| DYD President Cindy Lowery presided over the parade of old hats and hopefuls last night. Between all of the introductions, announcements, and candidates she had the unenviable task of parsing out the minutes like they were loaves and fishes. Still, she somehow managed to feed the multitudes. I was very impressed. The evening kicked off with a marquee appearance by the Mayor. Despite an almost uncontested re-election, Hick said he wanted to get out there and run a campaign to focus his office and the City on the things that lie ahead. Crediting his strong team of policy advisors, he pointed to the homeless initiative as an example of where you can, "bring a community together to fashion a solution to a social problem." He laid out the details of how Federal, State, and philanthropic dollars were guided by Denver to create dramatic changes in the quality of life of the citizens on the margins.
He pointed towards future issues such as global warming as a place where simple changes on the municipal level could have ripples of impact. "Even if there is a 2% chance that 95% of leading scientists are right, we'd be insane not to spend Billions." He didn't propose any billion dollar programs, but he did point to increasing the City's tree canopy as a way that we could have a real impact on the use of domestic and automotive air conditioners. The solutions he was looking for on all topics; environmental change, crime, etc. were ones where you were "not just throwing money at the problem," but ones that led to intelligent solutions. Putting more police on the streets was obviously a large contributor to Denver's 2006 10% drop in crime, but so too was the implementation of new systems that chart the hot spots in real time and help plan the new deployments. Following the Mayor was the unopposed incumbent in Council District 11, Michael Hancock. He told us to be prepared to make some difficult decisions, and to decide if we were, "ready to pay more for a better managed government." He said that his constituents tended to make good decisions when given good information, but we have, "lost our way on some issues that are very very very germane to being Democrats." He encouraged the young crowd to become an army ready to knock on doors and to go around the media and the national organizations and find out again what changes the people really wanted in the neighborhoods. He looked around the room at all the hopeful candidates and said he had no doubt all of them were able to do the job, but wondered if all of them could look the people in the eye and make the hard decisions. Returning Denver to being a "shining example of Democratic values," was also a theme of Doug Linkhart's brief address. He may have meant small-d democratic, but I doubt it. Any man who quotes Humphrey is using the big-D. It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.
~Hubert Humphrey
After joking that he remembered what Denver politics was like back when he would march with Sojourner Truth, he said that this race today was mistakenly called 'non-partisan'. He said that it was very partisan, but that we were all on the same side. Aligned against us were the challenges we were facing. The next speaker was the Councilman from City Council District 1, Rick Garcia. He is fighting to hold the Highlands area away from the write-in campaign of... me? I guess so. He has an opponent out there, but he says he really has never seen him. He pointed to me and asked my name. I said 'Aaron'. He said, "I think Aaron might be my opponent." I wondered what would have happened if I had said 'Macaca'.
The very popular Councilman spoke of the great economic advantage brought to our businesses by foreign born residents, and how the research and policy dynamics in this region were changing with 12,000 people per day turning 60 years old. Stephanie O'Malley found herself the target of the most questions of the evening as she discussed her role as the new Clerk and Recorder. The daughter of former Mayor Wellington Webb has built upon her experience as the Director of the Denver Department of Excise and Licenses, to where she hopes to transition from our last appointed Clerk to being our first elected one. She wants to be at the helm of the new office because, "It's no one's place to disenfranchise anyone from casting a vote." Obviously, conduct of the elections will be a large part of her role, but the Clerk's office also deals with many other issues. Increased foreclosures mean increased documentation flow. She says she intends to prepare the office to meet the statutory requirements of the greater workload, and improve accessibility by moving the old paper and microfiche documents into electronic form.
Rep. Joel Judd praised O'Malley, and then asked a question about the possibility of Secretary of State Coffman taking over control of the Denver election, "How do you explain in a tactful way that the people of Denver are fully capable of choosing how their elections are run."
O'Malley responded, "That discussion may need to happen where we say that we need to be able to mind our own business here, but in the spirit of cooperation, I'd like to move forward. If he believes having an eye on us is necessary than so be it." O'Malley said that we really didn't need Coffman to tell us we needed to move in a better direction; the November elections told us that and the people of Denver were already moving that way.
Rep. Jeanne Labuda prefaced her question with, "of course, I am going to support you," and then asked about the absence of a Deputy Clerk. The candidate said that if elected she would reorganize the office to restore the Deputy Clerk position.
One of the young Dems asked about online voting. O'Malley cited security problems and predicted that we would not see anything like that in the next 4 or 5 years. When another in the crowd asked if there was any initiative to begin that work she responded that we still had a whole bunch of work to get done just to resolve our current technology issues. Kevin Slevin is running a write-in campaign for Clerk and Recorder, but here my official duties impinged. My candidate asked me to get him some water before he had to go up to speak, and Mr. Slevin wound up being the only candidate to stay within his alotted time. By the time I had returned, he was already done and Danny Lopez was making his case to be the next Mayor of Denver. Lopez is running as an outsider to give the people of Denver an option to Hickenlooper. I would love to give these two candidates more coverage, but I really didn't get to hear them fully. Perhaps someone can fill us in, in the comments. While you are at it, someone tell me where Paige Wolf came from. She is managing the campaign for Carol Boigon, and she has ~wunderkind~ written all over her. She is young, charismatic, and smart, so of course I am instantly suspicious. She made a very able surrogate for the Councilwoman-at-Large, and ran through her employer's accomplishments, including the redevelopment of the Lowenstein Theater into the Tattered Cover Bookstore. My job has me constantly researching the Council Members, and Boigon has easily the most interesting corners. She supports working family issues and development interests, her donors include labor, community leaders, and her husband's large oil company law firm buddies. I do not envy her having to appeal to the amazing clutter of an At-Large seat. Put on the spot, a staffer who came to drop off literature for District 5 Councilwoman Marcia Johnson was roped into an impromptu discussion of her work on the Colfax revitalization project and her intention to extend that all the way to Aurora, and her work on bringing a bike path to the Western Creek. Two challengers to Johnson showed up.
R. J. Ours, a former government relations director for the American Cancer Society, spoke of building coalitions and investing in infrastructure. He said if we were going to spend, "three quarter of a billion of your tax dollars, I want the best price, best projects, and the best quality." He spoke of his work on Amendment 35 which increased the tobacco tax, and he advocated for smoke free casinos. There was another candidate for District 5. He called himself a 'property rights advocate' and called for the abolishment of historic preservation designations. He talked about his experience in the 'energy infrastructure business.' I'll let the Republicans get the word out about him. That's the nice thing about the net. You want equal time? Fine. Type it yourself. Julie Connor was the only one of the three top contenders for District 7 to make an appearance. I like Chris Nevitt myself, and I hear good things about Shelly Waters, but Julie made the trip so she gets the spotlight. As aide to the outgoing Mackenzie, she has the right to claim she represents a continuity of knowledge. Like my favorite candidates in the municipal elections she is an unashamed lover of provincial politics. Zoning issues, potholes, overlay districts; she loves that stuff. She was part of the working group of Greenprint Denver, so that scores points with me, but she loses me a little when she says, "I think Property Rights vs. Quality of Life is a false dichotomy," and that she wants a 'middle ground'. But maybe that rings perfectly on key for people in her District. The truth is, I don't see a bad choice in that race. This brought us down to the final Act. The great race for District 8. With the exception of Sharon Bailey, all of the candidates attended.
First up was the very accessible Carla Madison. She shares Darrell Watson and Julie Conner's love for urban policy. She spoke about her work with the zoning code and about increasing density on the corridors of neighborhoods while preserving the character within them. She proposed a good idea about establishing a Senior Advocacy Hotline, and she finished with a statement that sounded a bit darkly cryptic, "Welton St. is sad. The 16th St. Mall is ailing. There are a lot of reasons. I won't go into why that is." Greg Rasheed opened with a song. Really. "Helloooo Young Democraats wherever you arrrre. I hope yooou willlll vote for meeeeee..." Really. He sang.
Then he talked about gang issues. Coming out of a childhood surrounded by gang culture he wants to "give young people hope." Part of that is starting a 'Youth Advisor Council'. "I'm not looking for the A students. I'm looking for the hard heads." He spoke about students, "already being earmarked not to pass."
He is a singing, anti-gang, gospel guy. It's good to have those around. I am not sure if the Council is the right place for him to make his contribution, but I've seen worse. I've seen better too. I have seen Darrell Watson. I work long hours for Darrell. It is very late now, and I will be getting out of bed early to work his campaign. I wouldn't do that for anyone I didn't fully believe in. Carla is good with her neighborhood association, and you want people like her at that level. Rasheed is an interesting guy, and you want them to visit the schools and work with the kids. I like them both and the City is lucky to have them. Darrell is on another level altogether. He is going to be able to handle the job of fighting for the best interests of his District and he will be able to more than hold his own in the big leagues. After a long day and too many speakers, I was ready to take a nap, but with incredible energy he moved around the room and woke people up. "Who here, who in this corner right here, which of you thinks City Government should work for you?" Darrell did, and he explained his vision for a 'City that Works'. Darrell can cover a lot of territory in two minutes; culture of the neighborhoods, economic development, safety, broken windows, bike lanes, advocacy for the people... but obviously you can't get into detail on anything in that time. So instead of just keeping it vague and running off, he stuck around for a long while to answer all the questions. An evening that started with a room full of politicians ended with a room full of active Young Democrats and a candidate interested in helping them make the city a little better.
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