Mr. Johnson, regarding your resume claims
on leading on universal prescho,
you were CEO of Gary Community Ventures
which provided more than $1,0000
in funding to help pass Proposin
EE in 2020 that raised nicotine taxes
to fund universal preschool. Pr.
EE was put on the ballot by state lawmakers
in a bill signed by the Governo.
I want to give you some excerpts
from Governor Jared Polis,
State of the State speeches in 9
quote our top priority this sesn
offer free full day kindergarten
while expanding free preschool.
In 2020, quote,
I'm committed to achieving univl
access to quality preschool forr
year olds by the end of my first term.
So when you say you let on
universal preschool,
aren't you taking credit for the
governor's push for universal preschool?
No. There was a broad coalitionf
people who were all working togr
to get universal preschool done,
and we were proud to be a part of it.
We started the drafting of the measure
earlier that year and repaired,
prepared to go straight to
the ballot on it actually,
and not go through the legislat.
Through extensive negotiations
with leaders in the legislature,
we decided there was a path
to go through the legislature.
So we reached a compromise,
brought it into the legislature,
helped support and advocate for it to pass,
and work with members inside the legislature.
Then when it got referred to the ballot,
we helped.
Hold the other the campaign
to succeed at the ballot,
that meant giving money ourselv.
It meant fundraising from
other organizations.
It meant going to editorial boas
and talking to media outlets acs
the state to make that case.
And we're proud to partner withe
governor and with organizationse
Healthier Colorado and preschool
advocates to make sure we got that done.
So I think that was that was a d
coalition we were decided excito
be part of from the very beginn.
So
broad coalition partner with
is that the same as leading.
Oh yeah. I think that everyone in that
coalition had a real leadership role.
We had a leadership role in drag
and developing it with Healthier
Colorado and Jake Williams and s
like The Mirage Foundation and others.
We had a role partnering with legislators
who helped lead to get the voten
the legislature to get it passe.
We had a role in the ballot campaign,
which required raising the dolls
and building the coalitions
to get it endorsed and passed.
And it was a historic success wh
brought universal preschool statewide.
And I think that's a win win for
everybody that was involved.
When
it comes to the gun control bills in 2013,
you say you took on the NRA and,
one of the bills that you referenced was
supposed to ban large capacity gun magazines,
magazines that hold more than 15 bullets.
You voted yes on that bill and we can debate
whether that's taking on the NRA or not,
But my question is about
whether you really won.
My investigation a few years bak
proved both that large capacityn
magazines are still sold in gun stores
throughout the state and county
sheriff's are not enforcing the.
So why even reference this large
capacity magazine ban as taking
on the NRA and winning when it's
been proven that large capacityn
magazines are still sold in the state?
Yeah, it's critically important to both
pass legislation and then enforce it.
Obviously, they're still folks
speeding in Denver tonight and
that doesn't mean we should take
away the speed limits in the ci.
It means you have to work
hard to enforce them.
I think on this story, it's an important one,
the actual story of this measure
for folks that weren't there.
Is that yes, we were in the state Senate.
It was on a final vote.
We had lost several Democrats
and it was down to one vote.
And we were waiting to make
closing arguments to see if we
could pass these two bills.
Many people had led to get to that stage.
The legislators in the House,
the legislators in the Senate,
the parents of people who lost their kids,
the victims and survivors all
showed up to push for that.
They all let in this effort.
Yeah, when it came time to try
to hold the final vote,
my caucus called on me to make e
closing argument in that well,
and I was proud to do it,
to make sure we both closed that
18th vote and that I could help
cast one of those votes myself.
Every single one of the 18 senas
who cast a vote that day led that day.
Every single one of them often faced threats,
faced intimidations.
Many of them then were targeted for recall.
And when that happened,
I also showed up to knock doorsr
those senators to protect them,
to help raise resources,
to make sure we weren't a proof point
for why you couldn't take on gun safety,
but instead why you could build
a coalition to do that.
And I was proud to be part of i.
Why
call it winning when you voting
for it and passing it? Sure.
But why say you've won in this battle?
Well, there's the first of all,
the battle is never over.
There's always more steps to take and
good steps have been taken this year.
But at that point,
there had been no real legislate
that I know of in the country tt
had taken on this question of ho
really ban high capacity magazi.
And the gun lobby was very powe,
as evidenced by the fact there were hundreds
of NRA members circling the Cap,
honking their horns all day long to make sure
we couldn't have debate on the Senate floor.
People who got death threats,
people who were consistently harassed and so
our ability to say we refused to back down.
A lot of legislators thought
of those ideas and backed off.
We didn't back off.
We stayed in the fight.
We showed we can make progress
and then that wasn't enough.
We stayed back to continue and return to
these issues on issues like red flag laws
or the issue that the legislators did.
This session focused on things e
raising the the age for minimum
purchase or adding waiting peri.
Those are all important steps.
No one battle wins the war but you have
to continue to stay out those day and.
Day out, especially on an issue
as complicated as guns.
I want
to ask you one more thing about
another claim you make referencg
COVID Check Colorado Yes,
which provided COVID testing in the state.
You claim you took it from
one person to 1500 employees.
Now the city has about 13,000 employees,
so it's important to know your
experience running a large operation.
Yes? On the COVID Check Colorado
website under employment verification,
it says most COVID Check Colorado sites were
staffed by third party staffing agencies.
Individuals at these sites were not employed
by COVID Check Colorado LLC directly.
So can you clear up some confusion for me?
If they were not directly
employed by Kovach, check,
why are you claiming you had 1500 employees?
Sure. So here's the important
role that we played in this.
And this also was a broad partnership.
It was somewhere 2020, if you remember.
At that point, schools were shut down.
There are a lot of fears that schools
wouldn't be able to reopen in the fall.
And we talked to teachers and
what they said overwhelmingly ws
we want to go back to school,
but we need access to regular
testing if we're going to do th.
And so we started in that summer
a plan to start testing teachers
and schools and colleges.
We brought on more than 100 partners.
We provided more than 100,000 ts
to help reopen schools that fal.
And then when it was time to scale that,
when the November,
December came and the state wanted to
offer this kind of testing statewide,
they came to us.
We built a partnership to expand that
and we started leading and operg
those sites around the state.
That meant we had our own emplos
that were growing.
That meant there were places where we
had staffing agencies who helpe,
but in each one of those places,
we were partnering with those
staffing agencies.
We were directly paying them and
we were directly supervising th.
They were the ones on our site
being able to make sure when you
drove up and needed a test,
they were there to give you a
test to make sure the technology
got you the results back on tim.
So we supervised and oversaw all
of those partners and we paid
all their salaries,
even if they were working
for other staffing agencies.
You mentioned in the migrant
conversation that you could
hire staffing agencies.
In that situation.
As mayor, would you consider
that as they are city employees?
Oh, I think they are people
under our supervision if we're
hiring them and paying them,
but they might be separate from
city employees. But in this cas,
you have to be creative about
how to solve problems like this.
We had to do things like go to catering
agencies that had gone bankruptd
said we know you have a bunch of
employees who aren't currently working
because they were doing catering
and that shut down during Covin.
Could we convince all those
folks to come be COVA testers?
And you know,
more than 1000 people all left whatever
they were doing or decided to redirect
their entire career paths to saI
will come in and serve the stato
provide this core public servic.
That's the thing to celebrate.
And we were. Proud to partner with them.
Thank you.