Health Safety Education and Services - Regular Meeting

Welcome back to this week welcome back to this weekly meeting of the Health and Safety Committee with Denver City Council. Coverage of the Health and Safety Committee starts now.

Good

morning and welcome to the Health and Safety Committee meeting for May 13. My name is Darryl Watson. I'm honored to serve as the chair of this committee as well as the city council member representing all of the Fine District 9. We have one action item today and let me see two items on consent. Before we jump into our action item, why don't we go around the room for introductions? And I'll start first on my right.

Thank you. Kevin Flynn, Southwest Denver's District 2.

Amanda Sawyer, District 5. Sarah Parity, one of your council members at large.

Sarada Gonzalez Kuchetas, your other council member at large.

Jamie Torres, West Denver District 3. This side of the table.

Holding it down. Holding it

down. All by hearing lonesome.

It's absolutely necessary. It's absolutely necessary. And I believe we have online council president Pro Tem.

Hi. Good morning. Diana Romero Campbell, Southeast Denver, District 4.

Thank you all for attending. I wanted to say upfront, we there will be a siren alarm at eleven. Please don't run out of your room. It's fine. It is just a test. We don't believe you'll hear it in the room, but folks who are watching you will hear it in your communities. It is a test. The notifications have gone out to everyone, we just want to make sure folks are not concerned. It's a good thing for emergency management. With that, I'll turn it over to the sponsors for the municipal sentencing ordinance for their review of that ordinance.

Just waiting for our slides. So thank you all. We are here to give an update on changes from last time we came through committee. This is our sixth time in committee on this bill. The last time was in April, and we we particularly wanna focus today on the feedback about the huge number of sort of agency violations that exist throughout our code. We have come up with a new way of handling those that we are hopeful will resolve those concerns. There have been a few other changes, and we're gonna focus today on changes, not so much on the bill itself because we all heard about it many times. And council member Lewis is sick today, just so you all know.

I I apologize.

I council member Lewis, our third co sponsor is

really sick.

You ready? Yeah. Sorry. No. We re revised our we redivided our slides right before committee since she is homesick.

So this is just the recap of what we've done already. I know you're all familiar with this, but we are revising the DRMC so that we are matching all of our municipal sentences post the camp decision to the maximum possible sentences for comparable state offenses to preserve maximum sentencing authority post camp. We are revising the language of some offenses so that the actual elements can align the conduct that they prohibit with a more stringent state law and then allow us to access that higher sentencing level after camp, which without the revisions will not be possible. Also, rewriting offense descriptions to more clearly align with state law where maybe it's not changing the punishment available, but it's just making it more clear what state law it aligns with, and then eliminating mandatory fines on prostitution and setting

oops. My bad. I should not be driving. I keep doing this. Alright.

So here, the next slide depicts the major changes that the bill has had since the last committee that we wanted to give a quick overview on before digging into the details in the next few slides. So first, we made a major change to the class four offenses in the bill that reflect a key compromise with PACE and the mayor's office and agencies. In the in committee and in our stakeholder conversations, we heard agencies concerned about the bill provision to categorize municipal only offenses as class four. The mayor's office and PACE had similar concerns about this quote, unquote catch all provision in the previous bill drafts because it made municipal only offenses class four, meaning ten days maximum jail time and a $300 fine. Recognizing that the regulatory functions of our city government are unique and deserve a close review, we made a major change to the bill to leave the vast majority of the Denver revised municipal code at the status quo general penalty, three hundred days, $999 fine.

And instead, to create a commission that will go into more detail in a little bit here that will study the these offenses and propose appropriate penalties. We'll give more details in the following slides. Oops. Let me stay there for a minute because I wanna continue. Second, we heard a concern from PACE about threats to pets in a domestic violence context for which there is no state crime.

Threats to pets fall under threats to property in both state and municipal code. We proactively added a municipal only offense to that section to encompass situations where someone makes a threat to a pet. This topic may warrant future consideration, specifically if Denver wants to think differently about threats to pets. Given the emotional value of our pets that our our pets hold is different than property value, but the latest draft includes the provision in order to maintain PACE's prosecutorial authority on an important issue while keeping with the narrow focus of the bill on sentencing. I know councilman Cashman's not here right now, but I know he had asked Marley from PACE to the microphone during the last committee, and it was flagged as one of their concerns.

So we wanted to let you all know that we took action and addressed that issue. These two changes reflect a major compromise and demonstrate our continued collaboration with PACE, the mayor's office, and the agencies.

And can I

go ahead?

So we got a document or, actually, the sponsors didn't. Some colleagues got a document last night that had a list of outstanding concerns coming from the city prosecutors, many of which in all of our dozen meetings with them, we have never heard. So I'm going to try to respond to those on the fly as quickly as I can, but I just want you all to understand that this is I've been doing this this morning since some colleagues actually forwarded me those concerns, which I really appreciate it. With regarding with regard to threats to pets, just to set the context for this, the only reason we didn't have a separate form of property crime that was lower level than what state law covers originally is because we really felt, and I continue to feel, that other city ordinances such as harassment cover that conduct. But understanding that this was such a sticking point for the city prosecutors, we we did go ahead and put it in in advance of today.

So this is now, again, a separate level municipal crime threats to property where the property actually doesn't get damaged. The new ask that we're seeing last night is to now increase the penalty beyond that of all of our other municipal only crimes. And my concern about that upon very quick review is that, first of all, we've we've only heard of a we we had examples of two cases in a in almost a seven year period where PACE had examples from their caseload of a pet being threatened but not actually hurt and that coming up in the facts of DV. I know that it could come up, and I know that there may be more, but that's what we were able to elicit from them. However, when property is actually damaged, so if if a pet actually gets harmed, that is governed by camp.

And camp lays out for damage for property that's worse and I think with a pet, this could probably go either way. For property that's worth less than $300 under because of camp and state law, the penalty if that property is actually damaged, and, again, we treat pets as property in our code. It's not my language, is only ten days in jail. If property is worth more than $300, then it's a hundred and twenty days in jail. But the problem is if we make a threat that doesn't lead to any actual damage, a higher sentence, then it's gonna be higher when there is actual harm, and that does not make sense.

We are trying to create a rational sentencing code and work from what aligns with state law. And keep in mind that when state law set these sentences, including for property damage of $300 and under, they did that after a a massive amount of process, and they did that for good reasons. I also have to say something here. In the meeting that we were finally able to get with PACE last Monday when we discussed this concern, Marley, I'm gonna say something to you. I you felt that I was minimizing harm to pets, and I had to go off camera.

The reason that I had to go off camera, I don't really appreciate feeling like I need to say this today, is because I had a memory of my dad who I adored, who died last year and was a public figure beating our dog with a belt in the backyard because he was upset with my mother. So I'm not minimizing this. I understand the seriousness. And I think that's part of the problem with what brings us here today is that there's a whole lot of people trying to speak up for victims. We have heard loud and clear for many years from the victim rights community, from survivors, including from many that I have represented through the hardest times of their lives, and I have did that for years.

Dozens and dozens of clients, mostly women, sometimes men, sometimes children, that they do not want people coming in here and using their stories and weaponizing them. So I'm not trying to speak for all victims, but what I am telling you is that that kind of emotionally freighted response is not how we should be making policy. Threats to pets, in my view, if we only have a ten day jail sentence pursuant to camp and state law when property is actually damaged, including if a pet is hurt, it does not make sense to add greater than ten days if the pet is merely threatened and not actually hurt. Even though I understand the import of that, ten days in jail is a long time. In a situation where a pet has been threatened, it's very likely that there's been other DV misconduct, and its charges can be stacked.

So I am not thrilled about the idea of making this some kind of exception and increasing this, but this is the level of detail that we're now getting into with this bill. And every time we think we've come back with a compromise that handles all the concerns we've heard, we get a new list of concerns. It is our sixth time in committee. The other there are a couple of other concerns from the letter that fall under domestic violence concerns that I want to address. We have heard that if I'm just quoting from this document that went around, that there's a concern about protection orders and stalking related conduct.

Every violation of a protection order in a domestic violence case that where there's an intimate relationship that or a person being protected that's the basis of the protective order can already get three hundred days in jail. We don't need additional evidence of stalking to get up to that kind of sentence. The potential punishment for the first violation of a PO in a domestic violence case is the maximum for a class two offense of three hundred days in jail. So I understand that we don't have that separately for violation of all protective orders, but if it's a DV protective order, it has a three hundred day penalty. That is almost a year in jail.

And finally, we've heard a lot of discussion about flourishing weapons. And what you want you to understand is that, again, camp and state law dictate the sentences for flourishing of weapons whenever a person is put in fear. So, again, in a domestic violence situation, if someone is made afraid, those have state law parallels, and camp dictates the sentences, and our bill reflects that. The only remaining municipal only flourishing offense is where someone is carrying any object that could be a weapon. It's not limited to guns. It it has been charged in cases involving all kinds of other an object that a person might be holding. They're holding it. It's visible. They get arrested, but there's no witness who says they were scared. That is limited to ten days in jail under our bill.

In a domestic violence scenario, by definition, you have someone that was scared by the weapon, and it's a higher sentence and it's governed by camp. On the first portion here, our compromise on how to handle municipal only crimes. What we've done is we have now said that the ten day sentence for municipal only crimes is only for the things in the municipal criminal code, which we've discussed exhaustively. We've shown you all that list. There is also a huge list, as you all know, of crimes that are essentially never charged, like the horse in the garden and that kind of thing.

We've looked at that list. There's nothing that needs to be treated with more than ten days that anyone has pulled out for us from that portion of the code. And I believe that's still true even with the communications we've gotten last night. We also You're skipping ahead a little

bit because we still have to get through the other stuff,

but go ahead. Sorry. I just wanna say this. We also pulled out a list of class four offenses that council member Gonzalez Gutierrez is going to go over that are in the rest of the code, not the criminal code. Other than the ones we are listing, we are kicking everything else in all the rest of the code over to a commission. So no default ten days, no default hundred and twenty days. We are leaving all of those things just like they are except for a list that we pulled out. And the communications that we got last night also contain some significant misunderstandings about the impact of that change, which I will get to in when we get to that slide. Thank you, Sarina.

Yeah. No. And if you wanna chime in, that's fine. So in this for in kind of building off of what councilman Parady was speaking to, and also I'm very sorry to hear about that. That's the first time I've heard about that. I haven't heard about yet. I'm sorry. So this slide is meant to explain the class four changes in a bit more detail. So as we were just saying, we heard that the agencies, and we also heard all of you as our colleagues loud and clear, the concerns brought up on this issue. Council members Sawyer, Torres, Romero Campbell, and council president Sandoval, I believe you all flagged this specific piece as something you wanted us to follow-up on, so we did.

In the latest bill draft, we removed the catch all provision so that the vast majority municipal only offenses now remain at the status quo of three hundred days and $999 fine to allow for a new commission to have the time to make recommendations for appropriate penalties. We'll share more, like I said, on the commission in a in a few more slides later. Agencies shared in our briefings that even the existing sentencing scheme does not give them necessarily the tools for deterrence for mainly regulatory issues that they want. Right? So even threatening with jail time is very difficult.

And even if it has been threatened, it's never actually nobody's ever served time. Even the most egregious corporate entities, landlords have actually never served time. Now does the threat actually do anything? That's the question, and that's why we are tabling that for that discussion to be able to talk about what are the actual penalties that will be able to help bring people into compliance. The $999 maximum fine that the general penalty allows for most offenses is sometimes not enough to move larger corporate actors into compliance.

So having a dedicated commission to look at appropriate penalties in detail will allow us to be very intentional with the regulatory code, specifically talking about the class four offenses. Some offenses were added for consistency in our code. We'll go through these in the next slides. Class four now includes offenses comparable to state petty offenses as the supreme court ruling requires. Municipal only offenses from chapter 38 of the criminal code and a narrow set of commonly charged low level regulatory offenses.

We've met with PACE and the mayor's office on both May 4 and May 7 to discuss these changes to class four among other things. At the time, you know, we were able to discuss some of the concerns, but not in great detail about the list of class four offenses, but they did want to follow-up with agencies. We sent the proposal of the class four offenses that you now see in the bill on April 29, two weeks ago. I also, wanna give a huge thank you to our coalition for their support in reviewing chapter 38. And on this point, I will just say, and I know councilwoman Perry mentioned this earlier, but I wanna put a finer point on this.

There are some council members, and I don't know who all received it, received a document last night from PACE detailing, outlining their concerns. This is something that we have been asking for since we sent them our proposal and since we met with them. We've asked for our the feedback in writing so that we can look at how it can be incorporated in the language. We did not receive that until this morning. So we received it as the sponsors sponsors after our colleagues did.

And so I want to just put a finer point on that. So if the question comes up of why aren't these things being considered, it's because we haven't had the opportunity to do so. Alright. So this is from the previous draft. As we've indicated, these, like, purple stars indicate those that fall under the supreme court ruling, what is we are constitutionally obligated to abide by.

The so this is how it looked when we before we change the catch all piece, the the list included state petty offenses comparables, which are being changed again to align with camp, some municipal only offenses, which means they have no comparable at the state marked with a green asterisk. So those are municipal only. The next slide depicts what is happening now. So what we did was we took a even finer tooth comb and said, okay. If we're not able to do a, quote, unquote, catch all, what we will do is look at what other offenses fall under the same kind of lines as falling under a state petty type offenses, right, that would be considered petty offenses, crimes of poverty, those kinds of issues, and things that nobody is getting sentenced, you know, the ten days.

Right? So that's where we took the finer tooth comb, and that's what we presented to the mayor's office and to PACE, and that's where we're in dis discussions right now. And when we say discussions,

we circulated this list immediately after committee, and we haven't gotten any kind of response until the document last night, which includes a bunch of misunderstandings. So if I can address that, again, I don't know who got this document, but it has a list of supposed offenses in the rest of the municipal code that PACE is stating will go down to a ten day sentence under our bill. And just within in the in, like, the half hour that we had before committee, a whole bunch of these have state analogs. So they're not going to ten days. These are not on this list because we didn't have them before our slide deck, and they're not impacted by our bill.

They are things that are being raised for your consideration that are not actually at issue. So if you've seen a document that says that killing police animals, escaping from jail, price switching, wage theft are all going down to ten days, they are not. They all have state law equivalents that and they are all governed under camp. So the lack of communication with the bill sponsors is leading to a whole lot of unnecessary confusion. And I actually am pretty shocked that we're at this point in the bill and still having this level of understanding of misunderstanding rather, which we could have resolved first.

So if you're concerned that we're gonna be, you know, sending people to jail for only ten days for killing a police animal, no. That is a class one misdemeanor with three hundred days equivalent to a state law.

Committee chair, if I could just interject real quickly. I was one who, at the last time this came before committee, requested just just to make this discussion easier to get to a resolution, A list of everything the the city attorney's office was concerned about, and I received that about 09:00 last night.

Council member, we've also been asking for that. No. No. No.

I I'm

just just I know. I'm just ex explaining how this letter that that's been mentioned. Yeah. And so

about it a little bit.

Can you have been requesting that list for once?

No. I

understand. Multiple meetings. Members who asked to ask.

May may I interject? I I I hear that, and I appreciate council member Cashman in the last committee meeting. You're bringing that forward. I appreciate the statements from the sponsors that they've been asking for this. The opportunity within this committee would be after the presentation for PACE to respond to the statements that are being made. And so someone around this table will ask for them to respond from their perspective, and I look forward to that. So Absolutely. Point taken. Understood. I encourage you, please, let's continue the presentation.

Thank you, mister chair. And before people as we wrap up, I would actually ask the mayor's office to come up first because they do have a statement before we proceed to those questions as part of the presentation. You're next.

Yep. So this is more on the commission that we want to handle regulatory code violations, so everything that's not in the actual criminal code and that isn't on that last slide. And the last slide, again, was arrived at because we just wanted to make sure that some of these really low level things that happen to be outside the criminal code and never get long jail sentences don't stay at three hundred days while we wait for a commission process. Mhmm. So the proposed commission is to make recommendations for two things.

Number one, for everything else in, you know, the other 40 or however many chapters of our code, what the appropriate penalties should be including fines and jail time. We won't be touching those other than the ones on that past slide until this commission does its work. And this is because I think the way that we handle regulatory crimes, the we've had so many bills about this and so much good work done on this, things like the rental registry, things like public health violations, that we've really come to understand from our agency partners that our existing fine and jail structures are really not that well tailored to what they do. And so they just need to be revisited in a more nuanced way rather than put into one of these categories in this bill, which are really designed more for what you would think of as, you know, classic individual crimes. So we are excited about this commission.

We think it's a really good approach. No formal positions from the mayor's office, but we have heard indications that this works for them. I don't know if that's true or not. We would try to keep it fairly quick with a report within six months of bill passage, and we've been talking about the actual membership of that back and forth with the mayor's office to create a very balanced commission. And then the second thing it would look at is going into chapter 38, the criminal code for a bunch of these weirdly antiquated offenses that we've now realized are in there.

Again, my favorite example is letting a horse walk on someone's garden, but there's a bunch of those. So things that should actually just be repealed and should no longer be criminalized. Criminalized. So that work we would we would it's things that we've identified throughout the passage of this bill that we don't wanna rush and that we think are worth separate attention.

And just in addition, like the the committee structure, all of the the details, we are we want this to live in the bill so that we are putting guardrails around what is expected of this commission, who who what entities will be participating in this, and then some guardrails around expectations when a but report is is provided as well as policy needing to with follow-up policy or an exchange, things like that that will need to then occur as well in response to the report.

And I just wanna emphasize that that was the last time we were in committee, the letter from the DA, the statements at that time from the administration side were primarily about the idea that there were all of these potentially serious offenses lurking in the regulatory code and that we couldn't risk kicking all those down to ten day jail sentences even if they were stackable. So we made this is a huge change to the approach, and the benefit of it is that it will allow a commission to also look at, you know, making the fines much higher, making the make it easier to stack fines day by day. Like, it sort of creates a lot more opportunity to to do things quite differently for those kinds of offenses to consider corporate actors different than non corporate actors, all that kind of thing. I'm a big fan of the solution, and this was what came out of the last committee. That was the primary thought thing that we took to be our task.

So we handled it.

Next.

This is, again, going over our stakeholder and not to the. If you go to the next slide because this is now your to see in 2026 that we're continuing to have these meetings. We've met with PACE in the mayor's office since last committee and also with the district attorney's office since last committee. And then also we had these community list listening sessions with 70 or more people that were immediately after last committee. They had been scheduled then, but we had those and we and we put those out to all bids, JIDS RNOs. Yeah. RNOs and everyone that we knew was interested in the topic and they had very good turnout.

And lastly, while, you know, the three of us, myself, councilwoman Parody and councilwoman Lewis, are running the bill, there is a broader coalition that we've talked about that stands in support of this bill, which you can see here, which includes organizations such as the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, the Colorado Freedom Fund, the American Civil Liberals Union of Colorado, and Disability Law Colorado among many others. Next steps, we so our goal is to continue moving forward, move out of committee today with mayor council on May 19, and you see there's an extra week in there, and that's because of the holiday. So because of the holiday, it adds an extra week in it continuing to move in the process. And so that would give us some time to continue to, you know, make sure that we put a, you know, wrap everything up and and get those details hammered out. And we're on to questions.

Thank you. And, actually, before that, I was going to ask if if Tim Hoffman could come up and provide information from the mayor's office.

Hi. Good morning. Tim Hoffman with the mayor's office. I have spoken with the the council sponsors, council members Parity, Gonzalez Gutierrez, and Lewis this morning. I wanna address the concern that councilman Cashman raised about the email that was sent on behalf of the administration last night with a list of some of the concerns.

The process that we have been working through with the council sponsors, and as they alluded to, we have been meeting numerous times. We've had productive conversations. There are still concerns that the administration has, but those discussions are ongoing and have been there have been some pretty big movements and changes that made us certainly more comfortable with this version of the bill removing that large catchall. So I wanna first acknowledge that and then also acknowledge that the process that we were that we had spoken with the council sponsors about that we intended to follow was to have not only the city attorney's office, but all of the regulatory agencies pull together all of the remaining and outstanding concerns with the latest version of the bill so that there was kind of one master document of all of the outstanding concerns and considerations that the administration as a body had. That would have then been the the plan was to relay that to the council sponsors to continue those discussions to see what could be or could not be agreed to within those.

And then to councilman Cashman's point on that, it was also a specific request to make sure that those were also relayed at later time to the rest of council for them to review any outstanding issue the administration had. To the extent that didn't happen last night, which it didn't, we own that, and I apologize for the kind of confusion that that led to, but it is a process that we are committed to moving forward. So I just wanted to make that statement. Thank you.

Tim, is this document from last night so you and I talked on the phone last night around 8PM. You told me it wasn't gonna be possible to get us back our specific answers before committee. And then something went out, not to us, that had a bunch of specific concerns, some of which we have not heard. The criminal code is not that long. Like, these provisions that we've been talking about, we've been talking about for months. So I don't know how we're still finding new concerns. But putting that aside, you told me it wouldn't be possible to get out last night. It then went out last night. Is it an official administrative administration position? Have you reviewed it? Do you know what's in it? I I just don't understand how we should be viewing this document.

Yeah. So the goal is to have the comprehensive document that isn't just from the city attorney's office but also the remaining concerns of any other regulatory agency. So to the extent that that document represents all of our concerns, no. It does not.

But have you read it?

I I have not gotten a chance to look through the full document.

Okay. And do you does the mayor's office agree with everything in it?

So I'll say pause for everyone. That's the alarm announcement, so phones will be going off. So let's take a few minutes. Right?

All of our phones work. It all works. Yay.

It works. But we're we're back. Council member Parady, do you mind restating your question? And miss Duffman, if you don't mind responding? And and I'll have a question for you as well.

Yeah. I just I'm the reason I'm concerned, Tim, is we got an email from you, I think, two committees ago that listed at the at that time the mayor's office outstanding concerns with the bill. And we care about the mayor's position on the bill. We've been seeking his position on the bill or the position of his office or the administration as a whole. And that list included four things, every single one of which we've now addressed and and done and fixed essentially from your point of view.

Four of those things that included the ten day catch all, not applying to the administrative code, which is the latest change, and then three other things that were resolved earlier. So I just wanna know if this document from PACE I understand you haven't reviewed it, but is it essentially going to be just have the the mayor's office imprimatur put on it once you do review it, or are you at all going to I don't know what I'm asking. I wanna know if we should take that as the mayor's position. Yeah.

So when we have the administration's position, that will be made clear to you all via the mayor's office, and that will come

from Okay. So we're not there yet. Thing that went around last night is not the mayor's position. That's all I wanna know.

So I I I I think that some of the concerns that are likely raised in that document are, like, the ongoing ongoing discussions that we've been having. So I think to the extent that those things remain concerns that we as the administration have, yes, absolutely. I think I I just can't definitively say

You haven't read it. Comprehensively. Thank you. That answers my question. I appreciate that.

And miss Dauphin, while you're standing there, I appreciate the sponsors bringing this forward, I think it's important for at least for me to ask this one question. I will get in the back of the queue, which is the Nomper Hudson for the committee chair. However, with you standing there, you and I had a meeting with Pace yesterday as well. We've walked through those the details of Pace's concerns. Are there concerns from that dialogue that we had that you got questions about? I just wanna make sure because that list provided was the was the communication that PACE provided has been providing to my office as I've been meeting with PACE as well.

So without having looked at the full document, I I can't all I can tell you is that when it will come from the mayor's office, the comprehensive list of all of the administration's concerns. Perfect.

Thank you, mister Hoffman. Why don't we go to the queue and then we can walk through questions from members of on the queue. Council member Flynn followed by council member Cashman, then council president Sandoval.

Thank you. Excuse me. Thank you, mister chair. You're probably really gonna hate this, but the reason you've been in committee six times is that the bill goes way far beyond what we're required to do by the camp decision and takes in the whole criminal code in in the DRNC. And so it's been a process of trying to understand the breadth of it and the impact of it and the possible unintended consequences. And I think that's and and and because most of the drafting over the time you were working on it for two years, I think, three, almost three, you've been working with a public defender and not closely enough with pace.

Can you come in?

Please. Thank you, mister. So I I think that explains why we've been back six times because

we just

had more and more questions.

I just I have You're making representations about work that I've done. Please.

I have finished this call. So you can ask me.

I am not ready to vote this out of committee, not for this reason, not for the reasons of, you know, I don't agree with the breadth of it, but with this addition of the commission, which is new today to me. And there's no definition in the draft. It's still to be determined. And that's the very definition of not ready for the floor for me. So if the commission weren't in there, I would vote it to the floor right now.

So that's that's my only observation. It's there's no the the reference to the makeup of the commission is the the crime control. Crime prevention. Crime prevention and control commission. Division eleven. Which has 33 members. And this one that you're proposing has 20. And whether I don't see how it's gonna be formed if it's gonna take a look at the regulatory part of the code. The crime prevention and control commission is entirely devoted to the criminal code. So what experts are we gonna get on board to review the regulatory code? They're just not it it to me, it's not in the bill yet, so I can't vote it out of committee.

I would be curious to know from the administration from Tim if you are in a place of comfort with the list that we've exchanged or not. And if you're not, you're not, but we're just trying to get to agreement with the administration. I don't care

if the mayor's comfortable

with it. Okay.

That's that's where we're how we're trying to formulate the the We're hoping that Yeah.

The there's office and the bill sponsors and the proponent coalition are all comfortable that that will help council members also be comfortable.

I understand the reason, but and I would be very comfortable with it if I had who appoints the members Okay. From where do we draw the members, etcetera. But right now, it's parentheses basically to be determined. I'm very confident. I I would support a commission, but I need to see what it is.

Did you wanna respond to that?

Yeah. I just I understand that your perception is that we've collaborated with OMPD and not with PACE, and I'm telling you that my first email about this bill to the city attorney's office and the mayor's office was in October 2023. I mean, I have been seeking that collaboration. I don't think it was a topic of interest to them until the camp decision came out, and there was nothing I could do about that. And since camp Right. We have had a dozen meetings. I believe that we have met more frequently with PACE in the mayor's office than with OMPD. We have had written exchanges with OMPD asking for their understanding of certain sections of this, but I just don't think that that's a fair characterization. So I just I just have to say that. And I'm so I'm speaking. How I've spent my time.

I'm speaking from the outside. So that's how it plays with me with and the input that I've had. And I know that you did reach out, but I know you collaborated very closely with the public defender to a much greater extent.

Can I just add to

And I do understand that the bill is that the bill started as an effort to reduce municipal sensing in general, not related to camp because camp came later?

No. But it was to it was to align with state law. So it's the same concept.

Yes. Thank you.

I'll just just to respond to that point around who we were working with, you know, I think there was attempts to to work more closely. I will say that as part of this process, it has been getting folks to the table has been very, very difficult from the beginning in trying to engage in this conversation. Mhmm. And it has taken a lot, and I can probably look at the people in the room who have worked to manage all the scheduling. I can look to, you know, the mayor's office and try to get, you know, get everybody on board to meet.

But I will say, at the beginning, it was like pulling teeth to, like, sit down and and have the meeting and talk about this. And I know you're looking at it from the outside, but as somebody who's actually been in the meetings and been doing the work, that's what has occurred. So I wanna tell you that. And we can show you all the email exchanges that we've had if you'd like. If you need to see that evidence k. Happy to show that to you.

And all of that could be true, but we still end up with a process where we come back six times.

It is true, Kevin. I'm sorry, councilman Flynn. I don't disagree.

I don't disagree at all. I I grant you everything you just said, but that's the reason for coming back six times is that this body then has to claw back and review and consider the consequences when I go back to my voters and say, I voted for this, and I didn't realize that this was gonna happen because of it.

But this is not a vote for this is not a kill committee. Right? We know that. So it's you're not voting for it right now. Sorry. Thank you, mister chair. Sorry.

Completely completely understand that. Thanks. That's all.

And and I'll say, this is a very emotional discussion, and I thank council members for the opportunity for questions and answers. Council member Cashman, then council president Sineval, then council member Sawyer.

Yeah. Thank you. I I would respectfully disagree with my colleague, councilman Flynn. As far as my experience in in my workings with the administration on other issues is there's a lack of true partnership. Partnership is talked about, but is shortcut.

I asked for for the response from PACE at the last committee meeting and to get that letter at 09:00 last night is beyond unacceptable. You know, I'll I'll leave it at that. I'll leave it at that. But I think that from talking to this bill sponsors, I'm fully confident at their level of commitment to partnership and the outreach they've done to the administration. I feel the shortfall has been on the other side. Thank you.

Thank you, council member Cashman, council president Senegal, Sawyer, and Torres.

Thank you. Just wanna say thank you for the work. That's what happens, and thank you both for being committed to seeing this out. I know how challenging it can be. It's not easy, when people have a lot of passion around this. So I just wanna say thank you. So I did have questions around the the creation of the commission, so I would love to see information on that. I'd love to see how it's appointed. Like, does it go through, like I I haven't been here for I've been here for a while and I've never I can't remember how we get someone on the crime prevention and control commission. Does it go through our commission committee, like the one that

We have a different proposal for this. Okay. So I can speak to that. What what we've talked about and, again, I'm we hoped to have this finalized, but we haven't gotten a response. But what we've talked about is at a fairly high level of detail, and it is a list of 20 specific, basically, positions.

So it's, you know, someone from DPD, someone from courts, some or someone from specifically the victim advocates within the courts, someone from the public defenders, someone from PACE, someone from FIRE, someone from you know, we have a whole list, someone from victim rights organization. And the idea is that we would just, in the ordinance, just define who those were. And so if we say a representative of DPD, DPD gets to decide who they send. So the ordinance would just lay that out because this is very short term, and we don't wanna hold it up with an appointment process and having bills have to go through council. And so our feeling was

I didn't mean that appointment process. I didn't get it finished. I meant the one the no problem. I meant the appointment process that we have where we have councilman Sawyer, council member Alvarez, and council member What? They're mayoral appointees. They don't Are they? Yes. So they don't go through appointed by the mayor. Okay. So this would all be appointed by the mayor?

It would be I think the structure that we have in mind is that the ordinance would set out basically all of these organizations that get to choose their their representation. So it's not it's not really a normal because it's not a commission that's gonna stand for a long time. It's very short term. And so the ordinance would say, you know, that these 10 entities can send who they wanna send, and then they would just choose. And and there wouldn't need to be an appointment process to avoid that delay.

Okay. And then how did you get to the council would take action on in response to the working group. How'd you get come up with 01/15/2027?

I can talk a little bit about that. So that was so what we were what we're looking at the timeline, if this were to pass in June, then we wanna give enough time for members to be placed on this commission. And so we wanna get and we so we would have, like, a date certain similar to what we did council president in the school city coordinating committee where we said you must convene by this date. And that would be the plan is you must convene convene by this date. You have this amount of time, four months amount of time to deliberate and, you know, dig in deep to all of these ideas and concepts, and then you have sixty days to come up with a report and report back.

And in that time, also, working on the drafting of legislation to be proposed in in a code change. And so we are trying to put dates because we've seen and from our own experience with whether it's working groups or task forces is that if you don't have the guardrails and don't have some guidelines, they just kinda waffle out there and go on forever and ever with with not a clear expectation and outcome and deliverable. And so we wanted to spell out those deliverables. And so, you know, we're amenable to to those dates. We were just trying to, like, put something in, and so we're we are still waiting for feedback from folks that we've been partnering with, all the stakeholders on those if that timeline would be amenable.

And we'd love to hear from you all too on that.

And I can read the exact list that we've had in communication, but it's not final because we haven't heard back. And I sent this on the seventh, so almost a week ago. It would be mayor's office, PACE, a representative of BIDS, JIDS, a victim rights organization, DPD, DFD license licensure, or their city attorney, DDPHE, or their city attorney, Denver Sheriff's Department, because they oversee the jail, which is really what these sentences are about, three city council members. Those might have to be selected by you council president, so we need to figure that out. The municipal public defender, someone from that office, a forensic peer from the courts, a someone from an outside nonprofit in criminal justice reform, someone from an anti poverty organization, someone from an immigrant rights organization, someone from the state wide association of criminal defense attorneys, and someone who's, like, an academic.

So those are, like, the roles that we have in mind. Okay. So And it's true. We don't have we don't have the appointment details completely worked out, but I just don't think that that's the kind of thing. Mechanics of if people agree that those roles are acceptable, the mechanics of getting those people into the chairs, to me, can happen before the floor. It's the roles that are important. And we just every time we come back to committee, we get new and different concerns. And it is

And I I will say something about that in my lived experience. I I got blasted because every time the soccer came back that I had a new concern, and it's because I looked over the documents again and I did have a new concern. So I can understand

I don't mean from colleagues though.

No. I know. But I can understand the delicate balance of having to do all of this and I'll just say that I know that I think all of us in the city are really short staffed and that the layoffs of 800 people and more have just really gutted a system that was intended to serve us and we're doing a a lot with a little. And so I'll just say that I think I've been going to public comment. I've been going to my registered neighborhood meeting.

We're all getting paid the same exact amount of money and yet we lost money last year. Every single one of us. Everyone got furloughed last year and no one got a merit increase. And I'll just say on public record, I've been at the city for fourteen years and my sister was here when they were doing furloughs. I've never had such low morale in the city. I've never had such bickering. I've never had I like, literally, I go home at night and I tell my husband, I've never worked around a group of people who are more dedicated and are having a really hard time. So I'll just say that. I know my staff is. I know a lot of people in the city are, and I know I think Pace has also the city attorney had a huge loss.

Not making excuses. I'm just saying the reality. So one other question I have is, did you all meet with the Rose Adams Center after the last so they sent us a letter and they're not supportive. How did you address that and did did you went with them once or can you just talk to me about this relationship with the Rhode Island City? It makes me feel very nervous Sure.

To have their letter of opposition for a resource in Denver that is so needed and, like, I'm thinking about tomorrow when we go to our budget workshop. One of our our policies that we wanna have that our council member brought forward is to help with domestic violence because the rise has gone up. So I feel like that's there's this conflict there. So just can you talk to me about the conflict?

Yeah. So we've met with them a few times, and one of those times was with other victims' rights organizations. That was prior to the last committee. And I think there

was confusion about that because it seemed like the person who attended from Rosetta Center in their like, as a part of their job, that others who came to committee didn't know

They didn't know about that. Yeah.

But we had no way of knowing that.

So and then we and we and the reason that we met with the person originally that we met with was because they were on a list of people that were distributed an email from PACE from their government affairs person, and so that's where we got their name and why we did the outreach to them. And so we met with them initially before the the last committee. And then since then, we scheduled a meeting meeting just with Rose Andam where we walked through the changes that we were proposing. We asked them what are the concerns that you have. They brought up the pets issue as well, and we pointed to, at that time, what we thought we had addressed addressed it, but then we got a little more clarity and we now have actually addressed it.

And and we talked through some of the other provisions of the bill. They didn't indicate at that time that they were opposed. We asked them if they had any additional feedback, which they did not provide. And the first time that we've heard back from them is in the letter that was sent to all of you, and I don't believe to actually us. So as far as feedback, we have not received the follow-up from Rose Andam on that.

And so, you know, we we we reached out. We wanted to have the meeting. We wanna have these conversations. And I think, you know, some of the things we we need to remember, like, Rose Andam does provide a very important service, and and the work that they do for the city is crucial. But, you know, I think we also have to take a step back and look at, you know, who is on the board of RoseAnum.

It is a lot of prosecutors, and that's not a bad thing. I mean, that's that's fine. But it you just makes you wonder, like, where is the direction coming from? That is concerning just for me as I'm, like, looking at kind of the landscape here. I will also say, council president, I completely hear you about what the morale is, how are how, you know, things how staff are very people are short staffed.

They're not being paid. They're not getting raises and all of these things. I think it doesn't, though, excuse the fact that there was the way in which the information was shared was very inappropriate, and I don't think that excuses that. I get not getting the the feedback in maybe in a in a manner in a timely manner that we would like. Mhmm. I get that that on face value, but the fact that it was sent to everybody else but the sponsors, I do not take that as an excuse as far as low staffing. So thank you, mister chair.

Say something because I respect that the Rose Adam Center is a nonprofit that has been sucked into all of this, and so I'm not you know, I and I understand that there's a lot of these things are technical and complex. Right? And so even when you work in domestic violence every day, the actual lining up of the versions of state law and everything else, this has been complicated for everybody. But I I do wanna point out that there are a lot of organizations that work with survivors in the city. Rosendum is one.

And I do wanna point back to the only other letter that we've gotten. A a lot of victim rights organizations have been very engaged in the state legislative session, and so it has been hard for us to get time with people and and sort of, like, get people dug in in the way that we would want. But the the letter that we got from violence free Colorado CFF. It talks about sorry. What?

Oh, I'm sorry. I don't go ahead. It

says that they support aligning our code with state statute promoting consistency in charging and prosecution. They're concerned about preserving the ability to prosecute painless assault, which we are letting go despite that concern that is remaining in the bill. And then they talk about we support and sorry. I'm just trying to find the part of their letter that I'm trying to read. I'm really rattled right now.

I'm just reading the letter that we got. While expanding criminal penalties is often intended to reflect an understanding of the seriousness of domestic violence, these decisions don't occur in a vacuum. Factors like police training, mandatory arrest laws, available resources, and the judicial understanding of domestic violence dynamics all shape how these policies are applied in in practice. In that context, low level assault charges can and do result in criminalization of survivors. We heard from a woman at public comment who talked about that, that she was a domestic violence survivor living in her car partly because she had been prosecuted and criminalized, and they are their long standing position from a survivor centric perspective has been that DV cases are more appropriately handled in state court where there are typically more robust protections and resources available.

So that's the only other formal communication we've gotten from a survivor representing organization.

So for next steps, I just have questions on from the information that we got this morning. And I I believe it got sent to all city council users, but it got sent early this morning. Right? It was in your inbox, the letter from Marley? As opposed to? Just the one that this morning that came through at, like, 9AM, I think, is what I'm looking at.

Right. As opposed to So communications that happened last night.

Yeah. I'm just talking about the one at 9AM. So what just gives me pause just so you all know is number two, the catch all provision under chapter 38. So I would love clarity around that. I would love the number three thirty four through 46, the wrongs to minors. I don't understand understand that that part. Part. So So if if Yeah. Yeah. You could have clarity around that.

And then the at number eight, which is basically number two, the catch all provision for all of those. And I I'll just say this on the record. I know you too well, and I would have immense respect for what you do. And I don't think that you all intend to say that window peeping isn't a serious crime. I don't think that you all intend to say escaping from jail is a serious crime. I don't think you all meant to have wage theft as not a serious crime. I think you

all It's it's not excluded. That's a misunderstanding.

So just where we need clarity because we're having one document say one thing. I haven't had a chance to you text me the other day, and I really hadn't had a chance to dig into this. I really I'll just be a 100% honest. I was so focused on prevailing wage this past weekend and until its passage on Monday, and, like, we were literally doing amendments at 02:30 in the afternoon that I did not I did not build into my schedule the time that was needed for me to go through through this. And I told you that.

I was like, I I I can't even believe how packed I had been. So those were just and I really wanna say to both of you, Lewis, who's not here, I don't believe that you all are trying to make it so Denver is in a safe city. And I really think that that's a narrative that I've been getting in my inbox from people who I don't represent. Right? It's not neighborhoods I represent that I'm getting these emails from from the RNOs. I think you all are trying to make Denver a safe city. I believe that all of you wanna do what's best. And so I just wanna go on the record and say that I just have these mixed information. And so we just I think if we can sit down, you know, I've taken every briefing you've offered me. Mhmm.

Literally. I and then some and and talked about it. So I just wanna make sure that we're all on the same page because I feel good with the choices that you've made. I feel good that you took out the fire code. I'm glad. I'm glad that you took out the that that it would impact the derelict properties. I all the things that I had were major concerns about, you all made major changes to that bill and have satisfied my issues. And then I got this and I was like, okay. So do we have a catch all provision in chapter 38 and we just have to just delineate that out and then I'll be I'll be good? I can answer every one of these.

There is no long so, yes, chapter 38 has the catch all provision. We've talked about that so many times. We've listed out the only offenses that ever get charged that would move up within days. And it's the list you guys have seen more than times now. Smoking on the 16th Street Mall can't be met in public urination, etcetera. Yeah. This subpart of this document that I'm looking at, that's the one you're referring to, number two, catch all provision. Yep. It says chapter 38 is where many of the city's criminal violations live, such as assault, threats, weapons, impersonating an officer, flourishing a weapon, unlawful acts around schools, or killing a police animal. Those are all governed by camp. They are? Not one of those is going to ten days. Okay. So I don't know why we're even talking about this. None of them falls under the catchall.

I don't get it. And then it says there's no large city that has reduced their general penalty. Westminster has no jail time for any municipal offenses. That's not a reduction. That's just what they've always had, but there's a variety of different approaches. Loans to minors, the reason that we have language in here that says, and the injury does not rise to the level of a serious bodily injury is because a serious bodily injury is a felony, and the state constitution says that cities can't prosecute felonies. Correct. K. So that's the answer to that. The violation of protective order, we just talked about the fact that if it's a protective order for an individual, there's an up to three hundred day sentence.

K. Threats, this is the issue about pets where I don't understand the idea that we should we have we talked about that. Harassment, this provision has been found unconstitutional. In a specific case that we have the citation for k. Under an aligned state law, it was struck down as unconstitutional. Our city law wasn't struck down because it wasn't the one being challenged, but it's the same language. It's unconstitutional. K. I don't wanna sign off on an unconstitutional language in a bill. I'm an attorney. We talked about flourishing. And, again, the catchall, which is only chapter 38, this list most of the serious things on this list have state law analogues and are not going down to ten days. Okay. So that answers everything in that document.

Thank you. Thank you, mister chair.

Thank you, council president, senate law, council member Sawyer, Torres. The queue is still open. For folks who are online, if you'd like to get into the queue, please let me know.

Thanks, mister chair. Thank you, guys. I I wanna just start by saying that I think we're talking about two very different things in this situation that we're in in this committee right now. The first one is all of our shared frustration or the tactic from the mayor's office to delay providing information in order to hamper the legislative body's ability to do our job. And this is all of us have experienced this.

It is not acceptable. It is not okay. We are separate branches of government for a reason, and it is absolutely unacceptable for any city agencies to be holding on to information, not providing it to us when we're asking questions in order to shape policy that is our charter responsibility to shape. This has happened to every single person at this table. It is a common tactic that I am finding after three years in the mayor's office, and it is absolutely unacceptable.

And so I want to be very clear to put that on the table right now. I hear your frustration. I share your frustration, and you are not wrong.

That

said, we are here to look at the specific language of a specific bill, to talk through the changes that need to be made under CAMP and then the additional changes that you're proposing that are thoughtful and make sense. So I think most of my questions have been answered at this point. I think, you know, I am very concerned about the section 38 comments and so need to, I think, understand that a little bit better. Because while I'm really not concerned about window peeping having a three hundred day sentence. I am very concerned about assault weapons, unlawful carrying of weapons, unlawful possession of dangerous weapons.

Those

all have state analog stuff. Those all have state analogs.

Those are state crimes. I understand that. If I can finish.

I'm so sorry. I just

I I know you feel very passionately about that, but I am gonna ask you to give me the respect that I deserve, which is to let me

Of course.

Ask my questions. So we got this document this morning. We I need to I I believe that there are state equivalents to this. I need to, like, see it. I I just need to it is my job as, you know, representing the residents of District 5 to ensure that I'm not just, like, missing a detail in this.

I need to just be able to see that. The commission piece, I really like the idea of this commission. I think it's a really creative and thoughtful way to get where we wanna go with all of this. You know, we've had this conversation with the independent monitor's office about the discipline rubric within the Department of Safety. That entire rubric was created by a commission that was put together that that we have stood by that has been absolutely fantastic.

Are there problems with it? Maybe. I don't know. That's a conversation going on right now. But the the the reasons put forward for not changing process that was put in place to create that rubric in the first place. Right? So I think that's a fair analogy for what we're looking at here. Right? And so putting the process in place to create the criminal code in a way that is responsive to all of those different conversations is is thoughtful and reasonable and exactly the direction we should go. I would feel better if we had that information today at committee.

In terms of, I think, the 30,000 foot view picture, I am concerned about the sentiment that is exists in our city right now. I can tell you, I always say this to you guys, with 95% certainty and 2.4% margin of error that the number one concern of the residents of District 5 is community safety. And I do worry about without without these i's dotted and t's crossed in specific conversation happening, the message that it is sending to our businesses who are very, very concerned, who see retail theft happening and cutting into their bottom line every minute of every day. I you know, one of the things I heard from businesses was, you know, we have someone come in and they shoplift. They get arrested.

They go to get processed, and they're back in our store shoplifting the next day. And that is actually not related to this bill at all. There is no part of that process that is part of this bill right here, but that's the narrative. And so I'm concerned about the message that we're sending to our community, when that narrative is so far from the reality of the situation. And I think it just speaks to the level of frustration that our businesses in particular, but also our residents are feeling kind of around the way our criminal code is administered by the courts, which are a totally separate branch of government that we have nothing to do with.

Mhmm. So, like, I am concerned about that. I think that's real. I really wanna say thank you for the changes that you have made. Thanks for hearing me and the city agencies on the concerns around things like the vacant derelict properties ordinance and DDPHE's ability to enforce on our worst when it comes to living conditions under our rental registry and excise and license.

So I do want to just ask city agencies, particularly excise and license and DDPHE, if you guys would be willing to just can you tell me that you're good or identify for me if there are any follow-up concerns that we need to take a look at here?

Good morning. Alex Fidel, legislative liaison for the Department of Public Health and Environment. Chair Watson, councilmember Sawyer, and sponsors, thank you so much for the opportunity to speak. Really appreciate the sponsors moving the majority of those sections of code to the commission. Really appreciate that.

That was a huge part of our our concerns with the number of provisions that we would have to defend from from the dais, and so we really appreciate that. We still have some remaining concerns with the ones that are pulled out specifically for lower sentences, in particular, the noise ordinance. So 36 dash six is the main ordinance that we use to enforce our noise limits. Lower penalty for that is highly concerning because we enforce against companies that have large, you know, revenue. So construction companies, entertainment companies, data centers, things like that.

And so there's a a company in council member Torres' district that's gonna put on a series of concerts this summer. They know that they're gonna violate the nose. We know that they're gonna violate the nose. They're comfortable with that because they can accept paying those administrative fines. And so having higher penalties for that is something that we're concerned with and we really like to see pulled out of the bill if possible. Another one is interfering with

Alex, that just killed me.

I'm sorry.

I just died inside a little when

you just said that when you just gave that example. But, yes, go ahead.

Thank you. Public health officials interfering with public health officials in the conduct of their duties and then also for animal enforcement officers. So these things like enforcing public health orders, things like hiding or destroying documents, hiding physical things, physically interfering with their work. We don't carry weapons, you know, and so we we don't have police authority. And so provisions like this help keep our staff safe and also help us do our jobs when we need to do an investigation.

The also, smoking indoors, this one is we're not quite sure that we're considering kind of very early stages about doing some additional enforcement around businesses and residents and residential settings to protect workers and tenants from secondhand smoke. We're not quite quite sure how this would affect, so we're still in the process of developing some plans there. And then lastly, I just wanna mention most of the ordinances that were pulled out for kind of lower penalties are the ones that are enforced by our animal protection division. We would like to see those moved over to the commission process so that way those can be had a more thorough conversation individually rather than because there's, I don't know, 20 the dozen or 20 or so provisions, and so having to defend all those from the mic mic structure was was not really viable. In particular, we're the quarantining of animals and handling of dead animals is something that Josh just shared with me is of particular concern with sometimes companies doing things that are unsafe and could create outbreaks of things like rabies and things for other animals and potentially other people.

And so something else that we would like to see

Okay. Pulled up.

Thank you. Really appreciate that. Molly, do you mind do you how are you guys? Yeah.

Hi. Thank you. Molly Duplachet in licensing and consumer protection. Yeah. I think we're really thankful that we are most of our stuff has been pulled out of the catch all, and so we still would be able to utilize a general penalty of three hundred days, $999. My last remaining kind of it's more of a question than it is a concern, which is just around the class five offenses and whether there is any overlap or unintended consequences of how those that would impact how we utilize administrative citations. And so it refers to civil infractions. And I I mean, it is just a question, I don't think that we've gotten any clarity around what the impact of that is.

Can I answer it just as a reminder? Sure. I answered it last minute too. The civil infraction is a state technical term of art. It refers to state law administrative violations. It does not impact city administrative violations. It does not.

Okay. So just yeah. If if that's if that's the impact and we still have full ability to utilize administrative citations, go up to $2,000, and in some cases, we have the ability to go up to $5,000. So as long as that's not impacted, then I think those two main concerns are addressed. As I have stated, the status quo of the flexibility that we have under the general penalty right now and the process that that gives the court to utilize options when businesses get issued administrative cite or I'm sorry, criminal citations. That works for us right now. The status quo is not a problem, and I would just continue to reiterate that in a commission process.

Okay. Appreciate that. Thank you. Are there any other city agencies that I feel like I know ZNIS was the one I was really concerned about, that got taken out, so thank you very much for that. I think that's probably it.

So I am on the fence on whether this should move out of committee or not just due to the lack of clarity, which I do not think is the council members council sponsor's fault at all around the commission piece. So I'm still thinking through that. I need another couple of minutes. I know there's some other people in the queue. But, again, I wanna say thank you and appreciate the the feedback from the city agencies on on the fact that that issue is is taken off the table. So Thanks, mister chair.

May I respond real just went to one point real quick, mister chair? On the commission piece, I just I I forgot to say this when council president brought it up as well. I will just note that we all did move out of committee the data center moratorium, which I'm also on, and we moved that out without knowing all the particulars around that working group, and that is still being worked on. And so I just wanna level set on that front in knowing that there are instances where we have moved forward and allowed sponsors, mayor's office, other entities to kind of continue those deliberations and come up with what that composition

would look like. Thank you.

Thank you, council member Sork. Thank you, council member Gonzalez Gutierrez, council member Torres. And then council member Flynn, I'll I'll ask a few questions, and I'll put you back in the queue. If folks are online, once again, last call, if you wanna be added to the the queue.

Thank you, mister chair. I wanna go back to councilman Cashman's comments, which I fully agree with, and a lot of empathy, I think, for what US sponsors have had to endure. This is not a kill committee. We don't have kill committees. We should also not have stall committees, and that's what's happening right now. It's baloney. And Mr. Chair, we also depend on you. If you're, I think, intervening in what may be coming on contentious issues Yeah. That you're also not weaponizing or using this as a subcommittee either.

So that I don't feel really comfortable with. I think every time something has been brought to your attention that hadn't been brought to your attention before, it's usually been in committee or the day before, and that's not fair. And so I echo my colleagues who, from the mayor's team, we should have we should have a more clear and thoughtful perspective of what the mayor's administration thinks of this bill at this moment in time, and that we don't is really concerning. So I'm gonna support this moving out

of committee.

If anything,

pressure

of our vote on the floor sometimes is the only thing that gets our actors involved in the way that they need to. And so I'm sorry, councilwoman Parady. Sorry. I am really comfortable with the consideration of a commission. For CPCC, the mayor appoints, but council confirms.

President names council members to that commission. So whatever, like, that needs to look like, it needs to be experts who can weigh in on that, not just, I think, people who have a personal interest, right, in in this. It is people who know these individual claims, these individual charges, and what we're talking about in difference because I think all of us wanna know and be able to see the 100 page list of charges. And is this covered by camp, and is it not? And what happens with it if not?

Right? So I appreciate that, and I'm comfortable with that being determined after. So that's, I think, all that I'm I feel like I need to say. It never feels good to feel like you're ambushed the day of when you've been wanting information, and it hadn't been coming until the day of, and then everybody gets all worked up. And it's happened more than once on this, and I don't think it's entirely the sponsor's fault or or responsibility. So I'll be a yes hoping it gets out of committee today. Thank you, mister chair.

Thank you so much, council member Torres. Council member Flynn, I'll come back to you, but I just wanted to make one quick statement, and then I have a question from PACE because I think it's important to hear from them. Thank you council member Torres for your your statement. I'd like to say as the chair, knowing that this is a highly sensitive and emotional topic, I've been asking the administration as well as each of the departments to please provide in writing, and it's been beyond the last week, provide in writing what their concerns are at. I've had individual discussions with agencies who have communicated to me their concerns, and I've said, come together, put it in writing to the council sponsors as well the council members, and I will continue to advocate for that.

Rose Andam, I've sat and spoke with them, had two different discussions with them since the last committee meeting. Met with them online, I think, two weeks ago, and then they sent the letter this morning. So they sent a letter first, I think, before the last committee. They then sent another letter, I think it was this morning or yesterday, I can't remember what day, restating their opposition, but my discussion with them was stating any thoughts, because it was clear elevated by council members that their input was important. Please communicate in time for there to be a response from all council members.

This is not an individual discussion with me specifically. And at the last committee meeting, I spoke to a email that I received from a different organization. I received another email from Violence Free Colorado. I know council member Mperady, you shared parts of an email that you received from them. I'm I'm not going to read the email that we received.

We'll make sure I don't know who all received that email because most of our stuff are blind copied, but they sent an email stating their position is neutral and they had some additional information in there. I at least wanna make sure that on the record that I'm communicating what I'm what I'm hearing, but I have no idea who else is hearing stuff because most stuff that comes to city council is BCC'd. And so my assumption are these organizations as well as the city, are communicating to all city council members, including the sponsor. So I at least wanted to put that on the table. My question for PACE, and I wanna provide them an opportunity, Director, if you don't mind, forward quickly.

I think we have about thirteen minutes. I know I want the sponsors to have some final statements, and it looks like council member council president pro temer America, it looks like I missed you. So I'm gonna come back to you, and then I'll open back up to the sponsors. But, Marley, there's been some discussions concerning your letter. Can you provide a little bit of background as to your process and then provide a walk through.

You don't have to go into details. We have the full letter. Once again, not a kill committee. This is a dialogue, committee on the merits of this bill, whether it should go to the floor or not. If you don't mind responding to the timeline, narrative, communication, as well as what your concerns are outstanding, I provide the floor to you.

Thank you, counsel chair. Marley Bordowski, with the city attorney's office. First, I want to thank the sponsors for their continued dialogue. You are absolutely right that you have been engaging with us and having ongoing communication, so I want to thank you for that. The communications have been very robust, and you have taken many of our suggestions and comments and concerns into account and made changes in the bill. So I want to recognize that and thank you for that. I also want to apologize to the entire committee for my role in the chaos that that happened this morning. That was not my intent. I knew that I had promised some things in writing to various people on this committee, including you, Councilman Cashman. I know I was very tardy in getting you that.

Was trying to respond to the most current version of the bill and not an old version in respect of the sponsors, and so I apologize for any role I played in what has happened today. I met with the sponsors last Monday. I don't remember the date, not this Monday, but the one before. I shared, I think, most, if not all, of the concerns that are in this document with them on that date. I have reiterated my requests to them repeatedly in every meeting that I've had, including my concerns about the wrongs to minors pieces, the jurisdictional barrier that's created there, including my concerns about the violation of the protection orders.

I shared this document. I shared my screen with this document on it during that meeting a week and a half ago. That said, my concerns remain. I do want to talk just quickly about the list that's on the last page. Chapter 38, as has been pointed out, is much smaller than the whole code for sure, and I appreciate that the catch all now just applies to that. The problem is not just picking out a chapter 38 ordinance and of itself. You have to compare it to the state statute. And I'm going say this. It's not an excuse. It's just reality.

We have been very shorthanded. Most of the people, including my leadership staff, have been having to carry dockets. Lately, we have no one to do this work. So we're doing it as quickly and as best we can. So I apologize. This is just a sampling. What we were looking at when we were doing the comparison and maybe this is not what the sponsors meant. But what we're doing is kind of following CAMP's language, which requires identical elements between the state and the municipal charges. So for example, I'm just going to use peeping, window peeping, as an example. The state version of window peeping requires an element of forced sexual gratification that we don't have in our local ordinance.

And so under the camp rationale, those would not be identical. And if the sponsors intend to follow the camp, you know, identical elements language, then we need to revisit that. If there's a different definition that the sponsors want to use and more, you know, similar conduct kind of thing, then we just need to suss that out. And that's why this list is so comprehensive, because the elements are not the same, if that makes sense. So I will pause there.

Thank you so much, Marley. We're gonna have folks come back into the queue, and I'm looking at council member faces. They may have some questions. I'll leave it up to them, Marley, if they have questions for you. I thought that was important. I'll state also very clearly. Our city employees are under stress as we all have stated. I know everyone around this table supports all of our city employees, and I thank you for your good work. I know council member Parady actually, council member Flynn is back into the queue. Council council president Pro Tem, I skipped you, and may I ask for you to come first, council member Flint, and then council member Parady, I'll have you do a closing statement before we call the question.

It's gonna be by roll call, so Alyssa will go through that process. Council member council president, please. Pro tem. I apologize.

Thank you. Thank you, committee chair. And I'll just be brief because a lot of my questions have already been, answered, and I appreciate the thoughtfulness of my colleagues. I do want to thank the council sponsors, and where you have come to and really, responding and the thoughtfulness in the retail licenses and the impact that it has for for some really bad actors. So I just want to say thank you for listening.

I also really like the idea of having a commission. I think it's a great solution. I know that there are details to be figured out, and I have confidence that that would be something that we would see, obviously, before it comes to the floor. But I just wanted to thank the council sponsors for bringing this forward, for working on it, and for my colleagues' questions. It's, I think, been a really robust dialogue, and I just appreciate everybody being in it. So I think oh, I already said the creation of the committee is my I really I like that idea. So I will be short. I know that there are other closing comments, but I just wanted to say thank you.

Thank you, council member Pro Tem. Council member Flynn?

Thank you, mister chair. I want to because I neglected to do this in my first round, recognize the great number of changes that you've made in responsiveness. And I really do appreciate that whether I agree with the final version or not is be is beyond the point that I I recognize all the changes that happened. But I think that illustrates exactly why coming back six times was necessary. And, counsel, I I mightily disagree that that we're stalling.

If this had passed out a committee the first time it was before us, none of these changes would be in here. And that's what this room is for. Exactly that. It's it's not baloney. It's sausage. I guess that's the the the rationale. I would I agree that everything is ready for the floor in this except for the committee. I would want to see how that's gonna be appointed, who are gonna be the members, especially on the regulatory side before I would say it's ready for the floor. And having been in the legislature, you wouldn't have voted out a bill that Yeah.

We did. All the time.

The seas in that said, we'll fill this in we'll fill in the process later.

That does happen. I've explained He votes out a committee and then it goes to the floor.

Members. Council members. Council members at the time. Thank you.

It's alright.

Thank you. But I I would vote it out to the floor other than the the commission. So I appreciate. I really do. And that illustrates why coming back six times was necessary. I don't care whose fault it was. I recognize that working with the administration is difficult and lack of collaboration. I'm not saying it's your fault that we're back. I'm saying it's good that we came back six times. Thank you.

Thank you, council member Flynn. Council member Parity, final statements, and then we're gonna call

the the Yeah.

In question and have a vote

on it.

If it's okay as one of sponsors, I'll go first just really quick and then turn it over to Parity,

if that's okay. Please do.

Thank you for all of that, council Mifflin. And I will just say the fact that it has been here six times is not just because we needed to come back here every single time because I will say from the onset, we have been begging begging for feedback. K. It's not because of the committee. I mean, well, yeah, it's partly partially, it's because we keep coming back here, but it shouldn't have to be that way.

We should have gotten the feedback from the beginning. We should have gotten the list of offenses that we asked for from the beginning. We asked, tell us what are the most serious offenses. What are the offenses that you are the most concerned with that we can make sure we address and that you are still have the your prosecutorial authority on those that you should still have such as domestic violence, which I will remind everyone, we made that change before even being asked to. We didn't it wasn't a change.

It was part of the bill from the beginning. So we recognize that there were those issues, and we asked our partners. We asked PACE, what are those offenses? It took pulling teeth to get that information. That is the part. That is why we came back six times. It's not because we weren't we were like doing all these things and like, you know, we were operating blindly. And so I I just wanted I I have to say that because we tried so hard so that we wouldn't have to come back six times because believe me, I would have loved to have been at this point back then. Right. I would have loved that.

I would have loved to have an engagement in that conversation and collaboration and be at this point. I will say, and I was joking about this, but yes, there are oftentimes bills get voted out of committee, and they'll say, I'm a yes for today, but I'll have to see what happens when it gets to the floor if there are additional changes made. And maybe that's because they only have a few months to work with, and that's probably why. Right? But I appreciate that sentiment, and I appreciate the fact that everyone in the committee has realized the work that has been done.

I do appreciate the agencies, you know, I know that it is hard for us to also turn information back and forth and back and forth, and we're all operating from very little resources right now, all of us. Absolutely. What I want to make sure is that we are all being good stewards, that we all we have, and this is something we'd say at the Capitol all the time. All I have is my word. At the end of the day, all I have is my word and your integrity. And that's what I'm asking for as we go forward in this work. Thank you, mister chair.

Thank you, council member. It's also very greatly I apologize. Council member Flynn, we're at the last two minutes.

Can we greatly improved the process greatly improved the bill. I wanna wait for it.

Council member Flynn, I appreciate it. Council member Parity, please, and then we'll go to the vote.

Totally different to say, which is that I wanna remind everybody what the bill's actually about. And I also wanna say that this long list of offenses that, again, we have never seen before in 9AM this morning, and and it's not as though anything about the bill has changed that would have made these not things that could be raised before. If these things if it turns out some of them, there's actually cases from our municipal courts saying that they do overlap with state law. But if it turns out that we've missed some of the alignment under camp, we can run another bill. Like, if if if we get decisions that say that elements don't align that we didn't expect or something like that, we can go back and fix that.

This doesn't have to be the last time we legislate about our criminal code, and it shouldn't be. It's a huge code. But at some point, we have got to stop this carousel because right now, for our municipal only offenses, that list of incredibly minor petty crimes that we've been over and over again, I think we are losing track of the fact that people get sentenced for those crimes in our municipal courts very routinely, And that until we pass this bill, they can still be sentenced instead of ten days to fifteen days, right, which to a judge may not seem like a big difference, and that means they will lose their Medicaid. And so the longer we delay passage, the more we are continuing that revolving door that costs $250 a for people 75% of those prosecuted in the municipal courts are living at or below the federal poverty line. At those 12,000 prosecutions a year, 75%.

And so that is the actual reason that we are running the bill. I am concerned that that may be the reason we are why we are getting so many headwinds on the bill is because there's a desire not to make that change because that is the central change in the bill. I would really like to see this get out of committee today. Thank you.

Thank you so much, councilmember Parity. I'll remind the committee once again, our county courts have stated they are operating under camp and are not that they are operating under camp and they are satisfied with the ability to execute with or without this bill. I at least wanna make sure

I really don't understand what to mean. I'm talking about municipal only offenses.

I I I hear you. And I'm I'm I'm I'm just trying to make sure we're being clear. Do we Alyssa, what's the process for doing this as a roll call vote?

State that's a roll call and ask for a motion.

So we'll need a motion and a second for us. So moved by council president, second by council member Torres. This is a roll call. Alyssa, please, let's go through the list.

Council members Flynn.

Nay.

Gonzalez Gutierrez. Aye. Parity. Aye. Seneball. Aye. Sawyer. Aye. Torres. Aye. Mister chair Watson? Nay.

Aye, Vice. Thank you so much. I believe we have two items on consent. This bill will be moved to the floor. Thanks everyone for joining us for our meeting today. You're adjourned.