by Charles Bonniwell | Nov 16, 2023 | Editorials
At one time not so long ago, everyone loved bicyclists. What is there not to love? The vast majority of people have ridden a bike some time in their lives. Bicycling is great for your health, it lessens automobile traffic, and is helpful to the environment as a whole. But as Eric Hoffer surmised, every cause starts as a movement, becomes a business, and finally a racket. Even many bicyclists intensely dislike the bicycle lobby in Denver, as evidenced by the many communications this publication received on last month’s lead story: “7th and Williams Fiasco.”
Developers use the bicycle lobby to argue that they should not have to provide adequate parking for their high-density apartment buildings. Denver’s Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (DOTI) has been captured by the bicyclist lobby and is busily screwing up streets across the city with ridiculous and ugly plastic bollards, roundabouts, and striping all in the name of “bicycle safety.”
Whether it’s at Williams and 7th, Broadway, or Marion Parkway, DOTI’s work is reviled by residents, businesses, pedestrians, and bicyclists, and just about everyone else with the exception of the bicycle lobby and tone-deaf politicians like District 5 Councilwoman Amanda Sawyer. Moreover, this is just the beginning. DOTI has many other so-called “bicycle safety” projects on its books throughout the city.
The worst part of it is, as letters to this paper demonstrate, that DOTI’s monstrosities do not provide bike safety, but just the opposite for everyone involved, including bicyclists. Accidents are piling up along the streets that DOTI has jerry-rigged, and in particular, where it has installed roundabouts on streets not designed for them, with trucks, buses, delivery vans, and other larger vehicles having to careen around them.
The intersection of 7th and Williams alone has seen four accidents between September 25 and October 6, bringing the total amount of accidents since the installation of these roundabouts to nine, as reported to the Chronicle by Kitty Koch, Denver resident.
But the baleful influence of the bicycle lobby is not limited to the actual streets of Denver. Last fall, Ordinance 307 was pushed by the bicycle lobby and was narrowly passed. This ordinance imposes fees on Denver homeowners from $110 to $1,000 per year for sidewalk repairs (see “Bicycle Lobby Peddles Tax That Forces Property Owners To Fix City Sidewalks”, January 2023 edition of the Chronicle). Voters who live in apartment buildings are not directly affected, but homeowners are. They have taken their outrage to Denver’s City Council, which has been delaying the implementation of the now highly unpopular fees, but the day of reckoning is coming.
Undoubtedly, the bicycle lobby is searching for other opportunities to make the lives of Denverites worse and more costly as that lobby is a monster that must be fed. What can you do about it? Well, supporting the expected recall effort of Councilwoman Amanda Sawyer, who is a pitchwoman for the bicycle lobby, would be a positive step. Electing someone who returns calls and cares about his/her constituents and not just pressure groups is never a bad idea.
— Editorial Board
by Charles Bonniwell | Oct 20, 2023 | Editorials
The election to replace Auon’tai Anderson as the at-large Board member for Denver Public Schools (“DPS”) will occur on November 7, 2023. Fortunately, almost anyone in the world would be better than Tay Anderson, who became best known for harassing underage girls and setting up grifting GoFundMe get rich schemes. He was the one leading the charge to get rid of police resource officers that got a teacher killed, not that he cared.
It is amazing that anyone would want to run for the thankless non-paying position. Moreover, the Denver School Board is itself a morass of petty, bickering, backstabbing individuals that spend most of their time fighting about the black/brown divide and little about the scandalous performance of Denver Public School students after the closure of the schools because of COVID-19. Those closures were prolonged by the teachers’ unions across the country. The one silver lining to those closures was parents got to see what the schools were in fact teaching and many didn’t like what they saw.
Less than half of DPS students can now read, write, add, and subtract at grade school level and it is getting worse. The longer your child spends at DPS the worse it gets. At one time the business community actually cared about DPS board races, but have abandoned the schools, leaving the field to the teachers’ union (the Denver Classroom Teachers Association) with expected disastrous results.
For this election you actually have a choice. The teachers’ union has endorsed former mayoral candidate and ex-CEO of the now bankrupt Tattered Cover Bookstores Kwame Spear. The teachers’ union has endorsed and gotten elected far worse individuals (see present DPS Board).
Spear is a graduate of DPS, undergrad degree from Columbia, law degree from Yale, and business degree from Harvard. He is probably way overqualified to be on a board of misfits and malcontents. He wants to up teacher pay, paid by a tax hike through a citywide ballot measure. He also wants to boost teachers’ healthcare and parental leave benefits. Moreover, he is for subsidized teacher housing with a down payment support program, and 2,000 units of subsidized housing built on city-owned land. He declares that “the best way to support our students is to support our educators.” No wonder the teachers’ union loves the guy.
But we don’t agree that simply pouring money and benefits to teachers is the best way to help students. He doesn’t demand any increased accountability or increased standards from those same teachers. In the end he will likely simply enrich teachers while the students will continue getting the same deficient education.
John Youngquist
The other major candidate is John Youngquist. He is the former principal of East High School and parent of two East High students. He also served as the area superintendent of
36 schools in Northwest Denver, and has been the president of a consulting firm for school principals.
He decided to run after watching the present board and the superintendent fail to address safety threats and concerns on campuses across the city. He has been endorsed by Denver Family Action, a charter school supporter. Notwithstanding that teachers’ unions believe that schools are there to provide a living for teachers and bureaucrats, education is really about the students and their education. The best way to provide a great education is giving students and their parents choices for schools and letting them determine what is best for them. It creates automatic accountability. Luckily Denver has begun a strong charter and Magnet school program that needs to be expanded and grown upon, and it’s clear Youngquist will do that as well as provide a safe learning environment in all public schools. He has the background to know what works in Denver schools and what does not.
The third candidate is Brittni Johnson, a licensed massage therapist who is now unemployed due to a car accident. She has raised little money and has done little campaigning for the job. She has been endorsed by a plethora of progressive groups. She is the one that would probably fit in well with the other present Board members.
If you’re a teacher and want to vote your pocketbook, then you would want to go with Kwame Spear, but for everyone else, John Youngquist appears the strongest candidate, and we strongly endorse him.
— Editorial Board
by Charles Bonniwell | Jul 20, 2023 | Editorials
Mike Johnston is sworn in as the 46th Mayor of Denver on July 17, 2023.
Although the Biden Administration may dispute it, most people would view seven million people illegally crossing the United States southern border in the last several years as a financial disaster. That does not mean that there is not a lot of money to be made from it. Certainly, the Mexican drug cartel bringing fentanyl and other drugs, the coyotes smuggling in illegal immigrants, the nonprofit groups sheltering the immigrants once they cross, and the federal contracts paid to disburse them throughout the country; all are doing very well indeed.
Denver has absorbed only a small fraction of the recent immigrants with Denver officials estimating approximately 1,200 at any one time with the cost estimated to be up to $1,000 per immigrant per week (an estimated $17 million total). The immigrants have been housed in recreation centers and anywhere else space could be found.
The Hancock Administration in its final days wanted to burden the new Johnston administration with a one-year contract with GardaWorld Federal Services to operate a single 1,000-person shelter with intake services, food, and transportation for $40 million.
Denver’s nonprofit world went bonkers. They screamed about the city of Denver hiring a Canadian detention company with an awful record of waste and abuse when they could provide an equal amount of waste and abuse with money staying right here in Denver. Sometimes people fail to comprehend that “nonprofit” is simply a federal tax status and the people running them are every bit as rapacious and money hungry as their counterparts in the for-profit world.
At $40,000 per immigrant, per year, there is plenty of gravy to go around, especially considering that many more shelters will probably be needed and for an indefinite period of time. Moreover, the educational and health needs of every immigrant will also need to be provided.
Luckily, our new mayor Mike Johnston has indicted that he can solve all these problems, as well as the indigenous homeless quagmire, all in a single year with his tiny homes and other programs. Previous mayor, now Senator, John Hickenlooper had promised he would end homelessness in a decade, but later said that was just sales puffery for the always gullible Denver residents.
With Mike Johnston being sworn in on July 17, 2023, it is exciting to know that all these problems, some of which have plagued mankind since civilization began, will be solved in less than one year. In the meantime, don’t you be handing out any lucrative contracts. Keep the largesse right here in Denver, on the off chance that the problems might go on slightly past July 16th of 2024.
— Editorial Board
by Charles Bonniwell | Jun 23, 2023 | Editorials
Your property taxes will be going sky high after Governor Polis and a bi-partisan majority in legislature convinced us voters in 2020 to do away with the Gallagher Amendment which limited property tax hikes for homeowners. The Gallagher Amendment saved homeowners $82 billion in taxes since its adoption in 1982. But no more.
Having suckered voters so successfully last time, Governor Polis has come up with another POLIS con job, Proposition HH. This will go before the voters in the fall. This time it is being done without Republican connivance, but Republican opposition may no longer matter. Rushed through at the end of the session, the Democrats in the legislature closed all debate, causing Republicans to walk out.
Proposition HH appears to have drawn inspiration from the old confidence man’s three-card monte card trick. In that card game you are supposed to pick out the black ace from three cards. Trick of hand makes sure you never do. In Proposition HH the voters are supposed to pick out the tax relief but by sleight-of-hand language you are voting yourself a “tax raise.”
If you vote “Yes” on Proposition HH you may think you are getting property tax relief from the effects of the revocation of the Gallagher Amendment, but you have not followed the cards closely enough. While your property tax will be slightly reduced for 10 years you would allow the state to keep more of your Tabor refunds permanently with a portion going to favored entities to backfill what they would lose from the slight reduction in property tax rates over the 10 years. Without going into all the byzantine meandering of the proposition, you are, in effect, voting yourself a tax raise under the guise of “tax relief.”
The governor has always been something of a flimflam man, but he has proven it works. His real name was Jared Shutz, but he changed it before going into public life to hide some of the more unsavory parts of his past, in particular, an assault on a female employee. He pushed the Colorado Independent Ethics Commission idea as an effort to promote confidence in our government institutions when it is perhaps the greatest bureaucratic con job in all of Colorado government.
He has promoted himself nationally as a Democrat who is also something of a small “l” libertarian, which is comical, but the national press is dutifully calling him by that description. Reason Magazine recently wrote an article on him titled “Jared Polis: The Most Libertarian Governor in America?” He is considered by some as the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for U.S. President should Joe Biden pull out for some reason.
Will his three-card monte trick called Proposition HH fool the voters? If the past is any indication, don’t bet against Polis as the dealer.
— Editorial Board
by Charles Bonniwell | Apr 21, 2023 | Editorials
Kelly Brough
The Denver voters at the April election winnowed down a large field of 16 potential candidates for Mayor to Kelly Brough and Mike Johnston. We could have done worse, like when we three times elected the worst mayor in the city and county’s history, Michael Hancock. Was there a candidate who could have become a mayor like Wellington Webb, Frederico Peña, Robert Speer, and Benjamin Stapleton, who with all their faults, helped build and maintain Denver as an incredibly great place to live? We don’t know. But our choice now is between Mike Johnston and Kelly Brough.
Another troubled former great city, Chicago, has elected Brandon Johnson to be mayor with the strong endorsement of the all-powerful teachers union. The press has been warning that teachers unions across the country are trying to elect their candidates to the detriment of the citizenry. The endorsement of the Denver teachers union is however, kryptonite in Denver. Even the incredibly desperate Westside Investments refused to disclose in its unsuccessful campaign to destroy Park Hill Golf Course open space that the Denver Classroom Teachers Union had endorsed its “Yes on 20.” The teachers union is endorsing no one in the Denver race, but there is no doubt it is backing the former Denver union teacher Mike Johnston.
Even more concerning is the avalanche of dark money that is coming in for Johnston from across the country. There is never money without promises and Johnston refuses to say what those promises were. Johnston’s cavalcade of standard liberal bromide positions earned him the also unwanted endorsement of the hedge fund-owned Denver Post, whose endorsement has lately become a political kiss of death.
With nothing new or interesting about Johnston, we turn to Kelly Brough. People in Glendale know a great deal about the former head of the Denver Chamber of Commerce. She succeeded now U.S. Senator Michael Bennet as chief of staff for then Mayor John Hickenlooper before going over to the Chamber. Unfortunately, while the people in Glendale found Bennet a delight to work with, not so much the perpetually dour Brough. People in Glendale almost don’t recognize the campaign photo of Brough with a huge smile. She has the backing of most of the Denver business community which unfortunately includes the high-density apartment developers who want to gobble up every inch of park and open space in the City and County of Denver.
Mike Johnston
When asked by The Denver Post whether she supported the redevelopment of the Park Hill Golf Course property most of her answer was such gobbledygook that the Post refused to print it. But at least she was not bought off by Westside Investments like Johnston who supported the open space grab.
She does have the endorsement of former mayor Wellington Webb, which is one of the few endorsements that carries weight with us. Sadly, she counter-balanced that with promoting endorsements from two of the worst former mayors in the metro Denver area — Adam Paul of Lakewood, and Herb Atchison of Westminster.
If we had to pick a former Denver mayor she most politically resembles, it would be William H. McNichols, who reigned in Denver from 1968 to 1983. He did little during those 15 years to improve the city, but he was not interested in destroying it either like Hancock.
Brough has had a lot of pain in her life, with her father being murdered and her husband killing himself, so she can empathize with others in pain today in Denver. Moreover, she can could grow and shine in the position of mayor. As we said politics is a matter of choice and here we choose and endorse Kelly Brough.
by Charles Bonniwell | Mar 17, 2023 | Editorials
Editorial —
Amanda Sawyer, Bought and Paid For By Developers
Buyer of Politicians and Liberal Interest Groups, Andrew Klein
Nineteenth century showman and con artist P.T. Barnum’s most famous purported saying is: “There is a sucker born every minute.” Westside Investment Partners and its head Andrew Klein certainly appear to believe that to be true of Denver. At the PBS12 mayoral debate all the candidates were jointly asked:
“Raise your hand if you are receiving campaign donations from Westside Investment Partners or any related entities who own golf course property and are pushing for its development.”
No one raised their hand but, in fact, former state Senator Mike Johnston, state Senator Chris Hansen, and city Councilmember Debbie Ortega all took money from Klein and support the high-density development on Park Hill Golf Course. This is enough that no one on the Editorial Board will vote for or support any of those individuals for mayor.
Denverite has reported Westside Investment Partners’ leaders and staff are supporting eight City Council candidates, including Amanda Sawyer who ran four years ago against high-density development. Sawyer, who quickly became almost unbearably smug, self-important, and arrogant upon assuming her city council position, has now become a high-density developer backer. This demonstrates that there must be something in the water in District 5 as her two predecessors, Marcia Johnson and Mary Beth Susman, also became corrupted by developers soon after coming into office. Incumbents in Denver are almost impossible to beat, especially when backed by developer money, but Michael Hughes is trying to unseat Sawyer in District 5 and we wish him the best.
It isn’t just politicians that Klein and Westside Investment Partners have corrupted with their money. A Who’s Who of venerable liberal organizations including Volunteers of America, Habitat for Humanity, St. Thomas Episcopal, Greater Metro Denver Ministerial Alliance, Denver Classroom Teachers Association, and many others, signed onto one of most dishonest ad campaigns to get Denver voters to approve their high-density development on April 4th.
The development is being sold on the ridiculous canard that because there is a city-wide shortage of high-quality, affordable housing we must approve their development of 2,550 new homes on half of 155 acres of open space. The most revolting assertion is that it causes the “creation of the fourth largest park in the city.” By taking half the land now for high-density development no one but a fool would believe that they will not be back for the other half in a blink of an eye.
The hucksters who told us at one time that we had to destroy South Vietnam in order to save it are back at it to tell you that you have to destroy a 155-acre park to save it. The homes will not be affordable, but will go for Cherry Hills prices and disrupt a wonderful Black neighborhood for rich White yuppies.
The destruction of Park Hill Golf Course is Mayor Michael Hancock’s final middle finger to the people of Denver. In 12 years as mayor he has made the city so unlivable that he is moving to Miami when his term is up. Hopefully Denver voters will give him the middle finger back by voting “NO” on Referred Question 20.
