Mayor Mike Coffman: Town Hall

January 2023

Transcript Summary

The transcript is from a town hall meeting with Mayor Mike Coffman in Aurora, Colorado, in January 2023. The discussion includes various topics such as affordable housing, water conservation, crime, and the military base’s importance to the local economy. Mayor Coffman emphasizes the need for bipartisan solutions, increasing the number of affordable housing units, and aggressive water conservation. He also highlights the importance of supporting the flying mission of the military base and healthcare research. The attendees ask questions related to car theft and Mayor Coffman recommends using a club or a steering wheel lock to prevent it.

Full Transcript

any questions on any other issue that you have yeah uh so what are you kind of looking forward to this year on the Aurora city council what are some things that you want to get done personally what are some things that you can work on uh Reaching Across the aisle bipartisan stuff what are some things that you’re pessimistic about what are some things you’re optimistic about aside from fighting crime what is most important to you this year on the Aurora city council so uh Monday night uh I’m reading a00:33proposal before the city council uh four of them uh that will be an opt-in uh to what we have what we call uh well it’s it’s initiative 108 or Amendment 123 which is our affordable housing and so that uh has a number of so there’s there there’s money uh available for the state that uh are mandated from the initiative that the local government can be eligible for if they meet a number of criteria such as increasing the number of affordable housing units year after year I think that that sets us on a right path on01:14affordable housing and so uh uh I’m very excited about that and I believe that that will pass I think on water conservation we Aurora has been a leader on water conservation and in fact last week I addressed the Colorado water Congress a Statewide meeting that happened to me it wasn’t Aurora at our conference center on Colfax on the high at the Hyatt Regency about what Aurora has done and I think it’s very important given the challenges in the Colorado River Basin some of the other challenges in terms of the available availability01:52of water that we’d be fairly aggressive in water conservation and part of that is the ReUse of water that Aurora is also a leader of a Prairie Waters project so very proud of what we’ve done there I think crime is always a big issue I think and I think I think you touched on that but I think in terms of making sure we have a fully staff and police force uh you know obviously we’re going through the consent degree process and I think that’s important then um but but I think just like the three Mayors have gone together in terms02:29of that agenda I think it’s important to with the governor supports to try and do that through the legislature so that’s why I mentioned on me at that press conference on Monday with Statesman Rachel and since you’re the I’m trying to think of what I think those are [Music] the big drivers of our economy are the base and Healthcare I’d say hospitality is the third but that I think that’s going fairly well but in the base I think we have a big threat uh what do you mean by base the military base okay so that03:10um the base has a number of different Mission sets but in terms of the flying mission that the aircraft that we have in the Colorado National Guard being phased out and so they will reach the the aircraft will start to reach the end of their service life in 2028 the first aircraft will then the f-16s will reach into their service line unless we get a replacement aircraft uh then a lot of the Air National Guard goes away which has been not only an impact in my view of National Security but to the local economy uh and03:51obviously to the International Guard then the other uh um so um so it’s um we’re going to be voting on a resolution to support the flying Mission uh the city council will be running a resolution support the flying Mission at the base that the area National Guard uh would like to have on the entrance Medical Campus um I think the tremendous opportunities there and my goal is to make sure that we are competitive nationally and and internationally in terms of healthcare research and so the it’s an extraordinary campus04:27with three hospitals with Healthcare education educating the next generation of medical professionals and then on launch view in the campus everything north of montefiore’s research so that’s a Simmons innovation in our community so I’ve just become the chairman of the board of directors for the facilities Innovation community and so I think that you know we have a lot of opportunity to to really be a center for healthcare research and so it’s really driving that to make sure that we have the right environment to do that05:04Chancellor the University of Colorado uh CU medical CU against medical Don ellman he’s the chancellor at the campus for CEO he wasn’t taking his place and he’ll become the vice chairman so we’ll work together to really move the campus forward I see a lot of opportunities with growth on the campus and I think it’s exciting in terms of really having that in the city room yeah I was wondering in addition to the club suggestion are there any other recommendation for impact that for cars um the little switch on the door of the05:47blocks we recommend putting that down or so it doesn’t show around auto thief would much rather just be able to open up the door to get in the carpet if they need to do rather than have to to get in the car like uh I think like this young man said here uh it’s very easy to steal the car around uh it’s all on YouTube so they learn it very quickly so but a club is is actually the best thing you can do just try to get that visual a turn to turn it please don’t leave the Firearms apart complete firearm stolen they leave them06:26in cars the car gets stolen and then the process just keeps on going down and try not to leave your brand new Gucci purse in the front seat or your laptop on the front seat you know they look for that stuff but do you thinking to save that I’ll let them know yeah a Walmart targeting anything it’s in the Autos but the auto parts store they’re about this long and they just walk onto the steering wheel they have a big tail that sticks out the steel so you can’t turn the steering wheel without turn up the car I’m not saying it’s07:04foolproof because all you got to do is cut the steering wheel and you pull it right off but it’s it’s a deterrent if they want it unfortunately they’ll get it yes Mike first of all thanks to you and the chief for your leadership um I’ve been a part-time resident for the last six seven years I’m a full-time resident now Aurora and I just wanted to get your uh thoughts on the homelessness I was kind of surprised being the first winner they’ve spent here it almost seems like it’s it’s expanded and become a bigger issue07:37than even in the summertime when I’ve spent a lot of time here and I know you’ve worked done a lot of work on this and you are working on it but kind of an update sure I think one thing I just passed a resolution in the city council that we will build a navigation what’s called a navigation Center that’ll have three component parts to it to be in the vicinity of 32nd and Chambers Road but we are making so we have commitments now from the Adams County Arapahoe County Douglas County and then of course the city of08:14Aurora to to fund is Capital Construction we are now going to be soliciting the state for their they set money aside for their assistance and divide and building this particular facility we uh they have three different boards to it the first part will be what I call low barrier emergency shelter for people that just come in um they may have no intention of participating in programs but we’re obviously going to try and get them in the case management um then uh there’s a second and a third part and the second part is for people08:53participating in programs whether it’s a addition recovery whether it’s mental health and job training and third part is what we call about the transitional housing is those people that are working but need some assistance but they’re on the road to a self-sufficiency but it is in addition to that I I think probably some of our largest challenges let me just back I’m working on a program for single-parent families that are on the borderline of becoming homeless how can we intervene uh in their lives to keep them working to keep09:29them housed before they fall into homelessness because once they fall into homelessness is very difficult and so we have some temporary federal dollars we’re using for that but they’re going to expire and so I’m working on a program uh probably focus on it because it’ll be the next session of the legislation so in January so hope to draft it this Summer that it this fall and then have it introduced in the legislature in January that will provide funding for that that type of intervention for those for those10:05families there are unfortunately a lot of homelessness is is addiction and so um there is uh we’re working with the state on a program that was the former Ridgeview Academy was a a campus Run for the Division of Youth Services for the young males who had some altercation with the criminal justice system for criminal justice involved and I had a school Food Service uh 500 bed facility the division review Services thought that they had another Direction they wanted to take that they wanted they thought that that intervention was too10:51severe they wanted to see if they could keep children at home uh as opposed to institutionalize there or keep them in Foster families and so they eventually closed that facility so now we’re trying to to rework it it actually doesn’t take a whole lot to make it a it will be state run we have skin in the game in terms of our of federal arbit dollars but if we sit around and it will be a long-term program for people with very severe addiction problems that have been primarily homeless as a result of those11:29patients and so it is once somebody I mean uh meth even alcohol now fentanyl highly native very difficult I mean it’s not a short-term solution I did meet with a woman who was probably was on the streets for years and was addicted to math and had to give up her children to foster care I was living in a van the van got repossessed she was actually living on the street in the vicinity of I-70 in Peoria all right and even at the time sleeping on the ledge seen those Legends on the device under the Enterprise and12:16and in her story how difficult it was she went through three different programs and relapsed three different times and these were not long and these were not law interpreted perhaps and and then she uh she got she was involved in you know a property crime prostitution and then got um sentenced got arrested sentence uh Adams County Jail of the finals and so I said well I said well and she goes that’s where I got sober I said well I said well it’s because you couldn’t get drugs and I said no and she said no I’m telling you12:56she couldn’t get drugs but that um she had she was able to get sober and then she had a religious conversion but but in and of itself really what what that was about in my view I mean I think there was a spiritual divide to it but it was it created a network for her of people that were supportive and and that she fell into when she got out of jail which was very positive because what was always happening before was the only people she knew were people that were users and So eventually she would go and it only took one time13:40to relapse to try to do a one-time derivatives and so and then she went through a program a different rescue mission where they gave her a place to stay and gave her job training she went to a job training program through the American Hospitality I came over the floor lamp is and now she works in the gay life with them I mean yeah the Gaylord Hotel and Resort Conference Center and it’s been sober now for a couple years and you know very happy with her over to work uh yeah hi I’d like to kind of piggyback on the homeless14:20I travel on Parker and Peoria area near Nine Mile every day and the tents that have been continuous for like two years now um they’re even there now and it’s freezing and the uh it’s the exit from 225 coming down and then even going on 225 going Southbound there’s a I know you’re trying and I don’t know what the procedure is specifically to give them you know like the warnings and stuff but also the people that are wearing dark clothing and standing on the media right um and then they’re coming off the15:04medium and it’s dangerous for them and and the trash and the bicycles that are near there and they’re also supposed to be signs in certain intersections and I know there’s one at Mississippi and Havana where it says um where to donate right um I’ve worked for Family Promise at Temple Emanuel years before coven head and we have we have um families which was wonderful they go from church to church and to our syndrome and um they have kids and the kids go to school their parents go to school so I’m in I’m interested in15:43helping but that is such an eyesore so that that is so that area by Cherry Creek Reservoir is very different because we don’t have jurisdiction over this so that’s um when you get on the I guess you would say well the same sort of partner as the uh as that state park is it’s kind of it’s kind of a high five jurisdiction but none of it’s municipally owned property so what I have to always say I talked to the governor about it so because there’s a lot of it’s state Parkland Church State16:18Park and then some of its Army Corps of Engineers because it’s a flood control and so uh we’ve been trying to work with them to to they have cleaned it up some but I think when you when the message is out that it’s not done very often people tend to congregate there and so that’s the problem right now but it’s right on Park Road it’s not really Within right that’s on the outside of the fence but that’s still their land yeah because we don’t have jurisdiction Parker that won the intersection yeah yeah16:52um and my question is my dog and I have been walking before noodles at this point so I tried to call in um into the non-emergency and I think they eventually came they could gather like a big bunch of shopping carts but there was a whole box needles that were used that was left by just right kind of by the bypass so what like what is a sufficient way of us and citizens to call something like how do we report it I think if you go to access Aurora through there and then report there and then if it’s not taken care of then just17:53contact me and the best way to contact me is directly I have a email address that goes directly to me and it’s m Kaufman c-o-f-fman Aurora gov.org yeah is there something you can speak to the whole world yeah I met with staff on it on Friday they’re working on a draft analysis of it of it to me so this is a oil and gas development that is occurring uh under or it’s a I guess plant or horizontal drilling but uh the challenge that we have is under Colorado law uh we don’t have jurisdiction because what we have18:45jurisdiction is the surface aspects the service aspects are outside of of Aurora however they may be proximate to where we may be able to comment on that uh but we don’t have to actually direct your state comment on to the cogcc the Colorado oil and gas Conservation Commission uh applied the uh local governments have jurisdictions but only on the surface aspects the um the state has jurisdiction uh under underneath years ago during the campaign there was the discussion about developing smart Traffic Systems19:24the question is about developing smart Traffic Systems and and some work has been restored and some work has been done on and what that is is uh if you look at signalization it’s um in sort of uh reports to traffic flows to where uh in high traffic and high volume traffic can be longer than the low volunteer but let me uh that’s a good question and let me uh I’ll post that and I’ll be happy to get back to you yeah has there been money allocated in this year’s budget for a police station to be built in the Northeast Center a20:01corner of Aurora um that not a we’ve got a number of northeast corner where do you refer you um Aurora Highlands area um I’m sure there’s I’d have to check and seeing the plans but I don’t but there’s no money allocated in the budget for it because it’s too far out there I mean it’s too in terms of the world it’s in Aurora but like what I mean too far out there from being developed right now the building is is starting to slow down because of because of interest rates and because of demand but I’m sure there’ll20:40be a substation at some point in time because I think it’s about well it’s just not that much development out there yet for a new Dispatch Center because we’ve got our participation Center we need to do property Bureau maybe we could do a whole compound right up there right um yeah what the developer would like to do and he has plans he does have plans for a building that he holds a government center and then that Government Center that would be a number of of government related Services everything from courts21:21to um we’re trying to so I’ve asked the city manager now to solicit all the Departments to see if they would be willing who would be wanting to have a physical Presence at the government center that he that he proposes so um I haven’t got that survey back yet to see who will be there it’s in the process I mean I think I I mean quite frankly I I think that he I’m not sure we need the sir probably a substation but I’m not sure we need the other services I I think probably more focus on library and cultural Services22:01would be a little bit better yeah from our understanding and the most recent developments that that’s going to Yosemite which is kind of close to the Denver or on Border has there been any more discussions on like potentially having more of the DRT itself and not just the bus right through yeah so we’re doing we’re involved in um with Denver uh because really to get Federal approval uh if you really need to tie into an interstate and so so we are we are proposing that that Aurora also be a part of the brt but it will probably be22:43a little I don’t expect it to be the same and the reason why I probably don’t expect it to be the same is because that dimmer has if you look at Denver it’s got one way uh major arterials north and south of Colfax where we don’t have we are as kind of fits and starts so we don’t have that so we’re going to have to adjust some for that but we will be a part of the system and we have appropriated the money for that to be part of it uh any other questions yes send me an email back because that’s23:29everything is taken care of and I was sitting there looking right at us is it still there now yeah yeah all the people and uh likes very soon I’ll try and find it because I’ve got a lot of complaints about access Aurora you know again that somehow it just doesn’t get to the right place uh it just makes it a little bit harder for and they’re not it’s really not that I expect yeah it’s a great point I think it’s amazing how much these uh the fact24:35that the majority of vehicles are used to commit other crimes I was at a you know a small liquor store owner uh Ethiopian immigrant I’m trying to remember I can’t quite remember the exact address we’re with our Island Tower yes okay and uh so he had the video footage in front of us filming the incident and he had a stolen Hummer right it was stolen Homer did the first crashed into the his his front of the store uh and then you had another big idea stolen truck uh wrapped a chain around a heavy metal25:16chain around the ATM machine and Pull and then pulled it out it was amazing any other important questions okay yes uh okay so uh affordable housing that was at Crystal Mario’s Town Hall the other night and she said that the state overrides the city on policies around affordable housing but then you’ve got you have the United development ordinance which is covers kind of policy around zoning and that kind of thing right so my question to you is uh so you have the charter and then you have the city code I don’t25:52think they stay over I mean I don’t think the state overrides us the state is debating whether to override us uh and I’m in about on land use issues um my position with the governor is is really that I think I think the priority let us do let us get 108 done first you know let us get that let’s let’s see where the dust settles on that on affordable housing uh it’s always you know he’s got his plan but that was already passed by the voters and so um but but we already have a lot there’s26:26already a lot of flexibility anymore we can do it okay okay so if if you pass something at the local level and it doesn’t abide by what the state says in terms of zoning laws or anything around affordable housing what’s the worst thing that happened to you first of all I think that’s what the government’s looking at you oh okay those issues land uses local control oh so there are some regulations from the state but there’s not that many so things like the density issues and things like that uh are controlled by27:01local government I think that that the the water conservation proposal that I control uh will change a lot in the way we develop and it will cause I think higher densities I mean I mean this may sound Draconian and some of you aren’t going to like this and think it’s too heavy-handed but we’re in a very difficult situation and this applies all new to them all new development there’s there’s what we call cool cool weather Turf which is like Kentucky through a grass it uses a lot of water which is a27:34traditional grass that we use under the ordinance that I put forward you can’t have any in the front yard you can’t have any in the background you’re limited to 500 square feet or 45 of the backyard without some bucks uh nothing in the medians uh all new construction in terms of commercial property uh you you can only have turf that’s cool weather Turf this Kentucky Bluegrass if it’s if it’s functional I.28:01E it’s an athletic field but it can’t be there for aesthetic purposes nor ornamental water features I mean we’re in a different environment now and we have to recognize that but that’s going to actually influence the way we grow uh prospectively and I think you’ll see more of Greater density in housing versus the really spread out single family detest homes uh okay I want to thank you all for coming I really appreciate it and uh if anybody I’m gonna stick around if you have any specific questions and for28:30people that um uh had uh questions about specific information that I have if you could please remind me and so I can look it up and get back to you

Councilmember Crystal Murillo: Ward I(V) Town Hall

January 2023

Transcript

Dolan Knapp: I have a question dovetailing off of what was just talked about, in terms of housing, what has the HRNS committee (Housing, Redevelopment & Neighborhood Services) – you are the chair of, what are some ideas that you have been brainstorming within that committee to help make housing more affordable, and why aren’t local municipalities allowed to create policy around more affordable housing- when what does the charter say and the code says within Aurora as to what kind of power the City Council has when it comes to creating more affordable housing? As far as I know, local governments, as long as they abide by the charter and the code, are allowed to do whatever they want. I just need some more clarity around that. What would happen if the City Council went about creating more affordable housing, and inclusionary zoning? That is one thing that could be done within the city to make housing more affordable, and you have the political will to do that. I don’t see the HRNS committee talking about what kind of zoning could work. What kind of inclusion in zoning can we have to benefit all the developers in the private sector, the public sector, and the people of Aurora? Can you give us your take on all of that? Based on what I just said, what can be done going forward?

Crystal Murillo: I will do my best to answer. We were doing an exercise where we talked about issues we care about. I heard some very specific questions and just so you know where we are on the agenda. We are a home-rule city meaning there are certain things that we can put in place, but we can’t go against state law. State law takes precedence, so there is a lot we could do, but specifically, regarding the last question, we are prohibited by the state. The state will always come first in terms of the order of operations in terms of the law. As much as I want to pass something locally on that particular issue, that’s just not possible. That is not how that works. You were asking about the Policy Committee. We come up with topics around different housing strategies but the housing committee conversation around what’s possible doesn’t just happen in that Policy Committee. That happens as a full body. There are only three of us in that Policy Committee, so we could unanimously pass the recommendation out of that Policy Committee and when you go for a full vote of 10 council members and only three of them potentially support it, it’s not going to pass, but in the past, the HRNS (Housing Redevelopment & Neighborhood Services) committee is where we talked about our affordable housing strategy. Earlier in the conversation, we were talking about the different resources we have for folks experiencing homelessness. We talked about those resources in that Policy Committee. I don’t have the memory of every meeting but I know we’ve also talked about motel redevelopment strategies along the Colfax corridor, and then at the end of the day you know who can help fund a particular project when the federal ARPA dollars came down that that was something that I was hopeful that we could continue to invest in more affordable housing, but it’s a drop in the bucket. I appreciate you continuing to push and learn more. You’re welcome to continue participating in these meetings about a particular topic. I am setting the agenda for that Policy Committee, so I encourage you to reach out to me or any other councilmember that are on that committee. We would love to hear your thoughts and let’s have a discussion, but we don’t just talk about housing in the committee. We talk about owning ducks, for example, you know, what’s the quality of conversation, too. It’s not a perfect answer, but happy to follow up offline, too. Does anyone else want to share topics they want to talk about?

Resident: Hi Crystal, it’s nice to see you. I have several questions. The first one, I do not mean to put you on the spot, but I am going to put you on the spot. What is your standard or policy around responding to constituents emailing you?

Crystal Murillo: I’ve tried to answer as best as I can, and then when that’s not possible, promptly, I try to tag team my staff to be able to address different constituent issues.

Resident: And what would you say? You have been in the office for five to six years now. What would you say your average response time is?

Crystal Murillo: I do not have a good average I can share. I am happy to follow up with you regarding any concerns.

Resident: I have emailed you and you haven’t followed up. I hope that you will find out. I came here today absolutely because I thought, well, I appreciate you’re busy. I understand the City Council is part-time. It should not be, but I am also a businessperson. If I did not answer my emails I would not be in business.

Crystal Murillo: I hear you. I am happy to connect.

Resident: I would appreciate that. I also want to know very specifically about some safety issues and perhaps the police officer here can address that in some manner. In the last six months, my car has been broken into three times. It has cost thousands of dollars. I do have a one-car garage, which was the storage unit, so that was my bad. It’s now holding my car, so it won’t be broken into for a fourth time. It was stolen off 6th & Havana a year ago. I know this is not unique and I know that Aurora is number two in the country for car robberies. What, if anything, are you trying to do? I know it is like herding cats. What are your recommendations to citizens? What is the policy around it? I would like some insight into anything that you can share with us about what is being done. I’m sure I’m not the only one. Are there some statistics you could share?

Dolan Knapp: What are some things that you are optimistic and pessimistic about this year? What are some things you can get done? Some bipartisan things, compromise, what is on the agenda? what do you see getting done? what do you see not getting done? What is most important to you this year with the Aurora City Council?

Crystal Murillo: We did evolve into a Q&A. I was hoping before we get to that question, it’s a good question, just to scan and see if anyone else has any topics. I just want to hear what some other topics are. Do you want to hear about it? I heard about policing and specific strategies. Crime prevention. I am working with a smaller financing organization, it’s the Rocky Mountain Micro Finance Institute. I think the March Town hall is going to be centered around small businesses. There are two grants available specifically for this part of the city. If you have a small business there are also more affordable business loans. What are other general topics that you want to hear more about for next month’s topics?

Resident: Would it be possible in the future to have more information about youth violence prevention programs? Maybe incentives for students completing the programs?

Crystal Murillo: Youth violence prevention activities, Jonathan, I think you were mentioning some funding that we’re trying to figure out how to deal with.

Jonathan: We have a really good program. The city was given a substantial grant from the sale of the Broncos last year, and we are in the early stages of seeing how to implement those grants. That must be spent on Youth Services. It does not say specifically. My colleagues and I at the community engagement division are going to be spending February and March and possibly into early April serving the community. We are looking to get information from parents, the youth, and service providers. Anybody who works in that capacity. We also work very closely with Joseph D Herrera, who’s our manager of youth violence prevention, so as soon as we get the survey results back, that’s where we’re going to start taking proposals from external entities. I know the library system is going to put in a proposal and Parks and Rec is going to get a proposal. The school districts are very interested. It’s a pretty substantial grant, so we have an opportunity to do a lot of good in the area of youth violence prevention, so hang in there. Also, if anybody is interested, please take my card if you are a parent. If you are a youth service provider, please reach out to me. We will make sure that you are included in the survey.

Resident: Thank you for that. I know that for Aurora public schools, after the school day, there is a possibility of renting their spaces, and I wish they would have said yes to working with you when they were here. I know there are a lot of neighborhoods that would benefit from engaging or providing support in partnership to benefit those students in that community to prevent them from wandering. We have a lot of parents that work late or on different shifts. They are not at home a lot, so those kids are the ones who are wandering around stealing cars.

Johnathan: We talked to parents in Aurora, especially in northwest Aurora. There is an overwhelming feeling, and of course, I’m not the sole decision maker with where the kids will go, but we do want to make a difference when we talk about northwest Aurora or these at-risk youth and young adults. The Parks and Recreation Department had some programs and a smaller grant last year, and they did like three days and had some opportunities for the youth to engage. Places like the rec center, come play basketball instead of just being out on the streets. There are a couple of programs in place, but we are looking to expand.

Resident: Is there a possibility for the city to provide security for the schools? We would then be able to provide safe spaces for the students, so nothing happens when the kids are engaged in activities.

Jonathan: That’s a good question. That’s kind of what’s great about the grant is that it’s so broad. I mean it’s pretty rare that broad legislation leads to good things, but in the interest of youth services, it is not necessarily off the table. That is why we need input from community members like yourself. As members of this city, we want to empower you… As soon as we get a list of ideas, that’s when we’re going to start taking proposals and getting some emotion going on the grounds.

Resident: Thank you very much. I work for a high school. I work with counselors and parents, so this is where my feedback comes from. Not necessarily from one person, but I represent a lot of parents and students

Jonathan: Absolutely. I very much value your feedback. I’m going to send you my card here, so I do hope that you engage and reach out to us and take that survey. We may even see you because we are going to be doing a lot of interacting with some of the high schools and some of the high school organizations so we will be around.

Dolan Knapp: Crystal, I know that you were on the RTD Accountability Committee, and you made recommendations for policies for RTD. You Were the chair of that committee.

Crystal Murillo: Well, you said that I was on it, so I figured you’d know the name.

Dolan Knapp: Yes, I just forgot the name.

Crystal Murillo: It was the RTD accountability committee.

Dolan Knapp: At the RTD Accountability Committee, you came up with proposals on how you could improve RTD. What items from that proposal were implemented by RTD? What policy recommendations were implemented? What kinds of things can the Aurora City Council do this year to improve public transportation?

Crystal Murillo: Once that committee was over, we made our recommendations. We were done, so it was advisory in nature. I do not know what RTD has implemented. It would be interesting to bring them for a presentation to see what changes have happened. It was advisory, so I would like to think that I had the specific capability to influence their decisions, but it was clear from the beginning that it was kind of temporary and advisory. It was a title. A title, but if I’m not on the board, I’m not part of the staff, so I couldn’t guarantee any of those things. We tried to work closely with them so that they were the most feasible recommendations and hopefully that meant that they would adopt them, but that’s a potential conversation – a presentation moving forward, so since you mentioned transportation, if we can manage it, would that be something you’re interested in?

Dolan Knapp: Yeah. Are there any policies that you would recommend for RTD?

Crystal Murillo: I do not think I could opine. There’s a lot there, but you also asked early on about some of the things that I’m excited about and specifically what I want to mention was around the bus rapid transit along the Colfax corridor. The idea is that the bus is coming up and down the corridor of Colfax corridor connecting the downtown area and the Anschutz medical campus. The two major business hubs for both Denver and Aurora via Colfax. I don’t know if you have taken the 15 or the 15 L, it could take a while. It doesn’t always feel the safest and there’s a Denver pass-specific bond they raised money for specifically to do the center running lane for rapid bus transit. It is going to look a little different. Our current city manager, his former city of Tulsa implemented rapid bus transit, so what you will see is we’ll have bus rapid transit. It won’t look the same as it will in Denver, because we didn’t have a specific source of funding as Denver did to make a center running lane. To be honest, we do not have the same outlets. We do not have streets set aside from Colfax. Long story short, I’m excited that we are actively investing in redesigning what that will look like once the bus hits Aurora, so while it won’t be in the center like we don’t have space to create a center lane. The point of the design is to make it more accessible. We’ve also talked about a ticket system that happens before you enter the bus, so you’re not stopping and waiting for people to pay. Those are like little things that add up to more efficient transit. The goal is to have it running every 4 to 7 minutes. My goal is to get those bus stop shelters to have real-time digital bus schedules, not just printed ones. The printed one is nice, but it does not follow real-time. A real-time kind of ticker that you would see that you could rely on this bus is coming, because frankly, when I was part of that accountability committee, something that I heard a lot was that people just did not believe that it would come. I have talked to people and if the bus never came they would have to wait an entire 30 minutes and that’s unacceptable. We can control that, and we’ve invested actual dollars so that the rapid bus transit doesn’t just stop at the Denver work order. We had a presentation last year where we had the engineers come and talk about the different stops. I’m happy to dig that up and send that to you, but that is something related to your transit interests that I am looking forward to. I think that could mean so much for our economic development department here just to get to and from.

Crystal Murillo: I will do my best to answer. We were doing an exercise where we talked about issues we care about. I heard some very specific questions and just so you know where we are on the agenda. We are a home-rule city meaning there are certain things that we can put in place, but we can’t go against state law. State law takes precedence, so there is a lot we could do, but specifically, regarding the last question, we are prohibited by the state. The state will always come first in terms of the order of operations in terms of the law. As much as I want to pass something locally on that particular issue, that’s just not possible. That is not how that works. You were asking about the Policy Committee. We come up with topics around different housing strategies but the housing committee conversation around what’s possible doesn’t just happen in that Policy Committee. That happens as a full body. There are only three of us in that Policy Committee, so we could unanimously pass the recommendation out of that Policy Committee and when you go for a full vote of 10 council members and only three of them potentially support it, it’s not going to pass, but in the past, the HRNS (Housing Redevelopment & Neighborhood Services) committee is where we talked about our affordable housing strategy. Earlier in the conversation, we were talking about the different resources we have for folks experiencing homelessness. We talked about kind of those resources in that Policy Committee. I don’t have the memory of every meeting but I know we’ve also talked about motel redevelopment strategies along the Colfax corridor, and then at the end of the day you know who can help fund a particular project when the federal ARPA dollars came down that that was something that I was hopeful that we could continue to invest in more affordable housing, but it’s a drop in the bucket. I appreciate you continuing to push and learn more. You’re welcome to continue participating in these meetings about a particular topic. I am setting the agenda for that Policy Committee so I encourage you to reach out to me or any other council members that are on that committee. We would love to hear your thoughts and let’s have a discussion but we don’t just talk about housing in the committee, we talk about owning ducks, for example, you know, what’s the quality of conversation too. It’s not a perfect answer, but happy to follow up offline, too. Does anyone else want to share topics they want to talk about?

Crystal Murillo: I’ve tried to answer as best as I can, and then when that’s not possible promptly you know try to tag team my staff to be able to address different constituent issues.

Resident: And what would you say? because you have been in the office for five to six years now. What would you say your average response time is?

Crystal Murillo: I do not have a good average I can share. I am happy to follow up with you regarding any concerns.

Resident: I have emailed you and you haven’t followed up. I hope that you will find out. I came here today absolutely because I thought, well, I appreciate you’re busy. I appreciate the City Council is part-time. It should not be, but I am also a businessperson. If I did not answer my emails I would not be in business.

Crystal Murillo: I hear you. I am happy to connect.

Crystal Murillo: We did evolve into a Q&A. I was hoping before we get to that question, it’s a good question, just to scan and see if anyone else has any topics. I just want to hear what some other topics are. Do you want to hear about it? I heard about policing, and, you know, specific strategies. Crime prevention. I am working with a smaller financing organization, it’s the Rocky Mountain Micro Finance Institute. I think the March Town hall is going to be centered around small businesses. There are two grants available specifically for this part of the city. If you have a small business there are also more affordable business loans, so just know that that’s already in conversation about what are other general topics that you want to hear, more about that we can bring as next month’s topics.

Resident: Would it be possible in the future to have more information about youth violence prevention programs? Maybe incentives for students completing the programs?

Crystal Murillo: Youth violence prevention activities, Jonathan, I think you were mentioning some funding that we’re trying to figure out how to deal with.

Resident: Thank you for that. I know that for Aurora public schools, after the school day, there is a possibility of renting their spaces, and I wish they would have said yes to working with you when they were here. I know there are a lot of neighborhoods that would benefit from engaging or providing support in partnership to benefit those students in that community. To prevent them from wandering. We have a lot of parents at work late or on different shifts. They are not at home a lot, so those kids are the ones who are wandering around stealing cars.

Johnathan: We talked to parents in Aurora, especially in northwest Aurora. There is an overwhelming feeling and of course, I’m not the sole decision maker with where the kids will go, but we do want to make a difference when we talk about northwest Aurora or these at-risk youth, and young adults. The Parks and Rec department had some programs, and a smaller grant last year, and they did like three days and had some opportunities for the youth to come and engage. Places like the rec center, come play basketball instead of just being out on the streets. There are a couple of programs in place, but we are looking to expand.

Resident: Is there a possibility for the city to provide security for the schools if that were to happen in the partnership with our box tools happens is that possibility would then be able to provide safe spaces for the students so nothing happens when the kids are engaged in activities?

Jonathan: That’s a good question. That’s kind of what’s great about the grant is that it’s so broad I mean it’s pretty rare that broad legislation leads to good things, but in the interest of youth services, it is not necessarily off the table. That is why we need input from community members like yourself. As members of this city, we want to empower you… As soon as we get a list of ideas, that’s when we’re going to start taking proposals and getting some emotion going on the grounds.

Dolan Knapp: Crystal, I know that you were on the RTD Accountability Board, and you made recommendations for policies for RTD. You Were the chair of that committee.

Crystal Murillo: Well, you said that I was on it, so I figured you’d know the name.

Dolan Knapp: Yes, I just forgot the name.

Crystal Murillo: It was the RTD accountability committee.

Dolan Knapp: At the RTD Accountability Committee, you guys came up with proposals on how you could improve RTD. What items from that proposal were implemented by RTD? What policy recommendations were implemented by that board? What kinds of things can the Aurora City Council do this year to improve public transportation?

Crystal Murillo: Once that committee was over, we made our recommendations. We were done, so it was advisory in nature. I do not know what RTD has implemented. It would be interesting to bring them for a presentation to see what changes have happened. It was advisory, so I would like to think that I had the specific capability to influence their decisions, but it was clear from the beginning that it was kind of temporary and advisory. It was a title. A title, but if I’m not on the board, I’m not part of the staff, so I couldn’t guarantee any of those things. We tried to work closely with them so that they were the most feasible recommendations and hopefully that meant that they would adopt them, but that’s a potential conversation – a presentation moving forward, so since you mentioned transportation if we can manage it, would that be something you’re interested in?

Dolan Knapp: Yeah. Are there any policies that you would recommend for RTD?

Crystal Murillo: I do not think I could opine. There’s a lot there, but you also asked early on about some of the things that I’m excited about and specifically what I want to mention was around the bus rapid transit along the Colfax corridor. The idea is that the bus is coming up and down the corridor of Colfax corridor connecting the downtown area and the Anschutz medical campus. The two major business hubs for both Denver and Aurora via Colfax. I don’t know if you have taken the 15 or the 15 L, it could take a while. t doesn’t always feel the safest and there’s a Denver pass-specific bond they raised money for specifically to do the center running lane for rapid bus transit. It is going to look a little different. Our current city manager, his former city of Tulsa implemented rapid bus transit, so what you will see is we’ll have bus rapid transit. It won’t look the same as it will in Denver, because we didn’t have a specific source of funding as Denver did to make a center running lane. To be honest, we do not have the same outlets. We do not have streets set aside from Colfax. Long story, short, I’m excited that we are actively investing in redesigning what that will look like once the bus hits Aurora, so while it won’t be in the center like we don’t have space to create a center lane the point of the design is to make it more accessible. We’ve also talked about a ticket system that happens before you enter the bus, so you’re not stopping and waiting for people to pay. Those are like little things that add up to more efficient transit. The goal is to have it running every 4 to 7 minutes. My goal is to get those bus stop shelters to have real-time digital bus schedules, not just printed ones. The printed one is nice, but it does not follow real-time. A real-time kind of ticker that you would see that you could rely on this bus is coming, because frankly when I was part of that accountability committee, something that I heard a lot was that people just did not believe that it would come. I have talked to people and if the bus never came they would have to wait an entire 30 minutes and that’s unacceptable. We can control that, and we’ve invested actual dollars so that the rapid bus transit doesn’t just stop at the Denver work order. We had a presentation last year where we had the engineers come and talk about the different stops. I’m happy to dig that up and send that to you, but that is something related to your transit interests that I am looking forward to. I think that could mean so much for our economic development department here just to get to and from.

Councilmember Alison Coombs Ward V(5) Town Hall

January 2023

Transcript

Just like a month ago, homelessness was continuing to trend upward. Jessica Prosser, how’s she doing with Neighborhood Services Department? Homelessness? Because she’s kind of running the show when it comes to shelter, right? And like taking care of the homeless, helping them assimilate back into the community, and getting a job. Are the shelters at capacity? Are we meeting the capacity needs? And is that running smoothly? Are people able to transition? are we seeing progress on that front with the programs that we do have for the homeless? And then also does homelessness continue to go up? Is the economy going up overall in Aurora? Where can I get these numbers for the unemployment rate and all these things that will show us? I mean, numbers do not show us everything, but they give us an idea as to how we are trending.

I understand the question regarding our homeless response, like how effective is that? I think it kind of depends on who the person is. We definitely have some folks that have successfully gone through the safe outdoor space type sites that we’ve set up with pallet shelters as well as with tents.

Is that expanding or is that staying the same, or going down?

It’s not currently expanding, but we did do a pretty significant expansion. We started it in 2021 and it’s about doubled over 2022 using covid funds primarily, which we obviously don’t have to keep buying those shelters. That is great. We have sites set up with electricity and everything that we need. Shower trailers. Those were one-time costs just to do that setup. But then the success of those programs really hinges on the fact that they are case managers and clinicians onsite helping folks. They are getting folks all their documents taken care of. People need to have certain IDs, birth certificates, and all these to get into the types of programs that area’s going to help turn their life around or be off the street, whatever the situation may be for them. The help they need is often contingent on this basic kind of identity and other documents. The case managers help them get that, help them get into jobs.

There has been a pretty high success rate of folks in those sites getting jobs within 30 days of being there and getting housing within. We have a lot of folks that are not making progress. We have a section of the pallet shelters, about 20 out of the 120 that are specifically reserved for encampment clearing, which means people have a limited stay. It’s like, we’re going to turn you, we’re going to get you out of here so that we have shelter to put people in that we are clearing from encampments. If someone hasn’t gotten a job or found housing in the time that they’re there and has no space in the other, long-term shelters or pallet shelters, then they don’t have anywhere to go.

Is that dependent on their behavior and their actions too? Some of it might be luck, like they may not have luck. And then is it still a hundred percent time based or is also based on how much initiative the person has?

No, so those 20 shelters, it’s specifically time-based. You can be there for two weeks, and that was the pallet shelters. That is 20 of the 120 pallet shelters for encampment clearing. Other folks can be in for longer, as well.

The 20-day one is for people who were in cleared encampments. If your encampment was cleared, you can choose to go there. The other ones, there are wait lists and other processes for folks to get into those shelters, as well as long-term term shelters, as well as other shelters within.

There is not as much coordinated entry as we would like regionally, but there is, to some extent, communication and coordinated entry across the region. Someone will come into the system in Aurora and they might be able to access a housing unit or a shelter bed outside of Aurora. We will know better about our rate of homelessness when we do a point-in-time count on the 31st. Our last point in time count, which was almost a year ago, had over 600 people experiencing homelessness in Aurora, which was an increase from 2021. That was the beginning of 2022.

That was an increase over the beginning of 2021, which had increased over the previous year. We’ve seen this be an increasing problem. We will not know what the point in time count is going to show because we haven’t done it yet. We also must recognize that that’s an imperfect measure, right?

It only measures people in shelters and on the streets. So visible homelessness, it doesn’t measure the many people who are couch surfing. It doesn’t need to measure people sleeping in their car, because you might not see everyone who’s sleeping in their car. It’s just the people we can see on the one day of the year of the 24-hour period that folks are out doing the count.

The numbers are probably higher than that already, than what we’re seeing on the point in time count. And even with the increase of pallet shelters, we don’t have the capacity. I think that puts us between tents, shelters, safe parking, and pallets, I think we’re just below the number of slots necessary.

We do not necessarily want people to just go into shelters, right? We want people to get into homes. From my perspective, that is the way we need to approach this issue. We have not done as well as we could as a city. We need to make sure that we’re providing opportunities for people to get into homes and to stay in homes.

This is also something that the state legislature and the governor have pledged to act on- the housing crisis,

There are two campuses going up in Eastern Aurora and Western Aurora?

There are two campuses, regionwide, so I think one is in Aurora and one’s in the West Metro, or one isn’t necessarily in Aurora. There seems to be this kind of quiet pact between the governor and the mayor that one of them is going to be in a. But there’s an RFP process.

What is that? What’s RFP?

Request for proposals process? Anyone who wants to put together one of these campuses in the eastern part of the metro, granted, we are the largest city, we’re the most likely to be able to provide that.

Everyone can put forward a proposal. So that ordinance that just passed, that was just the ordinance passing a proposal to the governor, or It was a resolution defining the principles the city was going to operate under when making that proposal.

That proposal will be made, so it is not definite that we will be getting more housing?

Well, that’s not more housing. That campus does not have more housing. That campus has more shelters and so it is more shelter. It is not addressing the fundamental housing need.

Um, so that shelter space will be mostly non-permanent, is that what you’re saying?

Right. And then it is regional. It is a regional resource. So it’s not just for a, um, that I think is going to be a really good opportunity to address the resource issues associated with. Not providing the housing that people need, um, and that we need to get people from shelters into housing.

Um, so Right. ‘s, there are many pieces to the puzzle, and I think housing is a crucial one as well as mental health. And I know that the state legislature is working on mental health and behavioral health, so mental health, and addiction training. Um, because I’ve been saying this for at least a year now, that in my conversations with folks region-wide about behavioral health, one of the biggest issues that we have is a workforce similar to with police.

Right? And it’s not necessarily that people don’t want to be in those jobs, but the training is expensive. It is difficult for people to access and it takes time through that coordinated entry system. That’s not just Auroras, other things have gone through the legislature and there was proposition 123 that passed, and the full licensure to provide behavioral health support. Then using that as a pipeline to getting trained clinicians in places that can provide the support for people. The state legislature and the governor are putting resources toward it. We have a lot coming in that we can take advantage of, but we must be competitive.

We must be thoughtful, and we must do what is going to be effective. I don’t think we’ve come to a consensus on that as a council. I had thought after our Houston trip that we were going to get there, and then we did not.

so who writes the proposal? That will come from the staff.

So that will come like lawyers from the homelessness department?

We have a grant writing staff. It will be a collaboration between those staff and it will be reviewed by the lawyers, of course, for the contract aspects, although if it’s a proposal, not as much.

Once the contract is in place, there is more, and then that proposal has to be voted on by the council.

The council’s piece of that proposal is done at this point. We gave our input through a resolution.

This site that you are talking about would be for everybody to come into, is this Denver?

In the resolution that we put forward, it would specifically be staffed by nonprofits. City staff would not staff it. The city would not be responsible for the staffing. And the funding is also regional. It is not just the city. We’ve had commitments from Arapahoe County, tentatively Adams County, and then the state would be committing a pretty large portion of the funding, for building, and then the staffing would be, at least in principle, according to that resolution, coming from non-profits.

We would not be funding the operations. And that part of that resolution was to say the city’s not going to be paying for the staffing. . If we end up with a site that we don’t have nonprofits paying to staff, we’re going to have to figure out what we’re doing about that. Not just us.

That would be, again, regionally, because this is a regional resource, but if we’re saying we’re going to take the lead and we’re going to drive this model forward, then I think it is at least partly incumbent. If that nonprofit staffing funding does not come through, we would then be providing that.

Um, so I think again, we have to be thoughtful about how we’re collaborating with both our nonprofit and regional government partners, and make sure that we’re being collaborative and willing to compromise where we need to.

I’m going to segue to my question because you talked about budget, and I don’t know if you know it, but in Heather Gardens, our HOA fees went up 12 to 15%, which was a lot for some individuals.

And part of that is a variety of things happening obviously in the market right now. But you talked about budget workshops that you all are involved in right now, the councilmen and women. . Can the public go to those? And what are you eyeing? Is there anything you are eyeing that you’re going to cut? Because all I keep hearing is increases and someone must pay the bill eventually somehow. In general, what are you thinking about for the budget, and is there a date for budget workshops that people can attend? Yes, we were having our budget workshop on January 29th, We changed it to; I want to say February 4th.

I’m going to check my calendar. Thank you. Um, that is our, um, winter workshop. And so, the only disclaimer I would make there is that this one is not budget focused. So the way the budget year works, we have a winter workshop where we primarily talk about kind of agenda setting and kind of strategy setting for the city.

And we have one that at any of the winter workshops since I’ve been on council because we’ve been in Covid. So, every single one except for 2020 was about Covid. Um, so we will be doing primarily economic development strategy at that workshop, um, which I’m just going to confirm is in fact on the fourth.

Yes, it is. Okay. Um, and that is at the Aurora Municipal Center. Okay. Um, in the air. And I think that is probably where we’ll likely continue to have our workshops, now that we’re not doing virtually everything. The spring workshop is usually partially budgeted. We go over what’s called the spring supplemental BU budget package, where stuff that wasn’t in the budget setting, we did at the end of the previous year that we talked through different things that we may want to add or subtract from the budget.

We have a summer workshop, which again, Is kind of starting to talk about the budget for the next year, but also has other components. And then we have a fall budget workshop, and that’s where we go into the budget. Okay. Um, and so that’s usually in October, I think this last year for some reason we had it at a weird point in November.

Um, unfortunately, those are not streamed and I don’t know the answer as to why I think that would be beneficial to the public. I will continue to ask if we can stream them as I always do, so hopefully, we’ll be able to have those available to the public virtually.

But those workshops are increasing as we are growing as a city, right? Our retail tax base is growing and our property tax base is growing. That is what you would expect as your population grows. So, in general, you know, the city’s been fiscally conservative.

We have quite a bit of money in reserves. We have marijuana money that we have only dedicated to one-time uses. It has not depleted every year. So that continues to build. And we use it for uses. Some of the entities within the city are also enterprise funds, the Golf program, and then all the water programs are enterprise funds. They pay for themselves, and they’re required statutorily to pay for themselves with rates and fees. That does not come out of the general fund budget. We still must approve their budgets, but it’s not coming out of the tax base. Everything else comes out of the tax base, but the tax base has been overperforming projections ever since Covid.

We thought we were going to have some major tough times in 2020 and we a had dip in, I believe it was either March or May, I don’t remember which now. Um, a huge dip and then a huge rebound in growth. That is good. We have been overperforming ever since then. The factors contributing to that are we have more people staying in Aurora, spending their money instead of going to work in Denver, spending their money because they are working virtually.

That has helped our tax base. Denver has struggled with all the suburban communities not sending people there for work every day. And then we also implemented online retail tax collection , so any type, Amazon, and Wayfair, is called Marketplace Facilitators.

Folks that other people sell online. We collect taxes from all of those people selling online through those. Not every city collects those sales taxes. It has been the difference between underperforming and overperforming in those funds.

Is that a double tax? A tax on Amazon and then a tax on the vendor?

No, so Amazon was, I mean, we charge taxes to Amazon as a company, but no sales tax.

It’s not a tax on the vendor?

No. The sales tax gets charged once. Amazon, Wayfair, and those entities were not charging sales tax or local sales tax. We said you have to start, you’ve got to figure out in your system how you’re going to charge local sales tax on anything that is sold in Aurora.

We all have such great questions. . If someone buys something from out of state, but it comes to Aurora, we’re still charging our sales tax on that.

How do you track that?

It’s the responsibility of the entity doing the selling. We collect the tax from them, so they remit those taxes to us. And it’s been a boot.

Immigration, I know that we have had an influx of immigrants coming in recently. Do the undocumented immigrants, are they calculated in the homelessness numbers? What’s the estimate of the amount of homeless, undocumented immigrants we have here, and the number of undocumented immigrants that aren’t homeless?

What is your take on that? When we already have an issue with housing and we have more immigrants coming, what is the policy?

The point-in-time count doesn’t indicate who’s an immigrant, undocumented, et cetera. That does not get collected. I don’t know the answer to that question.

I’m actually not sure that we have good data. That’s part of the issue with our census and other ways that we collect data. Undocumented people are less likely going to answer the census out of hearing concerns over deportation or imprisonment.

When did you say the point and time counts is?, the 31st January. If folks are interested, you can volunteer to help with that, to go out and kind of talk to people and collect their information. Um, and I have a link for that.

Who does that?

It is a regional process through Metro Denver Homeless Initiative. So, they are regional. They do homeless coordination and work with the feds on homeless issues as well.

Regardless of whether someone was already here, was born here like me, or Moved here from Texas or California or Connecticut or Florida or Mexico, Guatemala or Burma, or anywhere else. Mm-hmm. , um, or sorry, Myanmar or any other place in the world. They’re all people that deserve all of the good things.

What is your policy if they are illegal, undocumented immigrants and haven’t committed any crimes? Should they be allowed to stay in Aurora?

Definitely. That is my position on that. If you came here from Connecticut or you came here from El Salvador, I don’t see a difference between whether you deserve to be here and deserve a good quality home and a good quality of life. That’s my perspective on that issue, but that being said, we have an influx of people from all over the place coming to Colorado and Aurora because we have a beautiful place to be where people want to live. We do have to address our housing crisis. I think that we have to be much more proactive about ensuring that housing is available to people and it is housing they can actually afford.

Councilmember Juan Marcano Ward IV(4) Town Hall

January 2023

Transcript

Everybody. I think we’re finally good to go. So, I want to thank y’all for your patience. And thank you so much for spending your evening with us. My name is Juan Marcano and I have the honor and pleasure of representing Ward four on the Aurora City Council. I hope you all had a wonderful New Year and are ready for the challenges and opportunities that this year is going to present for all of us.

So, we have a really packed agenda today. I want to try to catch up a little bit, but just so you know, I’m happy to stay a little after if y’all are just to ensure that everyone gets their questions and concerns. There are rec centers all over the city except for on the west side of the city, and I heard a rumor, and I really hope it’s true, that they are looking, they’re, they’re going to make Utah.

Into a rec center. Is that true? So it is on our capital improvement plan. Oh, now that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen anytime soon, especially before I die, if I have my way, absolutely. Little bit. But so I’ll tell you that’s been on the capital improvement plan for some time. However, in The current conversation on the council, I might be privy to it.

You know, some of my colleagues think that blowing a $6 million hole in our budget is a responsible thing to do as if we have 6 million a year less in revenue for the city that puts all of that deferred capital, which is almost a billion dollars by the way. All of this whole planet, the city has for parks, rec centers, other improvements, all of that stuff just gets pushed further out into the.

So what I can say is if we can keep that revenue from going away which it’s set to trigger in 2025, and I guess the goal is that between now and then they’ll find some way to either trim $6 million out of the budget or that will grow into it without a plan. Maybe it will remain the same in the current timeline, which is within the next decade.

But if we don’t, I can’t tell you where that’s going to land. What I can say is that we also have other revenue sources that, you know for example, with the sale of Denver Broncos, we have 3.8 million that the city of Aurora has received. That has to be used for sports and, you know, some kind of programming like that.

Which I think a rec center would qualify for. The city is going to open feedback soon from the community to ask all of them. How do we want to spend that money? That would be a great way to bridge what I believe the estimate I got back from South was, are around 20 million. Normally rec center’s a lot more than that, but we already have an auditorium in Utah.

So it’s the pool. So the gap is smaller. , but that 3.8 million would go a long way. Then if we can keep the 6 million that they’re trying to cut, that would also go a long way. And then there are other funding streams that we can dedicate there, especially as we’re paying down debts because our rec centers are funded out of marijuana revenue currently.

And that’s why we were able to do the central and south so quickly because we aggressively paid it on that debt and then we repurpose it and do. But if we have less revenue, you know, then you have less revenue to supplement the marijuana fund. Cause the marijuana fund doesn’t pay for all of it by any stretch.

So hopefully I answered your question there. But yes, that’s coming. Need all of you to be very loud and let my colleagues know that we can, that we should repeal the ordinance that they just passed. And by the way, they didn’t even let us debate it last time. No, no. They just called for the question immediately and just voted.

Yep. So anyway, if you all let the county know that you’re watching them, and you want a rec center, not a 6 million reduction in revenue, that would, I think, go a long way as well. Okay, thank you. Absolutely. Ellen, part of that also, sorry, is that Parks and Rec is the lowest paying. They only get a million dollars and they only get so much less.

It’s like 30,000 for programming in the library. And they are the lowest-paid employees. Mm-hmm. in the city. And despite what somebody said at the council that they are not 44, 40 $5,000 a year is, does not pay for housing, does not pay for whatever. And some of them are in second jobs. So that is another consideration that is being dismissed.

And they have not had a raise in like seven years. Yeah. So, to afford a one-bedroom apartment in Arapahoe County. And by afford, I mean you’re not paying more than 30% of your income. Right. We all understand 30% is like the hu definition for what’s affordable. You need to earn. What is it? $25 and like 50 some odd cents an hour right now.

76,000 a year. Yeah. So, we’re way behind on, our pros and our pro’s salaries. And that’s part of the reason why we haven’t been able to find lifeguards and other, you know, staff to fully staff up our recreation centers. So, yep. Dome. Oh, and I think, did you, okay? Sorry to see, so. This kind of relates to housing and yeah.

So my rent went up again. 20% went up last year, 20%. It’s going up again in March, 20% this year. And I live in low-income housing. And so that’s it’s gonna come out to be $1,200 a month for one-bedroom right over there at Florida Station Apartments. I’m guessing they’ve given you 40% worth of improvements over this period too, right?

Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right. So, see, yeah, so the cost of living is going through the roof. Wages are, are going up like not enough, but heavily outpaced by inflation. Yeah. Anyway, and then we have an immigration issue. The border is a catastrophe, and I know that just recently Polish shipped, I don’t know, what was it, a hundred immigrants to Washington, DC the Texas governor did it too.

And the Florida governor, so obviously we’re having issues with immigration and so with immigration issues, I don’t know what’s going on in Aurora. Are we accepting a lot of these immigrants that are coming over the border in Aurora? They’re showing up. Okay. So basically, we don’t know what to do about nationwide issues.

Yeah, and we’re not, you know, I’ve asked staff, our Office of Emergency Management is aware there are meetings with other emergency managers throughout the Denver Metro because you all read in the newspaper, right? Like there was a whole bunch of folks that showed up in Denver and they mobilized to try to house them.

We’re having similar things happen all over the Denver Metro. Some folks are coming down the Colfax Corridor and ending up here. I was at a meeting earlier this week on Tuesday with Matteo Salvas and a bunch of other folks who organized and, you know, have like the Day Labor Center, the Fields Foundation, all those folks.

We were in a room with like 30 different organizations. Councilmember Medina and I were there. Trying to figure out what we can do to prepare, because they’re pretty darn sure that we’re going to get an influx, whether it’s Republican governors along the border, just, you know, playing politics of people’s lives and human trafficking them to make a statement or some of these nonprofit organizations that are overburdened and don’t know what else to do, but to send people where they’re asking them to send.

We’re going to end up in a situation like this before long. So we were trying to figure out where we can, you know, temporarily house those folks. I reached out to Director Kiki as well to see if maybe some of these schools that have been, you know, or are in the process of being shut down, could be converted into temporary, you know, shelter, right?

They have kitchens, gymnasiums, restrooms, et cetera. And if there’s something we can do as a region to work together, pool resources to help these. Get their documentation right and then, you know, connect them to other organizations in the Denver Metro if they want to stay here or help them. Maybe find places like, there are communities I know, elected officials, and community members out on, like the East Coast for example, where they have a lower cost of living.

They’re smaller towns on the East Coast, but they have large Latino communities. Right. And resources there. The way they might be able to integrate. . So it is, it’s an emergency though. And ultimately this is because the federal government has completely failed over, over my entire lifetime, basically on immigration issues and continues to use people as scapegoats people es escaping horrible conditions.

Like, I mean, could, what would it take for any of us to walk or drive or run a thousand, 2000, 5,000 miles away from our homes? How horrible must be the conditions that you’re leaving, right? And then the people get here and then we just play politics with their lives. So, it’s shameful. But probably said more than you wanted to know, but we, that’s something that we have been discussing.

So, the other thing is, is that we already have a shortage of housing, and have become completely unaffordable. And I don’t think anyone has any answers, but what’s your answer? So, I mean, have you been in talks with developers? I’ve been canvassing, and I talked to this one guy. He was from Afghanistan. The only way I was able to talk to him was through Google Translator. Both of his kids didn’t speak the language and he’s, and he was basically like, you better be prepared to do physical work for the rest of your life, because what else are you supposed to do? I can’t even get a job. I, you know, I’m applying for jobs that pay $21 an hour and I have a college degree.

Where, you know, you have these immigrants pouring in here and it’s like, what are they going to do for the rest of their lives coming here? Yeah. I mean, is their life going to be all that better being here than if they were back in Central or South America? Absolutely. But if they’re living paycheck to paycheck, how is that any different than, it’s a very different struggle when someone’s threatening your life daily because you won’t?

Pimp yourself out, or because you won’t engage in basically unpaid labor or they’re threatening your family because you won’t go work the coca fields or whatever the case may be. It’s a very different situation here when we’re str, we have arm struggles, right? But I’m not going to put their struggle against ours and be like, well, you know, ours are more important.

Or something like that. This country was founded by colonialism, but we’d like to say we’re a nation of immigrants. We welcome people. So, let’s live up to that. The New Colossus poem that’s on the Statue of Liberty, let’s do. My solution for our area is here. Because it’s something that will help folks who are escaping, you know, really horrible situations in the countries that they’re coming from, but also help the people who already live here is to invest aggressively in housing.

Yeah. I and I have been talking to folks about that. I have met with, and we’re setting up another meeting with that we’re a housing authority. CHAA is the Colorado Housing and Finance Association. And Paul Williams who’s with the Center for Public Enterprise on how the public sector supplement can do what the private sector is either unwilling or unable to do, which is to build housing that is mixed-income and attainable for folks on, you know, all rungs of the economic ladder.

They’ve had some great success actually out east you know, doing some of this. So I want us to see if we can do that here. We have some great tools that the state legislature has given. Like a revolving loan fund for affordable housing that we could tap into. We’re going to need to require you now to contribute some resources from the city as well, though to make this happen.

I don’t see the market chomping at the bit to build housing that people at 80% of the median income can afford. Basically, we don’t have any answers to housing. Is there anybody in big tech in California, Silicon Valley, who is thinking about solutions or innovations as to how we use the great minds that we have in Silicon Valley or wherever to innovate? Are there ideas where the private sector and the public sector can come together to create housing that, you know, there’s willingness?

I’ve talked to some developers as well. There’s a willingness to build or to have them contribute basically to address our housing crunch.

But it’s not that simple, unfortunately. And you’re going to need political will. To drive a policy that reprioritizes our budget to focus more on housing. Because we were talking about how Little Pros gets our housing and community services department gets like 3% of the budget of that. So yeah, that’s part of your budget, isn’t it?

So, yeah. It’s just, you know, what are our priorities if we care about housing if we really want to, you know, do pro-equitable economic development to ensure that everyone who works or who lives here can earn a decent living. That’s not reflected in our budget. It’s not reflected in our council, quite frankly.

So yeah, that’s where I would start, Ellen for the housing 30 project down in my neighborhood. But when they opened in 2019, they raised it to $1,400 for a one-bedroom. I do not know how much it is today. And there have been issues and there have been promises, and it was the lips. And corruption and dog and pony by Aurora Housing.

They have a long history of corruption, and we need to change who sits on that commission. We need to change the direction of Aurora housing because they are a for-profit model. Because your predecessor whom I have, you know, I spoke to her about housing, and they, yeah, she said they have not done one fricking thing until it changed over to more G O P ish, and they took it and they ran, and they have lied to us. They have lied to people about that. It’s not a good situation, our housing.

I’m going to need some evidence of that. But if we can see that they’re raising rents to the market rate, that’s something we’ll jump on.

Well, I mean, yeah, they said when they, they dog and pony it, it will start at 900.

When they opened it was 1400. Yeah. And they wanted to put up a 300-unit high rise and we said no. And now they want a. Part of it and Aurora Fire said no because we want that kept as an open space. Basically. They made promises that there would be adequate parking and that there would be no street parking.

For three years they have parked on the street, and they have, yeah, it was an old dog and pony, and it was a whole lip service thing, and they’re not accountable for what they’ve. So, all right.

Like I said if you can show me something that corroborates that, I’m happy to jump on my own.

I’m Karlton. This has been a great meeting. A lot of things were said to us, and some were frustrated with what we said. I see a lot of you in other meetings and we live in a democracy. My favorite statement is democracy is the worst part of government except for all the rest. And to me, that means that we take on the world when we meet. Adolf Putin, as I call him, wouldn’t have a meeting like this.

And there are countries where people in South America don’t have this opportunity. We have 350 million people in this country tonight. We had 29 people here. That’s a start. It sort of gave me a vision that we need to have more people active in a democracy. There’s a saying that democracy doesn’t work unless we do, and I’m encouraged by people that show up here, and I hope we can get more people here at school boards because our democracy is in peril right now. So is the world, you know, with global warming. And we better get our act together. I’ve been reading about the Mayans. That civilization disappeared off the face of the earth. This nation could also disappear off the earth within 200 years from now, what are they going to say about the Americans? Will we still be there going in the same direction as opposed to being at odds?

So, with that said, Commissioner.

I was going to say three things and just three things because everyone has been so patient with everything. We’ve had such wonderful information that has been given and I am so glad that I was able to come today. So, I am Leslie Summey brand newly minted. Commissioner for Arapahoe County District four.

We were sworn in on Tuesday. Thank you very, very much. I’m so grateful for the friends and supporters who are here. And what I can tell you is that everybody said once you get sworn in, it’s like a fire hose. And so just go with it and, yes, it’s a fire hose. So, since Tuesday, we have done, we had our first county commissioner’s meeting.

And that meeting was oh, I, I lied. We were sworn in on Monday. Sorry because I know that Dolan’s going to, you know, put this out there so we can’t say anything. That’s not true. . So, we were sworn in on Monday. The first official county commissioner’s meeting was on Tuesday. County commissioner’s meetings are, they happen on Tuesdays at nine 30 in the morning down on Prince Street at the Aurora Government building, Aurora Arapahoe County Government Building.

That’s the second day in a row that I have said Aurora something. Is it, I mean, does it mean anything? I wonder what that means. We are a huge part of the county, right? ? Well, yeah, you are. Yeah, you are. So, we had our first meeting and we elected a chair. Our chair is Commissioner Warren Gulley, Carrie Warren Gulley, and our pro-Tim, our chair pro-Tim is Commissioner Jeff Baker.

And our financial officer is Commissioner Bill Holen. And so for those of you who do not know where Arapahoe County District four is, It is roughly south of Parker Road to Mississippi, to Buckley, to Bellevue that may be changing. Then, the committee to make recommendations on redistricting has already convened.

And so that is in the works to redistrict and because we are growing and so we need to, to change and we’ve had the census and all that stuff. So, we will be changing. I am hopeful that the district that I know, and love will not change too much. So that is, that’s a couple of things we are working on.

Our new other new commissioner is Commissioner Jessica Campbell Swanson. She is a commissioner for district two. and we have been meeting at the CCI building. CCI is Colorado Count, no County Commissioners Incorporated. And that group puts on a wonderful orientation for brand new commissioners.

We were there yesterday. We were there all day today. We will be there tomorrow learning a lot. Today was focused a lot on land use, roads, and bridges. And on public health, which leads me to, we do have our own Arapahoe County Health Department now, Arapahoe, Arapahoe County Public Health, or is it public health or health?

Arapahoe County. Yeah, APA. Arapahoe County Health. So, we are now no longer part of Tricare. Tricare does not, or tri. It’s late. It’s good. It’s late. I’m tired. . You’re right. Thank you. So TriCounty Health is no longer in existence. Arapahoe County has its own, and we stood that up on the 1st of January. The good news about it, Is that a lot of the employees from Tri-County Health have segued very easily into Arapahoe County Health.

One of, the good things about Arapahoe County is that our diversity, equity, and inclusion have been a large part, of building into the system so that, every member of the community will be able to access it. The things that they need. So the other big thing is the tab.

We’re going to be talking about it a lot because somebody said it somewhere today in Arapahoe County had we det as Douglas County has Douglas County our very conservative neighbor. And had we, Deb debriefed removed that revenue cap of Tabor as 50. Other counties of the 64 counties of Colorado, had we done that, Arapahoe County would’ve had for 2022 $53 million, oh my God, 53 million that we could have used to move our communities forward.

So that is something that is very important to me and that I do want to work on to get that changed. I mean, we’re, we’re a county that our residents deserve. to have their potholes taken care of. Or, our residents deserve to have a quality of life where they’re not as worried about things.

Our children deserve to have their schools funded. And so, we need to look at removing that revenue cap of Tabor. And with that, I’m going to give what gives. Finished. Oh, I was going to give the microphone back and sit down, So you, oh, there’s a, how much did we get? As a citizen of that, roughly.

Roughly for most people, because if we’re all normal, for most people, your taper refund, yearly taper refund is between 11 and $20. Huh.

The seven 50 that we got this past year, that it was wonderful to get that. That came from a different pot of money. Also, that was a different mistake. Exactly. And I also want to add that we’re going to, next month we’re going to be talking about Aurora’s long-term financial outlooks. Mm-hmm.

and Deep Brewing in Aurora, because y’all know we’re deep brewed on sales tax, which means we’re not revenue capped on sales tax, but we are not on property tax. And that is at least 3 million a year ongoing that we’re not putting into our roads, that we’re not putting into rec centers, that we’re not putting into other services that you all count.

Yep. Yes ma’am. So that was going to be my, part of my statement was that Adams County did its years ago. Yeah. And we need to move work on Aurora. Yes, we do. And here we, and here we are. We’ve got Aurora and Arapahoe County. Yes, sir. So, you mentioned land use. I know. Council member. reach out to everybody. That is, I have seen emails come across the screen.

I have had whisperings in my ear of things that we are going to be talking about and working on for our residents and absolutely the Aurora reservoir is one of them. And I, I, I can’t say too much because now my words are all in my head. Like, yeah, remember somebody said that thing about fracking and what are the things we’re doing?

So no, we don’t. But yes, tell everybody because we need to know, you know, numbers. The more people that are talking about what they want, the more the government knows how to act. And so we need to get people at every study session, at every community meeting, every stakeholder, something to say, Hey, this is something I’m interested in.

I know that we’re talking. This is what I would like to see happen. So, I don’t have much to say other than you continue to get involved, and yes. Talk to your county commissioner. Absolutely.

Mayor Mike Coffman: Town Hall

January 2023

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Councilmember Crystal Murillo: Ward I(V) Town Hall

January 2023

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Councilmember Alison Coombs Ward V(5) Town Hall

January 2023

Councilmember Juan Marcano Ward IV(4) Town Hall

January 2023

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