 The first thing I want to say is I want to thank you all for being here this morning to help get the message out to the public, to our community out here about the events that are happening this weekend involving Cinco de Mayo. Traditionally, what we see is part of those events that happen throughout the city during the weekend is many celebrate by coming up to federal and cruising up and down the corridor. We want the residents and certainly the business community along federal to know that we anticipate that again this year, that we anticipate heavier volumes of traffic up and down federal, probably starting beginning tonight and extending through the weekend. The Denver Police Department does have a plan in place, certain goals first and foremost to maximize public safety, minimize the congestion up and down federal and also to control the noise that happens as a result in the neighborhoods that exist and live up and down the federal Boulevard corridor. We have many officers that are going to be assigned to this event and this effort this weekend and will be looking for violations that really pose the most risk to public safety. We will be strictly enforcing those violations, be looking for things like speeding, driving under the influence, things like street racing, hanging out vehicles with passengers that are driving up and down. So careless reckless driving is sometimes something that we often see so we're going to be enforcing those types of violations very strictly. We have a traffic plan that involves essentially three phases. The first phase will just allow normal traffic up and down federal and won't involve any barricades. We'll have officers assigned to post at different locations up and down federal. If we have to go to what we call a phase two in that traffic plan where traffic really starts to congest up and start to congregate even more then we'll implement that phase two and really what that involves is setting up barricades to restrict access to some of the neighborhoods that surround the corridor to reduce the impact on the residential community. If we have to go to the third phase what that involves is traffic has gotten to a point where it doesn't allow normal flow that is very restrictive. We feel that there's some safety complications and safety is compromised and in that event what we'll do is we'll start to divert traffic off of federal and we have a plan set up for that if we need to do that and basically our goal is again to maximize the safety of the community and of the public and we'll continue that operation until traffic is back to a normal level. This is something too I think that this effort not only this weekend what we've seen over the last several years particularly on Sunday evenings is this type of the same type of cruising that goes up along up and down federal you know again those same types of violations that we looked for the street racing you know the careless reckless driving that's an effort that's really going to go on throughout the entire summer you know thanks to support from you know our city council and others we're able to dedicate officers throughout the summer on Sunday evenings specifically for enforcement up and down federal to keep that that those safety thanks to the maximum effort that we can. So that's essentially it I'll let councilman Flynn say a few words. Sure if that's okay. First of all my name is Kevin Flynn, FYNN I'm the city council representative for Southwest Denver District 2. Welcome to Southwest Denver. First of all I want to wish everyone a great happy and safe Cinco de Mayo. There's a tremendous festival going on downtown but as you know here on Southwest Enbridge federal quarter traditionally we have a lot of cruising and showing off vehicles frankly a lot of really gorgeous cars are going to be out here this weekend but I'll tell you what one of the biggest complaints we have here in this part of town is street racing and the street racing isn't on federal it's on our side streets it's on the street behind us and it's on the street behind me and that's dangerous and I want to ask people to respect your neighborhoods take it to Bandamere if you want to race right but you know let us see your gorgeous cars but please don't race as the commander said we were able to secure special funding for overtime enforcement on street racing here in police district 4 and we hope that we don't see a lot of it but if we do we'll be prepared to to handle it we did the same thing last year was very successful we hope it will be even more successful this year so thank you very much and everybody happy Cinco de Mayo. Thank you. Can we ask you a quick question? Sure. The group talking before about the weather I mean will you light a candle and hope for bad weather perhaps this weekend? How does that play in the fact? We do we do not hope for bad weather we hope that we have a you know sunshine and and you know warm weather so that everybody that is out enjoying the activities can enjoy it. Some of those activities might be weather dependent? Yeah in years past I mean we've seen that if we have inclement weather bad bad weather during the you know the weekend then we do see less activity. We'll have enough officers that assigned to this event that that we'll be able to monitor that activity again if it gets if congestion with traffic gets to the point where we need to control it even more we'll start putting up those barricades on the side streets so that access to those neighborhoods are restricted. This weekend won't involve it shouldn't involve much overtime at all because you know we've we've accommodated planned ahead changed days off that sort of thing for our officers going forward throughout the summer you know depending on on you know how much how many officers we actually end up having out here it could be up to $60,000 in overtime throughout the summer and that special funding it will we'll be able to we've already been approved to spend up to that amount through our budget. City Council has certainly helped with that effort and facilitated that. Well I certainly things have I think improved over the years especially we keep track of you know citations and those sorts of things that you know that are issued we've seen a decrease for particularly the Cinco de Mayo celebration over the last few years as far as enforcement activity. I think we still see the street racing still see that exhibition of speed in certain areas I think some of that's been dispersed but it's still an issue it's still a problem you know not only in this community out here but but even in other communities throughout the metro area you know I think education is is a big part of that we're certainly involved in that as far as the prevention efforts you know working with various car clubs the neighborhood associations you know to get the word out of you know what we're looking for what our efforts are things that they can do to you know to get the word out to their residents in their neighborhood you know last year throughout the weekend I think we had 102 citations that were issued I'd have to get those numbers I can get those for you but as I said over the last probably three four five years even we've seen a decrease a steady decrease in the amount of citations that we've ridden you know it's always difficult to predict that I think that you know we expect to see you know what we normally see out here along federal which are our large crowds and particularly over the weekend Saturday Sunday 102 you know we've never seen it we've never seen it extend to that late of an hour certainly with the the noise issues and the honking horns and those celebratory types of things you know that's something we're going to be paying attention to we've got to be very mindful of the residents that live up and down the corridor and and their rights and and that sort of thing so that's something we'll take into account as you know we're confronted with those types of noise issues especially as we get later on into the evening hours that was just up here on federal and along the corridor speeding duis you know again careless driving those types of things that were pretty typical I'm sorry I would say duis and speeding I think if I recall right I could look at that and confirm that no I like I said I think federal the the corridor certainly the surrounding neighborhoods are affected by it and that's something you know we'll pay attention to there most of the activity is really relegated to to this corridor that we see particularly down here in southwest Denver and I'll uh I didn't mention it the the start but my name is mark please and commander with the Denver police department uh district four and the last name spelling is f l e e c s in regard to the $60,000 special overtime grant that we got last year when this project was done with the same amount of money it more than paid for itself in the resulting tickets and fines that came out of that effort so it's not $60,000 just going out the window but it's providing safety and it's paying for itself so we wanted to repeat that this year and we were able to do that and I'll make one more comment on that that's not something that that we set out to do certainly to recoup money or anything like that um our enforcement is the number of citations that are written are based upon safety violations uh period and uh you know certainly there were over the course of the summertime in the effort last year that we had throughout the summer there were there were a lot of those citations written a lot of enforcement done throughout the summer that I think helped to alleviate the amount of activity that was going on up here.