The past week brought choppy waters for Denver Mayor Michael Hancock. His appointment to fill a big vacancy — — quickly was overshadowed by two embarrassing legal settlements that will end claims by an assistant city attorney and a former mayoral aide who each claimed they were wronged.
But Tuesday delivered perhaps the toughest news for Hancock: His chief of staff for five years, Janice Sinden, will depart in less than three weeks after her surprise hiring as the new president and CEO of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, as .
And Sinden’s sudden departure — she , through next summer — leaves no obvious successor, political observers say.
Hancock’s staffers are “still determining the process for transition,” spokeswoman Jenna Espinoza said Tuesday. Hancock was preparing to depart on a family vacation and wasn’t available for an interview.
The mayor’s chief of staff typically works behind the scenes, but it’s an important position. In Denver, which has a strong-mayor form of government, the job is the closest Hancock has to a city manager. Sinden has kept tabs on the workings of city departments and has played a role in nearly every big decision made, while serving as Hancock’s closest adviser.
“Janice Sinden’s announcement is a good move for her and an excellent hire for the Denver Center,” Denver political analyst Eric Sondermann said. “But it comes at a rough and inopportune time for Mayor Hancock.”
As the mayor’s big initiatives begin to take off, including the $1.1 billion National Western Center plan and development near Denver International Airport, his administration has weathered the recent settlements. In both cases, management decisions made by the previous city attorney, Scott Martinez, and Hancock’s office ended up costing taxpayers money.
On Monday night, the City Council that will result in the retirement of assistant city attorney Stuart Shapiro. He was disciplined in connection with his conduct in a jail-abuse lawsuit, but he fought back against his 19-month suspension and filed whistle-blower claims, saying he was made a scapegoat by higher-ups.
Soon after the council’s vote, the city attorney’s office issued an unusual exoneration of Shapiro that acknowledged the office “unfairly placed Mr. Shapiro’s professional reputation under a cloud for over a year and a half.”
The other settlement resurrected a scandal from four years ago. The city , a longtime friend the mayor hired as a personal aide and projects coordinator after his 2011 election. In 2012, Hancock fired him, but McDonald countered that the office defamed him when that he says were false.
Sinden has been by Hancock’s side since he took office. Her last day will be Sept. 9.
“Janice has been an outstanding chief of staff, a superb adviser and steadfast friend these past five years,” Hancock said in a news release. “So much of what we’ve been able to accomplish is because she was in the lead making sure we could get across the finish line.”
Sinden told The Post that the mayor was “very sad and very heartbroken” during the emotional conversation in which she told him she planned to take the DCPA job. She had turned down other job offers, she said, but DCPA board members recruited her aggressively in recent weeks.
Sondermann considers the chief of staff to be the mayor’s most consequential appointment, characterizing the position as “the hub of a wheel with hundreds of spokes.”
“There are many, many decisions that have to be made in that job on a daily basis. … I will say it’s an exhausting job,” said Cole Finegan, who served as both city attorney and chief of staff under then-Mayor John Hickenlooper. “I think (Hancock) has to find someone in whom he has great confidence and with whom he works easily. And it’s certainly a situation in which there needs be mutual respect and accountability.”
Two deputy chiefs of staff work under Sinden — Evan Dreyer, who has developed policy and strategy on issues such as DIA development and affordable housing, and Penny May, who has focused on how the city’s departments and agencies operate.
While they may be candidates to succeed Sinden, some administration officials and outside observers say they expect Hancock will cast a wide net in a search that could take weeks or even months.