Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper has attracted a team of top talent to city hall, and soon he’ll be turning to his third chief of staff as the clock ticks down on his first term in office.
The mayor announced Tuesday that Cole Finegan, city attorney since October 2003 and also mayoral chief of staff since last July, will leave city service on Dec. 1.
Hickenlooper’s original chief of staff, Michael Bennet, left the administration last year to become superintendent of Denver Public Schools.
The resignation of a top aide always catches the attention of city hall watchers, but the team Hickenlooper assembled after his 2003 election remains significantly intact, with 52 of 60 appointees still in city service.
And the new chief of staff, Kelly Brough, will provide continuity. She’s been Finegan’s deputy and is former director of the city’s Career Service Authority and an analyst for the City Council.
The mayor says a new city attorney will be appointed by Dec. 1.
Finegan has been credited with successfully guiding some key initiatives, including police reform, reorganization of the city attorney’s office, negotiation of a new franchise with Xcel Energy and settlement of the long-running dispute over police department “spy files.”
He also was heavily involved in the conflict between Hickenlooper and Auditor Dennis Gallagher this year over a reorganization of the city’s financial bureaucracy. The two ultimately came to terms, and both support a charter amendment before city voters in this election.
From the start, Finegan intended to work only one term, and his departure is a reminder that the mayor’s first term is nearing its end. The mayor is expected to run for re-election next spring, and no potential opponents have surfaced.
Hickenlooper has used much of his considerable political capital on a series of ballot measures that won voter approval – including civil-service modernization, a new justice center, pay reform for DPS teachers, FasTracks and Referendum C.
Hickenlooper’s next test comes Nov. 7 in the form of Denver measure 1A, which proposes a 0.12 percent sales-tax increase to raise about $12 million a year for pre-school vouchers. With Finegan at his side, the mayor made an energetic pitch for the measure on Tuesday. So long as the mayor continues to focus on key issues to boost the city of Denver, he’ll draw strong staff to his side.
