Aurora City Council will discuss funding and plans for its proposed homeless navigation campus, which will help direct people to shelters and resources, and several items regarding council policy and rules at its second meeting of 2024 Monday evening. 

At council’s last meeting of 2023, members voted to pass a resolution amending meeting times. Previously, study sessions and regular meetings began at 6:30 p.m. and occurred on alternating Mondays.

With the passing of last year’s resolution, regular meetings and study sessions will happen on the same Mondays every other week, with study sessions beginning at 5:15 p.m. and regular meetings starting at 6:30 p.m.

During Monday’s study session, council is scheduled to discuss appointing several members to various city commissions and real-time streaming capabilities for council policy committee meetings. 

Previously, council policy committee meetings have been streamed using WebEx virtual meeting platform in real time on YouTube for the public to watch. 

Staff is instead considering Microsoft Teams for the meetings, recording them and posting them on YouTube no later than the following day, saying Teams is more efficient. 

During the regular meeting, starting at 6:30 p.m., council will hold two ceremonies: one for Black History Month and a second for Holocaust Remembrance Day.

They will appoint several commission members, vote on several zoning amendments and discuss changes to council rules of order and procedure, a resolution brought forth by councilmember Danielle Jurinsky.

The resolution addresses changes to council rules including those involving who can sit on the dias and policies about harassment. 

Council is also scheduled to vote on several items regarding its plans for the Aurora Regional Navigation Campus. 

They will vote on the property acquisition of a 13-acre hotel site for the project and funding for the land acquisition and development.

Similar to the Colorado Springs Rescue Mission, the navigation campus would be a “one-stop shop” for homeless services.

Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman has said in interviews that he envisions a structure with various tiers of service from a low-barrier shelter to transitional housing. 

“The idea is to encourage those in the low-barrier shelter to want to participate in an activity to affirmatively do something to move out of homelessness and achieve better living circumstances and for those in that category to want to move to the third area, where there are even better living conditions for those who are working fulltime,” Coffman said in an interview.