House Transportation, Housing & Local Government [Mar 24, 2026 - Upon Adjournment]

Please call the roll. Representatives Basenecker. Here. Brooks.

Jackson.

Lindsay.

Gwen.

Pascal.

Phillips.

Richardson.

Sucla.

Velasco.

Weinberg.

Here. Here. All right. We are here today initially to hear two bills for action only, the first one being House Bill 1196.

Also, just briefly to the committee, we do have copies of the strike below if anybody needs one.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Do you want me to go over the entire bill? Because I know we're only here for action only.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, members of the committee. It's a pleasure to be back here again on 1196 with Representative English. We have a strike below for you today, L17. and that's been having worked with some of the stakeholders that came before the committee and opposition and an amend as well on the bill. I mean, in the legislative declaration, it talks about how rent is one of the largest expenses, recurring expenses for any household in Colorado, and rent payment has profound implication for tenants' financial stability opportunity and long-term wealth building, and everyone has the right to fair treatment and transparency in housing. So this bill has four sections. The first section is the legislative declaration. The second section is about personal identifying information in eviction court being redacted because once a court record becomes unsuppressed, Oftentimes, people's information is released to the public, and that information can be used by nefarious actors, especially when you have someone, social security number, birthday, driver's license, state ID, bank account number, credit card number, and debit card number out there in the public domain. The second part of the bill talks about notice to prospective tenants on what would lead to a denial of being able to rent at certain apartment complexes or being able to rent a place. And also it also asks for notice on the type of information that would be needed as well during a tenant screening. And then the third part or the section four of the bill is around positive rent reporting, which was the issue of contention for some of those who testified when we were here the last time. and their concern was around the mandate of shall offer. We have worked that section of the bill extensively and those stakeholders are currently, they're in support of the amendments. So basically instead of saying that they shall offer it is they shall disclose basically They have to disclose whether they offer rent reporting And if they do there are some of the requirements in that section And I'll stop right there to see if there are any questions, comments, feedback, or representative English.

Rep Froelich. I move Amendment 17 to House Bill 1196.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to add more value to what Representative Joseph said in the stakeholding process. Clearly we've been having conversations and listening to understand, which is why we have the strike below here. and this is no longer a mandate. It is a disclosure and just simply offering a service that you're providing to a tenant or a renter is not causing harm to anyone. And I think the work that has been put into this bill and into this strike below is in a good place. And so we're asking for a favorable recommendation to get it out of committee. And in saying that, we are definitely still open to having conversations with the stakeholders. But as the bill is written now in the strike below, it's in a good place from the work we've done. And so I want to thank my co-prime, Representative Joseph, for the work she's done on this bill. And I'm honored to serve with her. Thanks.

So Rhett Phillips. Thank you, Madam Chair. My question is just thank you for all the stakeholding. Is there anybody after the amendments? Is there anybody remaining in opposition?

I just want the record to reflect that Reps Weinberg, Sukla, and Richardson have joined us and Jackson as well. Are there any other questions on the amendment? Is there any opposition to the amendment? Seeing none, L17 is adopted. Sponsors, any other amendments? Are there any amendments from the committee? Seeing none, the amendments phase is closed.

Representative English. In the community. Thank you, Madam Chair. I co-sign everything that Rep. Joseph said, and this is a good bill, and it is helpful to our renters in the community. And I just want to level set on the piece to where there is positive credit reporting because what that does is help create generational wealth for families when they can have the opportunity to actually purchase a home.

A proper motion would send House Bill 1196 as amended to the Committee of the Whole, Rep. Furlick.

As a proper motion and a second, are there any closing comments from the committee? All right. Seeing none, I will just say I am so appreciative of all of the work that was put into the multiple iterations of what eventually became this bill and just wanted to express my gratitude. So with that, Mr. Gravy, please pull the committee. Representative Basenecker. Yes. Brooks.

Jackson.

Lindsey.

Wynn.

Pascal.

Phillips. yes richardson no sukla no velasco yes weinberg no frolic yes madame chair yes that passes nine to four congratulations thank you you're on the way to the committee of the whole all right house bill 1316 for action only as well we have some amendments

Representative Hamrick, do you think it would be best to move and then explain each amendment or explain them all at once? What would be your preference?

Great. Give us one second to hand them out then. Representative Furlick.

That's proper motion and a second.

Are there any questions about Amendment L-006? Any opposition to L-006? Seeing none, L-006 is adopted. Representative Furlick.

As a proper motion and a second, Representative Hamrick.

Are there any questions about L7, Rep Phillips?

Thank you for the question. So it's for the entity embedded in the metro district. So it's not for the national group. So we just want to make sure that we ensure private for-profit clubs that mandate homeowner dues through real estate covenants provide the same basic financial transparency and consumer protections for HOAs. So we're trying to reflect that as much as possible. Right now, current budget and fees for HOAs, those entities that they're partnering with, must disclose the operating budget for the current fiscal year and a list of current regular and special assessments. What this would do is that for this private club, the private club must disclose an operating budget with projected total revenues and expenses for the current fiscal year. We must also list monthly dues amounts, including exactly how much increases or decreases from the prior year. So it's just trying to get them more in line with what's going on in HOAs, because right now they don't get really any of this information.

Yes, those will still be in the bill after we amend it. And the enforcement would be a certificate of compliance, which would be required of the private club, and it would basically give to the county clerk and recorder a document that says that they're going to be complying with all the transparency rules. Representative Paschal.

Representative Hamrick.

Representative Paschal.

Representative Hamrick So once they issued their certificate of compliance then they seen as in unless you have a homeowner that decides to sue And so I sort of understand what you're saying. That I'm not sure of. I can get some information on that, or we can hold this amendment for later if you think it needs to be tightened up. But my guess is the courts would decide if they're out of compliance if a lawsuit was filed.

I mean, we get off on this because Rep. Besenekar asked a question, but I'm not sure this is actually in this particular amendment. Am I wrong? I'm right. Okay. So it's not relevant to this particular amendment.

Rep Hamrick. Thanks. So, like I said, we are mirroring it with the HOA budget and fees and past financials. So currently, the standard HOA past financial understanding is the HOA, the company that is partnering with the HOA, must disclose annual financial statements, reserve amounts, and the results of the most recent financial audit or review. And so we're mirroring that in our bill.

All right. Are there any other questions about L7?

No.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

I move Amendment 8 to House Bill 1316. Is there a second?

That's a proper motion and a second.

Any questions about L8?

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Rep Pamreck. So a certificate of compliance just means that the country club, the for-profit club, has to show that they're in compliance with these transparency requirements. So it could be an affidavit. It could be another type of form. We don't want to – we can prescribe what it looks like, but we didn't think we had to, just to let the county and potential buyers know that the club is in compliance with transparency measures. And this was brought up by the land title people. That's why we put this in. They just wanted a real smooth transaction between the homeowner and the potential buyer.

Thank you.

Thank you, Rep. Hamrick. So walk me through, like if you're buying a home in this community, how would you be able to find this out in an easy way? I guess just I'm a little confused. Thank you.

It would be on public record that the club is in compliance with the transparency rules.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm also confused on certificate of compliance. So it seems like it's kind of maybe in the generic sense. I get it. It says certificate. It looks like this, and then it says certificate of compliance on it. But who is making that certificate? and who would enforce it. So meaning, I know there's currently a legal path already. Does this do anything different for the legal path that already exists or now is it, and there's a certificate that we made up and now they're violating the certificate of compliance. So I guess it's two questions. Who's doing the certificate of compliance

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Representative Hamrick.

And then Lindsay.

Sure.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

The land title people and the realtors agreed that they didn't want any surprises at sale. So they wanted this certificate of compliance to sort of be something that they could show the home buyer that all of the transparency things were met and that they're in compliance. So they put this into the bill because they, again, didn't want any surprises at sales and they didn't want to sort of muddy the waters with this very unusual for-profit club and the transparency requirements.

Okay, so one more question. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Or is it not shown, or does the seller, or the buyer, sorry, excuse me, does the buyer have to go look this up separately? Is this shown at closing?

I'm just assuming that it is because, again, the land title people wanted and the realtors liked the idea. So I'm assuming it is, but I'm not sure. That said, we're happy to continue conversations to make it clearer.

I'm still stuck on the certificate of compliance

and typically it would be the county would be the ones to do a certificate of compliance that's being filed so I guess I just want to make sure that it's the golf course makes their own certificate of compliance that's something very new and different so I just want to make sure that's accurate

again we didn't want to be prescriptive We wanted to give them a little bit of levity with this, but we're happy to make it more prescriptive. But it's something, again, that came from land title. Like, we'd never heard of certificate of compliances before. We did this, and, like, you need to put this in, and the realtors were like, thank you. So happy to make it more prescriptive with further conversations.

That's a very good question. My understanding is it just shows, again, that the homeowner and the club understand the transparency. And my understanding is if they don't file the certificate of compliance, then they're not compliant.

just a i guess a question or caution if if you're self-certifying i'm not sure if i'm comfortable with that but if we're looking at potentially asking the counties to certify as an alternative there's going to be tremendous pushback because land transactions and deeds come with covenant restrictions all the time and counties stay out of that business. I just, I guess, not a question, but I guess the question would be I would hope you don't go down that road.

continue conversations about how to make it work for the homeowners and the homebuyers.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

So would this be incorporated under the umbrella of title insurance? And so the sale happens, and then the new buyer moves in, and then they weren't compliant, the certificate or whatever, would that fall on the title and insurance? Representative Hamrick.

Like I said, this was brought by the title insurance company. They really felt that they needed this for smooth transactions. So that's where I am on this point.

Okay, so that would tell me then if they brought it that now we're going to go to whoever the past homeowner was that sold it, so then there actually could be a lawsuit from the new homeowner against the seller. Rob Hamrick.

Representative Frillick.

So I think what's happening is we have a list beginning on page three, subsection three, of all the things you have to disclose That goes into this certificate of compliance That certificate of compliance is filed with the county clerk and presented at closing whenever there a change in property And so it is fairly prescriptive because it goes all the way down onto page five of all the things that you have to disclose in order to get this certificate. The new thing in the amendment is the concept of this certificate. So in the original bill, just correct me if I'm wrong, in the original bill, you said you have to disclose all this stuff.

Representative Hamrick. That is correct.

Apparently, it's so much of sort of the right of first refusal documents.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I like the idea in general of some kind of transparency, but there's a lot going on here. On this amendment, so I'm still on certificate of compliance. Okay, I get it. the golf course creates their own, however they want, a certificate of compliance. And then the county clerk, according to this amendment on line 22 and 23, then the county clerk decides if that certificate that they made up is acceptable. And so my question is, then in the process, what if it's not? So what if the county clerk says, no, you're the certificate of compliance that the golf course people made up. it's not acceptable, then what would happen regarding the sale of the property?

Yeah, that's a very good question. We're happening to put in language that gives a little, if it's struck down or if it's not accepted by the county clerk, language that deals with that issue that you are bringing up.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am also stuck on the certificate thing, and it's not clear to me that it's worth anything. So if the golf club says, yes, we are in compliance, and it's a self-attestation, so what if the homeowners don't agree that they're in compliance? So I don know that it worth the paper it printed on I just not quite sure what it means and I still struggling with how do you officially get out of compliance because there's all kinds of repercussions if you're out of compliance.

Yeah, it was just suggested by the land title board association that it would be a point where they had to sort of state that they are in compliance. It's just sort of a point that shows that they're in compliance.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I do have a question in the write-up describing it. It says that the certificate is formally recorded with the clerk and recorder. The language in the amendment is just she'll file a certificate. and there's a lot of paperwork that's filed with offices that isn't necessarily formally recorded. So if the intent is to formally record as the summary says, I think the language in the amendment would need to specify that as well. Otherwise, it's just going into a suspense file or something in a filing cabinet.

All right, so formally. Sort of formally. What was your phrase? Formally recorded? Reposition.

It's the beginning of the fifth line down, fourth line down under the amendment description on the summary. It requires clubs to formally record a certificate, and then the amendment just reads file, which there's a lot of things you file with offices that aren't necessarily recorded. Thank you.

Brooks. No.

Lindsey. Yes.

Pascal. No.

Richardson. No. Sucla. No.

Weinberg. No.

Madam Chair. Yes. All right. L8 is adopted. Representative Froelich.

Second. Second. It's a proper motion in a second. Representative Hamrick, tell us about L9.

Any questions about L9? All right, seeing none, any objection to L-9? Seeing none, L-9 is adopted. Representative Frillick.

Second. That's a proper motion and a second. Representative Hamrick.

compliance with the bill. Any questions about L10? Representative Phillips. Thank you, Madam Chair. Rep. Hamrick, if you can help me understand, I'm looking at the summary of the amendments.

Representative Hamrick.

Representative Phillips. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm also concerned about withholding dues because I do a lot of work with special districts, including metro districts. I'm a member of an HOA, and I'm trying to recall other examples where they're allowed to withhold dues, and I can't think of any. So are there some other examples of metro districts and HOAs that are allowed to withhold dues?

So as far as this neighborhood, which I keep saying is a unicorn because it is, there isn't another one like it in the state. And when we first came up with the idea like two years ago, we started talking to like the Special Districts Association and all that kind of stuff. And they had never seen anything like this. So this is a unicorn. Currently, the private LLC, the Blackstone Club, can use the power of the real estate covenant to place an assessment lien on the homeowner's property and initiate foreclosure if they don't pay dues. So it's a private third-party business that's allowed to use the threat of homelessness to collect its mandatory fees, completely bypassing standard small claims court procedures. that's what's going on at this in this neighborhood and so we're trying to rectify that and give some more voice and power to the homeowners representative Sucla thank you madam chair and this one's way out there so if a homeowner makes a deal with a solar company and it's a 20 year deal where they have the solar panels on their house and they sell the home, that deal, they're still obligated, the new buyer that is coming in is still obligated to pay that 10 years off or whatever is left on the lease for the solar panels. My concern about – my question is would the certificate of compliance cover that? And if it did not cover that Who would be held liable if that was slipped on the certificate of compliance.

My understanding is the certificate of compliance issuance and acceptance would cover that because that's why the land title people really wanted this. They didn't want it to be all muddy about you owe this or you didn't do this. They want it to be a very smooth transaction between the home seller and the home buyer. Rep Sucla. Okay, so if that's the case, say there's still a $20,000 bill due to the solar company on the panels, who pays the $20,000? Representative Hamrick. So I assume you're talking about a homeowner that refused to pay dues to this golf club. Is that where you're getting at? I'm just wondering if it's an analogy. Yeah. trying to figure out who is going to be liable for the $20,000 that is due if the certificate of compliance covers the home sale.

So, again, this is such an unusual situation that the certificate of compliance would allow the home seller who might have dues and arrears to not push those on to the home buyer, and it's just for this type of arrangement. So it wouldn't apply to any other kinds of businesses or anything like that. I have a question, but I will let Rhett Brooks go first.

Representative Hamrick.

Rep Hamrick.

Representative Briggs.

Representative Hamrick.

Representative Paschal. Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess

Representative Hamrick.

Representative Phillips Thank you Madam Chair Okay so I hope nobody loves the idea of a lien on somebody house right But so my question is in my HOA when there always probably 20 of the people that don pay and we're always super angry at them, right, because they're not paying. And it's a terrible, long, almost virtually impossible process to do anything about that. and because of that the other 80% of us that live there, we have to pay. Then we end up paying for the 20% of people that don't want to pay their dues and I would add not due to financial hardship because we have lots of mechanisms in place for financial hardships. They just realize that, hey, we don't have to pay our dues and then they don't and then all of us have to pay for their dues because they don't feel like it. And so I know we had one letter from a board member that did not support the legislation And so can you help me understand how it wouldn't work like that, meaning some people are like, hey, I don't go golfing, so I'm not going to pay. But then they want to raise the dues, and does that mean the other people have to pay? How does this work?

It works via holding the club to certain transparency standards so that everyone is aware of where their dues are going. Because that was – and there are some people right now that aren't paying dues there. And they could very well get a lien on their house. So this would help really rectify that so they'd be in a greater communication loop with the club. and I would argue that it would reduce the need of the club to put liens in people's houses because there wouldn't be as many people not paying dues because they would understand the transparency. And real quickly, to answer your question about if a homeowner withholds their dues because the club is refusing to provide financial transparency, L0010 protects them. So this amendment states that if an owner sells their property during a period of noncompliance, The buyer is not responsible for those unpaid dues. Furthermore, the club is prohibited from collecting those unpaid dues as a condition of closing, and the dues are legally forfeited.

Thank you, Madam Chair. My question is, can you just kind of help me understand how a homeowner who doesn't pay their dues gets a lien on their house from a company that's not an HOA? Is this help me understand it? And are these dues to this private LLC? Like, is that something that's written into their closing documents? Like it. I'm not fully understanding. Please explain.

And it's the only thing in the covenants that can never be taken out because Colorado law recognizes that if 67 percent, of the homeowners object to something in the covenant, it can come out. This one is exempted because it was something between, I understand, the home builder and the private company. So right now, you can get a lien on your house if you don't pay your dues in law right now. And this is sort of protecting the seller and the future home buyer from that if there's some kind of disagreement between the club that is out of compliance and the homeowner Does that answer your question Okay Is there any objection to L10

No. Jackson.

Yes. Wynn.

No. Phillips.

No. Sucla. No. Velasco.

No. Froelich.

No. L10 fails. Representative Froelich.

Oh, 12. I thought we ended at 10. Sorry.

Second. That's a proper motion and a second. Representative Hamrick.

Any questions about L12? Any objection to L-12? Seeing none, L-12 is adopted. Are there any other amendments bill sponsor?

Any other amendments? Committee. Seeing none, the amendments phase is closed. Wrap up Representative Hamrick.

Representative Rillick, a proper motion would send 13-16 as amended to the Committee of the Whole.

Second. Proper motion and a second. Are there any closing comments from the committee?

Representative Paschal.

Representative Weinberg.

Representative Jackson.

I will say that I'm similar, similarly situated to Representative Jackson.

So with that, Mr. Gravy, please call the committee. Representatives Basenecker. Brooks. No.

Lindsay. Yes.

Pascal. No.

Richardson. No. Sucla. No.

Weinberg. Respectfully, no.

Basinecker. Madam Chair. No. All right. Representative, that fails five to eight. Representative Froelich.

Any objection? Seeing none, House Bill 1316 is postponed indefinitely. Representative Marshall, Senate Bill 25.

Any questions for our bill sponsor? Okie dokie. Seeing none, we'll go ahead and bring up our one and only panel. You can even stay up here if you'd like to, Rep. Marshall. All right. We're going to bring up Warren Ward in person. and then we've got Scott Thompson and Brian Dennis online. And if anyone else in the room wishes to testify on Senate Bill 25, please come up and join us. Okie dokie. Mr. Ward, why don't you get us started? Introduce yourself, who you represent, and you've got three minutes.

All right. So hearing that Mr. Dennis is not going to make it, committee, we've got two folks before us for questions, if you have any. All right. Seeing none, thank you both so very much for joining us today. We appreciate it. We'll bring our bill sponsors back up. Hello. Do you have any amendments for us? Oh, no, I have to close the witness phase. Great. Amendments.

Challenge accepted. Committee. Are there any amendments from the committee? Okay. Seeing none, the amendments phase is closed. Wrap up bill sponsors. Representative Sober.

A proper motion would route Senate Bill 25 to the Committee of the Whole, Representative Frillick.

Second.

Brooks. Yes.

Lindsay. Yes.

Pascal. Yes.

Richardson. Yes.

Velasco. Yes.

Froelich. Yes.

Representative Gonzalez. Thank you, Madam Chair, and good afternoon, members of the Transportation Housing Local Government Committee. Senate Bill 53 addresses barriers to home ownership for a key job sector in Colorado. Law enforcement officers and first responders, which include firefighters, EMTs, deputy sheriffs, correction officers, and emergency communications specialists, to create a new program known as the Colorado Champions Home Loan Program. The bill amends the CHAFA's enabling statute to allow CHAFA to offer home mortgage loan products to persons employed in Colorado as law enforcement officers or first responders who may have an income higher than CHAFA's current statutory income limitation. The bill increases the program's income limits to 110% of CHAFA's board-established income, guidelines allowing for increased eligibility for homeownership opportunities for first responders and law enforcement officers for them to be able to have access to the Chaffa's mortgage products. Chaffa is a trusted and successful partner in supporting affordable homeownership and offers competitive home mortgage rates paired with down payment assistance of the lesser of $25,000 or 3% of the first mortgage loan amount as a grant or up to a lesser of 25,000 or 4% of the first mortgage loan as a 0% interest silent second mortgage loan. JAFA offers these products through a state network of participating lenders serving all 64 counties. And this is to help our law enforcement officers, and we're here to answer your questions. Representative Clifford. Thank you, Madam Chair and committee. This is very straightforward. This is expanding a wonderful program in the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority to allow for people that we need to live in our communities. You know, if you think about the differences in housing that we have throughout the state, even in some of the most affluent areas that we have, homeownership is very often out of reach for those people that we actually need to live and stay in those communities. And this is making sure that the programs that we already have available for the state recognize that they will have some expanded capacity to deal with those people as well which are exactly as my co here has mentioned, primarily aimed in the public safety sector. There have been a number of questions about why didn't we expand to X, Y, or Z. And a lot of times the answers for that is because it already exists. So if you've got some other group of people, like a teacher, for instance, that you are interested in, that we have programs that support making sure that we can have teachers live near schools and in those communities and in certain other areas of law, and this was just this expansion. This is a no-cost, no-frills aspect of the state. The biggest change here is that it gives them some leeway on what the income situation is here so that it's not just specifically for low-income families. This gives them the ability to go for a police officer, for instance, 110% above their normal limit in order to make sure that they can still qualify for a home in that area. And I encourage any questions.

Thank you. My name is Brandon Nathlich. I'm a captain with the Colorado State Patrol. I also serve as our legislative liaison. I want to thank Representative Clifford and Gonzalez for bringing this bill forward to you all. As you might imagine, the Colorado State Patrol does support this legislation. As you know, the State Patrol has the responsibility of providing much of the state's safety and security with troopers, comm officers, and the like. There's a lot of areas of the state on the I-70 corridor which are expensive, and this would be a way to help with our retention. A lot of times troopers get there and they stay just a couple years, and then they transfer out. Something like this can really get a trooper to stay in that location where we need troopers, as everybody in here knows how important the I-70 corridor is to this state. So I think this is a good bill, and we would appreciate your support.

My name is Dan McMahon. I'm the director of the single-family program, the homeownership program, here at the Colorado Housing Finance Authority, or otherwise known as CHFA, and I'm here to testify in support of Senate Bill 53. I just want to thank the sponsors for promoting this bill to help achieve homeownership for those that are desperately needed in those local communities. So just as a background of CHAPA, CHAPA is a statewide investor in affordable housing with more than 50-year track record of supporting affordable homeownership with very safe 30-year fixed-rate mortgages uh that can be paired with down payment assistance uh funded through chaffa does We don actually originate loans here We utilize a network of approximately 130 participating lenders serving all 64 counties in Colorado. Just to give you a little bit of detail, last year CHAPA invested over $2.1 billion in mortgage loans and down payment assistance to support just under 5,500 homeowners here in Colorado or households. And at the end of February of this year, our portfolio consisted of just under 13 billion households and that represents just under 45,000 households here in Colorado. So in support of Senate Bill 53, CHFA understands the housing crisis and how it impacts all corners of the state. And this bill gives the ability of employers for key job sectors to recruit and retain staff, and that's critical in those communities. To that end, Senate Bill 53 proposes to address barriers to home ownership in those key job sectors by amending CHFA's enabling statute to allow CHFA to offer home mortgage products to persons employed in law enforcement or first responders here in Colorado who may have incomes slightly higher than what our statute allows today. And we are talking specifically about the Colorado Champions Home Loan Program. The bill increases program income limits to 100% of the authorized limits that Chaffet's board currently establishes. And just to be clear, this statutory change will not impact Chaffet's income limits for other programs or other parts of the market. It also does not limit or interfere with Chaffet's ability to set guidelines and requirements for the program to align with other current or future insurer or rating agency requirements, as is normal in Chaffet's practice. CHAPA is grateful for the bill's sponsor's endorsement of CHAPA programs as a helpful resource to support homeownership opportunities here in Colorado. With that, I just want to thank you all for your sponsorship and partnership. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the committee. I'm here also to ask for your support of Senate Bill 26053, the Colorado Champions Home Loan Program. I'm Ken Watkins, the Executive Director of the Colorado State Fire Chiefs, and I want to thank the bill sponsors also for bringing this bill forward for our first responders. The Colorado State Fire Chiefs represent the leadership of more than the 300 fire department and fire districts across Colorado, which includes the nearly 12,000 career and volunteer firefighters that protect our state's citizens, visitors, infrastructure, and economy. They truly are the Colorado champions, as the bill title calls out. The Colorado State Fire Chiefs are very supportive of this bill and how it helps our first responders. Last year, we worked with Representative Velasco and Representative Basenecker on a bill that included mortgage assistance for firefighters, but unfortunately, the bill was not successful. And we have struggled with recruitment and retention of firefighters, with one of the main challenges being housing, availability housing costs, especially for newer first responders. You know when I was fire chief and bringing on new firefighters the availability of housing became an issue There were times that I actually lost a recruit because they couldn find housing or they couldn afford Many new recruits made it work by sharing space with other firefighters or other recruits. But being able to have a financing product that they could use to obtain their own house, especially for the young first responder families, I think is critically important in retaining and recruiting these new employees. This recruitment challenge is even more pronounced, of course, in our resort areas, as you've heard, where first responders have to commute long distances and may not even be able to live in the community they serve. On the other hand, in the remote parts of the states where we have mostly volunteer firefighting staff, we struggle with recruitment because people have to hold down two or three jobs just to make ends meet and may not have the time to volunteer. year. These recruitment challenges of course differ across the state, but by creating a mechanism for first responders to qualify for CHAMFA financing, we will be able to assist them with that will assist with recruitment and directly support our first responders. This bill will also assist local communities by providing the opportunity for those first responders to secure a home in the city or town where they work, further building connection and within the community. And I do want to close with a personal story. You may not believe from my gray hair that I was once a young firefighter. I actually did try to obtain CHAPA financing when I went from my first house. At the time I'd been on the department a few years, I was a young lieutenant, so I actually made too much money to qualify for the CHAPA financing back then. So from a personal perspective, I really see this as an important bill that will help all of our first responders and law enforcement across the state and would ask for your support. Thank you, and I'll take any questions that you might have.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I move L007 to Senate Bill 53. Second.

Representative Clifford. Thank you, Madam Chair. This is literally just a cleanup of language that the drafter caught and asked if we would run this, and that's all it does.

Representative Brooks. Madam Chair, thank you. I apologize for taking the news. It might have been better asked at the beginning, but I was looking to see at the time. I got the amendment looking to see what language, if it addressed my question, which actually it didn't because it just stops one word shy on the front end of families. So I'm just curious what the definition is, how extensive, how far down the road. We're talking families and relations of grandparents, cousins, great-grandkids. It would just kind of help me clarify that because I thought the amendment at first was addressing that, but it was actually just a little bit further along just trying to clean up the Colorado piece of it.

I think that it's just the wordsmithing because the language that it's changing it from is families of law enforcement officers work. Working in Colorado or families, and now we're leaving just families. We've now expanded this title to include corrections officers, to include comms officers, to include a number of other categories that are not specific first responder, which is a term of law. So I think that it's just making sure that in keeping in this particular section that we're not limiting anything. Representative Weinberg. Thank you, Madam Chair. My concern is we're picking a certain class, right? Why not nurses, teachers who are already struggling? Why a certain class? Representative Clifford. As I said earlier, I predicted that that would be a question. And if you find most of those areas already have other programs, we have programs for teachers. We have programs for nurses. many of the hospitals, et cetera, have different loan valuations and programs. This is just something specific to this area. We probably wouldn't have had any problems, including all sorts of things, including dump truck operators, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. If you needed them there, we've talked to everybody and added them. There's not a dispensation about that. But we pretty much identified that we didn't need to do that here, because when we started to press in on something like a teacher, we found that there are similar or of this nature programs that exist for school teachers. Representative Weinberg. Thank you, Madam Chair. So are you referring that there is no programs for first responders in the state of Colorado? Representative Clifford. Really? No. Other than going to get a regular bank loan to get something that's backed by the state or that's part of CHFA, we don't really have a lot of specialized programs for mortgages. Representative Weinberg. Thank you, Madam Chair. Federal programs, nonprofit, local entities that are at all well. Representative Clifford. I mean, there may be a dime, a dozen of some sort of other type of program, but there's nothing like what we back here with CHFA. I mean, this is a program that is part of the state, and we do have equivalent programs for others. So I don't know if there might be some sort of program with Wells Fargo where they give you 0.2% off your mortgage because you serve as a police officer, but I'm not familiar with any of them, to tell you the truth. And my initial looking, we didn't find really much of anything. So if you do find one, pass it along, and I will pass it along. Representative Weinberg. Thank you. Good neighbor next door? Representative Clifford. No idea how that helps a trooper.

Wrap up bill sponsors Representative Gonzalez I won take up too much time but thank you for the people who came to testify We need to support our law enforcement officers and people who protect our communities You've heard some of the concerns, especially with affordability along the I-70 corridor and other places in Colorado. So I ask for a yes vote.

You know, I think that we serve two purposes. is this bill. One, we, as Captain Natwitch testified earlier, sometimes we need people where we need people, not necessarily because that is naturally where they would have chosen to live. That is one thing. But there is also the affordability of housing and making sure that people that serve in these roles and these jobs have the same access to mortgages as other people. And this is not a great big step, to tell you the truth. It is a small step to still making sure that somebody can find a home within their price range, within their salary range, that fits their family, et cetera, and then get a mortgage. And even with the 110% cap that is available here in Chaffa, this is still not an end-all, be-all. It's going to make something available to some people that is a bit of a leg up to make sure that a mortgage is available to them. Especially first-time homebuyers, especially a young trooper, especially a new EMT, et cetera. Homeownership is one of the best ways that they can secure their future and making sure that they can start to build wealth like any other American family. People in public safety roles very often are not out with the same grind and hustle that some people do that might own a business, for instance, or try to do something else. So we expect these people to serve in these careers. These are very noble careers. They are going to work kind of on government salaries in most cases for their career. And it is delightful to be able to do any sort of leg up that we can so that people can own homes. and I request your aye vote. Thank you. Vice Chair Stewart. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move Senate Bill 53 as amended to the Committee of the Whole with a favorable recommendation.

Representative Paschal. I had no idea these kind of programs existed, hence why I was asking about what about this person, what about that person, and I think it's fantastic that we have these. I love it.

I'm a no for today. Jackson.

Yes.

Pascal. Yes.

Richardson. No today. Sucla. No.

Weinberg. No. Vice Chair Stewart. Yes.

Thank you, Madam Chair. As my co-prime settles in, members of the committee, I'm pleased to bring forward Senate Bill 26061. I want to start by recognizing my co-prime, Rep. Lukens, for partnering in this effort. It's a very straightforward bill, but it addresses a really significant problem, especially for those of us who represent rural Colorado. At its core, the bill deals with legal notices, public postings, and ensure transparency when local governments take actions. on things like hearings for land use, for budgets, et cetera. These all rely on a functioning system of publication so the public knows what their government is doing. The challenge is the system assumes something that's no longer always true, and that's that every county has a qualifying legal newspaper. As a former county commissioner, I can tell you that's just not the reality anymore. In my own county, we've dealt with limited publication availability, and for many communities, especially around the edges of our state, it goes even further. There's instances where publication has to occur in papers outside of Colorado entirely, simply because there's no qualifying option nearby. That's not a knock on anyone. That's just the economic reality that's facing our local newspapers today. But it does tend to create some confusion. It creates some inconsistency, and it leaves the local governments trying to navigate a system that hasn't kept up with the world around it. So this bill will fix that. That bill establishes a clear rational order of priority that brings additional papers into qualification if needed. First, you would publish in a qualifying newspaper in your own county. If that's not available, you move to the next best option still within the county if possible. If that doesn't exist, then to adjoining counties. And only after those options are exhausted do you move to the nearest qualifying publication. So instead of guesswork or what could look like randomness to the citizens we support, you've got a more structured process. Most importantly, though, the bill does still preserve the requirement for public notice. Nothing in the bill eliminates transparency. In fact, it strengthens it by ensuring notices are placed in real accessible publications. Rather than forcing government right now, we've got some legal dead ends that you run into in some counties. So, excuse me, where possible, the bill helps keep those publication dollars local, supports the papers that still serve our communities, many of which are hanging on in very difficult economic times. so not a real big policy change just a practical fix reflects the reality on the ground in rural colorado and it provides clarity to local governments and it maintains while strengthening the public's access to information so with that i'll turn it over to my co-prime representative lucans thank you madam chair and thank you members of the transportation housing and local government Committee and thank you to my co-prime sponsor for doing a great explanation of Senate Bill 61.

Thank you. Rep. Lukens and Richardson, we heard a bill on a similar topic. Can you explain to us how those two bills interact? Representative Richardson.

Sounds great. Additional questions, committee. We just have one person joining us online, so you guys can hang out there. and it's Tom Boyd. If you could join us, unmute yourself, tell us, say us who you are and who you represent, if anyone. And we're doing three minutes this afternoon.

Yes, please proceed.

Great. I just want to make one quick call for anyone who wishes to testify on Senate Bill 61. Oh, please come forward. I'm glad we did that. And you can just take a spot next to Rep. Richardson. There's a tiny button at the base of the microphone. And please introduce yourself. And we're doing three minutes.

Perfect timing. Committee, we have one person online and one person in front of us for questions. Seeing none, we thank you very much for joining us. Thanks for joining us online. I think we made the call so the witness phase can be complete. Are there any amendments, bill sponsors? Any amendments, committee? Seeing none, the amendment phase is complete. Bill sponsors, wrap up. Who would like to go first?

Representative Richardson. Thank you, Madam Chair. I do appreciate really the collaborative input of both local governments and the Press Association in making this pretty clean and simple. This is a good bill. Vote yes.

Would you like to move your bill? It's been moved and seconded. I think that's all we really need. It's all right. Maybe the next bill, ma'am. Thank you for participating. Comments before voting.

Jackson.

Yes. Wynn. Yes. Pascal.

Yes. Richardson.

Yes.

Weinberg. Yes. Vice Chair Stewart. Yes.

Oh, you're going to trade folders?

Representative Richardson. Thank you. It's wonderful to be back. Madam Chair, members, good afternoon. SB 2654 is a pretty narrow bill that fixes the unintended consequences of some of the statutes we've passed in the last few years, specifically those that were regarding rental housing, but now being applied in a very different situation. In short, it's kind of the post-closing rent back of a home to a seller that hasn't either got a new place to live or still closing on their next home after a home sale. So under CRS 3812-1025, Colorado currently caps a security deposit at no more than two months rent. That cap took effect in 23. Well, that makes a lot of sense in traditional landlord-tenant relationships. In the real estate world, folks are encountering post-closing occupancy agreements. It's relatively common. Where the buyer purchases the home, the seller stays for a brief agreed-upon period of time to bridge just the timing with movers, the end of school, et cetera. It's not a lease in the ordinary sense. It's just a short transition that's directly tied to the completed sale. But there is kind of a practical snag in current legislation, and that's that post-closing arrangements are often intended to be rent-free because the economics, the dollars involved are already kind of baked into the purchase price. But if rent is set at zero, the deposit formula required by other statute effectively sets the lawful deposit at $0, meaning the buyer has no realistic way to protect the property during the seller's temporary stay. So the statute has kind of created this you-can't-get-there-from-here moment. People don't stop doing transactions, but they're creating workarounds, and those workarounds are sometimes, as I said, baking the price of that brief stay into the purchase price of the home and that can distort the market values as assessors are looking at it et cetera So there some other little second and third order effects of not being able to just do a traditional post closing So this bill just essentially states that these post-closing occupancy agreements sit outside and unite and are tied uniquely to the real estate transaction and do not trigger the requirements of a traditional landlord-tenant. agreement. So it just provides a few guardrails already in law. These can't be more than 60 days in length. It's, again, very straightforward.

Committee, questions for our bill sponsors? Okay. Don't see any questions. So there's only one person in person, so you can just hang out there if you'd like.

There's a tiny gray button at the bottom there, and we're doing three minutes today. If you could introduce yourself, say who you represent, if anyone, and please proceed.

Thank you.

Thank you. And Ms. King?

Thank you. Committee, we have two folks online, one person in front of us for questions. I do not see any. Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you for joining us online. One last call for anyone who wishes to testify on Senate Bill 54 Seeing none the witness phase is complete Amendments bill sponsors None Amendments committee Seeing none, the amendment phase is complete. Wrap up, bill sponsors.

Thank you, committee, for listening.

Representative Richardson. Good bill vote yes.

I would love to move my bill. So, Madam Chair, I move SB 26-054 to be to the Committee of the Whole with the most favorable recommendations and ask for a second from my favorite Vice Chair.

What a team. Okay, great. Committee, comments before voting? Ah, well-oiled machine that we've got going here. The loquaciousness has left the building. That's wonderful. Mr. Gravy, please call the roll.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes. That is unanimous. Congratulations. You're on your way to the committee of the whole.

Thank you. Committee, we are going to hear our last bill today, which is House Bill 1318.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

We want to make sure that we reduce risk for pedestrians, bicyclists, create clarity on motorists, and, of course, minimizing conflict between road users. So thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Committee, for the opportunity to present House Bill 1318, Traffic Safety Around Schools. As my co-prime mentioned, this comes from an individual who we'll hear from, Josh Stewart, who has made it his mission to keep children safe on their way to school following the death of his own son, Liam. It is a tremendous privilege to work with parents like Josh And when we work on road safety, the sad reality is that this is the folks who fuel this work and this reform. Ollie's mom led the hands-free bill because the person who killed Ollie fired off a text message every 22 seconds for half an hour prior to hitting her son, murdering her son, killing her son. Magnus' parents founded the White Line Foundation after Magnus was killed by an impaired driver. And we're here today because Josh has been instrumental in helping us make school zones safer, roads and routes to school. 1318 proposes a logical 1,000-foot school zone for new schools. Existing schools are asked to not collapse their school zones to less than 200 feet and to do so only after a public hearing. We also propose a few other options for communities. They can expand their school zones and they can go to the community for bonds to cover the cost of that. They can expand not only the school zones, but they can work on safe routes to school. And they can move forward. Another option would be to move forward with closing streets around schools at drop-off or pickup by working with their local governments. And in this bill, we're allowing the use, expanded use of Avis cameras to enforce our school zone speedings. School zones are already referenced in statute. For example, it's established that a speeding ticket is double in a school zone. But they are not particularly standardized and we have not really previously focused on how they can be improved and how they can actually improve traffic safety. Let's honor Liam and Ollie and Magnus and the countless others by making our children's journey to school safer. Our communities are aware of how critical it is to slow down. And when we make them more aware of how critical it is to slow down and to pay attention and to drive safely around our schools. And then, Madam Chair, would it be okay to clarify amendment number one?

Amendment 1, which you have before you, which you received within the 24 hours or above 24 hours ago because it's two pages, We initially went into Amendment 1 needing to zero out our fiscal note because of the realities of our budget, and this was an opportunity to do other clarifications that came through stakeholders. fiscal note was principally driven by CDOT on the cost of what signage would be needed if we standardized school zones to 1,000. And so in Amendment 1, we understand that state highways are not going to be school zones, so we want to clarify that. And it also adds those pieces that we talked about in our introduction about if you want to reduce, you need to go to hold a public hearing and that you're able to increase, not, you can't decrease and you can increase if you work with community and put forward some bonds. and section three just talks about clarifying that what a school zone is and to make sure that we don't run afoul of federal highways and thus CDOT and thus our fiscal note. So we will ask eventually for a yes on amendment one as well as on the bill.

Representative Phillips.

Thank you, representatives, for bringing the bill. Did I miss the fiscal note? Did you talk about the fiscal note? Because I know I think the fiscal note, like what I have still says $500,000, but I think maybe that's changed.

I believe once we accept these amendments, that fiscal note will change. And, again, just to emphasize, this addresses state highways, and it makes it optional for signage use for those highways for the state.

Thank you. And we just, I meant to secure the fiscal memo prior to committee, so we have our fiscal analysts here to clarify. And CDOT in testimony will also talk about those negotiations. So between those two, we're hoping that we prove that we got to zero.

I am speaking in favor of House Bill 1318 and the amendment that was just introduced. My intersection is 528 feet away from the school property, outside of the school zone. Originally, I was told that I couldn't be a guard there because it wasn't inside the school zone. I was told it was too dangerous, and admittedly, it is too dangerous. There are no signs to let drivers know that kids use the street to access their school. The speed limit is 30 miles an hour, and on a daily basis, I see people blow through my red light going at least 40. I've saved multiple kids from head-on collisions with drivers by stretching out my arm. I had to take my case all the way to the superintendent of DPS to get permission to cover this intersection because it wasn't inside of a school zone. When I started as a crossing guard, few kids walked or biked across Logan Street where I am a crossing guard. This was the case even though half of our school population lives within walking distance of the school on the other side of Logan. Kids were being driven three blocks to school because it wasn't safe enough to walk. So I counted kids. When I started, I counted 20 kids crossing Logan Street. At the end of the semester, daily there were 65 kids crossing because it was safer to cross where I was being a crossing guard. Even kids as young as second grade now cross there on their own, and I say that they've earned their wings. My experience illustrates the huge difference it can make to improve the safety of a street, whether that's with a crossing guard or by slowing drivers down by defining a school zone. To put this in context, CDOT regularly spends hundreds of thousands at a time on things like traffic signals, sign replacements and adding lanes, incremental changes that improve driving convenience. I would hope that CDOT sees the value of installing school zone signage, the value in doubled fines and human lives. Busy roads plow through disadvantaged neighborhoods and separate the haves from the have-nots. This bill is an incremental step towards repairing this system-level inequity. Please vote in favor of this bill and today's amendment.

Yes, I'm Michael Raber, and I'm here representing Bike Jeffco, Bicycle Advocacy Group. And I want to say that we're in support of this bill. And I am an AT-SSA certified traffic marshal, and I work events and crosswalks and different things. And I can tell you that I fully support the 10 mile an hour and some enforcement on it because when I'm doing marshaling and I see cars coming at me at 20 and 30 miles an hour who have no intention of slowing down, enforcement is the only thing that's going to get them to slow down. And we're also highly in support of kids being able to walk and bike to school, and not only because of the road congestion on municipal roads that back up forever trying to drop kids off, but because it's very healthy for them and it's something that they should be able to grow up doing. I do have one comment on this one I read through the bill what I saw and maybe this has changed but it 10 miles an hour within that zone for up to 1 feet which I think is great But I want to mention that a lot of the rural communities, 1,000 feet at 10 miles an hour, doesn't work with them because a lot of their streets, where their schools are, that's before and after where the town starts. So if you can just give consideration to that, and because this is something that rural Colorado is faced with that we don't really see in the municipalities.

Hi. My name is Jim Abram. I live in the Baker neighborhood, and I'm here representing my children. I'm here because I'm scared my four-year-old daughter is currently enrolled at DC is Fairmount Elementary and Sleeping in that wagon. Maybe some of you saw as my two-year-old is here with me today He's Harmon is going to be joining his sister next year At DC is fair amount. This issue is not abstract for me at a recent community house for the proposed new New Bronco Stadium for in Burnham Yards We were told that for large events potentially up to a hundred thousand people about 15% percent about fifteen percent of a hundred thousand people where the post traffic is expected to spill into our neighborhood and that means thousands of drivers and fans concert visitors trying to avoid gridlock cutting through Baker in order to get to the Broadway and I 25 entrance and specifically that traffic is expected to come down third now third Avenue is not a major road it's a narrow residential street it's one lane in each direction it's got cars on both sides and home so close they almost touch and very limited visibility but most importantly it's the front and only entrance to DCIS Fairmount our community is only public elementary school and it's directly across the street from Montessori Echinacea which is our neighborhood's primary daycare it's one of the most heavily walked lived-in kid-filled streets in the neighborhood and it's where our kids go to school it's where our families cross with strollers and backpacks and it's where little kids who don't always look both ways step out between parked cars and right now we're being told that tens of thousands of vehicles are going to be routed through this exact space. Now I want to be very clear I participated in the development process as a resident I'm engaged with the community benefits small area plan and this isn't about the stadium it's an example of how the system doesn't always work and sometimes you need a fail safe. None of these mechanisms right now using the ways that we've been given are designed to solve this. None of them are going to stop 3rd Avenue from becoming a high speed cut through for people trying to shave a few minutes off their drive. But so I'm here today asking, I'm honestly pleading. This bill offers something simple but powerful. It creates a framework for school streets when the larger system around us fails to do what's actually needed. Streets where speeds are slowed, where drivers must yield, where children come first. For my neighborhood, designating 3rd Avenue as a school street is not a preference, it's a last resort. We are a community of young families, not a pressure release valve to improve the game day fan experience. And unfortunately, this is sometimes what it comes to. My coming here with my son is a Hail Mary attempt to protect our kids and every kid who lives in our community that use that street every day. I'm asking you respectfully to give communities like mine a tool to protect our children when the larger system falls short.

ALLEN COGILL I ON THE DENVER DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE ADVISORY BOARD ALSO A COLEADER OF THE BROWN BIKE BUS TESTIFYING AS AN INDIVIDUAL IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS Denver Department of Transportation Infrastructure Advisory Board also a co of the Brown Bike Bus but here today testifying as an individual If you have any already guessed by the color of my hair which my seven daughter says no offense Dad it more gray than brown these days I grew up in the 80s. When I was going to school then, about 25% of kids, myself included, walked or biked to school. When my parents went to school, it was close to around 50% of kids walked or biked to school. Today, that number is closer to around 12%. One of the primary reasons when we look at studies that parents cite they don't feel comfortable is they don't feel it's safe in terms of drivers of letting their kid walk or bike to school alone. As I mentioned, I'm one of the parent leaders of the Brown Bike Bus. It's pretty much a large group bike ride of students here at Brown International and Elementary School just a few miles west of here. And in particular today, I'm asking you to adopt the amendment that supports the creation of school streets. Last year, we were one of the first schools in Colorado, perhaps the first, to have a school street on bike to school day back in May. And if you're not familiar with it, it's just a small one block closure of the street so children can walk or bike in the street adjacent to the school, not like a mile long stretch or anything like that. And it was a red tape nightmare to implement. When we tried to do it with our Department of Transportation, they wanted to put up 41 signs to close those two adjacent neighborhood streets next to our school. And it was going to cost over $1,000 for barricades for those signs and labor costs. And there's no, it was logistically very challenging for us to do. Really the only reason we were able to do it is our local police station, Denver Police District 1, allowed some of their officers to volunteer their time and help us make it happen when we did it. Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to make it happen. There's really no category under current statutes for a street type like this for these closures, whether they're temporary or permanent. And I think this would be a great addition to our options here in Colorado. It gives us the potential to provide a very innovative and safe and fun environment next to school so kids can safely and easily bike or walk. They're very common. It's been very successful in Pacific Northwest cities like Vancouver and Seattle. Some of the studies there have shown that when they've implemented them, 39% of families are biking more, 22% of families are walking more, and 27% of families feel comfortable getting their child more independence and going to school alone. And I think most importantly, a whopping 92% of students felt safer getting to their schools with the school street. The amendment is very similar to a law recently passed in the state of Washington, allowing the creation of school streets where they have 16 temporary school streets now and five permanent ones. This is an optional program, not a mandate. It gives schools and cities the ability to create a safe, fun, and wonderful space for our children if they choose to. And the bill has potential to give today's generation of children the same things that many of us were able to do growing up. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Good afternoon members of the committee. Thank you for this opportunity to speak. My name is Alejandra Castaneda and I live in northwest Denver with my teenager. I've been an advocate for Safe Routes to School since my kid was in elementary school where I volunteer as a crossing guard. They are now in high school and despite years of advocacy at the local level, the streets are on her former elementary school, middle school where I am standing here today. and high school continue to be designed and operated to prioritize fast moving motor vehicles rather than health, well-being, and independent mobility of our kids. And any request to improve road safety on these streets takes years or even worse. Fatal and serious injury crashes before communities see even the smallest of improvements. House Bill 1318 would help to establish not only the legal framework to support kids' safe streets around schools, but it will also send a clear message. In Colorado, we believe in our kids right to the street and prioritize their ability to move around their communities in safe and sustainable ways. I also ask you that you consider the safety of all kids, whether they live in suburban or urban or rural communities, whether their home and school are on state or locally owned and managed roads. Every parent deserves to know that their child enjoys safe passage to and from school. Every child deserves to get to school safely, learn and play with their friends during the day, and then come back home safely to their families. In my community, just in the last year and a half, drivers hurt two middle schoolers who attended this school with their cars within a few blocks of school. And one high schooler, Sammy, was killed while trying to get to the bus stop to go to school. These are predictable and preventable tragedies that will continue to happen unless we do something meaningful. Our kids are looking to us to create a legal framework and build an environment that prioritize their safety and independence. When we help to establish keep safe streets, we create safe streets for everyone.

Yes. Hello. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and members of the committee. My name is Nicole McSpirit. I have been the crossing guard at Park Hill Elementary for the past four years. And I'm here today to ask you to support the traffic safety near schools bill and the school streets amendment. At our school, we already promote active mobility. We have added to our already significant number of bike racks, started hugely successful bike buses. and I personally employ 48 traffic cones around our campus to preserve visibility at crosswalks and narrow lanes to mitigate speeding. We are doing everything we possibly can to keep our school community safe, but we still need your help. Numerous times a week, I personally witness or hear about close calls and scary incidents our families and staff experience. Typically, these happen on the larger collector and arterial streets near our school involving speeding cars and red light running. Within one block of our school there have been numerous car crashes including one where an SUV ended up flipped onto its roof on the sidewalk just as students were being released for the day. We know that with higher speeds drivers are less likely to see and stop for pedestrians and bicyclists. Speed can also make the difference between life and death when a collision does happen. As we often see, safety improvements around specific schools are only made after a fatality or a life-altering injury. This bill and amendment would allow us to take proactive measures to avoid future tragedies. Many of our school families warn their children not to trust cars to stop for them when they get the pedestrian walk signal because we frequently see drivers blow through the red lights Think about that We have resorted to telling children to be extra cautious because we can trust drivers to act responsibly We must put the onus of safety where it belongs, on the adults. The adults designing our streets, the adults creating our policies, and the adults driving large vehicles. Automated enforcement and more pedestrian-prioritized school streets would be a step in the right direction. Beyond the safety advantages, active mobility also offers significant health, cognitive and social benefits. A bit of light exercise helps students get their wiggles out so that they are better able to focus throughout the day. If we make the streets around our schools safer, more students can reap these benefits. I beg you to support the Traffic Safety Near Schools Bill and the School Streets Amendment to help keep our children safe and promote healthier and more inviting school communities.

Representative Phillips.

And this question is for whoever can answer it. I'm trying to find, and maybe some of these questions are for the bill sponsors, but I heard this was for new schools. And so I'm looking going, where does it say new schools? But so my questions are, and first of all, of course, strongly supporting school safety. You know, I live in a – and represent a crowded area, you know, with schools that – and we also had a – we had a student that was just killed also right down the street from me, 14 years old. So I'm super supportive of any kind of traffic enforcement, but I just want to make sure we do it right. So my questions are, the first one is, is this just for new schools? And then I heard you say somebody said 10 miles an hour, and I went, wait, 10 miles an hour? And so the school where I live, it's 20 miles an hour. You know what the signs all say, 20 miles an hour? So this does say on the amendment line 30, it says the maximum speed limit is 10. So that makes me think that we're changing the signs that now say 20, and then the signs will have to say 10. and so then my next question is how are we deciding who pays for it and I know it says a state or local government having jurisdiction but an actual scenario is the street like where I live there's a school that's split into two cities right down the street so like here's the street elementary is here in one city and high school is here in a different city and so then my question is Who would be paying for the signs in that scenario? And is it only for new schools? And are we changing the speed limit from 20 to 10? Those are my questions.

Thank you so much. I'll speak at least to the school street provision. The changing of the speed limit signs, as I understand, and the bill sponsors are welcome to correct me if I'm misinterpreting this, but that is strictly related to a school street. So the speed limits around your schools would remain the same. A school street is a specific menu item that is completely optional that if a school district works with their city, they can choose to say, hey, we want this one block next to this school to be very kid friendly. And that one block would be a 10 mile an hour block. Or they could choose to completely close it off to traffic for right before school pickup and drop off. And it could be used for both new schools or existing schools.

Representative Lindsay, I might offer that I think we may have someone on the next panel who can answer that question. Representative Basinecker. THANK YOU, MADAM CHAIR. THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE TO TESTIFY TODAY. I THINK ONE OF THE THINGS I'M STRUCK BY, AND YOU MENTIONED CLOSING STREETS NEAR SCHOOLS, I REPRESENT WEST AND NORTH FORT COLLEANS, AND PARTICULARLY IN NORTH FORT COLLEANS, THERE IS A LACK OF INFRASTRUCTURE THAT MAKES IT OFTEN VERY CHALLENGING FOR KIDDOS AND QUITE FRANKLY ADULTS TO GET ANY PLACE OTHER THAN VIA A CAR. AND THAT CAN BE A VERY CHALLENGING SITUATION, ESPECIALLY FOR OUR YOUNGER LEARNERS WHO ARE JUST TRYING TO GET TO SCHOOL SAFELY. CAN YOU TALK TO ME A LITTLE BIT ABOUT WHAT YOU'VE LEARNED FROM OR SEEN FROM OTHER STATES WHO HAVE MAYBE DONE SOMETHING SIMILAR IN TERMS OF LIKE CLOSING OFF STREETS NEXT TO SCHOOLS OR RECOGNIZING THAT SOME STREETS ARE, YOU KNOW, WOULD BE USED HEAVILY. WERE THEY SAFE FOR CHILDREN TO ACTUALLY CROSS IN A WAY THAT WAS, I MEAN, JUST A LITTLE BETTER REGULATED OR AT LEAST A LITTLE SLOWER? JUST WONDERING WHAT you've seen elsewhere that you can provide for us. Mr.

New York are some of the peers that we've looked at. We've seen substantial improvements in the number of children that are able to bike and walk to school. We've seen improvements in air quality around the schools. Obviously, there's a cost saving for parents if they're not having to drive and have that depreciation on their car. And we've also seen academic performance improvements, maybe not directly correlated to this, but there is a ton of studies that show when students get more exercise before school, they perform better in the classroom. And on top of that, I would say especially students with ADHD, sorry, ADHD are able to perform better too in these cases that we've seen.

Chair, thank you. Not necessarily specific to any one person, although I did live in the Baker neighborhood for a little while. Great area. I live near a couple of schools and it warms my heart when I hear Castle Rock Police Department sirens going off before I get in my car and come here. Because it means that somebody just got popped. And I in favor of that additional enforcement So no matter what we do though doesn it really come down to enforcement that we have to work with our local law enforcement partners to be able to enforce these things Because we can put up signs and we can put up signals and we can put up lights. but yet we know that for so many people step one is get in their car step two is light their hair on fire and they just no matter what we do we can't get through to them that they need to slow down so I'm just kind of trying to play devil's advocate here a little bit to say isn't it really more in working with our law enforcement partners than any law that we can create to make sure that we're really getting at those people and getting at the the bad actors and school zones miss Henry

Mr. Raber and then RepRox.

Oh, sorry, Mr. Cowgirl. Yeah, thank you so much. I appreciate that question. I think when we look at enforcement, I think it's a Swiss cheese effect, right? We need to look at different methodology. I think enforcement is absolutely a serious component of it. when we think about just the city and county of denver we have around 200 schools if we think about the amount of manpower required to um have an officer at each school every morning during those school hours that is a significant commitment that the city and county can't afford right now um i think what would be a more meaningful perspective is the automated enforcement provisions of this bill in denver when we've used automated enforcement again it's optional to be used at whatever city would want to do it it's not a mandate but i think it's really important to note that the vast majority of people that have gotten tickets were just first-time offenders. It's like 80 or 90 percent. So people realize once they get that ticket in the mail that they sped through the school zone, it corrects their behavior. So I think that's an important component

Mr. Cowgirl. Just real quick to that. I think what I hear all the time representing Northwest Denver on our Department of Transportation Infrastructure Board, I hear from so many parents that want more tools in the toolkit. And I absolutely appreciate that what might not be a toolkit that's effective for Castle Rock. we would like the statutes to be changed so it could be a better toolkit for those in the city county of Denver or elsewhere in Colorado because right now it's not. Thank you for the comment.

I have a lot more things I could share.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Since you opened the door to more questions then, and actually what you said was exactly what I have on my list of questions. I want to start off by saying I'm super supportive, right? So my questions are informational. And so that was my question was in this, it looks like on Section 3, it talks about the decision maker, which says over and over, a county, city and county, or municipality. And so that's who's making the decisions. And you gave a good example of when they removed the signs. And so, yeah, my question was about, you know, where is the school in this? And, you know, shouldn't they – it seems like they should be working together. And I think at one point we heard that, that this would also include the school or the school board. And I keep going, who's paying for it? Like my biggest question is a process question just on, you know, who's paying for it? Like if the signs are going to be – if we need new signs, then okay. But, you know, who's the decision maker? So it looks like the decision-maker is the municipality or the county or the city and county, which I think that's confusing. But if the municipality is the decision-maker, and in your case they're taking signs down, but let's say they're putting up new signs. Like in my case, because we have a school street, very busy, several schools on it, and the speed limit is 20. So if they decided they want it to be 10, now they have to replace the signs to say 10 instead of 20. Looks like the school is paying for the new signs, but the city can come in and take the signs down. Is that your understanding?

My understanding of the bill as it is written is it does give a provision to allow a community to bond to pay for new signs if they need it. So it's a funding avenue for that. Nothing in this bill is prescriptive. It is all optional. So in our particular instance where if this passes, my school will still be 450 feet because there's nothing that says they need to take it back up to 1,800 or 1,000. So there is no cost to the city for that. What is in this bill is that if a city tries to do what our city did, they have to hold a public meeting. And that also goes for a new school who may be opting to want to have a smaller than 1,000-foot school zone. will have to hold a public meeting. And we're seeing that most new schools have these very, very small school zones. The most egregious I've seen was one that was a negative 150 feet. So it actually started past the border of the school. So it's just protecting them and informing them and improving transparency while allowing parents and school districts and abilities to fund it if they see a fit.

represent if anyone and you've got three minutes good afternoon madam chair members of the committee my name is sheree garcia cooper i'm a resident of centennial and i will be speaking in favor of this bill. While I serve as an elective member of my local board of education, I'm testifying today as a private citizen, a parent, and a former volunteer crossing guard. In Colorado and under federal law, we have long established that a school safety zone should extend 1,000 feet from the property line. We already mandate this distance for the prohibition of firearms and for enhanced penalties regarding illegal drugs because we recognize that 1,000 feet is the necessary buffer to keep our learning environment secure. It is time our traffic safety laws reflect that same standard. A speeding vehicle is a direct threat to a child's life, yet our current laws allow drivers to resume normal transit speeds, sometimes of just 500 feet from a school. Often most students are still navigating bike lanes, crosswalks, and sidewalks. I frequently visit our schools and stand at our crosswalks. I see firsthand the dangers our students face when drivers accelerate the moment they believe they have cleared a small marked zone, and I often have drivers speed past my car as I'm driving to visit our schools. This is not a theoretical for me. My own son was hit by a vehicle turning right in a school zone. We were incredibly fortunate that the driver was moving slowly enough that he was able to walk away. Tragically, another beloved family in our community was not as lucky. I happened to be just a block away on October 17, 2023, the day that Liam Stewart was killed in one of our school zones. I carry the weight of that day with me every time I drive through our school zones or step onto our school campuses. Our current 500-foot zones and existing infrastructure simply do not command the full attention of drivers, and the cost of that inattention is a debt no family should ever have to pay. I understand the concerns about administrative workload during a tight budget year Trust me As the president of a board of education I get it However I think we can all agree that we rather our taxes go toward 10 hours of mapping a safer 1,000-foot zone than one hour of writing a letter of condolence to a grieving family. Logistics are fixable. Lives are not. Please vote yes on House Bill 1318. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chairman. Thank you, members of the committee. Skylar McKinley here on behalf of AAA and our nearly 800,000 members in Colorado. You've heard a lot here today about safety, and that is really the most important principle at play here. But I want to add another principle. It's fairness. It's fairness for motorists, and it's fairness for families. Under current law, a school zone is hardly a zone. It's an area a jurisdiction has placed signs. That's it. There's no distance requirement. There's no standard. There's no minimum or maximum. The rules are different school to school, city to city. And a motorist who is trying to stay in compliance with the law has no reasonable basis to know what to expect. A zone could be 50 feet in one community. It could be 500 in another. And you wouldn't be able to tell either way because a school zone is not a zone. It's a sign. That's more than just confusing to motorists. For a law to be fair, it has to be knowable. The current law isn't. The current law doesn't establish a geographic zone. It establishes a sign. When the sign moves, the zone moves. That can happen, as we've heard, overnight without a public hearing, without a notice to motorists who drive that road every day. A driver who was in compliance yesterday may not be today, and there's no mechanism to let them know that other than a sign, and by then it may be too late. That same instability affects families. You know, I was a latchkey kid. I grew up in Pueblo, and when I was growing up, I had a single mom who was working during the day, so I walked to and from school, around two miles there, two miles back. The reason my mom felt it was safe for me to do that is because we assessed the route. Here's how you're going to go. Here's the danger points. Here's how you have to be mindful, right? So my mom made a decision as a parent, and we followed suit. The problem is with the current law, a parent can make that call and then the ground can shift underneath them the moment a jurisdiction decides to move a sign. There's no hearing, there's no notice, so you might be telling your kid, hey, this is a safe way to get to school and then suddenly it isn't and you have no idea. This bill changes that. In the first place, school zone signs will mark the boundaries of a zone which becomes a real thing. A motorist will know where the zone starts and where it ends. That's a good baseline. And before a jurisdiction can reduce a zone, a public hearing is required. Parents and motorists get a voice before the rules change. They also get an update. All of these are fundamental notions of fairness. Government should tell you what to expect before it expects something of you. That's what this bill helps accomplish and AAA asked for your support. I'll also add that as questions come up, I'm happy to answer those having been involved since the early days on this important bill. Thanks.

Good afternoon. Thank you. My name is Ashton Honecki. I'm here as a parent. I lead the west side of Brown Bike Bus, and I'm here for my daughter Ada, who is an eight-year-old child. I also sit on the Mayor's Advisory Pedestrian Council, but I'm here as a private citizen. I here to support HB 261318 with the school street amendment and I wanted to talk a little bit about the school street amendment So we a couple of blocks five blocks away from Brown International Academy and Bike Bus is this experience where the kids get together on a safe route and ride to the school together. They ride in a peloton together, as safe of a route as we can make. We have to get several adults to go physically stand in front of the cars to make it safe so that the children can ride their bikes to the school. And it's really exciting to watch them come to the realization that they can use their bodies as transportation, that they can move themselves, and that their world does not have to be limited to a booster seat. I see them engaged. I see them excited. and I think that they deserve the ability to get to their schools safely, even without several adult bodyguards throwing themselves in front of cars to make sure that they are safe.

Good afternoon. My name is Kenyon Moon. I live in Colorado. I guess that's the important thing. I grew up in a smaller town, and I've heard a lot of people talking about big cities, which is critical, but I want to share the experience of the other side of this. I grew up in a smaller town, not the tiniest town, perhaps 3,000 people. One blinking red light, two stoplights, three freeway exits. We only got a library in the 90s. my childhood neighborhood still has a dirt road if i were to continue on i suspect that many of you would recognize some part of yourself or your experience in such a town as i described even so traffic was intense the school was on the far side of main street yes it was called main street as school was on the far side of main street as compared to my neighborhood my house was less than two miles from the school, but on days that my parents drove us, we would sit and wait for a gap in traffic, sometimes several minutes. On days that I walked, I had to cross Main Street on foot. No crosswalk, no guard, no light, and if cars were waiting to make a turn, I had to compete with them for the rare gap in traffic. I remember the discussion of stoplights coming up several times, but they never went anywhere. The road has since been widened. There is now a turn lane on Main Street, but there is still no traffic light at the neighborhood exit, and there is still no stoplight at the school. Now I live in an apartment in a larger city. My building has 12 units on each of three floors, and the complex has J number of buildings. I know jay is not a number it is entirely possible that my current complex has more residents than the town that i grew up in never mind the neighborhood and the wider city around me and guess what traffic sucks here too and addressing the basic things around pedestrian safety is still an uphill climb let me clarify that i'm not suggesting cars go away but there is a simple fact of life related to motor vehicles, and that is this. Even if you drive for literally every trip, you become a pedestrian the moment you step out of your car, even in a small town. Sorry I not trying to break my voice In the case of this bill your children become the pedestrian when you get to their school The laws of physics do not change based on population or political preference Congestion and the physical risks from traffic due to incomplete transportation designs affect all of us, regardless. And politics sucks everywhere. No offense to present company. I said that my town had one sidewalk but no crosswalk, and that the stoplight discussion went nowhere, despite wide support. If we build ourselves into a corner, it can be difficult to add a remedy if there are no definitions or only loose definitions. It can be difficult even if there is substantial interest from the wider community. If you have ever tried to push a piece of cooked spaghetti around on your plate, you know how difficult it is to achieve your goal regardless of your intention.

This is a solid something which districts, communities, and parents can use to approach their local transportation departments or governments with a solution and begin the process of negotiating for implementation.

Thank you very much to chair and committee members. Thank you for allowing me to speak. You've heard a number of rational, scientific, educational, legal arguments. I'd like to paint a picture if I could, and I hope I can do justice to the emotional impact. I'm going to assume that most of you attended school upwards of 12 years or more. Some of you may have school children of school age. A few of you may even have grandkids who will or have started school. And a school year is about 180 days, typically. We don't remember everything that happens in school, but certain events kind of stand out, celebratory events. Things like Valentine's Day and collecting valentines. Thanksgiving, the Thanksgiving celebrations. the first day of school, the last day of school, when we collected our gym shoes and we could wear them home instead of our street shoes. Certain events stand out. And this particular story is over 40 years old. It was shared to me over 30 years ago. My boss's daughter was struck on Valentine's Day outside the school, immediately outside the school in the street. They got the call to come to the school and collect their daughter's belongings in the street were the valentines scattered across the street. A day that should have been a day of celebration turned into a nightmare. And when he shared this story to me, he was still haunted by the image of those Valentines on the street. I'm haunted by it, and it didn't happen to me personally. I'm thankful that it didn't happen to my daughter when she was five. So my plea to you is allow this bill to go forward. Let's bring it to its conclusion, and let's start to make our streets safer for everyone. Thank you.

I would like to move Amendment L-001 to the bill.

Brett Froelich. Thank you, Madam Chair. As we went through it before, I'll just reiterate, clarified up some language, and most of it to talk about state highways so that CDOT, which was driving our fiscal note, could get to a place where they would not be responsible for spending any money, which would send us zero out our fiscal note. And losing the opportunity to standardize 1,000 feet across the state, we went back into the research to allow for a couple other options on the menu. And so that's why you saw in the amendment as well the discussion of closing streets around schools and the concept of, okay, maybe we're not standardized at 1,000, but let's not go any smaller unless we hold a public hearing. And then I just want to remind folks, this is an amendment to the bill, and the bill includes those other provisions, the Avis cameras and the other enforcement pieces. So anyway, we ask for a yes vote on Amendment 1.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And yes, I can confirm that this would eliminate the fiscal note. And that's primarily because of the language that would give CDOT the flexibility to designate state highways as school zones as we see fit. We absolutely have school zones. Our engineers have confirmed that there are about 1,700 signs in our sign inventory that are related to schools. Most of our school zones are at least 1,000 feet in length. there may be a few that are shorter than that, but most are 1,000. We just recently set one at George Washington High School that is 1,500 feet. We have one in Cortez that is 1.5 miles long, so we do have pretty long state highways, but our state highway school zones is something we take very seriously, but state highways also come in lots of different forms, so we were specifically thinking about controlled access highways, so you can think about, you know, I-70 or I-25 where there might be a school that's right next to the interstate maybe is within 500 feet, but there's no pedestrian access, no way for the children to cross the street. And so it wouldn't make sense to put a school zone on I-70. So having that discretion is something that would eliminate the fiscal note. Fantastic.

He is not allowed to comment on the fiscal note. He's allowed to make a fiscal memo, which would be available on seconds if anybody had any doubts about what we're saying right now. Fantastic.

Are there any questions about the amendment, Rhett Phillips? Thank you, Madam Chair. My question is about, okay, I'm looking at the amendment. So my understanding is if a street is designated as a school street, and that would be by the county, the city and county, or the municipality. So if they designate a street as a school street, And we have no problem where the school zones are long, but I get what you're trying to do in the bill. I just want to make sure that it's not going to impact what we already have. So if they designate the school zone as a school street, then that automatically changes the speed limit to 10. That's on line 30. And so that automatically changes the speed limit to 10, which is currently 20. And so then new signs would have to be put up, and the school has to pay for the new signs. Is that correct?

Representative Phillips. Thank you, Madam Chair. Okay, that's super helpful. So it seems then that, and again, our school zones are, I'm sure they're at least 1,000. So it seems like this would be no change to what we currently have. Okay, great.

Just causing trouble Now I had a I thought CDOT would be up for questions during the bill I just had a brief one on the safe routes to school it's referenced in the bill as an area but my understanding of CDOT kind of looks at a two mile proximity when they're looking at grants and there's not really mapping of what the safe routes to school are so i was curious if i guess your read of the bill would be that any project that had been designated as a safe route to school would be eligible for enforcement under this bill i just going to clarify that Rep Richardson did ask for permission to ask this question

I was hoping I'd distract her. Thank you. Yeah, that's my understanding. Yes, we do have a Safe Routes to School grant program that is primarily federally funded, and so we are funding grants throughout the state for specific Safe Routes to School. I don't think that the bill as written would mean that you have had to receive a grant from CDOT to do enforcement. I think you could potentially, you know, designate a safe route to school on your own. I'd have to have my colleagues confirm that. But, yes, I do think that's my understanding of the bill. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. and she mentioned it in her statement on 001, but which school is it in Cortez that you were talking about? Ms. Hathaway. I think that the reason it's a 1.5-mile school zone is because there's multiple schools. So I believe there's a middle school and an elementary school, and so that's why it's so long is that there's so many different spots where you might be crossing. I can confirm the names of the schools.

Representative Froelich.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I move House Bill 1318 as amended to the committee of the whole with a favorable recommendation.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair. I just want to emphasize that this bill does carry a lot of weight and a lot of stories. As you heard through testimony, through evidence, through people's truths, that this is going to save lives. And that's our hope is that we want to save lives. We want to make sure that parents, children, and school educators are able to bring in their children and whether it be drop off or pickup, that's it. We're trying to save lives. And so it is with great gusto that I work with a lot of the stakeholders behind me. And, of course, I really want to give much thanks to my friend, my fellow co-sponsor, for letting me join. This is being my first bill – well, my first bills as a state lawmaker. So thank you so much.

Any closing comments, committee?

time for my community. Representative Basinicker. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Bill Sponsors, for bringing the bill. I've shared this story once before, but my father-in-law, who who passed away, has passed away since from leukemia, was fresh out of a stem cell transplant, had just done his rehab in Arvada, was feeling better, was an everyday cyclist. When we moved to Fort Collins, I think he made it a right of initiation to take me on mountain bike rides where he would, in his 60s, have me like just gasping for air behind him. And that was my welcome to Fort Collins moment. And also one of the reasons I loved riding with Ralph so much because he was just such a cycling enthusiast. He was also an avid road cyclist. We still have his Peugeot bike at home, even though he's since passed. And that's the same bike where shortly after coming back to Fort Collins, after his stem cell transplant, he was hit by a vehicle. Here's a guy who had survived the impossible only to be hit by a car just short distance from our home and right near a school, right in Central Fort Collins, right near City Park. And I would just say this, that here's an individual who is doing everything right, who is abiding by all the laws, who is being careful and cognizant of their surroundings. know who's better than my 17, 15 or an 11 year old the risks that come with unfortunately riding your bicycle that you shouldn't have to take on but they're very real and and here's somebody who did everything right and still was hit by a careless driver. Thankfully he rolled and survived and, you know, we got to enjoy more time with him. I think, unfortunately, those stories are few and far between where folks live to tell the tale. And I think for those who are rightly telling the tale on behalf of those who have experienced loss, who haven't been as fortunate, who have been killed by a vehicle, in instances that I think are too often preventable because we can invest dollars in infrastructure, we can vote yes on a bill like yours and say that it's not everything, but it's something and for folks who have experienced unimaginable loss, something is really meaningful. It's just why I'm so proud to support your bill today. I'm thankful for your work. We have more work to do here. I know that you all are committed to it, but I really appreciate you taking this first step and, and standing with families who have been impacted by this in ways that I hope none of us ever have to experience. So thank you.

Representative Paschal. Thank you, Madam Chair. Really echoing the words of Rep. Jackson, thank you so much for everyone that came out here and told their story. I think it has a huge impact, and we very clearly need to be doing a better job to keep our kids safe. So I am definitely a yes vote on this bill.

All right, folks. Well, I will just say thank you again to everyone who came and shared your stories today and for your advocacy. I know many of us sitting up here in this particular committee, especially when we served in local government prior to this, really feel strongly about vulnerable road users. I know I do. Making sure that we can do. We doing everything that we possibly can to you know every every tool in the toolbox even if it a small step forward to do what we can to protect folks And so incredibly grateful for you both for bringing this bill and incredibly grateful to the folks who brought this idea forward and are advocating from a place of pain very often. We are very, very thankful for you. yes with that