Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods (CHUN) has played a vital role in shaping neighborhoods by providing a unified voice to the City of Denver and Colorado state governments since 1969. Those who are not familiar with this organization need look no further than the trees that are planted along 13th and 14th Avenue. CHUN was instrumental IN having those planted.
Board Members: The Board of Delegates for Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods, Inc. is a group of 39 members representing 10 registered neighborhood organizations in Denver.
To commemorate 50 years in the community, CHUN will host a
fundraising event at Denver Botanic Gardens to celebrate its half century. The
50th Anniversary Celebration and Wine Tasting is open to the public and its
members and residents of the Capitol Hill community on Wednesday, September 18,
2019, 5:30-9 p.m.
In addition to an evening with Denver leaders and
neighborhood advocates, the event will feature a wine tasting, light hors
d’oeuvres from local restaurants, and a silent auction, showcasing goods and
services from local businesses. CHUN is seeking help from local businesses to
sponsor the event WITH silent auction donations, underwriting support, and
other in-kind goods or services.
Fifty years ago, CHUN was founded to take on the most
pressing issues facing Denver and its neighborhoods. Since then, the organization
has evolved into one of the Mile High City’s largest registered neighborhood
organizations (RNO) dedicated to strengthening and elevating the voices of
residents and neighbors.
The Board is comprised of members of 10 different RNOs,
including Congress Park, Cherry Creek North, Country Club, Cheesman Park and
Uptown. The boundaries of CHUN are 22nd Avenue to 1st Avenue, and Colorado
Blvd. to Broadway.
“I’ve served on a lot of boards,” said Bruce Caughey, CHUN
Board Member. “There is more commitment to this board than almost any board
I’ve ever been on in terms of participation and expressing opinions. It’s
really a great opportunity if you want to get involved in your neighborhood and
make a difference. That’s what CHUN represents.”
This board is rolling up its sleeves to come up with a plan
for the Tears-McFarlane House, a 120-year-old mansion that was gifted to CHUN
by the City of Denver a few years ago. The building requires some restoration
and ongoing upkeep,” said Travis Leiker, President, Board of Delegates for
Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods, Inc. “We tapped the experts in this work to
help us revitalize this property. We’ve done focus groups, surveys on the park,
and engaged the community to help us reconceptualize and visualize what can be
done with this space. We just released the results of that research which
indicates that most people want this to remain a community gathering space but
with additional amenities. The next phase of this will be how we revamp this
property to both fuel CHUN’s operations as a community group, but also activate
portions of the property for the betterment of the community.”
Renovation Plans: The Tears-McFarlane House is a historic house located at 12th and Williams in Denver, that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 11, 1976. It was gifted to CHUN a few years ago and now is embarking on a revitalization project that will require approximately $2 million to complete.
CHUN advocates for smart zoning and land use, innovative
transportation systems, the protection of historic landmarks, promoting
community safety and championing city beautification. As Denver moves further
into the 21st century, this organization is committed to being collaborative
and solution oriented, by building strong relationships with community
stakeholders and serving as a go-to resource for Denver citizens.
Membership to CHUN is $75/year per household, $180/year per business, and $30/year for individuals. For a list of benefits, visit www.chundenver.org/membership. For more information on the 50th Anniversary event visit www.chundenver.org/chun50.
In June 2019, a neighborhood group, Rename St*pleton for
All, launched a campaign to change the name of the Stapleton neighborhood due
to former Denver mayor Benjamin Stapleton’s affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan.
On Monday, August 19, 2019, property owners
overwhelmingly voted against the name change.
Landslide Victory: By a 2 to 1 margin, Stapleton property owners voted to keep the name Stapleton for their neighborhood.
Of the 10,550 eligible voters, 3,590 people cast their vote,
a 34% turnout. Sixty-five percent of the property owners around the land once
occupied by Stapleton International Airport voted to keep the name which many
felt was surprising due to the amount of publicity the name change had
received. “I understand why people would want to change the name but, in the
end, I voted to keep it as is because where does it end?” said Tara Johnson,
property owner. “This is my neighborhood and I am proud of the name.”
“I was trained as an historian,” said Harold Scramstad in a
statement to the Stapleton Front Porch. “If we start holding everybody in the
past to the almost unreasonable standards that we’d set for ourselves, almost
nobody is going to measure up. We should keep the name and invest it with all
the qualities that we want a community to be — that 100 years from now, people
will say, “Stapleton, that was the experimental community that really worked
very hard to get it right.” Not, “There’s a community that in a smug or
self-satisfied way thought it was solving its problems of the future by
changing its name, because that didn’t really change anything.”
The Stapleton Master Community Association (Stapleton MCA)
oversaw the election and indicated that the amount of voters nearly tripled the
usual turnout. “We are disappointed and saddened by these results, but we are
not especially surprised,” Rename St*pleton For All, said via Facebook. “Our
work is not done. We love our neighborhood, and we invite all supporters to
join us in doing the work to make our community one that truly welcomes and
includes all.”
Stapleton served as mayor during the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s
and appointed Klansmen to lead the police department and other city offices
after his election to office in 1923 and to fight off a subsequent recall
effort. But by 1925 he opposed the Klan and helped destroy its political
influence in Denver and Colorado. “People seem to forget that Mayor Stapleton’s
ties to the KKK were short-lived and he championed the eradication of them soon
after he was elected,” said Tim Miller, property owner. “All of the good that
Mayor Stapleton did seems to have been erased from history.”
Former Mayor: Benjamin Stapleton was a five-term mayor in the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s. His brief affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan has had some activists demanding a name change.
The charge to change the name of the neighborhood dates back
a quarter of a century. When the old airport was leveled in the 1990s and
Denver International Airport opened, the neighborhood formerly occupying
Stapleton Airport was named Stapleton. Backlash over the name dates back to
this time and was revived in 2015.
Even though this name change was rejected by voters, the
campaign has had an impact in other areas. In 2017 and 2018, the Rename
St*pleton for All group was successful at having organizations drop the name
Stapleton from their organization. The Stapleton Foundation became The
Foundation for Sustainable Urban Communities, the former Stapleton Development
Corporation now only uses the acronym SDC, and the Stapleton Citizens Advisory
Board is now just the Citizens Advisory Board.
Those efforts have continued into 2019. Earlier in August
2019, Denver Parks and Recreation agreed to rename the Stapleton Recreation
Center in Globeville, and this spring, the name of the Denver School of Science
and Technology’s original campus changed from DSST Stapleton to DSST Montview.
Not all efforts of having organizations change their name
have been successful. In May 2018, the SUN board asked Stapleton residents to
vote on whether to change the RNO’s name from “Stapleton United Neighbors” to
“Central Park United Neighbors.” A 66% vote in favor was needed and it fell
short by eight percentage points.
The vote cast on August 19, 2019, needs to be ratified by
the Stapleton MCA Board of Directors. Brookfield, the master developer has the
ability to veto the board’s decision, but it is unlikely they will go against
the vote.
Stapleton: Stapleton is a neighborhood located northeast of downtown Denver, on the site of the decommissioned Stapleton International Airport, which closed in 1995. Now referred to as the Stapleton Community, it contains nine neighborhoods, nine schools public/ private, 50 parks, several shopping and business districts, and a visitor center.
“For an entire generation, Stapleton was an airport — it did
not cause racial issues,” said Richard Caldwell in a statement to the Stapleton
Front Porch. “It was the place the Space Shuttle landed on a 747; the Beatles,
Nixon, and The Rolling Stones landed. We all lined the fences to watch planes
come and go, people from all backgrounds and races — and we got along fine.”
