by Mark Smiley | Aug 3, 2015 | Editorials
On July 20, a brand new Denver City Council was sworn into office. A majority of the members of the Council (seven) are new. The Denver City Council over the last decade has increasingly been seen by the citizens it purports to serve as utterly corrupt and controlled by real estate developers and unions that fund most of the members’ campaigns. Few people believe that the public quasi-judicial hearings before the City Council are anything more than a form of kabuki theater, with the decisions made behind closed doors prior to the hearings, in violation of state and local law. The public now knows that their participation before the City Council is a sham.
A lawsuit filed by seven citizens, Whitelaw v. The Denver City Council, Case Number 2015CV3247, threatens to unmask the entire corrupt process by which zoning decisions are made in the City and County of Denver. It is assumed the office of the City Attorney will do anything and everything it can to prevent this case from ever getting its day in court. The City Attorney’s Office played a similar blocking role in the case of Hunter v. The City and County of Denver. In that case the City Attorney’s Office’s role in hiding evidence and conducting phony investigations concerning the Denver Sheriff’s Department and the City Jail were exposed. As a result, the City Attorney Scott Martinez was threatened by Federal District Court John L. Kane to have his law license revoked for his part in the cover-up.
A key difference in the two cases is the Hunter case was in United States District Court while the Whitelaw case is in the District Court for the City and County of Denver. It will take a Denver state court judge who is as brave and intrepid as Federal District Court Judge John L. Kane to ferret out the dishonesty that takes place on land use votes at Denver City Hall. Is there such a person on the state bench? If the past is any indication it is not encouraging. In case after case state court judges appear to be part and parcel of the cover-up, refusing to allow even a single instance for a claim to ever go to a jury. But it took years and years of Sheriff’s Department malfeasance at the City Jail before the Hunter case reached the desk of Judge Kane and then everything blew up. Before the Hunter case many people also assumed reform at the Sheriff’s Department was virtually impossible.
What about the City Council reforming itself and the way it conducts business? On the encouraging side, the voters voted in
three individuals — Rafael Espinosa, Wayne New and Paul Kashmann — dedicated to reforming the system, as well as an auditor, Tim O’Brien, who is not under the control of Mayor Hancock and real estate developers. But there are 13 members of the Denver City Council. Six returning council members rushed in the final days of the old council to approve every corrupt decision possible before the new council members were sworn in. In addition the Mayor and the developers were able to elect two new members, Kendra Black and Stacie Gilmore, who good government advocates have labeled the “Dirty Duo” for their absolute craven obsequiousness to the most revolting aspects of the Hancock administration.
Part of the problem and the difficulty of the system reforming itself is that some of the checks and balances that were built in the City Charter have been thoroughly compromised. The City Charter provides for an 11 person citizen Planning Board pursuant to which residents can bring their thoughts and concerns and the Board, in turn, advises the mayor and Denver City Council on land use matters, including planning and zoning. Unfortunately under the Charter the mayor gets to appoint every Board member. Mayor Hancock, instead of appointing representatives the community has chosen, developer controlled hacks and people under his control are appointed. At one time, being on the Planning Board was considered an honor, but today is a black mark disqualifying a former member for elective office in Denver as Anna Jones found out in this last election in her race against Wayne New.
In theory Denver employees and elected officials are supposed to, under the City Charter, “adhere to high levels of ethical conduct so that the public will have confidence that persons in positions of public responsibility are acting for the benefit of the public.” A five person board is supposed to enforce the Denver Ethics Code. That has become a joke. The only thing that citizens can be assured of is that the persons appointed to the Ethics Board by the mayor and the City Council are void of any personal ethics or they would not have been appointed to the Board in the first place. The Board’s latest disgrace, in a long line of disgraces, is its opinion concerning Councilwoman Stacie Gilmore, a close friend of the mayor and wife of the acting head of the Denver Parks and Recreation Scott Gilmore, who is also a close friend of the mayor.
Some people assumed that being on City Council while your husband heads up Parks and Recreation would present various conflicts of interest — but, not a problem. On cue, the Ethics Board issued an extraordinary opinion coming to the absolute opposite conclusion.
The Ethics Board claims its hands are tied by a too permissive Ethics Code including the conflicts of interest rules and that it will be making recommendations to beef it up. We would suggest that the Ethics Board recommend abolishing itself as it has lost any and all credibility with the citizenry who now knows it serves only as a fig leaf for approving the most corrupt of practices of the Denver city government.
Is the government of the City and County of Denver in fact capable of reforming itself? The answer is probably not anymore than the Sheriff’s Department was capable of reforming itself. As a result, the citizens of Denver should watch with a careful eye all the developments in the Whitelaw case as it may represent the last great hope for honest government in land use decisions in the City and County of Denver for quite a period of time.
— Editorial Board
by Mark Smiley | Jun 25, 2015 | Editorials
In the 1957 musical The Music Man by Meredith Wilson, the protagonist Professor Harold Hill pulls a scam on a small Iowa town to sell non-existent musical instruments and lessons for a boys band he claims he will form to thwart off the purported malicious effects of a pool hall in the town. In the award-winning melody “Ya Got Trouble” Professor Hill breaks into song including the lyrics:
Well, ya got trouble my friend, right here
I say, trouble right here in River City
. . . .
Pockets that mark the diff’rence
Between a gentleman and a bum,
With a capital “B”
And that rhymes with “P” and that stands for pool!
One of the reasons that the musical became so popular is that underlying premises have some believability concerning human nature. The Institute for Justice is a Virginia-based non-profit public interest law firm that somehow managed to lose by a 5-4 margin in the Supreme Court of the United States the case of Kelo v. City of New London whereby the court perniciously authorized the use of eminent domain to seize private property for the benefit of other private citizens in the name of economic development. The Institute has been raising money off its massive legal incompetence ever since.
The Institute for Justice was formed in 1991 by Clint Bollick and University of Denver Law School graduate “Chip” Mellor with seed money from moneyman Charles Koch of the famous, or infamous depending on your political views, Republican Koch Brothers. The Institute has revenues of only $18 million and must engage in endless money raising which depends on taking on highly public fights with municipalities and other governmental entities.
That is where Glendale comes in. The city sent out an innocuous notice that it was going to reauthorize the right of eminent domain for its urban renewal authority as it had in 2004 and 2013. Except this time the Institute for Justice had come to town. The Institute convinced the owners of Authentic Persian and Oriental Rugs on Colorado Boulevard that Glendale must want to condemn their three to five acres for its “Riverwalk” project renamed “Glendale 180.” Except no one in Glendale apparently has any plan whatsoever to condemn the Kholghys’ or anyone else’s property in the city.
As reality doesn’t matter when you are ginning fake outrage, a massive publicity campaign went out to save the Kholghys’ property from a condemnation that is never going to occur. Camera crews from all major stations descended on the city as well as reporters from The Denver Post and other publications in the metropolitan area to report on and to condemn the non-existent condemnation of the Kholghys’ property.
When Phillip Applebaum from the Institute came before the Glendale City Council to pontificate, it was assumed he was an attorney since he did not identify exactly what he did. But lo and behold he is, in fact, an “Activism Coordinator” who took over the publicity campaign. He wanted the Chronicle to know that the Institute was not “retained” by the Kholghys for legal work but his department is instead engaged in “grassroots activism” whose ultimate goal we assume is fund raise over a made up crisis in Riverwalk City.
Of course the Kholghys are hardly innocent dupes. They bought the land in 2006 from Jimmy O’Connor after they saw an article in The Denver Post that the city was planning an entertainment development along Cherry Creek to be called the Riverwalk. They overpaid for the property, but they assumed that the Riverwalk project would greatly increase the value of the land, as landowners along Cherry Creek helped plan the entire project. It has been indicated that they want $20 million or more for property worth half that amount. They are apparently hoping they can raise enough of a ruckus that the city can cheat its own taxpayers and pay them whatever they want.
For any redevelopment project to work the city needs tax revenues to help pay for roads and other improvements. According to state law Glendale can capture county and special district taxes for the project, provided there is so called “blight” which East Virginia Avenue clearly fits.
The Institute for Justice somehow convinced the Kholghys that a finding of blight, like the existence of a pool hall in River City, is the devil’s work and even helped organize a Saturday event to protest the assertion of “blight,” even though it would be helpful in any re-development of the Kholghys’ property by the Kholghys themselves. The Kholghys have brought at least two lawsuits against Glendale regarding the non-existent condemnation plans. The media in Denver, like the parents in River City, can however be easily conned and panicked into running to help prevent a non-existent threat.
Glendale, at its last City Council Meeting, approved a Downtown Development Authority that includes most of the southern side of East Virginia Avenue along the creek excepting the Kholghys’ property. Apparently the rest of the landowners want a project even if it doesn’t include the Kholghys.
In the end, the Kholghys will have spent a small fortune on frivolous lawsuits against the city for a non-existent threat of condemnation and their property will be worth considerably less not being part of Glendale 180. The one group that will gain will be the lawyers as well as the Institute for Justice with Phillip Applebaum as Activism Coordinator in an updated version of The Music Man crooning:
Well, ya got trouble my friend, right here
I say, trouble right here in Riverwalk City
. . . .
Blight marks the diff’rence
Between a gentleman and a bum,
With a capital “B”
And that rhymes with “C” and that stands for condemnation!
The Kholghys will be free to develop their property in any way they see fit except having to obey the zoning laws of the city just like every other landowner in the city. In the past the Kholghys seem to believe they are above the laws that apply to everyone else including providing parking and open space for any redevelopment. As with The Music Man one cannot help but admire the con the Kholghys and the Institute for Justice have pulled off on the media. But in the end most of the residents and businesses of Glendale hope that the Kholghys get what they justly deserve and that the laws are fairly and honestly applied to them as they would be applied to anyone else. The Institute in turn, will leave Glendale to go on raising money off of other made up River City crises, all the while losing legal cases that should never have been lost in the first place.
— Editorial Board
by Mark Smiley | May 22, 2015 | Editorials
If there is any group of individuals who feels under siege in this country it is police officers. They are under attack from the mayors of cities from Denver to Baltimore. The President of the United States appears actively hostile to them at times while the U.S. Department of Justice appears ever ready to take over local police departments. When a local Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby declared that she will do justice for Freddie Gray by prosecuting, if not persecuting, every police officer who came in contact with him the day he died, no police officer can feel safe from a vengeful city hall.
Part of the problem police officers have is more and more videos cropping up showing what appears to be police brutality, or even worse, in some cases murder. Moreover, police trying to arrest individuals legitimately, filming their activities is both illegal and dumb. Mandatory body cameras will help diminish the filing of false charges against police officers and hopefully change the attitude and actions of the small percentage of officers who believe they are above the law.
The police across the country need to undertake a sustained public relations campaign or the hostility and animus leveled at them by many in the public will only get worse. At one time the police could count on strong support from middle class individuals, but that is all going away as the Greatest Generation dies off and the Baby Boomer Generation and those that have come after feel no such connectedness to law enforcement.
The vast number of citizens’ only contact with police is a result of traffic enforcement. If a town’s traffic enforcement is corrupt, as it is in Denver, Campo, Mountain View, Morrison, Nunn and Manzanola, then the residents of those towns and people traveling through lose respect for law enforcement. Towns with crooked traffic enforcement tend also to have crooked or at least highly suspect police and sheriff activities.
The Denver Post recently had an illuminating editorial in which it urged the state to limit the amount a town’s budget can come from traffic enforcement to 20 percent. Each of the towns listed above would be drastically affected by the proposed law with of course the exception of Denver whose corrupt traffic enforcement was not addressed or noted in the editorial.
The city of Glendale was once the town in Colorado most noted for its corrupt traffic enforcement. When the town was formally incorporated in 1952 it had little town revenues. To bring in money the mayor would get into his Cadillac with some members of the city council and head out to Colorado Boulevard and Leetsdale Drive in search of innocent motorists. When the mayor spotted what he considered a traffic violation he would put a light on top of the roof and hunt down and ticket the motorist.
Over the years Glendale became rich with the coming of Target and other big boxes as well as many bars and restaurants along East Virginia Avenue. Its police force grew and grew but exploiting motorists along Colorado Boulevard and Leetsdale Drive continued on unabated. The police force also became known for its brutality, as a cross look to a police officer on Saturday night on East Virginia could end up in a beating.
When the Glendale Tea Party took over City Hall in 1998 they tried to put a stop to the corrupt traffic enforcement and excessive police brutality but it was not easy. They undertook a study that showed the traffic enforcement regimen actually cost money after the price of police time and administrative overhead, including the salary of the municipal judge, were factored in. The police chief balked, along with the municipal judge, at any changes. Eventually the city canned the police chief when he was overheard saying that a beating of a suspect was good for police morale and the municipal judge quit as his salary was cut. Today, you have to almost try to get a ticket in Glendale as most normal traffic violators are given just a warning unless the vehicular conduct is truly egregious. Colorado Boulevard and Leetsdale Drive are safer places to travel because of it and the police brutality has disappeared.
But don’t tell Denver. Its police officers routinely set up speed traps all over the city including along University Boulevard and Leetsdale Drive where the posted limit is far slower than a motorist would expect. Moreover, as the Denver City Auditor declared in his comprehensive report on photo radar, the only real purpose for the program appeared to be to generate money for the city. The corrupt traffic enforcement accompanies, as it did in Glendale, excessive brutality cases at the Denver jail and on the streets costing millions in lawsuits by Denver residents. When police officers see that their job is not simply to “Serve and Protect” but “Abuse and Exploit” it affects their attitude in all aspects of their job.
The Denver Mayor and City Council under the absolute control of real estate developers don’t make any money off the police so they by and large don’t care what is happening. But the rest of the state is getting sick of it. In this last legislative session, best remembered for partisan gridlock with a divided legislature, two competing bills passed in a year aimed at Denver.
H.B. 1098 bans photo radar enforcement and red light cameras altogether while S.B. 276 requires a citizens’ vote and strips federal highway funds from local governments that do not hold an election before 2017. Both bills are now on Governor Hickelooper’s desk who has stated that he “hate[s] those things [photo radar and red light cameras], everybody hates them” but he believed they saved lives. Of course he did not say why he had such a belief only that he so believed. Every study, including an independent study commissioned by the Chicago Tribune, determined the exact opposite.
The governor also declared that he believed photo radar and red light cameras should be a matter local governments should decide. By that statement he was not saying the citizens should get to decide as provided in S.B. 276, but rather the decision should be left to that elected and/or appointed official who can be bribed and bought as was the case in Chicago.
If he vetoes both bills his tepid popularity would take another substantial hit, but some say that he doesn’t really care as he is now term limited. In the end, perhaps the suggestion of Senate President Bill Cadman should prevail. He called for a statewide vote. It could be coupled in a companion vote on The Denver Post recommendation that limits revenues from traffic tickets to a percentage of a town’s budget. Imagine a state in which no city has the type of corrupt traffic enforcement policies which pollutes police agencies and the public perception of police officers. Apparently the governor can’t.
— Editorial Board
by Mark Smiley | Apr 24, 2015 | Editorials
The City of Glendale’s recent announcement of an entertainment district along Cherry Creek brings to fore a vision that has been in the making for almost 20 years. Who first envisioned the concept is a matter of minor dispute with the Publisher of this paper Chuck Bonniwell and the present Mayor of Glendale Mike Dunafon both claiming paternity. But as a practical matter, the far harder task is bringing the concept to reality. There is no question that without Mayor Dunafon’s persistent and forceful leadership the vision would never have happened.
The challenges to the project were enormous, including but not limited to, the necessity of providing ample parking which will make or break the project. The city is willing to spend approximately $75 million for parking and other improvements which is no small feat for a city whose total annual budget is less than $20 million.
The city is able to do that through the miracle of tax increment financing and the state tax provisions for urban renewal districts. The taxing provisions allow the city to pledge not only its own municipal sales and property taxes but any increase from a base year of property and sales tax revenue from other applicable entities, including Arapahoe County and Cherry Creek School District. That allows the sale of tens of millions in bonds with the bondholders knowing that the city will have more than sufficient revenues available to repay the bonds.
Glendale throughout much of its history has been a booming town by adopting whatever Denver rejects. At the beginning of the 20th century Denver regulated out of business many of its dairy operations which Glendale welcomed with such open arms that the city became known as Cow Town. Denver rejected fireworks and Glendale had various fireworks stores up and down Colorado Boulevard, including one run by then Glendale Mayor Fred Repp.
In the early 1970s just when the baby boomer generation was reaching adulthood and the legal drinking age was being dropped to 18, Denver decided to massively restrict new liquor licenses. Glendale therefore gave them out to any qualified person who sought one. It resulted in Glendale becoming a bar, restaurant and youth mecca. Along East Virginia, Colorado Boulevard, Leetsdale Drive and South Cherry Street there were the Colorado Mine Company, Cork ’N Cleaver, The Lift, Mr. Lucky’s, etc. etc. etc. The sales taxes to Glendale flourished.
In the 1990s, in a return gift to Denver, Mayors Steve Ward and Joe Rice began terminating as many liquor licenses as they could until only five were left, turning East Virginia into a wasteland. Mayor Ward was infamous for having a small toy cannon at his spot on the podium which he would playfully shoot off every time a liquor license was revoked. The recipient of this revenue largess was Denver’s LODO, which thanks to Coors Field, was experiencing an extraordinary renaissance.
But just as Glendale seeks to perform a back to the future miracle with Glendale 180, Denver once again appears to want to create a potential partial act of economic hari kari. Denver Councilman Albus Brooks, whose council district includes downtown, has declared that the city wants individuals to have to think twice about bringing an automobile downtown. The so-called Denver Planning Board and the city planners say that they are not allowed to consider the traffic and parking impacts on new projects it approves in Cherry Creek and elsewhere in Denver.
The net effect of this deliberate head in the sand approach will make it increasingly costly and time consuming to drive an automobile in the City and County of Denver and particularly unpleasant in the areas where bars, restaurants and entertainment venues are concentrated. One of two things will happen. One possibility is that people will continue to pour into Denver by alternative means of transportation including walking, bicycles, light rail, cabs or short-term car rentals like Uber and Car To Go. This is the prediction of the city planners who are in cahoots with real estate developers who in turn are happy to provide as little parking as they can get away with.
Alternatively, the lumpenproletariat from the suburbs may decide not to do what the central planners of Denver decree and instead simply in part stop coming to LODO and Cherry Creek North bars, restaurants and entertainment venues. They will instead take their cars and money to places like Glendale 180 which welcomes them by providing ample and inexpensive parking, guaranteeing Glendale’s latest success.
By 2017 when Glendale 180 is scheduled to be open for business, the effect of Denver’s deliberate decision to create parking and traffic nightmares for automobile users will truly become ever more evident. Glendale is betting that it will just have to say, once again, thank you to Denver as it has been happy to do for most of its storied history.
— Editorial Board
by Mark Smiley | Mar 27, 2015 | Editorials
An election for the mayor of Denver and the entire City Council will be held on May 5, 2015, much to the surprise of many Denver residents. Part of the reason for the lack of publicity of the election is the strange form of democracy we have going on here in Denver. Our municipality has informally adopted what they call the “one and done” rule sometimes seen in third world kleptocracies, i.e., once you are elected you never face another competitive election ever again. Unfortunately for city officeholders there are term limits in the municipality or they would never have to leave office except feet first as they go on to their heavenly reward.
By way of illustrative example, Mayor Michael Hancock has been incredibly inept in everything he has handled from the Sheriff’s Department scandals to the police protest debacle to the disastrous development policies. Succeeding two very strong mayors in Wellington Webb and John Hickenlooper, Hancock is an incredibly feckless and weak character, although highly personable.
Our mayor was at one time a mascot for the Denver Broncos football team and in office he has continued that role as the official team mascot for the greediest of real estate developers and most corrupt of union bosses. Yet he runs for a second term virtually unopposed.
Turning to the City Council, we are still attempting to determine when the last time was that an incumbent Denver City Council member lost in an election. Most incumbents never even have an opponent after their first election.
Timothy O’Brien
The reason, of course, is not that we love our incumbents so much here in Denver, but rather money — the mother’s milk of politics. To attempt to beat an incumbent in a city council district race costs at least $100,000; $500,000 for a city-wide position other than mayor; and for mayor at least $1,000,000. The only people who will provide you such sums to run for city office are real estate developers and labor unions, but they already own the incumbents and so why would anyone provide money for any putative challengers. Of course, if you are very wealthy you could self fund, but you may have noticed wealthy people do not want to run for municipal office in Denver other than perhaps mayor. The rich will consider running for governor, or senator or even congressman, but not a spot on the Denver City Council. This is why Denver City Council members are always voting themselves never-ending raises, i.e., they need the money.
As a result there is no real race for the mayor’s position or a majority of the council seats which is why the public is paying little or no attention to the election. You never saw the Russian public get real excited either about essentially non-elections in the old Soviet Union.
But that does leave elections for six open council seats as well as city auditor. These competitive races include Council Districts 4, 6 and 10 which the Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle serves in whole or in part.
Wayne New
But who should one vote for in these races? It’s actually pretty easy. Go to www.den vergov.org/elections and download the financial disclosure statements of the candidates. In each race there will be one candidate that has raised an incredible amount of money. In their disclosure statements you will see the lawyer lobbyists from CRL Associates and Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck LLP as well as endless developers and real estate investors. You well also see a smattering of unions such the Teamsters Local 17 PAC. These candidates have already been acquired by those who control and own Mayor Michael Hancock.
Sadly, but understandably, another name you should be on the lookout for is the Greater Glendale Chamber of Commerce. Our publisher, Chuck Bonniwell, is a co-founder of that organization and sits on its Board of Directors but, of course, only has but one vote. Glendale since its founding in 1859, and particularly after its incorporation in 1952, has had to fight Denver tooth and nail for its very existence. Starting in the 1990s, thanks to mayors Wellington Webb and John Hickenlooper and the Glendale powers that be, there has been a rapprochement. As a result there has been the fire department merger, the beautification of Cherry Creek South and the building of the Infinity Park complex among other positive projects that have benefited both cities.
Glendale, as well as its business chamber therefore, seeks to have a positive relationship with the powers that be in Denver, which today is Mayor Michael Hancock and the people who control him. On page 24 you will locate the Glendale Chamber’s endorsements and you can judge for yourself how convincing you find its logic and rationale.
The unions, the developers and the Glendale Chamber suggest you support Kendra Black in Council District 4; Liz Adams in Council District 6; Anna Jones in Council District 10; as well as Chris Nevitt for City Auditor.
If you want more 30-story Broe Towers eliminating the view of the mountains for all of Cherry Creek and the Country Club area, along with more massive apartment buildings blocking sunlight from ever reaching certain streets in Cherry Creek North, these are your candidates. If you think that the endless traffic jams along Colorado Boulevard and 1st Avenue and the rest of the city are not long enough and can be made even worse, these are your candidates. If you want to see a corrupt and unethical Planning Board with no consideration ever for the parking and traffic concerns continue, these are your candidates. These candidates will religiously follow the political Golden Rule, i.e., he who has the gold rules, and that is not the average everyday citizen or voter.
Paul Kashmann
That is not to say Black, Adams and Jones are not pleasant people, but so is Hancock. On a personal basis, we particularly like Anna Jones who has an infectious laugh and wonderful wit. But she served on the mayor’s Planning Board for several years and that is a disqualifier for us.
Concerning the auditor’s race Chris Nevitt is their choice. He is the councilman from District 7 who brought you the hideous twin 30-story Broe Towers. Unlike their other candidates, Chris Nevitt is most definitely not a nice person. He is best known, by most, for his screaming rants at citizens who came to City Council to oppose projects Nevitt’s money men backed. One longtime Denver resident and politico, whose opinion we respect, said of Nevitt, “He is the worst human being I have ever met on the Denver City Council and that is saying something as there have been some real doozies.” Nevitt at one time was simply a union shill on City Council but in recent years he has expanded to prostituting himself out to every developer in Denver he could find. He has no background in, or experience, auditing and wants to use the office as a stepping stone, God forbid, for a run for mayor after Hancock is term limited. He is the weakest and least qualified candidate for any office in Denver in many a year, which no doubt explains why he is undoubtedly the favorite in the race.
So who should you vote for? Well, in the auditor and in District 6 races there are only single opponents. Luckily Timothy O’Brien in the auditor’s race and Paul Kashmann in District 6 are wonderful candidates who need no introduction to many voters. O’Brien, in fact, is a C.P.A. who is qualified and experienced in auditing, having served as the Colorado State Auditor. He is a resident of southeast Denver, and he and his wife are proud parents of three daughters. He is also truly independent and not beholden to anyone. While an argument can be made for endorsing an Anna Jones for City Council, no one with a straight face can claim that the morally repugnant Chris Nevitt deserves to be elected over the qualified, decent and honorable Timothy O’Brien. But this is politics in Denver and the normal rules of minimum decency simply do not apply.
Halisi Vinson
Kashmann is the longtime publisher of the Washington Park Profile who just recently sold his interest in that well-respected and beloved publication. A gentle and convivial soul, he prides himself in seeing an issue from many different sides. He even has a Colorado State Senate Commendation for 20 years of community service. He is not a believer in the political Golden Rule, but rather the original one of treating people as he would like to be treated himself. Kashmann would actually listen to citizens who would come before the City Council to make their case. Any municipal council, but in particular the Denver City Council, would benefit from having a Paul Kashmann.
In the other two races there are a myriad of candidates. In Council District 10 the person who has the greatest prospect of beating the money boys behind the mayor is Wayne New, the past long-term president of the Cherry Creek North Neighborhood Association, who has been fighting the good fight for decades. For our tastes we would prefer if New would have battled the greediest of the developers in Cherry Creek North even more fiercely, but that is not his personality. He wants to make things work for all involved.
Wayne New apparently has the money boys a little worried as they sent out the dirty tricks guys to gin up a phony ethics violation by the contemptible Colorado Ethics Watch. A neophyte at campaign financing, he forgot to add to some of his campaign literature the standard “Paid for by Wayne New for City Council” in microscopic print. Oh, No! The crooks behind the mayor are really, truly desperate to defeat Wayne New which in our book is all the more reason to vote for him.
Finally in District 4 the person putting up the best fight is Halisi Vinson who has the backing of major park advocates as well as Wellington Webb. Webb, like many Denverites, is desperate to have at least one park advocate on the City Council. When he wrote to the Friends of Denver Parks, “First they took our park and now they want to buy a council seat,” he was directly referring to Mayor Michael Hancock and his despicable developer friends. Webb’s daughter Stephanie O’Malley is Hancock’s Manager of Safety and his support for Vinson could cost his daughter that highly coveted job. We at the Chronicle agree with former Mayor Webb in this instance, that the only honorable thing to do is to stand with Ms. Vinson.
We ask you to consider the candidates in your District and vote for the ones who might actually make a difference at the City and County Building. In our mind the choices are clear.
— Editorial Board
by Mark Smiley | Feb 27, 2015 | Editorials
February 6, 2015
Dear Friends,
First they took our park, now they want to buy a council seat.
I joined the Friends of Denver Parks with an undying belief that no matter whom the foe that we as “citizens” — the most important title an American can hold — gives us the right to stand up against the rich and powerful. During my entire 12 years as mayor, I always looked for ways to maintain and acquire new park space. The parks we have are a contract we take out between us and the citizenry, and the legacy we leave for future generations.
I joined your effort publicly and financially because it is my belief that what happens in one part of the city will then be repeated in another part of the city. My message is a resounding: “Leave our park land alone.” Do your business deals on non-parkland. If they get away with this, the rich and powerful will try to take other parks and buy our council seats.
I believe this is already happening in Council District 4. The reason I so strongly support candidate Halisi Vinson for the Council District 4 seat is that the group who took the park are now supporting one of her opponents, a nice woman whose main interests really has been school issues.
What residents of District 4 need to be aware of is that Halisi’s opponent is taking thousands of dollars for her campaign from the people who took the park. They even rejected your signatures calling for a public vote on taking the park land, which has been officially called a park since 1955.
First they take your park, now they think they can buy your council seat.
Halisi Vinson supports District 4 residents and the city’s parks. I urge you and your friends to support Vinson because she is the candidate whose only interest is District 4.
I am engaged is this race because I don’t like any business deal that takes our parks. I will never forget in 1991 you stood up against big money to support a man in tennis shoes for your mayor.
Let’s do it again, and donate today. Remember they first took our park now they want to buy a council seat.
To learn more about Halisi and how you can help her campaign visit: http://halisivinson.com/
Or contact her at: halisi@halisivinson.com
303-550-1247 (cell)
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Wellington E. Webb
