After years of pushing reforms and new initiatives, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper wants to make sure the hard work lasts.
In his annual State of the City address Tuesday, Hickenlooper repeated the same message from a year ago: stay the course. That course, he emphasized, provides a blueprint for the future and will help government earn the trust of the people.
Hickenlooper unveiled no new major initiatives but instead said he wants to make sure that what his administration has put in place has “deep roots.”
“Fifty years from now, we want Denver residents to be proud of their city and proud of the world this community imagined for them,” he said.
He pointed to a series of policy successes since he took office in 2003.
At his urging, voters have approved new initiatives and at times new taxes that overhauled the way city workers are paid, built a new courthouse and jail, built better roads and sewers and began the first phases of a new FasTracks light-rail transit system, considered the largest transit expansion in the nation, but also plagued by budget forecasts that have delayed construction of lines to north-metro suburbs. He also persuaded voters to increase sales taxes to pay for preschool programs, an initiative the voters rejected in 2000 and 2001 before Hickenlooper was in office.
He followed through on his pledge to raise money for new college scholarships for low-income Denver high school graduates. He put in place new programs that have driven down the rate of homelessness. There’s now a new discipline system for police. Property throughout the city has been rezoned, a move the mayor said will create more predictability and, it is hoped, more construction from developers.
Councilwoman Jeanne Faatz, the lone Republican on the council, said the mayor’s pace has slowed since his early years, in part because of the down economy and perhaps now because of his Democratic gubernatorial campaign.
“I don’t think any of the gubernatorial candidates really believes talking about higher taxes and great big projects fits with the mood of the people today,” Faatz said. “Maybe silence is best.”
Throughout his speech, Hickenlooper credited a collaborative process with paving the way for success.
The mayor’s successes have come during a time of fiscal austerity. Last year, he slashed the city’s spending by $160 million, and he will have to slash an additional $100 million from the budget for 2011.
The mayor contends that the number of employees on the city payroll has shrunk 7 percent since July 2002, the year before he took office.
When asked during a meeting with the editorial board of The Denver Post whether he envisioned a new theme developing than the one he has continually pushed that has asked municipal workers to do more with less resources, the mayor said he did not.
“We can’t begin to have that discussion until the public has trust and respect for government,” he said. “And that’s what we have been working toward.”
Christopher N. Osher: 303-954-1747 or cosher@denverpost.com
