Flags will fly at half-staff this week in Denver in honor of a civil rights leader and two-time presidential candidate who died last week, Mayor Mike Johnston announced Sunday.
“Our father was a servant leader — not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world,” the Jackson family said in a statement posted online. “We shared him with the world, and in return, the world became part of our extended family.”
Flags will be lowered in Denver through Saturday to honor Jackson, according to a news release from Johnston’s office.
“Jesse Jackson was a titan of the Civil Rights Movement, a ferocious advocate, and a fearless trailblazer whose ‘Rainbow Coalition’ changed our nation forever,” Johnston said in a statement. “He reminded us that progress is possible when we stand together. Today we stand together in honoring his incredible life and work.”
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis also ordered all flags on public buildings to fly at half-staff from sunrise on March 6 to sunset on March 7 to honor Jackson’s “life and legacy.”
Jackson’s public celebration of life ceremony at the 10,000-seat House of Hope church in Chicago will be held on March 6, followed by a private memorial on March 7.
Jackson had many connections to civil rights leaders in Colorado and Denver, including Wellington and Wilma Webb, Cleo Parker Robinson and Michael Hancock, Polis said.
“Rev. Jesse Jackson changed this state and nation forever,” Polis said in a statement. “His contributions to Civil Rights bettered the lives of millions, inspired a generation of leaders, and moved our nation further towards justice and equality.”
There are just 16 Flock Safety cameras in Thornton.
But those electronic eyes, mounted to poles at intersections throughout this city of nearly 150,000, brought out dozens of people to the Thornton Community Center for a discussion on how the controversial license plate-reading cameras are being used — and whether they should be used at all.
Law enforcement agencies cite the automatic license-plate readers, or ALPRs, as a powerful tool that bolsters their ability to locate and stop suspects who may be on their way to committing their next assault or robbery.
But Meg Moore, a six-year resident of the city who is helping spearhead opposition to Flock cameras, said she worries about how the rapidly spreading surveillance system is impacting residents’ privacy and Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. Thornton’s Flock camera data can be seen by more than 1,600 other law enforcement agencies across the country.
“We want to make sure this is truly safe and effective,” she said in an interview.
The debate over Atlanta-based Flock Safety’s cameras, which not only can record license plate numbers but can search for the specific characteristics of a vehicle linked to an alleged crime, has been picking up steam in recent years. The discussions have largely played out in metro Denver and Front Range cities in recent months, but this year they reached the state Capitol, where lawmakers are pitching a couple of bills to tighten up rules around surveillance.
In Denver, Mayor Mike Johnston has been butting heads with the City Council over the issue. Johnston is so convinced of Flock’s value in combating crime that in October, he extended the contract with the company against the wishes of much of the council. Denver has 111 Flock cameras.
In Longmont, elected leaders took a different approach. Its City Council voted in December to pause all sharing of Flock Safety data with other municipalities, declined an expansion of its contract with the company and began searching for an alternative.
Louisville beat its Boulder County neighbor to the punch by several months, disabling its Flock cameras at the end of June and removing them by the start of October. City spokesman Derek Cosson said privacy concerns from residents largely drove the city’s decision.
Steve Mathias, a Thornton resident for nearly a decade, would like to see Flock’s cameras gone from his city. Short of that, he said, reliable controls on how the streetside data is collected, stored and shared are paramount.
“In our rush to make our community safe, we’re not getting the full picture of the risks we’re facing,” he said. “We’re making ourselves safe in some ways by making ourselves less safe in others.”
The hot-button debate in Thornton played out at last month’s community meeting and continued at a City Council meeting last week, where the city’s Police Department gave a presentation on the Flock system.
Cmdr. Chad Parker laid out several examples of Flock’s cameras being instrumental in apprehending bad actors — in cases ranging from homicide to sex assault to child exploitation to a $5,700 theft at a Nike store.
As recently as Monday, Thornton police announced on X that investigators had tracked down a man suspected of hitting and killing a 14-year-old boy who was riding a small motorized bike over the weekend. The agency said a Flock camera in Thornton gave officers a “strong lead” in identifying the hit-and-run suspect within 24 hours.
At the Feb. 3 council study session, police Chief Jim Baird described Flock’s camera system as “one of the best tools I’ve seen in 32 years of law enforcement.”
But that doesn’t sway those in Thornton who are wary of the camera network.
“I’m not a fan of building toward a surveillance state,” Mathias said.
The hazards of a system like Flock, he said, lie not just in the pervasive data-collection methods the company uses but also in who eventually might get to see and use that data — be it a rogue law enforcement officer or a hacker who manages to break into Flock’s database.
“A person who wants us to do us harm with this system will have as much capability as the police have to do good,” he said.
A Flock Safety license plate recognition camera is seen on a street light post on Ken Pratt Boulevard near the intersection with U.S. 287 in Longmont on Dec. 10, 2025. (Matthew Jonas/Daily Camera)
Crime-fighting tool or prone to misuse?
In November, a Columbine Valley police officer was disciplined after he accused a Denver woman of theft based in large part on evidence from Flock cameras, according to reporting from Fox31. The officer mistakenly claimed the woman had stolen a $25 package in a nearby town and said he’d used Flock cameras to track her car.
“It’s putting too much trust in the hands of people who don’t know what they’re doing,” DeFlock’s Will Freeman said of so many police agencies’ adoption of the technology.
Last summer, 9News reported that the Loveland Police Department had shared access to its Flock camera system with U.S. Border Patrol. That came two months after the station reported that the department gave the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives access to its account, which ATF agents then used to conduct searches for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Parker, the Thornton police commander, said any searches connected to immigration cases or to women from out of state who are seeking an abortion in Colorado — another scenario that’s been raised — “won’t ever touch our system.” State laws restrict cooperation with federal immigration authorities and with other states’ abortion-related investigations.
“Any situation I feel uncomfortable about or that might be in conflict with our policies or with Colorado law, I will revoke their access — no problem,” he said.
Thornton deputy city attorney Adam Stephens said motorists’ Fourth Amendment rights are not being violated by the city’s Flock camera network. During last week’s meeting, he cited several recent court cases that, in essence, determined that there is no right to privacy while driving down a public roadway.
In an interview, Stephens said Thornton was “in compliance with the law.”
Flock spokesman Paris Lewbel wrote in an email that the company was “proud to partner with the Thornton Police Department to provide technology used to investigate and solve crimes and to help locate missing persons.”
Lewbel provided links to two news stories about minor children who were abducted and then found with the help of Flock’s cameras in Thornton and elsewhere.
At the council’s study session last week, Parker provided more examples of Flock’s role in fighting crime and finding missing people in Thornton. They included police nabbing a suspect who had hit and killed a pedestrian, locating a burglar who was suspected of robbing several dispensaries, and tracking down an 89-year-old man with dementia who had gotten into his car and gotten lost.
“It allows us to find vehicles in a manner we weren’t able to previously,” Parker said of the camera network.
Thornton installed its first 10 Flock cameras in 2022 and then added five more — plus a mobile unit — two years later. The initial deployment was in response to a spike in auto thefts in the city, which peaked at 1,205 in 2022 (amid an overall surge in Colorado). Thornton recorded 536 auto thefts last year.
The city says Flock cameras have been involved in 200 cases that resulted in an arrest or a warrant application in Thornton over the last three years.
Thornton police have access to nearly 2,200 other agencies’ Flock systems across the United States, while nearly 1,650 law enforcement agencies can access Thornton’s Flock data, according to data provided by the city.
For Anaya Robinson, the public policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, the networked nature of Flock cameras across wide geographies is a big part of the problem. By linking one police agency’s Flock technology with that of thousands of other police departments, it “creates a surveillance environment that could violate the Fourth Amendment.”
The sweeping nature of Flock’s surveillance is also worrisome, Robinson said.
“You’re not just collecting the data of vehicles that ping (a police department’s) hot list (of suspicious vehicles), you’re collecting the data of every vehicle that is caught on a Flock camera,” he said.
And because the technology is relatively inexpensive — Thornton pays $48,500 to Flock annually for its system — it’s an affordable crime-fighting tool for most communities. But that doesn’t mean it should be deployed, DeFlock’s Freeman said.
Fight remains a largely local one
State lawmakers are crafting bills this session to limit the reach of surveillance technologies like Flock’s.
Senate Bill 70 would put limits on access to databases and the sharing of information. It would prohibit a government from accessing a database that reveals an individual’s or a vehicle’s historical location information, and it would prohibit sharing that information with third parties or with government agencies outside the controlling entity’s jurisdiction. Certain exceptions would apply.
Senate Bill 71 would direct a “law enforcement agency to use surveillance technology only for lawful purposes directly related to public safety or for an active investigation.” It also would forbid the use of facial-recognition technology without a warrant and would place limits on the amount of time data can be retained.
Both bills await their first committee hearings.
Thornton says it doesn’t use facial recognition technology. Its Flock data is retained for 30 days.
Regardless of what passes at the state Capitol, the real fight over license plate readers of any type will likely continue to happen at the local level. Thornton’s council plans further discussions on Flock next month.
For Moore, the resident who is leading the charge against the cameras, potential surveillance of the immigrant community is what troubles her the most.
“We want to make sure we’re operating this so that it’s safe for all of our residents,” she said. “Getting rid of the cameras altogether is a tough sell. But there needs to be a conversation about guardrails.”
Mayor Pro Tem Roberta Ayala, a Thornton native, said she has heard a wide array of opinions from her constituents about the advantages and potential downsides of the technology.
“Could it be misused? Yes. Do we want to stop that? Yes,” she said.
But as a victim of crime herself, Ayala also knows the immense damage and disruption that crime causes victims and their families, be it a stolen vehicle or something much worse. And as a teacher, Ayala is concerned about achieving justice for the families of children who are harmed or abused.
“If it can save even five kids,” she said, “I want the cameras.”
One of the largest emergency shelters in Denver’s system is again offering refuge from the cold this weekend after Mayor Mike Johnston unilaterally opened the site Friday — despite the City Council rejecting a contract for it late last year.
The Aspen, formerly a DoubleTree hotel in northeast Denver, has space for up to 250 people in its ballroom and will be open as freezing temperatures pummel the Mile High City for the next few days.
Johnston’s decision came after the city’s four other emergency shelters reached capacity on Thursday, the first night of the cold snap. The temperatures, expected to fall to near-zero Friday night and early Saturday, have the potential to cause frostbite in less than 30 minutes without proper attire.
“With life-threatening cold settling over the city and people at risk of suffering serious injury or death, Mayor Johnston informed Council this morning that we will be opening the ballrooms at 4040 Quebec (St.) for temporary emergency cold weather shelter,” spokesman Jon Ewing wrote in a statement Friday.
During a meeting on Dec. 8, 11 of the council’s 13 members voted to reject a contract to use the Aspen’s large space as a cold-weather shelter. (A separate contract with another provider, Urban Alchemy, covers the Aspen’s day-to-day use as a noncongregate shelter in the city’s homelessness initiative.)
Councilwoman Shontel Lewis, whose district includes the shelter, said at the time that the mayor had promised her in 2023 that the site wouldn’t be used for the purpose of cold-weather sheltering.
“My district is already overrepresented with shelters, with eight of them,” Lewis said. “This is ridiculous.”
Only Councilmen Kevin Flynn and Darrell Watson voted to approve the contract last month.
Another council-approved contract with Bayaud Works allows the city to use the ballroom space for short-term emergencies, Ewing said, and that is how the mayor’s office was able to open it Friday.
Lewis has repeatedly asked the mayor’s administration to spread out the locations of the city’s homelessness services since she joined the council in 2023. Now, she says the mayor’s office is manufacturing an emergency to sidestep her continued protestations.
Johnston “has failed to run the city with a long-term strategy,” she said in an interview Friday.
Lewis said there shouldn’t be a cold-weather shelter at the same place as noncongregate housing. Instead, she asked for the Aspen’s ballroom to be used as a navigation center offering resources to homeless people.
But Johnston’s team said they were taken by surprise when the council rejected the contract just as the winter months were setting in and hadn’t had nearly enough time to find enough shelter space since then.
“The real emergency is that it is 5 degrees outside and people are going to die if we don’t get them inside,” Ewing said.
The Aspen made the most sense to use, he said, because it’s already set up with cots, showers and bathrooms. A site that’s well-known among the city’s homeless population, it also mostly serves people who are already in that area, he said.
“We do not just have shelter sites lying around. There are only so many spaces, and there is a likelihood we would need to hold community meetings, go through a full council process and potentially even rezone,” Ewing said.
He added that the city didn’t plan to use the Aspen for cold-weather shelter next year. A new site for emergencies hasn’t been chosen yet, in part because of the limited options.
Lewis said Friday the mayor has “had three years to figure out what cold-weather sheltering should look like.” She also said: “Of course I don’t want folks dying in our streets.”
The city’s sheltering needs have increased since 2023 because of a revised policy that now calls for opening emergency shelters when temperatures drop below 25 degrees, rather than 10 degrees back then, Ewing said.
While Denver’s weather is forecasted to be warmer on Monday, there’s no sign of thaw when it comes to the relationship between some council members and the mayor.
“It’s the mayor’s responsibility to run the city as the executive, and if he doesn’t run the city as the executive, then … we might need to switch seats,” Lewis said.
Ewing had his own retort: “It is not fair to cause a disruption and then blame us for scrambling to solve that issue.”
In a windowless room at Denver police headquarters on a recent Thursday afternoon, Officer Chris Velarde activated a police drone to investigate a potential car break-in.
Officer Chris Velarde flies a drone and monitors live footage from its camera from Denver Police Department headquarters on Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
Several floors above, the drone launched from the roof and flew itself — essentially on autopilot — to the site of the call, reported as a man breaking into a car with a crowbar near the Santa Fe Arts District.
The drone whizzed along, 200 feet up, in a straight line across blocks, buildings and streets during the roughly mile-long flight from police headquarters at 1331 Cherokee St. Velarde didn’t pick up the Xbox video-game controller that manually pilots the drone until it reached the area of the call. Then he took control and trolled the block for the supposed break-in, watching live video footage transmitted from the drone on his computer monitor as he flew.
After a few moments, Velarde spotted two people jiggering the passenger-side window of a vehicle. He zoomed in on the pair, and on the car’s license plate. He ran the plate to see whether the vehicle was stolen; it was not. The people on the street didn’t look up. They didn’t seem to know a police drone was hovering above them, that they were being recorded and watched a mile away by officers and a reporter.
Two more people joined the pair at the vehicle’s window and Velarde made the call — this didn’t look like a vehicle break-in. More likely, someone had just locked their keys in their car. He cleared the call with 911 dispatchers and told them there was no need to send an officer to the scene. Then he sent the drone back to headquarters; it flew itself to the rooftop dock, landing autonomously on a platform stamped with bright blue-and-yellow QR codes.
The Denver Police Department began testing drones as first responders — that is, sending them out on 911 calls — in mid-October after signing up for two free pilot programs from rival drone companies Skydio and Flock Safety. The effort has raised concerns among privacy advocates, Denver politicians and the city’s police oversight group, particularly regarding the department’s contract with Flock, the company behind the city’s controversial network of automated license-plate readers.
Police see the drones as a way to speed up call-response times and provide more information to officers as they arrive on scene, improving, they say, both public safety and officer safety. If a drone arrives at a scene before officers, and the drone pilot can tell police on the ground that the man with the knife actually put down the weapon before the officers arrived, that helps everyone, police said.
“The more knowledge, information and intelligence that we can provide our officers on the ground, the better methods that they can use to respond to certain situations, which may cause them to not escalate unnecessarily,” said Cmdr. Clifford Barnes, who heads the department’s Cyber Bureau.
Critics say the eyes in the sky raise serious privacy concerns both with how the drones and the data they collect are used now, and with how they might be used in the future as the technology rapidly changes. They worry that the drones could create a citywide surveillance network with few legal guardrails, that the footage they collect will be used to train private companies’ AI algorithms or that police will misuse emerging AI capabilities, like facial recognition.
“When it comes to the decision of, are we going to use this thing that could potentially increase public safety, that will erode privacy rights — no one should get to decide the public is willing to give away our constitutional rights, except the people,” said Anaya Robinson, public policy director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado. “And when law enforcement makes that decision for us, it becomes extremely problematic.”
Almost 300 drone flights in 55 days
So far, only Skydio drones have flown as first responders over Denver.
Denver police signed a zero-dollar contract with Flock — without public announcement — in August for a year-long pilot of drones as first responders, but the company has yet to set up its autonomous aircraft. Skydio, on the other hand, moved quickly to get drones in the air after Denver police in October signed a contract to test up to four of the company’s drones during a free six-month pilot.
Skydio’s drones can reach about a 2-mile radius around the Denver police headquarters. The company advertises a top speed of 45 mph with 40 minutes of flight time; Denver pilots have found the drones average around 28 mph and around 25 minutes of battery life per flight.
From the first flight on Oct. 15 through Tuesday, two Skydio drones flew 297 times, according to data provided by Denver police in response to an open records request. Most of those flights — 199 — were to answer calls for service; another 82 were training flights, according to the data.
Skydio drones also surveilled events — a function police call “event overwatch” — seven times, the police data shows. Overwatch might include flying over a protest to track where the demonstrators are headed and alert officers on the ground for traffic control, Barnes said. (The police data showed that all seven overwatch flights occurred on Oct. 18, the day of Denver’s “No Kings” rally.)
The drones flew to 29 calls about a person with a weapon, 21 disturbances, 20 assaults in progress, a dozen suspicious occurrences and 11 hold-up alarms, according to data from Denver’s 911 dispatch records. The drones also flew to 39 other types of calls, including reports of prowlers, fights, burglaries, domestic violence and suicidal people.
The most common outcome for a call was that the officers were unable to locate an incident or the suspect was gone by the time the drone or police officers arrived, the records show. Across about 200 calls for service that included drone responses, police made 22 arrests and issued one citation, the dispatch data shows.
When responding to calls for service, the drones reached the scene before patrol officers 88% of the time, the police data shows. A drone was the sole police response in 80 of 199 calls for service, or about 40% of the time.
Barnes said answering calls with solely a drone improves police efficiency.
“If an officer on the ground doesn’t need to respond, and the drone pilot is comfortable with cancelling the other officers coming, we can assign those officers to more important, more pressing matters, so call-response times come down,” he said.
That approach raises questions about what the drones (which are equipped with three different cameras and a thermal imager) can and can’t see, and how officers are making decisions about call responses without actually speaking to anyone at the scene, the ACLU’s Robinson said.
“Humans have bias,” he said. Drone pilots might be more inclined to send officers to a potential car break-in in a low-income neighborhood and more likely not to in a higher-income neighborhood, he said. Or they might miss something from above that they could have seen at street level.
Officer Chris Velarde flies a drone and monitors live footage from its camera from Denver Police Department headquarters on Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
But minimizing in-person police interactions with residents, particularly in over-policed neighborhoods, can also be a positive, said Julia Richman, chair of Denver’s Citizen Oversight Board, which provides civilian oversight of the police department.
“Where my head goes is the other outcome, where they roll up on those people who are trying to get keys out of the car and then they shoot them,” she said. “Actually, (the drone-only response) seems like a really good outcome.”
The oversight group has talked with Denver police over the last two years about developing its drone program, she said. The department created a seven-page policy to guide their use; the policy aims to ensure “civil rights and reasonable expectations of privacy are a key component of any decision made to deploy” a drone.
But Richman said she was surprised by aspects of the police department’s pilot programs despite the ongoing conversations with department leadership.
“What was never discussed, not once, was the idea of a third party running those drones or those drones being autonomous,” she said, referring to the drone companies. “What has changed with this latest pilot is the key features and key aspects that would create public concern had never been discussed with us.”
Both Flock and Skydio advertise autonomous features powered by artificial intelligence. Skydio uses AI for its autonomous flight paths, obstacle avoidance and tracking people and cars.
Flock, which also offers autonomous flight, advertises its drones as integrating with its automated license-plate readers. The license-plate readers — there are more than 100 around Denver — automatically photograph every car that passes by them. If a license plate is stolen or involved in a crime, the license-plate readers alert police within seconds.
Police Chief Ron Thomas and Mayor Mike Johnston defended the surveillance network as an invaluable crime-solving tool this year against mounting public discontent around how much data the machines collected and how that data was used — particularly around sharing information with the federal government for the purposes of immigration enforcement.
That privacy debate around Flock’s license plate readers unfolded in communities across Colorado and nationwide this year. In Loveland, the police department for a time allowed U.S. Border Patrol agents to access its Flock cameras before blocking that access. In Longmont, councilmembers voted Wednesday to look for alternatives to replace the 20 Flock license plate readers in that city.
When Denver City Council members, some driven by privacy concerns, voted against continuing Flock’s license-plate readers in May, Johnston extended the surveillance anyway through a free five-month contract extension with Flock in October that did not require approval from the council. Against that backdrop, Denver police quietly signed on for Flock’s drone pilot in August.
Barnes said the police department will not use any license-plate reader capabilities available on Flock drones. Such a feature would constitute “random surveillance,” which is prohibited under the department’s drone policy. The drones never fly without an officer’s direct involvement, he added.
The blue 2-mile-radius line seen on a computer screen shows the range of Denver police Skydio drones flown from Denver Police headquarters. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
The policy also prohibits drones from filming anywhere a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy unless police have a warrant, and says officers should take “reasonable precautions … to avoid inadvertently recording or transmitting images of areas where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy.”
Denver police do receive search warrants to fly drones for particular operations outside of the drones-as-first-responder program. In October, a Denver police detective sought and received a warrant to fly a drone over a shooting suspect’s home in Cherry Hills Village to check whether a truck involved in the shooting was parked at the wooded property.
The warrant noted that when driving home from anywhere outside Cherry Hills Village, the suspect could not reach his house without passing by Flock license-plate readers, and that photos from those license-plate readers suggested the truck was at the property.
Denver Councilwoman Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez and Councilman Kevin Flynn both told The Post they were not aware of the police department’s Skydio drone pilot before hearing about it from the newspaper, even though they are both on the city’s Surveillance Technology Task Force. The new group began meeting in August largely to consider Flock license-plate readers, as well as other types of surveillance technology, Gonzales-Gutierrez said.
“We haven’t talked about it in the task force, and the charge of our work in the task force is to come up with those guardrails that need to be put in place for these types of technology being utilized by law enforcement,” she said. “I feel like they just keep moving on without us being able to complete our work.”
Police don’t need permission from the City Council to carry out the pilot programs, Gonzales-Gutierrez said, but she was disappointed by the lack of communication and collaboration from the department.
Flynn sees the potential of police drones, particularly in speeding up officer response times, which can sometimes be dismal in the far-flung areas of his southwestern district.
“If a drone can get there to a 911 call and it can help an officer at headquarters assess the scene before a staffed car could get there, I would love that,” he said.
But he wants to be sure they are used in a way that respects residents’ rights. He would not support using the drones for general patrolling or surveillance, he said.
“This pilot is an excellent opportunity to test all of those boundaries and see if there are ways to operate a system that can be very useful for public safety without crossing boundaries,” he said.”…And maybe we don’t keep using them. That is the point of a pilot.”
‘These are flying cops’
The Skydio drones film from the moment they are launched until they drop in to land.
When the drone is on its way to a call — flying at the 200-foot altitude limit set by the Federal Aviation Administration — its cameras remain pointed at the horizon. In Denver’s denser neighborhoods, the Skydio drones at that height flew among buildings, sometimes at eye-level with balconies, offices and apartment windows, according to video of four flights obtained by The Post through an open records request.
“What if someone is in their apartment unit in one of these giant buildings and they’re changing, and they have their window open because they’re way up high and they don’t think anyone is watching them?” Gonzales-Gutierrez said. “That is crazy.”
The drones buzzed over rooftop decks, balconies and elevated apartment complex pools, the videos show. On one trip, a drone flew past the Colorado State Capitol Building, recording three people on a balcony on the tower under the building’s golden dome. Another time, the drone pilot zoomed in on a license plate so tightly that the car’s small, decorative “LOVE” decal was clearly visible.
Flynn noted that a 200-foot altitude would put the drones well above most of the homes in his less-dense district, and that people on their porches or balconies aren’t somewhere private.
“If someone is out on a balcony, sitting there reading a book… generally speaking, if you are out in public there’s no expectation of privacy,” he said.
The Skydio drones recorded about 54 hours of footage in the first eight weeks of their operation, according to data provided by the police department. Police leadership opted to have the drones’ cameras on and recording whenever the drone is in flight to boost transparency about how the drones are being used, Barnes said.
“It makes sense to keep the camera rolling,” Barnes said. “Then, if there’s an allegation, we just make sure that footage is recorded and treated like digital evidence, uploaded to the evidence management platform so it could be reviewed as necessary. We’re just trying to make sure we establish that balance, being as transparent as possible.”
Drone footage unrelated to criminal investigations is automatically deleted after 60 days, he said. While it’s retained, it’s stored in an evidence system that keeps a record of anyone who looks at it. The drone unit’s sergeant, Brent Kohls, also audits the flight reports monthly. (Footage used in criminal investigations will be on the same retention schedule as body-worn camera footage, police said.)
Kohls noted it would be unusual for the drone footage to be viewed only by the pilot. The feed is often displayed on the wall of the police department’s Real-Time Crime Center as it comes in.
ACLU attorney Nathan Freed Wessler, deputy director of the organization’s speech, privacy and technology project, would rather see police keep the recording off while flying a drone to a call, even if the camera is still livestreaming to police headquarters. In that scenario, a drone pilot might still see a woman tanning topless on her rooftop pool deck, he said, but the government wouldn’t then keep a recording of that privacy violation, amplifying it further.
“The thing we are really worried about is police start deploying drones as first responders for the majority of their calls for service and suddenly you have this crisscrossing network of surveillance all over the city,” Freed Wessler said. “You have the potential for a pervasive record of what everyone is doing all the time.”
Kohls said an officer flying a drone who spotted a different crime occurring while en route to another call would stop to report and respond to that secondary crime, just like an officer would on the ground.
“Absolutely, if an officer sees a crime happening, they’re going to get on the radio, alert dispatch to what they’re observing,” Kohls said. “Hopefully, if they have a few minutes of battery time left still, they can extend their time and circle or overwatch on that scene to provide hopefully life-saving radio traffic, whatever information they need to relay to dispatch to get other officers heading, or the fire department heading that way.”
State and federal laws have not yet caught up to how police are using drones, Freed Wessler said. The Fourth Amendment has what’s known as the plain-view exception, which allows police officers who are lawfully in a place to take action if they see evidence of a crime happening in plain sight.
“The problem here is we are not talking about police doing a thing we would normally expect them to do,” Freed Wessler said. “We are talking about police taking advantage of a new technology that gives them a totally new power to fly at virtually no expense over any part of the city at any time of day and see a whole bunch of stuff happening.”
A Denver police drone lands on its docking station on the roof of Denver Police headquarters in Denver, on Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
Police have broad leeway to watch suspects without first getting a search warrant — like by peering through a fence or climbing the steps of a nearby building to look into a yard. But that’s different from using a subtle video camera to record a person 24/7 for months, the justices concluded.
So far, that’s the closest ruling in Colorado on the issue of drone surveillance, Freed Wessler said. Robinson, the policy director at the ACLU of Colorado, said lawmakers should act to regulate police drone use — either at the state or local level.
“These are flying cops,” said Beryl Lipton, senior investigative researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit focused on digital privacy. “That is another one of those slippery slopes.”
Aside from the legality of surveillance, another question is how the drone footage and flight data is used by the drone companies, Lipton said.
“We live in a time where all these AI-fueled companies have a real drive to integrate AI into everything, and they’re really hungry for new data,” she said. “And we have law enforcement helping to feed these companies in a way they don’t really understand.”
Under its current agreement with Denver police, Skydio doesn’t use drone footage to train its algorithm or improve its product. Flock spells out in its contract that the company can “collect, analyze and anonymize” drone footage, then use that anonymized footage to train its “machine learning algorithms,” and enhance its services.
Lipton added that technology is moving fast — Axon, a company that powers many police departments’ body-worn cameras — this month started testing facial recognition on its cameras to automatically alert a police officer if a person they’re encountering has a warrant out for their arrest.
Prisons are experimenting with “movement analysis” to automatically flag a person’s movements as potentially aggressive before the person perpetrates violence, she said.
“We are technologically at a place where it would not be hard for a drone to fly over an area and basically serve as a license-plate reader for humans,” Lipton said. “… Some of this analysis is just not being done because it is not publicly palatable yet. But it is not like it is technologically difficult for some of these companies.”
The Denver Board of Ethics has cleared Denver International Airport CEO Phil Washington of using his position for private gain when he flew himself and eight other executives to Madrid on a spring trip that cost about $18,000 per person.
But the board members said in a written decision that even if Washington technically followed city policy, they were “appalled” by the amount of money he approved spending for an aviation conference — and by his “seemingly cavalier attitude in responding to this complaint.”
The decision, issued Friday, came five months after CBS News Colorado revealed the cost of the tickets and other travel expenses after filing a request under the Colorado Open Records Act. Soon after the story came out in May, someone anonymously filed an ethics complaint about the report.
“While the Board of Ethics believes that officers, officials, and employees of the City and County of Denver should be better stewards of public funds, the Board must apply the facts to the law as it stands,” according to the ruling document.
In an interview with the board’s executive director, Washington said he wouldn’t have allowed the purchase of the airline tickets if he knew how much they would cost, according to the decision. But the board found that when Washington approved the expenses, the estimates he saw were mostly in line with the actual costs.
“Mr. Washington’s statement that he was unaware of the actual costs of the airfare is concerning,” the members wrote in the statement.
The airport’s travel policy allows employees to fly business class on flights longer than eight hours, and on this trip all nine flew business or first class. The group’s round-trip flights ranged in price from about $9,300 each for three officials to nearly $19,200 for the airport’s chief operating officer, Dave LaPorte. Washington’s flights cost about $12,000.
The board also took issue with Washington saying it was a “once in a lifetime opportunity” to attend the Passenger Terminal Expo and Conference, since it happens annually. Washington said the higher-class seats were necessary so that the executives could “hit the ground running” when they arrived, even though almost none of them had speaking engagements until one to two days after they arrived in Madrid.
The board found that Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s Chief of Staff Jenn Ridder also approved the estimated expenses but said she was compelled to do so because the costs came from the airport’s own budget, rather than the city’s general fund. The airport operates off revenue it generates, including from airlines and passengers.
Washington described the three-day conference, which began April 8, as an opportunity to learn from the “best in aviation” and a chance to bring ideas back to Denver.
The Board of Ethics is an independent agency established by the city charter that investigates ethics complaints and issues opinions on ethical responsibilities.
Denver city leaders cut the ribbon on the opening of the city’s 16th Street to symbolize its reopening after years of renovations, Oct. 4, 2025.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR News
Politicians celebrated. Businesses open their doors. And protesters marched.
After three and a half years of fences and boarded-up storefronts, 16th Street fully reopened on Saturday as Denver’s central civic space – one where kids play, residents shop and dine, and protesters have a public forum to address their concerns.
“You can see all the way to the bridge,” Mayor Mike Johnston said, standing on a stage at Cleveland and 16th streets at the Saturday grand opening. “You will see there are no fences, no construction. What you see are open restaurants, open stores, open booths, and an open downtown Denver.”
Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, center, snaps a selfie on 16th Street during festivities to mark the street’s reopening after years of renovations, Oct. 4, 2025.Hart Van Denburg/CPR News
The $175 million construction project brought nearly 1 million new pavers, public art and fresh infrastructure to the place formerly known as the 16th Street Mall. Work on the sprawling project began as the city tried to rebound from the pandemic. The closures tarnished the city’s image for visitors and residents, who wrote off the city center as a dangerous ghost town.
The goal of the project has been to revitalize downtown. At least on Saturday morning, there was life on the plaza. The city celebrated the partial completion of the project in May, but the full mile of the mall wasn’t reopened until now. Free shuttle service also returned to the entire street on Sunday.
“There are a lot of people who got a lot of narratives about downtown Denver,” former Mayor Michael Hancock told a crowd. “But it’s never really been about pavers or about the street. It’s about the people, the people who walk up and down this great street, this mall, if you will, and believe in the inherent greatness, that this is indeed the spine of our city.
“This is where we come together, not withstanding politics, race, color, creed or religion,” he continued. “This is where we come together and say simply, ‘We are Coloradans.’”
Bands like Guerilla Fanfare Brass Band, Flobots and Los Mocochetes brought a message of unity and joy to the city, espousing a vision of Denver where immigrants are welcome and the people are free to dream up the city they want to create together.
Flobots were among numerous bands that played during festivities marking the reopening of Denver’s 16th Street after years of renovations, Oct. 4, 2025.Hart Van Denburg/CPR News
While restaurants and shops were full and vendors lined the streets, some Denverites used the grand opening as a chance to voice their concerns.
Pro-Palestinian protesters against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza rallied by the hundreds. Housing advocates with the Housekeys Action Network Denver paraded a tent through the street, criticizing the mayor’s increase in what he calls “quality of life” enforcement, likening him to President Donald Trump. City boosters promoted Johnston’s proposed $950 million Vibrant Denver bond. And evangelists handed out comic books about Jesus.
V Reeves, of the Housekeys Action Network Denver, took the mic while Los Mocochetes performed, questioning whether spending $175 million on a street revitalization — and a third of the city’s general fund on the Department of Public Safety, including the police, fire and sheriff agencies — is a good idea when families are living without homes.
“We believe in making sure that everyone has somewhere safe to go,” Reeves said. “Our migrants, our houseless friends on the streets, our Black and brown communities do not deserve to be over policed. They deserve to be protected.”
The mall has served many functions over the years: a place for people to enjoy the fruits of Denver, a home for residents and unhoused people alike, a rallying point for demonstrations, and a place to spend an easy afternoon people watching.
Dan Hugill does a little sparring with 5-year-old Eliena Mac, of Arvada, at one of the many booths and kiosks set up along Denver’s 16th Street, marking its reopening after years of renovations, Oct. 4, 2025. Hugill is a co-founder of The Bridge, which uses physical fitness as a way to help transition out of correctional facilities and substance abuse.Hart Van Denburg/CPR News
“This has been the heart of the city for 40 years,” Johnston said. “This is about making sure it is the heart of the city for the next 40 years.”
With the fences down, Denverites can once again come together in a common space and express their civic identity – as messy as that can be.
Residents near Elati Village in Denver’s Golden Triangle say the city ignored repeated calls regarding unauthorized vehicle encampments before an RV fire early Sept. 11.
“For weeks, we received no response from these reports. Neighbors cited smoking, drugs, human waste, and other foul smells around these encampments. Neighbors have also reported witnessing Elati Village participants interacting with vehicle encampment residents and delivering items to them, leading up to the fire,” according to a statement issued by the Triangle 22 on Elati Homeowners Association, which represents 22 townhomes from 1323 to 1335 Elati St.
Elati Village is a micro-community of 44 units designed to provide housing and support for women, transgender, and nonbinary individuals experiencing homelessness. It opened in March 2024 at 1375 and 1395 N. Elati St. as part of Mayor Mike Johnston’s All In Mile High initiative to reduce homelessness.
Denver Fire confirmed that it did respond to a vehicle fire near Elati Village and that it was routine and no injuries were involved. City workers arrived to clean up the debris the following morning, according to the HOA.
The Triangle 22 HOA says it’s urging the mayor to relocate the community when its two-year term comes up for review in March.
And that of the Broncos’ last 15 postseason games in Denver, eight of them — per Pro-Football-Reference.com — were played in temperatures 37 degrees or warmer? The last five Empower Field playoff temps: 43, 46, 40, 41, 63.
Snow down, Broncomaniacs.
Denver won’t just be playing in Super Bowls over the next decade.
We’ll be hosting them.
“The Broncos have been, since Day 1 of the franchise, an important fabric and part of the community in Denver,” Broncos CEO Greg Penner told The Denver Post’s Parker Gabriel in an exclusive interview. “Finding a site of that size that we could weave into the downtown area and all that just was incredibly unique, combined with the historic nature of the site. …
“We have the bones of the old railyard and a couple of buildings and a unique site that we think enables us to create something unique and special, both with the stadium and the mixed-use development around it.”
The Walton-Penner Group just raised the roof without raising taxes. Despite overtures from Lone Tree and Aurora, they’re keeping the Broncos in Denver. Where they belong.
In other words, Penner and his wife Carrie Walton-Penner read the room the way Peyton Manning read defenses at the line of scrimmage.
“We’re really thrilled that they came with that partnership mentality and not, like we’ve seen in other cities, ‘You give us a bunch of money or we’ll leave,’” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis told The Post. “I think the Walton-Penner Family Ownership Group is deeply committed to Denver and deeply committed to the community.”
Not anymore. You want a venue with 60,000-plus seats that can host Taylor Swift in March or April? Check. You want a venue where football fans can still feel the elements on an autumn gameday? Got that, too. Open that bad boy up and let the Colorado sunshine in.
We don’t need the cool kids on the coasts to tell us Denver is the best darn sports city in America. But building a multi-purpose stadium at Burnham Yard gives the Front Range many more chances to prove it — and on the largest stages imaginable.
New Orleans officials recently estimated that Super Bowl LIX was worth more than $1.25 billion in economic impact to the Crescent City. San Antonio boasted an economic bump of $440 million from hosting the Men’s Basketball Final Four this past April.
You wouldn’t want a piece of that?
The Penners do. And thank goodness.
“The goal is to create something that is active on gameday,” Penner stressed to The Post, “but also (for) the rest of the year.”
There’s nothing wrong with Empower Field, which opened in 2001. There’s nothing all that right about it, either, at least from a real estate purview. Even the best ideas, like the best concrete, get weathered by time.
Pro sports owners are playing a different level of Monopoly than they were three decades ago. It’s not just about owning Tennessee Avenue anymore. It’s about gobbling up St. James Place and New York Avenue next door, then making sure a row of strip malls, restaurants and hotels get built on top of them. Collect the rent, funnel some of that money to Bo Nix and Nik Bonitto, pass GO, collect $200. Rinse. Repeat.
Stadiums are so expensive to build that a single-use facility, especially one available for 12-20 dates a year instead of 50-60, isn’t cost-effective. The land around Empower Field is owned by the Metropolitan Football Stadium District. Whatever’s built at Burnham Yard will be owned by the Walton-Penner Group and designed with a neighborhood in mind, not just the stadium itself.
Oh, there will be bumps. That’s inevitable. The city’s slated to foot the bill for public improvements related to connectivity to the stadium — exit ramps, roads, RTD, etc. And Tuesday’s announcements didn’t mention Personal Seat Licenses (PSLs) — a one-time fee paid by fans for the “right” to buy a seat.
If there’s a cloud rolling in behind all those rainbows, it’s that. PSLs seem inevitable here, too — a survey the Broncos sent to fans in 2023 included that very subject.
Would a Super Bowl be worth that? Everyone who let hosting a World Cup slip away from soccer-mad Denver in 2026 should land a red card for life. With this new district, hopefully, it won’t happen again.
Five years down the line, who knows? In 2020, as a franchise, the Broncos looked listless and lost — a sleeping giant resting on the laurels of orange-and-blue bloods everywhere.
The Walton-Penner ownership group woke everybody up. The beast is taking names now. It’s buying up land. It’s drawing castles in the sky.
For what it’s worth, Penner sounds as if he wants to keep the lid off as much as possible. And for as many Broncos games as feasible. He gets it. All of it.
“We wanted something that is true to our roots here and looked at domed stadiums,” Penner told The Post. “But (we) just thought that wouldn’t enable us to take advantage of Colorado sunsets and Mile High views and playing in the elements if we choose to.”
Give the Penners an inch, they’ll take a Yard. All the way to the bank.
Many of the employees laid off on Tuesday worked for the Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (DOTI).
Denver7 has been listening to city employees over the past couple of days, as they waited to learn their fate.
“Over the last couple of weeks, there was definitely a low morale around the office,” said Jessica, who was an administrative assistant for two years at DOTI. “[The] tension was high, and a lot of the conversation was mostly just about having anxiety over the situation.”
Shortly after waking up Tuesday morning, Jessica logged into her computer and saw an invite to a virtual Teams meeting with Amy Ford, the executive director of DOTI.
“It was pretty apparent upon receiving that Teams meeting request what was going to come next,” she said. “So for the next hour, I kind of just sat around with anxiety and, you know, being upset, and waited for that phone call.”
It was during that call when Jessica learned she would be laid off.
“Personally, I would have preferred it to just be an email,” Jessica said. “Not have that awkward Teams meeting where you’re on the camera crying.”
She is among 171 employees the city let go Monday and Tuesday to help address a $200 million budget shortfall.
The city also eliminated more than 660 vacant positions.
“Obviously, these two days are hard days in the life of the city,” said Johnston. “One of the things I think you’ll notice is that due to the really difficult work we’ve done to try to control growth, the budget over the last year and a half, it means that we were able to do about 80% of the reductions yesterday on vacancies and not on filled positions with employees in them.”
In an email sent to DOTI employees on Tuesday afternoon, which was shared with Denver7, Ford said the department had finished its layoff notification process.
“Over the course of the last two days, I have individually spoken with each employee impacted by layoffs to thank them for their service to the department and the city and ensure that they were connected to the appropriate resources post-employment,” Ford wrote. “Each employee affected was a valued member of the DOTI team. Their dedication mattered to us and to those we served. I want to reinforce that the decision to utilize layoffs was a last resort to address an unprecedented budget situation, and not one that was taken lightly by me or the Mayor.”
Jessica says prior to working for DOTI, she spent two years as an on-call employee at the Denver Department of Housing Stability (HOST). But because it was considered a temporary position, she said it didn’t count toward her years of service and therefore wasn’t a factor in helping the DOTI determine who to lay off.
“It’s really frustrating that those two years of service I had as an on-call aren’t totally included in my years of service,” said Jessica.
She now finds herself back on the job market.
“I do already have some friends reaching out and, you know, saying we might have openings where I am like, let me know if I can look over your resume,” said Jessica. “So, it’s nice to have that community here in Denver. I feel like Denver is a very community-based city, and people are willing to go out of their way to help you.”
The city is providing laid-off employees with one month of paid administrative leave and two to 8 weeks of severance pay, depending on their years of service.
Ford said Johnston would be conducting a virtual town hall on Wednesday morning. She said DOTI will hold virtual town halls next Tuesday, Aug. 26.
Johnston will also host a roundtable with reporters on Wednesday to provide more details about the layoffs and his plan to address the remaining budget shortfall.
Denver7 talks with a laid-off worker about the City of Denver’s job eliminations
Denver7
Denver7 | Your Voice: Get in touch with Brandon Richard
Denver7 politics reporter Brandon Richard closely follows developments at the State Capitol and in Washington, and digs deeper to find how legislation affects Coloradans in every community. If you’d like to get in touch with Brandon, fill out the form below to send him an email.
Colorado’s 7th Congressional District, centered on suburban Jefferson County, hasn’t had a Republican in the seat since Bob Beauprez left Congress nearly 20 years ago.
But Sergei Matveyuk, an antiques repairman from Golden and the GOP contender for the seat in the Nov. 5 election, urges voters not to count him out in his battle with incumbent Brittany Pettersen. The first-term Democratic congresswoman is seeking reelection.
“People are hurting economically,” Matveyuk, 57, told The Denver Post. “They want someone who feels the pain.”
He’s running in a once-battleground district that has turned decidedly blue in the last decade or so, with Democratic former Rep. Ed Perlmutter winning election eight times running, until his retirement announcement in 2022 ushered in an open race.
Pettersen, 42, a former state lawmaker from Lakewood, won the 2022 election by 16 percentage points over Republican Army veteran Erik Aadland. The bulk of the district’s electorate calls left-leaning Jefferson and Broomfield counties home, while redder areas in the district — such as Teller, Custer and Fremont counties — simply don’t have the populations to give Matveyuk a sizable boost.
As of Sept. 30, Pettersen had raised more than $2.2 million this cycle, compared to about $35,000 collected by Matveyuk, according to campaign finance filings. There are two minor party candidates on the ballot this time: Former state lawmaker Ron Tupa is running on the Unity Party of Colorado ticket, while Patrick Bohan is running as the Libertarian candidate.
Matveyuk, a political neophyte, said that as a small business owner, the historically high inflation of the last two years has hurt those like him who are particularly sensitive to escalating prices. But it’s his personal story that he thinks will resonate with voters in the current political climate, in which border policy has taken center stage. Matveyuk, who is of Polish descent, and his family left the Soviet Bloc in the late 1980s after experiencing life under communist rule and immigrated to the United States.
“As an immigrant myself, I know how hard it is to start a new life — but it has to be legal,” he said.
Matveyuk doesn’t echo former President Donald Trump’s calls for mass deportations but says migrants who “are hurting our people and committing crimes need to be deported, for sure.”
“We need immigration reform — 40 years ago we had a regulated border and now we have a porous border,” he said.
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data through August, there have been more than 8.6 million migrant “encounters” at the southern U.S. border since President Joe Biden took office in 2021. That influx has prompted many big city mayors across the country, including Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, to cut city services to pay for migrant housing and plead for help from the federal government.
Pettersen acknowledged that the U.S. asylum system is “absolutely outdated.” But many of the arriving migrants are filling jobs that businesses in the district, like nursing homes, are desperate to staff, she said.
Making people wait years before getting work permits is an unworkable policy, Pettersen said.
“We don’t have the people in the U.S. to meet our economic needs,” she said. “We need legal pathways based on economic need.”
Though Pettersen is in the minority party in the U.S. House, a bill she sponsored was recently signed into law by Biden. It directs the federal government to study and report on illicit financing associated with synthetic drug trafficking.
Last month, she introduced a bill that seeks to incentivize more states to offer substance use treatment through Medicaid, six years after she sponsored a bill in the state House requiring Colorado to provide that care. Pettersen has often spoken publicly of the struggles her mother faced battling opioid addiction.
If reelected, she said in The Denver Post’s candidate questionnaire that she would work to protect abortion rights and to address the opioid epidemic. Her top priority would be “modernizing our tax code to rebuild the middle class.”
“We need to lower costs by reinvesting in access to affordable housing, childcare, health care, and higher education,” she wrote.
For nearly two years, Diantha Williams’ daughter received $50 monthly to put toward whatever she wanted. Often, that looked like basic needs like groceries, car insurance payments and medical and hygiene supplies.
The money came as part of the Denver Basic Income Project, a group using a mix of private philanthropy and city funds to run one of the biggest studies nationwide into the efficacy of basic income, which provides money to people facing homelessness and poverty. Some participants have gotten up to $1,000 a month, no strings attached.
Williams’ daughter had special needs and was immunocompromised, and recently passed away from pneumonia. Before that, Williams said the money was crucial, especially as the family lost other benefits like food stamps.
“The basic income kept us going,” she said.
But the future of the program is in question. Mayor Mike Johnston’s budget proposal for 2025 doesn’t include any more money for the program, which had received $4 million in city money over the past two years, as well as private donations.
Advocates for the program rallied on Wednesday in support of the program. They want the mayor’s office to make a major commitment, adding $15 million to fund a third year of the current program and a new cohort of 300 people for the next three years.
The mayor’s office says the evidence for the anti-poverty policy hasn’t justified the continued investment. It’s also a tight budget year; the city plans to decrease its spending on homelessness and new immigrant services by tens of millions of dollars.
Diantha Williams a rally to support universal basic income. Her daughter was part of the pilot program before passing away a few weeks ago. Sept. 18, 2024.Rebecca Tauber
Research on basic income in Denver has been mixed.
The pilot program from Denver Basic Income Project included a partnership with University of Denver faculty, who interviewed participants and studied the effects of basic income.
They did find that regular cash payments helped people experiencing homelessness secure housing. Participants reduced their use of public services, experienced lower stress levels and had a lower likelihood of being unhoused during the program.
But researchers also found an unusual result: The control group, who received just $50 monthly, did just as well as the two experiment groups.One of the study groups received $1,000 per month and another received $6,500 upfront and $500 monthly.
The control group included Williams’ family, who said even $50 per month was a big help.
Jordan Fuja, spokesperson for Mayor Mike Johnston, said the control group results explain why the city did not include funding for basic income in the 2025 budget.
“We are always interested in trying new innovative strategies to solve our toughest challenges, which is why we provided funding for Denver Basic Income Project’s (DBIP) pilot program,” Fuja said in an email to Denverite.
She continued: “Unfortunately, the data in the year-one report from the DBIP did not show a statistically significant difference in homelessness resolution between the groups that received large cash transfers and those who did not. Because the data showed limited results in the first year, [the Department of Housing Stability’s] proposed budget does not recommend funding in 2025 for this program.”
Fuja said Denver’s money is better spent on Johnston’s homelessness program, which has focused on bringing people on the streets indoors to non-congregate shelters like hotels and micro-community sites.
Denver saw a decrease in the number of people sleeping on the streets in 2023, but the overall level of homelessness in the broader metro area rose that year. (That’s based on a count of people experiencing homelessness on a single day each year)
Tents on the sidewalk along Champa Street downtown. Aug. 8, 2023.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Advocates of basic income say they need city help to grow.
At the rally Wednesday, nonprofit leaders, activists and participants who support basic income said the pilot program was a success.
“There are dozens upon dozens of stories from our participants who are real people, about how this project is making a real and lasting change in our community,” said Maria Sierra, community engagement manager with the Denver Basic Income Project. “This is just the beginning.”
While Denver has not seen much organized opposition to the concept of basic income, speakers also pushed back against conservative critiques of the policy, which often focus on costs to taxpayers and the no-strings-attached approach to benefits. Basic income is a stark contrast to public benefits programs like food stamps or rental assistance, which offer help with specific needs only.
Mark Donovan, the program’s founder, said Denver Basic Income Project will continue to court private donations. But making it work, he said, will require a much bigger public investment from the city beyond the $6 million from the past few years.
“We think that a public-private partnership is essential in this next phase. Ultimately if we want to do this at scale, we think it has to be publicly funded, but it’s going to take time to get there,” he said. “There’s huge amounts of money that are being spent to combat homelessness and poverty and economic injustice, and we think that this is a more efficient and effective way to do that.”
Donovan said he plans to continue pushing for basic income regardless — but without more city money, the pilot might have to end.
City Council member Shontel Lewis speaks during the body’s weekly legislative meeting. Jan. 16, 2023.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
The future of the program is at stake in Denver’s budgeting process.
Denver Councilmember Shontel Lewis spoke at the rally Wednesday. She worked on a number of budget amendments aimed at helping people in poverty last year. Not all of them passed, but one that did secured an added $13.5 million for emergency rental assistance. Another got an additional $2 million to continue the basic income study through this year.
“I’m disappointed that despite the Denver Basic Income Project having such incredible results, we’re still having to prove its worth,” she said.
Council members could bring a budget amendment adding funding for the program. Lewis hasn’t confirmed whether she’ll do so yet.
But trying to secure more money may be tough in a particularly tight budget year. The 2025 budget projects the smallest growth for the city in 14 years and the first reduction in staff in a decade, not including the pandemic.
Johnston is already cutting Denver’s homelessness spending by more than $80 million. He also has veto power over budget amendments, which council can override with a supermajority of votes.
City Council must pass any amendments and vote on the final budget by Nov. 12.
The Park Hill Golf Course is closed, fenced off and yellowing. Aug. 6, 2024.
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
If you’ve driven by the Park Hill Golf Course lately, you’ve seen fencing and No Trespassing signs blocking off 155 acres of sprawling brown grass and seemingly dying trees.
Weeds fill the parking lots. The buildings are deteriorating.
Now, more than a year after losing at the ballot, the company is sitting on a 155-acre eyesore.
“Because the Park Hill easement is unambiguous, the land will return to a privately-owned, regulation-length 18-hole golf course,” said Bill Rigler, a former spokesperson for the developers, shortly after voters shot down development. “The site will immediately be closed to public use or access, with no housing, community grocery store, or public parks allowed on this site, in accordance with the will of the voters.”
The Park Hill Golf Course is closed, fenced off and yellowing. Aug. 6, 2024.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Yet the only promise about the land’s future that Westside has kept, so far, is that they have shut down the land to the public.
There’s no golf. No park. No housing or grocery store.
Denverite readers want to know: What’s happening with the old Park Hill Golf Course?
“It’s been more than a year since the vote that refused to vacate the city’s conservation easement in the Park Hill Golf Course,” Eric Banner wrote to Denverite in May. “As near as I can tell driving by, there has been no effort by the developer to come into compliance with the terms of the easement, and I haven’t seen anything in the news about the city taking action to enforce the easement. Is anything happening to the property? And if there isn’t, is there a reason the city isn’t enforcing the terms of the contract?”
Another reader, Kylee B., is holding out hope for a grocery store, businesses and housing.
“I thought it was to be returned to an 18-hole course,” asked reader Nate Hays. “What’s up?”
We wondered the same thing. But we can’t get an answer.
The Park Hill Golf Course is closed, fenced off and yellowing. Aug. 6, 2024.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Kenneth Ho, the Westside developer who tried to shepherd the embattled development, has not answered Denverite’s calls and emails for months.
A spokesperson for Community Planning and Development, the city’s planning department, says the agency is not aware of conversations between the agency and the owners.
And Mayor Mike Johnston, who said he’d strike a deal to acquire the land and turn it into a public amenity, says he’s been in talks with the developers. They’re working on a solution.
What could the future look like? He’s not ready to say.
“We’re optimistic that we’re making progress,” Johnston said. “We’ll get to a solution that the community will be excited about.”
Here’s what we do know.
A conservation easement — the one voters upheld in multiple ways, both directly and indirectly, over three separate ballot measures — still says the land must be an 18-hole regulation-length golf course for as long as that’s feasible.
Other golf courses are open citywide, even a few nearby, suggesting running a golf course is feasible.
Yet there’s no golf.
The Park Hill Golf Course is closed, fenced off and yellowing. Aug. 6, 2024.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
To open space advocates’ chagrin, there is also no park.
So when can we expect some news from the city about the future of the land?
“We’ve been at this for several months, and it’s complicated negotiations, but we’re pushing aggressively, and I’m optimistic about where we’re heading,” Johnston said. “That is something we certainly plan to get resolved in this year.”
Xcel Energy’s defunct Zuni Generating Station on the edge of Sun Valley. May 26, 2023.
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
It’s suddenly crunch time for a group of westside residents who’ve been pushing the city to save Xcel Energy’s defunct Zuni Generating Station.
For years, they’ve tried to convince Xcel to scrap their plans to demolish the hulking structure. They’ve meanwhile appealed to the city, under both Mayors Hancock and Johnston, asking they leverage public resources to save the historic building and turn it into something that might benefit the people who live nearby. Those conversations went dormant, thanks to the pandemic and our recent mayoral transition, leaving the power plant’s future in limbo.
But things are moving now. Xcel sent the city a letter on Friday notifying officials that it’s now time to sell or demolish the structures. The city gets first dibs on purchasing the site, and Xcel is giving them 90 days to make a decision.
Those preservation-minded residents are waiting in suspense to see what happens next.
Xcel says now’s the time to decide.
The utility already has approval from state regulators to demolish the power plant, and they’ve cleaned it up in preparation for that deconstruction.
But Grace Ramirez, an Xcel community liaison, said the company has heard neighbors’ calls to save the space. Those ongoing conversations led to the utility giving Denver a right of first refusal, she added.
“We are, no matter what, committed to having a conversation about a community benefit,” she said. “What does a community benefit for this property look like, for the community, for the neighborhood?”
But something needs to happen soon, Ramirez told us.
“It’s an old building, and we’ve delayed really moving forward with our Public-Utility-Commission-approved plan,” she said. “From a safety perspective, we think its imperative to move forward with this next step.”
In their letter, Xcel requested that Denver either buy the property or waive their right of first refusal. If the city opts out, Xcel will put the old power plant up for general sale for 30 days; if nobody buys it then, they’ll move toward demolition.
A rendering of what Xcel Energy’s old Zuni Generating Station could look like if it was saved through adaptive reuse.Courtesy: Sun Valley Community Coalition
Community members are urging the city to act, and they’re worried this is all happening too fast.
“This happened kind of all of a sudden,” Jeanne Granville, president of the Sun Valley Community Coalition, told us after Ramirez informed her about the letter. “This is an important time, obviously, because the city is a key player, potentially, in this.”
“Potentially” is the key word there.
Last November, Granville’s neighborhood group penned a letter with 33 other organizations, asking Mayor Johnston to help them save the generating station.
“We are concerned that this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity could quickly slip away,” they wrote.
But Granville said she’s not sure where the mayor is on this question. She heard he toured the site, but it’s still unclear whether he’ll be game to buy it.
(Denverite write a follow-up if and when we hear his position on this.)
Glenn Harper, founder of Sun Valley Kitchen, and Jeanne Granville, head of the Sun Valley Community Coalition, chat in Harper’s space on Decatur Street. April 19, 2024.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
John Deffenbaugh, the president and CEO of Historic Denver who helped coordinate the community letter to Johnston, said he’s yet to have any discussion with the city about this, despite some prodding.
He gets that Johnston has been very busy, he told us, but Xcel’s new 90-day notice has created new pressure to act. He has plans to prod the city, again, this week.
“We will be asking for a meeting,” he said.
City Council member Jamie Torres, whose district includes Sun Valley and the generating station, said any moves towards demolition will probably trigger a historic landmark review, which could force Xcel to change their plans.
“Is there some middle ground? Possibly,” Torres wrote to us. “This is a huge opportunity for dialogue.”
Ramirez said Xcel recognizes they could get gummed up by the landmark review, but told us she’s not sure a historic designation would actually happen.
“We feel pretty strongly it’d be pretty hard to reuse the building,” she said, adding that any new plan would also need to clear an onerous approval from state regulators.
If the plant is saved, it’ll need a lot more remediation to make it safe for public use. Who would pay for that extra work is another open question, and the city has said they’re not up for it.
But Granville and Deffenbaugh are still hopeful Johnston will come around. They’ll need his help to do anything here, Deffenbaugh said, and told us he thinks we owe it to the old generating station. It enabled Denver’s existence, he said, and we should remember that.
“It’s presence has been so key for Denver to grow,” Deffenbaugh said. “It almost needs the city’s help now, for the city to give back.”
Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s popularity is holding steady after 11 months in office, according to a new poll released Wednesday, but its findings suggest a sales tax increase he’s pitching for the November ballot could face some skepticism from voters.
Johnston remains confident in his tax proposal, unveiled Monday. It would generate an estimated $100 million a year to expand on the city’s affordable housing work, including by preserving or building tens of thousands of units affordable to people now getting priced out of the city. His own internal polling suggests two-thirds of the city would support the tax increase, he said.
Mayor Mike Johnston, joined by members of the City Council and community leaders, announces a new sales tax proposal to expand affordable housing in Denver on the steps of the City and County Building on July 8, 2024. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)
But the June survey of 409 registered Denver voters for the nonprofit Colorado Polling Institute found that a solid majority — 64% — believe the city’s taxes are already high. Among them, 35% said the city’s taxes were “way too high,” while 29% said they were “high but acceptable.”
Still, it’s been rare for Denver voters to turn down tax increases, and a pollster noted that plenty of voters voiced moderate opinions on the question.
If both pass, the city’s effective sales tax rate would increase from 8.81% to 9.65%, making Denver stand out along the Front Range.
The bipartisan poll, conducted by Democratic polling organization Aspect Strategic and Republican firm New Bridge Strategy, was conducted via a mix of online and phone interviews between June 13 and 18. It has a margin of error of 4.85 percentage points.
In good news for the mayor, the poll found 48% of voters viewed him favorably. That’s virtually flat compared to the 46% who viewed Johnston favorably in a Colorado Polling Institute poll in August, just his second month on the job.
But the share viewing Johnston unfavorably climbed significantly, from 22% in August to 38% in June, according to the results.
That’s due in part to rising familiarity as Johnston has been in the news, including as he’s spearheaded a new homeless strategy and responded to the migrant crisis. Just 11% of voters told pollsters they had no opinion or had never heard of the mayor in June, down from 32% in August.
His favorability ratings in the new poll contrast with results from a Magellan Strategies survey of 1,595 Denver voters conducted in May. That poll found that 43% approved of his performance — while fully 50% disapproved. The margin of error was 2.45 percentage points.
The survey was conducted for the council’s central office primarily to gauge support for a potential tightening of term limits. Its contract with Magellan was valued at up to $29,000, council spokesman Robert Austin said. The poll also found that the council’s approval rating was underwater, with approval at 36% and disapproval at 49%.
Regardless of his own support levels, Johnston is banking that voters will approve his tax request in November.
On the Colorado Polling Institute survey’s taxes question, Lori Weigel, of New Bridge Strategy, viewed the responses with some nuance. She noted that just about any voter is liable to say they pay too much in taxes, which is why the poll allowed respondents to grade the city’s tax burden by offering several options: way too high, high but acceptable, about right and lower than what one would expect.
“When we look at the ‘high but acceptable’ or ‘about right’ (responses), it’s a majority sort of gravitating towards that middle spectrum,” Weigel said.
The Johnston administration has done its own polling. In a meeting with Denver Post journalists on Tuesday, the mayor said his data shows 65% of city voters would favor the “Affordable Denver” sales tax increase. That figure was steady regardless of whether respondents owned or rented their homes, he said.
“We were really surprised that you have total alignment between renters and homeowners, and you also have — not surprisingly — massive support from younger voters for this issue,” Johnston said. “As we know, if you can’t afford to live here, then all the rest of the other things are secondary.”
Authorities force a cleanup of an encampment at 4th Avenue and Kalamath Street. April 25, 2024.
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
The Supreme Court ruled Friday that cities can arrest and ticket people sleeping outdoors, even without an offer of shelter.
Some advocates fear the decision, Grants Pass vs. Johnson, will give cities an unfettered ability to use law enforcement to push people experiencing homelessness around while further destabilizing their lives and failing to help them find homes.
“People’s rights, including houseless people’s right to exist in public, are being continuously stripped away by a right wing, and outright fascist, Supreme Court, and Grants Pass is just the latest example in this disturbing trend,” said civil rights attorney Andy McNulty in an email.
“State and local officials must stand up against this ongoing erosion of our fundamental liberties,” he added. “But, even if they don’t, we will keep fighting to protect everyone’s basic rights no matter their race, sex, gender identity, or housing status.”
Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s office said the court’s decision will not affect Denver’s implementation of its homeless policy.
“We do not need the U.S. Supreme Court’s guidance to know the right way to address homelessness is through compassion and humanity,” said spokesperson Jon Ewing in an email.
Johnston spent the first six months of his first term working to end visible homelessness in the city center and moving people to city-owned, nonprofit-run motels and tiny-home communities.
His administration’s goal is to bring a total of 2,000 people inside by the end of 2024.
“In Denver, we believe people should sleep in their own beds, not street corners,” Ewing said. “That’s why we have spent the last 12 months moving more than 1,600 people indoors, including 536 individuals who are now permanently housed.”
Mayor Mike Johnston speaks with residents of an encampment at 22nd and Stout Streets, one day before it’s swept. Aug. 3, 2023.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Ewing said the mayor’s strategy aligns with the national best practices established by the U.S. Interagency on Homelessness.
“While we feel cities do need the ability to address encampments when there are concerns of health or public safety, we continue to believe the correct approach is through providing housing, case management and other assistance,” Ewing said.
In some instances, Denver has shuttered homeless encampments and ticketed and arrested people in the process.
Ewing characterized encampment closures that don’t result in shelter as “rare.”
Camping ban enforcement at sites where the city has shuttered encampments has always been part of Johnston’s plan.
“From the beginning of this effort, we were clear that we would enforce the permanent closure of former encampments and that camping would no longer be allowed in the locations that have permanently closed,” wrote Johnston’s spokesperson, Jordan Fuja, in a message to Denverite, earlier this year. “Our teams, along with city partners, are enforcing those closures while working to connect even more Denverites to safe, stable housing options and support services.”
Denver’s approach to clearing homeless encampments is dictated, in part, by the Lyall settlement.
“Because of the homelessness rights enshrined in the Lyall settlement, houseless folks in Denver now have more legal rights than nearly anywhere else in the country and we will continue to enforce those rights should Denver be emboldened by the Grants Pass decision to violate houseless folks’ rights,” explained civil rights attorney Andy McNulty.
Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman, whose city already has an urban camping ban, appreciates much of the ruling.
“It clears the way for our new camping ban,” Coffman said, “although it’s always been our policy to have a shelter option available for those camping illegally when we abate an encampment.”
However, when an individual who has been sleeping outside is moved or arrested but not part of an “encampment abatement,” shelter is not necessarily offered.
Aurora is also setting up a navigation resource center for unhoused people at the Crowne Plaza Hotel.
The current policy in Aurora is that people generally have 72 hours to move. If they do, they will receive no penalties.
Then-Congressman Mike Coffman speaks to reporters in his Aurora office, May 31, 2018.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
But the city has also established a no-camping zone in the I-225 corridor, meaning people can be ticketed on the spot if they’re found sleeping there outside. This could be expanded to other parts of the city, depending on funding, Coffman said.
Aurora is setting up what Coffman calls “a problem-solving court for homeless people,” where if people comply with certain requirements like addiction recovery and mental health treatment, charges will be dropped.
While the court’s ruling “provides clarification that we can ticket individuals, to charge them with trespass, who are illegally camping,” Coffman said he believes cities have an obligation to do more.
“I certainly agree with part of the case, in terms of our ability to have a camping ban,” Coffman said. “Personally, I feel that for a local government to have a camping ban, they ought to have a shelter option.”
Denver voters will be asked in November to consider increasing the city’s sales tax to raise $70 million a year to help stabilize Denver Health, the region’s financially ailing safety-net hospital.
The Denver City Council voted 12-1 without discussion Monday to send the .34% sales-tax increase — which would add 34 cents to a $100 purchase — to the ballot. The city’s current sales tax is 8.81% and, if this measure is approved by voters, it will increase to 9.15%.
Councilman Kevin Flynn, who represents District 2, cast the only dissenting vote. He previously had expressed concern about “burdening Denver taxpayers” with tax increases.
Mayor Mike Johnston is considering asking the council to place a second sales-tax increase — one that would raise money for affordable housing — on the November ballot, administration officials told The Denver Post earlier this month.
If voters OK the Denver Health tax increase, the health system could only use the money to expand or maintain medical care in the following categories:
Emergency and trauma care
Primary care
Mental health care
Addiction treatment and recovery services
Pediatric care
There would be a cap on the administrative costs that could be drawn from the fund, as well.
The system lost about $35 million in 2022, CEO Donna Lynne told a council subcommittee at a meeting earlier this month. The hospital earned a $17 million profit in 2023, though that wasn’t enough to tackle the maintenance that it deferred in recent years, officials said.
Lynne also told council members that Denver Health could make it through the first quarter of 2025, but if it doesn’t receive additional revenue by then, it would have to make significant cuts. She didn’t specify what services those cuts might affect, but said the system has already instituted a hiring freeze, deferred maintenance, cut travel expenses and limited the circumstances where its insurance will cover anti-obesity drugs such as Wegovy.
Denver Health provided about $140 million in uncompensated care in 2023, and the hospital’s projections show it expects to spend $124 million in 2025, according to the bill approved by the council.
The city contributed about $31 million toward offsetting those costs, and the state legislature voted to make one-time payments of $5 million to assist the system last year and again in the most recent session.
The ballot question would forbid the city from reducing its contribution in response to the sales tax.
“People who have served our country, have risked their lives and limbs often come back and have a hard time finding their way,” Johnston said. “And one of the most significant ways that they struggle is getting access to housing.”
How many unsheltered veterans are there?
There are currently 52 unsheltered veterans experiencing homelessness in Denver, according to the city’s data.
The city has been tracking the number of unhoused veterans with the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Johnston said he sees 52 as a manageable number of people to bring inside and put on the pathway to housing.
Of those, 30 percent are already in the process of searching for housing.
Another 230 veterans are experiencing homelessness but living in shelter, according to Jamie Rife, the head of the Department of Housing Stability.
House1000 and All in Mile High, the efforts to bring 2,000 people indoors by the end of the year, laid the groundwork for the veteran-specific work, Johnston said.
“As the numbers on the streets have gotten smaller and smaller, it’s easier for us to focus more and more closely on those remaining who are still veterans,” he said.
How will it work?
The goal is to reach a state Johnston calls “functional zero.”
“Functional Zero means there are more exits for veterans who are unsheltered into housing each month than there are folks that are currently experiencing homelessness are entering it,” he said.
The first step will be to bring unsheltered veterans inside to stable shelter. After they are indoors, they will be given high-quality case management.
The Denver Housing Authority has found ways to expedite housing for veterans,
If all goes as planned, “We will be the largest American city to make sure that no veteran who served this country sleeps outside on the streets,” Johnston said.
Sally Johnston, mother of Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and co-owner of the Christiania Lodge at Vail, passed away May 17, with the mayor joining her for a final goodbye.
The city leader announced his mom’s passing in a LinkedIn post on Saturday.
“Yesterday we said the final good bye to my mom,” Johnston wrote. He depicted her as selfless, joyful and “a tireless force for goodness.”
Sally Johnston grew up in Port Leyden, N.Y., alongside three sisters. Her father worked as a school principal, while her mother was an arts and music teacher, according to a 2010 article in the Vail Daily.
She followed in their footsteps — teaching music in Boston in the 1960s, her son Mike recalled in his social media post. There, she spearheaded a Head Start program, the Vail Daily reports.
Sally Johnston, mother of Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and co-owner of the Christiania Lodge at Vail, passed away May 17, with the mayor joining her for a final goodbye.
The city leader announced his mom’s passing in a LinkedIn post on Saturday.
“Yesterday we said the final good bye to my mom,” Johnston wrote. He depicted her as selfless, joyful and “a tireless force for goodness.”
Sally Johnston grew up in Port Leyden, N.Y., alongside three sisters. Her father worked as a school principal, while her mother was an arts and music teacher, according to a 2010 article in the Vail Daily.
She followed in their footsteps — teaching music in Boston in the 1960s, her son Mike recalled in his social media post. There, she spearheaded a Head Start program, the Vail Daily reports.
She married her husband, Paul Ross Johnston, in 1970 — the former mayor of Vail, who passed away in 2015. The pair bought a boutique hotel in Vail in 1976.
With her experience in education and psychology, Sally Johnston served as a board member at Third Way Center, a nonprofit that helps youths resolve trauma. She also had a spot on the Vail Mountain School Board and was involved with the Vail Religious Foundation.
“She loved people for their beauty and their brokenness alike, which always had the power to make each of us feel unafraid, unashamed, perfect again — the way we were once before the world taught us to doubt,” Johnston wrote. “She changed my world, and she convinced me with a ferocity I will never surrender that we can all change the world, because I watched her do it every day.”
Mayor Mike Johnston and Ben Sanders, the head of the Office of Social Equity and Innovation, announce the city’s new Office of Neighborhood Safety.
Kyle Harris / Denverite
During the George Floyd protests of 2020, activists demanding police reform called for local governments to shift money from armed law enforcement to community-led violence prevention.
On Monday morning, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston announced that the city is doing just that.
Johnston made the announcement in the Holly, a former shopping center in Northeast Park Hill that burned down in 2008 during a gang-related dispute.
The new office will broaden the city’s community relationships on public safety issues. It will also learn what neighbors say they need to decrease crime and increase a sense of safety beyond armed police.
“A lot of it is about getting the right resources in the right places,” said Ben Sanders, executive director of the Office of Social Equity and Innovation, who will be overseeing the work.
The new office would work with other citywide safety agencies to bring resources like added street lights or youth programming to communities that request them. Beyond that, the specifics are somewhat fuzzy and will be more clearly defined over the next few months.
What is clear is that racial equity is front and center in the conversation.
“You cannot create a safer city without clear commitments to racial, social, equity, and justice,” said Sanders.
As he sees it, this is proof that Johnston is leading with those values in mind, even as some institutions and cities pull away from equity-centered work in response to community calls for more police.
Sanders described the new program as a “courageous” partnership between his office and the Department of Public Safety.
Johnston said during the Monday morning announcement of the program that Armando Saldate, the executive director of the Department of Public Safety, supported the shift in resources. Saldate, who fell ill over the weekend, was not at the press conference.
Here’s what we know about how the Office of Neighborhood Safety will work.
All of the youth programs that currently run through the Department of Public Safety will be moved to the new office. So will the Assessment, Intake, and Diversion (AID) Center, an alternative-response facility that takes a public health approach to public safety issues, along with the Office of Community Violence Solutions and the Department of Public Safety’s various Youth Violence Prevention programs.
Part of the Support Team Assisted Response (STAR) program that sends mental health professionals to 911, currently under the Department of Public Health, will be moved into the Office of Neighborhood Safety.
It’s unclear what metrics the city will use to measure success, though some of the data collected under the current programs will continue to be evaluated as the new office measures what is — and isn’t — working about its approach. Whatever metrics the city lands on will be shared with the public.
Sanders says the new office will likely be rebranded in the near future.
Not all members of the community were enthusiastic about Johnston’s announcement.
“The Mayor rejected the recommendations from the Taskforce, his own ONS transition committee, and City Council members to create an office to support alternatives to policing,” Taskforce head Robert Davis wrote in the statement. “However, after the Taskforce announced plans in February to create a community-led initiative, the Mayor is now launching his own competing initiative.
“It’s like a child who abandons a toy until others show interest in it, and then he wants it back,” Davis added. “But it’s too late because this initiative belongs to the community, and we will see it through to fruition.”
The announcement came on the same day the Denver Taskforce to Reimagine Community Policing held a meeting with community policing experts to create an action plan for their own community-led Office of Neighborhood Safety and Violence Prevention.
Former mayoral candidate and criminal justice advocate Lisa Calderón, who works with the Taskforce, also chaired the mayor’s Community Wellbeing and Neighborhood Safety committee, though she was disheartened by his initial efforts.
“The Mayor was initially going to bury the initiative within the department of safety where good ideas go to die and bad ideas get funded,” explained Calderón in a statement. “I strongly objected to his plan because it was contrary to community input. Now he’s giving the concept to his equity office director who has failed to collaborate with key stakeholders and will be competing against us for limited funding. We will not be co-opted like the STAR program that was started by community organizers sidelined by City officials who grew their agency budgets.”
The mayor insists his office is ready to collaborate with the Denver Taskforce to Reimagine Community Policing and says that more organizations working on the issue are better than fewer.
Diverting $11 million and 65 full-time employees from the Department of Public Safety is a major effort, Johnston said, and requires central communication within the city. Now that the work is done, he’s ready to resume conversations with the Taskforce.
“We’re willing to work with anyone, including that outstanding Taskforce, in the work that they’re trying to advance,” said Sanders. “We want to move forward the work of neighborhood safety, right? To me, the prerequisites are easy. You care about the people being most negatively impacted. You’re more invested in advancing the work than you are in advancing yourself. And you want to come to a table of folks who feel the same way.”
