Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
An artificial intelligence summit taking place last night at the
Colorado Convention Center saw industry bigwigs like LinkedIn founder Reid
Hoffman and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt taking part in
the fireside chat.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
It's called den AI. It's the nation's first city led
conference focused on the technology and its potential uses and
solving hard social problems. Our next guest also hosted those
fireside chats, and we lead chats with us every Friday.
Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, mister Mayor, appreciate you coming on
this morning talk about this event. And if I heard right,
are we endeavoring to try to be a hub for
(00:31):
AI here in Denver?
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Day?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I hear that a couple months ago.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Yeah, I mean we really are. You know right now
we already have a mole amount of both tech companies
and AI based companies that are growing here in Denver.
So it's a strong and exciting part of our economy. Yeah.
We really focused on what are the things today I
can do to help us solve some of the most
important problems for facing How do they make trap I'm
permitting systems work in the city faster. A lot of
(00:56):
those things I think can help make city services faster
for people and save taxpayers money. And so we're trying
to help find the intersection of how this technology can
be used to do good.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Mister Mayor, what were some of the biggest takeaways from
the den AI summits and what were some of the
concerns that may have been asked or addressed during this
as well, Because AI is something that a lot of
people still think is a very scary concept.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Yeah, you know, we talked a lot about that, what
are the reasonable guardrails you want to be able to
have on any of these innovations. But what we find
is while there are controversial implications and of course like
national security and drone technology, they're much more practical issues.
Like you know, people talk a lot right now about
how hard they seet a permit in Denver, there are
ways where even in the simple process of submitting an
(01:40):
initial form, we can accelerate the amount of time and
take depend that form around from ten or twenty days
to one day. That's a big benefit for our users,
and so we're looking at simple interventions that can help
make government work more efficiently and more effectively. Out of
that front, we saw a lot of companies both from
color aland around the country that are building these innovations
(02:00):
that can make life simpler, and so that's what we're
focused on and being mindful that we want to do
this for the people that are most at risk and
most fulnable, because oftentimes, if you're someone that needs to
access to a public service, we want to make sure
you can get it and get it easily.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
We've been talking to some of the members of the
Denver City Council getting their takes on the budget and
some things, and there's a little bit of skepticism or
some concerns. What further discussions are you having about that
and where does that stand at this point with trying
to get things finalized.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Yeah, we're going into our last day of budget hearings
today with the Council, so all of our major departments
will prevent present. They all get to hear questions from
council and we walk through what we prioritize and why.
I think we feel very good about the way that
we both met the city's biggest priorities with focusing on
obviously expanding the number of police officers and sheriff defties
to keep focused on public safety and focusing on affordability
(02:52):
and vibrant economic revival and also making sure we're being
good through as the tax payer dollars. We think that
budget does this, You think that council will help us
get a path.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
We spoke with Counseman Kevin Flynn yesterday. He had high
praise for the tighter budget, but also had some concerns
with some of the vacant positions that are left open.
He said, there's five positions in the photo radar speeding
program that could actually generate growth or revenue for the
city but won't be filled. How is it decided which
positions will be left vacant or are there any concerns
(03:24):
of some of those positions that are vacant.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Yeah, I always appreciate counsel and flinn thoughtful take, and
I know he's a focused on public safety as we are.
Well we do. Actually, we let the executive directors of
those departments decide what the most priority positions are if
they want to keep vacing or if they want to
be able to move forward, and so they have flexibility
about how they want to do that, and we would
certainly work with them to fill any positions that both
have immedi impact on public safety and or that we
(03:51):
think could raise revenue. Important to note that we are
while we are reducing our total number positions citywide, we're
actually expanding the number of uniformed officers and bad officers,
So we are expanding on public safety rules. And then
we are tightening up in some other places where we
added a lot of positions during the pandemic and we
had a lot of federal stimulus dollars. But I think
now we have to lift to tighten the belt to
(04:12):
that as those dollars go away.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
When you mentioned tightening the belt and I asked, I
think Kevin Flyn the same question. It's not about necessarily
reducing the budget. Is it limiting about how much more
you spend or you trying to keep it stasis? Is
that the situation?
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Yeah, so we're both limiting the growth of government. This
will be the smallest increase in government spending in the
last fifteen years other than the one year of the pandemic,
and we are actually reducing the size of government for
the first time almost fifteen years. We are reducing the
number of full time employees that we have in the
city by about two hundred across our total employee base.
But those are not layoffs. Those different vacant positions that
we have that we won't refill. That we are reducing
(04:48):
the size of government, and we think in this economic
time that's the right thing to do to be responsible.
To top pare dollars, it's still to prioritize our biggest needs.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Also, this week, we had an opportunity to speak with
not only Kulsman Kevin's Lane, but Councilwoman Floral Vidrez. Both
were actually no votes in pushing for this sales tax
increase for more affordable housing, mainly just asking for more information.
They just felt like they don't have enough details of
what would be the next steps if the sales tax
hike does pass. Do we feel like we have some
(05:17):
more clarification of how this money will be utilized or
do you feel like voters know how this money will
be utilized going forward.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
I think we do have really clear information on how
we'll use it, and I think that's why you see
endorsements and supporters coming on around the city. We have
more than two hundred diferent organizations. We had a big
launch this week that was incredibly well attended, and so
what people know is we are going to use these
dollars to make rent more affordable and to make home
ownership more affordable. And that could be everything from building
more units that are deed restricted, so if you live
(05:45):
in these units, you never have to pay more than
thirty percent of what you make. And so if you
make sixty thousand dollars a year as a server and
not paying more than fifteen hundred dollars a month if
you're at teacher or a nurse or a firefighter, same thing.
Help people get into affordable homes that they can own
and for the rest of their lives and build well.
And it will also help in places where we have
you know, seniors with unfixed income who are being pushed
(06:07):
out of the city to be able to subsidize that
rent to make it affordable for them to be able
to stay. So we think this is going to be well.
We think one of the most important efforts to help
keep the city affordable. And we'll do something other cities
having done other cities, they're kind of standing behind just
watching prices go up and watching the middle class posts
get pushed out of their city. DATI, we're refused to
allow that to happen. We got forty five thousand families
(06:27):
that can be pushed out of the city if we
don't do something, and we're going to refuse to stand
by me nothing.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Skeptics would say they're concerned about a couple of things. One,
it may make prices go up too. A lot of
times when we have these initiatives, that goes into a
for lack of a better term, it's my words of
slush fund versus being actually targeted for what it was
supposed to be. Can you guarantee that if you get
this money, it's going to be targeted to those needs
and not then be repurposed somewhere else because there's something
else that has maybe come through a falls through the cracks.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yeah, I'm really glad you said that, because that is
the exact design of this fund. It isn't a separate
lock box fund that is all used for affordable housing.
It cannot be used for any other city priority, cannot
be used for homelessness, cannot be used for other city services.
It's dedicated just to housing. And every year we'll report
out exactly on how many units you're built, where those
(07:14):
units were, and what sort of affordability has been available,
So I think this is the most transparent, accountable way
to spend these dollars. And to make sure the only
way you can really bring on and umber units you
have the units we need, is that would be a
predictable investment we're making every year. Now, nonprofit and for
profit partners would know, all right, this city's going to
put real money in every year, and they can plan
(07:34):
on hiring more people and bringing on more construction capacities
so we don't have the bottlenecks we see right now.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Denver Mayor, Mike Johnston, mister Mayor, thank you so much
for your time as always, and fingers crossed for a
Broncos win this Sunday.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
I'm ready. We need it.
An artificial intelligence summit taking place last night at the
Colorado Convention Center saw industry bigwigs like LinkedIn founder Reid
Hoffman and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt taking part in
the fireside chat.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
It's called den AI. It's the nation's first city led
conference focused on the technology and its potential uses and
solving hard social problems. Our next guest also hosted those
fireside chats, and we lead chats with us every Friday.
Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, mister Mayor, appreciate you coming on
this morning talk about this event. And if I heard right,
are we endeavoring to try to be a hub for
(00:31):
AI here in Denver?
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Day?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I hear that a couple months ago.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Yeah, I mean we really are. You know right now
we already have a mole amount of both tech companies
and AI based companies that are growing here in Denver.
So it's a strong and exciting part of our economy. Yeah.
We really focused on what are the things today I
can do to help us solve some of the most
important problems for facing How do they make trap I'm
permitting systems work in the city faster. A lot of
(00:56):
those things I think can help make city services faster
for people and save taxpayers money. And so we're trying
to help find the intersection of how this technology can
be used to do good.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Mister Mayor, what were some of the biggest takeaways from
the den AI summits and what were some of the
concerns that may have been asked or addressed during this
as well, Because AI is something that a lot of
people still think is a very scary concept.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Yeah, you know, we talked a lot about that, what
are the reasonable guardrails you want to be able to
have on any of these innovations. But what we find
is while there are controversial implications and of course like
national security and drone technology, they're much more practical issues.
Like you know, people talk a lot right now about
how hard they seet a permit in Denver, there are
ways where even in the simple process of submitting an
(01:40):
initial form, we can accelerate the amount of time and
take depend that form around from ten or twenty days
to one day. That's a big benefit for our users,
and so we're looking at simple interventions that can help
make government work more efficiently and more effectively. Out of
that front, we saw a lot of companies both from
color aland around the country that are building these innovations
(02:00):
that can make life simpler, and so that's what we're
focused on and being mindful that we want to do
this for the people that are most at risk and
most fulnable, because oftentimes, if you're someone that needs to
access to a public service, we want to make sure
you can get it and get it easily.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
We've been talking to some of the members of the
Denver City Council getting their takes on the budget and
some things, and there's a little bit of skepticism or
some concerns. What further discussions are you having about that
and where does that stand at this point with trying
to get things finalized.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Yeah, we're going into our last day of budget hearings
today with the Council, so all of our major departments
will prevent present. They all get to hear questions from
council and we walk through what we prioritize and why.
I think we feel very good about the way that
we both met the city's biggest priorities with focusing on
obviously expanding the number of police officers and sheriff defties
to keep focused on public safety and focusing on affordability
(02:52):
and vibrant economic revival and also making sure we're being
good through as the tax payer dollars. We think that
budget does this, You think that council will help us
get a path.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
We spoke with Counseman Kevin Flynn yesterday. He had high
praise for the tighter budget, but also had some concerns
with some of the vacant positions that are left open.
He said, there's five positions in the photo radar speeding
program that could actually generate growth or revenue for the
city but won't be filled. How is it decided which
positions will be left vacant or are there any concerns
(03:24):
of some of those positions that are vacant.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Yeah, I always appreciate counsel and flinn thoughtful take, and
I know he's a focused on public safety as we are.
Well we do. Actually, we let the executive directors of
those departments decide what the most priority positions are if
they want to keep vacing or if they want to
be able to move forward, and so they have flexibility
about how they want to do that, and we would
certainly work with them to fill any positions that both
have immedi impact on public safety and or that we
(03:51):
think could raise revenue. Important to note that we are
while we are reducing our total number positions citywide, we're
actually expanding the number of uniformed officers and bad officers,
So we are expanding on public safety rules. And then
we are tightening up in some other places where we
added a lot of positions during the pandemic and we
had a lot of federal stimulus dollars. But I think
now we have to lift to tighten the belt to
(04:12):
that as those dollars go away.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
When you mentioned tightening the belt and I asked, I
think Kevin Flyn the same question. It's not about necessarily
reducing the budget. Is it limiting about how much more
you spend or you trying to keep it stasis? Is
that the situation?
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Yeah, so we're both limiting the growth of government. This
will be the smallest increase in government spending in the
last fifteen years other than the one year of the pandemic,
and we are actually reducing the size of government for
the first time almost fifteen years. We are reducing the
number of full time employees that we have in the
city by about two hundred across our total employee base.
But those are not layoffs. Those different vacant positions that
we have that we won't refill. That we are reducing
(04:48):
the size of government, and we think in this economic
time that's the right thing to do to be responsible.
To top pare dollars, it's still to prioritize our biggest needs.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Also, this week, we had an opportunity to speak with
not only Kulsman Kevin's Lane, but Councilwoman Floral Vidrez. Both
were actually no votes in pushing for this sales tax
increase for more affordable housing, mainly just asking for more information.
They just felt like they don't have enough details of
what would be the next steps if the sales tax
hike does pass. Do we feel like we have some
(05:17):
more clarification of how this money will be utilized or
do you feel like voters know how this money will
be utilized going forward.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
I think we do have really clear information on how
we'll use it, and I think that's why you see
endorsements and supporters coming on around the city. We have
more than two hundred diferent organizations. We had a big
launch this week that was incredibly well attended, and so
what people know is we are going to use these
dollars to make rent more affordable and to make home
ownership more affordable. And that could be everything from building
more units that are deed restricted, so if you live
(05:45):
in these units, you never have to pay more than
thirty percent of what you make. And so if you
make sixty thousand dollars a year as a server and
not paying more than fifteen hundred dollars a month if
you're at teacher or a nurse or a firefighter, same thing.
Help people get into affordable homes that they can own
and for the rest of their lives and build well.
And it will also help in places where we have
you know, seniors with unfixed income who are being pushed
(06:07):
out of the city to be able to subsidize that
rent to make it affordable for them to be able
to stay. So we think this is going to be well.
We think one of the most important efforts to help
keep the city affordable. And we'll do something other cities
having done other cities, they're kind of standing behind just
watching prices go up and watching the middle class posts
get pushed out of their city. DATI, we're refused to
allow that to happen. We got forty five thousand families
(06:27):
that can be pushed out of the city if we
don't do something, and we're going to refuse to stand
by me nothing.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Skeptics would say they're concerned about a couple of things. One,
it may make prices go up too. A lot of
times when we have these initiatives, that goes into a
for lack of a better term, it's my words of
slush fund versus being actually targeted for what it was
supposed to be. Can you guarantee that if you get
this money, it's going to be targeted to those needs
and not then be repurposed somewhere else because there's something
else that has maybe come through a falls through the cracks.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yeah, I'm really glad you said that, because that is
the exact design of this fund. It isn't a separate
lock box fund that is all used for affordable housing.
It cannot be used for any other city priority, cannot
be used for homelessness, cannot be used for other city services.
It's dedicated just to housing. And every year we'll report
out exactly on how many units you're built, where those
(07:14):
units were, and what sort of affordability has been available,
So I think this is the most transparent, accountable way
to spend these dollars. And to make sure the only
way you can really bring on and umber units you
have the units we need, is that would be a
predictable investment we're making every year. Now, nonprofit and for
profit partners would know, all right, this city's going to
put real money in every year, and they can plan
(07:34):
on hiring more people and bringing on more construction capacities
so we don't have the bottlenecks we see right now.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Denver Mayor, Mike Johnston, mister Mayor, thank you so much
for your time as always, and fingers crossed for a
Broncos win this Sunday.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
I'm ready. We need it.
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