Speaker 7: Respectfully pass. Thank you.
Speaker 1: All right. Thank you. All right. Moving on to our second proclamation this evening. Councilmember Canete, will you please read proclamation 21-1, one, four, two.
Speaker 7: Thank you. Council President Proclamation 20 1-1142 is in opposition to Initiative 304 and the immediate cuts to residents services and programs for children, mental health, homelessness and more it would inflict on Denver. Whereas in July 2021, a signature gathering effort that would become known as Initiative 304 was deemed sufficient by the Denver clerk and recorder after the campaign paid signature gatherers from a source of unknown origins to collect Denver voter signatures. And. WHEREAS, Initiative three or four was placed on Denver's November 2021 ballot without any attempt by the proponents to work with the mayor, city councilor, community members and does not address any tax or policy concerns that have been identified by Denver's elected leaders , nonprofit groups or citizen organizations. And. WHEREAS, Initiative three or four is unnecessary and will harm Denver by forcing the city to immediately reduce its sales tax rate from 4.81% to 4.5%, which, depending on how the ordinances impact on marijuana taxes is interpreted, would translate to an immediate cut of 4.7 million to $8 million to the current 2021 budget before the end of the year. An annual cuts of up to 80 million to city residents and community services in 2022 and beyond. And. WHEREAS, Local governments in Colorado have limited revenue options to fund residents services, primarily sales and property taxes. And Denver has worked to limit the disparate impact of the sales tax on low income residents by exempting food, fuel, medicine and feminine hygiene products and sales taxes and paid in part by visitors, unlike the property tax. And. Whereas, Initiative 304 will force cuts to essential residents services such as road repairs, park maintenance, mental health, homeless services and fire protection. At a time when Denver is doing everything possible to recover from the pandemic and the scale of these cuts could be the equivalent of having to cut 390 uniformed police, sheriff or firefighters, the entire Denver Public Library budget, or all the city funding dedicated to current and future parks. And. Whereas, Denver voters have previously approved funding for the Denver Preschool Program, Denver Prosperity Fund for College Scholarships, Homelessness Resolution Fund, and other dedicated funds for mental health, climate and healthy foods to address our city's highest priority needs and initiative three or four will also force unnecessary and dangerous cuts to each of these programs, disingenuously undermining the will of voters and harming youth, vulnerable residents and climate protection at a time when needs are at their greatest. So now, therefore, be it proclaimed by the Council of the City and County of Denver, Section one, that the Council of the City and County of Denver opposes. Initiative 304 on Denver's November 2021 ballot and urges voters to reject the harmful cuts three or four would make to essential residents services and critical programs previously approved by Denver voters and Section two that the Clerk of the city and county of Denver shall affix the seal of the city and county of Denver to this proclamation.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Council member communicate your motion to adopt.
Speaker 7: Thank you. Council Member. Council President. I move that proclamation 21 dash 11 four to be adopted.
Speaker 1: All right. Thank you. It has been moved and seconded comments by members of Council Councilmember Kenny.
Speaker 7: Thank you. Council President. We have in the initiative process the opportunity for individuals to put things on the ballot. And all we have in front of us is the plain language of those measures. What they really intended isn't always obvious, and in many cases we have to do our best to educate voters on the worst and most actual outcomes that those can have in our process. The Department of Finance is charged with the responsibility of analyzing ordinances and giving the city's position to the clerk's office. What we commonly think about is the blue book, where they describe the fiscal outcomes. These outcomes that I have described are from that fiscal analysis and they are serious. Is it possible that there could be litigation, that there could be different interpretations? Absolutely. That is always a risk with proclamations, but is our obligation to analyze, provide our best analysis. And in this case, we have multiple sales taxes in the city. This initiative refers to a sales tax. It doesn't clarify what it means about marijuana or what it means about special taxes, but it addresses very solidly the core funding mechanism used to support government. The same group that funded this has also funded measures that are like TABOR to cut income tax rate. They've been behind measures that also cut the property tax. You start to see a trend here, which is about preventing government from any of the tools that we might need. So what.
Speaker 4: Happens.
Speaker 7: If three or four passes? Right. We have immediate cuts to the 2021 budget. Right. As people are needing more. Right. As the question from residents is, can you take better care of my parks? Can you improve my streets? Can you make them safer? Can you provide more multimodal options? The people of Denver are expecting us to keep up with the change, with the demands, and with the services that they need for a good quality of life. And these taxes are the way that that is paid for. Taxes are never easy, but they do provide those services that residents demand. So this proclamation is also important to think about as a whole with the other items on the ballot. We already voted to refer a group living ordinance to the to the to the laws of Denver that that option sorry, that ordinance expanded housing options and it is subject to repeal. I did not bring a proclamation forward on that because the council has already voted 11 votes made that the law. But you have to think about these three ballot measures together to F takes away housing options right immediately in three quarters of our city takes away the option to share housing costs. 304 Cuts the sales tax, which is a partial source, funding our affordable housing fund. It cuts homeless taxes, it cuts mental health taxes. All the things we talk about is preventing and intervening with homelessness. So you've got one ballot measure to cut housing options. You've got another ballot measure that cuts funding to housing and homelessness and other services that are essential. And then you've got 303, which makes the city massively liable for not being able to act faster to address homelessness. You have to think about together, why would someone support why would the same funding source support all three of those measures? Because it's not about making things better in Denver. If it were about making things better, you might do one of those, but you wouldn't cut the funding. You wouldn't cut the housing options. But when you cut the very funding, we need to reduce homelessness. At the same time, you make us more liable for homelessness. Clearly, something else is at work, and that's why these proclamations are here tonight is to really shine light on that. So the voters of Denver have some of that information to think about what is really happening and how these pieces interact before they vote on the ballot . So with that, I again respectfully ask for my colleagues support to oppose. It's always tricky. We're voting yes tonight to take a position in opposition to measure three or four. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilmember Koinange. Next up, we have Councilmember Ortega.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Madam President. I want to thank Councilwoman Kinney for bringing both of these forward and for that eloquent explanation of what impact this would have on our city, on our citizens, on our city budget. At a time when we have so many people that are suffering in our community and are in desperate need of many of these programs and resources that that funding. And and so I just appreciate her effort in bringing these forward and also in being part of the circuit, going out to neighborhood associations and other groups to talk with them about the impact that this will have on our city and our communities. So with that, I will be supporting this tonight as well. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilman Ortega. Next up, we've got Councilmember Flynn.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Madam President. With reference back to some of the remarks by Councilwoman Coinage, my reading of the initiative is that it clearly would entail the marijuana tax. I know the staff is still analyzing that, but I want to point out that also on our ballot is a measure asking voters to increase our marijuana sales tax so the same voters may be increasing the marijuana sales tax above its current level of whatever it is total 11% or some such to the bring the local level down to no greater than 4.5%. I don't know how the lawyers or the courts will reconcile. If voters pass both of them because they ask for two contradictory things. The other thing I liked, a few other things I like to point out is that the initiators of three or three and three or four have presented us with measures that are at odds with each other, because clearly, as the prior proclamation pointed out, three or three would require to comply, although I believe compliance is nearly impossible with 303, which is why I supported the proclamation. To comply with 303 would require a significantly large increase in our spending on resources, on police, on alternative services, on mental health workers, on cleanup crews. At the same time, the other measure reduces those resources. And so it's asking us to increase on one hand the level of service, but to decrease the resources we have available for that. I would also point out that there are seven, as the councilwoman said earlier, voter approved initiatives that would be extremely cumbersome to reduce were three or four to pass. We would have to take that on. It would be our duty. But it's not easy to do. And I don't know that it could be accomplished before the requirement to adopt a balanced budget by by the end of this year, within the first ten years of passage of a voter initiative, which all seven of these special sales taxes were. It requires a supermajority of the council and a public hearing on each of the seven measures. The general sales tax that supports all of the services of the Councilwoman and Councilwoman Commissioners in this case pointed out police, fire, library, parks, streets, you name it, funded by the general fund, would face significant shortfall and it would be very difficult to replace. And my fear is that it would establish a much better case in favor of something that I oppose, which is going to be discussed in the city within the next year. And that's charging a fee for residential trash collection or pay as you throw. I have very good arguments against that, which I'm not going to go into here, but I believe that passing this would increase the pressure to do exactly that. And I would oppose doing that as a as a way to replace the revenue that would be lost in order to maintain trash services, solid waste services. As well-intentioned as this is, I believe it's another case of something we faced with the Green Roofs Initiative, which was so I'm looking for the right adjective written with such difficulty to implement that we had to completely rewrite it before it could be we could put a substitute in its place. We had to wait at least six months to do that because you can't amend a citizen initiative within the first six months and then for the ten years after that, only after a public hearing and a supermajority vote. So for all those reasons, Madam President and Councilwoman, I'm going to vote I on this proclamation. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilmember Flynn. Next up, we've got Councilmember Clark.
Speaker 0: Thank you, Madam President. You know, I think that one of the biggest testimonials coming tonight is that I'm going to speak right after Kevin. Councilman Flynn on some things that I vehemently disagree with him. And we will get into that another night. But I'm going to agree with him on where I'm going to vote on this. And I think that that's where we're really looking at, you know, good governance. And this initiative, three or four, is a complete and total nightmare nightmare for Denver. This initiative is deceptive. It's anti-democratic. It's backed, as you heard, by groups that saddled our communities with TABOR or something that we've been unwinding locally and statewide for years. It's been put forward by groups that do not at all represent Denver voters and Denver values and have now resorted to trying to lie and deceive and trick Denver voters into something that erodes at the very foundation of what they have stated that they value at the ballot box. We already have a system where we can't sit up here and increase the sales tax rate. If there is something that we are hearing day in and day out, that our constituents, that the citizens of Denver value and want us to fund and spend money on. The best we can do is put that proposal in front of voters to determine if what we're hearing if is in line with what they value. And time and time again, Denver voters have said yes, have said no upon occasion to those proposals. They've been able to make those choices. And this by trying to lie and deceive. And Trick is attempting to undo that and say, oh, I. Disagree with Denver voters and Denver values. And so maybe if I can write something that sounds good on the surface, then I'll trick you into saying, no, you didn't really value all of those things that you at the ballot box told us to raise funds through this funding mechanism and spend on. And I think for that reason it's very dangerous. So this hurts our cultural and our arts institutions. This hurts our college affordability program. This hurts our housing programs and the services that we need for those experiencing homelessness, all of the services to get them to a place where we don't have these encampments in our neighborhoods. This harms our substance abuse and mental health programs. This devastates our parks. And this sets us back when we have taken a step that sets us apart from cities across the globe, in our Denver voters standing up and saying, we need to combat climate change. We need to do it now. We need to do it locally. That is something that we value and we care about and we are no longer willing to sit by and do nothing. And this. This tears all of that apart. And so even if I will disagree on some of the details of policies that we are going to debate up here later with some of my colleagues, I stand 100% in agreement with them that this initiative is a nightmare for Denver. It is anti democracy. It it it negates the voice of Denver voters where they have their voice to speak by trying to trick and deceive. And I will definitely be supporting this proclamation and opposition of this initiative tonight. And I thank my colleague, Councilwoman Kennedy, for bringing this word. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilmember Clark. Up next, we've got Councilmember Hines.
Speaker 2: Thank you, council president. In this October season of tricking trick or treat, I would say that I hope that we can have Halloween be a few days later as an Election Day in November because this initiative is all trick and no treat. I hope you remember that, voters. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Councilmember Hines, and I appreciate my colleagues chiming in as well. And really what this does is it rolls back all of the work that voters in the city and county of Denver have have done over the years to make sure that we have the funds available for those essential residential services. And so I appreciate my colleagues speaking out in opposition of this initiative. 304 And I wholeheartedly support that opposition as well. Now is not the time to roll back the money and the services that we have available. It's time to implement those and build on that success. And so happy to support it. Madam Secretary, roll call.
Speaker 4: Can I? Ortega. Sawyer. I black. I see tobacco. I.
Speaker 0: Clark, i.
Speaker 4: Flynn.
Speaker 0: I.
Speaker 4: Herndon.
Speaker 2: I. Kind.
Speaker 4: Cashman. I Madam President.
Speaker 1: I. Madam Secretary, close the voting and announce the results.
Speaker 4: 11 Eyes.
Speaker 1: 11 Eyes Proclamation 20 1-114 to has been adopted and we are not going to have any proclamation acceptance and so we are going to go ahead and move forward on the agenda. Councilmember Black, will you please read Proclamation 20 1-1185, please.
A proclamation in Opposition to Initiative 304 and the Immediate Cuts to Resident Services and Programs for Children, Mental Health, Homelessness and More It Would Inflict on Denver.