An invitation sent by e-mail to Mayor Michael Hancock’s supporters.
Denver Mayor Michael Hancock is bringing together a big group of powerful movers and shakers, some of them potentially masked, for a fundraiser Wednesday night.
The Mardi Gras-themed event — masks encouraged — has a list of “co-chairs” that include only big names: developers and home-builders, oil and gas executives, real estate executives, bankers and insurance executives, a hotel magnate, a DISH Network executive, top-dollar PR spinsters, high-powered lawyers and lobbyists, and Hancock’s chief of staff, Janice Sinden. Before joining his administration, Sinden was a high-powered connector as the leader of Colorado Concern, a group that represents prominent business leaders.
Denver mayor Michael Hancock. (Denver Post file)
Add to the list “honored guest” Gov. John Hickenlooper, Hancock’s predecessor as mayor of Denver.
Attendees are asked to contribute $1,000 at the swanky soiree in Cherry Creek North to benefit
Hancock . He has four opponents (down from five after a recent withdrawal), but none have raised any money of note or given Hancock reason to sweat.
It would be tough to single out just a few of the co-chairs for Wednesday’s event without dimming the wattage of others. Suffice it to say, these are folks who get things done behind the scenes in metro Denver and beyond. The guest list makes this potentially the biggest political fundraiser of Denver’s quiet municipal election season.
The fundraiser also illustrates the close relationship between business and government as city leaders deal with potentially big decisions on zoning, redevelopment, tax incentives and other issues that affect the private sector. (Lately, .)
Just a couple examples: developers Cal Fulenwider and Pat Hamill have shaped big swaths of land near Denver International Airport and have maintained close ties to Hancock, who . (Hancock also hails from that corner of the city, having represented it on the City Council for two terms.)
And David Siegel, CEO of Frontier Airlines, has lamented to employees what he sees as too few city incentives and a high tax burden as the low-cost carrier has shed jobs and flights at DIA. Last fall, Hancock , noting that “Frontier ceased communication months ago” during incentive-development talks.
Presumably, Siegel and Hancock will get some time to chat Wednesday.
Hancock has raised $967,359 for his re-election, including $38,604 in January. As of Jan. 31, he reported $580,366 in his campaign account.
