Aurora City Council on Monday passed a resolution outlining a comprehensive plan to support crime-reduction strategies in the city.

Councilman Dustin Zvonek, who introduced the resolution, said it will require city management to provide regular updates on five core strategies to improve public safety:

• Fully staffing and funding the Aurora Police Department with industry-leading training for all officers
• Implementing data-driven policing with data collection and analytics guiding the department
• Restoring the Aurora Gang Reduction Impact Program
• Expanding crisis response teams like the Aurora Crisis Response Team, which has officers and clinicians responding with intervention and de-escalation services
• Implementing and executing the city’s urban camping ban

Zvonek said Aurora residents are concerned about crime and public safety and that while many of these strategies are already in place, bringing them together in a comprehensive plan will lead to more targeted analysis and conversation on what can be improved. 

“The saying goes, ‘What gets measured gets done,’ and in Aurora what needs to get done is an improvement of public safety for our residents,” Zvonek said.

Councilman Juan Marcano proposed four amendments to the resolution, all of which were rejected by the council. Marcano said the second statement in the resolution is “leaning toward untruth,” because an increase in crime was a global phenomenon over the past two years amid the pandemic. He also said it’s a “politically motivated attack on the state legislature.”

The statement he referred to reads, “We recognize that the growing wave of crime threatening the safety of Coloradans is in large part a result of the policies passed by state lawmakers creating hurdles that will be difficult to overcome. But as local elected officials, public safety must be a top priority, and we can’t wait for the Colorado General Assembly to act.”

Councilwoman Alison Coombs said the statement wrongfully attacks the state legislature. She said that between 2019 and 2021, the legislature passed 33 bills looking to help survivors of crime, law enforcement and first responders, along with other public safety investments.

“We need to be working with our partners and doing what we can together to address the needs of the people of our city rather than being antagonistic to our partners at other levels of government in the ways that we pass resolutions,” Coombs said. “Resolutions are for the purpose of making policy statements, not political attacks.”

Zvonek said it’s not an attack, but a recognition that the legislature – which has passed bills with the support of both parties – has “failed the state of Colorado and the city of Aurora.” He said the legislature needs to step up and partner with communities to reduce crime with legislation.

Councilwoman Crystal Murillo said the wording of the resolution doesn’t show intention of partnership because it says it cannot wait for the legislature to act.

Marcano’s other three amendments intended to direct more funding to housing, work with organizations to improve access to early childhood education and to create a local economy where one full-time job is enough to sustain a family, which he said would be a more proactive and data-driven approach to improving the city’s public safety.

Councilman Steve Sundberg said people in Aurora want to see a change in the city’s public safety practices regardless of whether it is a global trend. Mayor Mike Coffman agreed with Sundberg, saying what happens in Aurora is the city’s responsibility.

“We’ve got people in the city right now that are frustrated that we can’t write traffic tickets, that we’re not issuing DUIs, that wait 40 minutes for police response times if any come at all,” Sundberg said.

City Council’s Public Safety, Courts and Civil Service Policy committee will get monthly updates on each of the strategies and City Council will get updates quarterly at study sessions.