One of the most animated races this primary season is House District 6 in East and Central Denver. Three candidates are vying for the nomination and the Democratic primary is set for June 30, 2020. Steven Woodrow currently holds the seat he was appointed to by the vacancy committee and has since February 4, 2020. His current term ends on January 13, 2021, and he is running for re-election.
The vacancy for the House seat occurred when the previous representative, Chris Hansen, received an appointment on January 16, 2020, to fill the unexpired term of Senator Lois Court, who resigned due to health problems. Woodrow won 45 of the 71 votes from the vacancy committee beating out six other candidates.
Now, Woodrow must win the vote of the registered voters in District 6 and many are calling this the race to watch. It appears the election may be close with three candidates vying for the nomination. The challengers to Woodrow are Dan Himelspach and Steven Paletz who are engaging in active campaigns.
Forty-two percent of the registered voters in the district that covers East and Central Denver are registered Democrats while 17 percent are registered Republicans. It is deemed likely that whoever wins the primary later this month will win the seat in the state House.
Himelspach is challenging Woodrow based on the flawed vacancy committee process. “Colorado has the highest number of bureaucrats appointed through the vacancy process than any other state in the country,” said Himelspach. “Although many people who were part of the vacancy committee are supporting our campaign, the process is not reflective of a strong democracy. That’s why I did not participate in the vacancy committee.” Himelspach has been endorsed by District 5 Denver City Councilmember, Amanda Sawyer as well as former City Councilmembers Ed Thomas and Cathy Donohue among others.
Dan Himelspach
Steven Paletz has a similar view as to why the vacancy committee is not a true representation. “The vacancy committee is not representative of the values of the voters of the district and does not include the voices of unaffiliated leaning democrats that make up a significant portion of the primary electorate in HD6,” said Paletz. “The vacancy committee was also not an issue focused vote, but what some committee members described as a ‘popularity contest.’” Paletz’s endorsements include State Senator Robert Rodriguez and State Representatives Kerry Tipper and Cathy Kipp among others.
Although Paletz recognizes that the vacancy committee does not represent the values of the voters, he sees this election as an extension of what he started last year. “I don’t see this campaign as a challenge to Mr. Woodrow,” said Paletz. “Rather, it is a continuation of the campaign that I announced in October of 2019, as I was the first person to formally declare candidacy in the Democratic primary for HD6. I believe HD6 voters deserve the opportunity to have a voice in who will represent them in the state legislature and should have the opportunity to choose a candidate that shares their values.”
Dan Himelspach also jumped into this race early collecting signatures to be on the ballot the first day they became available. “Our campaign has been focused on listening to the concerns of our neighbors and making our state government work for, ‘We the People’ again,” said Himelspach. “The fact that we were the first campaign in all of Colorado to collect the necessary signatures and be placed on the ballot by the Colorado Secretary of State — all without excepting a dime from Corporate PACs, is a testament to the grassroots support our campaign has.”
Himelspach, who has lived in Denver for four decades has a clear sense of what he would do if elected. “When elected, I am going to focus on fighting for our teachers and students by supporting strong public schools, protecting our environment, and supporting our LGBTQ neighbors and protecting a women’s right to choose,” said Himelspach. “Right now, our state is faced with tough decisions on how to properly open and support our small businesses and protect our workers and families — not just economically, but also in relation to our public health and safety. As someone who runs a small family-owned business with my daughter [selling innovative products to brain researchers all over the world] and who is a dispute resolution professional — mediating over 7,000 disputes, I am most qualified to navigate us through this pandemic.”
Steven Paletz
Paletz also outlines what he would do focusing on mental health and economic recovery. “If elected, I will lead with empathy on addressing our state’s mental health crisis, including addressing the highest increase of teen suicide in the nation and the nation’s highest teen depression rate,” said Paletz. “Having worked in both the business community and all three branches of government, I will also be a leader on our state’s economic recovery from COVID-19. This includes securing support for Colorado’s workers and small business communities throughout this recovery. Lastly, I will protect public education and look for creative ways to ensure our teacher shave the resources they need to effectively lead in a post COVID-19 classroom.”
Steven Woodrow
Steven Woodrow was contacted for comment but did not respond. His website states: “As State Representative, I advocate for social, racial, environmental and economic justice down at the Capitol. Standing up against predatory lenders, unfair credit practices, privacy violators and other powerful interests (including the NRA!) I have a detailed understanding of law and policy, the proven experience of how to make our case most effectively, and unwavering resolve. I’m simply not afraid to compete in the marketplace of ideas in the face of well-funded opposition.”
Woodrow, who is attempting to win re-election, lives in Wash Park with his wife and two sons. Woodrow has served for the past several years as Co-Captain of House District 6B for the Denver Democratic Party.
Although Storm Gloor is known around Glendale as a city councilman who enjoys running and spending time with his family, he is also an Associate Professor for the University of Colorado, Denver’s College of Arts & Media and a devoted music fan. He was involved in the music industry for 14 years and, more recently, has been conducting research and developing courses based on Music Cities topics. Unbeknownst to Gloor, Dr. Gigi Johnson, from UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music, was conducting similar research of her own.
Storm Gloor
“Five years ago I developed the first (from what I’ve been told) Music Cities course offered in higher education and Gigi developed Music Cities curricula more recently,” Gloor explains. “I led a Music Cities research project with my students for the city of Arvada and with Cheyenne, Wyoming. She led at least one with Los Angeles and has done some amazing things.”
Gloor and Johnson initially met at a Music Biz conference, became friends, and then realized that they were both doing related research at their respective schools.
“Our collaboration began with this project starting late last year,” says Gloor. “Gigi is awesome and when she suggested that we work together I jumped at the opportunity.”
When the two professors combined their efforts, they investigated 71 cities that had commissioned studies and analyzed each city’s music ecosystem. Their extensive research was accepted for presentation at this year’s South By Southwest — an annual gathering of film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences in Austin — where they were slated to discuss connecting ideas between groups of organizations. As Gloor and Johnson planned their conference and strategized topics to cover, they realized that people and organizations all over the world were doing similar work. So they introduced those people to one another and put them on panels together. And then COVID-19 changed the world and everything was canceled.
Amplify Music Emerges
In an effort to ensure that their message was still heard, Gloor and Johnson organized a virtual gathering of stakeholders in the music economy who would focus on how communities and their ecosystems would endure the world shifting and discuss the short- and long-term effects on the music industry. The virtual gathering — now known as Amplify Music 2020 — became a 25-hour session that took place on April 23 and 24 with a new mission: bring together diverse music leaders and creators to learn and share from local artists, venues, creative communities, and support networks to address the challenges of COVID-19.
Featuring over 100 speakers and 11 central themes, the virtual event centered on the immediate future of music and how to prepare for the industry’s “new normal.”
“I think the most significant outcome is that we brought so many folks together so quickly to collaborate, share, and put the information out there to educate and provide a resource for anyone in need,” Gloor explains. “Hopefully we’ve contributed to getting through this as best we can.”
Major themes Gloor and Johnson highlighted were resilience, community, and recovery. Because the music business has historically been forced to repeatedly adapt due to disruptions caused by ever-changing technology, Gloor feels that the industry will survive the current disruption as well.
“Commercial radio did not stop people from going to see live music, home taping did not kill music, and post-Napster music consumers pay for music despite the prediction that they never would again,” he says. “In every case the industry was resilient, albeit with forced changes to the economic models. And it will be again. Music is too important to so many of us.”
Gloor continues, “That being said, all of those previous disruptions have generally been due to changing technology. We’re messing with a human virus now. Science, health and medicine, psychology, sociology, and even politics are now involved. The business will recover, though it will be painful. And the solutions, over at least the next 18 months, will now have to be sought through those lenses as well.”
What’s Next
While this unprecedented crisis is affecting most industries across the world, Gloor is confident in the resilience of the music business but acknowledges that the landscape will be different. That insight is why the conference’s format transformed from various sessions over the course of a month to 25 consecutive hours of discussion.
“There’s no doubt this has been catastrophic for the industry, particularly the live music industry,” Gloor says. “It’s tragic irony because that’s the sector that was perhaps thriving the most. For many artists it had become their main source of revenue, since sales of recordings had diminished so much and streaming has generated only a fraction of what recordings did. By the same token, live music venues were thriving. Attendance records were broken, shows were selling out more often, jobs were being created, and new venues were opening or upgrading. And then COVID.”
Though looking ahead is difficult, as the music business has already experienced significant blows with live music cancelations and venues closing indefinitely, Gloor is already seeing industry people coming up with ways to make do.
He adds, “Many folks, on both the business side and the artist side, are quickly getting creative just to stay afloat and are definitely working together. That was clear from the conversations during the conference.”
For more information on Amplify Music, and to see video recordings of all the sessions, visit www.amplifymusic.org.
Glendale City Councilman Storm Gloor is also an Associate Professor at UCD’s College of Arts & Media.
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.
“All human beings are my neighbors. We share the same planet.” — Ana Monnar
by Luke Schmaltz
By mid-March of this year, a new reality had descended upon Denver, as the COVID-19 lockdown forced residents to curtail social behavior, forgo daily objectives and divert vocational routines in never-before-seen ways. As thousands of “non-essential” workers were forced from their jobs and directed by government officials to stay at home, the Denver Department of Public Works continued to operate as usual. The ever-elusive “ticket ninjas” crept along their daily routes, issuing citations for meter violations, time-limit abuses and parking in prohibited areas on street sweeping day offenses.
Neighborly Gestures
After grapevine investigation, it was discovered that some of these anti-citation signs were the work of a local artist known as Rez, who explains, “ I decided to make the signs because I know personally that the street sweeping catches me off guard, especially in the spring. I figured I was not the only one, and if I could help out a few neighbors and essential hospital personnel, it was worth making a couple of signs.” Although obstructing street sweeping is a fine-able offense, the actual presence of these machines is an urban mystery. Rez continues, “I think I saw a street sweeper that last day [last year] it was supposed to clean our street.”
With extra time on their hands, some residents of the Baker district decided not to take the untimely, insensitive issuance of parking tickets sitting down. In a bold, First Amendment-inspired move, locals began taking matters into their own hands and warning neighbors, locally employed professionals and other passers-through to be mindful of the cruel, merciless scourge of Denver meter maids. By the time street sweeping day came around in the first week of April, several sidewalks featured homemade signs warning that the citation hammer was afoot and set to drop on anyone and everyone parked on the wrong side of the street.
Residents aim to warn neighbors about costly tickets with fines that can quickly triple.
The Pen Is Mighty
Small Infraction, Massive Price
The consequences for non-payment of a parking ticket can be severe. Essentially, the issuance of a ticket initiates a process that, if not complied with, can result in the city commandeering (impounding) your vehicle with no obligation to return it. Rather, it could be held for months accruing ever-increasing fees and fines, and finally sold at auction for a fraction of its value so that the paltry revenue can be absorbed into a corpulent government bureaucracy.
Rapid Escalation
The average parking ticket in Denver cites the vehicle owner anywhere from $25 to $50. If not paid within 20 days, the fine doubles — making the vehicle eligible to be fitted with a wheel clamp and/or towed away. After 60 days, a collection fee is added and credit bureaus are notified, and after 120 days a default judgment is entered against whomever the vehicle is registered to — stating that all fines and fees must be paid by legal mandate. Finally, after one year, the file is turned over to a law firm which then pursues
aggressive private collection. An article published by The Denver Post in September 2019 reported that annual parking fee revenues for the previous year were in excess of $27 million. Believe it or not, that was the lowest figures reported in almost a decade. With that sort of money sitting in the city’s coffers, all streets should be free of potholes, every stoplight should sparkle, and shine and every street sign should be polished to a squeaky-clean sheen.
Shame Of The City
While Denver is known for many great things such as the Broncos and a certain omelet of the same name, it is also known for the infamous Denver boot. The aforementioned “wheel clamp” is deployed to disable any vehicle linked to unpaid parking violations. This blatant violation of Fourth Amendment rights (unreasonable searches and seizures) has spread to municipalities across the nations, giving the Mile-High City an unfair name among unfortunate motorists nationwide. Parking fines and additional fees notwithstanding, having a boot on a car entitles the owner to pay yet another fee to have it removed.
Supply And Demand
While parking enforcement has its place in keeping bike lanes and jogging paths obstruction-free, the aggressive policy of writing tickets, doubling fines and confiscating private property seems altogether overkill — especially in the midst of a pandemic — thus the vigilant residential blowback. As mentioned above, the issuance of tickets across Denver has leveled out over the last couple of years. The reason being for this? The economy was so good that the Department of Public Works couldn’t find enough people to fill all the parking agent positions — shedding light on what must be a truly lousy job.
Eight months out of the year, parking tickets are issued once a month to cars parked in the way of “street sweeping.”
A Temporary Standstill
Now that one-third of the labor force has been couched, the city probably won’t have trouble filling those empty ticket agent positions. Yet, for every hypervigilant meter maid scuttling about ruining people’s afternoons, there will be several dozen unemployed residents like Rez with enough time on their hands to post homemade signs warning others about being ticketed. Thankfully, by mid-April in this strangest of years, the issuance of parking tickets seemed to have dwindled even further. Perhaps city officials finally gave in to their human instincts to have a bit of mercy for their fellow citizens in the midst of a crisis.
One thing is for sure, though — as soon as things level out and the pandemic subsides — the ticket patrol will be back in full force … but so will Rez.
Mayor Re-Elected: Mike Dunafon was re-elected as the Mayor of Glendale for a third term on April 7, 2020.
On April 7, 2020, Glendale held its municipal election. Glendale Mayor Michael Dunafon and four incumbent Councilmembers, Storm Gloor, Rachel Binkley, Ryan Tuchscherer and Lindsey Mintz were unopposed, and the only item was the approval of a City Charter change allowing the City Manager to live 10 miles from Glendale rather than five miles. The mayor and incumbent councilmembers did not apparently take their re-election for granted. Each one gathered hundreds of signatures to get on the ballot. With only the Charter change to consider and with the election in the middle of the pandemic there were only 16 citizens casting votes with the Charter change being approved 14 to 2.
Go outside at 8 p.m. anywhere in Colorado and you’re guaranteed to hear hundreds, if not thousands, of members from a Colorado-based Facebook group howling to support anyone and everything during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Founders: Shelsea Ochoa and Brice Maiurro founded the howling at the moon movement in support of healthcare workers and first responders in late March. The group has become a way for people to connect during a time when quarantines and shelter-in-place orders have greatly disrupted our way of life.
Founded by partners Shelsea Ochoa and Brice Maiurro in late March, the group has become a way for people to connect during a time when quarantines and shelter-in-place orders have greatly disrupted our way of life.
“It really shows that we can still interact within our communities and have fun while obeying the shelter at home orders, and also release some pent up feelings in a healthy and cathartic way,” Anna Beazer, one of the group’s organizers, told Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle in an email statement.
Ochoa, a performer at Denver’s Museum of Nature and Science, and Maiurro, a poet and activist, got the inspiration to howl from a friend of theirs in Topanga, California, who told the duo that they howl at the sunset together. So, Ochoa and Maiurro decided to give it a try, too. They had no idea that what they considered a “fun social distancing activity” would resonate with people around the country — and the world.
The duo initially intended the group to include about a hundred of the couple’s friends and family. However, once word got out about the group, its membership swelled to over 8,000 members in the first day.
Now, members live in all 50 U.S. states and 46 countries around the world, including Tuvalu, Columbia, and Togo.
“There’s no wrong way to do it,” Ochoa told the Chronicle. “People can subscribe any kind of meaning they want to it.”
Many howl to support the medical professionals working late into the night. Others do it to support the homeless, or in remembrance of a lost loved one. No matter the reason, the group embraces any reason for howling as long as it’s healthy and positive, according to Beazer.
Like Clockwork: Colorado residents have been howling at the moon every night at 8 p.m. as a way to support healthcare workers and first responders.
“The group purposefully is open to interpretations and reasons for howling,” she said. “We didn’t expect the amount of posts and comments dedicating their howling to lost loved ones but we embrace members sharing their stories about them.”
And there is no shortage of stories shared about grief and joy in the group’s discussion. Others purposefully ask seemingly innocuous questions like “What is your favorite quarantine snack?” but receive a wealth of positivity from members in return and connect with others who want to share their similarities.
“I had an accident last year and eventually chose to amputate my leg after several failed surgeries and being basically bedridden for the past year,” Cori Kolhagen, a Colorado resident, posted in one of the discussions.
“I finally accepted my ankle was never going to get better and that this would be the best option for me to return to my active lifestyle. My surgery was on March 3 and I have started to learn how to walk again using a prosthetic. I howl because we can get through this together, as a family.”
Every night, rain or shine, howlers from California to North Carolina, and up to Maine participate. Some howls have been capped off by fireworks or singing similar to the songs Spaniards and Italians sang from their balconies in a show of appreciation for their country’s healthcare workers.
Governor Polis has encouraged Coloradans to participate, calling it a necessary way for people to socialize and connect during this time of isolation.
For Beazer, the group’s message is more primal. It’s about letting go of all the anxieties people have been holding onto since the quarantines began. .
“We get lots of comments from first-time howlers that tell us they didn’t know that simply howling would help them release some emotions from being quarantined and help them feel connected to others when they hear howls back,” she said.
