Mayor Michael Hancock convened his first citywide town hall on neighborhood issues Saturday at West High School. Meetings of this type typically are attended by members of neighborhood organizations, who, in turn, tend to be individuals who a.) do the work of 50 people, sometimes gladly, sometimes not, and b.) embrace the truism: a city is only as strong as its neighborhoods.
Sure enough, the regulars heed the call, but so, too, do many newcomers: the curious, the frustrated, the bursting-with-ideas.
“I just wanted to see what was going on,’ says Davida Gonzales, who has lived in her La Alma neighborhood 42 years. “One question I have is how much more is Denver Health going to expand?”
Hancock held similar meetings when he was a member of the City Council. Community outreach is one of his strengths. Hancock says it keeps him grounded, and he appears to genuinely enjoy it. Since he called the meeting, you’d expect he’d stay for the duration, but many are surprised when he actually does.
“Mayors come and give speeches and leave for the next event. They don’t stay for the whole three hours,” says Charlotte Winzenburg, a resident of West Washington Park since 1973. “Make sure you give him a star for that,” she instructs.
About 200 people show up. Maybe 40 of them are city staffers, from department heads on down. Several City Council members also attend, including Robin Kniech, who gives a brief but vivid budget picture.
Envision the open jaws of the crocodile, she tells residents. The upper jaw is expenses, the lower is revenue. The city can’t control some expenses, say, the cost of gasoline to fill up police cars. Bringing down expenses, closing that jaw, she says, “that’s the mowing of the park lawns, that’s the fire truck, that’s those library hours.”
Hancock follows up, saying the city will eliminate redundancy to narrow the gap, but “there’s one thing I can say with certainty: We have some very difficult decisions ahead with regard to our budget. If you and I, as citizens of Denver, are serious about closing the gap, we have some tough decisions to make and we’re going to have to work together to make them. They’re not going to be easy. They’re not going to be fun, but they are going to be bent on leaving a better city for our children.”
As residents entered, city staff asked them to jot down a concern on a yellow sticky note, which they then grouped. What’s uppermost on residents’ minds quickly becomes clear and it drives the discussion.
“Jobs are the lifeblood of the city and we don’t have enough.” “We see it in the empty storefronts.” “We see it in those kids getting out of college with no jobs.” “We need more working capital for loans.” “We need to stop the practice of allowing police to ticket students in school.” “I notice that most of us talking about the police being overzealous are minorities. Something is very wrong there.” “I’d like to propose that Public Works have meetings in the community before they start making changes to our streets.” “Do the big names in the neighborhood, the Denver Healths, have a relationship with their neighborhood organizations?” “We need to eliminate Dumpsters in all residential areas.”
A group of Burmese refugees says it’s worried about its children dropping out of school and forming gangs. They ask for work. “If you have any work that you don’t want to do, please call us and we will do it,” says community leader, Drucie Bathin.
Among the ideas that emerged: Find out which banks work with and invest in the community and transfer business to them. Create a buy-local directory. Improve police officer training and establish stronger police-neighborhood association partnerships. Recruit more people into neighborhood organizations.
None of this is sexy stuff. Much is mundane, but this is another truism of life in a city: The mundane matters. It matters if you can never find parking in front of your house because the restaurant down the street doesn’t provide it. It matters if people from outside the neighborhood are dumping their old mattresses in your Dumpster and if three families live in the two-bedroom next door. It matters that the city preaches a green future while bus lines are cut or pushes literacy for all children and then reduces library hours.
This is a room of watchdogs, guardians of the city’s welfare who are willing to spend three hours on a Saturday talking about its well-being. When it is over, I hear much praise. “This is what government working with its citizens looks like,” said Brad Zieg, who lives in Bellevue-Hale on the city’s east side. “It’s a brilliant start. We’ll have to see where we go from here.”
Watchdogs, you see, are not lapdogs. “Now,” says Montbello resident Mary Titus Sam, “it’s time for action.”
Tina Griego writes Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Reach her at 303-954-2699 or tgriego@denverpost.com.
