Public Works Committee - Regular Meeting

Welcome. Hey, 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, everyone. Welcome to Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. My name is Flora Alvidrez. I have the honor of chairing this committee. We will start with council member introductions, and we'll start on my left with our council member from the—I won't say which— Thank you, Committee Chair.

Darrell Watson, District 9. Chris Hines from the even finer, some say perfect District 10.

Kevin Flynn, Council District 2, home of the highest natural point in the Mile High City. I won't tell you where it is though. It's not all that dramatic.

It's not the most beautiful scenic site. Do we have anyone online? Okay. Well, while we wait for getting to quorum, we'll go ahead and get started. Elena, if you want to talk about our first item and introduce your team, that'd be nice.

Thank you, Councilwoman Alvidrez. I'm Elena McWhorter, Dottie's legislative liaison here with my team to talk about small business enterprise or SBE prime on-call contracts. So you may recall that Back in December, we were here talking about horizontal on-call contracts. And then in April, we were here again talking about vertical on-call contracts. And so today, we're excited to talk about the SBE Prime and how those are different from our other on-calls. I'll let my team introduce themselves, and then we'll dive right in. Go ahead, Travis.

Hello, everybody. I'm Travis Bogan. I'm the Director of the Special Projects and Initiatives Division with DOTI, and I'm grateful to be here. Thank you.

My name's Erin Croke, I'm with the Division of Small Business Opportunity, so I'll be speaking to the SBE element.

My name is Amy Foreman, I'm a Senior Engineering Manager in DOTI for the Transportation Division.

Amy. So today you'll see a similar format of the slides where we will present on the purpose of why the department uses on-call contracts, the benefits of SBE primes or small business enterprise prime contracts specifically, and then we'll go into two different packages. We have the first being SBE project management on calls. So those are resolution requests 26 1057 through 26 1062 and then we'll talk about the SBE general civil construction on calls which are resolution requests 26 1067 through 1074.

I just a refresher on on call contract uses and why we have on calls. We like to have an established pool of Pre qualified contractors to help and consultants to help us address urgent needs and provide some additional staffing capacity and resource leveling and capacity to hit some seasonal timeline based projects. This helps us deliver our capital projects and run our programs. What we're really proud of is that these sets we're talking about are small business enterprise sets. So you have to be certified as a small business enterprise with DISBO to be awarded one of these on calls. And then once you're in the pool, the competition for work is really only between the consultants or contractors that have that set. more even playing field for SBEs to grow capacity and get really good project experience while having them help grow their business. These are just great contracts. I'm going to go to the next slide here, talk a little bit about the prime set. So, you know, we are committed to promoting equity in our project opportunities and helping to grow grow capacity of our consultants and contractors. And so we're really proud of the great work that we get to do with disbo and our industry partners. And this set, or these sets are a great demonstration. As Elena mentioned, we brought other contract sets on call sets. Uh, to committee and counsel for large vertical construction or large, typical civil construction, or, uh, you know, uh, program and project management, uh. Transportation design all kinds of different sets. Well, these sets are complimentary to some of those, but really targeted for the, right? And so there's 3, 3 types that we have for the sets. We have the project management on calls that I'll talk a little bit more in the next couple of slides. We have the civil construction on calls that Amy is going to talk about as well. And what you've seen recently, it's been through counselors vertical construction on call. So we're not talking about those today, but just want. to show the big picture is we try to compliment our large sets with SBE opportunities so that we can really give SBE firms opportunities to be primes and meaningful work, right? And grow their experience and capacity and how they work with us. And so a couple of the things that SBEs have to self-perform perform 30% of the work that's authorized by dollar amount. And as I mentioned, for the project management set, we use this for helping us with resource leveling and to be able to really respond to needs timely. A couple of things on awarding of the work. When we procure an on-call set, there is no funding encumbered. We encumber the funding as we authorize either the professional services work Or the construction work through work orders, and for the construction sets, there is a mini bid process to promote some competition there. Contract capacity, as you'll see in the next slide, we have 3Million dollar capacities for these sets. It's not a guarantee of work, but we try to provide equity of opportunities and we want to make sure that each firm that has 1 of these contracts has an opportunity to propose on the work. There's no guarantee that everybody gets the same amount of capacity because some firms decline because of maybe staff workload or. You know, they have some other reasons, but we want to make sure everybody has opportunities. So, if we go to the next slide, this is kind of close to the end of my piece again, these small business enterprise project management contracts were formally procured and executed in 2023. they had a 3 year term. You'll see on the next slide. We've used some capacity on each of these, but we have plenty of capacity. And so what we would like to do is request a 2 year term extension only so that we can continue to leverage these on call sets and continue to do this good work. And, you know, we do have a future intention of procuring new sets of these similar types. And so we look forward to coming back to you when that day comes. For the on-call project management, it's really any type of project management scope. So they can help with scheduling and cost estimating and developing project management plans and quality management and construction management and risk management. So it's a pretty broad umbrella, but they have specific skills that we're looking for in project managers and subject matter experts that work on these contract sets. A couple examples of work that we've authorized with this again, really meaningful projects. So we've authorized work for helping with the sidewalk enterprise, implement sidewalks. We've authorized work for elevate and rise bonds. These contracts helped us with project management for 16 street construction, convention center, fire alarm, some cost estimating support for the project again. It's a great way to get additional. Technical expertise and give these firms really good opportunities that they can put on their resumes right? And used to grow their work. So, the next slide is just kind of a summary of the 6 project management on calls. You can see the firms there and 3rd column from the left. The contract capacity is originally authorized the amount of work that's been encumbered on these contracts and is committed to the firms to date. So you can see everybody's getting a little bit of work and we have, we have a good amount of capacity and we'd like to keep using this set. And so it is great to be here because this to me seems like, you know. I'm always proud of the great work we do a daddy, but this is something to be really proud of right to find opportunities for help and grow small business and get meaningful engagement. It's what we've been working on for for years since the ordinance reauthorization in 2020. so, and then I'll hand it over to Amy and talk a little bit about the construction set.

Great. So yeah, so our SPE for civil construction, it was formally procured and advertised and then awarded in 2023. So today we are looking at a two-year term extension of that contract and then also restoring each of the firms back to their original capacity of $5 million each. So it's a varying amount on each of those contracts, which you can see in the next slide. The work that is delivered on this is pre-con services, and then minor roadway bridges, pavement rehab, just all of those lighting traffic signals. It's just smaller civil scopes, so some of those Smaller projects that we can deliver, we have funding to deliver. Sometimes we can't deliver an entire project at once, but we can find a piece of it and then deliver it through here. And often these SBE contracts can pivot and deliver things in a more efficient manner. So just some of the examples of work that we have delivered. Mill 22 has two different traffic signals that will be energized if they aren't already, should be imminently. and then some signage and striping that is also finishing up right now. Red Rocks lot paving was done here and then multiple different sidewalks through different districts were also delivered with this work. So the range of services that these SBEs can perform is varied and that's why we have so many of them because some of them have different strengths than others because as an SBE they can't operate in the capacity of a large civil contractor. And so we will find somewhere that the smaller projects that they can deliver to help them to build up their portfolio to one day hopefully graduate out of the SBE projects. So here is all of the firms, their original capacities, the added capacities, and then what then their new capacity would be. I want to call attention to there is one firm on here that currently is getting zero capacity added. That is because we have sent them many bids, but they have been unresponsive. So we have engaged with them. They are aware, and we continue to engage with them to hope that one day they will be responsive on those. But just wanted to call that out. Otherwise, we have been really utilizing these a lot recently and we hope to continue to do that with the extension and then adding additional funding so we can continue to deliver these needed projects throughout the city.

Thanks, Amy. With that, we can turn it over to the committee for questions.

Wonderful. Thank you so much. We'll go ahead and get started. Before we get started, I want to welcome Council President Romero-Campbell online and Councilwoman Sandoval online. And we'll start the queue with Councilman Himes.

Thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for the presentation. Mr. Bergeron, I thought you said that this was just a two-year contract extension. Although I also hear it's more than just a two-year contract extension. It is also resetting the available funds back to the original. Is that right?

Just to clarify, I was talking to separation of duties, and I'm here to talk to the project management set and Amy's talking about the construction. Although I may have confused things by doing an overall introduction. So, no capacity added no capacity is being requested for the project management set. But Amy is asking for some capacity for the construction set.

I'm glad I asked the question as opposed to, well, the slide seems pretty evident. But yeah, we're talking about a couple different things at the same time. I think that's important. Yeah. Are there other small businesses that want to do business with the city? I mean, I see the idea that this is a contract extension and resetting funds, but it seems like we have more small businesses. We just came from best value contracting conversation earlier today. I think that there might be other small businesses that wanna do business with the city, and I wonder what the thought process is of continuing to lock in one set without consideration of anyone else.

I can start. I hope and I'm confident that there are a lot of different companies that want to do work with us because we're great to work with. That's the goal. That's the vision. By extending the term, it doesn't preclude other SBEs from formal standalone procurements or preclude them to be subs on other teams. But this is a really neat tool and mechanism To do a couple things part of the reason for the amendment in a perfect world, we would love to go and re, compete all the time and often, but it takes a tremendous amount of resources, not just on our staff, but on the submitters as well. And so it's really a balance of efficient delivery. And, um, you know, making sure that we get the right engagement and discussion. And so, you know, as I mentioned earlier, we, we look forward to a future and re procuring these, but we would like to amend them to get a little bit more use out of this set. I don't know if that really answers your question, but I think that's that's what I got.

Okay. What's the average contract size? I mean, like, you're giving them a slate or, you know, like a runway, so to speak, but you're giving them work in increments.

I can speak to the construction, and typically it would be under $2 million per contract.

OK. And what do you win by being pre, sorry, added to the on-call? I was going to say pre-qualified because I was imagining what the answer might be.

What do you win by being on this set of on-calls? So being on the set of on-calls, you are on our list for when we want to procure a project, and we would send it to three or four, depending on the project, to give us a proposal to do the project. So you would, in essence, win the opportunity to, when a project comes about that we feel you could provide for us, you would be given the option to propose.

Okay. So most construction projects, you have to go through a pre-qualification process, right? In the current process, do you pre-qualify and then you get put on the on-call list and you don't have to pre-qualify again? I believe that's the case.

Because any construction contract over a million dollars requires pre-qualification and this on-call set capacity is over a million, so it would...

I believe they were pre-qualified as part of the on-call selection, the formal procurement that we did in 2023.

Yeah, okay. Yeah, I recognize that I was asking you on television, so if I could get the average contract sizes and, like, as you mentioned, it's typically below $2 million, I'd still like to know what the average size is.

Sure, we can provide that.

Yeah, I don't have anything else right now, but thank you.

Yeah, great. Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Flynn.

I think I'm sure, and I'm just clarifying on Gilmore, they have not proposed or sought any of the on-call work or explained why they're zero?

That's correct. We have asked them to propose on many bids and they've either been unresponsive to that or they have declined submitting a proposal.

Okay. Oh, yes. Okay, thank you. Just wanted to clarify that.

Great. I do have a couple questions. I'll start with if you could just explain what are the requirements for being an SBE?

So SBEs, it's our race and gender neutral program. And so the two local certifications with DISPO are MWBE and SBE. SBE, you're a small business enterprise. And so the business size is smaller. It has to do with the annual gross. And then also there's a personal net worth requirement for the owners. But it's without regard to race or gender.

So what are the requirements for personal net worth and for annual gross?

I would have to get back to you on that. I manage our compliance team, not our certification team. I know those are the requirements, but I don't have the numbers themselves committed to memory.

OK. And then how are we making sure that they're still certified through this process? Like if we got their certificate when they first bid on this on-call, what if their net worth or income has changed?

Yeah, that's a good question. The way that our accounting rules work, you continue to get SBE credit for the life of the contract, including the amendment period. And so there's not a requirement that if a firm has already graduated from the SBE program, that they be disqualified from winning an amended contract. that they can't win a new contract. So if they are no longer in SBE, they can't bid on a new SBE contract. But when we're extending the contract, we provide that continuity for the SBE firm as well, that they continue in the certification status that they had when they started the contract.

Okay. And then just, I know you spoke maybe a little bit to this, but I didn't quite understand why was the decision made not to go out to bid again and give more small businesses a chance to win this work?

That would be a question for I think part of it is that we've only used a fraction of the capacity of the on call set. So, if we could go back to the table for the project management, you know, these are 3Million dollar contracts, but we've awarded between 108,000 to 832,000. and so there's a lot of capacity left and we're trying to be. Responsive to all requests and needs and, um, you know, we are in a resource constrained environment and so re, procuring the sets is would be ideal. But, you know, we believe we are really resource limited and considering we have the ability. Uh, to amend and there's been little, uh, you know, fraction of the capacity used and these firms have all been really demonstrating great work. We wanted to continue to give them a chance for more work and we can talk about future re, procurement of of these sets at a not too distant date. Does that help?

Yeah. Of course, we always like to see rebidding, especially because these are already on calls, which supply a lot of flexibility. But I would be curious also to know if there is a 30% self-performing requirement. How are they doing on that requirement?

So because these firms, because it's self-performance, they... achieves a 30% by virtue of the fact that they're performing their own contract. It's different from, like, with the MWBE projects. We usually see those questions about how much MWBE performance is there on the project because those assume that there's going to be subcontracting. You don't get a lot of MWBE primes. But in this case, I mean, with SBE, it's kind of a foregone conclusion that they're going to exceed the 30% because they're small projects where they're self-performing in the narrow scope that they're small business.

So are we monitoring that they are hitting that 30% requirement? Yes, we do monitor all of our projects.

It's just that meeting the 30% on SBE isn't really the the same type of metric as it is on the MWBEs where there's a lot of fluctuation.

I can see where there's an assumption, but I've seen small contractors hire a larger contractor to do the majority of work on contract before, so. I'll go ahead and turn it over to Councilman Hines.

Yeah, sorry, thank you. And part of the, some of the questions I'm answering just, or asking rather, is just because meaning we had this morning, Gilmore was there. So it isn't as if they're not interested in doing business with the city. I guess I'm, do you have any sense of why? I mean, because Gilmore, this is Gilmore Construction, right? Like they have contracts with the city now. Is it because they're bidding for larger contracts?

It could be. We reached out to them and met directly with them. They expressed their interest, and we have provided additional opportunities since that meeting for them to propose on projects. And I'm not sure if it was they declined to bid or if they were not the selected bidder. I don't know that off the top of my head. But I know that we did provide to them, especially with knowing that we were looking to extend the contracts. We reengaged them to make sure that they were interested in extending their contract and continuing to be on the set of on calls and they voiced their interest. And I believe they've been given additional opportunities, but I'm not positive off the top of my head since that meeting.

That's a good clarification. When you mentioned they were non-responsive, my thought was they didn't respond at all. But non-responsive could be that they bid and didn't meet the qualification. So I'd be curious to know if Gilmore's bidding and not getting anything? Sure. Because because they, they mentioned even this, this, you know, in the conversation this morning that sometimes even the lack of a signature. Can deem an application non responsive and so so I wonder if. It's too much regulation by the city and they're trying and they're just not succeeding. So. These contracts are required to pay prevailing wage, correct? For the construction, yes. Construction, yes. OK, fair. Yeah. And that's not because of anything that you're doing. It's because of the separate prevailing wage ordinance. Just making sure. Apprenticeship retirement benefits, are those items that are required? Or are those things that are optional? Or do we track? the apprenticeship or requirements or participation or retirement benefits requirements or participation.

I can take a 1st cut and so these contracts are were procured and in alignment with the current policies and ordinances and guidelines in terms of apprenticeship. If you're talking about workforce, for example, the requirement is workforce is applied for 10Million dollars in over construction and these sets are much smaller. So these don't have workforce expectations in them.

it doesn't mean they couldn't like people couldn't choose to use apprentices yeah um and that yeah that's kind of the nature of my question is like we as a city as we're giving city funds wouldn't it be great if um you know we had as part of the conversation we want our city employee our city residents If they want to get smarter, they want to become a journeyman in their trade, then it seems like that should be an offer that we provide. Also, it's my understanding with prevailing wage, there's wage and fringe. And because the unions participate strongly in the determination of prevailing wage, what the prevailing wage is, and they have apprenticeships as part of their process, that fringe includes the cost of apprenticeship. So that's another conversation we're having actively right now, the best value contracting conversation. And so fringe includes automatically retirement benefits, health care, and apprenticeship because You know, IBEW was very responsible. They asked their workers to respond to the survey. So a lot of the people who respond are union workers anyway. And IBEW reports that they are the prevailing wage entity that provides that in 64 of Colorado's counties. as in all of them. Thanks for that. Wasn't just a random number. So it's useful data, the prevailing wage calculation in general, but it's also useful data as how we get that information and how it's calculated. So let's see. Oh, and you mentioned under $2 million. And I think the answer to another question was that the contracts were between $2 and $800,000.

So for the SBE PM set, the capacity is $3 million that was originally approved. And that is the total that we're not asking for an increase. And the task orders that had been offered range from $108,000 to a little over 800 as shown in that table. I know you asked for the average cost and we'll give that. We've authorized about eight different task orders under this set. There are six firms, so the list is reflective of, you know, essentially the size of the work that's authorized, but we'll get you that exact number.

Yeah, thanks. I mean, under $2 million sounds like for sure it's under $2 million because it's at most about $800,000.

And the difference, again, for the project management versus the construction, the construction set's a little bit bigger than the project management set. So we'll have two averages for you. Yeah. All right. Thank you.

Awesome. Wonderful. Well, I appreciate this work. I think defined selection pool and supporting small businesses is important. I wish that we would have maxed out and they would have already reached those goals. I think we are letting a lot of work, so I hope that we can max these out as soon as possible. Thank you so much. And I guess we do need a vote on this.

I'm moving forward. I'm going to block.

Motion. Do we have a second? He is not on the committee.

Second.

Wonderful. Any opposed? Great. Well, we will see you at the full council. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Appreciate your support. Yes, we do have you guys. Thank you. Well, this next item is a very exciting briefing. This isn't an auction item, but we're super excited to hear about it. So take it away again, Elena. It's your show today.

It is. I hope you aren't sick of me yet. So again, Elena McWhorter, DOTI's legislative liaison, joined by my colleague Phoebe, who's going to walk us through the Welton Next Steps project, which has done quite a bit of work throughout this year. And we've been at committee Oh, actually, I think this is our second time at committee, so excited to share the progress that we've made since earlier this spring. Phoebe, go ahead and introduce yourself, and I'll let you drive us.

Thanks, Lena. Hi, my name is Phoebe Grislo. I'm a senior city planner on the planning team at DOTI. Been with DOTI for about four years, and I've primarily worked on our transit program at DOTI, so supported a lot of BRT projects, bus stop projects, things like that, and then generally help with a lot of coordination between the city and RTD. And then most importantly, I'm managing the Walton Next Steps project. So I understand we were requested to provide some information today, so we'll give an update on project progress, overall timeline, our engagement strategy, and a bit on the alternatives analysis process that we're diving into. We also do have an upcoming public meeting, so I'll be sure to share information about that, and a survey that'll follow that too, so yeah.

And I'll pause just a moment. David, would you like to introduce yourself? Thanks for joining us.

Thank you. David Kretzinger, transit director for DOTI. Thanks, David.

So we did want to touch on the engagement that we've done with you all to date. So the last time that we gave a formal update at the T&I committee was back in February. Since then, we passed a grant agreement through council that got the funding from RTD to pay for this project. We gave an update to the DOTI Advisory Board in March. And then we also passed the consultant contract through council in June as well. We gave an update to DOTI Advisory Board last week, and then we are here today providing our second kind of formal update for you all. So what is this project? Just to kind of ground us and catch everyone up to speed. So for the Walton Next Steps project, our purpose is to partner with the community to develop a clear vision for the future of transit on Walton Street, where we have the L line light rail right now. And as part of that, we want to ensure that the recommendations align with the vision for the planned central rail extension on Downing Street. So I'll touch a little bit more on that in a project background, but I think most folks are aware that there's this recommendation for a long time to connect the L line from 30th and Downing, up Downing Street to 38th and Blake to complete that section of light rail that has sat around since 2004 as simply a recommendation. So we are digging into it now. Our study area, of course, includes Welton, particularly from Broadway to Downing, and then Downing from Welton to 38th and Blake. This project, like I mentioned, is funded by a grant that was passed through from FTA through RTD to us for planning, and it'll take us through conceptual design. So this slide talks a little bit about the background. This is a question that always comes up when talking about this project. Like, why are we talking about this? Why are we doing this right now? So like I mentioned, there's been that line on the map from RTD's 2004 fast tracks plan to connect the L line to the A line. That recommendation was part of the original 2004 fast tracks plan, and it still hasn't been implemented. So since then, a few plans, a few milestones and studies have come along the way that have sort of looked at Welton, looked at Downing, and tried to figure out a solution. In 2011, the city completed the Northeast Downtown Area Plan, which recommended a few things, recommended things like studying Welton for two-way conversion, recommended things like thinking about switching the light rail to more of a streetcar to better kind of fit the character of the street. When folks think about streetcar, they think about smaller vehicles slower kind of maybe a little bit more calmer and then you know those recommendations in that 2011 plan were all kind of recommended for further study then in 2014 RTD completed you know they're kind of first most formal study on that Downing Street rail extension and that plan concluded that it might not be feasible essentially so So that plan looked at one alternative for extending the light rail on Downing Street, which would be light rail operating in mixed traffic. And RTD's study revealed that there may be scheduling challenges associated with that, right-of-way limitations associated with that. So once again, that study concluded that further study is needed. Then in 2019 and 2025, RTD was asked to produce the finishing fast tracks reports. This was looking at all of the unfinished fast tracks projects throughout the region. But as far as the L line goes, these 2019 and 2025 reports echoed those previous conclusions. We're still not really sure how we're gonna be able to complete that Downing Street extension. We're not sure how it could be funded. And so once again, the can was kinda kicked down the road that this really needs further study. And so that brings us to where we are today. We DOTI staff are working really closely with RTD staff. The city is leading the project, but really working side by side with RTD on this to develop a solution for both Welton and Downing as part of this Welton Next Steps project or plan. So here's our project timeline, and this is split into kind of what we've accomplished so far over there in the yellow. The purple is the extent of our current contract, the $964,000 contract that I mentioned that will take us from the beginning of planning through preliminary design. Then this timeline also kind of shows the bigger picture. So after this plan wraps up, we would still need to seek funding before we can go into design and construction of the final solution for Welton. So I won't go into like every single detail here, but I've got a few key things I want to point out. So in the spring, before we formally kicked off our full contract, we did some early engagement and vision and goals development with the community. So during this time, we formed a community advisory group by seeking neighborhood representatives and liaisons to help us start with some of the early engagement. We did do a public meeting and put out a survey seeking input from folks and concluded by determining vision and goals for the corridor to really set the foundation for the project. We also wanted to make sure early on that this was communicated to RTD, so we delivered that to RTD as a preliminary kind of deliverable as well. So where we are right now in summer 2026, the team is working really fast on kind of both the existing conditions phase and the alternatives analysis phase at the same time. And we're really gearing up to, RTD needs to make a decision this fall about how they'll proceed with their downtown rail replacement project, which is, intended to come to Welton Street. So again, we've been working really closely with RTD staff to make sure we're in lockstep here and planning to present the results of our alternatives analysis, screen one, to the RTD board at the end of September. So I'll touch a little bit more on what exactly that means later on, but that's like the phase we're in and the big deadline that we're working towards right now. Once we wrap up existing conditions and the first phase of our alternatives analysis, we will go into a second alternatives analysis phase where we're honing in on a real preferred solution. And then, as I mentioned, the contract will wrap up with preliminary design probably around next summer. I think that's all I wanted to hit on there. Jump to the next slide. So this is just a more granular update of what's really happening right now. So like I mentioned, we wrapped up that preliminary engagement phase in the spring. We did produce an engagement summary that documents the finalized vision and goals that's available on our project webpage. We've shared that with our TD and our stakeholders as well. And then we have gotten tons of questions from constituents about this project, so we have a really robust FAQ and our project webpage, too. Secondly, in the middle here, that full consultant contract has kicked off. So we have a great project team led by HDR working on existing conditions, alternatives, and our initial alternative screening right now. And then we have just launched our second engagement phase. Actually, last night, we had a community advisory group meeting. I think it went really well. And we're gearing up for a public meeting that'll be next week. So during the second engagement phase, we're focused on kind of sharing the results from the phase one, so confirming or sharing our final vision and goals with everyone, and then presenting the draft alternatives and results of the first screening for feedback. Great. So on the next slide, just a little bit more about that contract that I mentioned. So we have a project team led by HDR working on this. They've put together a good group of folks who have some close connections with the community. So you might see some... familiar faces from our community there. And their contract includes pretty typical planning tasks, some of the things that I've talked about already. Important to note out, they'll also be doing some environmental analysis, financial strategy as well. All right, so this slide really talks about what we're in the thick of right now, which is our alternatives analysis. And the way the team is doing this is through an initial screening and then a second screening. So where we're at right now is trying to put out like all the what ifs on the table, like what if it was, you know, like a gondola or what if it was an autonomous shuttle or, you know, what if you put light rail here or what if you put, you know, you change the light rail to a bus or a streetcar. Like we're really trying to kind of get all the ideas out on the table right now. And then the team has developed a methodology for screening all of those different modes and configurations. So they're evaluating each alternative based on its ability to achieve the project goals and then scoring and narrowing things out from there. From there we'll develop kind of like formal alternatives so that in our next phase in our screen to analysis maybe we've honed down to like three or four really clearly defined alternatives that we'll do a much more detailed analysis on, go through another public engagement phase and from there determine our preferred alternative. This slide talks about our engagement strategy for this project. Obviously, this is a really complex political project and requires a very structured and intentional engagement strategy. We start all of our engagement as an initial touch point with a group that we're calling our Commitment Circle. So this is essentially groups from both DOTI, RTD Leadership, Councilman Watson as well, who's been really involved, to make sure that we are starting from a place where DOTI and RTD Leadership are in agreement on what we are studying, what we are putting out to the community, making sure that what we're sharing in these options for community is something that's actually feasible and makes sense. So that's where we start. And then we go to our community advisory group, like I mentioned. So this is essentially our stakeholder group for the project. And they've got a couple roles. One of them is to just help check our message. Is what we're saying making sense? And then we're also getting some initial feedback from them. So like I mentioned, for this phase that we're in right now, we met with our CAG last night. They gave us a lot of good input on, you know, you guys forgot about this, or, you know, we're really glad you included this. So once we go to our community advisory group, we're also planning to work with community-based outreach partners, or CBOPs. This is a strategy that DOTI has used on projects in the last couple years where we actually compensate members of the public to help us spread the word about the message of the project, making sure that we're really getting out there and encouraging folks to sign up for our public meetings and take the survey. Also, in our engagement strategy, we're planning to put together focus groups where we can have smaller conversations with groups that have more specialized needs. So this is kind of open-ended in our scope right now, depending on the needs that arise, but this gives us a place to have conversations with groups like transit-dependent riders, small business owners, and whatever might come up. And then, of course, we'll be hosting public meetings, like the one next week, and putting out questionnaires or surveys to collect public input. So like I mentioned again and again, we do have a public meeting next week. I have a full social media package that I'd be happy to distribute to your aides and anyone across the city who's willing to help us distribute the information. We really wanna emphasize that while Welton, the Next Steps project is really rooted in community and we have a community advisory group that's steering the project, this is a project that will have a regional impact across the city. And we've heard from the community that they really want to see Welton become like a regional destination that folks from across Denver want to travel to. And so, you know, we really want to make sure that we are capturing feedback, not just from the close community around Welton and Downing, but across the city as well. And yeah, with that, once again, reminding that we have the public meeting coming up and I'm happy to take any questions.

Wonderful. Thank you. Excited for that public meeting. We'll definitely share. I would say probably all council aides send that too in case anybody wants to send it out. And we'll start with the council member from the Fine District 9 over here on your left.

Thank you so much, committee chair. I just wanted to start quickly and thank Phoebe. Phoebe has been such a great kind of facilitator of this entire process. Many of us have been in community having these discussions since the 90s. And so there's not just the material process of moving a dialogue forward. It's the emotional process of the connection folks have had going through five different plans and five different meetings getting input. And I just wanted to elevate and applaud you for really your ability to work through all of that. the factual pieces of it, the engineering and the Dottie piece of it, and then the human level piece and making sure that we have the right folks in the room and the management of it. So you've done an amazing job with that and David as well. I want to thank you so much for providing that overarching continuity with the most recent Denver area plan and the ideas on Welton that are in that plan that you were a part of and then also making sure you're scaling it. to this current process. To the CAG members that may be watching, once again, volunteers doing this work are volunteers. Right now, the CAG members are not compensated. We get delicious, lovely, unhealthy pizza, which is great. They keep us up at those meetings. They're volunteering, and many of them have been in years of these discussions as well. A lot of history is on that CAG team, so I want to applaud them. I want to applaud RTD. RTD didn't have to be involved in this, and when I say RTD, I mean the individuals that work for RTD. There are individuals that are on the RTD board that's been involved in it, and there are actually individuals running for RTD that's been involved in it throughout. None of those groups, those tranches of RTD needed to be involved, but they've been involved throughout. And obviously, the staff from Omdadi, Livable Cities, and HDR. So I wanted to start there. I want to say to my colleagues, this process is still ongoing. I mean, this is a scaled process of work that the engineers are looking at that first alternative. And we're going to be presenting some ideas to the community next week. I am very curious as to questions that you all have to make sure we're incorporating that into the questions we have within our fact sheets and make sure that we are competent to communicate the answers to those at least at some level at the meeting next week. So I just want to start with a little speechifying but I thought it was important to know that this has been a village and you all are doing a great job at least in this first iterative step. That's it, committee chair.

Wonderful, thank you. We'll go after Councilman Haynes.

Thank you, committee chair. Director Guzman, thank you for being here. I figured since the presentation talked about RTD and Councilmember Watson talked about the board, would you have interest to be willing to kind of share your thoughts on the community engagement process?

Thank you, Councilor Hines. Yes. Let us know who you are. I am Michael Guzman, RTD Director for District C, which encompasses North and West Denver from Five Points all the way down to Westwood. And so I want to make sure that I begin with the fact that all of this work on Welton Corridor affects a much larger system and connectivity throughout the city. And so unlike the last major decision-making process around, for example, Park Hill golf course and what we were gonna do with that as a city and everybody leaned in and looked at what Park Hill residents wanted, This one's a little bit different because there are other impacts that will happen throughout the RTT system and other areas of the city. And the interconnectivity that is required for future plans, for example, the National Women's Soccer League Stadium or Burnham Yard with the Denver Broncos, can be impacted by a decision like this. Generally speaking, We look at our neighborhoods. They know our neighborhoods best, right? I would be involved if it were in Sunnyside where I live. I am currently involved in Lincoln-La Alma with the Burnham Yard conversations because I grew up there. And I bring a different type of expertise with transportation and considerations of cultural identity, history, and the impacts that transportation have in those communities. Thank you for the invitation to the CAGs because it's been really a good experience to sit and listen to some of those concerns and address some of them to bring along the right staff from RTD to lean into the conversations and not shy away from them. I would suggest one thing as an outside observer to neighborhoods around Welton Corridor, but also overseeing it as an RTD director. And that is the way we speak about these projects. And language is important because it can influence and it can intend a specific or desired outcome that may not be what we're trying to do. We're trying to figure out where we're at at a base level. And I think when we talk about things like, you know, what is possible, that's important, but also when you talk about the idea of what recommendations look like, relying on certain statistics and data, some that came from RTD, certainly, in our Fast Tracks report. There's a lot of information in there, and it has advanced over time, but I would also remind the Council and the community that we were given strict instructions by the legislature to focus on two parts, and this was not included. This particular line was not included in the legislation for what we were to look at for continuing Fast Tracks build-outs. It is included in the fast tracks report because it's one of four lines that are not complete yet. And so I think we need to talk about that and the relationship between the city council's allowance and our intergovernmental agreement, memorandums of understanding about the right of way and the usage of the right of way that belongs ultimately to the city and that we are simply running transportation on it. We don't have any other vested interest other than making sure everything is safe and secure. Finally, I would say this. To all of you, consider that this is the oldest rail, the oldest piece of rail infrastructure in the city that is part of the light rail design. It was the first inaugurated line that was running and in service and it is in need of repair. We have the money to do the full depth reconstruction and rebuild right now. We have delayed it at the request of the mayor and the city council. During this project, we have worked on Colfax, Kalamath, intercity blocks, the intersections in downtown, and we have partnered with you as well as we can. But we need to make a decision, probably should have made this decision sooner than September, to be perfectly honest in terms of contracting and the amount of money that's been put forward from RTD about this. We do have to make a decision and either move forward with the reconstruction so that it is safe and reliable. All things that came out of the community agreement or the community meeting and advisory group to enhance our transportation and infrastructure to keep it going forward. And with the future plans of the city, do we do that for five years? Do we not do anything? making it unreliable and furthermore unsafe? Or do we look for 30 years of infrastructure and how we can make that work and consider the remaining little bit that needs to be done, which is less than a mile, less than one mile of track infrastructure that could be put into connected to 38th and Blake and the A line and the Total economic value of doing that would be immense, I believe, to not only Five Points, Walton Corridor, downtown, but also provides the connections to our plans for the future in the city. And following Mayor Mike Johnston's lead on this at his last State of the City address, he talked about the mile-high line and the importance of connectivity. And getting from projects in the south end of the city to the airport in the far northeast is going to be a consideration. And there are only so many ways to do that on congested streets where we do not have public transportation as a reliable, safe service. Thank you.

Thank you, Director. Councilmember Watson, you mentioned adding things to the frequently asked questions. I don't know if this is... I don't want to... Well, I believe that Denver is the city in the West. We don't have the mass transit options solutions that New York City has because they have far more density, population density, and they have the history of the subway system. We don't have even like Boston because Boston's been around for a long time and it used to be a higher priority to have kind of mass transit systems. Out in the West, you staked your claim and you did whatever you wanted with the claim and that's in some ways part of why we are more car dependent in Denver and in the West. I think it checks so many boxes for us to have a value of getting people out of single occupant vehicles. And I think we've had these conversations in the past. So I would say the value statement for me is how do we make sure that we have the mode shift without trying to spike the punch of the consideration process. As long as we're moving in the direction of giving people viable alternatives to single occupant vehicles, I think we're moving in the right direction. So exactly how that's implemented, well, that's why we have you, city staff, that's why we have a whole bunch of volunteers working on this too. A third of households in Cap Hill don't own cars at all. Uptown, same thing. City Park West, 37% of households don't own cars at all. So some of them are making an economic choice because they barely afford rent. So that second expense of a vehicle, usually the... The biggest expense for an individual or household is housing. And then second, it's transportation. And so some people are just saying, I'm just not going to spend any money on transportation just because I can't afford it. And then people in Congress Park, they make the decision not to have a car because they want to minimize their impact on the planet. And so this being able to connect to have a hub and spoke system, which is what we've, you know, we and RTD both have elected to do. RTD with buses and trains and us with the highway system. I guess that's the federal government too. But I'd love that we are considering how do we How do we make a decision? Because we've been using another transportation analogy. We've been on a plane circling the airport. Eventually, we have to land. No.

Come on.

We've got to find a new head of our airport, too. But that's a different conversation. but uh but yeah we've gotta we've gotta eventually land the plane because um because we've got deferred maintenance that's uh you know that we've gotta you know use it or lose it and we've got a community that we can you know our planet keeps getting hotter because we keep among other things driving around and single occupant vehicles so i'm just really um interested in and thank you for having the tough conversation because the last Last time, the time before that, the time before that, it was an asterisk. You know, like, let's look at it later. So now it's that later. Thank you, Committee Chair.

Thank you, Councilman Hines. And Council President on line would like to have the floor. It's yours.

Here. Trying to come up. Oops, here I am. Hi. Thank you. Madam chair. I actually, my question was answered in slide 9 and I appreciate the additional texture that you provided for what that scope of work would be with the contractor and doing that community outreach for the corridor. So I'm good with my question. I just have 1 statement of when. When it's been mentioned a few times of how long this line has been in place, I was an intern that was working with one of the organizations that was doing the outreach along Welton before the light rail was put into place. And so that was a long time ago. It was a long time ago when I was very young. But yeah, I mean, I think it's kind of a full circle moment for me to go, gosh, we're still talking about it because those were some of the original conversations that were happening way back then as far as the connectivity and the future and possibility of expanding and connecting that line. And so, as I mentioned in slide nine, I just appreciate that you're going to look at multiple Strategies for what connection looks like. So it's not tied to maybe just 1 solution, but that you're going to be open to what those recommendations are. That's all I have for you, but thank you. Madam chair.

Awesome. Thank you, Council President. I'll turn it over to Councilman Flynn.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Director Guzman actually responded or talked about what my issue was, and that's the connectivity at 38th and Blake, because that was part of the original Fast Tracks plan. And like the Council President, I have a long history of involvement covering this when it first opened in 94. And being familiar with Jack McCroskey, who was the chair of the board at RTD at the time, And this was his dream, the MAC, the Metro Area Connection. But it only went from the 30th and Downing to the Auraria campus at first, and then got extended to I-25 and Broadway, then the Southwest Corridor. So it kind of grew from this little one mile piece of track that now we're debating over. When I covered the fast tracks that worked on the a-line as communications manager on the project the Eagle project We set aside a piece of ground there right at the platform for the light rail trains to come in and park and so I hope that we continue to make use of or that we do not lose track of, no pun intended, the need to make a good connection there to the airport train from that part of downtown, that part of Five Points neighborhood. So I look forward to the recommendations. My heart is broken that The birthplace of light rail is subject to so much scrutiny and debate right now. My neat little OCD mind wants to keep it light rail. But this is the 2020s, not the 1990s. And the needs are different. So I'm really looking forward to the debate. It's not mine to have. If I were to use light rail, as I do, because I have a lifetime RTD pass, having worked there and retired from there, I would not pass through the Welton Corridor. I would come up the southwest and the central corridor and Union Station. And so I look forward to your constituents making their voices heard and yours as well, Councilman Haynes.

I'll say one quick point, Committee Chair, since the Councilmember's looking at me. I want to be clear. Every discussion, even before the discussions began, has been about connectivity. That last mile, like I said, there is a good chunk of the folks who are on that community advisory group, the folks who met at the first town hall meeting, the folks who have been fully involved. They got involved way back in the 90s when the initial promise, the initial hope of the connection from 30th and Downing to where the future A-Line is at. Actually, the line was supposed to go up MLK and folks It was a hoopla. There was noise. There was screaming. So that never happened, but it became where it's at there. These folks have been involved. We will not have a solution that does not include connectivity, whether it's to the A-line or other places. So that is fully involved, fully vetted, and it's in the blood, the thoughts, the minds of the folks on Welton. So make sure folks fully get that. That is essential to this discussion. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. I do have a couple questions. One of them is, you know, we are the city and you are Dottie, and so any recommendations that we come up with, how does that work with working with a different entity, which is RTD, which we do not directly govern?

So again, David Krutzinger, Transit Director, and I appreciate Director Guzman's well-spoken words about safety. What we're looking at here is to maintain the continuity of safety going forward. We're also looking out for the safety of our residents who've been asking us for 15 years to look at the safety of Welton relative to traffic. And so we'd like to be able to work alongside RTD to improve both parts of our safety equation, keep the rail safe and improve the safety of the travel lanes for our residents. We know that RTD is planning to replace their light rail vehicles in about 10 years with a lower floor model. So that gives us an opportunity to align future investments in the Welton corridor with Denver's investments. And I think that's our path forward is to continue to create a solution with Denver and with RTD that will answer and ring both bells, if you will, of safety and community.

I appreciate that. I guess to be more direct, who gets to make the decision? Is it this body? Is it RTD? Who's going to decide what's going to happen with the rail?

This body makes decisions about how we use our right-of-way and RTD will make decisions about their contractor.

And the IGA, that is currently in effect until what year does it go? What's the timeline on it?

The IGA that we have with RTD for these funds goes through the end of this study, as Phoebe was saying, so through 2027.

But for the right-of-way, is there a timeline agreement for the right-of-way, or is that...

There's not an expiration date on the right-of-way. Okay, interesting. It's all about where we as a community would like the light rail to sit, and there's a pretty strong opinion from our businesses and residents that it would, if it remains rail, that it should be moved over a couple of feet to provide more space for green trees, landscaping, sidewalks, and patio space for businesses, just like we have in downtown Denver. So if that continues to be the outcome, RTD hadn't planned on replacing any of the overhead electrical systems or the poles that hold it up at this time. Those are all future investments. So that's where I say if it continues to be in the best interest and the connectivity of the community to have that decision will be made as we go forward to move the guideway over.

Okay. And then I do have a question for Director Guzman on the RTD side of things. I'm curious, you said there's funds to fix or to make repairs currently that RTD has? Yes. And what would happen to those funds if the decision together was not to do that?

Okay. So Michael Guzman, RTV District C. I speak on my own countenance here as a director and understanding the process we've been through. So just need to say that I'm not speaking on behalf of the board. Yes, there are funds. We had a match and a federal grant to do a full reconstruction rebuild of our oldest light rail tracks. And so that money was The decision was put forward, the grant was received I believe in 23, the board allocated funds in the 2024 budget and then approved and allocated funds to do a rolling construction design build plan going forward. And so there's a bit of a time limit because of our board fiscal policy, but also we need to match the funds. So we did that on behalf of all of our constituents here in the downtown Denver area. to work in complement with what is going on with downtown Denver rehabilitation, getting the neighborhood back up and working through downtown. That said, yes, the money is for a full depth rebuild and reconstruction. That was our grant language. And so if we do not do that, we could potentially face an issue with the grant that we received. So that has been the plan, continues to be the plan. We only delayed doing Welton Corridor. at the request of the city while we worked on other parts. And so that's fine. We were able to get two through four done, I believe. We're working on the first section was planned to be Welton. The last section was planned to be the intercity blocks. We're doing that currently. So now the last section will be Welton. If we do not do this, the likelihood of us having to return money to the federal government for not doing what we anticipated doing is real. What that looks like now, I don't have the totals in front of me. I was looking for the information now while I was searching my resources. I don't have them available. I can follow up. But we would lose, at this point, millions of dollars that we have invested in planning, in engineering, in legal services, and in contracts to continue this project and finish it on a rolling basis and part of that money would from RTD specifically whatever was left over would then probably need to be returned to the federal government unless there was a way to adjust some part of it and so the the strike while the iron's hot hit my head while Mr. Kritzinger was talking If it's a matter of feet, that is also probably possible in the development of that corridor. I would look to my team to provide further answers and communication on that. The idea that we're completely reconstructing and rebuilding, you've seen on the 16th Street Mall at California, I think in that stout, we're literally tearing the entire infrastructure out and putting brand new stuff back in, right? Whether it's drains, the ballasts, pouring concrete, making sure that we have everything built up the way we need it to survive another 30 years. A matter of feet. I don't know. I don't see why that would be an issue. But I do know that if we do not do the work that we intended, which is a complete reconstruction and rebuild, we will lose the funding that we were granted unless we have a way to administer that with our FTA partners.

Great, thank you.

Madam Elaborate, Committee Chair, I want to be clear. So the discussion on the maintenance and the timeline, I think the great partnership we've had with RTD, we've met with RTD leadership, RTD board members. The RTD leadership agreed with the timeline change, agreed with the maintenance spending, and the commitment has always been there will be maintenance along the Welton corridor. That will not change no matter what the alternative outcome is. We will have maintenance updates to the Welton Corridor. We have a very specific timeline that RTD provided and we are in regular, I would say twice a month discussion with RTD to make sure we meet that timeline. And we are well on board to hit that timeline. We have the timeline that RTD has provided. They are in full agreement. They signed a memorandum of understanding that having that delayed maintenance will have no impact on safety and the use of those dollars, that those funds will be available throughout the process. And so we are fully engaged to make sure that we hit the timeline set by RTD and that maintenance coming through the L line will be occurring while this process is continuing. I just at least wanted to make sure that that was clear.

Okay, thank you. I appreciate that clarification. Of course, you know, we're talking about small businesses and a very important cultural corridor. We saw, you know, what's happening on the BRT on Colfax. I've gone through things with the bike lane on Broadway. And are we planning on providing financial support regardless of what plan moving forward is to the small businesses that will be affected by any plan that we move forward on Wilton?

We do have small businesses in mind throughout the process. RTD's project, I do not believe, anticipates any stipends or payment to small business. Director Guzman spoke about the federal money. My understanding is that it's a very small percentage, $5 million on a $150 million project. total amount that RTD had put away, so it's a very small percentage of the overall amount. And speaking of opportunity costs, we don't want to overlook the opportunity costs that if we continue to ignore our small businesses who are saying that they need more space to be viable as businesses in the corridor, that we don't turn a deaf ear to that.

So what I'm hearing is no, there's not any set funding for these businesses during whatever plan of construction goes forward.

I wouldn't say that, no. That'd be up to a future council to put together a funding package and to offer in tandem with RTD to offer a council package of benefits similar to Colfax and some of the other projects that have gone through our bond office.

And committee chair, we will work with DETO as we do with any of these transportation. So nothing has changed within the RTD funding. There is not specific funding set aside for that. But Department of Economic Development, whenever we are doing transportation that has direct impact to any small business, those funds, the Bio Fund, the Business Improvement Opportunity Fund, and any additional funding or targets within the budgetary process that I will specifically put forward We'll assist, but we are nowhere near even a dialogue on that because right now it's simply next step study as far as 1st phase for what the alternatives are. Once that is determined, we will look at any impacts, whether it's impacts on pedestrians impacts on businesses.

and we'll mitigate through the city process but our td dollars are not identified to support businesses at this point nor the federal dollars but city process 100 um will be involved in that what we have is you know not a lot of money and the businesses on colfax i think would say that there wasn't enough there and any money we're having is going there i will say with the federal brt coming to federal it's a concern for me as well on that cdot project over there and so You know, I think, you know, it is a fine, District 9 is. We want to make sure that those businesses are supported through this process. I think, I know there's a JID. Is this covered in the JID area, Councilman?

This is part of the BID, the Business Improvement District. I think the line for the Art District JID is not including Welton Street. It may have pieces of Downing. I'm not really sure. I would have to determine that.

Yeah, well, I would just also hope and I know Councilman Watson is a huge advocate for his community is that with the sensitivity and the cultural importance of this area that we are mindful, whatever the outcome is in the future that we're, you know, trying to bring back the people that were identified out of this area and the businesses that were removed. I think when we talk about projects that help our districts, whether it's a bike lane or a light rail, we as a city think it's a good thing, but sometimes it has a negative impact on the communities that we're trying to help. And so wanting to make sure, and I know there's a lot of active voices in the area, but I will just re-emphasize and continue to ask that we're thinking about those things. I know for the CDOT project, we're doing a NIRSA study right now, thanks to that. And so I hope to see that kind of thoughtfulness also put into this area that we're putting into Federal Boulevard. And then I will also just say that the connectivity, again, is important. I think that's heard around the table and I'm sure that's your goal as well but I think definitely we both represent Broadway and there's not a very easy connection from District 7 to District 9 as I wish there would be I think that we have cultural similarities different but we both are you know we have different and beautiful music festivals and things happening and I would love to see that be more connected and for the city to feel more connected. And I think this is a point where we don't feel connected, where it's a challenge to get to and from. And so I'm hopeful. I know you have some amazing people on the advisory group. Are they brought into the conversations around the funding and all of these things as well?

Yes.

Okay, great. Well, thank you so much for doing this work. I know it's not easy and I look forward to having another update soon and sharing out the information that you're going to send us about the next meeting. So this was just a briefing. There are nine items on consent. So unless anyone wants to pull them off, we are adjourned. Thank you so much.