Public Works Committee - Regular Meeting

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

Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Is Monday I'm sorry. It is Wednesday, 04/01/2026. And as you may have noticed, council chair or committee chair Lewis is not here today, so I'm just here to adjourn the meeting. Thanks. Just kidding. Happy April fools. So we have one action item today and two briefings. The action item is 26Dash0326.

Dottie presenting micromobility bike and scooter share contract with VO. And and then we have two briefings, 260427, DEN on air carrier use and lease agreements, and 26 Dash zero four two eight, the Fellow Public Safety Power Shut Up program. There is a fair amount of attention on these these items. If you are interested in the presentation and you don't have a seat because this committee room is full, there is an overflow room. It's it's already open.

It's 04:31, so it's on the we're on the 3rd Floor. Go up to the 4th Floor. As soon as you get off the elevator, it's to the left and and should be pretty easy to find once you get up to the 4th Floor. Also, if you are a city employee and you want to watch this from your desk, please feel free to do so. We wanna make sure that this is is we've we've got seats for everyone who need to be here, and and we only have a limited number of seats.

So so thank you. I look forward to having a a good conversation. Hopefully, can keep it respectful. And and so as we as we move forward, I think we have council members online. So before we go into the VO action item, let's have introductions. Let's start online.

Hi. Chantel Lewis, council member for District 8. Sorry. Can't be there in person, but thanks for chairing Chris, council member Hines. Sorry.

Sarah Parity, council member at large.

Darrell Watson, council member fine, District 9.

Great. I think that's all we have online. And I'm sorry. I'm Chris Hines. I represent Denver City Council district ten.

Shmuel Vidres with Lucky District 7.

Paul Cashman, South Denver District 6.

Okay. So without further ado, let's go to into 260326, approving a license agreement with VO Ride DVA doing business as VO for three years to operate Denver's shared bike and scooter program citywide. Please introduce yourself. Take it away.

I am Elena McWhorter. I'm DOTI's strategic adviser and legislative affairs manager. I'll let our team introduce themselves, then we'll dive right in.

Hi, everybody. Justin Begley. I'm a planning supervisor for DOTI.

Nick Williams, deputy manager for DOTI.

Alright. Thank you all. We really appreciate your time today to continue conversations and really dive a little deeper into some of the questions and follow ups since our last committee hearing on March 18 and the extra time with an early start today. We want to start where we always start which is this shared bike and scooter program is incredibly popular as we've seen through committees, community engagement, through just ridership in general. A lot has changed in this program.

This program has matured since scooters first came into Denver back in 2019 and we're really excited to continue to build this program to serve Denverites with affordable, accessible, and safe micro mobility options. You can see here on the right the current license agreements with our current vendors end on May 16, which is what brought us here today. We have spent about the last eighteen months working with you all on legislative updates to create a very clear regulatory foundation upon which we could build program expectations and be sure that we could complete a very robust competitive procurement process to identify the best vendor for the next round of agreements. That brings us to our recommendation today through this resolution request where we are recommending that VO operate the program for the next three years to really continue building on our goals. When we conducted our community engagement, we heard loud and clear affordability and device availability are top of mind for our riders and we believe VO is very well positioned to help us grow total ridership in addition to our access program and access program ridership.

So we're excited to dive into those details today. We'll go a little bit further into

Ms. Yeah. Ms.

Burke, because we've already had the presentation before and we have a couple briefings, if you could

We'll accelerate. Thank you.

Yep. Will do. So we'll go into a little bit more on the scoring criteria that we shared with you all on how DOTI made this decision through our procurement process. We'll dive into a little bit more of the provisions in the contract language that you received back March 20 was when we first shared the contract language. And a heads up for everyone if you did not see, the city attorney's office shared an updated contract with you all last night that we will go into what provisions have changed since the original contract that was shared.

This one you all have already seen. We went through a very competitive procurement process. We started in September. We did interviews, demonstrations, financial reviews, reference tracks, and we made the announcement in late December. Simply showing on this slide the snip from the original RFP language that made very clear through this procurement process that all proposers were to prepare their bid under the single operator model.

Here we wanted to just expand a little bit on the scoring criteria that we shared with you all. It was a spreadsheet that kind of goes through the different sections that you'll see covered here on the right. So you can think of bullet points one and two as essentially your cover letter and your resume for each proposal. And then we really dug deep into three, four, five, and six where we looked at each proposal safety and vision zero proposals, they were developing their fleets to improve safety outcomes, how they were using data and tracking to combat erratic riding like swerving and hard braking, how they want to improve access to helmets and helmet distribution to our riders, and then doing things like rider safety education and quizzes. We also wanted to understand each proposal's equity and access strategies.

Specifically here on the top right, you see a snippet from the RFP that really clarifies what we were expecting around access program benefits, ease of use, ease of enrollment, and different community engagement and communications to ensure that eligible members are aware of and have access to this program. We also focused heavily on parking in the public realm. So looking at parking compliance strategies, what corral infrastructure looks like, how they would comply with mandatory parking zones that were passed recently in legislation, fleet tidiness, and overall sidewalk riding detection to really keep the public realm organized and create that understanding of pedestrian and mobility users in shared spaces. We also looked at mode shift and transit access, clear pricing plans, pricing transparency, strategies for working with our RTD, our regional transportation district on first and last mile connectivity and other innovative strategies to help meet Denver's goals. What does all this mean for Denverites?

We believe on day one that Denverites are going to be the winners of this procurement process by having cheaper prices with locked in rates that are 10% to 35% cheaper than what we currently see. There's gonna be more ways to ride, more diverse fleet that is available and accessible for more users of different ages, abilities, and preferences. More flexible equity programs. This is our sixty minutes of free ride time every single day for eligible access program users and a discounted rate for any ride time over sixty minutes if you have needs that go beyond that. And last, increased accountability.

We really believe strongly that Vio's in house W-two workforce is going to result in better customer service and quality outcomes in the field as well as better communications responsiveness to counsel and community concerns. So what is expected of our current operators throughout this transition? Like I mentioned, the current agreements end on May 16. With this committee's approval and to move this forward, we do aim to have this new contract with VO become effective on May 1 so that we have that built in two week overlap between vendors as we scale up our VO services and scale down of current vendor services. We have communicated expectations to our current operators around access program transition and communications to their access program riders, parking corral infrastructure and essentially debranding what we see on the street and or removing the the infrastructure to be replaced, Sharing geofencing data so that on day one we can have the geofences that are currently in place set up with VO so there's no lapse in service or accessibility where people already know where they can and cannot ride.

And then expectations around market exit schedule and scaling down their fleet that is out on the streets. What you'll see here on the right is a snippet of our access program transition expectations for vendors that we shared on March 11. We have specifically asked that the current operators communicate information about the access program transition to their access program users. We have seen that they are already communicating with their access program users, but unfortunately they have chosen not to communicate in terms of executing this transition with us. What we've heard back is that until we have a signed contract, they do not feel that the timing is right to start communication.

On the bottom, can see just a snip of what their feedback was and we continue to work with them to be sure that we, DOTI and Vio and the city can ramp up and expand our outreach and enrollment activities very quickly when this contract gets signed. We have the contingencies and mechanisms in place where we feel like we can reach the users who are in the current programs and we ask for council's help, we ask for the public's help, we ask for the current vendors help in doing this. What we learned from this is we are not in the current contract going to rely on our current vendor to do it out of the goodness of their heart. So what you see here is a snippet of our contract with VO where we lay out that at the end of the contract term with VO, regardless of procurement process or outcomes at that time, they contractually required to work with the city to communicate with all access program riders so that the access riders are informed and we can mitigate any confusion around the transition process and timeline. We also wanted to go into a little bit of detail on what's in the contract related to revenue sharing provisions.

This is specifically related to what the updated contract you received in your inbox last night is related to. We wanted to share kind of the bigger picture of where that provision lives in the contract and why it was initially in there. What you see here on the right is section 2.3 of the scope of work which is the revenue sharing provisions that we negotiated with VO so that we could one, receive a dedicated per device permit fee from VO to help support the program and provide financial sustainability. At a fleet cap of 9,000 vehicles, this is anticipated to generate approximately $2,200,000 every year. What we also wanted to do in this revenue sharing negotiation was provide incentives for growing access program membership.

So that's what you see in the second main bullet equity access program rebate provisions. Here what we've done is any access trip that exceeds 25% of total rides in a given year can receive a rebate on that per device fee $2.5 per trip up to a maximum rebate per year of $1,000,000 So what that did is it allowed us to incentivize that access program growth as well as solidify a consistent and dependable revenue source for this program.

To be clear, if I could cut in, that rebate is between the city and VO. The rides are free for the residents or the users. The access rides remain free.

Mhmm. Yes.

And so to be clear, the change in the contract that you received on March 20 versus the contract you received last night from the city attorneys is the provision of that very last bullet. That's the only change in the contract since you last saw it. So this is related to language that says that if that rebate maximum of $1,000,000 is exceeded, VO and the city would have the opportunity to discuss an administrative monthly fee that would be applied to access program users. In the next slide, I'm going to share a little bit more about the intention and why we did that. So we're generating approximately $2,200,000 first time we've been able to do this with this program.

We're really excited about this revenue sharing that we came to an agreement on with VO. What we know from our data is that access users currently comprise approximately 28% of all shared bike and scooter rides in any given year. Like I just mentioned in the last slide, we set the fee rebate to kick in to incentivize access program outreach and enrollment growth building upon a minimum of 25. Ensuring that at least moving forward throughout this transition, we don't want to drop below 25% of all total rides being available for access users. So this rebate kicks in to incentivize growth in that enrollment and ride access.

What I'm showing on the right here is kind of our break even point of why we chose 25% to grow and maximum rebate cost of 1,000,000. So at 28 well first let me just start at 25% there would be no rebated rides, no annual fee rebate. The annual balance to the city would be that $2,200,000 through that per device fee. At 28% of access user rides, we're looking at about 1,800,000.0 of 6.6 in a year being access rides that at the $2.50 per trip rebate that would be a 190,000 rides rebated for a total of about $475,000. With that per device fee, we would be retaining the city share at $1,700,000.

At 31% is where we see the rebated rides increase to about 390,000 and the annual fee rebate gets to 975,000. So we're getting closer to that $1,000,000 rebate. What this told us was that we could grow access ridership by about 10% growing it from that 28% of total rides to 31% of total rides to basically guarantee that this financial agreement is going to provide those free rides up to that break even point. The original intention of that $5 clause was that if we go over that million dollars that is capped, we can reopen discussions about the financial sustainability of access rights and the program. We did not intend to use this provision necessarily.

I will say it was a point of negotiation to get the revenue share benefits that we were able to secure. However, we recognize that there were questions raised and concerns about it being included in the contract which is why you saw yesterday that it was taken out and a new contract was provided. The reason is that we want to be able to preserve access program benefits at that sixty minutes of free ride time every day and the 15¢ per minute for any ride time over sixty minutes. We did not want to be faced in a similar position where we have to scale back benefits that we know riders are already dependent on. It was intended for emergency provisions things like an economic depression, things like mass layoffs, things of that nature that are just unpredictable and create really significant impacts on program sustainability.

It was simply a foundational structure of the contract provision within section 2.3. But again, you've got an updated contract in your inbox that has that language removed that I showed on the prior slide. It is simply that one bullet point that has changed since the last contract.

And so Jess, that was a lot of math and a lot of numbers on there. The moral of the story is, a, the rides will remain free for the access riders. Now, like as as Elena said, and it's sad that we have to anticipate crazy catastrophic things happening. If something catastrophic happens, massive tariffs, massive layoffs, something like that, where the program literally becomes uneconomic to to be able to run and we have to make some changes, we wanted this to be able to provide us some structure to have those negotiations. We went through something similar with Lime last year, I think as you all remember, to where their access program got to a point where it was financially infeasible on there.

And so the lesson learned from that is make sure you've got some structure. We don't need this. I think we would have to do another negotiation should the absolute worst happen. And again, I want to stress that I can't stress it enough. Our intent and expectation, and VO understands the expectation is access rides will remain free for the riders through the extent of the contract we're signing here or that we're we're proposing here today on there. This was just that, and it became a distraction. I think you guys probably all got an email from Jill Locantore and Denver Street's partnership in addressing this. And we've let her know since then, hey, good news. The fastest Doddy's ever been responsive. But no, we've removed that clause on there.

I think

some problems get fixed

pretty fast. On

there. That this was this had become a distraction. Of course, there was a nine news article about this. This had become a distraction on there, and the the utility of that clause in there was not in any way necessary or or or we didn't need it to have the successful program. So Dottie, Vio are all on the same page. Access rights will remain free for riders through the extent of the contract unless something globally, nationally catastrophic happens. We'll be having a lot of conversations that anticipate at that point on there, but that was the intent of it. So I want to be very transparent about why it was in there and why it was taken out.

Thanks, Nick. Just a couple slides and I can go through these ones quickly. This next snippet just reiterating the emergency continuity plans that we highlighted in the last committee meeting. There are provisions that should worst case scenarios of service levels or expectations not being met, we can enter into another agreement with an additional operator to mitigate any of those challenges. And there are financial provisions to help recover costs should the worst case happen.

Just a couple highlights. VO continues to do amazing access program outreach and enrollment. At this point since the last committee hearing there are now over 1,200 individuals who are pre enrolled in access program. As soon as the contract signed they're ready to go live so that they can ride using the Access Program benefits on day one, May 1. You can pre enroll at voride.com/denver and we continue to build out a number of specific access program partners who will help us reach communities who are eligible for this program so that we can enhance our reach and scale of enrollment.

They also continue to do broader community engagement getting people aware of this transition process, getting people aware of job opportunities. They've hired over 25 local staff members already who are already assembling fleet right now in the warehouse here. Again, a lot of partnerships in development and continue to be in development with affordable housing groups, workforce development, disability rights, transit rights, community organizations, our RNOs, our bids, anyone and everyone who can help us get information and share information to all Denver rights on what's going on and what to expect through this transition. Also tons of huge events as well as small scale events coming up over the summer as we know the weather is going to get warm and we're going to have a lot of fun things going on in our neighborhoods and at our parks and in our public spaces. So we're eager to hit the ground running and be out in the community getting people signed up for VIA.

So with that, we are prepared. I respectfully ask for you to approve sending this to the council floor, a three year license agreement with VO effective May 1 through resolution twenty six dash o three two six.

Thank you so much for the presentation. Welcome, council president. Council member Flynn, welcome as well. Council president, you are first in the queue. Thank you. So

can where do I even start? Normally, when we do work, we do what's called red line. Mhmm. So I'd open you sent it to us last night at 05:54. Our council meeting starts at 03:30. I don't know how you expected me to read a contract. That's pretty impossible. And then when I did open the contract, it's not redlined. So how am I supposed to know what's changed or not? We do we're a very sophisticated group here who know how to read redlines.

So I'm not gonna trust that you just told me that you cut out a provision and I'm supposed to have the capacity to have read that last night when you sent it to me at 05:54 at night. And I have a committee meeting this morning at one. So I need a red line draft of the contract, please, first and foremost. Thank you. So I find it interesting, Nick, that you keep calling that part a distraction, That term that was cut out and that it kept you I have it in my notes.

You I think you named it a lot distraction. I would say it's like the the base. That was the whole point that we had issues. That's the whole point that we wanted the contract. It's the whole point of like the access program is key.

So I wouldn't call it a distraction. I would call it a key negotiator. So I find it interesting that you're you all feel it was a distraction when I would have been like, actually, was really what city council had been talking about and what we've been hearing at public comment and what we heard at public comment two weeks ago with the need for the access program. So that's just more of a comment. So talk to me about so, yes, if something catastrophic happens, I already feel like we live in a catastrophic time.

I can't tell you how much I feel like that all the time. We laid off last year. City and county of Denver laid off a 169 people, and we held back eight hundred eight hundred plus vacant positions. So basically, a thousand people were doing less with today. Feels pretty catastrophic to me. What who determines catastrophic? Like, do you have, like, a metrics in there? Like, do you have something that can, like, you can import it and say, hey. This is a catastrophic event, and now we need to renegotiate the access program?

We do not have a metric, and I think the challenge with that is and I think that's why we felt and and I agree, distraction is not the right word. I think it was a the intent of that clause was to have an emergency backstop so that if we found a lot of what you see in this contract, it's been called out in the presentation, is learning or is lessons learned from the last five years, you know, and five years ago. And that's, again, why I'm up here is I was responsible for the drafting of that contract, all of that. And I certainly have learned a ton about this, and the folks that have managed the program have learned a ton on that. And and, you know, a year ago when we had to adjust the work with Line to adjust the requirements for the access program, that was a huge bummer.

Like and it it impacted people, and we didn't like it. And our goal was to try to give some structure to make that both less likely and and should it happen, and that to your point, I you know, a lot of catastrophic things have happened over the past year, two years, three years.

It's like 2020 COVID. Let's just start there.

Bingo. On there. Agree 100%.

It feels since I got into office, like Yes. March 2020, it's been catastrophic.

It's a running catastrophe on there. And and I think that probably shows the error of why we had that or the error of having that in there is because I think it does introduce some disclarity about what that would be, not a good necessarily good term if there's not concrete triggers on there. And that's why when it did start to become an issue, because again, that commitment and our expectation about the robustness of the access program, that was one of the great successes of this last program on there. When we did that procurement, I remember kind of making the decision with our then executive director is they're going we're gonna have folks bid almost purely on their ability to have free rides on there. Now I think we've heard from you all about the need for making sure there's some financial, whether it's a fee or revenue sharing, things like that.

But and so when I say distraction, what I meant was this when I read it, you know, when you read it kind of with clear eyes after looking, it's like, yeah, I could see how that could make folks think that this is a bait and switch where we're just gonna turn around and get through and do this, and then quickly all of a sudden it's not. And that was never the intention, and that's

I'll say that that's not the intention, but that's why it's so important. Once again, I'm gonna emphasize the need for us to read these contracts and for us not to just think that we're gonna vote things through without reading them. Sure. Let me just make myself clear on that one. So thank you for that. So for the w two workers, because not Lyme doesn't work with w two workers. In your current contract that I was not able to read because you sent it to us last night at 05:45, Is it for a 100% of the time of the contract that they have to be w two workers or can they start off at w two workers and then switch?

That and we do have Alex here, I would say. So that is their business model.

That has been I'm asking within our contract.

Legally could just so I'm clear, the question is legally could they change

Within the bounds of the contract.

Of the contract?

No. It says they're committed to a w two workforce.

Okay. Yeah.

Okay. It is

at the time?

Yes. And that certainly did not change with the last night version.

Okay. And then for the administration fee, talk to me explain to me about the administration fee.

The per device fee or the $5 administration fee? Two separate administration fees. Correct? So the well, we called the access user provision the $5 an administrative fee so that's what's been completely removed. The other one is the $245 per device will be paid by VO to the city per year. So with the fleet cap at 9,000, that's expected to generate about $2,200,000.

Okay. And then it's offset the $2,200,000 with the million dollars of access rights? Yes. Yeah. Right? Correct. So we're actually only making 1.5 if I'm doing math on the flight?

Yes. However, under the current projections, access program ridership is at that 28%, which was only about $475,000. So we would still get about 1.7.

Okay. Okay. I'll go back in the queue because I know you have other.

Thank you.

Thank you, mister Trek.

Thank you.

If I could add, we do have Nate Lucero from the city attorney's office available online as well and could answer the question confirming if any other provisions of the contract changed between the first one and the second. So that's nice.

My job is to read them. So I'm gonna ask you to send me a red line version of the contract in my inbox. And if I have questions, I'll be happy to talk to Nate or John Griffin. Thank you. Thank you, mister chair.

Thank you, madam president. Council member Cashman.

Thank you, committee chair. To be very clear, the the previous vendors are saying that this contract allows VO to charge low income riders. Is that true? Has the metric for determining a free ride changed at all from last vendor to this?

It has not.

And just to further clarify that, that that, yes, you could make a legal argument that that $5 provision in there would allow them us to charge it. That has been struck. So just to clarify that. With this change, no.

Thank you for that clarification. In the past, has is there I keep hearing about geofencing Yeah. That's going to keep keep us all safe and scooters where they belong and bikes where they belong. Has there been any geofencing in the past?

Oh, yes. Very robust. And and, Justin, maybe if you wanna talk to this, but just to level set on this,

it's on 16th Street Mall, believe it

or not.

It's also in a number it's in some of our city parks and other places.

I'm seeing scooters in the left hand traffic lane on Colorado Boulevard.

And I think that is one unique aspect. So the limit of geofencing is basically so these are all connected to GPS. That's how they're able to track. And what they can do is send a GPS signal when it enters the GPS area Right. To to shut the power off or to reduce the power on there.

One of the challenges with with GPS and civilian GPS is that it is not razor sharp on there. And so we have and this has been and we've kind of talked about this back with the legislation. You know, the challenge can be with that is, you know, it would be great if we could just geofence off the sidewalks on there. The problem is it is not accurate enough to simply geofence the sidewalks, and there becomes a risk of someone riding in the road with mixed traffic, say downtown. It thinks it's on the sidewalk, zaps it, and all of a sudden, they've lost speed in mixed traffic.

What what I would say is I don't think geofencing is possible to the extent that it's gonna do what everyone would like No. Which is to keep the sidewalks safe, keep the riders safe. The my district, District 6, is nowhere near Downtown Denver. Right. The previous vendors did zero in my district. No corrals. No. And by by the way, do we have a definition of the word corral or paint on the ground? Is, like We

do.

I can pull it. It would have been in the scoring criteria document that we've been shared.

What what is the Yeah. Setting aside. Okay. So but in any event, they have done nothing in my district other than leave vehicles blocking the sidewalks and in the street and so on. So if it had been the previous vendors, I'd be a hard no on this from the beginning. Yeah. Vio has impressed me with with their fleet

Yep.

Because one of my main complaints was how I unsafe the doctors at Denver Health tell me Yeah. The low wheel scooters can be. But what I'm gonna need is some sort of guarantee on what VO is going to do in in District 6 and that's not does not mean vague promises. I'm gonna need to parking lot. Written something that's gonna tell me what they're gonna do. Me see what

Justin, do we have that specifically as far as the geographic equity? Otherwise, we can certainly yeah. To because that is one of the themes. Parking management effective parking management was one of the goals. Again, this is a lesson learned over the last five years on there and we'd really tried to drill down into that. But, yeah, we can get you something explicit.

Yeah. Let's see. Do we have a John Griffin. My my question is, is there a way legally to keep scooters off of roadways? I know like some of them in Colorado Boulevard, the State Road. Right. So on and so forth.

Jonathan Griffin, deputy legislative counsel. Excuse me. Legally, you could prohibit them being on there. This is really more of an operational question about how those are operationalized. Like you've heard corrals in certain areas and Department of Transportation and Infrastructure is working on those requiring corrals in certain areas as already in code. It was part of the changes that Councilman Hines brought forward in conjunction with DOTI not that long ago. So really, the question about something being on Colorado Boulevard improperly is an enforcement and operational issue.

Right. And I get that. And I guess my my main point being, this is the responsibility of the industry. Okay? They can't keep raking in dollars nationwide and put out lousy vehicles and make little to no real effort to keep their vehicles where it's safe for them to be ridden. So I I appreciate that. That that's all, John. Thank you very much. And I think that's all I've got for now. Thank you, committee chair.

Thank you, council member Cashman. Council member Aldridge.

Thank you so much, committee chair. Just wanna reiterate getting a contract the night before is and not fair to us. But my question I have a a few questions. One of the things that I understood from looking at the contract before this latest draft, which I haven't reviewed yet, is that the contract's enforcement mechanism is to remove potential vehicles from the streets, and that seems counterproductive. Is that so?

Yeah. So some of this is performance driven around events. Right? We have several steps to remedy an issue first where we issue them notice, they have to clarify that for us, they have to fix it and demonstrate it. I would say anything concerning a fleet production, suspension, and termination, by the time we get to that point, we're already probably looking to bring on another vendor. It's highly unlikely, but those provisions are here to protect the city and protect the users to ensure continuity of service in all cases.

Yeah. I'll just share that thinking about bringing on another provider and how that's our solution here, that's our solution if they fail. It just makes me realize that it's not good to have one provider because how are we gonna randomly get another provider to step in when whether it's takes six months or a year and we've burned these bridges and these relationships. I mean, obviously, the relationships are not going well if they're not helping with the transition and there's a lot of questions around price. That brings me to my second question. I understand the excess override. Before the base rate for the average payer, is this the cheapest option out of all of the proposals? Can

you please clarify that?

Is this the the base rate for the average user not using the sethylide? Was VEO the cheapest option?

I don't believe it was. Yeah.

That was so that was scored in, of course, with the the scoring of the waiting. It is cheaper than what's out there currently without I don't remember specifically which, but, yeah, there may have been a proposal where the base rate on the whole of everything provided, so access program, And you see that weighting of how the the selection committee selected that on there. On the whole, they were the best

on there.

Who decided on that weighting? So How things were weighted?

That was the the the person. It was actually Nathan, and then the committee, you know, as we wrote we went through that kind of our standard, the project manager, I would say. Okay.

I just don't know if that waiting aligns with what council would wanna see as waiting, but I appreciate that. So when you talk about the access riders, currently, right now, how many are there and how many are you projecting?

Yeah. It's my understanding. There I think the number has been thrown out there. Like, how many folks have been registered is, like, 30,000 is a lot, But there's somewhere between seven and eight thousand active access riders is the is the information. How many are we projecting? We're projecting to bring over all of them and grow the program, quite frankly. We just don't have, you know, very much time between now and where we want to be to give real accurate protections, but the contract's structured for that growth. It's built to grow the program. Yeah.

Is our full expectation as the access program sustains and grows.

Okay. And was Vayo the only provider to offer other types of vehicles besides scooters?

No. No. I think pretty much all of them and certainly the finalists all had multiple types. Vayo is the only one that makes their own vehicles. Perfect.

Alright. That's all I have for the moment. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilmember Belvedres, councilmember Parity, remote.

Hey there. Can you guys hear me okay? Oh, can I am I able to be heard?

You're on mute. You're on mute.

Maybe. I'm not muted. So

We can see you, but not here. Okay. Okay.

Maybe she can type her question in. Type her type her question. Okay.

Okay. It looks the producer is is working.

He says he can hear her.

Okay. Okay. Well, while producer's working on that, I I'll just go to council member Watson and then if if we can hear him.

Can you all hear me? Because I could hear

council member. Council member, we can't hear you either. So so what what I'll I'll just make a comment while the producer is working on we're on the presentation. So just for what it's worth, council members have to provide our presentations to city council committees by noon at the Thursday before. So noon is the Thursday before the committee date.

So I wanna thank you for providing the original contract at least noon the Thursday before this committee, but providing an update after 5PM the day before is incredibly difficult. And I'm not the chair of the committee. I would say if I were chair of the committee, I would say if you can't get material that's important to the conversation by the Thursday before, I would punt it to another date. So that's obviously the chair's discretion. I just wanted to make that comment. So producer, do do you think we can hear remote now?

So he's Okay.

Alright. So let's go back to council member Parady.

Okay, trying again.

Perfect. Good,

good. I'm glad I asked actually, instead of just starting to talk last time. I was asking if you guys could hear me. Mostly, I just I've been wrestling really hard with the equity program, and part of that is because, like, coming from having been a legal aid attorney and mostly as a lawyer representing low income people and kind of just wrestling over the years with how hard it can be to push information out or for people to receive administrative kind of information that they need and understanding, like, what I would call the administrative burden of being poor, where you're just constantly having to, like, follow-up on things, reregister for things, sign up on things, which is, the whole premise of these, you know, Medicaid changes is to know that people will end up losing their Medicaid if you're making them renew constantly, this kind of thing. I'm just I'm just really, really worried that people are not gonna find their way back into the program for a whole variety of reasons.

And and that's not because of anything. I think VO has done what can be done on their end. It's just because of not having an overlap. And so I think my curiosity for Dottie, I've asked about this a little bit in briefings, but I think it's worth asking here in committee as well is just like, I just want to understand why not have that period of overlap in order to give us the best shot at having people be able to continue with Lyme that they're used to and hopefully get that information from Lyme, because Lyme is still a city vendor. Right?

And so in other words, I wish we could have negotiated a transition period that would have included Lyme then assisting with this transaction as a contractual obligation and BERT as well. But so just talk to me a little bit about what the trade offs were in that decision.

Justin? Yeah. To be clear, we we are running a a pretty tight time frame. There was a a full year of, you know, RFP building. Right? Like, what does the city value? What do the riders value? What does community value? And over that course, there was this community survey, development of the procurement, a pretty lengthy procurement with multiple steps. To be sure, we we got the right partner identified, and that was announced last year.

So at the end of last year, VO was identified as the the preferred partner going forward because of all the the reasons that have been presented. And so that left us, you know, five or six months that this transition could start taking place, and we have to be candid about this. We've engaged the operators on this both through a letter, and and we'll continue to engage them. We feel like this transition could be pretty smooth, but we're gonna need them to partner with us. And today, we've received no indication that they're willing to do that.

So we if we did extend Lyme, I think there's just a lot of questions over how willing would they be to partner on actually transitioning this program versus staying in the in the on the streets indefinitely. So we're working.

Did you did you try to negotiate that? I mean, that to me that, like, I think just understanding the importance of the access program, I I feel like the difficulty of transitioning people from one vendor to another within that program maybe was underestimated. But because it's been such a pervasive I mean, I've talked a lot to some of those who have been involved in enrolling people in this. I've so I and I just to me, it was an immediate flag of, like, it seems like it'll be hard without an overlap. So my question not isn't so much, like, in my mind, that should have been what you were negotiating for, was a period to transition the access program.

And if that just wasn't done, then I guess that's the answer. But why not consider it now? I mean, I just it isn't sort of an answer to me to say that you're not sure if the existing vendors would do that because I think we should find out.

I and I sorry. Didn't speak over you, councilwoman. It just I never know where to look. You're here. You're here.

No. You're good. Okay. I'm a weird hungry kid.

Okay. You know, the the kind of the main reason we don't want overlap and why you don't want overlap, of course, this was we originally had done a five year procurement. That five year procurement ends on May 15 on there. We've gone through and and, you know, the existing companies as well as a number other companies bid on this. One was selected, you know, and this is we feel this is a considerably more robust program than what is being replaced by that last five year this last five year license.

The main reason is, and this is shown out in other cities, is when you bring a new operator in to an existing operator, that doesn't result in a smooth transition, that results in hobbling the new operator because it's like anything, if you're used to going to to a certain vendor, you're going to continue to go. I mean, if a third operator came in for ride sharing right now, I think it would be very difficult for them to pry away riders from Lyft and Uber on there. And so effectively, you start to deprive the current residents and the current users of those more robust benefits that were and so you have almost two worlds on there. And so really, what we've seen in other and and this is goes back even to the one versus two operator, a clean break moving on to a new operator with as much robust engagement on that transition as is possible, really results in the cleanest transition to a new operator on there. And we are still relatively confident, and I say that with with, you know, we've already talked about catastrophic things.

We are very confident, I will say, that we can have a very smooth transition here with the amount of time that we spent leading up to this point. And then when we have that, you know, we'll have a two week overlap, existing overlap right now. And I think that is our our last best chance to really that is when it's very apparent on there that there's a new operator, and that's where we're looking for current operators encouragement. We'll also be doing promotion as the department on there and really taking that two week. But more than that two week overlap, in our opinion, that really starts to hobble the new program on there and cause confusion for riders when you're effectively under two different standards.

Okay. That is a helpful answer. I think that's the first time that I've heard that, so I'd love to know what other cities like, I would just love to see what you're thinking of with that because I I feel like there's sort of a difference between saying we're just gonna keep two operators for a period of time and and saying we're gonna essentially extend the existing operator for the purpose of transition, you know, like sort of continue create a contract with them where what they're obligated to do is help with the transition. And I don't know if Lyme is open to that, and I wish that I mean, I also would prefer to see this go smoothly and for everyone to cooperate in that, but also, like, are services that we can track for. So I think I may be asking about something a little different, is like trying to figure out if there's a way to keep Lyme operating for the purpose of transferring people and helping communicate that to people, you know.

But I see what you're saying, Nick, so I would appreciate knowing a little bit more about that, what cities those are and what information you have to show what you're saying, which is that that's been difficult in other places. And then finally oh, I may lose my other question here. Oh, I thought the answer that I had when I was briefed on this, though, is that there was a price implication, that because everybody because the RFP in other words, that we were getting different pricing from VO based on them being the sole operator. Is that also true or a reason why we're doing it this way?

Yes, I would say that part of the single operator model and making it clear was in the proposal that we wanted the proposal to be under a single operator model was so that we would secure the most benefits. But if there were a two or a multiple operator system, we would reopen discussions on what benefits would need to be scaled back due to the loss of market share essentially. And pricing is one of the main benefits of really being able to lock in the market share so that they have more consistency in forecasting how many total rides, how are they going to grow their rides, how many access users are riding so that they have better understanding of what prices they can offer throughout the term.

Okay. I may have some more follow-up questions around that, but I will not keep taking up the committee time. I really appreciate those answers. Thank you. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Councilmember Parity. Councilmember Watson with Plano Day.

Thank you, Vice Chair,

and thank you so much

for the robust discussion. I want to start off with a with initial comment, and then and then I have a question. I understand the the change in contract that was sent last night was necessary for clarification. And Dottie and and and and my friends, you know, I had a very direct discussion with you after the last committee meeting that that contract had to be any changes. We needed to have that before the Thursday prior to coming to committee.

And so I'm a little bit disappointed that we're talking about a contract change again at this very important discussion of whether to move this to the floor. That being said, I want to remind I want to say, at least do I person statements. I had a discussion with Lyme prior to councilmember Heinz and I putting forward our the changes to the micro mobility program. And the discussion I had with Lyme was specific to the access program. And I think we had one or two dialogues discussions on it, specific to their inability to continue rolling out their access program because of the cost and the cost impact.

There was nothing within the current contract that provided for the city to act with any level of agility to respond to what they were referring to as a catastrophic event as far as the cost of their access program was growing so exponentially large that they were not going to be able to maintain the program at the same size. And they were asking for support for us to identify a solution. I think maybe it was not the smoothest process that Dottie did. We're trying to add that into the contract, but it was responsive to a real live situation that was happening that council members were leaning into with the the the former prime contractor and trying to avoid. So I appreciate you trying to find a solution.

Would have preferred that that solution was found and added, the contract would have been listed correctly without having enough time to read through it. My question to to Dottie specific to Vio. Were there any changes within the slight change that you made and provided to us last night or yesterday that impact that would have impacted the scoring of Vio as the number one first in selected or the pricing of Vio as to the rationale for them being selected as the primary for this new contract? Were any of those that that change made, did that impact any of the scoring or any of the the the efficacy in your evaluation that they were the right candidate for this contract?

No, councilman. That would not have changed the outcome.

Alright. I'll I'll pause there and I may jump back into the queue to to if if I have additional questions. Thank you, Vice Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember Watson. Colleagues, we just got the red line in our in Teams if you're if you're looking for it. That's still not noon Thursday before, but just pointing it out. Council member Flynn.

Mister chair. I'm vice chair. I guess a real quick question maybe for John or Nate if he's online still. The both licenses with Lyman Byrd terminate on May 15 Correct.

Both

simultaneously. John or Nate, does the agency have the authority to extend those licenses without coming back to this body? Could in other words, we have a two week overlap or fifteen day overlap naturally. Is it within the authority of DOTI to just say, okay. You two current licensees can we'll give you a six month extension. We'll give you an another two weeks or whatever it might be. I thought you'd already be walking over here.

Scooter. Jonathan Griffin, deputy legislative counsel. I would kick this to Nate Lucero, actually, to answer. Sorry, say it again. Send Nate Lucero online for him He

has his hand up and wants to answer. Okay. You. Mr. Lucero. Lucero.

Hi, Nate. Hi, Nate.

Hello, committee members. Councilman Flynn, thanks for the question. So this contract would with the current providers would not be allowed to be extended, primarily because we've already exhausted the extensions that were in the contract to begin with. Right. And the other reason would be that we would be talking about use of the right of way, which is city property, and it would require review by city council. So so, no, to answer your question, we would not be able to extend these contracts without coming back to city council.

Thank you, Nate. That that's that's what I thought. That gives us a real conundrum, because as I understand the current vendors, current providers would be hesitant to cooperate in turning over their client list for the access program while they believe there's a possibility that their license could be extended beyond May 15. So I think it's crucial to know this, that that's not a that would be a more difficult task to to arrange. Thank you. That's all.

Alright. Thank you, council member Flynn. I have a couple questions. Does the fee do you intend to use the fee to fund an FTE or multiple FTEs that would oversee micromobility in Denver?

So that is one of the options. We have started to transition. You guys noticed that mister Pope is no longer here at the department on there. He's gone on to I won't call him greener pastures, different pastures on there. We, as part of this, and we've been working on this over the past year and and more intensely over the past months on there, we will be transitioning this program from kind of so Nathan was in our transportation planning and and transit and into our operations, our curbside operations team on there.

And and mister McCann is actually sitting right behind you on there, not to not to be eerie, but on there. And so that is definitely looking at different options about because because by policy, this would technically excess funds go into the general fund. And I think we all obviously understand why that is the policy on that. And so potentially on that, but we do feel very confident about our ability to effectively staff this program moving forward and effectively administer and making sure that VO is staying compliant with every one of their contract requirements on there. Did that answer your question, or is that a little too winding?

It answers I think the question was answered. I am a little frustrated with the answer because that's something that I asked before even the RFP started, is we wanna make sure if we are the largest or second largest, depending on how you measure it, a micro mobility program in the nation, we should have at least one FTE. I think some cities have four. Yes. So so that the question is still up in the air is a little concerning.

We will absolutely make sure we have so under the current state and and I I I I wanna be careful about talking about kind of future budget pursuits, things like that on there. We will have the equivalent of, with Ryan leading it, the equivalent of one FTE absolutely working on this program because this touches a number of different folks. We agree, and we are looking towards different avenues to expand the administrative staff supporting this program on there without getting into any sort of future budget commitments.

Other question is is asking you to guess, I suppose, unless you've heard from vendors, but how quickly could another vendor enter the Denver market?

You know, I think our best example of that is what happened was that last year at 2024 when Lyft decided they would no longer do shared vehicles on there, and Bird was able to come in. And and what Lyft did was assign their their contract and felt that I mean, you guys tell me if you heard differently, but felt like that was a very smooth transition on there. And that's what gives us the confidence that still the attractiveness of this market, we will always have people knocking on our doors to get in on there. I think that's why this is such a robust process now because this is a very attractive market on there. So we're very my guess is we it would we would once again, I think, be able to to make a change should the very, very Burr worst happen that would have minimal impact on on Denver riders.

How

how long did did Burr take? Two days, two weeks, two months?

It happened over the course of about six weeks. Six weeks. Yes.

Thank you. That those are the questions that I had. Council member or council president, you wanted back in the queue?

Yeah. So I'm trying to find in the contract where can you tell me which reside or which, like, number is the w two that says that it's contract contractively required?

I'll defer to Justin. It's a program structure, but I'll have a copy. Let me look.

Is that is this gonna work? Yes.

Let me just

go Which one? Number three?

I don't think we know the number yet, but

Is it?

I

found it. I'm not saying that I don't believe you, but I don't believe you. Sorry. I just learned Not to be rude, but I just wanna read it myself.

What should I do? Do you have it up? You can do a word search.

I think if if we may, we'd wanna consult with Nate to confirm which provision is applicable to w two. Okay. And

then how many access riders does Lime have right now?

Active users, we understand to be seven, eight thousand.

No. How many access how many are part of their system?

How many rides do they provide?

Access. Yeah.

I think it varies up to it's in the thousands per day Of rides. Of rides. Yeah.

Think are you acting full universe of of access sign ups whether they're active or not?

Yeah. We we've heard the number 30,000 total sign ups with seven to 8,000 active users, folks who are using in any given month.

So 30,000 sign ups in that access right right now. Right? Yep. Is that right? And then the video presentation, they're thinking of getting up to 7,800. I mean, do you I mean, yes. I let me say it a different way. There's lots of things I'm signed up for as that I know I'm signed up for. How about this? Technology services doing a inventory of our Polycoms. They want to save money and so they're looking at who uses their Polycoms at city council right now. They told us yesterday. If you don't use your Polycom a certain amount of time that technology services thinks that you should, they're gonna take them away from my colleagues. Mhmm. And I said, no, you're not.

That's not gonna happen. Mhmm. Because even though they may not use their Polycom in the amount of time that you think they should, they're gonna have the right to have a Polycom. Mhmm. Because that's what we got when we went virtual. So what how did you all get to the delta if there's, like, 30,000, like, signing up and then you all going are 7,800 in VO, you're doing the minimum that is in the used. Right? You're not going does that make sense? So that seems like where I'm getting the numbers from. So if you're just telling me there's 30,000 in the access ride in line right now signed up, maybe 8,000, 7,500 that use it all the time, quote unquote, to your status of what you use all the time.

I don't know what that means, use all the time, hasn't been defined. And now in VO, we're getting 7,800. I'm not picking up what you're throwing down. Like, do they have room to go to get to the 30,000?

Yes. So the 30,000 you're hearing are anyone who signed up over the five year term. Got it. Our metric is the 8,000 which is defined as the average over a twelve month period of monthly users. So about 8,000 per month are accessing it on a regular basis. So we wanna target those 8,000 regular monthly users who we know are most reliable on the access program to get them enrolled. But, of course, if there's 30,000 people, if there's a 100,000 people eligible for this program, we want them to be aware of it and be able to enroll in it and ready to ride on day one. Okay.

I don't have anymore. I I have a lot of questions, but if you all could provide me that provision in the contract, that'd be great. No. Nothing else, mister chair. Thank you.

Thank you, council president. Council member Rafferty, you you won. Do you have other questions?

No. I didn't. Thank you so much.

Okay. We don't have any other questions in front of us. Do we

I'll move to the floor.

Okay. We have a

Can we get a roll

call vote?

Yes, ma'am. We have a motion by council member Flynn to refer this to the floor. Anyone willing to second? Okay. Alternate motion?

I would motion to, like, two weeks so I can read the contract and they could give me the answers that I'm asking.

So I

don't know what date that is.

Shadi, in in some ways, you are the messenger. In some ways, you're not, as in the people in front of us right now. I I think council president was very clear the last time that she wanted the contract well in advance. And I think part of that is miss Doddy has, you know, made some changes unilaterally where trash collection happens in Congress Park, where recycling was moved every other week with no stakeholder process. SDK steakhouses protected by claim was moved without any stakeholder process.

The Alameda project, which is still in the news. So I I don't know if it's necessarily that that people have concerns about VO or whether it's ready for the floor. I think that we wanna we wanna make sure that our work is checked and and that we can trust but verify. And and I'm not trying to I'm just trying to say that there has been some opportunities for verification. There's two way to trail going to a non call vendor as opposed to a public RFP. So I'm not trying to speak for my colleagues. I think some of the frustration is just because some of these things have happened kinda late.

Might wanna say something.

Sorry. What is oh, council member Lewis. Let's council member Lewis, do you have yes.

Yeah. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you chairing this committee, and I and I I had no way to be able to predict that the contractor is going to come while I was out. And I think in the future, if you desire if I give you the opportunity to be the chair because you're like, you have the discretion as the chair to this side. If something comes off of the committee agenda, I I would like to give you that autonomy.

I wanted to to ask just a few questions to about the contract. Sorry. Just wanna make sure it bad, please. I hope my Wi Fi is better today than it has been for the past. So the rebate comes out of the revenue that would have otherwise been generated by BO, and it is not a new bid to the the general fund or other existing budget sources.

Yes.

That's correct. The is a on the per fee.

Oh, ahead.

Just saying. It's a it's a rebate on the per device fee that VO pays to the city.

Thank you so much. And then the last question is is this came up during the council president's remarks earlier, but is there an estimate of where the likelihood of exceeding the one million year rebate is? And does this incentivize VO to expand the access program by only to a certain point to ensure that they are receiving the maximum rebate but no more than that?

So it does incentivize up to that million dollar cap on the slide with the table. 28% of all access rides would refund about $475,000 We'd keep 1.7. It's at 31 and a little change that we've reached that million dollar maximum rebate. That's a 10 increase over our current access enrollment today, but we do expect continued growth in the program along with total ridership growth provided by VO.

Great. Thank you.

Okay. We're back to we should this is an important conversation. Obviously, we have a full committee room and an overflow, so I apologize to the briefings that we're having or that we're having also scheduled for today. But it is important for us to have the conversation. I think I would so council member Flynn moved it to the floor, did not get a second.

We do the next available date is April 15. So this is an action item. We will have we'll have to move if we're not going to move to the floor, we have to postpone to a date certain the next available date is April 15. So if that is the will of the committee, then an appropriate motion would be to

Do want me to amend my motion so we have a date?

Yes, ma'am.

To do that. I make a motion please hold it, please. I make a motion that contract contract 0326 or resolution 0326 gets postponed to April 15.

I'll second.

K. That is a proper motion. It's been moved and seconded. Do you want a roll call vote? Let's do a roll call vote.

Council or madam chair Lewis. I

have my have my Do you want call your name? Madam chair Lewis.

Sorry. Aye.

Council member Albydres.

Aye. Aye. Lynn.

Aye. Nashman. Aye.

And president Sandoval.

Aye.

Mister Vice Chair Heintz.

Aye. Success.

Alright. The motion to postpone to April 15 is passed. Thank you so much, Dottie. We look forward to the conversation continuing on the fifteenth. We now have two briefings scheduled.

We might might ask Excel if they would be willing to to delay. I don't know if Excel is in the room, but our next next item briefing is from Denver International Airport 26 Dash 0427. I think a lot of the committee room is here with the first item, and so we might as transitioning, might give a little bit of space for everyone to exit and for the airport to come in. We're still on the air.

Just Yeah.

What you're saying.

Said what we said in the meeting too.

So, director Washington, I we have about thirty sorry. About forty five minutes. Is we also have another briefing after this. Do you think that we have time to do to give you justice if we were to give you about half that time? Absolutely. Okay. Yeah.

Won't These slides. The slides total.

We won't even take half that time.

Oh, okay.

We will be brief. We can't say how long time You all

will take. Okay.

Alright. So director Washington, please introduce yourself and your team.

Yeah. Phil Washington, CEO of Denver International Airport.

Chris Arndon, chief commercial officer, Denver International Airport.

Thank you for having us here. We were asked to present sort of a informational item on use and lease agreements, and we will do

that and

then answer any questions that you might have as we move forward.

Thank you, mister chair. As I mentioned, Chris Herndon, chief commercial officer. We're here just to give you a briefing on the use and lease agreements that DEN will be bringing to the council in batches over the remainder of the year, and we'll get into the particulars of why and how we plan to do that. Just to give you a little background, so DIN is required by the FAA to allow carriers who wish to do business at the airport to be able to do so, and that is through the grant assurances. So any public use airport that receives federal funding is required to bring fair non non discriminatory access to air airfield facilities.

And the method through which that is done has been used in lease agreements. So all carriers at DEN, and we have a total of 26, have the choice to sign a use of lease agreement and become signatory, and I'll speak to that a little bit more what exactly that means, offering them the opportunity to have preferential access to gates and they pay a reduced rate. Because if you are signatory, your agreements are typically longer term. Domestic air carriers, they become signatory by leasing space at the airport as well as agreeing to operate a particular number of flights based off of the size of the carrier. Our foreign flag air carriers, they become signatory at DEN if they wish to do so.

They are not required to have any operating or lease requirements due to the fact that some of our international airlines would not be able to meet the threshold for the number of flights that we put on our domestic carriers. Any carrier who does not meet the requirements or they do not wish to become a signatory airline, they can still operate a DEN via a permit. And so we have airlines that are signatory as well as we have airlines that operate via permits and I'll give you those numbers shortly. So as I mentioned, the use and lease agreement, which I will refer to as ULA moving forward, that's the business term. That's the agreement we use with our air carriers.

So it's between the air carriers as well as DEN. Our four largest carriers, United, Southwest, Frontier, and Delta, they all have long term leases at DEN, and they have been previously approved by multiple councils. The initial agreement with United Airlines was in 1992. That has been amended several times. The current agreement expires in February 2035.

Southwest in 2020, their ULA was extended to the same time as United Airlines. Delta excuse excuse me, me, I'll go in order. Frontier in 2022 signed a long term ULA that goes until September 2034. And then Delta in 2024, this council signed that, approved that ULA cotermis with United Airlines February 2035. So those are our four long term carriers that have long term leases. The other 18 signatory carriers,

all

of their ULAs expire 12/31/2026. So you all are great at math, 18 signatories plus those four, that's 22. We have four carriers that operate via permit at DEN, Allegiant, Breeze, Kontoor, and Sun Country because they don't meet the requirements for a number of So we have ones that operate via permit, short term ULAs that we'll be bringing to you throughout this year, and then we have our four long term with our largest carriers. So these ULAs, the importance of Vision 100 that everyone at this table I'm sure is familiar with. How are we getting to being able to serve a 100,000,000 passengers?

These ULAs are a key component of that. In particular, when it comes to expanding our global connections, you know, we have four pillars when it comes to Vision 100, empowering our people, growing our infrastructure, maintaining what we have, expanding the global connections. We do that through growing our domestic network. If you're not aware, Denver has over 200 domestic non stops throughout the throughout the throughout the country. And also, the ELAs allow us to expand to unserved destinations.

So we value these contracts because it wanted to demonstrate these carriers commitments to DEN in a long term capacity, which helps us improve our overall economic development and opportunity for the global community that we serve. And from a financial standpoint, these lease and payments provide stability when it comes to airline revenues and instills confidence from the rating agencies who obviously give us ratings. And we have our CFOs here who can speak more to that if you would like. Just to give you some numbers and the reason that we do 2024 numbers, our 2025 numbers will not be confirmed until July. But in 2024, airline revenue, 362,000,000 facility rentals, 210,000,000 in landing fees.

So 2025 numbers will be confirmed in July. So what's before you that we will be bringing? So over the course of 2026, we expect to bring you a total of those 18 carriers use and lease agreements to the city council. The terms of those will be three years starting 01/01/2027 with the option of two one year extensions to be exercised at the city's discretion. Revenues will be based off of rates and chargers.

So if there was a question of why are we doing three years with two one year extensions, the previous ULAs was a one year with two one year extensions. So we did a three years total. In conversations with the carriers, the agreement was to go a little bit longer for some financial stability. So that's why we are bringing you a three year with two one year extensions. And these contracts we will bring to you in batches.

At the guidance we've received from council president, we will be bringing our first batch, April 15, and that will be a total of seven airlines. Keyline Mares, Icelandair, Turkish Air, Lufthansa, Air France, Edelweiss, and WestJet. So that will be the first tranche of ULAs that we will bring to counsel later this month. And then I will turn it back to Phil for any final comments, and then we'll happy to take questions.

Mister Choe, you may wanna take questions on this item first because my closing remarks are a lot lots of different items in general to the airport.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, honorable mister Herndon, for your comments. We have two people in the queue so far, council member Ovidrez.

Thank you so much, committee chair. Thanks for this presentation. I'm curious what is the current vacancy rate? I asked that in my briefing and I haven't gotten that information. Sure.

You do have it.

Well, what is it?

We can

pull it up for you. Sure. Okay. I'm I'm curious on how do we prioritize or what if one of those other carriers that's not a signatory yet wants to have space and we don't have it?

When it comes to rent, I'll have Robin, do you wanna come up? We'll have Robin Krissinger who's a commercial airport director come and get that for you councilwoman.

Hi, Robin Krissinger. Do you mind repeating the question?

So if one of the non signatory carriers that's operating on a permit wants to become one and we do not have space, what do we do?

We're always looking for space, so we haven't run into that where a signatory or an airline that was non signatory wanted space and we couldn't find it somewhere for them. So we haven't run into

that. Okay.

So an air carrier can operate at den without being Mhmm. Is that correct? Okay. And we are required to build space if someone's requesting it. Is that correct?

So are you talking about just adding space onto the terminal by concourses? I mean, we've got plans to expand the airport, but right now we haven't had a request for an airline to build new space that we don't have.

Did you find that information?

The Aguilar, government affairs and global public policy. If you don't mind,

I can read this into the record. Yeah. What and who sent that? Because I'm looking for vacancy rates in my email, and I don't see anything.

It came from me last night. Okay. Again, this was an individual one on one. This was not something that everybody else had asked for, but I'm happy to read it into the record. It's it's a little bit long and has numbers, so I'm just gonna go ahead and read it if you don't The airport has approximately 1,400,000 square feet of annual rentable space across the terminal and concourses of which approximately 1,000,000 square feet is currently rented exclusively or preferentially by the airlines.

This includes gates, operational space, ticketing counters, and offices. This leaves about point 4,000,000 square feet or 28 currently, not exclusively, or preferentially leased by the airlines, but is available for common use purposes. The international carriers typically operate using common use gates and ticketing counters due to the size of their operations at DEN. Also included in common use facilities is the commuter location on Concourse C currently used for Key Lime passenger service operations. Airlines that use common use locations typically pay a rate based on activity associated with the operations.

I appreciate that. I'll dive into that a little deeper once I have time to really review that. That's all I have for the moment.

Thank you, committee chair.

Thank you, council member Alvydra. Council member Flynn, you're next.

Yes. Thank you. Just quickly, Chris or or Felvin, I'm sure you know the answer. Do all of the signatory airlines participate in the revenue share or only a certain number of them like the big four? This is the 20% of our Yeah.

Yeah. Let me again. Let me

The finance CFO come up.

Don't wanna get you Quite a nice little program. I just wanna know if everybody has a Yep. Has the ability to participate

in it.

Yep. Mike Beale, the airport CFO, and you are correct, all sedentary carriers do get allocated a share of that revenue, annual revenue credit that we provide every year and it's based on passenger traffic.

It's 20%, right?

The maximum amount that they can all earn is up to $40,000,000 which gets shared between all the signatory carriers on an annual basis.

40? 40. Wow, it used to be 20.

It's up to 40. Right now, it's at 50, but we it's coming back down after this year down to 40. And then they all share Yeah.

That's all.

Alright. Thank you, Council Member Flynn. I don't see anyone else in the queue. I don't see anyone online that has a hand raised. So thank you much for your presentation. I think you you had a a comment that you wanted to share.

Yes. Yes, chair Hines. We like to take the opportunity at these meetings to share general information about the airport. So it's an opportunity for us to share with you. So just a few updates. We are well into the spring break for 2026. We've had more than 1,300,000 passengers forecast to travel or are traveling through security checkpoints. As you know or may know, we invested in screening equipment that's state of the art. We brought it to this committee and the council twice. They were $30,000,000 each, if you recall.

We gifted that equipment to TSA. They train on it and all that. That is one of the huge reasons along with the professionalism of our TSA agents that we have not had the long lines that other airports have had. So we are grateful to our TSA agents as well. We continue to experience normal wait times despite the huge travel period of spring break.

We've reported that the wait time is about twelve minutes average daily. We've had some brief moments where it got to twenty five twenty five minutes or so, but overall, we've experienced short wait periods. We made a call to the public to help TSA agents, and the public responded incredibly along with the employees at the airport in in terms of providing donations to TSA agents. We collected nearly 3,800 gift cards for TSA employees for groceries, for gas, and just general generally helping them out. That was between 55 and $65,000, those gift cards.

Sort of another note, same church, different pew. We have not received any communication indicating that ICE agents will be staffing our checkpoints or at the airport. So then it was not one of those airports. Switching gears, we came to this committee to talk about alternative energy solutions. We put out what's called a request for information some months ago.

That closed yesterday, March 31. We are reviewing all of the responses. There are several 100, And we will be as we go through those, we'll come back to this committee, tell you what we got, and we will look to share and update the community in various meetings as we go. You may have seen that Delta Airlines unveiled a major Sky Club lounge tripling in size to about 13,000 square feet. Further expansion for them will go to 19,000 square feet and 400 seats in that club by year's end.

We've also had a number of new concessions open. I won't go through that list, but it's been very, very active. And then lastly, we are showcasing some sculpture sculptures on the Den campus. We have created a rotating sculpture program as a public art incubator and experience at the airport. So I wanted to share that with the committee. And if there's any questions, we're happy to answer those.

Chair Lewis has her hand raised.

Yes. I just had a quick question, director Washington, about the gift cards. I did see that asked.

Mhmm.

And I was just curious if the gift card yep. Could the airport have could the airport purchase gift cards for TSA employees directly out of the their budget? Like, is that a allowable use of an enterprise of enterprise fund dollars for the airport?

No. We cannot do that as an airport. All we can do is encourage the public to donate, which we've done.

Okay. I was just curious of that. Thank you so much. And then did you have a timeline in terms of when you were hoping to be able to come back to us regarding the alternative energy sources conversation that you all started?

We don't know yet because we have not waded into the material. I think after about a week or so, we'll know what timeline that we will have. We we will understand the volume of what we received a little bit more after a week.

Great. Thank you.

And then I know you all spoke about during the initial round of the media engagement conversations that you all had hosted in both Montbello and Green Valley Ranch that you would bring that information back to community as well. Is that still the intent to bring community back that presentation in the same manner that it was presented earlier this or earlier in 2025?

Oh, absolutely. We'll come to the council first, though, but that is our intent to go back out and to the community. And so we'll work with the council and the council members of where we go and when we go.

Wonderful. Those are the only questions I have. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you so much, chair Lewis. I don't see anyone else with a hand raised, so thank you, director Washington. Thank you. It's good to see you again. I keep trying to say council member, but No. No. Mister Herndon, thank you so much. Good to see you.

Thank you.

So we'll Excel, is twenty five minutes enough time for you? Or

I think we can try to get through it Okay. If that's okay with you. I'll try to go quickly. I have my colleague, Lyle Moore, who's going to be coming. Go for the deck. It is a longer deck than

dense, but and we probably won't get to answer questions. So do we Well, that's the other factor.

I don't know about your opinion and how much q and a you'd have. I worked with Melissa to find the date. So thank you, Melissa.

I didn't know

what you looked like. Thank you.

I

want to apologize, but I also wanna give you the the space and time to give a presentation without having to feel pressure or and also give the space for for members to ask questions. So if you're okay with it, maybe we can ask miss Bara for a date that would work as a reschedule.

Do you wanna do that now, or do we just do it?

Yes. Leanne.

It might

be best that I work with Grace directly so that we can make sure we work with her schedules as well.

So Okay. Great. If that's not an action item, it doesn't Yeah.

Because it's a briefing, we can just say stay tuned, and we'll hear from Excel soon. Is that fair?

Sounds good. And, also, it's a wildfire mitigation program that we'll be presenting to you, not just the public safety power shutoff, but the entire wildfire mitigation program. So I wanted to be clear on that for next time's agenda.

Yeah. That's huge. Yeah. And I keep 33 slides.

It is a long deck. Yes.

It's an important

Okay.

Moment. It is.

Thank you for coming back at another time to be determined.

It's interesting conversation to listen to anyway.

So thank you. Alright.

I wanna thank everyone who's tuned in. Thank you for all the people who visited here today, guests, the people in the overflow room. I think we had a second overflow room. So at any rate, we're seeing no there are six consent items. No one has pulled any of those items off, so they'll move forward to the full body, seeing no further business. Before us, we are adjourned. Thank you.