Governance & Charter Review Committee - Regular Meeting

Welcome back to this monthly meeting of the Governance and Intergovernmental Relations Committee of Denver City Council. Thanks for joining us for the discussion. The Governance and Intergovernmental Relations Committee starts now.

All right, good morning, everyone. Apologies that we're starting 10 minutes late today. It is Tuesday, September 15th. This is the Governance and Intergovernmental Relations Committee. I'm Amanda Sawyer. I have the honor of representing the residents of District 5, a few of whom are in the room today, and also being the chair of this committee. Before we get started, we're going to do a quick round of introductions, but we have a packed agenda for today. So I'm going to start to my left.

Good morning, Gary Watson. Fine, District 9.

Hi everyone, Serena Gonzalez-Gutierrez, at-large.

You want to go ahead. Hi, Diana Romero-Campbell, Southeast Denver, District 4.

Jamie Torres, West Denver, District 3. Stacey Gilmore, District 11.

Great, and I know, oh, Council Member Cashman, I see you online. You want to go ahead?

Yes, good morning. Paul Cashman, South Denver District 6.

Great, thank you for joining us. I also know Councilmember Flynn is here. Councilwoman Torres is here. I mean Councilwoman Sandoval is here. Sorry Torres, I was looking at you when I said that. So I want to welcome both of them to the meeting. They will be in in just one minute and we are going to start. I just welcomed you, Flynn. We are going to start with Councilwoman Torres and Councilwoman Sandoval's presentation. It is 1362 through 1364, which we are going to hear in a block. So take it away.

Thank you so much. So this has to do with three ordinance updates for the three nonprofit entities that receive sales tax funds. updates to their ordinance. So I'll start with the issue that we faced and I'll also mention I want to thank the three CEOs of said nonprofits for being here, Denver Preschool Program, Prosperity Denver and Caring for Denver. Thank you all for being here in your partnership in this effort. This, Council Member Sandoval and I started looking at the three entities knowing their ordinances were created at different times. They carry different responsibilities and language when it comes to CORA, when it comes to consistent restrictions around use of funds for expenditures and a couple different other things that came up including language around strategic plans as well as admin support for the departments that oversee those contracts. So we went in trying to understand how are all three of these written, how do they differ and how can we bring them in alignment with one another so that they're not following different kinds of rules. The solution that we arrived at after over a year of doing this work was aligning the public records requirements, establishing a dedicated fee for city administration and oversight, which is separate from and in addition to each nonprofit's admin expense allowance. We were mirroring this after what we've most recently established as a Denver Health and Hospital Authority tax funds dedicated 1% city admin expense fee for administration, agreement, oversight, accountability, and coordination. We require the Department of Public Health and Environment when they budget for that 1% to budget in advance and any unutilized funds return back to the administering organization that same year. We don't keep it. And so we've set up the three funds and their 1% to be structured in the same way. We're standardizing expenditure controls and we looked to the language in the Fair Elections Fund, frankly, on how language was spelled out for what you can spend taxpayer funds on and what you cannot. We also clarified three things for Caring for Denver. Program expenditures, strengthening governance, and increasing their admin fee. They have the lowest kind of overall admin fee as a nonprofit at 5% and bringing that up to 7%. That's the same that's shared by Denver Preschool Program. Prosperity Denver's a little bit different because they have a 5%, but they're also afforded a different 5% for a database and TA, things like that. So rather than try to figure out is 7% enough for them, we wanted to raise... caring for Denver's alone. If we need to have that conversation with Prosperity Denver, we wanted to have that at a different time. But these were low-hanging fruits that I think we could do now. So Denver preschool amendments, they currently receive 0.15% sales and use tax. And they will be, their ordinance update includes the separate city admin fee of up to 1%. That would be carried by the Office of Children's Affairs. And Office of Children's Affairs was partner with us in figuring out how this actually happens. We put in the language consistent among all three, prohibiting the use of admin funds for food, beverage, alcohol, marijuana, or tobacco. Food or beverage specifically must be, they can be used as expenses, but they have to be tied to the function and related services of the nonprofit. Prosperity Denver, same. They currently receive a 0.08% sales and use tax, establishing the city admin fee of 1% and maintaining their separate 5%, 5% plus 5% of admin fees. And prohibitions are the same as Denver preschool program. And then permitting qualifying events that benefit admin funds for food and beverage related to services by the nonprofit. The one thing that's different about this ordinance change is we formally had it named the original name, the Denver College Affordability Fund. We've just updated that throughout its ordinance to the Denver, to the Prosperity Denver Fund. For Caring for Denver, it is a 0.25% sales and use tax. So we included the 1% for city admin that would be done by the Department of Public Health and Environment. We've aligned CORA responsibilities with Denver Preschool Program and Prosperity Denver. Same prohibition, same permitted qualifying events. We've also prohibited the use of program funds for employee mental health wellness services. These are for the grants that are given out that we're coming back to Caring for Denver. We're hoping that with the increase to the 7%, that eliminates the need for what what was arranged for in that grant making cycle, which was called out by the auditor. So we're hoping that we've clarified and aligned that better. We've strengthened governance around their strategic plan language and then clarified co-responder program funding to include alternative response programs. This is an example of the Office of Children's Affairs administrative fee rationale. So how would they use the 1% from both of the sales tax funds? And the estimated personnel support could include program administrator, fiscal administrator, contract administrator. These are not FTEs. Some may be partial FTEs as they relate to their time spent on that contract. on that analysis or on that compliance. Let's see. And then this is the DDPHE administrative fee rationale, same for their 1%, what they could potentially use it on, what they're thinking about, and then their cap at the 1% for use on this particular thing. This makes a big, difference for these agencies. So far they've been, with the exception of Caring for Denver, which had negotiated 130,000 to be remitted back to Department of Public Health and Environment, Children's affairs and were otherwise carrying or eating the costs associated with compliance and that limits their ability to provide really good compliance measures. So we're hoping that this kind of just raises the level for everyone and what they're able to be a part in and monitor. And then this is our timeline. Today is September 15th. We're at gov intergov aiming to be at first reading on September 28th and then final reading with three public hearings on October 5th. Each ordinance requires its own public hearing. So we made sure to and find an evening that did not already have public hearings. And then what we're looking at doing is making the ordinance effective the 1st of January, which is also when the 1% would be effective for city departments, which all three organizations felt they have the capacity to do. And with that, we'll take questions. Let me see if Councilwoman Sandoval has any comments.

Yeah, sorry for being tardy. Just want to say thank you to Prosperity Denver, to Denver Preschool Program and Caring for Denver. You've been a great partner in this and want to say thank you to the Office of Children's Affairs and DDPHE. You all, we've really dug in. And just have to give a shout out to Vic and Angela. We started this part from the mayor's office. We started this project probably like a year and a half ago to talk about this and work through and figure out to define what our problem statement was, what we were trying to go after, and what created the best clarity and good governance in this situation. And just want to say thank you to Ian from Councilwoman Torres' office and Melissa from my office. They've been great. And then to John and the revisions. seven different we've had several variations you'll see in legislature of drafts and that's because it's been a great partnership of us going back and forth and needing clarity and especially around um what's allowable so one thing that i do is when i meet a constituent for coffee i don't use my city p card to meet them for coffee. I pay for it out of my personal expense and buy that. Now if someone comes to my office and I have coffee at my office, 100%. Somebody can come into my city council office and I can provide them coffee. So we're just looking to regulate that in a way where we as public officials, because all of our P cards and travel cards are associated with tax dollars, and so are these funds as well, and just create more transparency across and even them out with the three that have outside organizations, because we still have a couple that have, but they're administered by the city and county of Denver. These are the ones that have specific outside organizations. So just want to say thank you all for the transparency. They shared this with their board members and so far we've heard from all three of them that their board members are good with these changes. So that's why we've spread this out a little bit further instead of taking action right away as we needed to make sure that their board felt comfortable with all of these changes moving forward. And thank you to Councilman Torres. It's been a great partnership. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Great. Thank you. I want to welcome Council Member Lewis. I don't have any council members in the queue. Watson, you in? I'm in. Okay.

Thank you so much, Committee Chair. Is it all right for me to ask for someone in the audience from Prosperity Denver or from OCA to speak? Okay. So I am honored to be on the board of Prosperity Denver. I'm curious from, I see our executive director here, Rebecca Arnold, and I also see our good friends from OCA here. And I'm curious as to your thoughts on the 1% that impact on anything else that you'd like to share. I asked Rebecca first and then OCA. So excited to come forward. But I would ask for Rebecca first, if you don't mind.

Thank you Councilman and thanks to the Councilwomen for their hard work on this and for all that you all do to steward the resources of the Denver taxpayers so carefully. We of course share that goal and are excited to actually be able to know that the Office of Children's Affairs, who have been great partners, will now have the resources to do even more to help us with the oversight of the resources that we are stewarding on behalf of taxpayers. To us, this is a plus. We know that we'll have a little bit less money to distribute out to our partners who are helping students throughout Denver, but we also know that our money will be better spent because of the partnership with OCA and we're very pleased about that. So thank you so much. Any other questions for me?

Great job, Rebecca.

Rhett.

Rhett or Jess? Who of you guys wants to take that one?

The boss is in the room. I like to defer to her. Rhett Gutierrez. I work with Office of Children's Affairs. We're really, I think, excited. This came up in the audit report that we have with Prosperity Denver that OCA lacked sufficient oversight. So I think from that standpoint, we see it as our duty and our responsibility to be good stewards and have sufficient oversight of these funds. And I would say that to Rebecca's point, we do see this as strengthening our partnership. We are fortunate that we get to work with two special revenue partners. So we actually see this as a really cool strategic opportunity to align our programming. So we have a program person who can kind of think strategically through our cradle to career supports, but also thinking about the administrative and the fiscal side of the house. So because we get to oversee two of these funds, we see this as an opportunity to have both a financial and a programmatic bolster to our programming.

Thank you to the sponsors. Another great, I think, thoughtful piece of legislation and to your staff pulling this together. I think it's very smart. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Council President. Thank you. I just wanted to thank you for bringing this forward. I think it's just good governance and I think it's well spent thinking of how those taxpayer dollars are being used responsive to, you know, auditor review and so forth. So I think that that's just... really helpful having served on boards of Prosperity Denver and back in the day with the preschool program. I think that those issues have always come up of what is that administrative overhead that's needed because it's all that back office, not exciting things that are being done, but it really helps execute and get those grants out to community and get those grants out to the partners in a very timely and and in a way that just really, I think is responsive. So thank you for bringing that forward. Thank you all for being good partners.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Great. Thank you. And I do have a question for, this is actually for the Department of Finance. Laura, I'm looking at you. So timeline wise, this is going to, three hearings scheduled for October 5th. Will this then be built into the 2027 budget and it is not now? I just need a little clarity around like when I'm looking at the budget book and we now have this sort of 1% administration that is coming in and approved in the middle of budget season. What does that look like?

Thank you. Laura Swartz, Communications Director for Department of Finance. It is not currently built into the proposed budget that you have in front of you now. I will follow up with Justin and we'll find out what the timeline would be once it is passed, discuss, figure out how that looks, whether it shows up in the revised book or if it's something that we address separately next year. Okay.

If you can just keep us posted on that either way, that's great. I feel like it's the third Monday in October that the final budget is due to city council. So it will be passed by then. So it'll be just let us know what Justin decides. Awesome. Thank you. And I just want to say thank you to you both because I really appreciate the moving up caring for Denver to the 7% administration fee. This is an issue we see with a lot of our contractors and partners that soft costs are not built into our contracts in the same way. So this is legal, this is HR, you know, this is tech services, those different kinds of things that are all covered in administrative fee. And if that administrative fee is too low, then those things aren't happening. And one of the things that we saw from the auditor's report is that that kind of oversight is necessary and kind of oversight takes money. So really appreciate you guys hearing that and making those changes to it. Any other questions from council members? Okay. We did it in under 15 minutes, you guys. Good job. This is 1362, 1363, and 1364. These are action items. I will need a motion and a second. All right. Moved by council president, second by council member Watson. Do we need a roll call vote? No. Okay. We'll see you guys on the floor. Thank you. So next we are gonna transition to 1335 and 1336, which is DDDA presentation. So while the movement is happening, I just want to address originally the Altaira contract, there was a contract and an IGA for Altera that was on the agenda for today. I pulled those off the agenda. Those will be heard in October instead. The reason for that is because the contract wasn't provided to council in time for us to review and it's a very long lease. This is not the fault of the Department of Finance. I wanna be very clear. It just was what it was. These things happen sometimes. And so, but I wanted to make sure because it's a long lease, council members have enough time to review that lease appropriately, which means that we are gonna hear the IGA for Altera and the lease agreement for Altera in the October Gov Committee meeting instead. So nothing to see here, no drama. It just is a very long contract. and wanted to make sure everybody had time to review it and we were running up on a pretty close timeline there. So with that, we're going to do 1335 and 1336 in a block. And Donna, if you want to introduce yourself, take it away.

Great. Thank you. Good morning, committee. Donna Wilder with the Department of Finance. I provide staff support to the Denver Downtown Development Authority. Before we get started, I just wanted to thank a few folks who were instrumental in putting these together. We have city attorney's office, Brad Neiman, Drew Lyman, as well as Paul Cockrell here to help answer any legal questions. I wanted to thank both representatives from these two projects that we'll be discussing who are in person and virtual today to help answer any questions. Really just wanted to thank the electors of the DDDA district for trusting us with their tax increments to bring these projects forward. So with that, we have two action items for consideration this morning, 26, 1335 and 26, 1336. Both are ordinances approving funding agreements between the city and the for the community arts stabilization trust and the university building office to residential conversion projects, both within district 10. Both funny agreements serve as the mechanisms for the city to transfer funds that it holds in trust for the to the in order for them to effectuate loan or grant agreements. The city is not a party to either of those agreements. The first project that we have for you this morning is the University Building Office to Residential Conversion Project, located at 16th and Champa. The developers are University Building Loft Owner LLC. This project will bring to market 120 net new housing units, all affordable, ranging between 30 and 80% AMI. Amenities provided to the residents within this building is a food pantry, transit passes, community room, fitness room, resident storage, and a bike room. You see here on the left-hand side, the entirety of the building is outlined, which was included into the boundaries of the district. However, the DDDA funds will only be used for floors 2 through 12, which is the office to residential conversion. The total project cost is estimated at $73 million with the DDDA providing a loan of $14.7 million. This loan will be serviced by a bank. So similar to a construction contract, the developer will need to provide evidence that they fulfilled their contractual obligations in order to receive their disbursement. Other funding sources include 4% LIHTC, historic tax credits, this is a historic building, and senior debt. We do anticipate this project being delivered in early 2028. All right, the next project is the Community Arts Stabilization Trust. This is known as CAST. At 17th and Glenarm, it is the ground floor corner space. And CAST's mission is to acquire or secure long-term locations, work with community partners to provide permanent and affordable spaces for artists to try to mitigate displacement. By acquiring the property and enjoying grant funding, CAST is able to pass along significant savings to the artists. So their project is proposing converting 6,300 square feet of office space that was once used as a bank and build out affordable art studios, galleries, micro cinemas, and artist storage spaces. As a condition of this grant, CAST will be required to program the space. So they'll need to meet minimum evening, week, day, and weekend events. They'll be required to hold exhibitions and public receptions. They'll be required to provide space for the public and private to book and also maintain a 95% occupancy rate. Total project cost is just over 1.7 million with a DDDA grant reimbursement of 1.35 million, 500,000 of which will be used for the acquisition of the site. Part of this grant, there's a condition that at any point if CAS does not complete their construction or if they cease active operations, there is an option agreement where they will be required to sell the property to the DDDA for $1. We do anticipate this project being delivered to the community in summer of 2027. That concludes the presentation of these two projects. Happy to take any questions at this point.

Fantastic. Thank you. Do you want to get in the queue, Council Member Lewis? Great. Council Member Watson, then Lewis. Okay, sorry.

Thank you so much, Committee Chair. Thank you, Donna, for the presentation. I wanted to make sure that I elevate this one question, curiosity that I have. Denver Immersive Theater was an organization that received funds from DDDA. Their contract use of funds spectacularly imploded. There was not an opening of the immersive theater, and there are still discussions of how we're receiving funds back. Talk me through exactly what are the steps that the DGDA has taken to make sure that that does not happen for CAST. And then my second question is what community artists or artist organizations were engaged in the process with CAST or will be engaged in the process with CAST? I believe they're an out-of-state organization.

Thank you, Councilman Watson, for those questions. To address the Denver Immersive Repertory Theater, that was a lesson learned by the City and DDDA staff. Their contract allowed for funds to be advanced, meaning that as long as we were provided evidence that there was an expense, that was eligible for disbursement of funds. And we did disburse funds after receiving rent ledgers and some evidence that there were expenses for staff design and consultation for their design of the space. And so we did disperse those funds. A lesson learned from us is that we ought to have directly communicated with The property owner or property manager to make sure that they had received those funds directly and verified that those 3rd parties had received their funds. Also, we are in the process of doing an audit to make sure that the funds that we paid out went to where they were meant to go. And so we will report out that to you at that time. Once we've completed that work. But with these projects, as I stated, they are reimbursements rather than advancements. And there will be, in addition to the evidence that there's been a cost incurred, we will be doing site inspections before we disperse funds.

And then the second part of my question is engagement with community artists. Talk me through what that process looks like now and ongoing.

Yeah, regarding CAST, we do have Louise Martorano online, I believe Zoom, to help answer any questions. Do you see, Chair, do you see Louise on Zoom? She is on the phone.

Can you promote her, please?

She's on her phone?

She's on Zoom.

Oh, I'm done.

She needs to get promoted. It takes a second to do the promotion. Technology, sometimes our friend.

Can you tell me her name again?

Luis. Luis, you could also raise your hand so our producer knows to promote the right person.

Chair, can I add something? While we're waiting, why don't you go ahead? Yep. So I serve on the DDDA board and have for a while now and I'm honored to continue the service. One difference, Council Member Watson, with those first loans that went out is they went through the Department of Economic Development and Opportunity when you were first set up. We no longer do that. Now the funds actually come through the DDDDA and it was a learning lesson for us. We have, as you all know, city contracting is super complicated. We have indemnification clauses in there and so what we did after that first disbursement is we no longer use any city agencies. We use our attorneys and we're funding them in a different way. And that was a really hard lesson learned. It's something that we've talked about numerous times at our board meeting. created backstops so that doesn't happen again and we're all fully aware that we wanted to have one of the four pillars in our stated redevelopment plan is to have community activation is to have art is to have those those amenities similar to what we're doing with right now a cast and unfortunately we sometimes you bet and sometimes it doesn't work out and so we are looking through that but i just wanted to say that these we created our whole entire grant and loan structures very differently because of some of the lessons learned at the very beginning we didn't have a lot of the infrastructure set up last July when we were giving these grants and loans out, and now we do. We have an attorney for the DDA, we have an outside auditor for the DDDA, and so we're incrementally setting up our staff so that we can function a little bit different outside of the city than relying on city departments to be able to do those contracts for us. So I think that's a big differentiator in this situation that I wanted all of our colleagues to be aware of.

And that is extremely helpful to get that on the record council members have also thank you so much for clarifying.

Great. Thank you. I believe we have Louise promoted. Hi, thanks so much for being here.

Do you want to Louise? I'll be very quick. My question was cast as a art led organization speak to me as far as your engagement with indigenous art groups are organizations here in Denver to make sure that it's informing your process going forward.

Council Member Watson, I really appreciate the question. You know me in my former role as the Executive Director for Redline Contemporary Arts Center for the last 17 years. I've worked the last two decades in the Denver cultural community and is my forever home. So I'm very much not a Bay-based organization when it comes to my work in this community. The connection with CAST was because it added Acquisition to the toolkit of creating a generational promise for arts and culture in the community that red line as a 501 C3 was not in the business of of securing property in that way for community. So my. My list of partnering organizations and artists who are in need of affordable space is 20 years long. And, you know, many of the programming that I did at Redline over the past 17 years was centering Indigenous and BIPOC communities online. as a core to our value set. And it is a similar value set that I expected of CAST and is CAST, which is why the alignment and the joining forces work so well. So, yeah, just want to add that we have a very long list of organizations who are my peers that I have been working with since transitioning to CAS to identify their needs and provide the technical assistance to respond intentionally to those needs through different spaces and that we secure that are in response to a very local Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Council Member Lewis. Thank you. I just have one question. For the first project, you all were very specific about what affordability was here with the 30% to the 80% AMI. And so I'm just curious for the second project, how are you all defining affordable studios?

Yes, thank you. I'd like to pass that over to Luis again. Okay.

So truly all of the grant funding and when we secure space as cast, the savings gets passed on immediately to the community. So as an example of other projects, when there is a ground level commercial space that is created based on an affordable housing structure, that ground level is not considered in the pro forma, the artists don't pay anything for the space. They, you know, there's maybe an internet cost that they cover, but that is it. We are truly trying to be a supportive intermediary to help provide the insurance and umbrella for artists to be and community organizations to be secure in space. They don't have to face constant looking over their shoulders to outrun evictions. And so the North Star of CAST is affordability. The North Star of CAST is to secure a generational promise to the community. So those rates are typically a dollar per square foot per month, but to be honest, it is less in some cases, and it always strives to be zero.

Great, thank you. Council Member Sandoval, I wasn't sure whether you were back in the queue to ask a question or whether you just wanted to make sure as the board member for the DDDA, you wanted to be able to say that.

Okay, great. Then we'll go to Council Member Torres. Thank you so much. On the first housing, the university building location, the affordability covenant is for 40 years. Host usually negotiates longer. Is there a reason why it's only 40?

That's a chaffa covenant. John, would you? So you guys need to come to the microphone, introduce yourself, and answer so that the people who are online can hear you.

My name is John Connor with Summit Street Group. We've been supporting the DDA through the program. The decision of the DDA was to match the chaffa requirement that was imposed, and that was a 40-year covenant.

We find out before it comes to the floor if that's the ceiling for 4% LIHTC deals, because my understanding was there's a minimum of 30 years, maybe 40 years, but that it's up to the partners to determine how long it actually is. So can you let me know that? Will do. Okay, thank you. Thanks.

Do you guys have a, do you have an answer to that or want to? Do we have somebody else? Hi. If you don't, that's okay. If you do, we'll look into it. Great. Thank you. Thanks. Great.

Council President Romero-Campbell. Thank you, Madam Chair. And maybe I missed this in the presentation for the housing. How many bedrooms are you looking at for units? And are they multiple bedrooms? And will it be something that you would also be marketing to families with children?

Yep. I believe we have 57 studios, 52 one bedrooms, and 11 two bedrooms. I'm getting some head shakes there.

So does that answer the question about unit accounts? Yeah. And is there specific outreach? Are you thinking of including families or the outreach to families for this housing as well?

I'd like to defer that to the developer.

Thank you very much. Kelly Pretzer with BMC Investments, part of the project sponsor team. Thank you very much for the question. And Donna was correct in the unit mix that was laid out. Some of the constraints is that because we are converting a historic building, which has fairly narrow floor plates, They don't lend themselves to larger multiple bedroom units, which is why you see so many of the studios in one bedrooms. And then to the question about marketing to families, absolutely. Within the constraints, of course, of fair housing and making sure that we comply with all regulations, absolutely open to any residents who would like to live downtown near transit and all the wonderful amenities the building will have.

Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. I think it's always when we think about the mix of who's going into housing, it's always great to be able to bring in families and families with children. But then that also means that there are amenities that are needed for those children. And so just wanted to be mindful of if families were part of that target market, that there are other opportunities. Amenities in that pipeline as well, including child care, including, you know, other accessibility measures. So thank you. Thank you. Madam chair.

Great. Thank you. Any other questions from council members? Fantastic, well then, hold on, I gotta put on my reading glasses so that I can see my screen. This is 1335 and 1336. We're gonna move them in a block and I will need a motion and a second. Moved by Councilmember Watson, second by Councilwoman Torres. Do we need a roll call vote? Great, thumbs up. We will see you guys on the floor. Thanks so much for being here. All right, like I said, we've got a busy one today, so we've got a third action item. This is 1343, and we will just take a minute to transition our speakers and presentation, and then we will get started. You come on up.

I don't know who's presenting.

Great. Well, then come on up to the table. Whoever's driving the slides, slide deck. Wherever works for you. Yep, you're fine. Vic just needs to sit by the computer so they can drive. Please introduce yourselves and take it away. Sure. Hello, everyone.

I'm Miko Brown. I'm the city attorney.

Good morning, everyone. Rob Nesbord, director of the employment and labor law section of the city attorney's office.

And good morning, everyone. Vic Tonecchia, mayor's office.

So we are here to provide an update on the Wheeler-Trigg O'Donnell Amendatory Agreement, which is resolution 26-1343. And I'm going to go through the deck pretty quickly, and then I will leave time for questions at the end if anyone has them.

Thanks, everyone.

So the amendatory agreement that is before council covers Wheeler-Trigg O'Donnell's representation in two cases, the Everett Martinez lawsuit and the Jessica Calderon lawsuit. The Martinez lawsuit is a lawsuit that is filed by Assistant City Attorney Everett Martinez against the city, me, the Chief Financial Officer, and the Chief Strategy Officer. The Calderon lawsuit is a lawsuit filed by Jessica Calderon against the city and two employees of the Office of Social Equity and Innovation. The city first engaged Wheeler Trigg O'Donnell to defend us in the Martinez lawsuit. Wheeler Trigg was selected unanimously by a five-person panel after considering four firms through a competitive bid process. I want to note that Wheeler Trick O'Donnell has been representing the city since 2011, so they were already an approved panel council for the city and county of Denver and the employees. The price that, or I would say the budget, that Wheeler Trick gave us as an estimate to handle the first phase of the Martinez lawsuit was $470,000, which is the amount of the original agreement that we entered into with the firm. I'm going to fast forward a little bit. After the city had retained Wheeler Trigger Donald to represent us in the Martinez lawsuit, the executive director of the Office of Social Equity and Innovation asked if we could retain outside counsel to assist with the Calderon lawsuit, which had then been handled internally by the city attorney's office. The city had recently received an unfavorable ruling in a motion for temporary restraining order, which required the city to keep Ms. Calderon on paid administrative leave that was set to cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars if that order was not reversed. So given the significant financial risk to the city, the city attorney's office approved the executive director's request to engage outside counsel. And the executive director chose Wheeler Trigg O'Donnell out of a selection of four firms to represent his office and the city. Wheeler Trigg's estimate to cover the Calderon lawsuit was $500,000. And since the original agreement with Wheeler Trig O'Donnell was for $470,000, now we are above the $500,000 threshold, which is what the amendatory agreement is in front of you today for. It covers $500,000 for the Calderon lawsuit and $470,000 for the Martinez lawsuit for a total of $970,000. Now there have been questions as to whether or not the city is currently obligated to pay any invoices that exceed the $470,000 cap of the original agreement, and the answer to that is no. The original agreement clearly states that the $470,000 cap is the limit unless and until city council signs an amended agreement.

Next slide.

Now I want to talk a little bit about the success that Wheeler Trick O'Donnell has had in both the Martinez lawsuit and the Calderon lawsuit to explain why I recommend that city council approve the amendatory agreement. So first I'm going to start with the Martinez lawsuit. and I will go through some of the list of the highlights of the case so far. First, I would like to note that Wheeler Trigg O'Donnell is 12 for 12 in contested filings in this case. The way that they have presented the evidence and engaged with the court has also resulted in the court publicly admonishing Mr. Martinez's counsel at least four times. But the greatest success that they've had thus far is in the motion for protective order hearing that they won. In that hearing, the issue was Mr. Martinez's complaint, along with the temporary restraining order motion he filed and the motion for preliminary injunction that he filed, were publicly filed containing many, many false accusations, as well as attorney-client privilege and confidential information. Mr. Martinez and his lawsuit refused to claw that information back, which we knew was being used by the federal government to launch investigations into Denver, which had been very, very costly and can continue to be very costly. So this was a really time-sensitive, urgent matter that we needed to address. So we went to an all-day hearing with Mr. Martinez's counsel in front of Judge Catherine Starnella. During the hearing, each side had an opportunity to present their evidence. And Mr. Martinez relied heavily on what is called the crime fraud exception for his breach of the attorney-client privilege. And essentially what that is, is Mr Martinez alleged, and this is all in the public version of the court's transcript, which is available to all of you should you want to read it. But essentially that the city, as well as the name defendants engaged in criminal fraudulent activity that justified him divulging attorney client privilege information. After hearing both sides present their evidence, Judge Starnella found that Mr. Martinez's allegations were based only on his allegations alone in his complaint and his declaration. By contrast, the city, through Wheeler Trigger Donnell, had presented substantial evidence in the form of emails and memos and documents and expert opinions written by the very attorneys that Mr. Martinez himself hired saying that no crime or fraud had been perpetrated and therefore that exception did not apply. Most significantly, Judge Starnella found that the conduct of Mr. Martinez and his counsel was so egregious and in bad faith, she awarded section 1927 sanctions, which I will say are almost unheard of in a matter. And currently, Mr. Martinez and his counsel are appealing to the district court judge, Judge Starnella's order. But in terms of the amount of money that the city could recover if Judge Cruz upholds Judge Starnella's order, Mr. Murray, who was Mr. Martinez's counsel at the time, got up to the court and said, Judge, This sanctions order that you have awarded is so significant that I anticipate it will put me out of business and it will cause Mr. Martinez to have to drop his lawsuit. That is the magnitude of the sanctions that Wheeler Trig O'Donnell has currently recovered for the city pending Judge Cruz's review. I'll now go next slide. Thank you. Now I want to talk a little bit about the success in the Jessica Calderon lawsuit. So as I mentioned, that lawsuit was previously being handled by the city attorney's office. We lost a motion for temporary restraining order, and as a result of that, we had to keep Ms. Calderon on paid administrative leave that was set to cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars. Wheeler-Trigg then came in and won the preliminary injunction motion that followed. Same issue. Does Ms. Calderon get to remain on paid administrative leave, or does the city have the opportunity to end her employment? Wheeler-Trigg O'Donnell prevailed on that motion. And as a result, we were able to end Ms. Calderon's employment, we were able to backfill her position, and the city has been saved hundreds of thousands of dollars as a result of Wheeler-Trigg O'Donnell's efforts. I would also like to point out that in winning that preliminary injunction motion, Wheeler Trigg O'Donnell had to convince Judge Wong to reverse her prior order. Judge Wong is the judge who granted their motion for temporary restraining order. And the amount of advocacy, and I'll say brilliance, to get a federal court judge to basically go back and change her mind on a temporary restraining order, it's not impossible, but it's really hard. And Wheeler Trigg O'Donnell did that for the city. Now, there have been a lot of questions asked about the engagement of Wheeler Trigodonel, so I just want to hit some of the ones that I'm aware of. And the first one goes to price. $800 per hour is the price that the city negotiated for Wheeler Trigodonel, and it's a blended rate. So that means that all of the attorneys on the file, whether or not you are a partner or an associate, have the same $800 per hour rate. There are several attorneys on the file. The first in our lead counsel is Jessica Scott, who is a partner at Wheeler Trigodonel. Her normal billing rate is $1,300 per hour. Her of counsel, Natalie West, is normally $1,100 per hour. Her senior associate is normally $850 per hour, and the most junior associate is $800 per hour. So we're paying the rack rate for the most junior lawyer, and we're getting a significant discount from all of the senior lawyers. So that is an $800 per hour blended rate. I will say that Wheeler Trig O'Donnell is not the most expensive council that is used by the city and county of Denver. We have council that charges a higher rate than Wheeler Trig O'Donnell. I will also say that Wheeler Trig O'Donnell is not an outlier for other cities and counties in the state of Colorado. For their top defense council on those really high risk, high profile matters, there are other cities and counties that also pay comparable rates to what the city is paying for this firm. I would also note that, and to me this is one of the best indicators that the city actually got a very good deal with Wheeler Trig O'Donnell, is AIG, which is a behemoth insurance company that I'm sure a lot of you are aware of, is currently paying Wheeler Trig O'Donnell $1,000 per hour for all partners and $700 per hour for all associates, including first-year associates. And if there is one client that is able to negotiate rates and who will refuse to pay above market rates for any council, that is insurance companies. And then to me, one of the most significant reasons why Wheeler Trigger Donald was retained and is a great value is the fact that Mr. Martinez himself Engage wheeler trick O'Donnell in 2023 to represent the city and a lawsuit against Adams County in front of the Colorado Supreme Court. In that case, wheeler trick O'Donnell prevailed on a 50Million dollar claim. On behalf of the city, so their results speak for themselves as to why they are such a great partner and why they justify the 800 dollar rates that they have. With respect to the selection of Wheeler Trigg O'Donnell, I mentioned that the city has been using Wheeler Trigg as defense counsel since 2011, so long before I ever became the city attorney. We also had a five-person panel consider four firms through a competitive bid process, and the panel unanimously selected Wheeler Trigg O'Donnell as the best firm to represent the city in this matter. I will also say that I was the last person on the panel to vote. And so my vote did not matter either numerically or sequentially for Wheeler-Triggs engagement.

Conflict of interest.

There is no conflict of interest here. I worked at Wheeler Trug O'Donnell many, many years ago. I have not worked at the firm since 2017. I left Wheeler Trug O'Donnell in 2017 to join its top competitor, Davis Graham and Stubbs, and I took my $2 million book of business with me. After I left Davis Graham and Stubbs, I worked at Airbnb for four years, and then I am here. So I have not had any affiliation with the firm for nine years. And like I said, Wheeler Trigg has been a trusted partner of the city and county of Denver since at least 2011. I would also note that since I have become city attorney, one of my jobs, my primary job is to protect the city. And that job entails picking the best defense counsel for every case that we are charged with picking. And I have been very, very fortunate in my 24-year career to work with a number of incredible firms throughout the state of Colorado. And because of that, I know which firms are right for which cases. And I have recommended at least 17 law firms to represent the city and county of Denver since I became city attorney roughly a year ago. Next, with respect to the private benefit, it is true, I am being sued in my individual and official capacity in the Martinez lawsuit, as is the Chief Financial Officer, as is the Chief Strategy Officer, and as are the two employees from the Office of Equity and Social Innovation in the Calderon lawsuit, along with dozens of other employees of Denver every single year. It is not odd or unusual for employees of Denver to be sued in their individual and official capacity. And from a practical matter, what that means is there is no distinction between the individuals and the city. A verdict against one is a verdict against all. The charter requires the city to defend individual employees whose acts were committed in the course and scope of their employment. That is something that the charter mandates. And that is why me, the chief financial officer, chief strategy officer, and other employees that are sued in their individual and official capacities are defended and indemnified by the city and county of Denver. We are essentially joined at the hip. It is a distinction without a difference. If there is a verdict against me, it's a verdict against the city. If there's a verdict against the chief strategy officer, it's a verdict against the city. Defense costs and verdicts will all be paid from the general fund. So to summarize, the original agreement for $470,000 covered the Martinez lawsuit only. The amendatory agreement that is now before city council covers two lawsuits, Calderon and Martinez. The extra $500,000 is for the Calderon lawsuit. Second point is the city is not obligated to pay any amounts beyond the $470,000 agreement that has currently been fully executed. Next point is that Wheeler-Trigg has had tremendous success in both cases, which I have already explained. And then finally, I think it is in the city's best interest to approve this amendatory agreement that will be coming before council for a vote, hopefully. And that is all.

Great, thank you very much. Just want to flag before we go to council member questions. There may be, just given the fact that we're talking about lawsuits against the city, things that we need to discuss in executive session and not publicly. If that's the case, I have asked Miko and Rob to just say that's something that's better discussed Discussed in executive session, and then we'll finish council member questions and then we'll move into executive session and bring those questions back up. So I just want to be very clear about what that looks like and how it's going to go. Um, and we'll go to council member Gonzalez Gutierrez 1st. Thank you Madam chair council pro tem. I'm sorry.

It's okay. It's interchangeable. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Can you kind of go over again the reason for outside counsel on the Martinez case and reason for outside counsel on the Calderon cases? Sure, yeah.

So we found out about the Martinez lawsuit through the media. And we found out, when we found out that the complaint had been filed, we also found out that There were many, many pages. 40 pages, I think, was the original complaint. I want to say 46 pages was the amended. And the motions were hundreds of pages. And they contained attorney-client privilege information regarding some very sensitive matters that I know you're familiar with, the Park Hill matter and the Key Lime matter. We know that the federal government has been closely monitoring Denver, that there have been a particular interest in some of these transactions. And so we were against the clock. to try and urgently claw back that privileged and confidential information that should not be in the public domain and that poses significant risks to the city and county of Denver. So given the time sensitivity and the massive amounts of documents and information and two motions and complaint that needed to be clawed back and redacted urgently, the city attorney's office did not have capacity to handle that scope and that magnitude in that quick of a timeframe that was necessary. So that's the first reason. The second reason is the Martinez lawsuit makes me, all seven of my directors, and several assistant directors material witnesses in the case, including our two most senior employment lawyers. And so from a practical matter, it was not possible for the city attorney's office to defend the Martinez lawsuit. With respect to the call around lawsuit, I mentioned that that was being handled by the city attorney's office to wonderful city attorneys. Definitely. But they lost a very, very critical motion that caused and exposed this. Well, not cause, but expose the city to hundreds and thousands of dollars and paid administratively, which is significant to the city. The case was not progressing as it needed to progress. And so the executive director came and asked specifically, can we please engage outside counsel to help write the ship? There was a preliminary injunction motion coming up, which was our essentially last opportunity to reverse the district court's order and to allow us to proceed with ending Ms. Calderon's employment. This was our last bite at the apple. to end paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in paid administrative leave. And so given that financial risk to the city, we approved the executive director's request and he chose Wheeler Trigg O'Donnell to represent the city and to represent him and his colleague.

Thank you for that. I guess my follow up to that piece is what is the process to access outside counsel? So I get in the first situation with the conflict of being material witnesses, right? The city attorneys, several city attorneys. In the case of the Calderon case where it was requested by the person involved. And so I'm just curious, like, is there a process to request that outside attorney? And also, I guess it sounds like a process to choose who represents you.

Sure. Yeah. So there is a process and there's many different reasons why outside counsel would be engaged. So right now we have between, I think, 15 to 20 outside counsel firms that we use. And the reasons for hiring them are many fold. Sometimes there's a conflict of interest. Sometimes the matter requires such specialty knowledge that we don't have that within the city attorney's office. So the PFAS litigation, for instance. There are other cases where just because the magnitude and the size of the case, we just don't have capacity in the city attorney's office to handle a case of that size and scale. There can also be level of complexity and level of risk to the city. And Denver, like so many other cities and counties, if there is a particularly high risk to the city, either financially from a a public relations standpoint, a combination thereof, media attention, potential ramifications for the federal government investigating us, we will make the decision that we need the assistance of outside counsel. Anyone can request outside counsel at any time. We've had people from the sheriff's department, from the police department, from other agencies say, we would really like to have outside counsel. And it's really based on the totality of circumstances, whether or not the state attorney's office will grant that request. Is that the second point? Yes.

Is there a process for who we engage or getting to request which attorney or which firm represents you? Because you mentioned that that was a specific request from the.

Yeah, so there are certain procurement requirements and I'll. Rob is more familiar with those. With respect to the procurement that's generally handled by the municipal operations team, but there are several, I will say, rules of the road. So we've got an executive order that governs the selection process of outside vendors. I will note that, like in the Martinez lawsuit, for instance, given the urgency, we didn't have to do a competitive bid process. We could have just selected Wheeler Tripp O'Donnell to represent the city. So in those types of urgent situations, the city attorney's office is empowered. It's called sole source to do that. Otherwise, my understanding is that the proper procedure is that at least three vendors should be considered and that there should be a competitive bid process. And in terms of which firms, I guess, Which firms are presented to each client depends. Like I mentioned, we've got a list of approved outside counsel. Typically we go to that list first, right? Because it's really nice to work with partners who are familiar with, we trust them, they know the city. So that's usually our first stop. And then if there isn't enough selection from that existing list, then we will start to look outside of that list and we get recommendations from trusted people outside the city from other law firms from other business partners to sort of supplement that list.

Thank you for that. And as far as the amount for this, is it, so I guess I was under the impression that it was lower than $500,000 on one of the cases.

Yes. So the original agreement that we have with Or Donald was just for the Martinez lawsuit, and that's 470,000 dollars. And then after the Martinez lawsuit was underway after we engage real trigger Donald is when the executive director asked if we could also engage outside counsel for called around. Because he selected wheeler trig, we have to get a budget from the firm. Their budget was 500. so now we have to add 500 to the existing contract, which takes us over. The 500,000 threshold to to enter into an agreement with that city council approval.

Well, I was under the impression that that case didn't cost 500 didn't end up cost because they've already done the work. Correct. Which case are you talking about? Calderon case they've already completed. Like, they've already have they already.

filed they've already done the work they've done some of the work they won the preliminary injunction hearing yes correct and so the cost there is my understanding was below five hundred thousand dollars it wasn't the full 500. i think that's right i don't think they've i don't think they've used their entire 500 000 budget so to speak okay all right all right thank you thank you madam chair great thank you um councilmember gilmore oh thank you madam chair um

Miko, remind me when you all were negotiating Park Hill. I'm sorry, who's we all? Remind me when the city attorney's office was working on the land swap out at Park Hill in the airport. Since I'm the representative of the airport, I would like to know. Give me the timeframe.

Well, it was well underway by the time that I joined the city attorney's office in September of 2025. I believe, I don't know this for sure, I'd have to double check, 2024? But I actually don't know for sure because it predates me. But certainly since I joined the city attorney's office in September of 2025, the Park Hill deal was ongoing. And I believe the Park Hill deal closed in November of 2025 is my best recollection.

Okay. Thank you. Just for the record, since we're on the record here, if you came into the city on September 2025, we know from media reports and from briefings with city council that that deal was... hovering in an area, especially with the FAA and their requirements about divulging exactly what land was going to be swapped and, you know, the fiber optics line that ran under the additional land and, you know, you as the city attorney and not making sure that council was briefed. as to that additional 20 acres of land. And so I just wanna point out for the record that Park Hill was floundering. The Vibrant Denver Bond was on our plate. This was last summer, June, July, August, we were all talking about the Vibrant Denver Bond and Park Hill was on there for 70 million. So you were under a lot of pressure to fast track deals to get it done because it would have been horrific for the bond to get passed in November by the voters. And then it came back that the FAA deemed the transaction not legal or fraudulent in some way. Thereby, the owners of Park Hill would have been left in the lurch because now the city has $70 million with the Park Hill name on it on a line item for the bond. And so I just say that as public record information A couple things that you brought up, Miko, is especially the urgency, and I could even tell that when you were talking about it, you kind of got a little urgent about it, that, you know, the Martinez lawsuit, the timing of, you know, counsel's vote, and then, you know, the high attention level that this might have, the media attention, the FAA being involved. that this investigation gave you, it sounded like personally, a sense of urgency because you are the appointee, the city attorney and that you very quickly to cover yourself, pulled together a panel to approve your old law firm. But I would have to say... Council Member Gilmour. Yes. Make sure you're following the rules of decorum. I totally am. I totally am. If there's an issue, please tell me.

Yeah. I don't think it's appropriate for you to suggest through your comments that the city attorney or anyone did anything illegal. So I would appreciate if you not do that.

Very good. Perfect. Uh, that your anxiety about the high level of media attention, the FAA, um, getting the attention of president Trump, um, et cetera, um, that you, um, wanted to have this panel, but from The ethics side, you know that very well. So I'm not concerned about that. But the perception that you were on that panel and your position and power as the city attorney, I guess I would just question that. that even you being in the room, even you discussing it because my advisement from the Ethics Board in my direct official capacity is if there were any conversations that I might have a relation to a party, I didn't even attend the executive sessions for that because my presence in the room was determined by the ethics board and you can go read this determination, anybody can, that my even presence in the room would or could compel someone to vote differently. And so I just, I'm curious and I'm super confused as to like, you didn't have a subordinate or Rob could have served on that panel or someone else because you are the city attorney, you are the head attorney in the entire city and you sitting on that panel, even if you say after the fact your vote didn't matter, I would be very interested in having more conversation about that. And so, you know, I'll pause there, but I am ready to ask my colleagues to hold this in committee until a date certain because there are so many questions. The FAA is involved, Key Lime, Park Hill, the Vibrant Denver Bond. I would like to have the time for Miko and Rob and others to fully answer our questions and so I'm gonna ask for it to be held. until a date certain and then I also would compel or ask respectfully, I can't compel you to do anything, but council has subpoena power 10.5 in our rules and council or any committee is duly authorized by council shall have the power to compel the attendance and testimony of witnesses and the production of books, records, documents, and do all things necessary and needful in connection with the preparation and making of reports. And I am going to respectfully ask my colleagues to invoke that subpoena power as well. Thank you, Madam Chair.

great thank you we have another council member in the queue but i do just want to respond to that um just because there's press in the room and i want to be very clear i appreciate your request that that be done that's not a conversation um that happens in this committee and that's not a decision that gets made in this committee so request is on the record um we can ask i would love to get remember we're not all 13 members or 12 at this point members of council are members of this committee and so it would be un inappropriate and unrealistic and unfair for us to have a conversation about whether to use for the first time ever, I think, city council subpoena power here in committee when not every council member is here to weigh in on that. This is not the appropriate location for that. So I appreciate your request. It is heard that decision is not going to be made in this committee right now.

Council member Lewis, you're up. Thank you so much. Just a few questions. So what happens if the judge on appeal tosses out the sanctions?

So it wouldn't be, I don't think it would be tossing out of the sanctions. The court is being asked to review Judge Sternell's order and can either affirm or not affirm the order. They were not to affirm. It depends on what the order says. I can't tell you what would happen. I mean, if they don't affirm the order, it could be go back and answer questions X, Y, and Z. It could be just, I'm reversing and we're done. It could be something in between. I don't know what the... what the court's full order and direction would be.

Okay. So you all talked about the preliminary wins that you all have. And so I'm curious is how much is estimated for this case that's left in terms of the process? Like what more do you all have and what is the cost associated with that?

Are you talking about the Martinez lawsuit?

No, because you brought it to us.

Okay. So the Martinez lawsuit, we are currently finishing our dispositive motion briefing. For people who aren't a lawyer, dispositive motion is basically asking for the court to dismiss the case in its entirety. So we have that motion will be fully briefed, all of the defendants, next week. And so if the court agrees with Wheeler-Trigg O'Donnell and dismisses the lawsuit, we're done. with that portion of it. Now, I will say, and this is also part of Wheeler-Triggs advocacy, we have counterclaims against Mr. Martinez for both breach of fiduciary duty and for conversion, which is essentially stealing from the city. Those claims would continue. I would anticipate we would file a motion for summary judgment on at least the breach of fiduciary duty claim because that's pretty much a slam dunk given Judge Sernella's order and findings that he breached. the attorney-client privilege, which I will say Mr. Martinez has not contested. The part of the order that he is contesting, that he has asked Judge Cruz to review, is simply the sanctions. He is not asking for a review on the merits that he breached the attorney-client privilege improperly. And the cost? Well, we're done after—if we win the motion— I assume that you win, but I want to know both sides.

If we do not- Because you all would then maybe have to come back for another amendment.

So if we don't win on this positive motion for Martinez, is that your question? Yeah. What is the estimate? I would have to go back to Wheeler Trigg and ask them for the next phase of the case what their estimate is.

So for both of the cases, there's no way for us to know in terms of estimation of what is left to do and what is left to do between the two cases.

So for Martinez right now, we're in a holding period. We have to wait and see what the court does with those motions. Once we decide or once we know what the court does with those motions, then we will have to decide next steps. It's pretty hard to predict. I'm hoping the court grants our motions and we're done. Okay, with respect to Calderon, I would say the ball is in plaintiff's court generally. And this is the nature of being a defendant in litigation. We are reactionary. What we do depends on what the plaintiff does. And I can't predict at this time what the plaintiff is going to do. So I don't have a good answer for that. We won the preliminary injection motion. Ball is in plaintiff's court. We're kind of waiting to see what they do next.

The sanctions, you mentioned that. that the city was able to save a significant amount of money so much so that the gentleman said that it would bankrupt his business. What's the dollar amount? The amount that would bankrupt his business? I don't know. I think he's into- How does that win for a city if we don't know? Because that's how you categorized it.

I know what our attorney's fees are that are roughly tied to the motion that we're seeking to recover. It is roughly $300,000. Thank you. Thank you.

Great, thank you. Miko and Rob really appreciate this. I will just, this is not a question, but it is maybe a recommendation. There are a lot of city agencies that use on-call contracts. And the reason that they use on-call contracts is speed. Right, so I'm going to give you a different example, because this is services and versus construction, but like, right? We're not going to fill a pothole. We're not going to do go through a whole RFP process to fill a pothole. We have an on call contractor who we have a. Process on the inside where they, the on call contractors, I'll get to bid and then whoever the lowest bidder is gets to fill that pothole for us, but we don't have to put it through the entire council process. This is the first time I'm really, I'm so tired of things being unprecedented in this job. This is the first time in my seven years that we have seen this kind of issue, but I will say that the speed is, time is of the essence when it comes to legal cases. And so it might be worthwhile for the first time I think ever for the city attorney's office to consider Um, holding some on call contracts for this very purpose, because then, um, like, we do with the other city agencies report them quarterly to counsel on what that usage looks like, which ones have been used. There are, you know, um. There are small business enterprise, and maybe we'd be goals that are sometimes associated with them. So. I think it's worth looking into because I think part of the reason we are having this conversation in committee today is because, um. The number 1 question I think most council members had was how did we get to from below 500,000 dollars to above 500,000 dollars without council approval? But the work has been done right? And I think you've done a reasonable job of explaining that today how that happened and what that looks like and what the city is actually on the hook for as a result of that. So really appreciate all of that. I also think it's totally fair for council members to kind of have that question. Absolutely. So worth considering and having, I think, a conversation with the administration about on-call contracts within the city attorney's office for, because time is of the essence in some of these things. No, that's a wonderful suggestion. Thank you.

May I just clarify one? Please do. Okay. I'm not sure if it was a question by Councilwoman Gilmore or if it was an assumption by Councilman Gilmore. But Rob Nesbore actually was on the panel, as was Carla Pierce. And part of their job is advising city employees on ethics and process. And this is also why we've got the municipal operations team that is responsible for procurement. There's a number of checks and balances to make sure that all requirements are followed. And I feel very confident that Mr. Nesbore and Ms. Pierce would not allow process to go forward. reached any of our ethical duties.

Councilman Gilmour, I think you wanted to get back in the queue. Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. Could you clarify for the record, Miko, so you are the city attorney. You, in workday, when you're on the hierarchy, I would assume that you're at the top of that hierarchy and then all other city employees fall below that. City attorneys. Excuse me. City attorneys. Yes. Thank you. Okay.

Very good. Thank you. Great. Any last questions? We had extended this committee. We needed an executive session, but it looks like we don't. So Councilwoman Gilmore, I believe you mentioned you would like to make a motion to delay this to a date certain. Do you have a date? Have you worked with...

I figured we could do it on the fly. That's great.

Alyssa and Melissa, do you have a recommendation? This committee only meets once a month and we did push the Altera contract to October. So we're pretty full. Can we fit it in?

At this time, that's the only item on the agenda.

Okay, great. So October 20th.

Would you like to move? I would love to. I would like to make the motion to keep this in committee until a date certain, and it was October 20th. October 20th. 20th. Very good.

and we'll do a roll call vote. Are there comments or questions by members of council before we vote?

Council President. Yeah, can I just ask for clarification to hold up for a date certain? What are we, what are you hoping to have happen in the next month for the holdover?

I am hoping to have more information for Council to vote on this contract increase. Right now, currently, the Board of Ethics is considering, I believe, a couple complaints against the City Attorney, and I would like to have time for that process to happen before Council. weighs in on it. We're not aware of what else has been going on. Right now the Board of Ethics is investigating. We're not doing anything other than either pushing this forward or holding this here for us to get more information and hopefully we'll have that at the end of October. And then there are also questions about the amount. I would like to have the city attorney supply to council if it has to be a confidential document, great. But 17 law firms that she has referred as far as city work, et cetera, I would just like to gather a little bit more information before we allow something to transpire that involves the Federal Aviation Association, the Vibrant Denver Bond. It's my council district. I represent the airport in District 11. I am very concerned about the deportation flights that have been going on and I am concerned that that 92 million FAA grant was too attractive for folks to maybe not push things forward in a way. And that is the basis of some of the information that has been supplied. And so I would just like to allow the Board of Ethics to do their work and it can come back to us then.

Yes, hang on, this is a procedural issue. So there is a motion on the floor to delay to a date certain. Is there a second? I'll second. Okay. Did you want to respond briefly before we do a roll call vote? Or is it necessary at this time? I don't think it's necessary. I can, yeah. Great.

Can we do a roll call vote, please? Council Members Flynn?

No.

Gilmour? Aye. Gonzales Gutierrez? Aye. Romero-Campo?

Why don't we skip Council Member Romero-Campbell and move on? I'm still thinking about what you said.

Torres? No. Watson?

No.

Madam Chair Sawyer? No. Mayor Campo? No.

Okay, after, can I make a comment too? Sure, because we've got to vote.

Yeah, I hear you, I hear you. Okay, the motion fails that this is hold on. Let me put on my reading glasses again. I hang on. This is 1365. So, no, it is not. That's the executive session. It's 1343 that we are considering. And so the. Follow-up question would be, this is an action item. There would need to be a motion and a second to move it forward. Before we discuss that motion and second, are there any questions or comments by members of council? Council President.

Yeah, no, this is just, and I apologize, I didn't get a chance to respond to that before we went into the vote. I think for me, some of the items that you brought up are, again, important and in a separate process outside of this vote, but I do think that there are things that are in other realms that are being discussed that will still be elevated outside of this particular vote.

Great. 1343, action item. Do we have a motion and a second? Moved by Councilmember Watson, seconded by Council President. Do we need a roll call vote? Yes, please.

Councilmembers Flynn?

Aye.

Gilmour? No. Gonzales Gutierrez? Aye. Romero-Campo? Aye. Torres?

Aye.

Watson? Aye. Madam Chair Sawyer? Aye.

It's us. The motion passes. Just as a reminder for the public who might be watching at home, a vote for yes in committee is not a vote for yes on the floor. There are only seven members of city council who sit on this committee. The threshold for moving a contract forward out of committee is, is this ready to be considered by the full body? So a yes vote in committee today says yes. Contract is ready to be considered by all 13 or currently 12 members of city council. It is not a yes vote to move this forward. And I know that there's been a little bit of confusion around that.

So I want to just be very clear in that with that.

There are 17 items on. I can't see a thing. You guys 17 items on consent. Those will continue and we are adjourned. Thanks for joining us.