, well received and seems to be operating very well. Right now, have three services, Montbello, GES, and West Denver on there. You'll see they all have kind of between just under six and just over six passengers per hour on that, and that is a good number. Grant so this is funded by a combination of a grant from RTD, as well as some financial support from CASR, and then we also use our SRF revenue to support this program. The grant from RTD requires at least two per hour, so we're very much meeting that goal, on there, and you're getting depending on the location between three and a half or four and a half trips per hour.

This middle line with the dials, it's a little confusing. And so we have a goal of we want less than thirty minute wait time when you when you request the service because it's an on demand service, not just a regular transit service. We want to make sure it's less than thirty minutes long. And while those the colors, I think we just alternated the colors. Only about 42% are more than thirty minutes in Montbello, 36% are more than thirty minutes in GES, and 35% are more than thirty minutes in West Denver on there.

And of course, that has that's a function of, vehicles and vehicle availability on there. We will be getting, I think, a new a new vehicle coming into the system, which I think will serve West Denver electric vehicle through partnership with CASR on there. And so that will net increase our vehicles on there to kind of further that. And then you see at the bottom, if this was Amazon, you'd buy the product. We're getting between 4.8, 4.9 out of five stars from the passenger experience.

But do this is like I said, this has been, I think, a very successful service. This is free to residents to use, on that and I think is really helping folks, get to those essential services and just, again, one more layer of the multimodal options available to folks. Alright?

Alright. We're gonna close it out, but I'm gonna whip through safety as we already had a very good discussion about that. So if you can go to Vision Zero, you know it. You've understood it. You understand where we were.

Last year's fatality rate's unacceptable. This year, we're spending a lot of time having a safety stand out and others where we are continuing to refocus our dime and our energy and, in fact, involving all of Dottie in this evaluation. It was just at the streets teams this morning, and we are asking them what they see on our roads just like you get from your constituents, areas of safety that we should be paying attention to, this fan fantastic team behind us are are are doubling down in what we can do for infrastructure changes, investment, and or otherwise. This year to date, our our fatalities are a little bit slightly less than they were last year at this point in time, but our pedestrian fatalities are half what they were last year. However, our vehicle fatalities are and they are up in areas on our interstates and stuff, again, with speeding.

But if you flip to the next slide, again, just a reemphasis of what we talked about before about how every project that we do in DOTI has a safety focus, and I can't stress that enough. And each piece of these has safety criteria and evaluative process that we do along with those rapid responses when we see an opposed fatality kind of evaluation and analysis. And, we continue to wanna work with you all and others as we put in those changes, how we continue to assess and design and what we do on the rapid response and engage you in that. Flip to the next slide. You've seen this, you know that we have a number of different treatments, and this is frankly where most of our energy goes together, with you, with your constituents, things in areas of things that they see that they would like us to do to try to improve the the quality of the neighborhood streets to increase and improve safety.

And with that, always comes a lot of opinions on whether or not we should or shouldn't do these things, how we should add a roundabout, should we be thinking about a bike lane, what we should do in regards to a traffic stop or otherwise. And so that takes time and energy, and much of our time this year is also spent in the community outreach and the engagement with the public as we put together these plans and design plans. And I'm gonna go back to that slide that that Tika showed you before that has the map, which we've sent you all the link. That is the active project analysis of every single area we are looking at for projects for design, planning, and construction. What it does not include yet is the rapid response, so that's the one thing that is not on that for an area.

But our way of tracking with you what projects we are exploring and working on right now in the active moment. And so, continue to emphasize that. Again, our goal is 18 miles of slow and safe streets this year and 26. If you can flip to the next slide. Safe routes to schools, we've had a lot of discussions. But, I we're flashing through all these stats, but these stats call very clearly out what we intend to deliver in 2026. Our continued plan study and analyses, updates with flashing beacons, traffic calming improvement projects, etcetera, in your schools. We can give you the the breakdown detail. Our team can sit down and talk with you about schools that are happening in your communities. And we also know that there is a list that is many more of continued improvements there.

We were just talking outside also of areas like things like school streets where people are talking to us about whether or not you would close and think about how you're closing streets down at certain times of the day right in front of the schools. There's some traffic management planning and such that we would need to think about and working with DPS on how we do that, but some of the other areas that we're continuing to explore. Alright. Last few slides here. Speed safety program, we've all talked about it. But, again, July, book your book your calendars. We will be in talking to you now about the ordinance that will allow us to do the last part of the speed program, which is the automated speed cameras. So we'll be coming to you with that information. We will do be doing briefings. Our intent is to roll out onto three corridors, Colorado, Federal, and Alameda.

And then, we are going to continue to build to looking at a citywide rollout with all of our high injury network corridors with the automated speed programs. And continued investment, as we know, on the speed elements that are in addition to that, additional signage, some small infrastructure improvements, speed feedback signs, and some other elements. All right. And again, the last thing, and I don't want to pass through this so much, we are in the public a lot, And I wanted to just sort of highlight the ten years of success that we've had with our community active living coalition. Many, many times when you see us in the community, it is through this organization and this group that is an actively grant funded program where we are both working on with community members about the needs and the challenges that they see in their community and how to address them through infrastructure and safety.

It is also a program that provides micro grants to community members to make small changes and improvements on community driven projects, as you see. From bike repair kits to walking groups that we do at DHA, it is how people move, how people live, and the quality of life that is infused through infrastructure and movement. And this group has ten years of success in really being at the very, very tip and the grassroots of working with our community members. And so, we're just very proud of these programs and wanted to share that with you, that those things continue to as part of what we focus on. Alright.

We wanted to leave at least fifteen minutes for questions. I thank you for paying attention the whole time. That that's a lot to talk about. That's our work plan for 2026.

Thank you, Donnie. Thank you, director Ford. Now we've got seventeen minutes, not just fifteen. So thank you for that. So we have four people in the queue so far. If you wanna get in the queue, please let me know. Council member, I'll be dressed.

Thank you so much. This is really exciting. It's definitely challenging to get everything that you all do. I think each one of those bullet points could have been a presentation. But I appreciate ending on a really important note around Vision Zero.

I'm really excited to see some movement for the Mississippi Vision Zero project. I think what I've heard from community is they wish that was part of the goals that the mayor has, and so I just wanna continue to elevate that. I did go on a bike ride with the mayor's bicycle advocacy committee around District 7 recently, maybe last Saturday, and got a lot of really exciting positive feedback around the Jewel Bridge, the Iowa Underpass. We rode under the Alameda Underpass. And so the feedback I got was Denver is doing better, And I think we don't hear that all the time, and so I wanted to share that positive feedback.

I was confused on slide eight with as many dots as there were. I think a breakdown there would be helpful because, like, I don't know what host projects. I don't think do you oversee those projects as well?

We build those projects. Yes. But the map that you saw did not have those projects on there. That map that you saw on slide eight were just transportation.

Because one of the color coding said host. Yeah. And they also said special initiatives and standalone, and that was just confusing for me because I don't know what all those things mean. So we're curious about that, especially when you talk about equity and that was the purpose of that map because and I'll just say I was really appreciative

the equity map. Thank you.

Yes. So one of the things I appreciated, I did watch the mayor's press conference from this morning, and he talked about calling 311, and I've been reemphasizing that to my constituents as well because I think no matter what we do, the squeaky wheel is gonna get greased because we have to know that there's problems. And so I just want you to know that's something that we've been advocating for as well. I did wanna I'm excited for the Safe Routes to Schools, excited to see more what that funding looks like and look for more funding there. One of the things I have a question on is the transfer demand management planning. Do you all work with CPD on that as they're approving plans?

Yes. So the host equity map will explain that as, yeah, I do believe that they incorporate some of the host projects. I'm Okay. Mistook which slide you were talking about into the equity zone so you can see our investments and our strategies, but I think they do plot that with some of the host projects.

Is that a live dashboard we can see on

our own? I don't think that one's a live dashboard, but we can get you a version. We can get everyone a version with more detail.

Okay. Great. Exactly. So

just Yeah.

Because I saw an Alameda micro mobility, and I don't know what that is, so that would be exciting.

I don't either. So, yes, we will definitely

get you those details.

Yeah. We'll we'll definitely do that follow-up with that. In regards to the transportation demand management program, yes. So we have a team member inside Jen's team. Jen, you can raise your hand. Our planning director who works specifically with the transportation demand management program. As you know, the TDM policy that was passed by city council requires developers to develop TDM strategies as part of their broader development planning and process. We work with them. We look at it. We do an analysis of it.

We offer thoughts and, you know, and recommendations about how they pursue it and how they address it. And it's it's something that's seeable by you all about what those TDM plans are that then they implement, and then we work to sort of I don't know that we do a full monitoring to make sure that all of it is implemented, that is part of the process. If there are in particular ones that you're interested in looking at, but we could do a bit of a roll up on how those programs are going, the developer partners that they go in with TBM for us, and and how those how you see the results of that from bike lanes to how we work with microtransit services to sometimes areas of micromobility so they have a variety of different thoughts and strategies on the implementation.

That's helpful. I think yes on that because that came up just yesterday when we were talking about the Loretto Heights project and how we're rezoning some parking there. Mhmm. But also curious about and I did put this on my micro priorities, which I assume you all get, which is Le Pan Street, and Athmar has been slated for a traffic study and hasn't gotten that. And I think it connects all the way from Westwood to that area. So I'm curious about that in the long term. And then I I know you kinda briefly mentioned it, but I'm curious, and I don't know if this could be a future presentation on where we are in the web recon remodel. Almost done. Okay.

Do you wanna talk about that real quick? Sure.

I mean, we're we're happy to give

you a separate briefing on that if you'd like. But really close, we're starting to move people in to different floors on the 5th Floor, which is a lot of our engineering teams are moving in here in the next several weeks, actually. So

Great. I'm interested as as far as, like, our budget shortfalls are going down. Is, like, are we gonna be leasing less space at Republic Plaza then? And I know we're moving people from the Denver Post maybe back to Webb. So how does that integrate with that budget planning for next year?

Mhmm.

Good. And then

do the follow-up.

We can do some follow-up on that. Yeah.

Great. And then I'll wrap up with one question and get back in the queue in case there's more any more time. But I do wanna just uplift. I know Front Range passenger will be will be coming next month to committee, but I have had a briefing with them, and I'm curious to see how that could affect our budget next year if it is passed. I know there's potentially some funding coming to the city and with a large portion of the Front Range Passion rail running through District 7, I'd be really interested to see how we can use that for the East West connection to get people access to that rail as it does come hopefully.

We would like to do some follow-up on that discussion. We've been meeting with them as well to understand sort of the the cost breakdown should the ballot issue pass and what the local distribution piece is to both the the capital hub plus sort of operations, first mile, last mile operation services. So, yes, let's come back and talk about that.

Thank you, committee chair.

Thank you, councilmember Aledrez. And and when you get the briefing about TDM, the transportation demand management, director Ford mentioned that there was a limited oversight. I think that's I've heard feedback from developers tattling on other developers about how they promised that they were gonna put these things in. And then once it came for the certificate of occupancy, they didn't do those things, and they're like, it's built. There's never really anything you can do to make us change it at this point. So you might look at accountability when you have the briefing. Council member Cashman, and then council president, you're after that.

Thank you. Thank you for that beyond in-depth presentation. I think we can all agree that Dottie's number one goal should be that councilman Cashman not be frustrated over the pace of project delivery. And I think in that direction, we need to get you more humans and more money. How that happens, I don't know, but we we need to do that.

That being said, I wanna say thank you for the progress on the projects at Downing in Mexico, Rocky Flash in Beacon. It looks like everything's in place except for the posts and the Beacon itself, as well as, the progress across from Asbury Elementary on Evans Avenue. I saw Pedestrian Refuge Island in place there, and, can't wait to see those completed. And I wish I was wearing a hat because I would give a great big tip of it to to Molly Lanfear who is endless supply of patience and doggedness and keeping my team apprised of what's going on. Thank you very much.

Can we go to Slide 33 real quick, Nick? Thank you very much. Okay. So I have spoken about this. I've got a brand new 103,000 square foot King Soopers going in at Louisiana and Birch.

The developer put in a roundabout. God bless them. However, it has no vertical signage on it and you will see that island there has three Yep. Pieces of vertical signage And it's it it really is critically important in this particular situation because it's on a downhill and it's such a low profile roundabout. We need to sign there before they open June 3 or there will guarantee you're gonna be problems.

Right. So that's my pleading there. And I had a a It's just yeah. I had a great briefing on the emergency response team, the other day, which I never knew even existed, and it's a really great briefing. But what I would like to see is for for the smaller things like I'm talking about, I think it really is.

I think we really will have problems because that's gonna be a huge traffic demand there. So some sort of emergency response for for projects like that. And, obviously, DOTI will determine the level of emergency regardless of how council members like me plead and beg our interests. But there, I do think that probably are legitimate emergencies that somehow need to get through that. And the last thing I wanted to ask is on BRT.

Is there any money in place for either federal or Colorado or now the next one I've heard about, which is what's Spear Leedsdale Parker Road?

Do you wanna talk about the money available or you want me to answer that? Mhmm.

I'll start.

Do you wanna

You start off of them.

Yeah. Spear in reverse. Spear Leeds sale. It's being led by doctor Cog. The city is involved Right. From the standpoint of a regional connection that we believe is important. But in terms of the city providing dollars at this time, we're we're not directly contributing to that project. Federal Boulevard, we are going to provide some support to that project in the form of of of the sidewalk as part of the sidewalk enterprise program as part of the improvements is is now our responsibility.

I I guess where I'm where I'm going, Takis, is these are hundreds of million dollar projects, I'm assuming. Is there federal or state is there a giant pot of money set aside for those now?

So the idea is that each of those projects are in the project development phase where federal funds would be the number one target for both Colorado federal and for Spearle Eastdale.

But there's nothing in the bank now?

There is money in the bank right now for Federal Boulevard, and and it's CDOT's intent at this point is they have about a $150,000,000 in what they call their urban BRT fund in their ten year planning process, and those dollars will be dedicated towards federal. And they will be pursuing federal funding and but anticipating that they would not necessarily receive federal funding at this point in time. So their priority right now for federal is to move forward with what they're calling a phase one sort of minimum viable product, if you will, BRT system that builds out the stations and the other. As far as dedicated funding for Colorado Boulevard, they've got the funding for the planning, which is what they're doing right now, but no funding yet identified for construction.

Great. Thank you. And I'm sure our friends in Washington can't wait to send large

excited to send money to Colorado, I'm sure. These people. Thank you, mister chair. Appreciate that.

Thank you, council member Cashman. I am a little confused about all this federal money, but I'm I'd I'd love to see it when I see it. Yeah. There is some confusion about bus rapid transit because Colfax is run by Dottie, Colorado and Federal would be run

by

CDOT, Leedsdale, Spear would be run by Doctor. Cog. And so there's a fair amount of confusion. And, you know, the the current BRT is right through my district, and so we get a lot of questions about them.

No. That's that's a fair question. Yeah. I and Dottie is the responsible party. It is still a state highway. Colfax is in partnership with RTD, and we did receive federal funds, as you know, for that project. Small Starts not been identified for the other corridors yet.

You and I actually have a picture next to

the ridiculous the big giant check. I know. Council president.

Thank you. Thank you all for the work you do. I don't think it's easy task to do all of the things that you have to do. So I've talked to you about this before, Amy. There's these legacy back in COVID, we had the Transportation Community Network that met.

And there's legacy projects in Northwest Denver that still don't have answers to at all. And so it'd be great if you could even if the answer is no, we're not doing it, but not having an answer in a community is really frustrating. People want me to answer, and I don't I can't answer for you. Like, there's no way I can answer. I think answering an email from my constituents saying, hey, on a possible bike lane, can we change the speed limit?

So I just wanna say that not answering is not acceptable. And I I can't like, I I told one of your staff last Friday, we have monthly meetings. I just don't even wanna have them anymore. And the reason why I don't wanna have them anymore is because I go to my community and I say I meet monthly with Dottie and so they're like, oh, okay. Do you have answers?

And I'm like, no. I don't. And so it's very frustrating when you have to be held accountable on our side for actions that you all are doing and having it go into the the whole of no response is not a way that I get to live. There's no way I would be able to not respond to my constituents, like, ever. I just don't do it.

So not responding to letters and requests and it just feels I have I've told you this, Amy. I've never gotten so many complaints about Dottie. I've been here for fourteen years and I'm a huge supporter of all of yours. I think you all do really great work. I think that the people out in the street, I have amazing relationships with our right of way inspectors. I have amazing relationships with mostly everyone. And then when it comes to response, it's just nothing. Like, literally. Like, why? I don't understand that.

So I'll just say that I will continue to be hopeful. But right now, these letters one of the letters you all received was in October to say, hey. Can we change the speed from 30 to 35 or 35 to thirty and nothing? To, like, not even say, hey. We have an area engineer working on it or hey.

It's in our queue or hey. No. But to get no response is really just something I've never experienced ever in my entire career in the city and county of Denver. So I don't know what happened. I don't know what's gone on, but I used to be able to get you all switched up the structure. And when you did, what I used to do is just be able to go and then people would put my staff on the email and then we would just take all of you higher level. You have run-in the whole city off the email chain, which is great. Because then I could just go to the project manager and say, hey. What's up? Can you just give me a heads up?

Like, is there anything? But now I have to wait for all of you who have thousands and thousands of emails in your inbox to get back to us and it's just it's inefficient. So I'll just start with that. I don't like it. I I used to really really appreciate just being all connected. We're all connected and you all literally have stopped the connection. And I don't know why. Maybe you feel like it's more sufficient. I feel like it's awful. So I want to I know we're almost done with time.

And planning for is at three.

I want to just be supportive of you all, but I don't know how to be anymore.

And I could just do a real quick response on that. Certainly heard that on there. I think we've done a bad job of closing the loop on there, and that is something we're actively working on. We do have, I think, the three issues I'm aware of. Thirty second, I think that one's a real bad one where we've dropped the ball. I think it's one of those where year.

Yeah. It was

May of last year that we had the meeting.

Going back and forth on it, and I apologize for that. The low speed limit, we are ordering a speed counts on that road. We'll get that closed on you. And then closed loop loop, and then 38th and Tejon on there. Rapid response, we've got some different responses to that, some protected left turns, lead pedestrian in intervals, and I think some signs and striping soon. All that to say we'll get that information more clearly directly to you guys

as well. Thank you. Thank you all.

Yeah. And thank you so much, Jadi, for coming. I'd love to continue the conversation. Council president, you are not alone with the the feeling of not as enough responsiveness, but leave it there for now. Thank you so much. We are adjourned, and, generally, we'll go straight to planning board. Oh, and there are nine consent.