City Council - Regular Meeting

Weekly general session of your Denver City Council. Tonight's coverage of Denver City Council starts now.

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for taking the time to join us for Denver City Council's meeting. Tonight's meeting is being interpreted into Spanish. Sam or Jasmine, would you please introduce yourself and let our newer viewers know would you please introduce yourself and let our viewers know how to enable translation on their devices?

Yes. Of course. Thank you for having us. Hello, everyone. My name is Sam Guzman with the CLC joining you virtually through Zoom.

And tonight, along with my colleague Lynette, we will be interpreting today's meeting into Spanish. Please allow me a quick minute in in Spanish while I give the instructions on how to access interpretation. And thank you very much.

Very much, Sam. Welcome to the Denver City Council meeting on Monday, 05/18/2026. Council members, please join council member Watson and the pledge of allegiance.

Justice for all.

God,

Councilmembers, please join councilmember Watson as they lead us in the Denver City Council land acknowledgment.

The Denver City Council honors and acknowledges that the land on which we reside is the traditional territory of the Ute, Cheyenne, and Arapaho peoples. We also recognize the 48 contemporary tribal nations that are historically tied to the lands that make up the state of Colorado. We honor elders past, present, and future, and those who have stewarded this land throughout generations. We also recognize that government, academic, and cultural institutions were founded upon and continue to enact exclusions and erasures of indigenous peoples. May this acknowledgement demonstrate a commitment to working to dismantle ongoing legacies of oppression and inequities and recognize the current and future contributions of indigenous communities in Denver.

Thank you. Madam secretary, roll call.

Councilmember Tynes? Here. Lewis? Sawyer? Here. Haredi?

Here.

Alicia?

Is that Alvidres? Here. Alvidres?

Flynn? Here. Gilmore? Gonzalez Gutierrez? Here. Cashman? Here. Romero Campbell? Here. Torres? Here. Watson? Here. Madam president Sandoval? Here. 12 members present.

12 members present. City council has a quorum. Approval of the minutes. Are there any corrections to the minutes of May 11? Seeing none, the minutes stand approved. Council announcements. Are there any council announcements this afternoon? Councilman Gonzalez Gutierrez, start us off. Thank

you, council president. I think we all heard the news last Friday, and I I can't go without saying something about what happened and what our governor did. Jared Polis commuting the sentence of Tina Peters violates the role of clemency in our judicial system. This decision adds to a long pattern of polis working alongside Donald Trump. As we know, this is not the first time, and Colorado deserves better. That is why I look forward to his term as governor coming to an end in two hundred and thirty nine days or perhaps less. Thank you, madam president.

Thank you. Councilman Alvidrez.

Thank you, council president. I wanted to start by I know we said it last year last week, but happy belated birthday to councilwoman Torres. Thanks. Because this Monday was closer, so I wanted to say it again. And I also just wanted to thank the mayor's bicycle advocacy committee for committee for a great ride on Saturday. We rode all around District 7. It was a lot of fun. I highly recommend if you're able to join to join when they do your district, but it was great fun, a gorgeous day, and we got to also visit some locals and businesses. Thanks. You. Councilmember Watson?

Thank you, council president. This past weekend, we received a notice that judge Andre Rudolph is no longer with us. Lost his life. Judge Rudolph was a pillar within our community. Beyond being a judge, he was a good person and one that many of us have relied on and respected.

And so to his family and friends, to the the county judges judges that are I I think are having a tough, morning, our our city attorneys, anyone that's worked directly with judge Rudolph. Our hearts and thoughts go out to him and his family and also the legacies that he's left behind, the folks that he has helped, the young man that looks like me that really love seeing a judge, a young judge, standing before them and providing them opportunities for a better life. So once again, on behalf of my office, I would say maybe on behalf of the city council, we wish the the family and loved ones of judge Rudolph all the support they need. Wanna have one additional announcement. 56 year old, I love to run.

I ask folks for prayers for my knees because I love to do these long runs. I ran the Colfax half marathon this weekend, 13.1 miles. Survived. I made it. It was great, but there are 28,000 folks that also ran over this past weekend, which is phenomenal.

There are hundreds of nonprofits that were supported because of this run, And so many folks have put in so much energy. So to the Colfax Marathon team, staff, thank you for putting forward such a great event. To the neighbors that were impacted, streets had to be closed. Thank you for your patience. And for all the runners, get some rest, and thank you for going out there and demonstrating not just love for this sport, but also love for community with all the funds we're able to raise over this weekend. Thank you, madam president.

Thank you. Next up, we have pro tem Romero Campbell. Thank you, madam president.

Two things. I just wanna thank Denver Parks and Rec and Samuels Elementary School. We celebrated Arbor Day last Thursday. It was super fun. There were hundreds of elementary school kids. I thought was just gonna be third graders. It was like third, fourth, fifth graders all over the park. They got a chance to see, like, the cherry pickers and learn more about conservation. They did climbing. They even had ways for us to climb a tree, and I thought it was gonna be super easy, and it was not.

And I'm still sore from trying to climb a tree in Roseman Park. Try this on your own, but it was way fun. I thought it super high. It was, like, maybe four feet off the ground. But I just wanted to say thank you again to sophomore or not sophomore, to Samuels Elementary and to Denver Parks and Rec. And we are also having I think you've heard me talk about this, but the Wellshire is gonna celebrate a hundred years, and it's a it is a golf course that started out private and is now open to the public. It's the only only Donald Ross golf course that is public here West Of The Mississippi. But there's a little fact,

and they want me to

do this, so we're gonna just ask it. What iconic Denver landmark can you see from the eighth green? Red Rocks. Red Rocks, and we were just there. So Red Rocks is one of the beautiful, iconic landmarks that you can see. Thank you to the council members that are gonna have the opportunity to play with us, but a community will be held in the evening from five to 8PM. So come check it out. Come with us and celebrate. We'll have some bands, community bands playing and just an opportunity to just enjoy the Welshire. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, I forgot to tell you when. Yes. It's on June 5 in the evening, Wednesday. No.

That's a Friday, June 5. Sorry. Got my days mixed up.

Green, where what?

It is on I wanna say Wednesday. It's on Friday, June 5 from five to 8PM at the Wellshire. Thank you. Awesome.

Thank you. Next up, we have councilperson Gilmore.

Council president, wanted to make sure that the community had the announcement. The Aurora Regional Navigation Campus town hall is gonna be this Wednesday, May 20 from six until 7PM. It's at 4343 Airport Way. The Aurora Regional Navigation Campus is in Aurora. It's right across the street directly from the city and county of Denver, And the businesses along that corridor have had increased issues with folks experiencing large need and support in that corridor.

And so please come out, join us on Wednesday to get more information about what is being proposed and done for that corridor for both the clients at the regional navigation campus and the businesses that are along that chamber's 40th Corridor as well. And then on a note regarding governor Polis' actions regarding Tina Peters, it's a gross misjustice that he took the actions that he took. It's important that we continue to tell the truth and that we talk about what actually happened on January 6 and that that was a day of a insurrection that happened in our nation's capital. And I don't talk about it much, but being Denver City Council president during that time, we were prepared for armed militias to possibly take over the state capital, and we are right across the park from the state capital. And so it's not hard to find our addresses, etcetera.

There were security measures underway for council leadership because if we don't have the votes to conduct business of contracts do not move through the city council process. And so our democracy is very, very fragile, and for there to be a line about the severity of what happened, people died that day. And it is disgusting, and I hope that there are the full extent of what might be done to address that because it's important that we are on the right side of history, and we cannot morph the truth because knowing what we knew, there were reasons to be concerned, and that threat has not gone away. If anything, that threat has increased, and the rhetoric has to be clear on what we're doing and why we're doing it. And this was a total cave in of any elected official and should go down in history as that.

Thank you, council president. Thank you.

Just as a fun friendly reminder, Monday is Memorial Day, so that means city the City And County Of Denver is closed. City council meeting is canceled. All of our committees are canceled, so we convene again on June 1. I hope everyone has a great Memorial Day, and we remember those who have fought for liberties such as voting that we have. And I am also just disgusted with what happened with Tina Peters.

I just can't I can't even believe it. I I don't even know how the words for it. So thank you both for colleagues for saying something that I've had a hard time putting words to. In other news, parks and recreation is going around and asking city residents what they want for the next twenty, thirty years in their park in their rec centers. We are hosting one in Northwest Denver at Scheidler Rec Center or AKA Berkeley.

I don't know. I I call it Berkeley Pool. Saturday, May 30 from ten to twelve. So please check that out and come and tell Parks and Rec what you'd like to see in our rec centers for the next twenty to thirty years. Seeing no other announcements, there are no presentations. There is one communication being read this afternoon. Madam secretary, please read the communication.

Communication 26Dash0703,

general fund financial status report quarter one twenty twenty six. In a report provided to counsel on 05/14/2026, the Department of Finance shares that general fund revenue collected through 03/31/2026 is $289,481,245 This represents 17.4% of the original 2026 revenue projection. The city's general fund revenue projection for the remainder of the 2026 fiscal year is $1,374,847,276 as projected in the original twenty twenty six fiscal year city budget. The projected 2026 end unassigned fund balance of the general fund currently remains at $196,440,869 A detailed description of the financial accounting is available online or at the council desk.

Terry, the communication has been received and filed. There are no proclamations being read this afternoon. Madam secretary, please read the bills for introduction.

From the Community Planning and Housing Committee, 26 dash 0602, a bill for an ordinance designating 3535 East 26th Avenue Parkway as a structure for preservation. 26 dash 0608, a bill for an ordinance changing the zoning classification for 831 South Monaco Street Parkway in Washington, Virginia Vail. From the Finance and Business Committee, 26 dash zero five nine seven, a bill for an ordinance approving a proposed agreement between the city and county of Denver and the state of Colorado acting by and through the Colorado Department of Labor and in in employment to fund training and employment of residents of the Colorado Rural Workforce Consortium citywide. 20 six-six 33, a bill for an ordinance approving a proposed cooperation agreement between the City and County of Denver and Denver Urban Renewal Authority for the Rasonian tax increment area and sales tax increment area to establish, among other matters, the parameters for tax increment financing with incremental property and sales taxes in Council District 9. 26 dash zero six three four, a bill for an ordinance approving an amendment to the Welton Corridor urban redevelopment plan to add the Rasonian project and to create the Rasonian project property and sales tax increment areas.

And from the health and safety committee, 26 dash zero five nine zero, a bill for an ordinance approving a proposed amendatory revenue agreement between the city and county of Denver and Colorado Department of Human Services Behavioral Health Administration to provide funds for substance use disorder, mental health treatment, jail medicated assisted treatment, and pre sentence reentry to Denver City jails citywide.

Thank you, madam secretary. Councilmembers, this is your last opportunity to call out an item. Council member Watson, will you make the motions for us this evening?

Yes, council president Sandoval.

Thank you. I'll do a recap. Under resolutions, council resolution zero six zero zero has been called out for postponement pursuant to rule 3.6 by council member Flynn. Council resolution zero five zero three has been called out for comments by council member Parity. Council resolution zero five seven eight, zero five seven nine, zero five eight zero, and zero five eight one have been called out in a block for comments by council member Parity, and council resolutions zero five zero four, five zero five have been called out for questions and comments by council member Gonzales Gutierrez and council member Alvidrez, Alvidrez, and for questions and comments and a vote by council member Parity.

Under bills for introduction, no items have been called out. Under bills for final consideration, no items have been called out. Under pending, no items have been called out. Madam secretary, please put the first item on our screens. Council resolution zero six zero zero, a resolution approving a proposed contract between the city and county of Denver and Matrix Design Group for landscape architecture, planning, design, and related services citywide. Council member Flynn, what would you like to do with council resolution zero six zero zero?

Thank you, madam president. I need to hold this over under rule 3.6 for a one week delay, which actually, to the next meeting, which will be in two weeks. On June 1. Yes. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. No motion is required. It's resolution zero six zero zero has been postponed to Monday, June 6. Is that right? I thought it was June 1. Isn't our next council meeting June 1, madam secretary? Yeah. It's June 1. Yeah. Okay.

No motion is required and has been postponed to Monday, 06/01/2026. Madam secretary, please put the next item on our screens. Council resolution zero five seven eight, a resolution approving the appointment of Donna Lurie to the permanent panel of arbitrators created by city council pursuant to charter section nine point ten point four c onto the permanent panel of mediators created by city council pursuant to charter section nine point ten point seven b. I don't know what it means when you put how to say it in brackets. Council resolution zero five seven nine and resolution approving the appointment of Jay Bailey to the permanent panel of arbitrators created by city council pursuant to charter section 9.4 c and permanent panel mediators created by city council pursuant to charter section nine point ten point seven b.

Council resolution zero five zero eight, a resolution appointing approving the appointment of Mark Travis to permanent panel of arbitrators created by city council pursuant to charter section nine point ten point four point c and to the permanent panel of mediators created by city council pursuant to charter section nine point ten point seven b. Council resolution zero five eight one, a resolution approving the appointment of Gina Nova to the permanent panel of arbitrators created by city council pursuant to charter section nine point ten point four c and to the permanent panel of mediators created by city council pursuant to charter section nine point ten point seven b. Council member Parity, please go ahead with your comments on council resolutions zero five seven eight through zero five eight one.

It's dropped off.

I apologize. Can I

be heard? Yes. We can That

was a very inopportune moment for my, for my Zoom to drop me off. Thank you for reading all of those, council president. I called these off just for two quick reasons. One, I wanna be, I'm grateful that, we have this panel of arbitrators in place, and that we'll now have a a good number of people to start, working through any disputes that arise as our city union as our city workers start to exercise their rights as they've been doing. And I also wanna thank the three mediators and arbitrators who have been appointed from the get go.

They've really been helping everybody involved get these processes set up for folks. I'm grateful to my council colleagues and the council member Torres for working to approve council providing a sort of a bridge to pay for the administrative expenses that those arbitrators have had, because those weren't in any city agency's budget. And so we're covering that from our council budget, and I'm grateful for all of that. And then mostly, I just wanna say that the city charter change passed in 2024 with a resoundingly high percentage of Denver rights in support of it. I think it was 76% of the vote, which is pretty remarkable.

We have now had employees who have filed, took foreign bargaining units, including our library workers who really were part of the driving force behind the, this ballot initiative passing in the first place, that have been waiting for over five months for these processes to begin. And so that's there's been a lot of work happening, but I just want to encourage all city leaders and everyone involved, to make sure that now that we have arbitrators in place and everything else that we're really moving as quickly as we possibly can to start these processes. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, we have madam secretary, please put the next item on our screens. Council resolution zero five zero three, a resolution approving proposed mandatory agreement between the city and county of Denver and ServiceSource Inc to fund the Denver Day Works program providing participant wages and support staff salaries and program operations citywide. Council member council member Parity, please go ahead with your comments on council resolution zero five zero three.

Thank you, madam president. I wanted to recognize that the Denver Day Works program, it's fairly unique in Denver. It provides day labor employment services and resource navigation specifically for people experiencing homelessness, and it's actually our only workforce program in the city that we fund for unhoused people. It's now operated by ServiceSource, which used to be under the name of Bayaud. They staff case managers, employment specialize and worksite supervisors.

And the day later, our operations now primarily occur at what what used to be known as all in mile high communities, so at those particular, shelter locations. So, the city funding for this service has been flat at $750,000 for the last five years. Last year, in the mayor's proposed budget, this was cut entirely. Council restored that through a budget amendment, that I sponsored, I believe, with council member Lewis. And I think it's very good that we did that because, now after Trump's gutting of Medicaid in the big bill, whatever that thing, HR one from last year, unhoused people are going to be required in many instances to meet work requirements in order to keep access to Medicaid, which is also how we, basically pay for health care services at shelter sites is, largely through Medicaid reimbursement.

And so if we if those folks lose access to Medicaid coverage, then we will have a problem together with, CCH, which staff these sites, the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless. We will have a big issue in, being able to get people their medical care because we don't have other budgets for that, obviously. So Denver Day Works is really crucial to people meeting those work requirements, retaining their Medicaid, and it's very well worth the investment to do that. And if anything, we may I know we're in another flat budget year, but it's something that really we should be growing over time. It would save us all all of these systems a lot of money in the long run. Thank you.

Thank you. Madam secretary, please put the next item on our screens. Council resolution zero five zero four. A resolution approving a proposed agreement between the city and county of Denver and AFL Maintenance Group Incorporated to provide janitorial services for group five citywide, excluding Denver International Airport. Council resolution zero five zero five, a resolution resolution approving approving a proposed agreement between the city and county of Denver and CCS Facility Services Colorado Inc to provide citywide janitorial services specifically for groups one, two, three, four, and six citywide excluding Denver International Airport.

Council member Watson, would you please put council resolutions zero five zero four and zero five zero five on the floor for adoption in a block?

Yes, council president. I move that council resolutions two six zero five zero four and two six zero five zero five be adopted in a block.

It has been moved. And seconded. Questions by comment questions and comments by members of council. Council member Gonzales Gutierrez.

Thank you, madam president. Myself and and councilwoman Parity's office and councilwoman Alvideres' office had an opportunity since committee where these contracts came before us in finance and business because we were outreached by by some of the the employees. And, you know, we wanted to make sure we were giving everybody the same amount of opportunity and time for conversation, and we heard some very serious concerns coming from some of the janitorial staff impacted by the recent contracting changes. Some of these things include issues of lack of communication, unstable hours, fear of retaliation, unclear oversight, unclear payment cadence, and potential violations of transition protections. You know, I think we we talked about this in committee.

We asked asked questions about what that ninety day transition is, what is in our current code, making sure that there is an equitable transition, that there is transparency. With that, I do have some questions because I believe we're joined by many folks here today that may be able to answer these questions because it just led it led me to additional questions even coming out of committee. So some of those, I think, some of these will be for at the new contractors are here. Great. I do wanna ask you, whoever is here from from the any of the new contractors, how will you guarantee compliance with the ninety day retention requirements?

Because we're hearing concerns that there are some folks that perhaps aren't being provided that or that there's no compliance with that. Can you tell me how you will guarantee that compliance? Yeah.

Hi. Good afternoon. My name

is Jesus Garrero. I'm a regional vice president with CCS Facility Services. And how are we gonna be in compliance with the ninety days ordinance, I mean, on retention? We've been meeting with all of the different groups and since we took over this contract. And before that, we end up having meetings with all of the employees and assuring that they are keeping their jobs, their hours, and their benefits.

1100%. Again, one one thing that we've been discussing, I mean, with the directors, it's specifically on the hours. And, because, as you know, they had some hour hour reductions on the past years. I mean, and they were concerned thinking that they will be keeping those hours. We're keeping the hours that they had previous to this contract as it is right now, and we are retaining all of the employees. The only people that we did not retain is some of those employees that they decide to retire. Other than that, everybody staying with CCS and Alpha Green, that that is our subcontractor.

Okay. So that everyone has been able to maintain employment currently? Yes, ma'am. Okay. And you said that the hours cut were there have been no cut hours?

No. Okay.

So that's where it gets a little bit tricky because I think they're hearing opposite of that. And then I don't know if there's an explanation for that of why we're hearing

There there is some confusion for sure. I mean, and and even with confusion, as you know, I mean, when we got the contract and the hours that we bid, I mean, for the contract, it was specific hours on that contract when we went and confirmed those hours with the employees. Some of the employees are saying we used to have six hours. We have three hours and things like that. As it is right now, I mean, we've been telling all of the employees that they are keeping their hours that they had previous to our contract with CCS.

And going back to the directors that we've indeed working with, I mean, we are telling them that we're keeping all of those hours regardless if it's going a little bit over budget based on what it was contract. And some of those specifics, I'm gonna talk about the library. When we took over the library, we the budget was three hundred hours that they got, I mean, on the budget, it's but they needed six hundred hours. But we work with Kevin right away in order to for him to submit a letter, I mean, and a request, I mean, for more hours. And but, again, since day one, we keep all of the employees with the hours that they have.

Okay. And I guess going forward, are you all committed that the wages and scheduled hours will not be reduced during or even after the transition happens?

That that is correct.

So you're

the ninety days?

So we we are committed to the hours that we do have in the service agreement.

Okay. And what are those?

There are specific hours for each one of the buildings. So so one thing that we've been I I think that what we've been doing is educating the employees on the hours that they have. They they were thinking that they will have the previous hours previous to this contract, that they are maintaining the hours, I mean, that they had when, again, on this transition. We are not cutting any hours right now.

Okay.

I would say one of the concerns that came up was that some of these folks are having to take on extra jobs because of they've lost hours of work.

I guarantee that there is no hours that have been cut.

Okay. Alright. Thank you so much. I appreciate your time. I have a couple questions for our general services. Thank you, director. You so much. Yeah.

Good evening. Katrina Gibson, executive director of general services.

Thank you. Can you tell me and I know we talked a little bit about this in committee as well, but I just wanna make sure we're clear crystal clear on this, How the city is going to verify that contractors are meeting the retention, wage, and anti retaliation requirements? Yes.

And so I have brought my team here as well as we've been meeting with city attorney's office to share in that information. So if one of my partners from the team would like to come in and discuss that with regards to city attorney's office, and then I wanted to also elaborate with regards to the hours and the budget as well. Yeah.

Yeah. Thank you. Kimi Joly. I'm the director of administration with general services. Can you just state your question one more time?

Yeah. How is the city working to verify contractors are meeting retention, wage, and anti retaliation requirements? Great. Thank you for that.

So we have been discussing internally with our facilities management team about how they are going to be tracking everything with regards to the ordinance because this is fairly new to us. This will be the first time that we are actually implementing the ordinance with a service agreement. So they are working on a tracking tool to ensure that they are checking in with payroll records and the invoices that we are getting to track compliance with the ninety days and retention of those employees. So that is in process right now and unfortunately our director had a previous time off so he couldn't be here to discuss that process. But we're also in close communication with our city attorney that supports general services to talk about any sort of prevailing wage concerns that come up.

I know that there has been a question about that. So we are with them and learning a little bit along the way. As I said, the, you know, the transition in this ordinance, we're sort of learning along along the way. But we are reaching out to all of those partners to understand that better, how we can track it internally. And then we definitely have a good relationship with, both of the new vendors. Excuse me. You just heard from CCS. We also have AFSG, in the audience as well if you'd like to, hear from them. And then, we have members of the SEIU Local one zero five here that we've been working very closely with on any sort of, complaints or or issues or anything that they're hearing from their membership as well.

So with that so with the complaints that maybe, you know, they're coming through or not, are there mechanisms in place for workers to report violations from the employer to the city? I guess, if especially, like, once one during the ninety day transition, but then

after? After?

Yeah. I would not say that we have a formalized process right now, but I think that is something that we can work with our facility management teams on that. But there is language within the ordinance about that specific ninety days, but we would encourage not only those workers to reach out to us directly, but if they don't know how to, then we would also recommend that they go through the union as well so they can have a unified voice whenever they're coming to this city with their concerns. We do have some regular meetings that we're setting up with the SEIU to understand a little bit more about any sort of issues that may be coming up. So that's a that's a very recent new thing that we've we've begun.

And I will maybe ask SEIU in just a second because I have one more question I wanted to ask you. Is there confidence that the contractors have the capacity to manage these the buildings if there's already some gaps that we're hearing? At least that's what we're hearing on the ground is that there's some gaps in this transition. Sure. And I know I had asked this question even in my one on one around the fact that they don't currently have the capacity, and, obviously, that's why there is this ninety day transition so that workers could then move into these under these new contractors. Mhmm. But do we believe that they will have the capacity, I guess, when this is all said and done, to be able to manage the needs of the buildings?

Yeah. Thank you for the question. I do believe that both of the contractors have the capacity to carry out the functions that we identified through the proposal process. It went through a two tier approach whenever we looked at the evaluation. First, we had the actual scoring of the written proposals that occurred, and then we also had in person interviews for the three finalists. We talked about capacity and performance and the ability to support the city with the size and scale that we have here at the city.

You so much. You're I appreciate welcome. You. Doctor. Director Gibson, did you have something else you wanted to add?

As it relates

to the budget, know there's been a lot of questions around the fluctuation of the hours, and I believe that there was even a question at committee. I wanted to just highlight one that we've sent an updated question in response to all of the activity that's been happening since the committee meeting. And with that being said, general services oversees janitorial services for all of the city agencies. And so to much respect, we manage the budget specifically for general services and the facilities we oversee. However, there may be other agencies and departments that still fall underneath that contract that may have to adjust their hours.

I'm not saying that that's going to be a deliberate or for sure thing, but we do have to give flexibility in understanding that that may happen, especially given the very tight resource reality that we're having right now with regards to budget. We're doing everything in our power with regards to communication, good stewards, and commitments from our prime vendors as CCS as well as AFSG, and then making sure that we're having quarterly meetings with the local union to make sure that any sort of adjustments are known ahead of time, and we're putting plans in place to retain staff as best we can. So I just wanted to highlight that.

Thank you so much. If

I can have a representative from SEIU.

Good afternoon.

If you can go ahead and introduce yourself.

My name is Alejandra Aguilera. I am the director of property services for SEIU one zero five.

Thank you

so

much for being here. And I know I'd I'd asked for you to come up during committee as well, but just kind of hearing some of the concerns that have been brought to light. Just wanna know what is what kind of role is is SEIU playing in kind of hearing these types of concerns, and then how is that being brought to these contractors, and how is it being dealt with? How is it being remedied?

So thank you for asking. We have been in constant communication with the contractors. I've actually been in constant contact with CAMI as well on hours, off hours, to making sure that we are addressing any and all concerns with the workers. I really do believe that the delay in this process has caused a lot more chaos than not. The conversations we're having with workers about the the what if. Right? If tomorrow this happens, that that that happens, Jesse, our organizer, is actually assigned to this or this new contract. We have our leaders, our stewards as well, in separate buildings who are communicating with workers. Any issue that comes about, we are addressing it immediately to ensure that there's no communication lapse thereof or that we are having a follow through. What are the next steps?

And our bottom line is making sure that this contract transitions smoothly and that all these jobs are union.

Okay. And if there are workers that maybe aren't represented by the union or haven't, you know and for whatever reason, they or maybe they're maybe they haven't made a decision, can we provide information for them to ask something for you? Okay. Yes. We have

an MRC line, which is a member resource center. We also have flyers that we provide for other members for contact information either to their current new employers, to us, and to the member resource center as well.

Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. And then my last couple questions are for Denver Labor. I believe Matt Fritzmauer is online.

Matt,

I have a couple questions for Denver Labor. What mechanisms are in place for workers to safely report violations?

Yes. Thank you. Matt Fritzmauer, Denver auditor's office. There are a number of mechanisms in place. We will be doing prevailing wage compliance on these contracts and for these workers. We have prevailing wage complaint form online that they can fill out. We have an email address, wagecomplaints@Denvergov.org that they can contact. We are in close touch with SEIU one zero five, and I actually just emailed miss Aguilar to make sure she had my contact information. So we accept third party complaints and questions. Their union can reach out to us.

But, finally, we try to make it as easy on people as possible to have their rights enforced without having to take any risk and be the squeaky wheel. And so especially because we work in the web building, our prevailing wage analysts and investigators frequently do site visits. They talk to workers. They can do so in Spanish or English or any other language if we have a little bit of notice. And so we can always take anonymous and third party complaints complaints through our process, and we do a lot of proactive compliance as well.

Thank you so much for that, and thank you for being proactive. One other question that I have is around the retaliation piece. So what are there, if any, protections exist if workers are told that union involvement could result in them being terminated?

It it can be very fact dependent, but, typically, their recourse is to address the issue through their union's grievance and arbitration process or file a charge with the National Labor Relations Board. However, if there are wage issues involved where they are speaking up about alleged wage theft or wage violations, if they are just asking questions about their wages, making inquiries, and then there's retaliation potentially because of that, they can also file a complaint with our office using any of the methods that I talked about a few minutes ago.

Thank you so much, Matt. That's all my questions for now. Thank you, madam president.

Thank you. Next up, we have councilwoman Parody.

Just checking that everyone can hear me okay?

Yep.

Great. Thanks. Sorry. I've had problems with that recently, as you all know. I just by way of prelude for my questions, I just wanna explain that, I think a letter was just sent by general services to all of council, about the fact that workers came to the City And County Building for a meeting on May 15 as councilman Gonzalez Gutierrez referenced. And I just want everyone to know that, I reached out or one of my team members said to the prior employer for help getting in touch with employees because we wanted to speak to them. And so that was at our behest, and they were invited and welcomed to the building. I'm a little bit startled, I guess, to to see it. I'm curious. I guess my first question for general services is, in that letter, you talk about sort of the number of people who attended and their roles.

How did you all come to learn who came to that meeting with our offices?

Hi, Cami Jolley again, Director of Administration. So I wasn't aware of the meeting initially, but have been having conversations again with SEIU because they heard about the meeting and then reached out to me to understand if I knew anything about it, and that's whenever we found that there was some sort of required meeting that was requested for folks to show up in the City And County Building. And that Okay. There there was a mix of of folks that were, potentially supervisor, versus, covered workers.

Okay. And I just wanna say that even if people are supervisors, and they're therefore not members of the union, I I wanna see unionization happening among workers who are eligible. But I also care about people that were in supervisory positions. These are not you know, someone who's a building supervisor on one of these contracts, I don't know exactly how much they make, but I don't I don't see them as employees that are not also deserving of our protection. And so one of the things that I do have concern about is that that that's where cuts are happening, is that supervisor both positions have been cut, and so there aren't as many supervisors working in our buildings, and that also their hours have been cut, and that that's essentially happening because those workers are not able to unionize, which is a common kind of labor and employment law problem.

There's often lots and lots of litigation for those who don't know about who who can really be and I'm not implying that this is illegal in any way, but it's just the lines between, sort of, on the ground supervisors who then become ineligible to unionize, when oftentimes they are still relatively vulnerable workers. So I just wanna say I understand from a CIU's point of view that you don't represent those workers, but I still care about their experience, and I'm glad that, that a mixture of workers came in to speak with us. I also just wanna say that what we heard is not really matching up with what we're hearing here today. We heard very specific examples of hours being cut. And most concerning of all, we heard directly, again, from employees who are impacted, whether or not they are line supervisors or, you know, unionized nonsupervisory employees.

We heard directly from people that they had been told that they could lose their jobs. I'm not sure by who exactly if they spoke to city council, and that's just a huge problem for me. So I don't love seeing a letter that sort of implies that it was inappropriate for workers to come in and speak to us or that it was, you know, that the city is upset that they were put in touch with us. We should not ever have a problem with that. The other piece that I wanna ask about is, I think it's a question for GS as well.

And I think I do know the answer to this, but I just wanna ask because I think it illustrates why we need to move towards best value contracting, not only in the construction arena, but, throughout many of our city contracts and certainly these kinds of employment that are, like, classically covered by Davis Bacon and, where we try to raise the boat with our public employment. Does GS have much awareness of, one of the new companies that we're contracting with CCS of that company's litigation and fine history for different kinds of claims, including with the EEOC and other and other federal kind of regular worker regulatory agencies?

Yes. So we were aware of the the fine that I believe you're talking about the $1,200,000 fine. We had addressed that in the original Q and A back to counsel. I believe that was just shortly after our finance and business or potentially before the previous meeting where we had to reschedule that meeting. But we did address it that it was a fairly large amount initially, but then that was negotiated or found to be at $1,200,000 It sounded like it was something that had been going on for a number of years and that CCS, I mean they're in the room, we can have them come out to the podium and talk about that specifically as well.

But I think it had been going on for such a long period of time that, you know, due to their sort of standing in the community and wanting to move past the administrative findings that they chose to settle at that dollar amount. So but I I would certainly welcome them up to address any of those specific concerns. Just quickly before I invite them back up here, I did want to to mention, in the letter, the additional q and a in the letter that you all received. I I don't want that to be misinterpreted that we would ever stand in the way of workers contacting you, whether that's covered worker, a non covered worker, a supervisor. They we've we've opened that, you know, that ability to do that.

I think from our perspective, you know, as issues have come up, we've been very forthcoming with offering either town halls for workers or, you know, we have folks that are working in our buildings that are very familiar. Some of these folks have worked in our buildings for a number of years, that they could have brought us some concerns or challenges. I think the union, as they mentioned, been open to hearing folks. So we really would have welcomed the opportunity to have some one on one conversation or have some discussion with folks so we could figure this out so we could address these things in in real time. So I I just wanted to mention that, but thank you, councilwoman Parady.

Would you like me to bring up CCS on the okay.

Thank you so much. I just I I just wanna explain though that that kind of scrutiny to workers having a meeting with public officials, regardless of intent, it is absolutely intimidating. People didn't even wanna confirm who they were to us when we met with them on Friday, and so I'm gonna need people to sort of rethink that. I think having this called out in a letter to all of us as though it was, again, a bad thing, there is no question that that will, silence people in the future from thinking that they should come in and talk to us when these contracts change, and they absolutely should, and they're already terrified to do it. So I I think that really bespeaks that, that we have some issues here, although I do appreciate the explanation.

The other thing I wanna say is that, companies always settle without an emission of liability. And so the idea that, you know, yes, CCCS settled to avoid further proceedings. That's why you always settle. That in no way indicates that there was not merit to a fine of that, magnitude. And there are many other examples of lawsuits and things like this, which I think is what happens when we go to one of the largest janitorial service, companies in the country that is incredibly cost focused as opposed to locally owned minority and women owned businesses. This is a company that's going to meet our maybe we be requirements through subcontracts, and I'm just I'm alarmed. I don't think that we're moving in the right direction with this, and that's why I called this up for a no vote. I don't think I have any further questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. We have councilwoman Alvarez.

Thank you, council president. I have a lot of similar questions to my colleagues. I think that what we have heard from workers is concerning and just really understanding the procurement process and needing the best value contracting when it comes to this type of service. So I think the other reality is that the city is facing budget cuts, and it's our fault also that the city had doesn't have the budget to pay for the amount of cleaning services that we have had in the past. And so it has affected city workers.

It has affected our staffs, and it is affecting the people that clean and keep our building clean and safe. So I just wanna acknowledge that. That is part of the root cause of all of this unsettlement, and and it is heartbreaking. It's always hard to think about the people that need their paycheck the most taking less money. And I absolutely love the people that work here, that clean our offices because those are people that remind me of the people that I grew up with.

They're people that live in my district. When my father first came to this country, he cleaned toilets and cleaned a lot of the buildings downtown. And we can talk about the politics. We can talk about all of the things, but at the end of the day, it's the workers that are getting hurt at the bottom, and that's really a cause of the city not being able to keep within our budget. And so that's that's just how I'll leave it at that. Thank you, council president. Thank you.

Seeing no other colleagues in the queue. Madam secretary, roll call on council resolution zero five zero four and zero five zero five in a block. Council members.

Perry?

No.

Sawyer? Aye.

Alignas? Aye. Flynn? Aye. Gilmore? Aye. Gonzales Gutierrez? Aye. Cashman? Aye. Romero Campbell? Aye. Torres? Aye. Watson? Aye. Madam president Sandoval?

Aye. Madam secretary, close the voting. Announce the result.

10 ayes.

10 ayes. Council resolutions zero five zero four and zero five zero five have been adopted. This concludes the items to be called introduction are ordered published. Council members, remember that this is your that this is a consent or block vote, and you will need to vote aye. Otherwise, this is your last chance to call out an item for a separate vote. Council member Watson, will you please put the resolutions for adoption and the bills on final consideration for final passage on the floor?

I move that resolutions be adopted and bills on final consideration be placed upon final consideration and do pass in the block for the following items, series 26, zero five zero three, zero five six two, zero five eight two, zero five nine two, zero five nine nine three, zero five seven five, zero five seven six, zero five seven seven, zero five seven eight, zero five seven nine, zero five eight o, zero five eight one, 0587, 059505996, 0588058505860589059105940599069305610566055805590565. Thank you.

It has been moved and seconded. Madam secretary, roll call.

Council members, Heinz.

Aye.

Parity?

Aye. Sawyer?

Aye. Albidres? Aye. Flynn? Aye. Gilmore? Aye. Gonzales Gutierrez? Aye. Cashman? Aye. Romero Campbell? Aye. Torres? Aye. Watson? Aye. Madam president Sandoval?

Aye. Madam secretary, close the voting as to the results.

12 ayes.

12 ayes. The resolutions have been adopted, and the bills have been placed upon final consideration and do pass. Tonight, there will be a required public hearing on council bill zero three nine one, changing the zoning classification for 3232 Larimer Street in Five Points. I required public hearing on council bill zero four seven six, changing the zoning classification for 4458 North Pearl Street in Globeville, 5275 North Franklin Street in Globeville, and 4621 North Talleywright Street in Green Valley Ranch, and a required public hearing on council bill zero four three one authorizing a on data centers. If there are no objections from members of council, we will recess until 05:30 before reconvening the regular meeting.

City council will provide a half hour general public comment session to hear from the public on city matters except for any matter that is scheduled for a new day. General public comment session will begin at 5PM.

Hey, Denver. Here's what's happening around the Mile High this week. The fiction beer company book club meets on the third Monday of every month. You'll discuss the monthly read and ever growing to be read list and enjoy a beverage or two with the company of our fellow bookish nerds. Finishing the book isn't required, but you'll just have to live with the spoilers.

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When the gold rush of 1859 kicks in, that influx of people forced the native Americans out of this region and no access to land or water after that. Consider the culture and society and the mindset of the Western Europeans coming out here. That's the way they felt things should be. That's that manifest destiny attitude. How did the farmers obtain the oldest water rights and maintain them today? Well, it goes back to those gold miners who turned to irrigation. Benjamin Eaton was one of the earliest water developers in our area. He obtained his money from investors from London. There were developers that came out here from Kansas. There was TC Henry who came out

to submit your comments in writing. The next session will be held on Monday, June 1, not next week because we're closed for Memorial Day. Sign up begins begins at 5PM on Thursday, May 28. Look forward to hearing you from you again, and thank you for attending. Council will now reconvene from our earlier session. There's no unfinished business from the earlier session. There are no proclamations being read this evening. We have three required public hearings tonight. As a reminder, city council members need to turn their vote on during the turn their video on during the vote. For those participating in person when called upon, please come to the podium.

On the presentation monitor on the wall, you will see your time counting down. For those participating virtually when called upon, please wait until our meeting host promotes you to speaker. When you are promoted, please accept the promotion, turn on your camera if you have one, and your microphone. All speakers begin their remarks by telling the council their names and cities of residence, and if they feel so if they feel comfortable doing so, their home addresses. If you have signed up to answer questions only, state your name and note that you are available for questions of council.

Speakers will have three minutes. There is no yielding of time. If translation is needed, you will be given an additional three minutes for your comments to be interpreted. Speakers must stay on topic of the hearing and must direct their comments to counsel as a whole. Please refrain from profane or obscene speech and refrain from individual or personal attacks. Council member Watson, will you please put council bill zero three nine one changing the zoning classification for 3232LarimerStreet in 5 Points on the floor for final passage.

Yes, council president. I move that council bill two six zero three nine one be placed upon final consideration and do pass.

Has been moved and seconded. We require public hearing for council bill zero three nine one is open. May we please have the staff report?

Certainly. Good afternoon, evening, city council. I'm Brandon Shaver, senior city planner with community planning and development to walk you through this rezoning application at 3232 Glaremer Street. Beginning with the request, the property is 12500 square feet and currently vacant with some accessory structures and is under the same ownership as the adjoining parcel at the corner of 32nd And Lerner Streets. Zooming in a little bit more, this property is located in Council District 9, represented by Councilmember Watson, and is within the 5 Points neighborhood.

The existing zoning, I'll detail in the next slide, but it is RMU 30 with a waiver. This is in close proximity to a number of mixed use districts ranging from three to five stories, some with design overlay seven. So this property was last rezoned in 2007 to RMU 30 with a waiver. That is a residential mixed use district. The current waiver restricts the building height to 55 feet instead of 140.

And then this property was left in Chapter 59 even though we rezoned most of the surrounding industrial areas in this neighborhood to IMX in 2010 with the adoption of the Denver zoning code. Additionally, this property was not mapped with design overlay seven in 2018 as it had custom zoning on it. So the proposed zoning, IMX3, which is an industrial mixed use district of up to three stories, really serves to provide a transition between mixed use and industrial areas where we want to see a high degree of walkability and primarily see this in industrial dominated areas that are served by collector streets. The design overlay seven ensures that buildings are designed to be adaptive as time goes on, and also promote a vibrant pedestrian oriented frontage. Some design elements here.

It has a minimum street level height of 16 feet and also increased transparency in street level active use requirements. Existing land use, again, is vacant. Surrounding land uses include a lot of industrial, commercial, retail, mixed use, and some single and two unit residential across the alley. Here you can get a sense of the subject property on the top left and the adjoining parcel, which was formerly Infinite Monkey Theorem, on the bottom left. Speaking to the process, this application had informational notice sent in early December, went to planning board in mid March where it was voted, unanimously as a recommendation of approval, and we're here today in mid May for the City Council final public hearing.

We have received a number of comments from the public on this application, including three letters of support from nearby RNOs, and nine letters of support, from the public includes nearby residents, business owners, and property owners, and one letter of concern. And again, planning board did move this forward unanimously. So moving to our review criteria, the three we have here. First, Comp Plan 2040. We find this request to be consistent with a number of strategies which are detailed by Vision Element, including affordable equitable, affordable, and inclusive, creating strong and authentic neighborhoods and making sure that we develop in an environmentally resilient fashion.

Moving to Blueprint Denver, this property is mapped as an urban center neighborhood context. However, we do have some flexibility at the edges in Blueprint Denver, which says that they can be interpreted with limited flexibility if the request is further goals of Blueprint and other plans. Given the future land use designation in the neighborhood plan and inclusion of design overlay seven, we believe that the requested context, which is special district, is aligned with the goals of Blueprint Denver along this section of Larimer Street. So the place type here is community corridor, high mix of uses, up to eight stories in height, and the future street type is a mixed use collector along Larimer Street and local along 32nd. This fits into our community centers and corridors growth area, where we expect 25% of housing growth and 20% of new employment by 2040.

Another plan to look at is the Lear and Swazia Neighborhoods Plan from 2015. While this is outside of those neighborhoods, that plan does provide land use guidance around the 38th And Lake Rail Station, which this property is within a half mile of. Moving to the last plan, the Northeast Downtown neighborhoods plan, we do have very specific guidance in this plan for mixed use industrial and up to three stories, which is what this proposed zone district is. We find this meets the public interest by implementing adopted plans and encouraging, neighborhood scale walkable mixed use areas around transit. Lastly, we find it to be consistent with the neighborhood context to zone district purpose and intent statements as laid out here.

And with that, CPD does recommend approval of this application. I'm happy to answer questions, and I believe the applicants are present in person as well.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. We have four speakers signed up, individuals signed up to speak. First up, we have Alexandra Hanson. Hi, everybody.

My name is Alexandra. I'm one of the two owners of the business that applied for the rezoning at 3232 Larimer Street to be rezoned to I M X 3 D 07. So I just wanted to share a little bit about our process and our intentions with the space. As a first time business owner, what I've valued most in the process is the direct community engagement we've had. We've chose to do this outreach ourselves, not through a third party consultant, because we believe if we're going to build a business in the neighborhood, we should personally show up for those already living there.

We've knocked on doors, met direct residential neighbors, spoken with nearby businesses, presented to r and o groups, and met a lot of other community members at the Rhino Street Fair recently. And some of these, direct neighbors are here online tonight, and we're super grateful for their support. And through these conversations, we've heard more about what our neighbors want in Rhino and the broader 5 Points, neighborhood is more opportunities for connection, thoughtful, indoor, outdoor, green space and recreation space, walkability, and businesses that participate in the community instead of kind of opening up around it. And we've also spent time reviewing the neighborhood plans that Brandon, shared out so we can develop along alongside these goals. And I just wanted to really emphasize that our business cannot succeed unless we are good neighbors throughout this process.

Our success depends on being respectful about choices down from delivery times and lighting and daily operations. And while we haven't invested in our final plans for this space yet as we wanna see through the rezoning, everything we do as an extension of our business at 3200 Larimer will be done to fully adhere to the law and designed with neighborhood compatibility in mind. As I am the majority owner, we are a woman owned and minority owned business, and we intend to champion other local businesses, especially women and minority owned businesses wherever we can. And with somebody who I'm a first time business owner. My background's in higher ed and nonprofit work.

It's especially important for me that once we get stable and situated and open, we will capitalize on building relationships with the organizations that exist in the broader Five Points neighborhood. I was lucky to make some really great connections with longtime organizers in East Denver through my time working at CSU, and they've, given me great recommendations of organizations in the area like Boys and Girls Club of Metro Denver, Center for African American Health, the Denver Urban League, and others, to connect with that we can, partner with in various ways. And, lastly, many of the businesses that we spoke with between thirty second and thirty third, have expressed a lot of excitement and optimism as this property has sat vacant for a year and a half. And, I think adding in new energy, local businesses ready to partner.

That's your time.

Thank you.

Appreciate it. Next up, we have Jesse Paris virtually.

Yes. Good evening, members of council, those watching at home, those on the council chambers. My name is Justin LaShawn Paris, and I represent for Black Star Action Movement for Self Defense, Positive Action Committee for Social Change, as well as the Unity Party of Colorado, the Northeast Denver Residence Council, or the North Park Hill Coalition now, frontline black news, Shabbat's black experience enhanced the revolutionary agenda. And I reside at the roach and bedbug infested legacy loss in councilman Darryl Darryl Watson's district of District 9, defined District 9, the historically black district of five points. That was a hard follow-up.

I was thinking that this is gonna be more gentrification as usual, but since the broad and big was termed such as minorities and people of color, I guess that's supposed to include black. I didn't hear black mentioned any time tonight. I just wanna point that out. There was no mention of black this whole time or FDA for that matter. But get into this rezoning, it looks like they did the proper homework.

It looks like they dyed all their i's and crossed all their t's, but I just don't want any more unintended consequences to come from any of these rezonings of this current and the previous because I've been following y'all for a minute, a good decade now. And whatever y'all pass, I don't need any more unintended consequences to come from that. So the occupant has made it clear and known that she has reached out to the community, and she has did her proper diligence. So I don't see no reason why you would not pass this tonight. I'm just letting you know we're watching you.

At Lerma Street, We definitely watching you guys. White supremacist had told us. So y'all need to do something about that. And as far as your second setting, because you used to have five, now you only have three. So your criteria, your public safety, I'm a let you know this now.

Our people, black people, foundational black Americans, we don't feel safe in Denver, period, nor the state of Colorado, nor The United States Of America, though we built it. We don't feel safe. So that doesn't get factored in because y'all mentioned the demographics, but we already know what this is. And whoever speaks after me, that's what they're gonna be addressing, their so called involvement with the community, the preexisting community that existed before all these new arrivals got here. Now they wanna interact with the others, with the undesirables.

Now they want to also, I mean, I'm a candidate on a ballot for House District 8. The election is November 3. Jesse Perris for House District 8.

Next up, we have Will Lake.

Hello. I am a co owner with Alex who previously spoke, and I am was coming up here more so to answer questions. But given the time, I will give some time to speak. We are owning a doubles club, which is a bar cafe, and we're trying to bring some vibrancy to the 5 Points neighborhood to an empty lot that has been there for some time. We're looking to rezone it from I or I'm sorry, from RMU 70 to IMX 3.

We think that Larimer Street is a charm within the Denver community. You know, you see the old building that was once an industrial side of town and has been updated to a very vibrant and artsy side of town. We look to continue bringing this to the area and create more involvement within that area. Right now, the spot has been, again, I mentioned, vacant for some time. And we think that by bringing the community together to create green spaces and outdoor spaces where people can enjoy the beautiful weather of Denver is spot that this would be good for.

I was just keeping this short and sweet, and I probably will not use the whole three minutes, so I do apologize. But if there are questions from the council members, I'm happy to answer those at this time.

Good evening, council president Sandoval. Councilman Watson from the fine district nine. My name is Steven Bennett. I live at 29th In California Street in Curtis Park. I am here behalf of the Curtis Park Neighbors registered neighborhood organization this evening.

We are one of the three r and o's that provided a letter of support for the doubles doubles club, and I just wanna address the process, and I really wanna thank Alexandra Hansen for being patient with us in the neighborhood. Alex attended a neighborhood meeting, Curtis Park Connects, in November. And because we internally didn't follow our process for proper neighborhood notification, we invited Alexander back in February, which gave us the time to distribute that announcement in the Curtis Park Times and on Facebook to ensure that the neighbor had the proper notification of that her attendance at our meeting. Our policy is to take letters of support or opposition in Rhino if they border Curtis Park or 5 Points if they border Weldon. And since this property does the back edge of that is in the alley of Curtis Park, we did get involved.

And after meeting with Alex and Will and hearing about the rezone, we took a unanimous vote on the board and provided a letter of support. So thank you.

Thank you. That concludes our speakers. Do we have questions from members of council? Councilmember Watson.

Thank you so much, council president. To Alexandra and and also Will, I know that we are not a a place in space in Alexandra, if you don't mind coming up. We're not a this is reviewing the rezone, the actual specs of what you're developing. And is it absolutely necessary? But if you could just share a little bit as to what your high level thoughts are for the space, that would be fantastic so that my colleagues can hear a little bit of that mediation.

Yeah. Absolutely. So we're leasing the property, and the property owners own 3200 Larimer and this, vacant lot that does not have any current building on it, 3232 Larimer Street. We're moving forward with plans at the existing buildings on 3200 to transition a former tap room of the previous wine manufacturing facility and tap room space into a bar and cafe. We're adding windows to open up that space, brighten it up right there on Corner Of Larimer and 32nd.

The former warehouse, space will have some indoor courts for recreation, and then their previous patio space on 3200 Larimer will be revitalized revitalized and maintained as a social patio with a lot more added green space. We have no intentions of adding any building structures on 3232 Larimer Street. So having so building heights or visibility or neighbors views or any of that is definitely not a concern. But instead, we want to look at it and see what is possible after this rezone as an extension of recreation, social green space. So it would be open air, working on landscape connections right now, And I mean, from personal use walking around that neighborhood and even engaging with people at the street fair this past weekend, it's like I live very close to Curtis Park.

I love Curtis Park, but kinda limited in green space. So we've honestly through this process kind of been informed on the term third space. And while I always thought that that was more of a public use thing, I guess a lot of people kind of have heard our ideas and referred to it as such. So if we can be an extension and offer some green space in the very industrial rooted neighborhood and serve as a little oasis for people to meet new connections, move around, enjoy Denver sunshine, then that's kind of our goal as the extension of what we're doing in the structures on 3200 Thuramer.

And I know in our staff report, it provides information on kind of your outreach to community. Can you share the outreach to the business improvement district or anyone else that you reached out to? We heard from Steven from the Curtis Park

Neighborhood Organization. Absolutely.

Well, I also wanna thank Brandon again for his guidance with all of this because as a first time business owner, this is also the first time going through any sort of process like this. So, he and his team and the Planning Board Committee made it easy to navigate. So, our first step with the pre application opened up just the RNOs in our neighborhood and all of that contact information. So, we did meet and engage with those that responded back to us from that list. Not everybody responded back, but the opportunities we had to speak with and have letters of support with were the Rhino Arts District, Curtis Park Neighbors, the Rhino Business Improvement District as well.

Looking to expand, you know, those relationships as we go on. Steven being here is great and was meeting those constituents and kind of just hearing even just fresh ideas is awesome to get in front of the community that way. Outside of R and O specific work and speaking to you in your office as well, I was able to attend the Rhino Arts fundraiser back in the fall, meet some community leaders that way, as well as door knocking to individual neighbors and nearby commercial neighbors as well. So that's everybody from the Camden apartments across the street to Dio Mio on our block to the townhomes that border our alley. And I know one of them was I don't know if he signed up to support, but was in the waiting room.

So it might have just been poor directions to them. But through this process, it's been really great to get to know our neighbors whether that's living in Curtis Park ourselves, sharing the space, participating with event organizers, and being on the streets and meeting other nearby businesses as we were parked up over in a booth a couple weekends ago. But that is the majority of how we have connected and what I was mentioning previously. Some of my previous professional relationships have allowed me to get some great recommendations which were at the start of connecting with community organizations. So I would love to, once we're open and have the capacity, whether it's donating, you know, used recreational equipment for after school programs or discounts for district public school teachers, something of the nature, There's a lot of opportunities I think that we have to recognize that we are in a space, you know, that a lot of different businesses, a lot of different families have come before we have.

I'm not a Colorado or I grew up in the Midwest. I've been here for seven years, but it is very much ingrained in my philosophy in any line of my work to really have the community informed, and I'm really just excited about that prospect. So

Thank you so much, Alexandra. No further questions, madam president.

Thank you. Seeing no other questions from members of council. The public hearing is closed. Do you have comments by members of council? Councilmember Watson, I'll start with you.

Yes. Just briefly, council president. I met with Alexandra and Will at the beginning of this process, and they have been, based on their description tonight and the work that I've seen in community, committed to making sure they're elevating community voice as far as what the outcome of this great space should be. I love the Infinite Monkey. I practically live there and was saddened that it closed. But knowing that we have folks who love the space and have been very involved with the community is rewarding. Looking at the zoning requests and the three criteria, they meet the criteria. They have received the support from community,

and I encourage my colleagues to join

me in supporting this result.

Thank you, council member. Madam secretary, we'll call on council bill zero three nine one. Oh, hold on. Wait. One second. Sorry. I totally messed up. I got I got sidetracked. I'd like to inter I'd like to welcome councilwoman Lewis to the meeting. Sorry. She wasn't here before, and I have to formally welcome her before we can vote. Madam secretary, roll call on council bill zero three nine one.

What'd you say?

Council members, Heinz.

Aye.

Lewis.

Parity.

Aye. Sawyers. Aye. Albitres? Aye. Flynn? Aye. Gilmore? Aye. Gonzales Gutierrez? Aye. Cashman?

Aye.

Romero Campbell?

Aye.

Torres? Aye. Watson? Aye. Madam president Sandoval?

Aye. Madam secretary, close the voting, announce the results.

12 ayes.

12 ayes. Council bill zero three nine one has passed. Council member Watson, will you please put council bill zero four seven six changing the zoning classification for 4458 North Pearl Street in Globeville, 5275 North Franklin Street in Globeville, and 4621 North Talley Road Street in Green Valley Ranch on the floor for final passage.

Yes, council president. I move that council bill two six zero four seven six be placed upon consideration and do pass.

Final consideration? Upon final consideration? Yes.

I move that council bill two six zero four seven six be placed upon final consideration and do pass. My apologies.

Perfect. Thank you so much. It has been moved and seconded. The required public hearing for council bill zero four seven six is open. May we please have the staff report?

Good afternoon, members of city council. My name is Fran Penafiel. I'm a principal city planner with community planning and development. And today, I will present an overview for the rezoning for three city owned properties into the OSA. In this presentation, I will go over the request, the location, and context, then we will look quickly at the process to finally go over the review criteria.

This is a request that comes from the executive director of community planning and development on behalf of the parks and recreations department to rezone three properties to the Open Space Zone District. Resoning these properties to OSA will bring them into an appropriate zone district to allow them to be preserved, developed, and improved as parks, open space, recreation space, and park maintenance uses. Now let's take a look at the location and context. The subject properties are located in Council District 9 and in Council District 11, which are represented by council member Watson and council member Gilmore. We have two of the sites located in the Globeville neighborhood, and we have one of the properties that it's located in the Green Valley Ranch neighborhood.

Here in this image, you can see some aerial views of the three subject properties. The first image on the left is the 44th And Pearl unnamed park that it's located in Globeville, and it's around point six acres in size. Then we have the middle image that shows also another property in Globeville. That's the Heron Pond Park, and it's also 21 acres. Oh, sorry. Not also. It is 21 acres. And then the final one is Far Northeast Maintenance Facility that it's 3.1 acres. Here, the same we have them in the same order so you can follow them. We have the existing zoning.

So you can see that the first one is U M X 3. The second one is I B, which is heavy industrial. And then finally, the Far Northeast one, it's custom zoning, B U D 319. And this final, slide with these three images is showing the current, land use. So you can see that the on the left, the 44th and Pearl unnamed park, it's, the current land use is industrial.

Heron Pond in Globeville is quasi public public quasi public and open space, and then Far Northeast is classified as agriculture. And then here we have just an image. They're all vacant, so they all look pretty much the same on the photos, but you can see what they look like right now. Now let's take a look at the process. Informational notice of this application was sent out in January 22.

We took this project to planning board in March 18, and the the board voted unanimously to recommend approval of this rezoning. As of today, staff has not received any comments, any letters, of support or opposition, or any, statement letters from the RNOs. Now let's take a look at the review criteria. For a rezoning to be approved by city council, it must be found that the requested map amendment is consistent with the three review criteria stated in the Denver zoning code. Our role as staff planners is to evaluate the requested district, in this case, the OSA, against these three review criteria.

The first review criteria is, consistent to consistency with adopted plans. We have four plans applicable to each one of these properties. So we have comprehensive plan twenty forty, blueprint Denver, and game plan for a healthy city for three of the properties. And then we have the Globeville neighborhood plan applicable to two of the properties. Of course, the ones that are located in Globeville.

And then we have the Far Northeast area plan applicable to a property that it's in Green Valley Ranch. As stated on the staff report, the rezoning is consistent with several goals in comp plan 2040. This map amendment will reinforce current park users by aligning their zoning with their current users, and it will facilitate the development of new parks by implementing appropriate zoning to these uses. Now let's take a look at Blueprint Denver. The proposed rezoning includes properties that are within the general special districts, and the suburban neighborhood context.

Parks are not only appropriate but are also aspirational in all neighborhood neighborhood context. Therefore, the proposed rezoning is consistent with all neighborhood context designations. Blueprint Denver classifies the subject sites within the proposed rezoning as community center and public park and open space on the future places map. The USA Zone District is appropriate for all future places. Furthermore, Blueprint Denver is structured around the concept of complete neighborhoods.

One of the three elements of a complete neighborhood is quality of life infrastructure, which refers to the places, trees, plants, waterways, parks, and outdoor spaces that stitch together our communities and contribute to the health, needs, comfort, environmental resilience, and social connectedness of Denver. The first policy under quality of life structure is to expand tools and regulations to ensure high quality parks and outdoor public spaces keep pace with Denver's growth. The proposed rezoning aims to rezone areas that are intended to become parks to align with its this current and future users. This not only reinforces that existing parks should remain parks in the future, but it also facilitates development of new parks in locations where city policy and community input have determined they are appropriate and needed. Game plan for the healthy city is an adopted supplement to comprehensive plan 2040 and part of the larger coordinated planning efforts that included the development of Blueprint Denver of Blueprint Denver.

Game plan for the healthy city provides both a vision and a strategic road map to future of Denver's parks, hundreds of facilities, and recreation programs, and 20,000 acres of park landscapes. Resoning to allow for more park space is consistent with the plan recommendations whereas which are essential to Blueprint Denver vision for a city where every neighborhood is complete. Now looking at Far Northeast for the property that it's located in Green Valley Ranch. The Far Northeast maintenance facility falls within the boundaries of the Far Northeast area plan. This facility will help facilitate the goals to grow parks and recreation access and diversify services and programs, and it will help maintain a high level of park service and access in Far Northeast by growing the park system.

And then finally, we're gonna look at the Globeville neighborhood plan where the 44th Imperial And Names Park and Heron Pine Pond sites reside. In the strong growth bill guidance principle, the plan talks about a future where the neighborhood has complete and accessible system of parks that encourage physical activity, social interaction, and environmental responsibility. The purpose the proposed rezoning would directly implement these goals from the plan. Now looking at the second review criteria, staff also finds that the requested rezoning meets the next criteria. The rezoning will further the public interest through implementation of the city adopted plans and also by preserving current punts parks and facilities and creation of more public park space.

The proposed rezoning will allow for the city to continue to add parks and maintenance facilities, which has shown to improve health in several ways. And our finally, our final review criteria, the proposed open Space Park District is intended to protect and preserve public parks owned, operated, and leased by the city and managed by the city's Department of Parks and Recreation for park purposes. The property is owned by the city, and it's consistent with the OSA purpose and intent statements. With that, finding that all three review criteria have met, CPD recommends that city council approve the proposed map amendment, and I'm happy to answer any questions. And we have people from parks if you have any further questions.

We have two individuals signed up to speak this evening. First up, we have Jesse Paris.

Yes. Good evening again, members of council, those watching at home, those in the council chambers. My name is Justin Lashawn Paris. I'm a representative for Black Star Action Move for Self Defense, positive action commitment for social change, as well as the unity party of Colorado, the North Park Hill Coalition, the Frontline Black News, the box office, the revolutionary agenda, and I am a candidate on the ballot for House District Eights, Carl State House District Eights, historically black district, and I reside at the roach and bedbug infested legacy loss. Can't stress that enough.

In the historically black district of Firepoints and Darryl Wash's district of Define District 9, I thought there's gonna be more justification as usual, but it's just parks. So, you know, we ain't got no shortages of parks. We have shortages of homes. We don't have no shortages of parks. So, yeah, more parks. The more, the better. Like you did Park Hill Golf Course, more parks. So I'm in full support of this. I'll see you on the next one.

Thank you. Next up, we have Don Angel Diaz.

I'm sorry.

I entered into the wrong chat, so I don't I'm not commenting on this one. Thank you.

Okay. That concludes our speakers. Do we have questions from members of council on council bill zero four seven six? Councilman Torres.

Thank you, madam president. I just have a quick question for Fran. On slide nine, on the existing land use, What's the band of public quasi public mean and it's different from parks versus open space for Heron Pond? That one, that band of blue and then green. You just kind of show what that means.

I might ask someone from parts. So the presenter today is Sikh, the case manager. So as you know, though, like, the land use is just like a snapshot of what should be in place. So I'm not a 100% sure what's on that side.

Sure. Hey. Golden Wills,

Parks and Rec. Heron Pond is kind of a unique area. There's some land in there, so I think the land use category, the CBDs folks probably picked up with some of that old infrastructure, but we're in the process of turning that all into 80 acre regional park.

Okay. Okay. So it's what do you mean old infrastructure?

The old yeah. Just water quality, sewage treatment, and our colleagues at DOTI are the landowners that were helped us work in partnership to convert that into park. So I think this is just like a land use code. It's not a

park related Excellent. Graphic. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Seeing no other council members in the queue. The public hearing is closed. Do have comments by members of council on council bill zero four seven six?

Thank you, council member.

Council member Gilmore? I'm sorry. I didn't Yeah. Thank you. Council member Gilmore?

Okay. Thank you, council president Sandoval. I wanted

to make a

comment. One, we needed to go back and make sure that the 47th And Telluride Park facility was referenced as District 11 on this, rezoning. But for the record, I also want, folks to understand and know that with the benefit of this new park, there has also been a significant diversion of funds for a park's maintenance facility that is supposed to be built out on this parcel of land as well. In the rise bond, there was over 15,000,000 to have a maintenance facility in Council District 1 and a maintenance facility in Council District 11. And instead of that being split equally for 7.9 for each maintenance facility, this facility that is built in District 11 in the Far Northeast, Parks is estimating it to not be a $7,900,000 building, but a $2,500,000 prefabricated metal shed that's gonna be built for the Far Northeast with 5,400,000 being taken out of the Far North, into a district that does not have the same equity concerns nor the same, historic, deficit in infrastructure and care, especially in a majority community of color.

I'm gonna be voting, for this tonight because it's gonna move forward one way or the other, with the open space designation. But director Clark and Denver Parks and Rec, I know you're watching. I know you're listening. You still have the ability to do right and not divert $5,400,000 from 80239, 80249, two of the most diverse neighborhoods in the entire city and county of Denver. Please do not divert that 5,400,000 because we still have tree limbs all the entire stretch of Chambers Road that all of those trees lost branches and were broken over the snowstorm, and Parks and Rec still has them all laying out there.

There's about 15 of them out there, and that is to say because we do not have proper parks maintenance facilities in the Far Northeast. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilmember Watson.

Thank you, council president. I wanted to share to the neighbors in Globeville for the work on 44th And Pearl. That park has been an opportunity, for community to take back land and really build a a space, outdoor space for community members. So I am beyond excited for the good work that has been done with community members, Denver Park Trust, and Denver Parks and Rec to realize this rezone. And now the step goes forward to ensure that this has accessible green space, quality green space for that community.

And then Heron Pond has also been a very long term, long time planned park and open space for neighbors in Globeville, Elyria, Swansea. And so once again, this is a great step, one step closer to having that open space for our neighbors that is absolutely needed in one of the most polluted ZIP codes in the city and in the state. And so thank you to all of the partners, community members that have engaged in this process. Thank you, madam president.

Thank you. Madam secretary, roll call on 0476.

Council members, Hines?

Aye.

Lewis?

Harry? Aye. Sawyer?

Aye. Albitres? Aye. Flynn? Aye. Gilmore? Aye. Gonzales Gutierrez? Aye. Aye. Cashman? Aye. Romero Campbell? Aye. Torres? Aye. Watson?

Aye.

Madam president Sandoval?

Aye. Madam secretary, close the voting and announce the results.

12 ayes.

12 ayes. Council bill zero four seven six has passed. Council member Watson, will you please put council bill zero four three one authorizing a moratorium on data centers on the floor for final passage.

Yes. Madam president, I move that council bill two six zero four three one be placed upon final consideration and do pass. Second.

It's been moved and seconded. The required public hearing for council bill zero four three one is open. May we please have the staff report? Yes, sir. Sir.

Councilwoman Gonzalez Gutierrez, councilman Watson, I will Looks do the report.

You guys are gonna tag team the staff report?

We're gonna tag team it. Alright.

Tag team it.

My aide Got it. Release will run the slide deck.

Okay. Perfect. Got it.

Alright. Well, I'm here. Thank you, madam president. I will kick us off here. I wanna thank the community, first and foremost, for your voice and advocacy, councilman Cashman for your leadership in initiating this conversation, as well as councilman Watson and the mayor's office as we proceed with these next steps. My hope is that we will unravel the complexity of data centers and create policy to ensure our communities are protected. I wanna first, before we get into the next slide is make sure councilman Cashman and councilman Watson, if there's anything you'd like to add as an opening, and then we can proceed with the presentation.

I think you covered quite a

bit. Good Yep.

We'll go to

the next slide. So when we're talking about the problem, currently, Denver has limited regulations specific to data centers. Data centers have evolved, and regulations are important to protecting our city. Data centers historically use massive amounts of energy, adding potential strains to our electrical grids, leading to potential blackouts and higher rates for customers. Data cent data centers usually use diesel fuel backup generators, and the use of these giant generators spew harmful emissions into the environment, which is a major concern.

We're also concerned with the amount of water being used to operate and run data centers. Denver is currently experiencing a drought, and not addressing water usage could lead to irreversible damage to our water availability. In addition to water and energy usage, data data centers emit constant humming and vibration noises that have the potential to have harmful effects on humans and surrounding wildlife. This moratorium will allow us to think of equitable regulations that put our communities first. We are hopeful that our future regulations will preserve our water and energy resources, address climate concerns, and protect our neighbors from any potential consequences that arise from the construction and use of data centers.

Next slide, please. So this is a a map. There are approximately 50 data centers in Denver wherein six buildings are what are called main use data centers. Secondary use data centers are a property that has a primary use, such as a hospital, and the secondary use of the building is that of a data center. Third use data centers are those where the first use could be for parking and the second use as an office building and then the third use as a data center.

The square footage determines the labeling of these uses. This map, I know it's kind of difficult to view here on this slide, but if you click on the PDF of this presentation, it should open up a larger map to kinda show those distinctions. We know that our our friends from CASR, you know, the data came from Energize Denver, and we know that CASR, the climate action sustainability I always forget the r. Resiliency. Resiliency.

A lot of words there might have more information about the categorization of these data centers. And so this is information that we're utilizing from what we currently have, but, certainly, they may be able to offer some more information. And I'll turn it over to councilman Cashman.

Thank you, councilwoman. First, before I get to to this slide, I wanna give my thanks to to councilwoman Parady. I became aware of the data center issue a couple of years ago when Coorsight Company, was requesting a $9,000,000 tax incentive for the facility that's now under construction. The councilwoman brought it to to our attention. The request for the tax incentive was was voted down, and I started looking at what the concerns were that the community was expressing about data centers and saw that we're we're not the only ones that as this slide indicates, it's just a selection of about a couple dozen, cities and states from from around the nation who have looked at the fact that along with, storing the data that, the the electronic world has brought forward, data centers generally have these challenges that councilwoman, Gonzales Gutierrez, brought to our attention in an earlier slide.

And, as it says, 71% of the cities in our state have no regulation. So, we've seen that, from Apex North Carolina to the state of New York, folks are trying to figure out if and how, they can welcome additional data centers to their communities. Next slide, please. This what this moratorium will do is is to put a pause on accepting applications for new data centers from the effective date, which if it should pass tonight by this council, we expect it'll be signed and official by the twenty first. The current data center being built up in forty ninth, we'll be able to continue with the construction and operation of the building under construction.

Some additional detail permits may come forward just to allow the construction to get finalized. Should Coorsight decide they wanna continue with the second and third building, which was in their initial plans, their construction of those facilities would be subject to any new regulations that come forth from a working group that we're in the process of of putting together. That as as the slide says, we'll look at all the issues that come up in relation to Denver's adopted plans, be that Blueprint Denver, our comprehensive plan, our our city's climate goals as as put forward by CASR. I know there is great interest amongst my colleagues here on council as well as in the community as to who is gonna be on this, working group. Unfortunately, where we're at now is we're hiring a facilitator to direct that group.

And when that facilitator is hired, they will contact the people that are on our list to see are they interested. If they're interested, are they able to make time available, to do to get things done? I had hoped to have that, available tonight, but it's simply not. And we can't release names when the people themselves have not been contacted to see if they're willing to participate. And then with that, I will pass it across to councilman Watson to close this out.

Thank you so much, councilmember Cashman. Thank you so much, councilwoman Gonzales Gutierrez. As councilmember Cashman shared, there is lots of interest on the working group. We wanna make sure in Denver, from the prior slide that councilmember Cashman shared that many cities, municipalities, practically every city in the state of Colorado is struggling with the idea or the ideals of ensuring the regulatory environment meets the moment. Each of them have taken the step that we're taking now.

Many of the cities are looking into this is looking at putting forward a moratorium so we can build that regulatory environment. So in order for Denver to get this right, we absolutely need a broad coalition of folks at the table. And as the slide presents, the working group will have three council members, and this is all public information, so folks will be able to pull this off of our Legislature site tonight and have it for your records. Two individuals from utility companies, two union representatives, one industry representative, three advocacy groups, seven community members, one subject matter at sub subject matter expert, and seven ex officio members from Denver City departments will be involved in this process. We know that this group, there's gonna be a lot of work, collaborative work that's necessary.

We believe that it's gonna be a representative group, and we look forward to receiving feedback from folks once those names are released. A balanced working group of committed individuals is how we build rules that are practical and enforceable. We can move to next slide, please. So the working group will study many of the outcomes that we've heard from community members from the one large data center meeting that we've had and also the prior meeting we had when CORSAID came to the city council asked for support several years back. So we're gonna be looking at studying noise, air quality, emergency generators, traffic construction impacts, lighting, and setbacks to name a few.

We'll recommend updates to our zoning code, building code, energy code, green code, and then revise municipal code as necessary based on the feedback from this group of folks within the working group. The working group recommendations must fundamentally protect residents and community health. We believe that clear rules are good for everyone. They provide neighborhoods more protections. They provide industry more predictability, and they provide Denver a stronger and fair way to manage data centers.

Next slide. And the next steps are are are are basic. We will finalize the working group members as council member Cashman shared and provide those names to folks as soon as possible. We're in the process of hiring a facilitator to manage and direct the working group, and then we'll release that list of folks, and we'll get to work and be informed by you, the community at large, by our colleagues as well as this process continues. Continues. And with that, I'll turn it back over to brother Cashman.

Thanks, councilor Watson. I think that pretty much, wraps up, our presentation, and I look forward to hearing from our public comment questions from members of council.

Thank you for

that presentation. We have 58 individuals signed up to speak this evening. You will have three minutes to speak but are not required to use the entirety of your time to deliver your testimony. Meaning, if someone spoke some said something that that you already said, you don't have to repeat it, but you're able to use all three minutes. And, also, due to the fire code requirements around room capacity, we ask that after you have delivered your testimony, you please relocate to Room 431 on the 4th Floor so that more speakers may enter.

You will a you will be able to view the rest of the meeting from Room 431. And, also, you can also talk to our fire marshal to make sure as people leave with their seats, feel free to use them. First up, we have Julian Aguilar. I'll say the first five. So Julian Aguilar, Gilbert Herrera, Annecy Hibaca, Harmony Cummings, and Pierce Fernander. Go ahead, Julian.

Alright. Thank you, council president Sandoval, and members of council for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Julian Aguilar, and I I live in Council District 2. I was born and raised and still live in the city of Denver. I'm speaking today on behalf of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union number sixty eight in favor of the moratorium. I'm a third generation union tradesman in the city of Denver. My grandfather was the president of Iron Workers Local twenty four. My uncle was a member of Iron Workers Local twenty four. My father is a member of IBW Local sixty eight, and I also have two cousins who are members of Local sixty eight. We have helped build the city over three generations the right way, the union way.

Tonight, you will hear people talk about how jobs on data centers are temporary jobs. As someone who has built data centers, I'm here to tell you that's a false narrative. Initial build outs of data centers last eighteen to thirty six months depending on the size of the facility, And in construction, we have a saying, you work yourself out of a job every day. That's the nature of our business. We build, then move to the next project.

The project that has sparked this moratorium had 220 I b w 68 members working on the project, 220 members feeding their families, paying rent or mortgages, and taking care of their bills. With multiple phases and build buildings on the aforementioned project, this data center has the opportunity to last at least ten years. That's ten years of wages and benefits for our members. Not sure how many of you have worked at one place for ten years, but in construction in the construction industry, that isn't common. However, I do have another example of this.

In the early two thousands, IBW sixty eight built a data center in the Highlands Ranch area. My father currently works at this data center as do multiple other members of IBW sixty eight doing maintenance work and continuous upgrades. That's over twenty five years of work at one facility. We all know we have a need for data centers in the world we live in today. Data centers aren't a new thing, and as you just heard, and through this moratorium and work working group, we can figure out a way to keep our economic opportunities for our members while not impacting rate payers and the communities they are built in. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to working with all of you on this issue moving forward.

Next up, we have Gilbert Herrera. Herrera.

Good evening. My name is Gale Herrera. I lived at 4619 Balmacourt in Elyria for nineteen years, right under I-seventy where I inhaled all the fumes of smoke. I was employed by VNS railroad, I worked twenty nine years and when I retired I didn't know I came home with this. Now I understand with the data center, if them grids were to overload, people 10% of the population in 80216 are either on ventilators, oxygen, CPAP machines.

If we were to lose power in that time zone, what are people gonna do without oxygen? This happened to us once already in my home, They said call 911. So I asked, if 10% people lose their oxygen, as the responders, how are they gonna get oxygen to all the people? We have to have an outlet to this. Otherwise, some of us might not make it. Thank you for your time.

Next up, we have the honorable Sita Baca on thank Thank you. You.

My name is Candy Siedabaca. I'm a social worker, community organizer, policy expert, and former d nine council member. My family's lived in Swansea for six generations. I'm neutral on this moratorium. This but this moratorium is not courage. A moratorium is what you do when you want to appear to act without actually acting. It is a pause button that hands the microphone to industry lobbyists and calls them experts. It creates the illusion of a process while the process gets quietly designed by the very people who profit from the outcome. What this body should be doing, what the moment demands is a ban. We're currently in a drought.

We're in a drought prone state, and we sit that sit at the end of a drying Colorado River. And this council is deliberating over how to regulate industry that consumes millions of gallons of potable water per day, threatens grid stability, and pumps diesel exhaust into neighborhoods that already fail federal air quality standards, neighborhoods like mine that have been sacrificed zones for a hundred years. This is not regulation. This is legislative malpractice if there were such a concept. In my neighborhood right now, next door to our senior housing, a community clinic, our rec center, and the ECE that I run, a data center went up without community meeting, without environmental review, without a single knock on the door.

That happened before this moratorium. It will keep happening if this moratorium produces industry defined rules instead of a genuine ban. I'm watching this council and the task force being assembled. My community is watching, and we know the difference between protection and performance. Do not let this moratorium become a pathway for data centers.

Let it be the beginning of the end of them. Data centers are the superhighway infrastructure of our generation. And just like the interstate highway system that was sold as progress and jobs and economic opportunity and then driven straight through the heart of black and brown communities, the decisions about where this infrastructure goes, who it harms, and who it serves are being made right now without us. We cannot afford to make that mistake again. The guardrails don't come after the damage, the guardrails come now, or they don't come at all, and the only logical guardrail here is ultimately a ban. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, we have Harmony Harmony Cumming.

Hello, counsel. My name is Harmony. I run the Greenhouse Connection Center two blocks from where they're building the CoreSite data center. In January, I got to go to Tucson for a data center advocacy, training with 85 people from across the country fighting data centers, and I learned three things. First, data centers are coming for communities everywhere, and every local and state government is broke and desperate for jobs, and our capitalist systems are failing the people and the planet.

Two, water is life, and it is devastatingly dry flying from the headwaters of Colorado, down the Colorado River, down to Tucson. Some things about water, Aurora Water large user metric table. If you haven't seen it yet, I really encourage everyone on this working room, in this council, in this mayor's office in Denver Water to get us, associated with quickly. I'll send it to you. Two, the water energy nexus.

If you change to closed loop systems, you use more power and you use more chemicals, all which require more water. Bluefield Research did a study saying that 70% of the water demand will actually be indirectly for making the chemicals and the power, not in the facility itself. Three, the importance of place based organizing. Coming physically to the places where these data centers are happening so you can see, smell, taste, feel it for yourself. I can tell you that the data center is close to a nursing home, but until you physically stand there and feel that for yourself, it is 70 feet away.

I sent an invitation to everyone on this council. Thank you to the council people who came. If you haven't made it yet, it's a standing invitation anytime. I encourage every state, everyone in the city agency, and everyone on this working group to please join us, walk with us, and have a conversation with us right where it takes place. Right now, we need a data center moratorium and beyond because there's more considerations for where we put a swing set in a park as I was sitting in a planning meeting, with community members, with Councilman Watson when the kids, youth came up with a plan for a park we're trying to convert, and they wanted it by the fence line, and we have to rezone from industrial to a park.

More considerations on a swing set than there are for 14 diesel generators touching the city or touching a nursing home. The state is not gonna protect us. Couldn't pass things at the legislative sessions, not even basic transparency. They did an environmental justice analysis. The score in virus exposures, ninety fifth percentile. Environmental effects, ninety fourth. Didn't stop the project from happening. Nothing. We only even know about the summary because of a reporter. But as I end, I wanna end on a foundation of hope and love for humanity, for my children, for the water, for all the children, and the future.

I play Dungeons and Dragons with my kids with our ultimate challenge of fighting AI at the end because we use our imaginations moving from algorithm to rhythm. The data center IA, automation, workforce decline, surveillance state, industrial war complex, chaos collapse, economy, the future, the richest a hole tech bros, fossil fuel companies are trying to force upon us is not inevitable. The time is now to protect our water, our communities, our children, and future. Thank you.

Next up, we have Pierce Frenander.

Hello,

counsel. Thank you so much for having us today. My name is Pierce, and I definitely wanna let you guys know why I think we should have a moratorium plus some on these data centers. As we've said, they drive up utility bills, drain our rivers, consuming our public resources an unprecedented industrial scales. Their growth deepens dependence on reckless extra extracurative, energy systems, opening the door to risky, poorly regulated nuclear development and expansion.

Data centers power surveillance systems, military warfare, and targeted adversaries designed to steal our rights and attention, and big tech corporations consolidate power. Data centers empower corporations like Palantir to track, surveil, and detain people in here nationwide and abroad. Increasingly, data centers are considered as legitimate targets in war. Developers promise jobs that don't exist and an economic growth that is questionable. While surrounding communities absorb the cost of utilities, grid upgrades, and water infrastructure, billionaires profit, while environmental and economic burdens are pushed onto the public.

The influx of data centers not only in this state but across the country, is just a way to make Big Brother even bigger. These data centers are being used to store all our private information as well as the means of which to desecrate Palestine and now Lebanon. It does not benefit anyone except for the elite and governments utilize them to commit genocide as well as surveil every aspect of our lives. We must think about the consequences of allowing these monstrosities in our city and state. I don't believe in just a regulation. I believe in a complete ban. This is a start, but we must build community, not data centers.

Thank you. I'll call the next five. Daniel Riley, Alfonso Espino, John Angel Diaz, Britt Dahel, and Jesus Laozo. First up, Daniel.

Thank you so much, and, good evening, president Pro Tem and members of city council. My name is Daniel Riley, I serve as the vice president of economic development for Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation where I oversee our global business attraction efforts to bring high quality primary jobs and capital investment into our region. We're the region's primary economic development organization. Our mission is to grow and strengthen the economy across 12 counties up and down I-twenty 5 corridor from Wyoming border down through Pueblo that make up our Metro Denver and Front Range region. And I'm here tonight because we believe this moratorium, however well intentioned, sets a troubling precedent for how Denver engages with the local and global business community and we want to offer a better path forward.

And let me be clear, the Metro Denver EDC does take serious the concerns that have been raised around energy consumption, water use, community engagement. Those are legitimate policy questions, and the the community and the city of Denver is is right to want answers, but a blanket moratorium on an entire industry is not the right tool to get there. Data centers are not a fringe industry. They're the physical infrastructure of the modern economy, housing, cloud storage, financial transactions, health care records, communication systems, things that Denver businesses and residents depend on every day. And they provide high paying jobs and significant property tax revenue and and sales tax revenue resources that fund the various city services that this council is charged with with protecting.

And this is also compared to a very low service cost and models for the city to support those same data centers. And so Denver has worked hard to earn its reputation as one of the top technology hubs in the country and globally. Mayor Johnson himself has said he is proud to partner with city council in keeping Denver as one of the top tech sectors in the nation, and we share that ambition. But signals matter enormously to the world when we're talking about economic development. And we hear regularly from executives and site selectors who are concerned that with Colorado's policy environment and where it's headed, where the increasing cost and burden of doing business here and those policy choices are being reflected in our data, and a moratorium of this kind adds to that perception.

And when the city announces it's halting an entire industry, even temporarily, businesses take note, Site selectors take note. Investors take note, and they begin to ask whether Denver is actually truly open for business or whether the next industry that draws community concern will face the same blunt response. Our recent towards a more competitive Colorado report found a decline in Carter's tax and regulatory competitiveness and raised concern that without disciplined regulatory review, these well intentioned policies risk the increased cost for employers and consumers undermining economic mobility and competitiveness. And this moratorium is exactly the kind of policy that we were warning about. So we wanted to do two things.

First, commit to the first robust, sorry, robust structured stakeholder engagement process that the business and economic development community, can engage with, from day one and not an afterthought.

Thank you, Daniel.

Okay. Thank you.

Next, we have Alfonso Espino.

Good afternoon, council members. My name is Alfonso Espino. I'm an organizer for the Globe Elyria Swansea Coalition. But more importantly, I am a lifelong resident of Elyria in Swansea. I grew up a block away from where this data center, Core Site, is currently being constructed on Vine Street at 4751 Vine Street at my grandpa's house.

My parents live one block next to it on Gaylord Street. I live within five blocks on Josephine Street, so this is not an issue that is only important to our communities, but it's important to me personally. My little sister, Elena, had lead poisoning growing up because of the industrial pollution. My older my younger brother, myself, and possibly more of our family members' future generations will have asthma. I have asthma.

I take four different medications just to address the issue, just to be able to breathe. And I think that many of our community members have already spoken really well about our concerns, and I really just wanted to take the opportunity to continue elevating the fact that we are not here to fight an industry. And referring to the previous speaker who seems more concerned about if Denver is open to business, to touch grass, because people will die because of the decisions that the city will or will not make. And I also wanna take the opportunity to speak to labor and our brothers and sisters in the trades because we are not against jobs. We are solely concerned with the health of our community because this is not Highlands Ranch.

This is Elyria. This is Swansea. This is Globeville. We already have to share Harmony already shared the statistics from CDPHE. We're in the ninetieth percentile for everything, and that means nothing to some people.

And we don't want to see a world where people don't have access to high quality jobs. In fact, we'd like to work with the trades to make sure that we're developing the right things in the city, that we're building social housing, the infrastructure that we need to survive. Suncor just had another flare up the other day because of a power outage. This is located within the exact same grid system that CoreSite will operate in that spewed hundreds of millions of tons of toxins in one day because of a power outage. Gil spoke to one power outage in the neighborhoods which are frequent in my lifetime which will only increase with the added demand of CoreSite.

And we do not want to conceptualize what a dystopian future will look like where people have to choose to become climate refugees from our own neighborhoods. I also want to just close by saying that the moratorium is a good first step, but only that. It needs to mean something. It needs to it needs to look towards the future, and it needs to ensure that we're building the right things, things that people actually need. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, we have Angel Diaz virtually.

Good evening, and thank you

for the opportunity to speak. My name is Dawn Angel Diaz, and my great grandparents bought a home in the GES neighborhood over seventy years ago. I've lived here all my life. I understand that that decisions like this are not simple. You're being asked to balance gross growth, infrastructure, and the future of our community. But those decisions also have real impacts on real people, and that's why I'm here. This isn't about being against technology. This is about fairness. It's about the kind of deals we are making and who they actually benefit. Right now, what's being proposed does not feel like a fair deal.

It feels like a death sentence for compute for communities like mines. Decisions are being made out of our out about about our land, our air, and our water without us truing able truly being able to be at the table. If we're honest, when something comes into a neighborhood and uses large amounts of resources, adds heat, adds pressure, and leaves red residents with long term consequences, I think it's fair to say, who is this really working for? In any real agreement, both sides should benefit. But here, the trade off is an uneven.

Data centers bring very few permanent jobs. The data center will demand huge amounts of electricity and water, and these demands are separate from reality. They land in communities that are already carrying environmental burdens. So what are we actually getting in return? And more importantly, what are we being asked to give up? For communities like mine, isn't something we can willfully do. We're already living with the impacts of decisions made without us. We already carry the weight of pollution and health risks. So when we see another project like this, it doesn't feel like an opportunity. It feels like more harm added on top of what we already have.

At some point, we have to call it for what it is. When the harm is predictable, the risks are known, and communities are still expected to carry the burden, that's not a fair deal. That's why this moratorium matters, bill twenty six zero four three one, gives us a chance to slow down slow this down and do it right, to fully understand the impact, the real protections in place, and to make sure community boast voices are actually part of the decision before it's too late. And I wanna be clear. This moratorium is not a signal that we will eventually say yes because we won't.

This is not about buying time so this project can come back unchanged. As it stands, we do not support it. The costs are too high, both physically and financially, and we are not willing to trade our health and our resources for a bad deal because no one should be allowed to come into our communities, take what they leave, and leave things worse than what they found them. I urge you to just to support this bill. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank Next up, we have Britt Deal. Britt? Hi there. Good evening, everyone. Name is Britt Deal, vice president

of external affairs representing the Downtown Denver Partnership, and we're registered neutral on this bill. And I'm really here to address the process ahead should this legislation pass. The modern economy runs on data centers, as we all know, from apps on our phones, the systems that dispatch first responders, and this infrastructure really underpins daily life in ways that most people will never see. This context really matters as council weighs in on the scope of this moratorium. Pausing to understand impacts before writing permanent regulation is the reasonable approach, and we appreciate that the bill includes structured engagement processes.

But the outcome will only be as good as the process itself. Denver's business community needs a meaningful voice at that table, not a formality, but a substantive role. Excuse me. We'd ask that the working group timeline be clearly defined, industry perspectives be genuinely considered, and the process remain open and accessible throughout. Thank you for your time tonight and for addressing this incredibly complex issue.

Thank you. Next up, we have Jesus

Hi, members of counsel. My name is Jesus Loisa. I'm a father, a husband, a public defender, and a union member with CWA seven seven nine nine. While I'm here in support of this moratorium effort, I want to be clear that a pause is not enough. Denver ultimately needs an outright ban on the construction of massive new data centers like the one CoreSite is putting up in the backyard of our GES neighbors.

What is happening in GES is a continuation of a legacy of environmental racism in a predominantly Latino neighborhood. The same community that has already carried the burden of historic slaughterhouse pollution, displacement from the I-seventy expansion, and industrial zoning is now being told that they should sacrifice their health and resources for corporate profit. GES residents need grocery stores, pharmacies, green spaces, clean air, clean water, reliable energy infrastructure, and investment in human needs, not another massive industrial complex consuming extraordinary amounts of energy and water. As a union member, I can empathize that data centers mean jobs for my union siblings in the building trades in the short term. But these data centers are meant to supercharge unemployment for the rest of us.

On to water consumption. Colorado is already facing severe drought conditions. We all got the notifications about the watering restrictions. What will be the water restrictions on data centers? Denver Water's collection system is at historic lows.

Yet, this CoreSite campus is projected to use nearly 1,000,000 gallons of water every single day, equivalent to the indoor water use of more than 19,000 Denver homes. At the same time, these facilities are driving up electricity demand and utility costs for everyone else. CoreSite's campus alone is projected to consume more electricity than the Denver International Airport. Excel Energy is already using data center demand to justify higher rates and extending the life of coal plants that are supposed to be put to rest. That means working families will be asked to pay more on their utility bills while corporations get richer and our climate goals get abandoned.

And for what? These massive new data centers are not being built to meet ordinary internet needs, apps. These projects are not so that we can more effortlessly stream Netflix or generate innocent cat AI videos. They are being built because billionaires and massive corporations are racing to dominate AI technologies that are increasingly being used to to surveil workers, fix prices, and for policing and militarization. So, yes, pass this moratorium. But this cannot be the end with a study group or a temporary delay. Denver needs the courage to say that our water, our air, our neighborhoods, and our working class communities are more important than the ambitions of billionaires. I thank you for your time.

Next set of speakers. Next up, we have Brendan Terrell, Chess Crane, Elizabeth Gillespie, Hamilton Nicoloff, and Sergio Cardova. First up, Brendan. Next up, we have Chess Crane. Chess.

Next up, we

Thank you, counsel. Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this discussion. My name is Beth Gillespie. I'm a physician in the Denver area, ZIP code 80212, a mother of three children, and also a member a board member of Physicians for Social Responsibility of Colorado. I'm speaking here on behalf of myself.

I did have something prepared, but I think I would just agree with many of the points that have already been made by neighbors in North Denver and environmental justice experts who have already spoken out about their wish for a complete ban on data centers because of the concerns about drought, corporate greed, and also just a lack of consideration of the health effects of all of these things, that are bring being brought, by the data centers that already exist. I also, would like to say that, I appreciate the, list of members, should this moratorium pass, which I agree it is an important first step. You know, if it is possible to consider all of the health effects of, the potential health effects of incredible energy use, water pollution, noise pollution, and still, create a proposal that allows community resilience that the community can vote on and and approve, that would be great. I think we have to get all the information, though. I just don't see us getting to a point where, the the unknowns are solvable and are worth all of the harms that we have seen, already present in other states.

But getting back to the the list of working group members, I think it is important to include community members on this list. I would caution about the subject matter expert that is invited to be on this. When I saw that, I the alarm bells went off in my head, and I would just hope that the subject matter expert is not paid by industry, is a subject matter expert on the health effects of pollution, on risk assessment, and that that be something somebody that community members are able to, approve and work with. Beyond that, I just thank you for the time, and I hope that, there is a yes vote on this moratorium as a first step in health equity in our community. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, we have Hamilton

Good evening, madam president, council people. My name is Hamilton Nicoloff. I'm a GES resident and city council district nine candidate. I recently heard a Denver's elected official comment that sometimes community and small businesses are necessary sacrifice in the name of progress. Some of you will die today, he quoted from a movie.

Kindly, I must disagree because without community, without businesses, families, culture and history that make Denver Denver, progress is just an empty word devoid of substance and value. Swansea is not an empty industrial corridor. It is a living neighborhood that has already carried more of its share of sacrifice for the city, refineries, high rates, rail lines, industrial expansion layered upon industrial expansion. And yet a substantial number of Denver residents have chosen this as their home, a place to raise children and grandchildren and grow old. As such, we wish to leave the past in the past and work towards building a brighter future for our neighborhood.

But now despite our dreams, plans and wishes for our neighborhood, residents are once more asked to absorb the burden of massive infrastructure projects and told the impacts are simply the cost of modernization. For years, residents have implored this city for basic investment, a grocery store, neighborhood serving businesses, spaces that nourish community life. Instead, we are told the answer is another massive industrial project that no other neighborhood apparently wants either. People notice when a neighborhood asks for food access and receives unwanted and unasked for further industrial expansion. And yes, I understand the argument about economic growth and tax revenue, but we should be honest about the trade offs.

These facilities consume enormous amounts of land, water, and power while creating few permanent jobs compared to other forms of development. And let us be further honest and acknowledge that you cannot guarantee jobs and tax benefits, if any, will inure to the neighborhood you are asking to absorb these projects. As an alternative, instead of data centers, imagine the long term return of investing in mixed use quarters, local businesses, urban agriculture, workforce housing, clean manufacturing, community retail or public markets places that circulate wealth back into the neighborhood instead of walling it off behind security fences and cooling infrastructure. In conclusion, I respectfully ask this council to consider something plainly. If a proposal arose tomorrow to rezone land near Yale and I live beside one of Denver's country clubs for a massive data center complex, would this city embrace it with the same enthusiasm?

If the answer is no, then we must ask ourselves why neighborhoods like Swansea should be expected to carry the burdens that others would never accept for themselves. A moratorium is not anti progress. It is responsible equitable governance. Please vote yes on the moratorium and in the future please yell yes on a ban outright in the GES neighborhood. Thank you.

Next up, we have Sergio Cordova.

Good afternoon, council members. My name is Sergio Cordova, and I'm a business agent with Five Fighters Local Union two zero eight. I appreciate the opportunity to speak, today regarding the proposed data center moratorium. I would like to offer a neutral, position that recognizes both the concerns surrounding rapid development and economic opportunity for these projects, these project projects create. The data centers have become a critical part of today's infrastructure and economy.

They support cloud computing, communication, healthcare services, financial institution, manufacturing, and many of digital services that people rely every day like Zoom. As the demand for technology and data center storage continues to increase, data centers construction has also expanded significantly. From a work, workforce standpoint, these projects provide substantial employment opportunities for the skilled trades for organizations such as Pipefitters Local two zero eight. Data centers generate thousands of man hours for pipefitters, welders, service technicians, and and apprentices. The work is, it's itself is highly specialized and technical.

Pipefitters are responsible for installing and maintaining large scale chill water systems, HVAC piping, cooling infrastructure, process piping, and other, mechanical services that are essential to keeping servers and equipment up operating safely and efficiently around the around the clock. These careers also provide a middle class wages and benefits as skilled a skilled piper welder or service technicians working on these projects like data centers can earn well over a 150,000 annually in total compensation when wages and benefits are combined. This often includes family health insurance, retirement pensions, training opportunities, and other collective bargaining benefits that provide a long term financial stability for workers and their families. Modern data centers, rely on advanced cooling technologies that are designed to improve efficiency and reduce environmental impact. Many newer facilities use closed loop cooling systems, air cool chillers, high efficiency mechanical equipment that significantly reduce water consumption compared to older technology.

As technology continues to improve, many operators are investing in systems that minimize water use while maintaining the reliability required to for critical infrastructure. In additional to the immediate construction work work, data centers create long term employment opportunities to ongoing maintenance, equipment upgrades, retrofits, expansions, and operate, operational support. Those projects also help sustain apprenticeship programs and provide opportunities for younger workers, build long term careers in the trades. Also, the importance to recognize the benefits of project labor agreements to ensure the access is reliable, highly skilled workforce while promoting safety, efficiency, and coordinating among multiple traits. And I appreciate your time.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. Next up, we have Renee Chacon followed by John Albino, followed by Nicotia Nibler, followed by Shannon Hoffman, followed by Joshua Acosta. Renee?

Thank you.

We sure can. Go ahead.

Thank you. My name is Renee Malartiakko, and I'm cofounder of Women From The Mountain does environmental justice for with and for you indigenous communities here in Colorado. I was also on the environmental justice action task form equity analysis of cumulative impacts. I asked Diversity Council to not only consider this moratorium, but recognize that it's a way to hold the door open right now. As of this year, legislature was not able to pass any form of environmental justice protections, enforceable protections, or environmental health equity analysis when it comes to data centers.

We already know where a lot of these data centers are being proposed is already disproportionately impacted communities harmed by several different forms of cumulative and devastating impacts from our air quality, our water quality, and even our land. I live in Commerce City. I know exactly what that looks like from Suncor. And when we're talking about data centers, we need to consider not only our disproportionately impacted communities being harmed by rates, we are not going to get those jobs. Those jobs do not last, and they often do not benefit our communities, not for our lungs, our hearts, our health, and our air.

So I ask that you use this moratorium as a way to also guide state legislator to have enforceable protections because we can no longer rely on a federal government to protect us on an EPA level even on the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. It is truly up to you right now to not only have forms of banning data centers for DIC, but recognizing that we need to be in renewable spaces and nuclear is not one of them either. So as an advocate and and a mother that is concerned about future generations, I ask that you consider this moratorium as a way to also guide the state in how we can protect our communities. Maine has done it, and in several of the spaces, even Hawaii is looking at over turning citizen united because corporations have more personhood than the very communities that live in these spaces. So I remind you, where you put these data centers, people live here.

Our most vulnerable live here. So please act in a way that is respectful and loving to the next seven generations. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, we have John

Thank you, madam president. Thank you to good evening council members. Thanks for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is John Alvino. I am the president of the Denver Area Labor Federation, and I am the business manager of the Sheet Metal Air Rail and Transportation Workers Local Union nine, representing 1,500 sheet metal workers throughout our jurisdiction with more than 1,100 building trades members who work on construction projects throughout this region and the state, including projects involving data centers and critical infrastructure.

We understand the concerns being raised here tonight. Concerns about environmental impacts, energy uses usage, water consumption, and impacts on neighborhoods deserve solution serious discussion and thoughtful planning. But we also have to acknowledge the reality that modern life depends on data centers, whether it's remote work, online education, health care systems, emergency communications, banking, streaming services, social media, or even participating in public meetings through Zoom or live streams, all of it relies on data center infrastructure. So simply saying we're not going to build them may sound like an easy answer, but it's a short sighted one, because it does not solve the larger issue. The demand is already here.

The real question is how do we build and operate these facilities responsibly in a way that reflects our values. That is where Labord believes we can help be part of the solution. We believe that government, labor, industry, environmental stakeholders, and neighborhoods should come together and create a responsible path forward, one that includes implementable environmental standards, transparency, accountability, and considerations of impacts on surrounding communities and their workers. If these projects move forward, they should move forward with high road standards that include community benefits agreements, project labor agreements, apprenticeship opportunities, local hire pathways, and best value metrics that ensure these projects create family sustaining careers while protecting public interest. Denver has an opportunity to lead by showing that innovation, sustainability, community engagement, and good union jobs can all work together.

Thank you. I appreciate your time tonight.

Next up, we have Nicole Shia Nibler. Nicole Shia, can you accept the promotion? Next up, we have Shannon Hoffman.

Good evening. My name is Shannon Hoffman. And in late twenty twenty three, began I working for the Community Investment Fund in Globeville, Eleria, and Swansea. Last year, around this time, we came to you asking you all to be kind to us. I don't think it can be overstated how much the city has not been kind to my neighbors.

However, what eventually compelled me to move to Eleria now a year ago was not all the problems we face, but that in spite of those problems, my neighbors find joy, peace, interdependence, creative solutions. And though sometimes we resent that, we have to find it. We have a deep well of resilience. I now live at 4683 Vine Street directly across from our beloved Valdez Perry Library at 4690 Vine Street where many children and their families come for free snacks and crafts and most importantly community connection. This is two blocks south of the Coorsight Data Center.

I'm supposed to tell you a lot of facts about data centers, but you will hear many of them tonight from my friends and I think you know these facts and as such, I believe you are going to pass a moratorium and I thank you for that. But we are not here to ask for a moratorium. We are here to ask for a ban. And I compel you to think about it this way because I don't know if all the facts will change your mind. You would never want your mother to live next to this building.

I promise you that. And I compel you to see every woman in my neighborhood just like you see your mother. You would never want your loved ones to live next to this building. The people in this neighborhood have suffered enough. Their homes have been taken by eminent domain, which is an act of evil. My neighbor who has lived there for forty years tells me, their blocks have been shortened by the expansion of I-seventy. We smell Purina. We see the blare of sun core. We have they have suffered enough. It really feels like what you want of our precious neighborhood is to erase it.

And there's a part of me that wants to say, Turn it on so you can see how strong we really are. But what I'm going to say is what my neighbor Dolores says, which is me, I will not suffer. We are grateful for your moratorium. We want to ban whatever you decide. We will have joy.

We will have love. We will

have a deep well of resilience. You cannot take our pride is what my mama used to say. But I hope you come to see our neighbors just like you see your own family and you help us shut this thing down. Thank you.

Next up, we have Joshua Costa.

Good evening, counsel. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak. My name is Joshua. I'm an organizer and resident of Aurora. And I do support this bill as a first step as many before many before me have said.

But I'm, you know, must also acknowledge that this data center that is currently being built in the global alert sponsor neighborhoods that CoreSite has every intention of expanding with two more buildings should have never been approved. As, of course, the necessary guardrails were not there and as a bare minimum community input needs to be a part of the process. This multi billion dollar corporation is able to come in, set up shop, and turn a blind eye to the community. This type of thing can never happen again. So, again, important first step to start getting something actually in place.

But, as many others have said, we need a full on ban because this particular, growth and surge of data centers across the country are massive data centers that are not for the needs of working class people. It is a race to control these AR technologies to surveillance and further displace this world, you know, the entire globe. You know, there's not really much left untouched by, you know, the billionaires that run this country.

And

so, most importantly, most especially, like this should not be a consideration in neighborhoods like Chigula, Beale, Swansea as many of them who have lived there for many generations have have said to you all, like, this is just absurd to even consider with all that that they've gone through. And then not to mention that half of Colorado is in an extreme drought. Like others have said, like, this is a historic low that we're in. So there's just no way that anything further can be considered. A ban is the only way forward.

And so, again, we respect and appreciate anything to start that process, but they cannot end there. And, just to also like hit home the point that we already have plenty of data centers that take care of like basic simple internet necessities that you know many people have talked about like these data centers are not again not going towards that. And so we urge you to of course vote for this but to put the community first in the process throughout every step of it and allow them to again put their own future in their own families. You know, allow them to have dignity and live with love. And, again, do what is right, but we need to work towards the ban.

Thank you, Joyce.

Thank you so much. The next five we have up are Rachel Warbello, Benjamin Shia, Sylvia Zamoya, Rose Bowspring, and Rachel Lehman.

Hello.

My name is Rachel. I am a senior software engineer, a former public school cofounder and coleader, and a mom. With a decade of software engineering experience, I am proud of the technology that I've built, all of which relies on data centers in some way. But with AI acceleration, tech has taken a deeply concerning turn and without meaningful action, we are barreling towards a dangerous and unpredictable future. Goldman Sachs recently reported that AI is now the primary demand driver for new data center build out.

These facilities exist to train and power increasingly capable models. So when we talk about data centers, we also need to talk about AI. We need to talk about the study out of King's College in London in which AI models chose nuclear signaling in 95% of crisis scenarios. We also need to talk about Anthropics policy chief admitting that in a simulation where a model faced shutdown, it was, quote, ready to kill, blackmailing officials and leaking sensitive data. Now imagine what happens when we combine these models with increasingly capable robotics.

And yes, these future models might unlock a cure for cancer, but that potential does not prevent these same systems from being weaponized or spinning out of control. The industry's own leaders admit the danger. Nobel Prize winner and AI godfather, Jeffrey Hinton, estimates the existential risk to humanity at over fifty percent. Last September, Anthropic CEO Dario Amade said, I think there's a twenty five percent chance that things go really, really bad. In a conversation with Ted Cruz, Elon Musk placed the odds of annihilation, that's his words not mine, at twenty ten to twenty percent within five to ten years.

Silicon Valley is not gonna self regulate because capitalism never does. OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta have all disbanded or significantly scaled back their safety teams because safety slows down profit. Their CEOs admit this risk, but they're trapped in the prisoner's dilemma. I will readily admit that AI has made my job as a software engineer much easier, and it can lock unlock doors for people. But we can't keep barreling down this path of uncontrolled AI acceleration and expect everything to be okay.

We are, for now, still in control, but we are putting humanity's continued existence in the hands of of money and power hungry billionaires. We need our elected officials to step up and do something. One concrete step that we can do here in Denver is put our foot down and tell these companies that, no, you cannot use our city to build the infrastructure for a technology that threatens our very existence. And I hope that the city council here chooses never to participate in this race to the bottom and instead chooses to invest in the types of data centers that are prohumans, libraries, schools, senior centers, green spaces, cultural hubs. Those are the types of data centers that I think the people in Denver can really get behind.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Benjamin Sheehy.

Good evening, council members. My name is doctor Benjamin Scheer. I'm an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Denver where I collaborate with Denver Museum's Institute of Science and Policy to build state lawmakers' capacities to legislate on AI. I was previously a postdoctoral fellow with Stanford's Institute for Human Centered AI and Ethics Center, and, the testimony reflects my personal views, not the views of DU, the Institute of Science and Policy, or Stanford, and I have no financial conflicts of interest related to this bill. I spoke with councilman Cashman about this bill back in March.

Since then, I've been working with DU computer science student Cody Key, to research the economic, environmental, and health impacts on data centers, and he submitted written testimony. I'm speaking in support of this bill, because a moratorium on data centers affords the city crucial time to consider short term economic, gains against long term energy, health, and water concerns. On economic benefits, data centers are really good for the economy when they're being constructed, but unproven investments after that. Good union labor builds data centers. I love and respect that being a member of UAW Local forty one twenty one during grad school.

However, after they're built, only a few engineers are required to maintain them. For example, a county in New York gave $77,000,000 in tax breaks to build a data center that will produce one permanent job on power. In 2024, data centers consume 4% of all energy in The United States. That is expected to more than double by 2030, and our capacity our built capacity with, for example, renewable energy is will absolutely not keep up with that increased energy demand. So this in nearby states, we've seen this increase in energy demand result in utility rate increases, strains to aging infrastructure, and increasing reliance on carbon emitting, energy sources on water.

Data centers create an irrevocable amount of or require an irrevocable amount of typically potable water to cool their equipment and lots of it. So for example, a Google data center in Iowa, which is about the size of a FedEx distribution center and is no longer even considered large, consumes the amount of water that 54,000 Denver Denver residents will in their homes. Because data centers must always run, they cannot decrease water usage during drought conditions. On health, data centers must always be running regardless of time of day, grid outage, or natural disasters. Therefore, data centers typically have diesel generators on-site, which are regularly tested resulting in the air, soil, and water pollution others have spoken about.

Data centers also produce a constant high pitched noise, which is not well regulated by existing state policies and causes issues with cognitive function, sleep, and stress, and data centers become permanent heat islands. So a proposed one in Utah would increase daytime temperatures by five degrees and nighttime temperatures by 28 degrees. In conclusion, I urge the council to support what people overwhelmingly want. A Gallup poll from last week said that, data centers have a 71% disapproval. So 71% of people oppose it. So therefore, data centers have a negative 42 approval rating. So I urge this counsel to support this moratorium. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, we have Sylvia Samuya.

Good evening. My name is Sylvia Samuya. I'm a Denver resident, and I'm here to speak in favor of the data center moratorium. Although this moratorium is an essential first step, I don't believe it's enough. We need a ban on data centers not just here in Denver, but in all of Colorado, and not just for one year, but permanently.

The consequences of opening a data center in our communities needs to be taken seriously, and I'm truthfully frustrated and heartbroken to hear the pro business talking points that completely neglect these deadly impacts so Denver can be open for business. As has been stated, we are in a climate crisis, and data centers aggressively drain our most precious resources. CoreSite's new three building data center campus is estimated to use a million gallons of water a day. So to contextualize that, that's 19,000 homes of water usage. That's ridiculous.

After one of the warmest Colorado winters we've seen leaving us with 58% of Colorado in a drought, we cannot afford to concede our water resources to these data centers. CoreSite's new data center would also use over 75 megawatts of electricity per day. To contextualize that, that's a 100,000 homes a day. And who's footing the bill for this additional electricity? Residents of these communities, not CoreSite.

You don't have to take my word for this. Xcel Energy is already raising people's rates as energy usage skyrockets. Current projections show Coloradans could see their utility bills jump up to 50%. We have seen the impacts and lack of accountability from other corporations like Suncor and Purina on the Globeville Elyria Swansea community, and CoreSite's new data center is just a continuation legacy of environmental racism in this predominantly Latino neighborhood. We know that CoreSite would be no different.

We know that this construction of this and any new data center in the GES community must be stopped immediately and permanently. We know that there are a lot of things that this community needs, grocery stores, third spaces, clean air and water. What they don't need, a massive hyperscale data center that will drain their resources and pollute and destroy their communities. Thank you to the city council members who have been to the GES community meetings about this data center, who have heard testimonies from the community members. They're already suffering high rates of asthma, cancer, reliance on CPAP machines, and other health conditions.

These residents should not be further poisoned by this data center. We know that these massive data centers are built for billionaire profit and not to meet people's needs. We need to pass this moratorium. We need to get an all out ban on data centers, and we need to develop real plans on how our precious resources can be used to meet people's needs and improve communities like GES, not destroy them. Thank you.

Rose Balspring.

Hey. Hey, city council. I'm here to speak for the moratorium. What I've heard from a lot of the residents around Elyria and Swansea is their main concern about the moratorium is that it will be used to dampen the energy. Right? So yes for it, but let's, like, keep the energy going. Right? That's the really important thing. They do not want the data center there at all as you all have heard. None of most of them that I've heard really just don't want it there at all.

I want to make sure that the needs of those neighbors are met and that they this data center is actually shut down because that's what the neighbors want. I really hope that you'll act as representatives for these neighbors and not for multinational course like, these big companies. Right? You all are meant to serve the community, and I really hope y'all will take this one year y'all have to really get on this and make sure that these data centers are shut down. Because, like, these data centers are important. Right? But this is a new kind of data center. These are, like, really, really big, like, way bigger than the data centers that already exist. They're meant for, like, largely AI. Right?

These are new kinds of things that are not day to day things that everyday people need. Right? We can have these small scale data centers that meet the needs of people, but these big scale data centers, like folks don't want them here. Frankly, we don't have a lot of water here. Maybe build them somewhere else, not in these poor neighborhoods. We really don't want them there. And, yeah, I know the neighbors will keep organizing. They will keep fighting until these data centers are shut down, and y'all should be doing your part as well. Thank you.

Rachel Lehman.

Hi. I'm Rachel Lehman, and I am a mom, first and foremost. I'm an educator, and I also work in the Elyria Swansea Global Elyria Swansea area and also in Commerce City, both pretty polluted areas. Rapid integration normalization of AI into our daily lives raises pressing pretty questions about its appropriate use and regulations. From benign automated customer service in airlines to AI driven diagnostics in healthcare, we're witnessing a transformation that demands scrutiny, albeit a couple decades late.

Data centers are key to autonomous weapons systems and around the clock surveillance. These applications can be fatal. What's most concerning is the pace of AI deployment without robust regulatory frameworks in place. I want to highlight another unionized group, teachers. The education sector presents particularly ethical challenges.

When we envision the future of our schools, we must ask ourselves, can AI systems provide emotional support to our children? Is a scraped knee at recess something we want handled by algorithms and not a kind human being? Disproportionately impacted communities like d DICs, like the location of CoreSites data center in GES, will likely bear the brunt of these changes, particularly regarding water consumption for AI infrastructure. Without proper oversight, we are we risk exacerbating existing inequalities while creating new ones. While AI promises remarkable benefits like a used car salesman, I might add, the current approach to this expansion is reckless.

Data centers must address both current and potential future app applications and be transparent in their in actions and their intent. Who are your clients? Do these clients make the ultimate sacrifice to make our communities worth it? Who are they servicing in these data centers? And I wanna see if this will work.

We're gonna try it out. I wanted to let you guys hear what it's like living next to a data center. That would drive me crazy to live next to. These are just some of the things that people aren't talking about. Our mental health is worth something.

And I don't think just being able to have more surveillance and weapons is worth making a whole community sacrifice what they have already. Thanks.

Next up, we have Steven Hartman.

Good evening, counsel. My name is Steven Hartman, and I'm a teacher at a DPS school in the Globeville neighborhood of Denver. And I'm a proud member of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association. I'm here because I'm deeply concerned about what these large scale data centers represent, not just environmentally but politically and educationally. We're told that these projects represent the future.

But as a teacher, I can tell you that the future our students need is not one dominated by surveillance, automation, and data extraction. Public schools are already being pushed towards increased dependence on private tech companies and AI platforms that promise personalized learning and efficiency. But education is not just content delivery. Real education comes from relationships, from dialogue, from trust, from creativity, and human connection. An AI machine cannot build community in a classroom.

An AI machine cannot teach empathy. An AI machine cannot recognize when a child is struggling, when a child is scared, when they're hungry or isolated. An AI machine cannot replace the critical thinking that emerges through real human dialogue, through community and collective learning. If schools are under resourced, the solution is not automation or the infrastructure for automation. The solution is investment in people.

We should ask ourselves, why is there always enough money for massive private infrastructure projects but never enough money for education? One of these facilities is being built in Globeville, Elyria, and Swansea, a community that has already been disproportionately impacted by environmental racism and political neglect. And while there's discussion of a moratorium on future data centers, what about the one that's already being built? What about the students, the families, the schools, the parks, the clinics, and the residents that will live with the consequences? If a task force is being assembled around this issue, those voices must be centered, not the voices of corporate interests.

We need to make the moratorium mean something. As an educator who cares about what kind of world that we're preparing students to enter into, I believe we should be asking whether we are preparing students for a future shaped by technocratic fascists or a world organized around ideals like democracy, dignity, opportunity, and community, Globeville and Elyria Swansea are not sacrifice zones. Our communities and especially our students deserve real investment in people and communities, not surveillance infrastructure disguised as progress. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, we have Alma Urbano. Alma?

Good evening.

My name is Alma Urbano, and I live District 9. I'm here, like many of us, to ask that you do not only place a moratorium or a pause on data centers, but that you actually take a brave step and actually ban all data centers, especially those that impact Denver residents like CORSAY. It is very disturbing that now every time I I try to take steps outside my house, I leave my house to walk down the block, I am faced with this gray prison like building across the railroad, across the park that I want to walk through. My side of the neighborhood faces what appears to be the very diesel generators that quartz I will use when our neighborhood power gets shut down or get so overwhelmed that it shuts down. My neighbors and I have to wait for the return of the electricity while the data center diesels will run into our lungs and our livers.

I want to ask all of you in city council if you know where there are bodies. Our health will survive one year of this CoreSite data center. Will our pancreas, our liver survive and process all the toxins? I don't know if our kidneys will rot in silence or there'll be a drought that will take us all out. Will our hearts handle the anxiety and stress of adding more pollution to the cocktail of carcinogens that are already happening here in the neighborhood?

I'm really scared that if you don't ban all data centers in Gleville, Eleria, and Swansea, who's gonna pay our bills? Are you, the city council, gonna pay all the health technology that these data centers are gonna provide to us? Are you gonna pay our sick time, our health insurance? Are you gonna provide health care for the undocumented immigrants that live in our community? We're already falling apart with our health.

We're probably gonna fall apart even faster with what's going on. Data centers like CORSAIR are not an economic investment if they target the same bodies that actually provide for the city and the state. We are not going to have lives much less the modern lives that they keep bragging to us today. By the way, you should have health experts in your working groups and actually address what is actually going into the human bodies that are living right next to the data center. And, also, data centers are not an economic investment if they keep overwhelming our water system, our oxygen, our electric electrical grid, our hospitals, our streets.

You still have so much power, and I hope you use it for something that will save Denver and all of us for generations to come if they do. So please ban data centers in Denver. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, we have Samuel Haigland. How do pronounce that?

Haugland. But that's fine. Thank you so much. I support the moratorium so much that I want it to go on forever, really. Other speakers have already talked about the environmental impact, so I'm just going to skip that. But, just to say that we don't need these new data centers. Data centers have been around for decades. You know, we use them, we rely on them. Most of them are pretty small, and they support our regular internet needs. And, the AI companies right now don't really need all this new data center capacity.

They're building it to hedge for the future. Billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are in a race to construct these massive data centers because they want to be the ones to power and control new AI technologies that are requiring more and more data center capacity. And, these new technologies are really surveillance against the enemy within. In the minds of the billionaires, you know, we're the enemy within. They want to surveil us, and they also are weapons of war against, you know, China, Russia, Iran.

The war the world is ramping up towards global war. Some people might say we're already in World War III, so I don't think we need to be accelerating the current. We need to be trying to get to peace. But I also just get this feeling that the decision's already been made, and this moratorium is just a stop gap to let the situation cool off before just going ahead with the plan anyway. And this community can't and won't allow that to happen. So, thank you.

Hello

everybody.

Thanks for listening and letting everybody speak. Name is Julie, and I live at 2121 East 48th Avenue. I live directly across the street, just steps away from Core Site.

Let me see.

I live in the apartments and I am for this moratorium, but I am ultimately also for a ban. Living right next to and just steps from it, I'm, you know, I'm just, I just, I don't want it there, you know, and I wasn't asked and I wasn't told, you know. I lost my place. I'm asking for passing at this moratorium as a first step towards either a ban or heavy accountability guardrails. As we're already the most polluted neighborhood zip code in Colorado, this site is right across from a nursing home that's being built right next door to me.

There's a park on the other side of it where kids play and a rec center directly across from it on the other side. I just think that this was this wasn't the place for this. There's people that live right there. And we already deal with Suncor, the pollution from that. We have health issues, everybody that lives there.

Unfortunately, we're mostly like the working poor. It's basically a poor neighborhood, It's so it's easier to live there, you know, for me personally, you know. I love my community. And, yeah, I'm I'm totally for a band. I I think that, the fact that what everybody's talked about, especially the water, that's gonna be, and we already are in a water crisis, and to add these data centers that consume even ridiculous amounts of our precious water, people don't realize, you know, that, I mean, water is life, you know, and everybody just takes that for granted, you know.

But pretty soon, with all these data centers that they're just slamming everywhere, everybody's going to realize, you know, how precious water is because we're going to be looking we're going to be, you know, saying know, fighting people for water or whatever. It's gonna be like, you know, like in the movies or whatever. It's ridiculous. And I already have health issues.

Julie, that's your time.

Thank you.

Thank you for listening.

Yep. Next up, we have Leo Yerbrano. Leo?

Hello. My name is Leo. Hello. My name is Leo. I am 79 years old.

I've been living in in the Leroswansa for twenty two years. Based on the health studies, we have seen that seventy percent of the residents have some sort of health problems, some that were not as serious but that are now chronic diseases. The sad thing is that we have seen more and more symptoms, some that

have

manifested themselves several times over. We have the Purina factory and the sun sun form that has produced cancer with some of the On I 70, in noise pollution. No. We have I 70 with its large with its heavy noise pollution and cars race through I 70 and it's hard to breathe and some say it even stings to breathe. We all know that once a smoke reaches the lungs, it is very difficult to take care of.

We've also found receptacles of industrial waste that have been there prior to the factories that are there now. And now even these data centers will be way more harmful in in many aspects. That's why I direct my comments to the owners of Corseille data centers to place yourselves in our shoes. Be more considerate, be more humanitarian, be aware of the potential harm. And now I direct myself towards the city council that has the authority to place this moratorium.

We trust in you, and we believe in this moratorium, but we demand that these data centers be prohibited. And I also wanna take advantage of this time to make aware many people who to talk to many people who are not even aware of the situation. For example, we must use the churches to communicate this information to everyone. Because we do want we do not wanna suffer the fatal consequences. Thank you very much for listening to Thank

you. Next up, we have Jen Beverly. Jen? Next up, we have Oligria Contreras. Next up we have Brian Ortiz.

Producer, do we have Brian? No. Brian Ortiz. Next up, we have Camilla Hi. Hi.

Good evening. My name is Camilla Vietitis, and I'm a Denver resident and lifelong Coloradan. I'm here to advocate for not only a moratorium, but also a full ban like many of the previous speakers. As I said, I'm a lifelong Colorado resident, and there is nothing I love more than the than the incredible environment we are all lucky enough to call home. Each year, I spend countless days hiking, exploring the unique beautiful landscapes of Colorado, trekking to Alpine Lakes, and spending hours in our lush biologically diverse forests.

I am also a woman in my thirties getting ready to start a family, and I really hope to do that in the place I love so much. And I'm also a jazz musician and educator immersed in and inspired by the thriving artistic community that we have here in Denver in our really iconic and historic jazz scene. So in short, I love Denver, and I want to continue to build my life and raise my family here, but I am deeply concerned that all of these wonderful parts of our city will be destroyed if data centers are allowed to be constructed in our fragile climate that is already suffering. Speakers have already spoken to the drought and environmental impact, so I don't need to repeat those things. But as a reminder, in January 2026, the UN released a report that stated that the world is in a state of water bankruptcy.

So we are we are actively facing this not only here in Colorado, but all around the world. Furthermore, if we're interested in creating jobs, I want to echo what a previous speaker said. There are so many more creative ways to facilitate grub job growth. How about investing in sustainable energy and climate projects? And if we're really concerned about jobs, we need to acknowledge the concerns that AI will be taking over and replacing a ton of existing jobs.

And I'm also concerned about our thriving music and art scene. Are we gonna let AI take away that part of our humanity too? That's an iconic part of being a Denver resident. And I just believe that supposed economic growth won't matter when no one has water, farmable land, or breathable air. I want to live in a Denver that takes care of its citizens, not corporations.

I want to build my future family here and know that they will be taken care taken care of by their city. Please enact this moratorium, ban construction of data centers altogether. And I think it's time that we forget tech and industry and corporations. Instead, let's show the world that Denver is a champion for climate justice, that Denver is a leader in shaping a future where community well-being and environmental care are cherished and prioritized. Thank you so much for your time.

Next up, we have Emily Webster.

Good evening, counsel. My name is Emily Webster, Webster, and I am have been a Denver resident for eight years, and I'm also a licensed professional counselor. Yeah. I just wanted to reiterate a lot of the points that have already been made, you know, basically, hearing kind of an argument between job creation and the future of technology versus, like, the vast environmental impact. And, you know, something I see a lot in my practice as a therapist is climate anxiety.

Eighty one percent of people between the ages of like 16 and 24 globally express climate anxiety as a significant concern and I can attest to this anecdotally. And Denver and Coloradans care about mental health. Denver funds the STAR program, the support team assisted response which is awesome for people in mental health crises and Colorado taxpayers fund programs like the Child and Youth Mental Health Treatment Act and the Family First Prevention Services Act. And, you know, so there's a lot of public support for this already, but it seems like the data centers would work against this. You know, they're harming the climate, contributing to climate anxiety, and then not to mention exacerbating the stress levels and the anxiety levels of, like, the local residents who are near the data centers.

So Denver should take steps to support programs it's already paying for. And like other people have been saying, if we wanna create jobs, create them through, you know, alternative stuff like libraries, schools, grocery stores, health clinics instead of these data centers that would further destroy the environment. You know, we're already running out of water as it is. People have already spoken to this and using as much water as 19,000 households per day just from one data center is something we simply can't afford. Denver's already number eight in the country for the worst ozone levels and this would just add to that pollution.

In Aurora where a big data center already exists, residents are being asked to cut back on like their water usage while the data center is just guzzling water and the overall residents aren't seeing much direct benefit, to themselves as, families. So while we may feel in desperate need of jobs or sales tax revenue, we can't eat tax revenue, we can't drink business, or our children can't breathe jobs while they play outside. There are alternative ways to find jobs, but there aren't alternatives to clean water and clean air. So like people have said before, urging the council to make decisions with the next seven generations in mind. And like others have said, we don't just need a moratorium.

We need a full ban. Thank you. We

have James Valentin on Zoom. James?

Hi. James Valentin live in Brookfield, Colorado. I'm speaking in favor of the Dana Center moratorium at the very least, but a full band is better. We have stage one drought conditions after Colorado's warmest winter on record, but a data center predicted 5,000 water a day is on the table. That's not right. The argument that data center is bringing in money is a week one too when the state house was just trying to introduce bills like h b 26 dash ten thirty that would give them a 100% state sales and use tax break for twenty years. So a little bit about me. I grew up in Western Colorado where there was a lot of fracking. The people didn't have a choice where the wells went up, but they are the ones who bore the negative effects. One of my teachers in elementary school could turn on their water, light a match underneath it, it would catch fire.

A lot of people got sick, and nothing was done about it. A study was released in 2012 that showed living within a half mile of the well pads increases lifetime cancer risk. The county's response, we didn't ask them to do that study. This year, the sunlight long fracking well near the ore reservoir was approved, and based on my experience, I'd be willing to bet it will affect the water for the 400,000 people that rely on it. And now you guys are only considering a one year ban on data centers. I'm tired of elected officials and companies choosing profits over people, and then we're the ones that have to deal with the consequences. We don't want more data centers. The bulk of new data center projects aren't even for everyday use. They're for AI and surveillance. AI and new data centers are being forced on us and called inevitable by the people they don't affect.

They're fear mongering to rush development and control. Sam Altman and Elon Musk are arguing in court saying that guy is gonna kill us all with AI, so I should be in charge of AI. Kevin O'Leary is saying if we don't make these data centers, China will get ahead of us. And Alex Karp is gleefully bragging about how many people a Palantir kills with AI in investor calls. These data centers don't help us. They just help rich pricks get richer. I'll leave you with some questions to consider before you vote on this. First one, who elected you? Would you live next to a data center? Do you wanna be responsible for poisoning your constituents? And how many people be heard choke on their own fucking lungs?

Okay. Please

don't use profanity because there's people, families who watch this. So I would just ask that all of you I know it's tempting, but please just don't use profanity. Like, is it's on channel eight. People can't tune in, so please don't. Juan Sebastian Pinto, next.

Thank you, city council.

One of the most meaningful stories in the history of Colorado that I've learned so far is that of the chief of the Arapaho, Chief Naiwa. And this curse, some people call it a curse that he left on Colorado, that warned that it is the beauty of this place that will bring the people, and it is the people who will take away the beauty of this place. I see nowhere where this is more true than in the construction of data centers next to nursery homes, or in the construction of data centers in places like the Garden Of The Gods. Recently, press at Colorado Springs and some pundits have been saying that it's good to have a data center next to the Garden Of The Gods because it's used for military and it supports our military. But, what does the military use these data centers for?

AI built using these tools with generative tools, with AI tools, classification tools, data centers today supports the exploitation of personal data to murder civilians in places like Iran, Palestine, and Lebanon. I learned this working for the companies that sell these technologies to the Pentagon, for the companies that promote these technologies and their use. Even the head of the NSA recently said, we kill people using metadata. Why am I here today? It took me a year to brush up on the education that even I, working for these companies, needed to understand these systems and tools, and how the data centers form a core part of the infrastructure that supports ground level surveillance here and across the world, in battlefields, in cities, as we turn more of our world into a surveilled, exploitative economy that enriches big tech, who pushes for the adoption of these tools across the world.

Data centers are enabling the mass handling of data at unprecedented proportions today, and the construction of highly complex AgenTx generative AI systems that are used in military warfare, and completely obfuscate accountability. Recently, the Pentagon even ended because it has no more money, supposedly, to take accountability for civilians' deaths in the battlefield. And we're going in an endless spiral where AI companies are pushing these tools, these economies of exploitation. As the representative for human rights, Francesca Bria, says, we are building an economy out of exploitation, and data centers here are that infrastructure that supports that exploitation. I urge you all to take this opportunity here today, this moratorium, which I hope we will pass, to open up this conversation to the rest of the city of Denver so we could all catch up, so we could all learn, and prevent ungodly things from happening in places like the Garden Of The Gods.

Thank you.

Next up, we have Alaia Wein Weiniger? Weiniger? Weiniger.

Hi, counsel. I'm Ayla Weiniger. I'm a PhD student studying how the way we structure our physical environments actually contributes to social inequality. And I'm here to echo the sentiment of, many of my fellow Denver community members invoicing my support for the moratorium on data center, construction in Denver, but also to make it very clear that what we need is to ban data center construction in Denver and broader Colorado altogether. The residents of Globeville and Elyria Swansea have made it very clear that they do not want this data center in their neighborhoods.

They voice concerns about the deadly impacts of pollution on their health, some of many anecdotes that we've heard here today, the detrimental environmental impact, noise, rising energy costs, immense amounts of water use, all concerns that have been validated by extensive research findings from across the country, and many of which have been addressed here with a couple highlights being the massive data center campus using more electricity than the Denver International Airport and enough electricity to power over a 100,000 homes per day. Again, our state energy, our state's monopoly energy provider, Xcel Energy, is already raising their rates, with a projected 50% increase for Coloradans over the next few years, using nearly 1,000,000 gallons of water per day equivalent to over 19,000 Denver homes. Meanwhile, 58% of Colorado is experiencing extreme drought. And so taking all of this into consideration, it's hard to understand what the motivation behind city council's approval of this contract was in the first place. Was it the promise of new jobs that in actuality exists to contribute to an expanded AI infrastructure that lead to mass layoffs and streamline costly war and genocide in The Middle East?

Does it have something to do with these neighborhoods being predominantly Latino following long lived legacies of environmental racism observed across the country from Flint, Michigan to Cancer Alley in Louisiana? Or maybe it's because, like we've seen demonstrated by the Trump's by Trump's federal regime, that our local government too has no interest in serving and protecting its people, but would rather continue lining the pockets of a few greedy corporate billionaires. Now maybe one or all of these reasons are true, but if not, and I really hope not, I expect city council to move forward towards a data center construction ban in Denver and in broader Colorado. Thank you.

Next up, we have Jessica Eli Galay. Jessica?

Hello, everyone. Thank you for being here, and thank you for taking time with us to hear us. I invite you to really take to heart the words that have been said, and I wanna invite a different vision for Colorado. In this time, we're in very dark times, and we have the capacity to bring the light into these dark places. In in this data center situation, in many many of the situations on our planet right now, we have solar flares that are going crazy that we're not talking about with the fire hazards here, how we're protecting our communities.

We have geopolitical threats when we're combining our military, industrial complex information with our community information, with all the information of Medicare, Medicaid, all of our veterans. When we combine those in one place in a data center, then we are creating geopolitical hazards for the communities that these data centers reside in. And there's nobody who can be safe when those are combined. And so, I ask for support for this moratorium as well as consideration to take the opportunity to step back into the light to show GES and our entire state and the entire nation our capacity to have compassion for the people and to make this right and to put the brakes on it for now with the moratorium, but to look at a ban and what would that look if we took that time and we just stopped things and took a deep breath and start to understand and really investigate what are the repercussions that we are looking at as a state and is it possible for us to take on for our entire nation a leadership role where we are demonstrating the new technologies, the new capacities, the new industries, the new jobs that can be created by being the light because we have an entire nation thirsty for solutions.

What would that look like if Colorado brought those solutions to every home in America and we made that economic gain and we took a different path and we led our nation in a way that we could be proud of and that our children will be proud of. Let's honor the waters that we all are as we sit in each other's company because there's a spiraling vortex that's happening and we have the opportunity in this alchemy to create a new energy and welcome the evolution of our species. So I invite you to take courage, to come from the heart, and to be proud of the choice that you ultimately make. Thank you.

Can you just state your name for the record? Angelique Rodriguez. Thank you so much. That's beautiful. Next up we have Ben Bergstrand.

Yes, Ben Bergstrand. Thank you. Good evening and thank you for the time. My name is Ben Bergstrand. I'm a District 8 resident, a third grade teacher, a union member, and a proud father of two young adults who would like to be employed now and in the future.

AI and the data centers are advancing dangerous tech that big tech's own developers and CEO CEOs don't understand. Let's take this very necessary first step and all the ones that follow. Let's be a city that leads the way down a safer and brighter future. The problem is our world is not more convenient when over the last five years, our Xcel energy bills have gone up 30%. Similarly, Denver Water increased their rates in January.

If we listen to these billionaires whose nihilistic lives strive to only be trillionaires and little else, fueling this unfettered growth, our economy's future hinges solely upon massive energy and water intensive facilities being built as quickly as possible. Corporations like Coresight can't even manage to properly and respectfully communicate the consequences of their presence in our city prior to the building of their deadly monolith. Tonight, we heard from representative of the data center industry. His words were his best attempt to scare us into allowing this industry to build rapidly with the empty promise that they won't ruin our communities like they've already done elsewhere. The promise is especially empty given the presence set by CoreSite and GSE.

We live in a state that has a year round fire season. We live in a metro area that has horrible air quality particularly in the summer. This negatively impacts many Denver Denver citizens, my wife, apparent ability to work, play, enjoy this amazing city. We live in a city that's sitting in a fragile ecosystem. We live in a city that needs real sustainable economy, economic development that benefits everyone, not just the tech bros and the friends of governor Polis.

We live in a city where none of its citizens' health, and financial well-being should be under threat by any corporation and yet Globeville, Swansea, Elyria, one of the oldest, most historic, and ethnically diverse parts of our city, has always been under this threat and you, we, we let this happen again and none of us in this room is a billionaire. Who benefits? Even the industry's representation was vague in its threats. We live in a real world with real consequences. I urge you to take these steps towards the moratorium and a further data center ban. Thank you.

Next up, we have Micah Pete. Micah? Petit. Sorry. Next up, Alexa Perez Escobar Perez.

Hi. Good evening council members. My name is Alexis Covarpaes and I'm a concerned Clayton neighborhood resident, zip code 80205 and a public health professional. My home is about two miles away from the proposed three data centers in the Globeville, Elyria, Swansea area. And although Clayton's environmental burden is not nearly as high as the burden that the families that live in GES have to live through, we all have a lot to lose with these high polluting massive computer buildings.

According to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, the most recent leading causes of death in Denver were one cancer, two heart disease, and four chronic lower respiratory conditions. In Denver, the rate of ER visits due to asthma for children's age five to 14 in 2024 was statistically higher than that of the state and it increased from 2023. And Denver has the highest age adjusted rate for COPD hospitalizations in the Denver Metro Area counties as well as statistically higher rate than the entire state. Why does this matter? As we've learned here today, data centers generate pollution from diesel generators which emit nitrogen oxides and fine particulate matter among other things which increase the risk of respiratory disease, cardiovascular conditions, and cancer, all top leading causes of death.

I share these health outcomes with you to highlight the deep vulnerability within our communities. In a moment where thousands of people are expected to lose their health care coverage over the next years, where safe, stable housing is extremely difficult to find, when cost of living is out outpacing wages, enduring unprecedented environmental instability, we are looking at all of you to stand between us and the corporations that want to pollute our air, water, and environment for profit. The people in this room asking you to stop the building of these enormous data centers are not anti business, anti job, or anti technology. But we are against companies coming into our communities placing computer value over people value to make us sicker than we already are, make our cost of living harder to meet, and threaten our environment. Because of this, I support the one year moratorium but believe that a pause is not enough.