Speaker 1: First sort of shot to prominence while running for the
Speaker 1: US Senate, but now is spending some time helping get
Speaker 1: some balid initiatives over the finish line, the least of
Speaker 1: which is Proposition one point thirty. I call it the
Speaker 1: cop prop and it aims to direct lawmakers and I'm
Speaker 1: reading this so it aims to direct lawmakers in Colorado
Speaker 1: to allocate three hundred and fifty million in additional funding
Speaker 1: to local law enforcement agencies.
Speaker 2: This funding would be used to pay.
Speaker 1: For increase pay for officers, hiring and retention bonuses, and
Speaker 1: hiring additional officers to address specific geographic areas or types
Speaker 1: of crime.
Speaker 2: And joining me now to talk about it is Joe Oday.
Speaker 2: Hi Joe, how you doing.
Speaker 3: Mandy, great to be with you today, how are you?
Speaker 2: I'm doing great.
Speaker 1: Do I remember from your campaign that your dad was
Speaker 1: a police officer?
Speaker 2: Did I remember that correctly?
Speaker 3: He did. He was a thirty year veteran of the
Speaker 3: Denver Police Department.
Speaker 4: And I distinctly remember as a kid, you know, wondering
Speaker 4: whether or not that was too dangerous of a job
Speaker 4: for my dad. It scared us as a family, And
Speaker 4: then that's kind of why I've gotten behind Proposition one
Speaker 4: thirty here with a bunch of great business leaders across
Speaker 4: the state.
Speaker 1: You were talking, we were talking briefly off the air
Speaker 1: about the fact that this initiative is extremely important business.
Speaker 2: Tell me about that.
Speaker 4: Well, we've seen crime just spike across our state, you know,
Speaker 4: number three, and violent crime second to second third to Louisiana.
Speaker 3: Nevada.
Speaker 4: We're still number one for carthfs. We've got a lot
Speaker 4: of shoplifting going on, and so kind of how do
Speaker 4: you fight that, Well, you need to have more cops
Speaker 4: on the ground. You need to have better trained cops,
Speaker 4: you need to have them motivated to do this job.
Speaker 4: Cus I did a study and you know, we're on
Speaker 4: the lower end of paying our cops.
Speaker 3: The entry level was about sixty grand a year. That's
Speaker 3: not near enough.
Speaker 4: So business community got behind this ballot initiative one thirty.
Speaker 3: It's going to do a few things.
Speaker 4: It's going to help provide resources so that we can
Speaker 4: hire more police officers, more peace officers. It's going to
Speaker 4: give them training that they so valuably need. You know,
Speaker 4: it's gotten more dangerous here in Colorado. We've heard of
Speaker 4: these mental issues that people have had. Given them training,
Speaker 4: so they're prepared to handle some of that.
Speaker 3: In addition, it.
Speaker 4: Provides a million dollar policy to the family of any
Speaker 4: first responder killed in the line of duty within thirty days.
Speaker 4: And that's really important. As I remember as a kid
Speaker 4: wondering whether or not my dad is going to return
Speaker 4: from work every night.
Speaker 3: It's a big deal and that hopefully.
Speaker 4: Will incentivize a lot of good people to take on
Speaker 4: this task that Colorado so deeply needs.
Speaker 1: Now to the point of the insurance policy, the million
Speaker 1: dollar insurance policy, that would give any officer who has
Speaker 1: a family who's concerned about that, I mean, a little
Speaker 1: bit peace of mind anyway. But I want to ask you,
Speaker 1: do you have specific data on how understaffed like Denver Police,
Speaker 1: Aurora Police.
Speaker 2: I know they're understaffed. I mean I know that.
Speaker 1: Do you know exactly how many they're down percentage wise?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do know that.
Speaker 4: I've talked to Chief Payson, you know, he's the retired
Speaker 4: chief of police from city County of Denver, and he's
Speaker 4: told me that they've got about one hundred positions open
Speaker 4: over there right.
Speaker 3: Now that they could use.
Speaker 4: And you know, I think the cops kind of got
Speaker 4: a black eye, if you will.
Speaker 3: Through the.
Speaker 4: Georgia Floyd there here in Minnesota, and so you know,
Speaker 4: there was a period of time where there was a
Speaker 4: lot of energy against them. And now that we've seen
Speaker 4: the prime spike across our state because we don't have enough,
Speaker 4: I think you're going to see that people are really
Speaker 4: going to get behind this initiative. We're predicting that it's
Speaker 4: going to win by seventy seventy five percent here in Colorado.
Speaker 4: I haven't talked to you business owner that doesn't want
Speaker 4: to see more police on the ground and have more
Speaker 4: security around around the businesses.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, Joe, in all honesty, I think that
Speaker 1: especially in Denver downtown. Denver has such a terrible reputation now.
Speaker 1: I mean I talk to people, and I'm not just
Speaker 1: talking about conservative people. I'm talking about people of every
Speaker 1: political swath that say, you know what, I used to
Speaker 1: go down there all the time, but now it doesn't
Speaker 1: feel as safe, So maybe I'm going down once a
Speaker 1: month instead of three or four times a month. And
Speaker 1: it's had a really negative impact on allowing Denver's downtown
Speaker 1: to come back after COVID. So you would think that
Speaker 1: this would be the highest priority for pretty much everybody.
Speaker 2: If you are invested in the.
Speaker 1: City and you want it to succeed, public safety has
Speaker 1: to come as the first priority because I don't think
Speaker 1: until we feel confident that we can go down to
Speaker 1: downtown Denver and not have our car stolen or broken into,
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: They're going to struggle. So I hope you're right.
Speaker 1: I hope this this cross the party lines and people
Speaker 1: just say this is going to be better for everyone.
Speaker 4: But we've gotten support from not only the police unions,
Speaker 4: all the chiefs of police across the state. We've gotten
Speaker 4: support from all the sheriffs, all the DA's have gotten
Speaker 4: behind this to you know, hopefully start the curb the
Speaker 4: crime here in Colorado, and I think it's a step forward.
Speaker 4: It might not be enough, but I think we'll be
Speaker 4: able to measure these results here in the next couple
Speaker 4: of years as we see this money go into the
Speaker 4: pockets of those that are serving Colorado and hopefully motivate
Speaker 4: more people to sign up for this job.
Speaker 1: I have a question, and this might be too far
Speaker 1: in the weeds for you to answer at this point,
Speaker 1: but I was wondering how this money will be distributed,
Speaker 1: because you know, I think about these rural cop shops.
Speaker 1: You know, rural rural departments out there will only have
Speaker 1: a few police officers. Are they going to have the
Speaker 1: opportunity to benefit from these funds as well?
Speaker 4: Exactly, this is a statewide initiative, and our view is
Speaker 4: that it needs to be managed by the legislature. They're
Speaker 4: going to have to sit in here and figure out
Speaker 4: how we fund it and how we allocate those funds.
Speaker 4: But there needs to be a group of both union
Speaker 4: representatives from some of the.
Speaker 3: Either Denver or some of the other unions.
Speaker 4: There need to be some police chiefs, and there needs
Speaker 4: to be some rural sheriffs that are on this committee
Speaker 4: that determine exactly how we're going to appropriate this money.
Speaker 4: The one thing that's very clear in this ballat is
Speaker 4: it is going to peace officers. It's going to policing.
Speaker 4: And that's the one thing that our business community was
Speaker 4: very advocate about is making sure that it got spent
Speaker 4: on the guys that are putting their then gals that
Speaker 4: are putting their lives at risk for our grid state.
Speaker 1: And not necessarily about growing bureaucracy, not at all.
Speaker 4: We want to see this go to the worker that
Speaker 4: are out there that are protecting us.
Speaker 1: This text message just came in. Now, the text messages
Speaker 1: come in on a little bit of a delay. As
Speaker 1: a county sheriff, my concern is that this funding will
Speaker 1: all be concentrated on the I twenty five corridor and
Speaker 1: never reach rural Colorado. So we kind of address that now.
Speaker 1: But I mean, you understand why a county sheriff in
Speaker 1: a rural area would feel that way, because the rural
Speaker 1: areas in this state really do get overlooked.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the business owners that I talked to that we
Speaker 4: helped put this together, they're advocating that this gets statewide
Speaker 4: and it needs to be.
Speaker 3: By man and woman and not by bureaucracy.
Speaker 4: We need to make sure that it's allocated statewide, and
Speaker 4: that's one of the goals that will make sure happens
Speaker 4: as we work with the legislators to get this thing
Speaker 4: off the ground.
Speaker 1: Joe Ode, I appreciate your support of Proposition one point thirty.
Speaker 1: It is a yes from me, a yes from Joe,
Speaker 1: and I hope yes from everybody in our audience.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you making time for me today.
Speaker 3: Thanks you giving for having me on Mandy vote yes
Speaker 3: on Prop one thirty.
Speaker 2: Good to see you, Joe,