The projected growth — about a 1.1% increase compared to this year — is expected to come in part from more people spending money downtown in areas like the 16th Street mall, Johnston wrote in a letter to the City Council.

“We’ve driven economic recovery through a clear, three-step plan: resolve unsheltered homelessness, bring down crime, and reinvest in downtown — an economic engine for all of Denver,” the letter says. “That strategy is paying off.”

Sales taxes, which account for more than half of the city’s annual revenue, are expected to grow by about 5% compared to 2025. On 16th Street, sales tax revenue during a one-month period was up 18% in June compared to the same month last year. But the city’s overall revenue growth is expected to be offset by decreases in property taxes and state marijuana share-back revenue.

“These numbers show that the strategies focused around downtown are working,” Johnston said during a news conference Thursday. “And they’re driving the city’s economic momentum.”

Johnston’s proposed general fund budget for 2027 is $1.68 billion, up 1% compared to 2016. The general fund is the part of the budget that covers many day-to-day expenses.

The positive turn in the city’s budget comes just over a year after the city laid off 169 people in response to budget constraints and eliminated hundreds of vacant positions. Johnston initially announced the layoffs in May 2025, saying that stagnating sales tax revenue and increasing costs made the decision unavoidable.

Under Johnston’s proposed budget for 2027, which still must go through the council review process, the city would maintain most agencies’ budgets while also partly replenishing its reserve fund, which had slipped below the recommended minimum level in recent years.

The suggested target for that savings account is about 15% of all expenditures. Last year, the city dipped down to nearly 10%. The 2027 budget proposes bringing the reserves up to 12% of expenditures.

Johnston’s team does want to spend some of the increased income on things like parks and recreation, pedestrian infrastructure, homelessness, affordable housing, behavioral health and the Denver Sheriff and Fire departments, according to the letter.

Among the proposals, the city would spend:

• $10.4 million on a 2% merit raise for “eligible employees” in 2027. Workers with union contracts, including police, already have scheduled raises.
• $84.5 million to address homelessness, including a pilot for a new family homeless shelter.
• $51 million on new affordable housing units.

Budget hearings with the council will begin the week of Sept. 21. The council must pass a budget by Nov. 9.

“We are going to make sure this city serves you back and gives you a home where you can breathe deep and not worry about how you pay the rent next month. And that is what we will do in the next term,” Johnston said to a crowd of dozens of supporters gathered at Town Hall Collective on Santa Fe Drive.

His campaign launch comes amid recent poll results showing his favor has declined steadily among Denver voters over the past three years. In the Colorado Polling Institute survey conducted last month, 50% of voters polled said they view the first-term mayor unfavorably. That’s up from the 38% who said the same in 2024.

According to those results, most voters have said consistently over the years that Johnston is moving the city in the right direction but that he still needs to do more. After his speech, Johnston told a Post reporter he somewhat agreed with that sentiment from voters.

“No one is more unhappy with the rate of progress than me,” Johnston said. “Like I’m not sitting back eating bonbons like this is mission accomplished. I feel a sense of urgency, a sense of frustration and a sense of hunger to do far more, faster.”

He added that he’s encouraged by the results showing people believe the city is headed in the right direction.

In his 15-minute speech, he highlighted his successes as mayor, including his handling of the migrant crisis, a decrease in street homelessness, a historic drop in homicides last year and renewed foot traffic in downtown.

Johnston, who testified before a congressional committee about his handling of the migrant crisis, also pointed to his resistance to the “federal administration,” in a nod to President Donald Trump.

“When it comes to protecting our values and protecting our people, Denver will never back down from a fight,” he said.

He went on to build on promises he made during his State of the City speech in July, including the buildout of Park Hill Park and a vow to bring universal childcare to Denver within five years.

Johnston has not yet laid out a plan for how the city — which has struggled financially in recent years amid stagnating sales tax revenue — will pay for the new childcare system. Those budget constraints led Johnston to oversee a round of layoffs among city employees in 2025.

Johnston’s campaign will strive to qualify for the matching grants provided , which requires a candidate to lower their contribution limits to tamp down on the influence of high-dollar donations. He will face nine other candidates in the April election.

But in a seemingly contradictory trend that has continued from last year, a wide plurality of voters still view the city as headed in the right direction. Compared to other figures in city politics, Johnston’s favorability rating outpaced those of his lesser-known opponents in next year’s election — but fell short of congressional candidate Melat Kiros, who had a net-positive rating among voters.

The Colorado Polling Institute’s surveys have found that Johnston’s favorability has steadily fallen since 2024, when 48% said they have a favorable opinion of him and 38% said they viewed him in a negative light. In 2025, 46% saw him favorably and 46% unfavorably. In , 39% of city voters viewed him favorably.

Most voters have consistently said over the years that Johnston, who was elected in 2023, is moving the city in the right direction but that he still needs to do more, according to the results.

“It’s these voters who, early in his term, were saying: ‘I’m seeing some progress. That’s good. I think he needs to do more.’ And as his term has worn on, those voters have become more and more dissatisfied,” said Kevin Ingham, a pollster who is the Democratic half of CPI’s bipartisan research team. “I think we’re just getting to a point in his term where even if people can see something’s moving in the right direction, they don’t feel like the things have moved fast enough or that they have quite lived up to the promises that he made.”

The survey of 400 likely voters in the November election was conducted Aug. 11-15. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

In the 2025 survey, Ingham said most people who reported negative associations with Johnston had specific reasons. This year, nearly half of those surveyed just made general comments about him simply not doing a good job.

About a quarter of those who did approve of his performance cited his work on homelessness as the reason why. His efforts on homelessness had mixed results in the poll overall. When asked about that issue specifically, the share of people saying he has made “significant progress” doubled between 2024 and 2026, from 8% to 16%. However, that’s still lower than the 18% who said this year that Johnston had made homelessness worse.

Homelessness is still seen as voters’ top issue in Denver, followed by affordable housing and crime.

In a statement responding to the poll results, Johnston spokesman Jon Ewing said, “Denverites agree: the city is better today than it was before Mayor Johnston took office. From historic reductions in homelessness and crime to transformative investments in affordable housing and downtown recovery, Denver residents see the progress and believe the city is moving in the right direction, even as they expect us to keep delivering.”

Lori Weigel, the group’s Republican pollster, said it’s difficult for the group to say whether the results might be predictive of the 2027 mayoral election, when Johnston will run for a second term.

“Elections are about choices,” she said. “The focus is not going to be (only) on the mayor — there’s going to be an opponent, there’s going to be a contrast there.”

Other candidates and issues

As Johnston’s approval decreases, slightly more of Denverites surveyed said they viewed socialism favorably.

In CPI’s 2025 poll, 52% of voters said they had a positive view of socialism. This year it was 55%. The share of respondents who said they have a “very favorable” view of socialism rose from 20% to 25% during that time. About the same share of people reported having a positive view of capitalism — about 47% of respondents — in 2025 and 2026.

“There’s some pretty stark divisions of opinion towards socialism and capitalism by age,” Ingham said. “Younger voters are pretty down on capitalism.”

Voters appeared to be generally dissatisfied with the status quo more than specifically unhappy with capitalism, he said. Most people who mentioned a favorable view of socialism pointed to universal healthcare, a fairer economy and “taxing the rich.”

That’s in line with an electorate that recently chose Kiros, a democratic socialist, as the Democratic nominee for Colorado’s 1st Congressional District. Kiros, who made national headlines when she defeated 15-term incumbent U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette in June, also saw a higher favorability rating than DeGette in the recent poll.

Nearly 45% of voters said they viewed her favorably compared to 35% who said the same of DeGette, according to the results. About 30% said they had a negative view of Kiros and nearly 50% said they view DeGette unfavorably.

The pollsters also asked for input about how voters view two of Johnston’s opponents in his upcoming bid for reelection: Lisa Calderón and City Councilwoman Shontel Lewis.

Lewis, whom the Denver chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America just endorsed, had less name recognition and favorability than Calderón, who’s run twice before. About 65% of respondents said they had never heard of Lewis, while 47% said they had never heard of Calderón. Only 15% said they had a favorable view of Lewis and 19% said they had an unfavorable view, with the rest having no opinion. Calderón saw 27% favorability, compared to 25% unfavorability.

Slightly more respondents than last year said they viewed the City Council unfavorably, with 44% reporting negative associations. The Denver Public School Board continues to have a steady low favorability, with only 25% of voters viewing the board and its members in a positive light, according to the results.

Denverites reported that their top three issues for the city are homelessness, affordable housing and crime.

Since its opening last November, a cascade of challenges has plagued the 640-bed homeless facility, which acts as a one-stop shop for those seeking shelter and help getting back on their feet. Moldy rooms, plumbing problems with attendant smells and horrors of raw sewage, a shortage of case managers and hundreds of calls to police.

The bulk of the former Crowne Plaza Hotel that houses the navigation campus is closed for remediation, temporarily eliminating a whole level of care for people showing the most progress on their road to stability.

Things got off to a bad start so quickly that the head of the organization that operates the navigation campus, , told city leaders just two months after its debut that “we weren’t ready” to open the facility.

As long ago as mid-January, one of Aurora’s City Council members asked staff if the city could if things didn’t improve.

Ultimately, the contract with Advance Pathways wasn’t nixed. And now, nine months to the day since the navigation campus was opened, things are on the mend. Fewer 911 calls are being made from the facility (emergency calls dropped 24% from the first quarter of 2026 to the second), more case managers are on duty and some of the most egregious physical issues with the building have been addressed.

As of June 30, 39 people have been moved to permanent housing since the facility opened on Nov. 17. An average of anywhere from 240 to 280 people spend the night at the Aurora Regional Navigation Campus.

The campus served nearly 26,000 meals in April, with that number climbing to nearly 35,000 in June. But there is still work to be done, said Stephanie Keiper, Aurora’s manager of homelessness and behavioral health.

“Any new program is going to need time, and it’s going to have kinks,” Keiper said. “We knew as we were opening the building, we’d have to do some pivoting. We knew some things were at end of life.”

Aurora bought the defunct hotel at East 40th Avenue and Chambers Road in 2024 and renovated it over the next year — spending a total of $40 million. With winter coming on, there was an urgency to have a place for the city’s homeless population to seek shelter.

The Metro Denver Homeless Initiative’s annual revealed an increasing number of people unhoused in Aurora this year. In its one-night survey in January, the organization counted .

That was up from 626 last year and 697 in 2024.

Despite inspections, problems with the 45-year-old building didn’t reveal themselves right away, Keiper said. Once people started using the facility full force, the weaknesses became apparent.

“We’re not going to see what the plumbing is doing when people aren’t flushing several times a day,” Keiper said.

Incentive-based tier system

The Aurora Regional Navigation Campus is structured on a unique incentive-based model. Its approach consists of three tiers, with each level more desirable for the client to reach.

The first tier is made up of nearly 300 cots, divided by sex. There are lockers for personal belongings and shared bathrooms. Anyone is welcome. The next tier, which is physically separate from the first, features an array of 114 compartmentalized, open-air cubicles with proper beds and lockable storage.

Tier II residents are assigned case managers to help them manage personal challenges and get on the path toward landing a job. Jim Goebelbecker, executive director of Advance Pathways, said movement between Tier I and Tier II has improved since the winter.

“It is smoother now than it was three, four, five months ago,” he said.

At Tier III, a resident gets to live in one of the former hotel’s 255 private rooms. To earn a spot in this highest level, the person must have a full-time job and pay a third of their income to the program. Residents in this tier will typically remain at the facility for up to two years before they have the skills and stability to find housing on the outside, Goebelbecker said.

But with Tier III’s rooms in need of mold remediation, Goebelbecker worries about the continuity the program is supposed to provide.

“How do we keep the spirit of that Tier III pathway alive and reasonably available during the renovation period?” he said. “It interrupts the flow.”

Crews have been hired to make the rooms fit for occupancy, and Keiper said floors in the six-story building will come online in a staggered fashion, with the first floor expected to open by October. She expects the entire building to be fully operational by sometime in 2027.

Aurora hasn’t determined the full cost of the renovation but has earmarked $1 million in its capital projects fund this year to pay for the work. The city has also budgeted $500,000 this year — and in each of the next three years — for maintenance at the campus.

“We were building the plane while we were flying it,” Keiper said of the campus’ early problems.

Eyes on from the city

Aurora Councilwoman Alli Jackson, chair of the city’s Housing, Neighborhood Services and Redevelopment Committee, would like to see a little less flying blind when it comes to the navigation center.

“We’ve got to have measurable goals to be able to say we’re doing what we say we’re doing,” Jackson said. “In six months, we’re going to check back in and see if these goals have been met.”

Last week, the City Council on the goings-on at the navigation campus. Specifically, the measure aims to “establish performance metrics, accountability standards and reporting expectations” at the campus.

There are also several requirements included in the measure: a minimum number of medical respite beds — 15 to 20 by next summer — for homeless adults. Staff at the navigation campus will be required to complete training in conflict resolution, crisis prevention and de-escalation and trauma-informed care.

City leaders stated they would like to see case management ratios at the facility consistently upheld, with a target of one manager for 30 residents on the emergency side of the operation and one manager per 15 residents on the transitional housing side.

The resolution also asks the Aurora Regional Navigation Campus to provide the city on a quarterly basis with the number and percentage of clients engaged in case management, navigation services and employment services.

That’s an area that has gotten Jackson’s attention. Service providers, be it in the areas of mental health, workforce opportunities or criminal justice case management, haven’t been able to operate at an optimal level at the campus.

“They don’t know what room they’re supposed to be in and who they are supposed to be seeing,” she said. “It’s disorganized.”

Goebelbecker said 210 residents engaged with case managers from April through June. Overall, the navigation campus has agreements with 30 service providers, and four of them hold regular hours on campus, including the HEART (Housing, Employment, Addiction, Recovery and Teamwork) Court and .

Stride’s presence at the building has been critical in reducing emergency calls, Goebelbecker told city officials at a Housing, Neighborhood Services and Redevelopment Committee meeting in July. He produced a bar graph that showed a striking correlation between Stride’s operating hours at the campus and a reduction in 911 call activity.

‘It’s a rough night’

Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman hopes the navigation campus can add an on-site mental health provider, perhaps an extension of Stride’s medical services.

The mayor has likely kept the closest eye on the facility amongst his colleagues since it opened nine months ago, even if his eyes are closed for the bulk of the time he spends there. Coffman has been sleeping on a Tier I cot at the facility every Friday since February.

He speaks to residents in the afternoon and then tries to get some shut-eye, even as people around him talk deep into the night. He’s lucky if he gets six hours of sleep.

“It’s a rough night,” Coffman said of the overnight experience at the campus. “If one dog starts barking, God help us.”

Then he’s up before dawn helping make breakfast for the residents.

“It’s people who are just off the street or who have just lost their housing,” Coffman said. “They know I’m there every Friday afternoon to talk to.”

Despite the hiccups of the first few months of the navigation campus’ operation, Coffman fully believes in the incentive-based model Aurora is following. It may be a little while before results are achieved, the mayor said, given the complicated addiction and mental health challenges faced by many of the residents the city is trying to help.

Coffman wants the residents he sees weekly to “achieve their highest level of self-sufficiency.”

“If you look at other programs, they are just warehousing people,” he said. “I think this program will be a model for the country.”

Johnston, who was first elected in 2023, has focused on major upgrades throughout the city, including plans for a new women’s soccer stadium, a new Broncos stadium and development of Park Hill Park. He’s also prioritized decreasing street homelessness and bringing life back to the city’s urban core.

The filing, a long-anticipated step from Johnston, makes good on the mayor’s previously announced plan to run for a second term.

“I’m so proud of the work we’ve accomplished together over the last three years,” he said in a statement. “We’ve helped thousands of people move from the streets to housing, lowered crime and stood up to Donald Trump’s attacks on our values. We’ve brought life to downtown, invested in our neighborhoods and made it easier to grow a business. But the job’s not finished. The cost of living is too high, owning a home remains out of reach for too many, and childcare is too expensive — if you can find it at all.

“There are still people on the streets who need help and businesses that deserve support. We’ll solve these issues together and we’ll continue fighting to make Denver safer, more vibrant, and more affordable for all.”

Since he was elected, Johnston has seen mixed success on the ballot. His administration proposed a sales tax increase in 2024 that would have funded affordable housing. Voters narrowly rejected it. Then in 2025, Denverites approved the $950 million Vibrant Denver bond package.

In his recent State of the City address, he continued to shoot for the moon as he promised he would deliver a universal childcare program for the city within the next five years.

Johnston will take on who have entered the race so far, including Councilwoman Shontel Lewis, previous mayoral candidate Lisa Calderón, Aurelio Martinez, Robert Treta, Kenneth Simpson, Graylon Millen Cole, Samantha Nazish, Xander Thomas and Durango Dank.

The mayor’s critics have argued that his leadership style has overly prioritized major projects without following through on basic city services. His office also oversaw a major budget crisis, leading to 169 layoffs, last year.

Election day will be April 6. Each of Denver’s 13 council seats will also be on the ballot in the spring.

Wednesday marks three months since the 2026 legislative session concluded, meaning it’s a standard start date for legislation that either didn’t take effect immediately or doesn’t have a specific start date. More than 200 new laws take effect in whole or in part — a tally that would’ve been even larger were it not for Gov. Jared Polis’ record 11 vetoes this year.

Under the new laws, school districts are required . An existing tax credit, , gets a multi-year extension. Colorado gamblers can no longer use credit cards to deposit money into sports betting apps, and their deposits will be limited to six per day.

What Colorado bills are becoming laws?

A rolls into effect, requiring state agencies to more regularly examine their rules and report their findings back to lawmakers. New parents who wish to voluntarily relinquish their child to hospitals, firefighters or a community emergency center without facing a child abuse charge.

makes it a misdemeanor offense to knowingly place food or edible trash in the open "in circumstances where there is a reasonable probability of luring a wild bear." requires law enforcement to offer voluntary alcohol breath tests for drivers involved in a crash that kill or seriously injured someone else. That law is named for Magnus White, a cyclist who was struck and killed in Boulder County in 2023.

Here are some of the other laws taking effect Wednesday:

Social media search warrants

In the wake of a 2025 veto and the subsequent shooting at Evergreen High School in Jefferson County, Colorado lawmakers this year passed . The law requires social media companies with more than 1 million monthly users to set up "streamlined" processes for law enforcement to contact the companies about search warrants. The companies are also generally required to comply with search warrants within 72 hours and to provide regular updates about the warrants' status.

Polis vetoed a more sweeping version of the bill, which included other regulations on social media companies, last year, and he also vetoed another version of SB 11 after the legislative session adjourned in May.

Lawmakers had vowed to bring back the 2025 proposal even before the Evergreen shooting, in which two students were wounded and the shooter died by suicide. After the September 2025 shooting, law enforcement said the social media companies were slow to produce information about the shooter's online profiles, which included posts idolizing of other mass shooters.

Slowing scams of vulnerable adults

Under , banks in Colorado can now delay providing funds to vulnerable adults, meaning those over the age of 70 or who are otherwise "susceptible to mistreatment or self-neglect" because of their health status. The law is aimed at blunting financial scams that often target older adults, which frequently include prompting victims to withdraw large sums of money at once.

The bipartisan law also requires certain bank employees to report potential exploitation to law enforcement or other local authorities.

Protections for Colorado ag products

Counterfeit Palisade peaches' days are numbered.

Under , only agricultural products actually grown in Colorado can be identified and advertised as Colorado-raised. It also prohibits companies or growers from using the "Colorado Proud" designation or logo -- a program of the state Department of Agriculture -- unless the ag agency gives them permission.

Violations of the law are a deceptive trade practice, which can be investigated by the state attorney general's office.

New safety requirements for ride-hailing companies

For the second year, lawmakers weighed new safety requirements for ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft. implements a number of new rules, including specific background check rules, amid . Many of those new requirements don't kick in until Jan. 1.

But as of Wednesday, the companies will be required to review drivers who have been the subject of a complaint, either from a rider or from the state Public Utilities Commission. That review may lead to the driver's suspension from the app. The companies will also be required to conduct these deactivation reviews if they're notified by law enforcement that the driver has "serious felony allegations," House Democrats said in a news release. That includes charges of sexual misconduct or stalking.

Affordable housing

The first bill introduced in the upper chamber this year, gives county and municipal governments the authority to sell their buildings and other property -- other than parks -- if the land is going to be used for affordable housing or another identified local housing need.

The bipartisan law also gives county commissioners the ability to use certain local tax revenue for workforce housing and other housing programs.

Discrimination in schools

Amid the Trump administration's gutting of the U.S. Department of Education, expands Colorado's existing anti-discrimination laws to include discriminatory practices in K-12 schools, as well as institutions of higher education. The law prohibits excluding students from activities and programs, teaching students differently than their similar peers, and failing to take steps to stop hostile environments, among other protections.

It also expands anti-harassment rules to include students who are pregnant, and it seeks to add existing federal civil rights protections and processes for higher ed students into Colorado's statute book.

“As the Trump administration slashes funding for the federal Office of Civil Rights, the time is now to strengthen civil rights protections to protect students in Colorado," Rep. Jennifer Bacon, a Denver Democrat who sponsored the law, said in a statement. "Our schools should be a safe place for students to learn and grow, and together we’re creating a positive learning environment for all students.”

The woman, identified as “Jane Doe” in the lawsuit, which was filed late last week, says she was assaulted by Billy Johnson the day before the other incident, in which Johnson, then 43, was accused of forcing another woman into a room and sexually assaulting her in March 2025. Jane Doe says Johnson had tried to pull her into his car during a sexual assault in the shelter’s parking lot.

She was an employee at the shelter, where Johnson worked as a supervisor despite having serious criminal convictions in his past, including kidnapping and sexual assault. In the other assault, media reports at the time said the woman who accused Johnson of forcing her into a room was staying at the shelter.

The lawsuit names the Salvation Army as a defendant and alleges that multiple Salvation Army employees either saw the earlier assault at 4040 Quebec St. or knew “something was seriously wrong.”

“Instead of receiving any meaningful assistance, plaintiff was left alone to resist the attack and ultimately escape before returning inside the shelter in a state of shock, trembling, and acute distress,” the lawsuit says. “Once home, plaintiff became physically ill and vomited repeatedly, overwhelmed by fear, shock, and confusion.”

Johnson had asked the woman to step outside for a “work-related matter” during an overnight shift, the lawsuit says, and then he sexually assaulted and restrained her, attempting to “pull her into his vehicle.” The incident was recorded by a nearby surveillance camera, according to the suit. No one from the Salvation Army contacted law enforcement or responded to the attack in any way that night or the following day, even though one of the woman’s co-workers tried to report the assault, the lawsuit says.

Representatives of Bachus & Schanker, the law firm that filed the suit Friday in Denver District Court, didn’t respond to a request for comment. The Denver District Attorney’s Office confirmed that prosecutors added additional charges against Johnson for the earlier attack on the shelter worker.

Johnson now faces two counts of kidnapping, four of sexual assault, one of sexual contact and four others of assault. His case is set for a jury trial in January.

In a statement, The Salvation Army said the organization won’t comment on the allegations because they are pending in the court system. In a previous statement, the nonprofit emphasized that Johnson had passed its background check.

The Salvation Army no longer operates the city-owned shelter, a former hotel known as The Aspen, after the city awarded the contract to another provider, Urban Alchemy, for 2026. The shelter has been one of several used for Mayor Mike Johnston’s All In Mile High homelessness initiative.

The lawsuit says Jane Doe returned to work the day after the assault out of fear of losing her job. Johnson was still at the shelter, and and was later arrested and charged in the assault. Johnson later according to 9News.

The lawsuit alleges that the Salvation Army was negligent in hiring Johnson and that the second attack could have been prevented if the nonprofit had responded to the first one appropriately.

“(The Salvation Army) failed to conduct its own Colorado Bureau of Investigation background check, which would have cost approximately $6 and would have revealed a documented history of multiple convictions for violent offenses, including a conviction for felony kidnapping and sexual assault resulting in a 24-year prison sentence,” according to the lawsuit.

The organization also ignored a nine-year gap in Johnson’s resume, according to the lawsuit.

The nonprofit should have had a heightened sense of responsibility to protect the employee because she was working in an overnight shelter and serving a vulnerable population, the lawsuit says. The lawsuit asks the court to award the plaintiff compensation for all the damage caused by the incident.

The Salvation Army stopped operating several city shelters after a new bid process last year. The Denver City Council had raised questions about incidents at the shelters, including the other sexual assault, amid concerns that the nonprofit couldn’t adequately manage the facilities.

The organization continues to operate the Crossroads Center, the Labuth Family Center, the Connection Center and the Harbor Light Center.

Staff writer Shelly Bradbury contributed to this story.

The closures, in which one of four of branches was closed down each week on a four-week rolling basis, have frustrated residents over the past two years. The DMV offices handle vehicle titles and registration.

“We’ve heard from staff and customers alike how difficult the rolling closures have been, and we are very excited to now be in a position to create more stability and consistency in the customer and staff experience at each branch,” said Sophia Hassman, the city treasurer and interim DMV director, in the release.

The closures were done “in order to help maintain service in all corners of the city during a period of slowed city hiring and economic uncertainty,” according to the release.

The city used several cost-saving measures, including reducing recreation center hours and programming, to offset the expense of housing thousands of migrants who poured into the city beginning in late 2022. The city has since restored rec center hours.

The reopenings come as the city hires more people to work the DMV locations.

Before the full DMV reopening on Aug. 3, all locations will be closed Wednesday for “staff development and training,” the release says. The DMV website and kiosks, which offer most services including new vehicle registration and address changes, will remain open.

The city will also transition the Tremont DMV office, located in the Elbra M Wedgeworth Municipal Building, to a commercial vehicle dealer and fleet center. The center will serve only vehicle dealers and commercial fleet customers, according to the release.

“I’ve seen it change drastically, where we leave with tears in our eyes, because I remember what it was. … It����ap depressing for someone born and raised in Denver. Here I am, going to that neighborhood since the ‘60s, and now my dad’s in heaven, crying,” he said.

Marty’s son, Chad Duman, said he’s had guns and knives pulled on him on the corner.

“I’m afraid to park in my own parking lot,” he said. “Nobody wants to live in my building. I don’t blame them.”

The father-son duo was among a dozen or so property owners and residents from the 1300 and 1400 blocks of Pennsylvania and Pearl streets in Capitol Hill attending a meeting at city hall Friday. The event was initiated by the neighbors and organized by their councilman, Chris Hinds.

The subject: how to address the rampant crime and homelessness in the four blocks south of Colfax Avenue.

“There is nothing like Capitol Hill in this area, from Dallas to the east, all the way to Phoenix to the west. It����ap just a very, very unique situation,” said Deputy Police Chief Aaron Sanchez.

“We, as a police department, for decades have decided to try to solve the problem through enforcement. We’ll arrest them, and it’ll make the problem go away. And we have failed miserably.”

The area has had its share of public struggles. Last year, at a McDonald’s across the street from the Duman building, BusinessDen uncovered an illicit market involving seemingly stolen goods. And Natural Grocers closed its store in the 1400 block of Pearl Street in late 2024 following over 100 police calls in nine months.

“We lost our Natural Grocers in that neighborhood because of the crime that was taking place,” neighborhood resident Preston Enright said at the meeting.

Police officers at the meeting said they’ve been making improvements in patrolling the area and cracking down on crime.

“The arrests that the police have made are up 90%. We’ve made 110 more arrests year-to-date this year than we did last year, with the top five charges being warrant arrests, drug paraphernalia, trespassing, possession of a controlled substance and public consumption of alcohol,” said Commander Kimberly Bowser, who oversees the neighborhood as part of District Six.

Those numbers are specific to the four-block radius of Pennsylvania and Pearl streets, she said.

Some neighbors turned their ire to Network Coffee House, a nonprofit at 1402 Pearl Street that offers homeless people free coffee and an indoor spot to hang out.

“You guys ruin the neighborhood,” resident June Gordon said.

The nonprofit����ap executive director stood up in response moments later.

“We’ve been around for 44 years. We’ve been in the same place since ’88 when we bought the building and renovated it,” said Ian Stitt. “I just want to let you know that we didn’t ruin the neighborhood because we’ve been there longer than you have.

“Homelessness and substance use has existed in Capitol Hill for far longer than any of us have existed in Capitol Hill,” he added. “Pearl and 15th, and Pearl and 16th, and Pearl and 14th have historically had crack dealing.”

Stitt gave an impassioned defense of his organization, but acknowledged that it����ap difficult to control what goes on outside his property. He pointed the finger at bad actors who come to the neighborhood to sell drugs to those visiting the coffee house.

No direct action was taken at the meeting, but resources about forming a neighborhood watch were shared with participants. Hinds, the councilman who organized the event, acknowledged that his ability to solve the issues immediately were limited.

“In City Council, we do legislation, we do land use, and so enforcement is entirely in the executive branch,” he said.

The councilman promised that a follow-up meeting would take place to lock down a plan for better enforcement going forward.

The neighbors continued to go around the table, each sharing stories. One property owner said he cleans up trash all along the 1400 block of Pearl, multiple times a day, going from one end to the other. Another resident called the same stretch “anarchy alley.”

Logan Goolsby said he’s been mugged three times in the six years he’s lived in the neighborhood. He shared a story of how his car was broken into last April.

“He fell asleep in my vehicle while breaking into my car. I had multiple pictures of him sleeping in my car,” he said. “It took three hours for a police response.”

“Eventually, my neighbor had to come out with bear spray and spray him out of the car. I had to get my car detailed.”

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Steven Egloff filed the lawsuit Monday in Denver District Court against Waste Connections of Colorado, the company responsible for emptying the dumpster.

The suit follows more than a year after the April 2025 near-fatal crushing, when a truck picked up the RiNo neighborhood dumpster in which Egloff was sleeping and collected its contents. Egloff was dropped on his head and body, and the truck continued driving before its driver started the compactor. The driver heard Egloff’s screams during the truck’s next stop and called 911, according to the lawsuit.

Egloff sustained “a large scalp laceration with degloving injury,” meaning that the skin was ripped off, the lawsuit alleges. He broke several ribs, as well as his right upper arm in at least two places. He also broke one of the vertebrae in his spine. He had to be rescued from the truck and required “extensive hospitalization.”

The suit accuses Waste Collections of negligence for failing to take steps to prevent Egloff’s injuries, like requiring checks of the dumpster or the back of the truck before driving off and starting the compactor. It also alleges the company failed to properly train its staff to prevent such incidents.

“Individuals experiencing homelessness are known to seek shelter inside commercial dumpsters, particularly during freezing weather, overnight, and early-morning hours,” the lawsuit alleges. “The risk that a person may be inside a commercial dumpster is a known and foreseeable hazard in the commercial waste-collection industry.”

The company did not immediately return messages seeking comment Friday.

The lawsuit was first reported by .

Michael D. Rex, Egloff’s lawyer, said in an email that his client had climbed into the dumpster because it was cold and he didn’t have a jacket. He is now recovering in Louisiana with his sister.

“Mr. Egloff believed he was going to die as the compactor crushed him, as any reasonable person would,” Rex wrote. “He described hearing his bones break over the sound of the truck and industrial equipment; he compared the sound of his bones breaking to the sound of .22 rifle.”

Egloff’s incident was among at least three dumpster-related incidents in Colorado in the past year. In January, after he entered a dumpster but never exited; the dumpster was later emptied and its contents driven to a landfill, where for the man.

In April, a Pueblo man died after he was discovered in the back of a garbage truck. One of the truck’s operators found him seriously injured after the truck’s compression cylinder was stuck,