Did they think Superintendent Alex Marrero was doing a good job?

Two of the soon-to-be directors — Amy Klein Molk and Donald “D.J.” Torres — largely kept their opinions about Marrero close to the vest, while Monica Hunter levied criticism without revealing whether she would seek to replace the superintendent before his contract ran out in 2028.

“He’s doing a fine job,” Torres said during the . “Is there more to be done? Definitely.”

Now, nine months into the job, Marrero and the new school board members — who have the ability to sway the seven-member governing body’s majority — are struggling to work together as a lack of trust pervades DPS leadership, fueling speculation that Marrero may not be long for the superintendent’s job.

Matters could come to a head as soon as Monday, when the board has a special meeting scheduled. Directors plan to gather in closed session with an outside attorney to discuss their “legal rights and obligations in connection with the superintendent contract,” then bring in Marrero to discuss the board’s relationship with him, according to the .

Marrero himself called the situation “increasingly untenable” in a June 8 letter to school board President Xóchitl Gaytán, complaining that directors are overstepping their authority when it comes to DPS’s day-to-day operations.

Meanwhile, board members question Marrero’s commitment to the district as well as the timing and intent of the superintendent����ap letter, which Marrero sent just before revealing to the board that he had applied for a job in Miami.

“I’m not going to tolerate having someone with one foot in and one foot out,” Molk said in a recent interview. “I have been concerned since he was looking for a job in Chicago last year. I thought that we had put that to rest, and now that it is coming up again makes me question his commitment to Denver.”

Board members interviewed by The Denver Post declined to say whether they are considering firing Marrero or are looking to negotiate a separation agreement with him. Such a decision carries a price tag of at least $346,529, and voting to terminate him without cause would require a supermajority of at least five board members.

In interviews with The Post, directors didn’t dismiss the possibility that Marrero’s time at the district may be coming to an end, a notable difference from their predecessors who repeatedly extended Marrero’s contract and were known to heap praise on the superintendent when they faced calls from community members to replace him.

“Once this conversation unfolds, I think, everything should be an option like it always is,” Torres said of Monday’s meeting. “It����ap our right as a board to question our superintendent����ap leadership and accountability to DPS, so I’m willing and very ready to have that conversation.”

Marrero declined an interview request, saying “it would be inappropriate for me to discuss these matters with the media when I have yet to have the opportunity to engage with the Board of Education directly.” He also declined to answer a list of questions sent by The Post.

Gaytán declined an interview request as well, but said in a statement that Monday’s meeting will enable board members to address the concerns outlined by Marrero in his June letter.

“This approach ensures the full board and the superintendent can participate in a constructive discussion focused on governance, accountability and maintaining the strong working relationship necessary to serve Denver Public Schools and its students,” she wrote.

Different opinions on the board’s role

DPS superintendents are employees of the school board, which in turn has the authority to extend their employment or fire them.

Board members are elected officials with term limits who don’t always have a background in education or in running a $1.5 billion operation with just under 90,000 students and thousands more employees. But they have constituents who voted them into office, often because they want the new directors to enact change to the school system.

This dynamic automatically makes it challenging to build trust between district staffers and board members, said an employee who works in DPS’s central office downtown — one of two administrative staffers who spoke to The Post for this story on the condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation.

“There’s this deficit of trust, and we have four years to get (school board members) on board,” the employee said. “…There are some new voices on the board, well-intentioned, but not necessarily respecting the operational model (of the district).”

The district����ap governance model is supposed to help define the roles of the superintendent and school board. Under the model — called policy governance — directors are supposed to set goals they want the district to achieve rather than issue directives to the superintendent.

The method is supposed to give Marrero flexibility on how to achieve what board members want while avoiding micromanaging — which is the reason policy governance was implemented in the wake of Superintendent Susana Córdova’s resignation in 2020.

Former Denver mayors Michael Hancock and Federico Peña wrote a scathing letter after Córdova’s resignation, blaming the school board for mistreating the superintendent during meetings and interfering with the day-to-day management of DPS.

Marrero has a strict interpretation of policy governance, meaning he believes the actual running of the district is off-limits to individual board members and that directors are overstepping their authority by wanting to wade into things, such as student literacy and school operations, he wrote in his June 8 letter.

“…I remain concerned by continued discussions and actions that appear to move the board further into operational matters than policy oversight,” the superintendent wrote.

Molk said she mostly agrees with Marrero’s belief that the school board’s job is to set the vision of the district and hold the superintendent accountable. If implemented properly, she said, the governance model should give the superintendent the autonomy he needs to do his job.

But, she said, board members also have constituents they have to answer to. “That����ap where the real frustration lies as a board member: having the best intentions and, then, it����ap like you’re overstepping by talking to community and relaying it back,” Molk said.

Hunter, who was also elected to the board last year, called DPS’s implementation of policy governance “an extreme interpretation” that has turned the school board into a policymaking body, like a legislative office, rather than one that is focused on literacy rates and parents’ concerns.

“I do think that, maybe, having a board that expects a little more accountability has been challenging,” Hunter said.

One example of how Hunter views her role differently than Marrero is in her office hours at schools, which the director holds to talk with teachers and other employees. She takes any concerns she has heard during those visits to the superintendent, according to both Hunter and the central office employee.

District staffers believe Hunter’s school visits are an overstep and conflict of interest because she holds the office hours as part of her job as the director of human and civil rights with the — the state’s largest teachers union — but also serves as the school board’s vice president.

Hunter disagrees.

“I will talk to anyone who wants to talk to me who is in my district,” she said. “…I want to make sure the role I hold is accessible.”

In his June 8 letter, Marrero accused board members of not speaking to each other, canceling meetings because they don’t like the other director present and what he called “a litany of ongoing interpersonal issues.”

“This is why I have characterized the current trajectory as increasingly untenable,” the superintendent wrote.

‘I don’t trust his commitment to Denver’

Both central office employees who spoke to The Post pushed back on assertions that the superintendent has checked out of the job, saying that Marrero is moving forward with trying to get a $44 million mill levy override on November’s ballot and expanding career and technical options for students.

But, they said, Marrero feels like he’s being pulled in seven different directions by board members who want to wade into operational matters.

“If the situation continues, it would be hard for him to stay,” one of the employees said. “I think the job he likes, I think the work he likes. I think there’s some frustration around the board’s treatment.”

In his June email to Gaytán, Marrero said the board violated his contract by not following policy governance and by initially excluding him from an executive session — which is closed to the public — earlier this year. Marrero’s contract, which the board renewed last year, states that he and the board will operate under the governance model, meaning that “the board will avoid telling the superintendent or staff what to do or how to do it.”

The email is notable because if the board decides it no longer wants to use policy governance, Marrero’s contract allows him to end his employment with the district. In such a scenario, he is required to give the board a 30-day notice before resigning, raising questions about whether the superintendent intended to place the board on alert with his email last month.

“It could be this is just a kerfuffle and he sticks around,” said Van Schoales, senior policy director at Keystone Policy Center, a Colorado nonprofit that conducts education research. “But I think it����ap highly unlikely he’s going to be here in a couple of years. The question is, does he make it to the fall?”

Likewise, if the board wants to terminate Marrero’s employment without cause, it is required to provide him with a 60-day notice before scheduling a vote and pay him a severance with an entire year’s salary as well as his retirement and other benefits.

The board and Marrero could also reach an agreement to separate at any time, according to his contract.

Board members said they called Monday’s meeting despite being on their annual July break to discuss the superintendent����ap concerns.

Directors want to better understand “the plausible pathways and outcomes that might occur” under Marrero’s contract, board member John Youngquist said.

“He has represented an interest in some sort of separation,” he said of Marrero. “The board has not had a conversation that is related to that. All of this has happened since the board met last, so we haven’t been able to engage in these conversations.”

Directors have hired an outside attorney, Kristen Edgar, to advise them during the meeting. The board has a policy that prevents the district����ap general counsel from representing the board or superintendent in legal matters between the two, including when negotiating his contract.

The policy was put in place so that directors can hire a third party when there is a conflict of interest involving the district����ap legal counsel, who reports to the superintendent, and an item presented to the board, said member Kimberlee Sia. She declined to comment about the board’s meeting and Marrero’s future.

The board is still working to find a permanent outside attorney to hire, so it contracted with Edgar, who it has worked with before, for Monday’s meeting, Gaytán said.

In interviews, board members acknowledged the trust issues between themselves and the superintendent. Several said they are questioning whether Marrero wants to stay at DPS, considering he recently applied for the superintendency at in Florida, a move that came less than a year after he was a finalist for a similar job in Chicago.

“I don’t trust his commitment to Denver,” Molk said.

Marrero failed to become a semifinalist for the Miami position, which the was because the Denver superintendent did not have experience teaching in a classroom. Marrero hinted in a statement that he believes he didn’t get the job because of his support of immigrant students and LGBTQ pupils.

In November, Marrero was a finalist to become Chicago Public Schools’ next CEO before withdrawing his name after news of his candidacy leaked. The superintendent has insisted he did not seek out the position himself.

“I never applied for the superintendent position in Chicago,” Marrero said in a statement to The Post. “I was approached by the search firm and asked to speak with them about the job. I did speak formally with members of the search committee and board. To be clear, I did not seek out this position and proactively removed my name from consideration.”

A New Yorker in Denver

Marrero, 43, has faced criticism from educators and others in Denver ever since he was hired in 2021 to succeed Córdova.

A and other community members didn’t think the East Coaster understood the American West and Chicano culture enough to lead DPS. They also thought Marrero was inexperienced at running a large school district when he was hired.

Marrero, a native of the Bronx, previously served as interim superintendent for the City School District of New Rochelle in New York before moving to Denver.

“Dr. Marrero should never have been hired by DPS in the first place,” said Peña, the former mayor and frequent critic of Marrero. “…He was not prepared to come to this very significantly larger school district that was far more complex.”

Marrero’s critics say test scores and literacy rates for students of color aren’t where they should be. Some still question whether Marrero ever adapted to Denver, saying he hasn’t done enough to build relationships with mayors, City Council members and other community leaders.

“He doesn’t care about the outdoors,” Schoales said. “He’s not a hiker. He doesn’t drive a Subaru.”

Marrero has also found himself at odds with school board members and over school closures and armed police in schools.

“This was a big job for him and, I think, there have been wins for him for sure,” Molk said. “But one thing I don’t think he’s ever effectively succeeded at is managing the board.”

Past and present board members, including Gaytán, are among Marrero’s supporters. They say the superintendent has traits that make him an ideal leader of DPS, a liberal district where more than half of the students are Latino: Marrero is Afro-Latino, bilingual in Spanish and a strong advocate for improving equity for students of color.

Marrero’s gone head-to-head with the Trump administration by suing the federal government to prevent immigration raids in schools, and defied the U.S. Department of Education’s order to convert gender-neutral bathrooms into restrooms for girls.

Last year, DPS students’ test scores and graduation rates earned the district one of the top ratings available on the state’s academic framework for the first time since 2019.

“From day one, he faced criticism challenging his legitimacy,” former board member Auon’tai Anderson said about Marrero. “…He’s never got a fair shake here.”

Marrero has also been able to win over community leaders, such as the Latino Education Coalition. Hancock, whose tenure as mayor overlapped with Marrero’s, also disagreed with the assertion that the superintendent hasn’t built relationships in the community.

“I’ve seen him work tirelessly to build relationships,” Hancock said. “…We had a chance to really work on things when there were difficult decisions we had to make. I’ve always appreciated that about him. We had a good working relationship.”

Unexpected alliances

DPS school boards are known for their members’ big personalities, public infighting and micromanaging of superintendents.

But the conflict taking place now has somewhat surprised education insiders who expected the members of the board’s majority to be more supportive of Marrero given they weren’t the candidates openly criticizing him during last year’s election.

All four of the candidates elected to the school board last year were technically on the same side as they were all backed by the . Gaytán, a known supporter of Marrero’s, was the only incumbent re-elected to the board last year.

Of the three new members, Hunter was the most critical of the superintendent during the election.

“We see the data. We see that our Black and Latino students are not performing,” she said during the October debate. “We see that some of the dysfunction has gotten in the way of putting students first.”

Instead, alliances on the new school board have formed across the old union vs reform battle lines. The three new members have sided more frequently with Youngquist than with Gaytán when voting this year.

Youngquist was elected in 2023 and his campaign was backed by a deep-pocketed group that supports charter schools and other education reform methods.

The board’s majority and its leadership are “often at odds,” Torres said.

“There’s… 6-1 votes with one person being the outlier consistently throughout those votes,” he said. “Just not with the alignments that we were told that we would have.”

“Some of the trust that the collective board has with the superintendent is muddied because of various relationships (Marrero) has with board members,” Torres added.

Gaytán supports Marrero as superintendent, while Youngquist and the superintendent have historically not gotten along.

Marrero has accused Youngquist of wanting his job, ignoring board protocol and of directing district staffers. The superintendent also requested that the board censure — or formally reprimand — the director for his behavior to employees. The former school board did just that last year after an outside investigation found Youngquist’s behavior to be “belittling, dismissive and condescending” toward DPS staff.

Youngquist, in turn, has accused DPS leaders, including Marrero, of retaliation.

The new DPS board has “a much more objective look” at the superintendent and his leadership than past boards, Youngquist said.

“We have a board that is more connected and more engaged together… than I’ve seen in a long while,” he said. “…The new board members coming on are less interested in conversations that are divisive and are truly focused on conversations that are inclusive and engaging together and focused on the needs of our children.”

Marrero sent a second email to Gaytán in July, imploring the board to operate within the district����ap governance framework. This time, his complaints were levied solely against Youngquist, who had asked the superintendent to send him districtwide discipline data, test scores and attendance information broken down by grade levels and student groups.

The superintendent, who noted he was on pre-approved time off, took issue not only with Youngquist����ap request — which he called “substantial” — but the fact that it was made during the board’s yearly sabbatical in July, according to his email.

Under the district policy, the superintendent can refuse individual board members’ requests for information that he believes take up too much staff time or are unreasonable, Marrero wrote in his email. The data, he said, is already scheduled to be presented to the board in the coming months.

“Finally, if the board’s historical July practice or expectations regarding my availability and staff responsiveness during pre-approved time off have changed, please let me know,” Marrero wrote. “I should not be left to infer a shift in expectations from a series of individual director requests accompanied by unilateral deadlines.”

Phil Weiser, elected as the state’s top attorney in 2018 and now term-limited, has had much of his tenure dominated by legal fights with the Trump administration.

In the one-on-one Democratic primary for Colorado governor on June 30, his appeal to voters against U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet is that he offers comparatively new blood, along with legal pugnacity in the Trump 2.0 era. He has sued or joined lawsuits against President Donald Trump’s administration since early 2025, claiming wins or favorable rulings of some kind in 37 of those cases and losses in eight. The rest are awaiting rulings.

Weiser, 58, first won public office as part of the 2018 blue wave that landed Democrats in all of Colorado’s top offices. Before his election, Weiser served in the Clinton and Obama administrations and as the dean of the University of Colorado Law School.

Weiser launched his campaign in early January 2025, just before Trump was sworn in for a second term, and before any other prominent Democrats tossed their hats in the ring. Affordability, housing shortages, climate change and the youth mental health crisis dominated his out-of-the-gate message.

Politicos have long joked that AG stands as much for “” as attorney general. For Weiser, himself restricted from running for the same post again and seeing fellow Democrats sitting in U.S. House or Senate seats that he might otherwise consider, the governor’s office was an obvious next move.

At a fall event, Weiser said Colorado was at an inflection point. It must both protect its values from “the craziness in Washington,” he said, and forge its own path forward.

“There is lower trust in our institutions right now (and) less ability to create solutions to get things done,” Weiser said. “… We have to find a way to meet this moment, create a similar can-do spirit — where we’re going to try a bunch of different things. Not all of it is going to work, but we’re going to try something.”

Weiser’s record as the state’s top attorney quickly swayed former Gov. Roy Romer, who led Colorado from 1987 to 1999, to believe in his higher aspirations.

“Phil, I’ve watched for years. He’s a good man,” Romer said, “and I just think he’ll make a great governor. Bennet, he’s my senator — and I hope he stays my senator.”

‘This campaign comes down to a choice’

That sentiment — Bennet for Senate, and Weiser for governor — has been catchy enough among the attorney general’s supporters to make it .

“This campaign comes down to a choice,” Weiser said during a May debate co-sponsored by The Denver Post. “The candidate of Colorado or the candidate who is from the Washington, D.C. establishment.”

Weiser, who grew up in Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y., has spent much of his career bouncing between Colorado and Washington, D.C.

After graduating from New York University’s law school in 1994, Weiser worked as a clerk for 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge David Ebel in Denver. He headed back east to clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg later in the decade, and he returned to Colorado in 1999 to join the faculty at the University of Colorado Law School.

He moved east again to work in the Obama administration, and he returned for a final time to serve as dean of the CU law school.��

A quick look at the Colorado governor candidates running in this month’s Democratic, Republican primaries

When Weiser turned to elected office eight years ago, he faced a tough Democratic primary. He edged out state Rep. Joe Salazar by fewer than 5,000 votes to win the nomination. His two general election wins, in 2018 and 2022, were less dramatic affairs amid Colorado’s overall political shift leftward. He won in 2018 by more than 6 percentage points and in 2022 by more than 10.

As a gubernatorial candidate, Weiser has set goals of halving the state's housing shortage and banning algorithmic rent setting by large corporations -- a measure vetoed by outgoing Gov. Jared Polis in 2025. He also wants to "Trump-Proof" Colorado and launch a "ColoradoCorps" service program for 18- to 26-year-olds looking at careers in firefighting, law enforcement, education and more.

Former U.S. Rep. David Skaggs, who represented a Colorado district from 1987 to 1999, crossed paths with Weiser at the CU law school after he left Congress. He was “struck from the get-go about how razor sharp his mind is, what a good lawyer he is and what an agreeable fellow he is,” Skaggs said.

But now, he points to Weiser’s willingness to “take on the Trump administration, both Trump 1 and Trump 2, and really fight for important values and legal principles.”

Weiser has been in the thick of state government for more than seven years now, and there’s no better preparation for managing it as governor than spending the better part of a decade lawyering for it, Skaggs said.

Former Denver Mayor Michael Hancock, in an interview last fall, hailed Weiser as “a tremendous attorney general” and “one of the smartest people I know.” But he has backed Bennet in the gubernatorial primary, arguing Bennet has a broader base of experience, including his time working in local government as chief of staff to then-Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper.

Hancock said such experience gave Bennet a deeper understanding of issues like local control and how to bring local governments along -- without wielding a stick, like recent zoning battles with the state have entailed.

"Mike will have a better understanding of those issues," Hancock said. "He knows the responsibility of local governments, particularly city councils, and how to negotiate and work those things through. I think he'll be a little more collaborative in that sense because of that knowledge."

Weiser's work as attorney general

Weiser argues his work as attorney general has prepared him to be governor.

While his tenure has turned on legal fights with both Trump administrations, he’s also overseen the distribution of tens of millions of dollars from settlements during the opioid crisis. He challenged the merger of the Kroger and Albertsons grocery chains -- the parent companies, respectively, of King Soopers and Safeway -- which was called off after judges blocked it. He's backed consumer protection litigation, and his office has been front and center in negotiations over the Colorado River, the lifeblood of the state and the broader West.

Weiser has campaigned as a bit of an underdog to the better-known Bennet, hoping he has a fighter's chance as people pay more attention to the race.

At a northern Denver union hall in January, Weiser invoked his lawsuits against Trump during a forum with Bennet, who has downplayed many of the legal actions as simply Weiser joining other states' lawsuits.

“As your attorney general, I have sued this administration again and again and again,” Weiser said. “And we’re winning again and again and again. And if some people said lawsuits don’t matter -- hypothetically, maybe even in the last couple hours -- I gotta tell you, for transgender Coloradans, they matter,” he added, referring to a recent freeze on gender-affirming care for young people by the Trump administration.

Staff writer Seth Klamann contributed to this story.

Calderón, who is the third active candidate in the race, placed third in the last mayoral election, narrowly missing the final runoff. She also placed third when she ran in 2019. She announced her new campaign Tuesday.

“Across neighborhoods, people are urging me to run and telling me the same thing: despite Mike Johnston’s campaign promises, things have only gotten harder,” she said in a news release.

Calderón is the executive director of Women Uprising, an organization that trains progressive women in Colorado to run for office. Calderón helped form the group after a similar organization, Emerge Colorado, .

In her announcement, Calderón focused on criticisms of Johnston, who she said has been bad for Denver. Calderón said she decided to run for mayor again after Johnston laid off 169 employees last August in response to an estimated $200 million budget gap.

“Someone has to stand up and take him on. I came very close to beating him once, and I am the best person to challenge him and win,” she said.

A spokesman for Johnston defended his record Tuesday, referencing his work on homelessness and violence reduction.

“As (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) threatens cities and President Trump attacks the rule of law, Mayor Johnston is leading the fight for Denver and our values while still delivering historic wins for our city,” wrote Jon Ewing. “The work is never over, but we would put our record up against anyone’s.”

Calderón was also a frequent critic of Johnston’s predecessor, Michael Hancock. She butted heads with him often while serving as the top staffer for former City Councilwoman Candi CdeBaca.

During her campaign, she plans to focus on cost-of-living issues, community-based safety efforts, a housing-first homelessness strategy, bike and pedestrian safety, workers’ issues and small businesses.

Campaign materials obtained by The Denver Post included promises like reinstating laid-off workers, ending the city’s contract with the controversial surveillance company Flock, building more affordable housing and expanding universal child care.

Calderón, a fourth-generation Denverite, holds four degrees — a bachelor’s in English, a master’s in liberal studies, a law degree and a doctorate in education.

Two other candidates, both of whom also ran in 2023, have also filed to run: Aurelio Martinez and Robert Treta. Johnston told The Post in July that he intends to run for reelection, but he hasn’t yet formally filed.

Johnston became mayor in 2023 after soundly defeating Kelly Brough, the former CEO of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, by more than 10 percentage points in a runoff election. The two faced off after an initial general election with 17 candidates.

Calderón formally filed for the election Tuesday morning. She plans to host a campaign kick-off event Feb. 11 at Su Teatro Cultural and Performing Arts Center.

As long as her mind is sharp and her fingers are flexible, Sellers, 90, plans to keep working. Even after reaching her 70th anniversary with the city this fall.

“No. 1, I do not want to retire, because I would not be able to stay here in this house and look at these walls 24/7,” she said. “And No. 2, as long as I can think and as long as I can use my hands, I am still willing to work.

“And, really, I enjoy working.”

Sellers celebrated her 70th anniversary on Oct. 17 with a party hosted by the Denver Department of Public Safety, where she works in the human resources office. She is Denver’s longest-serving employee in its 167-year history, so far as anyone knows.

For those keeping track, Sellers has been an employee for 42% of Denver’s entire history as a city.

Every Monday through Thursday, Sellers spends eight hours scanning police officer and firefighter personnel records into the safety department’s computer system as part of its conversion to an electronic system.

For many, it would be boring.

For Sellers, no job is too small.

“I enjoy doing whatever I’m assigned to do,” she said. “If it’s something new, show me what you want me to do and I’ll do it.”

Sellers arrives at her office in downtown’s Republic Plaza tower at 8 a.m. sharp, dressed in a suit and with impeccable makeup. She no longer drives, so another city employee gives her a ride every day.

Sellers is considered old-fashioned by many. She still sends thank-you notes, dresses up every day and quotes scripture on her home answering machine.

“I give thanks to God every day that I can still take care of myself, take care of my house and go to work every day,” she said.

Jinna Berry, Sellers’ supervisor in the safety department, said she was relieved when Sellers was assigned to her department. The safety department needs to scan personnel files dating back to the 1950s. Various people in the office were scanning when they had some extra time, but the project has dragged on for nearly 10 years.

With Sellers at the scanner, there’s noticeable progress.

“It would be really hard for me to find somebody else to fill that position that gets enjoyment out of it,” Berry said. “It’s a very dull task, day after day.”

Sellers enjoys knowing her assignment each day. She’s good at organizing the paperwork, which often comes in a pile with nothing in order, Berry said.

“At the end of the day, her desk is all cleaned and picked up,” Berry said. “You can tell she still takes pride in work even after being here for 70 years.”

The safety department colleagues know not to mention the word “retirement.”

“She will give you a look,” Berry said.

Friends marvel at Sellers’ determination to keep working.

“Her life has been really successful,” said Annette Housely, a former coworker who has remained a trusted friend. “Just to watch her and her faith and her consistency in getting up every day to go to work, even when she’s not feeling good … I’m just amazed at her.”

Sellers arrived in Denver in 1954 as a 19-year-old high school graduate from Mississippi. Nuns at her Catholic school had recommended she give Denver a try to escape the Jim Crow South and made arrangements for her to find housing in the city.

Sellers got her first job with Denver in October 1955, when she was hired to work as a nurse’s aide in the men’s medical ward at the city-owned Denver General Hospital, now Denver Health Medical Center.�� She also worked in the newborn nursery and then earned a promotion at the hospital after passing a clerical exam. She worked there for 25 years.

In 1980, she transferred to Denver’s Employment and Training Agency and then dodged a layoff in 1982 by transferring to the Career Service Authority. She’s also worked for Denver Human Services.

Employment at the city has not always been easy for Sellers, especially as she aged and felt that some managers intentionally made life hard to try to force her into retirement.

But determination and a strong faith in God keep Sellers motivated.

In August, Sellers survived the city’s most recent layoffs. But barely.

A human resources manager came to speak to her about the pending cuts, and Sellers, fearing she would be on the list, said she quoted Bible verses:

Galatians 6:7, which tells people they will “reap what they sow.”

Romans 12:19, which says: “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”

Sellers did not want to lose her job. So she offered a solution, suggesting the city reduce her to part time.

Now she works 32 hours per week and still has benefits.

Still, the layoffs were painful, Sellers said, knowing that good people who were supporting their families were forced out the door.

“It really hurts my heart when I think about it,” she said.

Sellers has long been known as a strong advocate for herself.

In 2015, Sellers famously shamed then-Mayor Michael Hancock when the city failed to buy a 60-year service lapel pin and instead gave her a 15-year pin as a placeholder.

Hancock personally awarded her a 60-year pin in a ceremony 17 months later.

This year, city officials had learned their lesson and a 70-year pin was ready in time for Sellers’ party. The Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure made her a commemorative street sign, and she soon will receive a framed American flag that flew over the Colorado Capitol.

At the party, Sellers gave a speech. She closed with a mic drop.

“I said, ‘In closing’ — and I had a mic — ‘I do not plan to retire!’ ” she said. “Everyone bust up clapping and laughing.”

Matching Peña’s praise, fellow former Mayor Michael Hancock hailed Bennet����ap chief rival for the job, Attorney General Phil Weiser, as “a tremendous attorney general” and “one of the smartest people I know.”

The compliments, however, highlight what many Democrats see as a good problem to have as the primary race comes into focus: Peña, despite his high praise for Bennet, wants Weiser to win the job. Vice versa for Hancock, who’s really rooting for Bennet.

The two high-wattage candidates have effectively cleared the field of other potential high-profile Democratic candidates in the race to succeed Gov. Jared Polis, who is term-limited from running for a third time. The narrow Democratic field stands in stark contrast to the wide-open Republican contest, where 25 candidates — none of whom had raised more than $200,000 as of this fall — hope to win the Colorado governor’s office for the GOP for the first time in 24 years.

Bennet and Weiser are well-liked in party circles, and each comes with a well-established resume. They’ve likely crowded out any other serious challengers, leaving most Democratic and unaffiliated primary voters with a binary choice between two men who are both Denverites — a potentially simpler exercise than the four-way race in 2018, but it could be complicated by each’s long record for voters to compare.

Weiser, elected as the state’s top attorney in 2018 and now term-limited, has had much of his tenure dominated by legal fights with the Trump administration. He has sued the new administration this year alone. His office has claimed wins in 25 of those cases, losses in seven, and is awaiting rulings in the others.��

Bennet became a U.S. senator in 2009 and is Colorado’s longest-serving senator in 50 years. His record includes winning a key provision in the 2021 American Rescue Plan to expand the federal child tax credit — a move heralded by the Brookings Institution as leading to a “” across the country before the provision expired after about six months.

They’ve each shown fundraising prowess, raising multimillion-dollar war chests in the opening months of the governor’s race.��

All of those factors set the stage for a primary fight with more defined battle lines than the free-for-alls of the past. If no other major candidate enters, voters who cast ballots in the June primary will be asked to weigh senatorial deftness against the value of legal pugnacity in the Trump 2.0 era, Weiser’s comparatively new blood versus Bennet as the old guard — and competing visions that nonetheless broadly align along Democratic priorities.��

“They’re both incredibly smart, thoughtful people whose careers have risen during this weird period of American politics where (President Donald Trump) has become such a dominant figure and such a polarizing figure,” said University of Colorado Denver public affairs professor Paul Teske, who’s donated to each of their campaigns. “… It can lead people to nitpick more than they might otherwise. If you prefer Phil to Michael, you might have to come up with a reason why you prefer him more.”

How this shaped up as a two-man race

Weiser, 57, launched his campaign on Jan. 2 — just before Trump was sworn in for a second term, and before any other prominent Democrats tossed their hats in the ring. Affordability, housing shortages, climate change and the youth mental health crisis dominated his out-of-the-gate message.

With Colorado trending distinctly blue over the past decade, anti-Trump sentiments roiling the liberal base and no incumbent governor seeking reelection this time, it seemed like he’d be the first candidate of many for 2026.

Weiser rode the early entrance to a hefty cash haul and a slate of early endorsements while other possible contenders pondered their moves. The rumored candidates included prominent Democrats U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, former U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, and Secretary of State Jena Griswold.

But no other high-profile Democrat entered the race — until Bennet, a third of the way into his latest term as a senator, decided he wanted to come home. He publicly announced his campaign in April.

Bennet’s decision is an exceedingly rare one. U.S. senators hold one of the most influential political posts in the country. Over the past 40 years, only 19 sitting or former senators have run for governor anywhere, . Four of those were Democrats. That’s out of some 500 governors’ races over that time frame.

Bennet, 60, said at his announcement event that he saw an opportunity in Colorado to “forge a better politics” than what����ap practiced in Washington, D.C. He pledged to build an economic and educational foundation to “drive a stake through Trumpism.”

“We have people all over Colorado that are working in their communities, and at the county level, who are desperate to have a partner in the statehouse, who believe that what we have to do in this state is unify the citizens of Colorado,” Bennet said, listing off priorities like cutting the costs of housing and child care and raising education levels. “… This is not a moment for rhetoric, it’s a moment for results.”

With so many other Democrats seemingly waiting in the wings, Bennet’s entrance into the race threw the political world for a loop.

“I was surprised, just because it seemed like it was outside the realm of what he was thinking about,” said U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen, a Lakewood Democrat who’s endorsed Bennet. But like other backers, she quickly understood the move after a conversation with him.

“When you talk to him, it becomes clear that he felt like this was where he could make the biggest impact, and that’s what we all strive for in public service,” Pettersen added. “… While I was surprised, I understand that his breadth of experience — from superintendent (of Denver Public Schools) to the Senate — and (with) the opportunities he has in Colorado, I understand why he wants to do this.”

Bennet quickly lined up more than 175 endorsements from across the state, including from nearly all of Colorado’s Democratic members of Congress. (Only U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, who represents Denver, remains uncommitted.) The rollout was a show of force for the campaign, drawing on Bennet’s long history of winning statewide campaigns and his reputation among Democratic leaders.

But it wasn’t a knockout blow. Weiser’s still very much in the race.

Politicos have long joked that AG stands as much for “” as attorney general. For Weiser, himself restricted from running for the same post again and seeing fellow Democrats sitting in U.S. House or Senate seats that he might otherwise consider, the governor’s office was an obvious next move.

At a fall event with Peña and former Gov. Roy Romer that was billed as a fireside chat with “the state’s most transformative leaders,” Weiser said Colorado was at an inflection point. It must both protect its values from “the craziness in Washington,” he said, and forge its own path forward. Reflecting on Romer’s and Peña’s tenures, in which the former leaders fought to build the economic hub that is Denver International Airport, Weiser said he stood ready to take on big challenges.

“There is lower trust in our institutions right now (and) less ability to create solutions to get things done,” Weiser said. “… We have to find a way to meet this moment, create a similar can-do spirit — where we’re going to try a bunch of different things. Not all of it is going to work, but we’re going to try something.”

Weiser’s record as the state’s top attorney quickly swayed Romer, who led Colorado from 1987 to 1999, to believe in his higher aspirations. Speaking at the campaign event last month, Romer highlighted the need “to enable people to believe in government itself,” and particularly in the leadership of those in office.

“Bennet’s a personal friend. I like him. I respect him. I support him very much,” Romer said in an interview. “He’s my U.S. senator. I didn’t know he was (getting into) this race, but I like Phil anyway.

“Phil, I’ve watched for years. He’s a good man, and I just think he’ll make a great governor. Bennet, he’s my senator — and I hope he stays my senator.”

That sentiment — Bennet for Senate, and Weiser for governor — has been catchy enough among the attorney general’s supporters to make it in recent months.

The two men aren’t the only ones running for the nomination. Fellow Democrats Antonio Martinez, Carmen Broesder, Fatima Fernandez, David Hughes and William Moses have also declared for the race, though none have raised any substantial money as of the most recent campaign finance filings or stood out in other ways.

‘Ready to weigh’ state’s toughest problems

Bennet joined the Senate in 2009, appointed by then-Gov. Bill Ritter to replace Ken Salazar, whom then-President Barack Obama had just appointed U.S. Interior secretary. At the time, Bennet, after years of working mostly behind the scenes, was virtually unknown throughout most of the state.

Ritter had plucked Bennet from the role of DPS superintendent, where he had served since 2005. As the head of the school district, Bennet declining enrollment and a stark achievement gap between students of color and white students, and he made the decision to close a storied northeast Denver high school that had struggled in the decade prior.

Before that, Bennet, a Yale-educated lawyer, had served as then-Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper’s chief of staff. Before he entered Colorado’s political sphere, Bennet worked for billionaire Phil Anschutz, buying up and restructuring distressed businesses, including oil companies and movie theater companies, earning millions of dollars in the process.

He won a close election to a full term in the Senate in 2010, earning 48% of the vote, less than 2 percentage points over his Republican challenger. Colorado was still distinctly purple then, and his election stood out during a national red wave year.

But as Colorado turned azure in the decade to follow, Bennet����ap margins have only increased. He won by nearly 6 percentage points over the Republican challenger in 2016, and was 800 votes shy of an outright majority in a race that also had Green and Libertarian party candidates. In 2022, Bennet won nearly 56% of the vote, routing his Republican rival by nearly 15 percentage points.

He has repeatedly pointed to education and support for children of all economic stripes as key motivations for his public service. That streak continues with his gubernatorial bid.

Three of his four major policy proposals so far have circled education and child care, with ideas to tie education to job opportunities, to lower child care costs and give special benefits to child care workers, and to create new rules around online safety for children, such as social media regulations and banning cell phones in classrooms.

The fourth proposal, on housing affordability, looks to help families dig roots in the Centennial State and help their kids find their own Colorado dream. That includes expanding state-supported housing by 30% over the next decade.

“Whether you think you’re the most conservative person in Colorado, or the most liberal or progressive person in Colorado, if our kids can’t afford to live here, it doesn’t matter,” Bennet said in an interview after unveiling his child care proposal. “… We have to unify Colorado — build a coalition across our state to do hard things — and I think I’ve got the experience and the leadership skills to be able to help us.”

Former Colorado House Majority Leader Daneya Esgar said that breadth of experience — and focus on children — helped bring her into his camp early in the race.��

“When I look at Michael’s career, he has a history of governing. He’s been a senator, he’s had to really think about policy issues, he’s had to make important decisions when it comes to votes. And I think that����ap something we really need somebody (who’s) in the governor’s office ready to weigh,” Esgar said. “Specifically, I think what I’ve always appreciated about Michael is the work he’s really done and the vision he has for Colorado’s kids, throughout his entire career.”

But Bennet’s senatorial experience may also be an avenue of attack.

The question of why he’s leaving one of the most powerful political positions in the country to run for office closer to home is all but sure to follow him on the campaign trail, no matter how many times he says why. He will also have to contend with blowback for controversial votes to approve some of Trump’s cabinet nominees.

He raised eyebrows with his pronouncement that he’d time his resignation so he could appoint his own successor to the U.S. Capitol, should he win the governorship.

Former U.S. Sen. Tim Wirth, a Democrat who represented Colorado from 1987 to 1993, said he told Bennet he wished he’d stay in the Senate, where he was elected to serve, and that he was “surprised and disappointed” he would end his term early. He sees Coloradans as having an appetite for an aggressive posture against the Trump administration, and the Senate provides a unique opportunity to wage that war.

“If I were in the Senate, I’d be as visible as possible fighting Trump,” said Wirth, a Weiser supporter. “I’ve told both Michael and (now-Sen.) John Hickenlooper that I wish they were both a lot more aggressive than they’ve been. They’ve got effectively safe seats, and they ought to be outspoken.”

Willingness to ‘really fight for important values’

While Bennet wants to move to an office 1,700 miles closer to home (and one with much better mountain views), Weiser hopes to hop just a block away from the Colorado Attorney General’s Office downtown.

He has spent much of his career bouncing between Colorado and Washington, D.C. After graduating from New York University’s law school in 1994, Weiser worked as a clerk for 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge David Ebel in Denver. He headed back east to clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg later in the decade, and he returned to Colorado in 1999 to join the faculty at the University of Colorado Law School.

He moved east again to work in the Obama administration, and he returned for a final time to serve as dean of the CU law school.��

Weiser turned to elected office in 2018 — and, as with this election cycle, he faced a tough Democratic primary. He edged out state Rep. Joe Salazar by fewer than 5,000 votes to win the nomination. His two general election wins, in 2018 and 2022, were less dramatic affairs amid Colorado’s overall political shift leftward. He won in 2018 by more than 6 percentage points and in 2022 by more than 10.

As a gubernatorial candidate, Weiser has set goals of halving the state’s housing shortage and banning algorithmic rent setting by large corporations — a measure vetoed by Polis in May. He also wants to “Trump-Proof” Colorado and launch a “ColoradoCorps” service program for 18- to 26-year-olds looking at careers in firefighting, law enforcement, education and more.

Former U.S. Rep. David Skaggs, who represented a Colorado district from 1987 to 1999, crossed paths with Weiser at the CU law school after he left Congress. He was “struck from the get-go about how razor sharp his mind is, what a good lawyer he is and what an agreeable fellow he is,” Skaggs said.

But now, he points to Weiser’s willingness to “take on the Trump administration, both Trump 1 and Trump 2, and really fight for important values and legal principles.”

Weiser has been in the thick of state government for seven years now, and there’s no better preparation for managing it as governor than spending the better part of a decade lawyering for it, Skaggs said.

Hancock, the former Denver mayor backing Bennet, complimented Weiser’s legal experience but also contrasted it with Bennet’s broader base of experience. Bennet’s time in city hall, for example, gave him a deeper understanding of issues like local control and how to bring local governments along — without wielding a stick, like recent zoning battles with the state have entailed.

“Mike will have a better understanding of those issues,” Hancock said. “He knows the responsibility of local governments, particularly city councils, and how to negotiate and work those things through. I think he’ll be a little more collaborative in that sense because of that knowledge.”

While Weiser’s tenure as attorney general has turned on legal fights with both Trump administrations, he’s also overseen the distribution of tens of millions of dollars from settlements during the opioid crisis. He challenged the merger of the Kroger and Albertsons grocery chains — the parent companies, respectively, of King Soopers and Safeway — which was called off after judges blocked it. He’s backed consumer protection litigation, and his office has been front and center in negotiations over the Colorado River, the lifeblood of the state and the broader West.

But those high-profile legal fights haven’t necessarily translated into name recognition.

A June poll found Bennet with a decisive lead over Weiser — but almost half of likely voters then said they weren’t familiar with Weiser.��Comparatively, 13% of likely primary voters were unfamiliar with Bennet.

Weiser’s campaign hopes that means he’ll have a fighter’s chance over the next seven months as people start paying more attention to the race.

He made an early splash by backing a proposed amendment to the Colorado Constitution that, if approved by voters, would allow the state to gerrymander its congressional districts for partisan advantage, should other states do the same — and as Texas, California and others are doing now. The vote to amend the state constitution to pause its nonpartisan congressional maps wouldn’t be until November 2026, though, making 2028 the earliest election those maps could take effect.

Weiser defended the position by saying he hates gerrymandering but “love(s) our democracy more.” Bennet, for his part, said he wouldn’t take the issue off the table, but the 2026 House elections themselves should be a bigger priority than the amendment.

Weiser plans to win a spot on the primary ballot through the state assembly, which means winning over grassroots Democratic activists.

“If you look at the numbers, we have more current and former elected officials who’ve endorsed me, we’ve got more Colorado donors, and we continue to build that momentum — literally visit by visit, community by community,” Weiser said in early October, after the event with Peña and Romer.��

Regarding endorsements, Bennet counters: “I don’t think my opponent has really added many people since I got in the race, and I think that’s exciting.”

Not all support — or opposition — is set in stone

As the race shapes up, some organizations haven’t landed on either candidate — yet. Some see the narrow field as an opportunity for the candidates to distinguish themselves and for the groups to see how closely Bennet and Weiser align with their own political goals.

Indivisible Colorado, a network of progressive political activists that formed following Trump’s first election in 2016, hasn’t typically endorsed in primary races. But, with Colorado’s regularly blue tint in general elections and a national push for a more aggressive Democratic Party, that could change, said Robin Cellars, a member of Indivisible Colorado’s leadership team.

In particular, the organization wants a governor who will fight back against “this authoritarian takeover” by the Trump administration, push for a tax system that has the rich paying more, and defend against overreach by federal immigration enforcement. The latter might include a ban on law enforcement wearing masks and attempting to prohibit the construction of immigration detention facilities in Colorado.

Organizers don’t want sympathetic social media posts, Cellars said. They want aggressive action from a blue state. She didn’t weigh in on the race between Weiser and Bennet, but Indivisible members will be watching to decide whether the group will endorse.

“We are definitely wanting to reform the Democratic Party by getting quality candidates. And the place to do that is the primaries,” Cellars said. “… In the primaries, that’s where we can really make a difference.”

The Colorado Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, is working with the campaigns to coordinate events where its members can hear directly from the candidates, CEA President Kevin Vick said. He hopes the union membership will be able to vote on its endorsements by mid-spring.

“I want to give (the candidates) opportunities to speak for themselves,” Vick said. “I know they both have long records in education. I want them to not only be able to relay their records, but if there’s any evolution or learning that they’ve done on their journey — particularly as it relates to education and how we should be treating educators — I think that would be of interest to educators across the state.”

As the race wears on over the next seven months, the victor stands to emerge covered in blue bruises — or, perhaps, campaign-tested and ready to unite the party heading into the general election.

Pettersen, the Lakewood congresswoman who endorsed Bennet, knows it as keenly as any observer of the race. Her husband, political consultant Ian Silverii, is working on Weiser’s campaign.��

“We’re lucky in Colorado to have two amazing public servants running,” Pettersen said. But she also can’t wait for the primary to end.

Then — assuming voters deliver Democrats the governor’s office, as she hopes — the work begins of steering the state through seemingly constant financial pain and the impact of a federal government hostile to Democratic policies.

“Just mitigating the fallout from the failed federal policies, and then trying to come through that while rebuilding the Colorado we want to see — governing through this is going to be one of the most heart-wrenching and difficult things I can imagine,” Pettersen said, citing Medicaid cuts, concerns that rural hospitals could close and changes to food assistance programs. “It’s going to be a gut-wrenching reality to navigate.”

“In my mind, they already had a preconceived document they wanted you to sign if you were willing to do it and willing to be considered,” Shotts, CEO of the Colorado Soccer Association, told me recently. “There was a time where I thought there was more that we could’ve done. But when FIFA gives you that paper, it blows everything out the door.”

The U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team was in town to take on Australia in a friendly Tuesday night at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park — a match the Americans won 2-1. Sadly, that will likely be the last time Denverites see the Stars & Stripes up close for a while.

The 2026 World Cup is coming to 11 U.S. cities next summer. But Denver, which bid for the event, won’t be one of them.

When Empower Field hosted the CONCACAF Nations League final between the United States and Mexico in 2021, the building stomped and shook like a Saturday at College Station, Texas, or Madison, Wis. Concacaf officials repeatedly praised the atmosphere and the venue. Where did it all go wrong?

“I think at the end of the day, it just became a financial situation,” , one of the big swingers on the Denver World Cup bid committee, told me by phone Tuesday. “We were between owners on the Broncos, and obviously, Empower Field was a huge part of the bid. So, not having clarity on where we were and where we weren’t just made the economic hurdle a little bit too much. It was just, unfortunately, timing.”

If it takes a community to host a World Cup, it takes a village, in retrospect, to lose one. The Broncos were at the listless, rudderless end of The Bowlen Trust Years. The Kroenkes, who own the Rapids, were stretched between hosting bids in Colorado and Los Angeles. Denver was the right town at the wrong time.

I reached out to four individuals who were part of that Denver 2026 bid committee. Three got back. The one thing they all independently circled back on, to a man, was money.

Long story short, FIFA kept demanding more and more of it. World soccer’s largest organizing body wanted the city and county to agree in writing, up front, that they would take on whatever future additional costs piled up.

“FIFA’s demands became very outside the lines,” Shotts said. “Essentially, they wanted you to sign an open document that says you’ll do it, but at whatever cost.

“And our folks were smart enough to realize to go and say, ‘Here is what our offer is. Here is what we can put into it. Accept it or don’t accept it.’ And as you know, they didn’t accept it. Because they wanted more.”

Reports said Denver’s bid was budgeted at $45 million and privately funded. Cohen said the committee went to the state to see if they “could try and fill the gap … and it was something they decided they were uncomfortable with at that time.”

‘I think we did a good job’

In July 2019, Gov. Jared Polis and Denver Mayor Michael Hancock stood in front of Empower Field and announced their charge to land the World Cup.

Three years later, that dream was denied.

Confetti cannons stood ready at a watch party for the World Cup announcement in LoDo in June 2022. They were never fired.

FIFA announced 11 host cities in the United States for 2026. Denver didn’t make the cut. Kansas City did. As did Dallas, Houston and Los Angeles.

Let’s cut to the chase, here. Why is Kansas City getting the World Cup next summer, and we’re not?

“The Hunt family stepped up big-time,” Bob Contiguglia, former president of U.S. Soccer and the Denver’s bid committee co-chairman, told The Post.

Clark Hunt, CEO of the Chiefs, is part of a family whose soccer ties run almost as deep as their football ones. The Lamar Hunt Cup, this country’s equivalent of the FA Cup, is named in his father’s honor.

“Kansas City, which was our main competitor, had (their) ownership in place with the Chiefs, who could step up,” Cohen said. “I think it was more leadership than it (was) our dollars, per se.

“… You need somebody up front who obviously has an economic interest in the game leading the (charge) and getting other people to come to the table. It’s a community lift, at the end of the day. But without that leadership piece in place, and clarity as to what the commitment (was), it just made it a bit rough.”

Which is a shame, as Denver had veteran hands on-side. Contiguglia was one of the pillars behind the women’s World Cups in 1999 and 2003 — two major drivers of the sport’s popularity in the U.S. He’s called the Front Range home since 1972. When I asked if he had any regrets about the 2026 bid, in hindsight, he stood firm.

“Not at all,” Contiguglia said. “And with all the news that’s coming out — there are a lot of stories about the host cities struggling to raise money. And so maybe it was the right thing that we did not get it.”

Remember that agreement about open-ended costs? Kansas City’s Wyandotte County, where Sporting KC plays, is now . Houston and Dallas have had to go back and ask for millions from state funds. Add-on expenses for infrastructure, entertainment and logistics are tacking on up to an additional $150 million for each host city, the report stated.

Contiguglia said the Broncos, even with interim ownership, were amenable to making Empower Field more World Cup-friendly. But their ownership transition didn’t ease any doubts about who would foot the bill for any potential makeovers. The Walton-Penner Family Ownership Group finalized its purchase of the team from the Bowlen Family Trust in August 2022 — not long after the 2026 World Cup cities were announced.

“I think,” Contiguglia said, “we did a good job.”

‘It was mostly a timing thing’

Fortunately, Denver gets a second chance to make a first impression. The United States and Mexico are sharing the Women’s World Cup in 2031, and Cohen, Shotts and Contiguglia also expect Denver to bid for one of the hosting slots.

Summit FC will be up and running by then, giving FIFA another example of what a fantastic soccer town Denver really is. Summit’s Santa Fe Yards home is slated to open in 2028. The Broncos’ new stadium at Burnham Yard is targeted to open by 2031.

“The men’s teams in town have been incredibly supportive of the Denver Summit,” Cohen said. “And we’ve got great working relationships across the board. I think that bodes well for the future.”

Next summer, though?

Next summer’s going to be hard.

“Sometimes, you get an offer from somebody to go do something, but it doesn’t align with your calendar,” Cohen said. “Even though it’s something you really want to do, but you can’t make it work. I think that’s the best analogy I can come up with on this. It was mostly a timing thing with us …

“We had a proverbial gun to our head to make our decision and didn’t have the financial support in place in order to (secure) a bid.”

The opponents of the ban, a coalition of Denver vape store owners organized as a group called “Citizen Power!,” raised $410,000 through the end of August, according to campaign finance reports filed this month. The campaign group supporting the ban, “Denver Kids vs. Big Tobacco,” raised about $245,000.

In December, the Denver City Council near-unanimously approved a ban on sales of most flavored tobacco and nicotine products after public health and children’s advocates argued the products could lure young people into a life of addiction.

The council approved the ban, which applies to any sales within city limits, despite heavy lobbying from tobacco companies and vape stores. Mayor Mike Johnston signed it.

“I have seen firsthand how tobacco products, especially when introduced at a young age, can shape a lifetime of struggle,” Councilwoman Flor Alvidrez said at the time.

Only Councilman Kevin Flynn voted no, saying he didn’t believe the ban would prevent young people from obtaining the products since they are legal in neighboring cities and counties.

In March, “Citizen Power!” submitted 17,000 signatures in hopes of putting a question on the ballot to overturn the ban. The city verified that at least 9,494 of the signatures were valid, passing the threshold for a citizen’s ballot initiative — and qualifying Referendum 310 for the ballot.

Contributors to “Citizen Power!” include various tobacco interests and vape store advocates, including $172,700 from the Rocky Mountain Smoke Free Alliance, a vaping industry trade association; $75,000 each from the tobacco company Philip Morris International and Altria Client Services, which is part of another tobacco company; and $12,500 from Swisher International.

“Citizen Power!” that the ban will hurt small family- and minority-owned businesses in Denver. In recent weeks, its advertisements have also focused on the potential decrease in tax revenue for the city, which is struggling with a budget crisis.

The group’s president, Philip Guerin, the owner of Myxed Up Creations on East Colfax Avenue, said it has been misrepresented by supporters of the ban.

“I’m not Big Tobacco,” he said. “We’re advocating for vape products, not cigarettes.”

Guerin said that instead of creating a new prohibition for adults, the city should better enforce its earlier ban on sales of the products to children.

“Denver Kids vs. Big Tobacco” has received contributions from anti-smoking groups like the Tobacco-Free Kids Action Fund, which has donated about $115,000, and from Kaiser Permanente, the health care giant, which has given $50,000. Businessman and former Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg has contributed $73,500.

Jodi Radke with the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, which is affiliated with the fund, said flavored vape products are intended to create lifelong tobacco users.

“When the tobacco industry makes flavored products that taste like candy or uses gimmicks like video games to draw kids in, they know exactly what they’re doing,” she said in an emailed statement.

The Denver ban went into effect in March of this year, but city officials don’t plan to enforce it until January. That won’t happen if voters overturn the ban in the Nov. 4 election.

Referendum 310 asks voters if they want to retain or overturn the ban. The setup is different from most ballot questions, since a “yes” vote would support retaining the prohibition, with no change, while a “no” vote would repeal it.

The election will be the latest — and perhaps most definitive — episode in the city’s history with flavored tobacco. In 2021, another iteration of the council approved a flavored tobacco ban. Then-Mayor Michael Hancock vetoed that measure.

Mail ballots will be sent out to Denver voters starting Oct. 10, and there will be additional campaign finance reporting deadlines before Election Day.

The announcement gave firm details of the scale of the cuts to employees for the first time — and about three months after Johnston told the city they would be necessary. The layoffs represent less than 2% of the city workforce covered by the general fund. City leaders also eliminated another 665 vacant positions.

“Hopefully we can get through this,” council President Amanda Sandoval said of the impact playing out inside city buildings during the council’s meeting Monday afternoon. “But it will be a time of adjustment.”

The layoff notices, which were expected to be delivered through Tuesday, come as the city attempts to fill a $200 million budget shortfall next year that’s caused by shrinking sales tax revenue and increasing costs. The city’s reserve fund is also running critically low.

The employee cuts and other reductions or shifts of positions out of the general fund are expected to generate about $100 million in savings, according to the mayor’s office.

RELATED: Were you laid off by the city of Denver? Tell us about your experience.

About 11,000 jobs have been supported by the general fund, the mayor’s office said. A news release didn’t distinguish how many full-time versus part-time workers the city was laying off. Another 92 positions will be moved to other funding sources to reduce costs.

The mayor’s office enacted a hiring freeze earlier this year, which on top of past belt-tightening had caused many of the vacant positions.

The scale of the layoffs was lower than many had anticipated before Monday. In an information vacuum after the layoffs were announced, some observers and employees had speculated that hundreds of jobs — or even more — could be at risk. The high number of vacant positions was one factor that reduced the impact on current employees, the mayor’s office said.

The layoffs were the first major job cuts to play out in Denver city government since 2011.

Scott Gilmore, a longtime manager in the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation, was among the people laid off Monday.

“I got a call that basically said, ‘Thanks, but we don’t need you anymore,’ ” he said in an interview. “I committed my life to this city.”

Gilmore, who is married to Denver Councilwoman Stacie Gilmore, was a deputy executive director in the parks department for 13 years, starting before Stacie Gilmore was first elected in 2015. Last year, he became the deputy executive director of mountains parks and special projects, a position he said isn’t paid for out of the city’s general fund — which is where the layoffs were targeted.

Jordan Fuja, a spokeswoman for the mayor’s office, said the shifting of some expenses to special revenue funds impacted some non-general fund positions.

Gilmore, 61, had hoped to retire in his position.

“I take my daughter back to college in two weeks,” he said. “I don’t have a job. How do I pay for my daughter’s college?”

A document provided by Gilmore to The Denver Post showed that he was among eight Parks and Recreation employees set to be laid off.

Nearly four years ago, during then-Mayor Michael Hancock’s final term in office, the positions of Gilmore and the department’s other deputy director — which insulated them from a change in the mayor’s office. But that didn’t protect them from being affected by broad-scale layoffs.

Stacie Gilmore commented on her husband’s layoff during Monday’s council meeting, at times getting emotional as she shared why she thinks he lost the position. She’s been critical of Johnston and some of his initiatives.

“Because of his sassy, loudmouth wife, he got let go,” she said.

Other council members also spoke out about the layoffs, expressing frustration that the mayor’s office made the staffing decisions before the upcoming budget process could play out. Johnston’s proposed 2026 budget is due in mid-September, and the council will then conduct budget hearings and vote on a final budget by November.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t do more,” said Councilwoman Flor Alvidrez. “I’m sorry that City Council didn’t get to vote on this and that we didn’t get our voices heard.”

Officials plan to release a detailed, department-by-department breakdown of the layoffs later this week after all affected employees have been notified, according to the mayor’s office release.

In reality, the city’s trouble has been bubbling for years. Johnston, who took office in mid-2023, has been bracing for big budget changes since at least 2024.

As early as last September, he was advising a conservative approach for the 2025 budget in remarks to the City Council — and warning that “we have to look at more significantly slowing or stopping the growth of government.”

The can be explained with three quick facts: For years, the city’s expenses have grown. Its main source of revenue hasn’t. And the city’s savings account is running low.

In Denver’s 2024 and 2025 budgets, the Johnston administration chose to cut into the city’s savings more than what����ap recommended. Over the last decade, under Johnston and former Mayor Michael Hancock, the city added about 4,000 employees and expanded both programs and the purview of city government. And as those expenses grew, residents stopped spending as much as they once did on things like restaurants and visits downtown, causing sales tax revenue to flatten.

Now the city has $50 million to make up for this year and an estimated $200 million gap in 2026. The mayor is set to require furloughs and layoffs, and officials are considering whether they will need to cut or reduce programs.

More decisions about exactly how many layoffs to order and other cost-saving measures are expected in the coming months, as officials write the 2026 budget. The mayor typically unveils his proposed budget for the next year in mid-September, and the council approves the final version in November.

For Councilman Kevin Flynn, the budget situation and the low city reserves are “kind of frightening.”

“If we could retrospectively reduce spending money that we’ve already spent and claw it back, that would be great,” said Flynn, who has been on the council since 2015. “But we can’t do that.”

Rising costs have mounted

One of the biggest impacts on Denver’s budget has come from the growth in both personnel and contract costs. The general fund, which pays mostly for personnel and day-to-day operations, shot up 83% between 2012 and 2022, Johnston said in a recent interview with The Denver Post.

In November, the council approved a $4.4 billion overall budget for 2025, with $1.76 billion in general fund spending.

As Denver has hired more people to accommodate demand for services by the growing city population, those employees’ compensation has also increased. There are now nearly 15,000 city employees, representing about $1.2 billion in costs in 2025.

Meanwhile, city contracting costs have also become broader in scope and more expensive with inflation, growing about 70% since 2012.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the city received hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government through the American Rescue Plan Act. Officials used some of it on new projects, like opening shelters for Johnston’s All in Mile High initiative and, earlier, a rent-assistance program.

Once those grant dollars dried up, Johnston’s administration decided to continue the projects.

The mayor has also used general fund dollars to pay for things like migrant and homeless services. Between 2022 and 2024, migrant sheltering and services cost the city about $95 million, putting pressure on the budget. Denver expected to receive about $32 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to offset that cost and is now in a legal battle with the Trump administration over the money.

The ongoing homelessness initiative, which Johnston singles out as one of his top priorities, costs about $57 million annually, including to run shelters in large hotels.��Johnston said that while he expects cuts to that program, it����ap likely to be less impacted than other budget items. Reducing homelessness is an investment in the city’s economy, he said.

“Homelessness was the reason I ran for mayor,” Johnston said. “It was the single most important issue in the city and we’re making dramatic impact on actually resolving this issue.”

Johnston’s critics have challenged the idea that the budget crisis was unavoidable. Lisa Calderón, who ran for mayor in 2023 and came in third, said she believes Johnston’s administration should have been more conservative with the budget.

“There is not a culture where you can speak up and say, ‘I think we are misspending, overspending money,’ ” she said.

Johnston defends his team’s choices, saying his advisers did take action once revenues started slowing. But they couldn’t have predicted the worsening conditions, he said. In the 2025 budget, the city left about 200 positions vacant to help decrease payroll costs.

A closer look at the ‘rainy day fund’

Denver has a target of having 15% of what it spends each year on operations set aside as savings. In 2024, that was about $260 million.

Under Johnston and Hancock’s administrations, it became a common practice to use any dollars above that margin to balance the budget.

The city’s financial guidelines say that fund should be used only to pay for one-time expenses. But over the years, as the stockpile continued to grow, city leaders began using it for ongoing payments, said Stephanie Adams, who was a city budget director during Hancock’s administration and now serves as the deputy chief financial officer.

In the past two years, the city’s budget writers chose to let the rainy day fund slip below that recommended level. It now sits closer to 11%, with about $202 million remaining.

With revenue growth slowing in recent years, something has to change to keep it from falling even lower, Adams said.

“I think there was a little bit of us thinking, and hoping, this was a bit of an anomaly,” Adams said in a recent interview.

When explaining the decision to go below 15% to the council last September, Budget Director Justin Sykes said Denver would have had to cut its expenditures significantly to stay at that recommended level.

“This was something that was reached based on the weighing of those tradeoffs,” he said .

The hope was that sales tax revenue would rebound and the city would be able to refill its savings account. Instead, revenue further flattened. In 2022, sales tax revenue grew by 9%. In 2024, it was only 2%.

Denver’s income growth slows

Slightly more than half of the city’s expenses are paid for with revenue from Denver’s 5.15% sales tax rate, part of the effective 9.15% sales tax paid on purchases in the city.

The growth in that source of income has tapered off in recent years — something city officials attribute to decreases in consumer confidence. by the market research firm Ipsos shows that after a surge in consumer confidence following the COVID-19 pandemic, buyers’ sentiments have mostly sagged since 2021.

But nationwide spending habits aren’t the only factor. Denver’s struggling city center is also contributing to a sluggish income. Downtown, which represents only 1.8% of Denver’s land, once brought in 13% of the city’s property and sales tax revenues, according to the Downtown Denver Partnership.

Now, that share is closer to 8%.

The area has struggled to attract the same amount of foot traffic as office space has remained empty in the wake of the pandemic, while construction on the 16th Street mall has dragged on and perceptions of unsafe conditions have lingered. Johnston hopes the reopening of 16th Street — with a rebrand dropping “Mall” from its name — and investments in public safety will reinvigorate the area.

That����ap indicative of Johnston’s overall plan to move the city through the crisis.

After making cuts to city expenditures, the mayor wants to move full steam ahead on capital projects like the National Women’s Soccer League stadium, more expansion at the National Western Center and an $800 million bond proposal for voters. Denver pays for capital projects with another section of the budget separate from the general fund.

“For us, there are only two solutions to this. One is, you have to cut costs,” Johnston said in an interview last month, “and the second is, you have to increase revenue. You have to grow your way out of this.”

Johnston’s announcement came after current planning director Manish Kumar announced he would resign from the role this week.

Buchanan served as executive director of under former Mayor Michael Hancock. He was appointed in 2014 and left the post in 2018 to lead the National Western authority.

In a news release, Johnston said Buchanan already knows the department and its team “extremely well.”

“His deep expertise in Denver’s permitting and development processes gives me full confidence in his ability to guide CPD forward as we continue overhauling our permitting processes and delivering services to our community,” Johnston said, according to the release.

Buchanan will continue to act as the CEO of the National Western authority, which is overseeing a campus that’s undergoing a major expansion, while he leads the planning department.

Kumar stepped down from the role after only 13 months in the position, saying he had completed what he set out to do in the department.

City officials plan to conduct a search for his permanent replacement.