Public Amenities Committee - Regular Meeting

Thanks for joining us for this weekly joint meeting of the Mayor and Denver City Council. The Mayor and Denver City Council. Follow along as the Mayor and City Council members hear updates from city agencies and projects, discuss important city matters, and hear about what's happening across the Mile High City. Join the discussion with your elected officials starting now.

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Mayor Council. Thank you so much for joining us here on a lovely Tuesday morning. We will start with introductions. We don't have a long general session this morning. We do have an executive session, but we'll throw introductions and announcements. Your fingers, gentlemen.

Good morning, Mayor Paul Cashman, South Denver, District 6. Woo! Wow!

Fired up, ready to go. Jamie Torres, West Denver, District 3.

Laura Alvidrez, Lucky, District 7. Good morning, Serena Gonzalez-Cuchetas, one of your council members at large.

Good morning, Chris Hines, Denver's Perfect 10. Good morning, Darrell Watson, Fine, District 9.

Good morning, Diana Romero Campbell, Southeast Denver District 4. Good morning, Amanda Sandoval, Northwest Denver District 1.

It is a spirited morning here already at Mayor Council. We're excited to jump in. Announcements. I'd love to open it up for announcements that any members have they want to share with each other or for members of the public who want to know about important things in your district.

I would love to.

Madam President.

So, Lori, I would love, have you met Lori yet, Mayor? No. So Lori is a new addition to our city council staff. She is one of our city attorneys. So she just started and has a long, fabulous history. She was the assistant attorney for Boulder Town. attorney for Castle Valley, city attorney for Moab, Utah. I think right before this came from Leadville, right? Correct. Was the city manager in Leadville? Correct. Yeah. And so she's the newest addition to city council, and she happened to be a District 1 resident and met her— Totally unrelated to you. And I met her when I was working for Councilmember Espinosa. And so we're just so excited to have Lori, but wanted you to know that that's who would be helping us with all of our processes and all of the legislation moving forward. And I meant to say this last night, Lori, so sorry, I was not thinking correctly. So I will make an introduction next Monday publicly, but wanted you to be able to have a chance to meet the mayor.

Welcome aboard. We're so glad you're here. You've served some of the best towns and cities in the Southwest. We're so glad you landed in Denver.

I saved the best for last.

Exactly. I love it. I imagine you were quite a mountain biker after a Moab Leadville tour of duty.

Uh, somebody, you know, so I'm going to say it's an obsession. What's what's more than obsession? I don't know. Y'all don't know. Like, that is the bike. Yeah, I'm always, I'm always riding my bike. So, yes, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you. Other announcements? Councilman Hines.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, you know, the, um, being a barrier breaker is, uh, is a blessing and a curse. Um, I, I'm the first elected official who uses a wheelchair to get around. Part of that is being an ambassador to the disability community. And also, just as getting into this room, I'm the only person who goes into the other door. And more than half the time, that door is locked. So then I go wait over at this door to ask someone to unlock that door. So this has happened numerous times, and so I just figured I'd mention it in announcements. It would be great to have everyone have access, particularly members of the committee, including people with disabilities.

Thank you. Thank you. We will make sure and get that door unlocked. Thanks for raising it. Councilwoman Alvarez.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm excited. We had a great week last week launching the South Broadway General Improvement District. Thank you, Tim Hoffman, Chief Thomas, for being there. It was an amazing event, and we're really excited about the future of South Broadway in the hands of our new Executive Director, Caitlin Braun. Congratulations, Caitlin.

Congrats to you. So excited about it. Councilman Watson, and then Madam President Potem, and then Councilman Watson.

Well, I'm going to do a half announcement for Councilwoman Alvarez, and I know you have much more to say about Blucifer Music Festival that's happening July 24th through 26th in South Broadway. We won't steal any of your stuff. Because I want to share a little bit about Underground Music Showcase. It's going to be the same weekend. We are big enough in Denver to have two music street concerts, and I think they're going to be fantastic. But a little bit more about the Underground Music Showcase, July 24th through 26th. It's going to be in five points in the Rhino Art District, 200-plus performances across multiple stages and venues, bars, patios, warehouses. We're going to have—even beyond the main stages, we're going to have events throughout the art district, so up towards Mission Ballroom, all the way down towards stuff just south of the railroad. So we're going to be having a massive party. We're expecting thousands of folks. We're working with RTD for— transportation and parking to make sure that folks don't have to struggle and park into community parking so much fun much more information is going to be coming out so block your cameras for July 24th to July 26th for the underground music showcase in five points the Rhino Art District with 200 plus of your favorite bands thank you so much counseling Madam President Pro Tem

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted to let people know that the Highline Canal Conservancy is holding the Summer Scamper at Bible Park this Wednesday at 5.30. Super excited about it because the Highline Canal runs about 70 miles starting at Warwick and Canyon all the way out to the Eastern Plains. Roughly just under 10 miles of it is in Southeast Denver, part of 6, a little part of District 5 as well. And it's a 5K, so 3.1 miles you will be able to run on the Highline Canal this Wednesday for the Summer Scamper. I also have a few extra registrations. So if you contact our office at, what is our office, district4 at denvergov.org, we can give you a free registration, but you can also register online or just show up on race day.

and register. So hope to see you there. Thank you so much. Thank you. Next up, I have Council Torres.

Thank you so much. And Mayor, this is an update for you as well. My office, along with Denver Police Department a while back, applied for a Safer Streets Grant from the State of Colorado. And this was for Paco Sanchez, our place network investigation location, to do some work making the underpass of Federal Boulevard safer. We applied to do mural, regular cleanups, community activation, and lighting. And we didn't know going into that how big of an ordeal that was going to be to actually deliver, but it's getting delivered. The mural is underway now. The lighting should be in this month. And we're slated for Extreme Community Makeover to be our community partner to do regular community cleanup events with us. But this is a long time in the works and I just wanna thank Denver Police Department, DOTI who have been outstanding partners in helping us get this through. So if you've ever tried to do something in partnership with CDOT and DOTI, it's not easy. And so we're able to actually get this delivered on time and with using all the grant dollars. So just to let you know. Great, congratulations.

Councilman Gonzalez-Guterres.

Thank you, Mayor. Just want to let folks know, myself, Councilwoman Lewis, and Councilwoman Parity, we'll be hosting an additional community conversation tomorrow evening. It will be virtual at 5 p.m. to talk about the municipal sentencing reform policy that we have been moving through council since, I believe, January at this point. But yeah, we wanna be able to talk about all the amendments and work that we did just last night by this body and appreciate everyone and their work in this, but also wanna be able to inform the public what those changes have been. This will be, I believe our fifth community meeting that we have hosted as we've gone through this process. And so appreciate to see folks, you can find details on all of our social media, how to sign up and register to get a link. to participate in the meeting tomorrow, Wednesday, June 24th at 5 p.m. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Councilwoman. Any other announcements? I would just add, I'm surprised that I stole it from anybody else who wanted to, both a thank you for everyone who came out to Juneteenth. Last Saturday was a fantastic event. Thank you. It was so great to see a number of you. Councilman Alvidrez, Councilman Watson, thanks to all you for coming. And, of course, a reminder about this weekend's Pride Parade on Sunday, one of the country's largest. We're proud to host it. here in denver so it will be uh downtown this year so slight change of venue from the normal colfax route but it is on sunday and i think step off is at uh 11 sorry no it's at 9 it's like 9 a.m to step off um you'll come late now come late be there and be ready we'd love to see you all at this year's pride we'll be there uh downtown this sunday any other announcements before we wrap Great, okay, well thank you. I will now entertain a motion to move us into an executive session pursuant to DRMC 234A, sections three, six, and seven, for the purpose of discussing pending litigation and legal advice related thereto. So moved. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, with that we will enter executive session. Thank you all so much for joining us.