Councilwoman Amanda Sawyer is the Denver City Council representative for District 5. You can follow her on social media at @Denver Council5 and sign up for her newsletters at bit.ly/council5news.
This time last year looked very different in Denver. Run-off election results were just coming in, and the citizens had spoken loudly and clearly. When the dust settled, Mayor Hancock had won a third term, but three challengers had unseated incumbent Councilmembers — something almost unheard-of in our City that left political insiders scratching their heads and with mouths agape. What did it all mean?
As one of the winners who came into office riding that wave of political discontent last June, I believe that when the citizens of Denver chose new City Councilmembers they were saying they wanted to bring checks and balances to local government, more accountability and transparency, and more communication from their leaders.
My first year in office, I have worked hard to live by those values and bring them back to our government in a number of ways. I’ve researched how other cities with strong-mayor forms of government (like Denver’s) function, and what kinds of processes and procedures these cities use to bring balance, transparency and accountability to their communities. In my research I found something very interesting: the majority of Denver’s strong-mayor “sister” cities in the U.S. — those cities we look to when considering similar policies — participate in a process where their City Councilmembers have some form of approval power over the Mayor’s appointees. Denver is the only strong-mayor system in the State of Colorado that does not follow this practice. It’s time we institute it in Denver.
This month, I am introducing an amendment to the Denver Charter that, if referred to the voters by City Council, will require City Council approval of all Mayoral Cabinet appointees, as well as confirmation of the three heads of Denver’s Safety departments. This proposal gives Denver residents a voice through their independently elected City Council representatives. It respects our strong-mayor form of government while bringing a bit more balance to the system. If approved by voters in November 2020, it would mean that in addition to the Chiefs of Police and Fire, and the Denver Sheriff, a majority of City Councilmembers would have to approve the Executive Directors of: Aviation, City Attorney, Community Planning & Development, Dept. of Public Health & Environment, Dept. of Transportation & Infrastructure, Excise & License, Finance, General Services, Human Services, Parks & Recreation, and Safety.
This proposal is not popular with Denver’s current Mayor and his camp. Their concern is that this may overly-politicize the process and deter qualified candidates from applying for these positions. Those are valid concerns, but those risks already exist even without this Charter amendment in place. These are political appointments and public positions. These are jobs with salaries set by ordinance, and whose emails are subject to the Colorado Open Records Act. In short, they are jobs that enjoy a lower expectation of privacy than an ordinary job, and any candidate applying for one of these positions is aware of that.
Furthermore, every executive-level job search has an element of this risk associated with it, no matter whether the position is in government or the private sector. Council approving Mayoral appointments is analogous to a situation in the private sector where corporate boards approve C-suite appointments in a corporation. If a candidate for one of the most powerful positions in Denver cannot garner the support of seven members of a 13-member City Council, they shouldn’t be in the position in the first place. Instituting a process that brings more balance, transparency and accountability to our strong-mayor form of government makes sense. It is good governance. It is a policy that many other strong-mayor cities follow successfully, and it is time to bring it to Denver. This proposal will go before City Council’s Finance & Governance Committee on June 9, 2020, at 1:30 p.m. I urge you to reach out to your local City Councilmember and ask them to refer this initiative to the November 2020 ballot so that the citizens of Denver can vote on it.
Ted Trimpa is the Principal and CEO of Trimpa Group, a national political consulting and government relations firm that specializes in progressive public policy advocacy and political strategy.
Governor Jared Polis blazes his own trail and is now living in a whirlwind. Self-made before those of his age hadn’t decided whether they liked vodka or tequila, and never a beacon of fashion — he makes Hickenlooper seem stylish, our Governor has always been on a determined path. Iconoclastic, entrepreneurial, a disrupter and always willing to question the norm, he calls them as he sees them. And thank God for that.
As this once-in-a-lifetime pandemic keeps hitting him between the eyes, he continues not to flinch. While some are ditching and dodging and others reacting with too quick a heavy hand or no hand at all, our governor is being stern, but thoughtful. Methodical but calibrated. Are there civil liberties in question and possible infringements on one’s personal freedoms? Well, of course, yes, but we also must consider what we’re facing.
At the beginning of the pandemic in Colorado, our governor was one of the first to take bold action. Faced with a proven, imminent, public health threat at our ski resorts, one of the most impactful economic drivers of our state, he closed them down.
When Castle Rock restaurant and bar owners, proclaiming respect for, and an exercise of, personal freedom opened their business, blatantly defying the governor’s statewide closure order for non-essential businesses, he closed them down. And it’s near unfathomable that this exercise of personal freedom was done with a packed house on Mother’s Day.
And most recently, when told COVID-19 deaths were being over counted in Colorado, our governor went public explaining what happened and how Colorado would report the new numbers. He even went on FOX — a move that won’t get any kudos at partisan parties any time soon.
And let us not forget he was the first Democratic governor in the country to make methodical and calibrated moves to reopen a state.
Now, with all that said, his COVID-19 press conferences can be, well, an experience. Sometimes you squirm in your seat. The sound system never seems to work quite right. You rarely, if ever, can hear the reporters’ questions. And the governor can get lecture-like, oddly weaving in biblical references, later analogizing music lyrics from a generation way before him, and then use sports analogies.
Oh, and the Cuomo-esque powerpoint slides of data? With font sizes smaller than an ant, formulas that are impossible to follow, I keep having flashbacks to my frustrations during college statistics.
But Jared’s quirks and clear obsession for being in the weeds is endearing and refreshing. Cut through this thicket, and you’ll see that our governor is rocking it. Paraphrasing Queen from the ’70s, “he will, he will, rock you.”
Now, there are some who question the governor’s authority to do any of this, and that he’s infringing on their personal freedoms — concerns that are valid. But we live in a constitutional, democratic, republic and empower and trust our elected leaders to protect us. We must respect them, and let them do their jobs.
Now this does not mean that COVID-19 should be the go-to excuse to suspend laws at will. There must always be a high bar to suspend laws or regulations, particularly when businesses may be closed. Our public and community health must be in imminent risk. We’re still above that high bar in Colorado, and yes, the governor is drawing lines, effectively picking winners and losers, but he’s having to do it at 100 miles per hour. It will never be perfect.
If you’re upset about the governor’s present policies, his approach, or whatever, by all means, speak your mind. But do so in a way that won’t threaten the lives of others, and preferably without the intimidating presence of firearms. In times like these, we should be asking ourselves whose personal freedoms are truly being threatened.
It’s undeniable an asymptomatic person can unknowingly spread the virus to many, who in turn can spread it to many more. Some will get ill; some gravely so; and some will die. Flowing from the initial exercise of personal freedom, one can effectively deny it to others. It’s tautological that a dead person can’t exercise his personal freedoms.
Now I would be disingenuous if I didn’t mention that I too, like many others, have my own frustrations and quibbles with some of the COVID-19 policies. What really are “essential businesses” and shouldn’t we be talking in terms of “essential products and services?” Alcohol and adult use marijuana are “essential,” but adult vaping is not? Target and WalMart get to stay open while small businesses that sell many of the same or similar products do not? This simply is not fair.
But no matter how many tiny-print slides we have to suffer, song lyrics from the ’70s we have to hear, or biblical references that take us back to vacation Bible school, I sleep soundly knowing Governor Polis and his team are in charge. I guess one could say they truly are hitting home runs.
