Speaker 1: Right. All right. Next up, and before I read this proclamation, those of you needing a translation, Spanish translation, we do have it. And I apologize. There she is with your hands in the air. I do apologize for mentioned that late. So we do have that. All right. I will read Proclamation 993. There's a 2017 honoring the board of directors for the Denver Union Station Project Authority for its service. Whereas Denver Union Station Project Authority, otherwise known as BA, is a Colorado nonprofit corporation and instrumental instrument of the city, creating pursuant to Ordinance Number 334 series of 2008 adopted by the City Council of the of the City on June 28 and was created for the purpose of financing, equipping, designing, constructing, renovating and taking such other actions as necessary with respect to the redevelopment of the Denver Union Station. And. Whereas, since its formation, Duster has operated as in partnership with the city and the Regional Transportation District, RTD and the Colorado Department of Transportation and the Denver Regional Council of Governments and Denver Union Stations, Metropolitan District, collectively the partner organizations. And. Whereas, since its formation, Duster has been managed and controlled by a board of directors comprised of 13 appointees representing each partner organization, the board. And. Whereas, the past nine years, the following individuals have served on the board generously donating their time effort to steward the redevelopment of Denver Union Station. And I will read those. And there are a lot of them. The Honorable Elvira Wedgeworth, Gerald Glick, Alora Eldredge, Ralph Aspen, the Honorable Kent Bagley. William A Banjo. Alvis Brooks. Mario Carrera. Peggy Catlin. Russell. George. Barbara. Grogan Thomas. Gogan. Brendan Hanlon. Terry Howard. Donald Hunt. Mark Imhoff. Stephan Stephan. Stephen Kaplan. The Honorable Carrie Kennedy. The Honorable Robin Kennett. Marla Lehne. Heather McKillop The Honorable Judy Monteiro. Mr. Year. Okay. Clot Pamela Jacob. Rigger Jennifer. Shift shuffling. Ed Schultz, Mark Smith and Michael West. Whereas the visionary outlook and tireless service of these individuals help to transform the Denver Union Station into a vibrant transportation hub and community gathering destination, offering local and commuter rail service by RTD Regional and across across the country. Rail Service by Amtrak modernization of Underground Bus Pavilion, a luxury hotel, a commercial and residential space, popular eating and drinking, established and establishments and a thriving community plaza. Now, therefore, may be proclaimed by the Council of the City County of Denver that the city and county, though the Council of the City and County of Denver hereby recognize and honor all these members. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your services. The Board of Directors for the Denver Union Station Project Authority, both past and and current. The Clerk of the city of the County of Denver shall affix the seal of the city and county of Denver to this proclamation and copy be transmitted to every board member. And I move that proclamation 993 be adopted. It has been moved and second it. Thank you so much and I'll just open with comments. I get the awesome opportunity to have Union Station in my district and literally I've put nothing into Union Station. This is all about leaders in the community and several mayors for the last couple decades investing in this incredible opportunity, in this incredible location. And, you know, one of the coolest thing is I have colleagues all over the country, mayors and city council folks who come to Denver just to see Union Station come to Denver to see how we have created this this hub. But it's not just about the hub, because there's incredible development opportunities that have happened in Union Station. And the ratio of of public money versus our private investment is about 1 to 4. So every dollar of public money we put in, we've received a $4 return on our private investment. It is an incredible I think it's incredibly representative of who we are as Colorado as Denver to come together for this collaborative project and see it be so successful. So that doesn't happen by accident. It's something in our DNA in Colorado, something in our DNA in Denver to make these things happen. And what I love most about it is it's preserving and it's remembering our incredible history in Denver, our entrepreneur, our pioneer spirit. So I'm excited to bring this proclamation forward, and I hope my colleagues can support it. Councilman Ortega.
Speaker 11: Thank you, Mr. President. First, I want to ask that my name be added and just share a very brief bit of history. So this used to be part of my council district when I represented District nine, and I actually had worked for Sal Carpio, and he was the catalyst that worked towards taking what had been vacant, an abandoned railroad land that that was not contributing to the city tax base. And it was his vision to see the Central Platte Valley redeveloped. And, you know, fast forward to today. Lots of things have happened down there. But I also want to give my thanks and kudos to the entire team. It took a large number of not only individuals, but different entities coming together to make our train station become a reality. And even looking back to 2011, when I decided to run, to come back to serve on this body, I took some pictures from the Millennium Bridge. And many of those buildings that are down there right now in in what is still known to many of us as the Central Platte Valley, some people now call it Riverfront Park. None of those buildings were there. And it's almost entirely built out right now. So, you know, that project has been a catalyst. It also raises some some challenges that some of us have have worked on and talked about. And that's the issue of railroad safety and the fact that we've got a lot of development that comes through there where we have our railroads. But, you know, it's created some many, many opportunities for more folks to utilize our. Our train that goes up to Winter Park, as well as our trains that now serve folks going out to the airport. But we will have other lines that will be coming online soon. So thanks for all of your work. I see some of the folks sitting in the audience. This is this is a great a great night to celebrate. Thanks.
Speaker 1: Great. Counselor Flynn.
Speaker 8: Thank you, Mr. President. I just want to chime in very briefly to say that it's truly remarkable what the city has done with its what I still call the old warehouse district. The first time I came to Denver in the early seventies and saw railroad cars ply freight cars, plying those streets on railroad tracks and then seeing it sort of wither on the vine and almost losing it, almost losing it to demolition and how different the rail yards could have been had we followed up on some of the earlier plans that we saw down there that in one case, voters had rejected. And to see it today as the thriving, almost, almost the center of gravity now for downtown, moving to the north, down to the old, the older old rail yards. And to see that station revitalized is just a remarkable thing that Mr. President I never thought I would live to see, but I just wanted to add my congratulations to the Denver Union Station Project Authority for a job well done. Thank you.
Speaker 1: And thank you, Councilman Flynn. All right. Seeing no other comments. Madam Secretary.
Speaker 7: Raquel Black.
Speaker 4: Clerk Hi.
Speaker 7: Espinosa. Flynn. Hi, Cashman. Lopez Hi, Ortega, I. Sussman Hi, Mr. President.
Speaker 1: I please close voting and other results.
Speaker 7: One's missing. Let's see.
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. Let's see who we're missing this time.
Speaker 7: Cashman.
Speaker 1: Cashman. Here you go. Okay. Thank you, Councilman Cashman.
Speaker 4: Sorry to tell you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's okay. 99 nine I's Council Bill 9093 has been adopted. Congratulations. I want to call up to the podium. My predecessor for four Denver City Council. Former president of Denver City Council. Now she's the chief government and community relations officer at Denver Health. The Honorable Deborah Edgeworth and also Jerry Glick, the managing partner at Columbia Group and vice president of Display since 2008. Please head to the. Head to the podium.
Speaker 8: Council President Brooks and members of City Council. Thanks for having us here tonight. This is a perfect example of a coordination between a number of public bodies. Without the city's participation, our TDS, Dr. COG and C Dots. This project probably wouldn't have happened. So we finished ahead of budget, ahead of schedule. We refinanced the debt 22 years earlier than was projected. And the ordinance that you're going to look at tonight does the final thing for us. It puts us out of business, which is what we'd like to do. So thank you very much. We appreciate your support.
Speaker 5: And Gary Alper Wedgeworth. I serve as the president of the board and have for the last nine years. And on.
Speaker 12: Behalf of the board.
Speaker 5: It's been an amazing nine years for volunteering.
Speaker 1: For this project. And we're very proud of the.
Speaker 12: Leadership that we've provided to this project. It's been a long.
Speaker 1: Road.
Speaker 12: But it's been worth every step for us because this is an.
Speaker 5: Incredible local, state and national.
Speaker 1: Model for multimodal. And we really feel nationally we've kind of hit the mark in terms of future.
Speaker 5: Projects.
Speaker 1: In this country and it being.
Speaker 12: More important, a lasting legacy for many generations.
Speaker 1: To come.
Speaker 5: So I'd like to thank the city council, of course, along with Mayor Hancock and the previous mayors.
Speaker 12: Also the council representatives that have been on the board.
Speaker 1: Council president Perks. Councilwoman Monteiro and Councilwoman Canete. So thank you very much. Thank you. And I just want to make sure we get this right. I didn't I didn't know that it was 22 years early for the refinance. We just refinanced all the bonds and is 22 years early. Wow.
Speaker 8: At 22 years earlier than was originally projected when the forecast.
Speaker 1: Wow. Congratulations. Okay. It's good to be in Denver, huh? Wow. Okay, we have another proclamation. Councilman Ortega, will you please read Proclamation 994?
A proclamation honoring the Denver Union Station Project Authority and its Board of Directors for exemplary service.