District 4 Candidate: Colleen Zaharadnicek will run againstKendra Black for the District 4 Denver city council seat. She will rely onaverage citizen support and going door-to-door to overcome high-densitydeveloper money backing Kendra Black.
District 5 Candidate: Amanda Sawyer is challenging incumbentMary Beth Susman in District 5. Sawyer’s campaign will concentrate onneighborhood safety, property values and the economic future of the city.

by Glen Richardson

Two members of Denver City Council deemed by some to be in the back pocket of the developers are overturning quiet residential neighborhoods in favor of unpopular high-density projects and are going to be challenged this upcoming municipal election to be held May 7, 2019. Councilmember Mary Beth Susman of District 5 and Councilmember Kendra Black of District 4 will be opposed by challengers Amanda Sawyer and Colleen Zaharadnicek respectively.

Black and Susman were part of the large council majority that approved another massive high-density development, this time at the former CDOT property near Colorado Boulevard and Arkansas. Black and Susman were viewed to have mocked and belittled residents of Virginia Vale who opposed the massive development and effectively taunted residents to try to do something about developers’ absolute control of the City Council.

Following the four-hour hearing many residents attending the event were once again outraged by the actions of Black, Susman and the other councilmembers. “Virginia Village is the latest victim in Denver City Council’s efforts to force development and density into every Denver neighborhood,” said Denver resident Florence Sebern. “Existing guidelines were either ignored or misapplied; the registered neighborhood organization was co-opted; and the much-touted ‘affordable housing’ will be subsidized via DURA and CHFA. No wonder developers love them.”

But it appears that Sawyer and Zaharadnicek are going to take up the incumbent’s challenge for residents to do something about the actions of the existing council by putting their names up for election.Developers and their lobbyists are expected to heavily fund the re-election campaigns of Black and Susman while Sawyer and Zaharadnicek will depend onaverage citizens going door to door to their neighbors to get out the vote against the well-heeled incumbents.

Sawyer who is challenging Susman is a longtime resident of District 5 which includes Hilltop and Crestmoor Park with her mother and brother living in the area. A mother of three girls she is a licensed Colorado attorney with an MBA and is an entrepreneur. Her campaign will concentrate on neighborhood safety, property values and the economic future of the city.

Zaharadnicek, a University Hills resident who is opposing Black, is a real estate developer who grew up in Denver and spent time abroad in Prague, and returned to Denver in 2013 to a town she did not recognize. “The boom blew my mind. I kind of wasn’t really expecting it. . . . I saw a lot more visible homeless people. I had a lot of friends that complained about the market — they still can’t rent and they still can’t buy.”

Black and Susman have incensed some residents by pushing heroin injection sites for local neighborhoods. A local businessperson who did not want to be identified for this story noted: “It is one thing to destroy neighborhoods by overcrowding and density and another to be useful idiots for the Sinaloa cartel. Yes they would cause heroin to become essentially legal in Denver and how many lives they would destroy is untold. It is not compassionate to subsidize heroin use by providing needles, syringes, Naloxone and attendants. We need City Council members who care about our kids and not making life easier and more profitable for Honduran drug dealers. These two elected officials are a disgrace and a danger to any community.”

Another issue which may become a hot button topic during the spring campaign is the refusal of Black, Susman and the rest of the Council to hold Mayor Michael Hancock responsible for his sexual harassment of Denver Police Detective Leslie Branch-Wise and the use of taxpayer funds as hush money to try to buy the silence of the police detective.

While beating incumbent City Council members has never been easy in Denver the victory of Rafael Espinoza over incumbent Susan Shepherd in District 1 in the last city election shows that in can be done.

The election date for Denver is May 7. If no candidate for an elected office obtains 50% of the vote, a runoff of the top two candidates will be held on June 4.

Citizens Outraged: Some voters in District 4 and 5 are outraged at Black and Susman for voting to place heroin sites in their neighborhoods, as well as their helping developers destroy Denver neighborhoods with high-density developments and attendant traffic jams.

Holly Street Super Block: The Denver City Council has given approval for a 12-acre portion of the former CDOT headquarters property along Arkansas Street. The developer and the city declined to say how they would address the massive traffic jams the development will cause in the Virginia Village neighborhood and along Colorado Boulevard.

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