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11 13 24 Denver City Council President Amanda Sandoval on approving the 2025 budget
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It's beginning to sound a lot like the holidays. The Roku Channel, your home for free and premium TV, is giving you access to holiday music and genre-based stations from iHeart all for free. Find the soundtrack of the season with channels like iHeartChristmas and North Pole Radio. The Roku Channel is available on all Roku devices, web, Amazon Fire TV, Google TV, Samsung TVs and the Roku mobile app on iOS and Android devices. So stream what you love and turn up the cheer with iHeartRadio on the Roku Channel. Happy streaming. Hey, this is Colorado's Morning News. Marty Lenz, Gina Gondek at Morning. The city of Denver has a new budget. What made the cut? What different? Didn't make the cut. Joining us now on the KUA Common Spirit Health Hotline to talk more about it is the Denver City Council President Amanda Sandoval. Thank you so much for your time this morning. Thanks for having me. Hey, this budget passed unanimously with City Council members last night. What are some of the biggest highlights that you believe are in this budget, which seems to be a little tighter than usual next year? Yeah, great question. It is tighter than since I've been on City Council, except for the 2021 budget due to COVID. So we had to really work in a comprehensive manner. What I'm really excited about that's in the budget is we have continued rental assistance. It has the data to prove that it's needed with the amount of eviction that we're still seeing due to COVID. And we have a fund for businesses that get impacted by construction and with the construction of the bus rapid transit on East Colfax. We were able to put 1.1 more million dollars into the 2025 budget for those small local businesses because our small local businesses in Denver are what keep us alive and thriving. And then we also got more money put into safe routes to school. So unbeknownst to me, I learned this year that when Denver Public Schools plans their schools, they don't have to go through a site development plan. And so sometimes that has unintended consequences of traffic. And so we were able to add another million dollars into making sure that our kids and parents can get their kids safely to school. So those are some of the just the highlights that I'm really proud of. What did you have to cut? And was there any areas of waste that you all saw that you did away with that is good in the process as well? Adding is nice or enhancing, but also I know takeaways of saying we can be more efficient with these dollars spent. So there continues to be a budget review committee. I mean, sorry, sorry, sorry, personnel review committee. And so what we're doing is we're looking at vacancy savings. That is not on our side. That's solely like when you have separate branches of government. That's when the mayor's office comes into play. So if you are an agency and you have a vacancy, and you need that position field, you have to determine how does it impact the city? What outcomes are proven from that position? And so that's how we were able to balance the budget. This year is through that vacancy committee. President Sandoval, I know that the Denver Basic Income Project was one that was debated between the council members and Mayor Johnston. It sounds like the funding for that was ultimately cut from the budget. What was the overall rationale for that? Were there any city council members that pushed back or supported the funding of that? Yes. Last Monday, we had our budget amendment process and three council members brought forward a budget to continue funding the basic income project. And ultimately, it failed for a vote 6-6. So it was very divided. We had one council member absent, therefore that's right, it was 6-6. So the rationale, I can't speak for the mayor, but for me, the reason I voted the way I did was the data did not seem to be proving the outcomes. And the mission of the Basic Income Project is to do housing and it's a housing resolution. And I think it's a, I've seen it work for sure, but not for housing resolution. I've seen it work for other, to help people in other ways. And I really want to make sure that my focus is doing housing resolution, which means making sure people can get into housing and stay in housing. And on that note, I mean, I know you're trying to make Denver more affordable, but sometimes some of these budgets, they have the opposite effect. I mean, you only control so much, but what other initiatives can you do within or even outside of the budget you all in the council to make living in Denver more affordable? That's a great question that I think about all the time. Right now in City Council, a huge process has gone forward of adding entitlements for accessory dwelling units. That started in Northwest Denver with myself of being able to rezone one neighborhood by one neighborhood to allow accessory dwelling units. And with some of the state funding, there's an accessory dwelling in a bill. So I'm hoping that we'll be able to get state funds to be able to make Denver to your point more affordable square footage to determine market. And so if we have a mix of housing stock that is smaller in square footage, I'm hoping that what we can do is we can get enough of that on the market where market prices go down. That's understandable, that we still have under control and council is land use. Sorry to interrupt there. We have about a minute left real quick. I'm curious about if there's been any conversations now with two hours, the sales tax for affordable housing failing. Are there any conversations that are being had in order to help fuel more affordable housing? You mentioned some of the ones that are already in the budget, but other conversations that are happening going forward to make Denver more affordable. Well, with those results just coming down this weekend, we haven't been approving the budget last night. We haven't had that conversation at Swiss City Council, but I'm sure it's a conversation that we'll have in 2025. And until then, we have to just keep working on the units that we have in the queue and we're going to have to keep exploring different tools that we can add to our toolbox and partnering with the state with the Prop 1, 2, 3, and all the different funding mechanisms that we can find. Denver City Council President Amanda Sandoval, thank you. There's only one feeling like knowing your banker personally, like growing up with a bank you can count on, like being sure what you've earned is safe, secure, and local. 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