Chris Nevitt Slithers Down Into The Belly Of The Beast

by Mark Smiley | Nov 23, 2015 | Editorials

If one was wondering how sleazy and dishonest the Hancock Administration has become, one need look no further than the appointment of former City Councilman Chris Nevitt to the city position of Manager of Transit-Oriented Development (TOD). Nevitt ran for the citywide post of Auditor and lost notwithstanding raising from real estate developers, and their lawyers and lobbyists, over 10 times the amount raised by his opponent Tim O’Brien. Even his supporter, former Auditor Dennis Gallagher, expressed his disgust with Nevitt the day after the election saying, “I haven’t seen such a bad campaign since Mark Udall.”

Nevitt managed to lose by being seen by the voters as little more than a cheap shill for the very worst real estate developers doing business in Denver. He confirmed the people’s low opinion of him when in one of his last meetings before leaving office he gave a speech declaring every part of the city must sacrifice in order to make room for extremely high density rather than risk the horrors of possible suburban sprawl. The speech was too much even for The Denver Post who blasted him in its editorial pages making him a persona non grata throughout the City and County of Denver.

But Nevitt had done the bidding of Mayor Hancock and his real estate buddies ever since Hancock had taken office. Hancock even indicated, prior to Nevitt’s election loss, that Nevitt might make a good successor to him as mayor. After his election loss, Nevitt at age 52 faced difficult job prospects. He was totally devoid of any skills which would make him employable in the private sector and thus it was believed he was only suited for working for the government.

It was extraordinary however, that city department after city department refused to even consider him. An exasperated Hancock was forced to create a whole new job position within the morally bankrupt Department of Community Planning and Development run by the highly controversial Brad Buchanan. Buchanan is considered the only individual in Denver government that the citizens of Denver consider being as or more unethical than Nevitt.

Buchanan’s Department publicly announced, to the guffaws of city insiders, that Nevitt won the job of Manager of TOD “after a competitive hiring process.” Garnering only a $120,000 position in the Hancock administration demonstrated how far Nevitt had fallen. Buchanan knew that Nevitt coming aboard his Department would not be welcomed by his highly demoralized staff who do not like being viewed by the public as simply tools for real estate developers. He put out an internal memo attempting to justify Nevitt’s hiring and the position he would occupy as Manager of TOD.

The job apparently is to be in charge of coordinating city efforts to encourage development along transit stops. Of course as massive development of high-rise apartments in Cherry Creek North showed that developers couldn’t care less about building projects along light rail stops and they control the city government and not the other way around.

Buchanan declared in the memo that Nevitt was “uniquely suited for this position based on experience working with private sector constituencies [i.e. real estate developers] involved with land development” not quite understanding that Nevitt’s job as a city councilman was actually not to work with developers but rather to represent his actual constituents and sit in a quasi-judicial capacity to vote up or down projects that came before the City Council. Buchanan was in essence implying that Nevitt might have been engaged in what some might consider illegal activity with developers.

The fact that this so-called “job” had heretofore never existed is indicative of how necessary it actually is. Luckily Nevitt is well known for his incredible laziness as his losing Auditor race demonstrated. Thus in some ways he is a perfect fit as a no-work politician being matched up with a no-work government job. He will lunch and cocktail with real estate developers he knows and others while they get approved building where they want to build in the city which is normally not next to light rail stations.

But is this the end of Chris Nevitt as a public figure in Denver buried in the belly of the government beast? It turns out that being too incompetent to qualify for an actual mayoral appointment has its real advantages. Unlike Rocky Piro as Planning Director or Lauri Dannemiller as Parks Director Nevitt can’t simply be fired by this mayor or any future mayor. He has full civil service protection. He can spend his next decade and a half or so doing little or nothing while pulling in six figures and a hefty pension. Upon a well-deserved retirement from arduous public service Nevitt can wander down to Florida or Arizona and vegetate until his ultimate demise.

Sure it is not much of a life for a person with talent and ambition but Nevitt never had the talent part anyway. The media, including this paper, will of course miss him as a figure to kick around and make fun of. Surely he will be tempted at some point to try to revive his mayoral ambitions, but he is better suited living the sleepy government apparatchik life. But should he someday unwisely decide to leave his sinecure for a more public role we in the media will certainly be there to greet him with open arms.

— Editorial Board