With the 2026 legislative session beginning, issues around competency and mental health, economic vitality, and protecting voter-allocated funding remain the most important concerns facing our cities.

Competency Reform and Mental Health

We support Polis in his strong commitment to make Colorado one of the safest states in the nation. At the same time, cities across Colorado continue to face challenges when people accused of crimes do not receive the sustained care and treatment they need.

Under current law, individuals who are clearly in need of treatment may be released back into the community without appropriate placement, supervision, or ongoing care. Changes enacted in 2024 under House Bill 1034 require courts to dismiss charges when a defendant is found incompetent and unlikely to be restored, while limiting prosecutors’ ability to seek additional evaluations. In practice, this can result in individuals who pose ongoing public-safety risks cycling back onto the streets.

Earlier this year, two innocent people were stabbed to death on 16th Street in Denver by an individual who had previously been deemed incompetent and released — one tragic example highlighting gaps in the current system.

We believe mental health care and rehabilitation are essential to addressing crime, but they must be paired with appropriate placement and accountability to protect public safety.

We support the governor’s efforts to reform competency laws to expand alternative placement options, provide judges and district attorneys’ greater flexibility, and to increase investment in the Colorado Department of Human Services to build a continuum of secure, therapeutic treatment options. These reforms are critical to ensuring individuals receive appropriate care while preventing future tragedies.

Address AI Legislation Complications

In 2024, the legislature passed Senate Bill 205, creating significant uncertainty for Colorado’s economy and local governments. During the 2025 special session, implementation was delayed to June 30, 2026, with support from business and community organizations and leaders across the state; however, a durable solution is still needed.

Without reform, the law risks slowing innovation and investment, driving jobs out of Colorado, and imposing millions of dollars in implementation costs at a time of serious budget constraints.

We support a collaborative legislative solution in the 2026 session that protects consumers while promoting innovation, clearly defines state and local responsibilities, reduces uncertainty for employers and investors, avoids unfunded mandates, establishes clear and reasonable liability standards, and aligns Colorado with emerging national trends.

Support Local Businesses with Reasonable Crime Reform

In a troubling trend, recently intensified by the Supreme Court¶¶Ňőap decisions in People v. Camp (Westminster) and People v. Simons, state law has increasingly constrained the ability of local law enforcement to meaningfully hold to account criminals who harm business owners and their ability to support themselves.

As municipalities face further restrictions on their authority to detain, hold, or sentence shoplifters and repeat offenders, the burden of these policies falls squarely on small and locally owned businesses.

We therefore urge state legislators to lower the felony shoplifting threshold to a reasonable dollar amount that reflects the real and cumulative harm of retail theft. Small businesses cannot continue to absorb losses under a weak statutory framework that allows individuals to steal repeatedly while facing few consequences.

Protect Voter-Allocated Funding

We look forward to collaborating with the governor and General Assembly to ensure our communities continue to receive voter-allocated funding for affordable housing programs and address public safety issues – specifically Proposition 123 and Proposition 130.

Proposition 123 dedicates state tax revenue surplus to permanently fund affordable housing initiatives, while Proposition 130 requires the state to provide $350 million in additional funding to local law enforcement agencies.

Cities must retain the ability to implement solutions that are responsive to individual community concerns with the allocations approved by the voters for their intended use.

We ask that legislature to refrain from redistributing funding that has been approved through the ballot for specific community purposes. It is only through continued cooperation between the community, local governments, and the state that we will sustain and build upon the progress already achieved in these areas.

Mike Johnston is the mayor of Denver. Yemi Mobolade is the mayor of Colorado Springs, and Mike Coffman is the mayor of Aurora.

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“Voters made it unmistakably clear that they want a more stable, more collaborative and more solutions-focused city government,” said Andrews, the head of a nonprofit and the in the Nov. 4 election. “They chose leaders who campaigned on affordability, safety and opportunity, instead of division and partisan theatrics.”

Andrews, 41, is one of four progressive members joining the council for the first time. Aurora Municipal Court Presiding Judge Shawn Day swore him in Monday alongside fellow newcomers Gianina Horton, Amy Wiles and Alli Jackson.

When the new council members took their seats on the dais and affirmed they were present for the meeting, the city clerk declared: “There’s a quorum.”

The room erupted with applause and cheers.

With two more progressives already on the 11-member council — Alison Coombs, whose term isn’t up until 2027, and Ruben Medina, who was reelected to his Ward III seat last month — the body now firmly leans left.

That’s after a half-decade or more of being in conservative hands. Aurora’s elected leadership is officially nonpartisan, but politics has never been far from council proceedings in recent years.

“This is a fresh start and a chance to show that we can disagree and still be respectful, that we can collaborate and meet in the middle for the betterment of the community as a whole,” Wiles, an Aurora resident for more than a quarter-century and the owner of a photography business, told The Denver Post ahead of the swearing-in ceremony.

Wiles, 50, bested one-term incumbent Steve Sundberg in Ward II by more than 10 percentage points.

“Voters were tired of being ignored,” she said. “They want leaders who listen and engage, not leaders who run from their constituents.”

Respect and collaboration have been sorely tested at the highest levels of Aurora government in recent years, with council meetings often disrupted by protesters upset over the police killing of an unarmed Black man last year — prompting council members to meet remotely for months on end and to place restrictions on public comment.

One frequent protester in June sued the city over changes the council had made to public input, alleging it was trying to “restrict one viewpoint: the viewpoint criticizing the (Aurora Police Department¶¶Ňőap) killing of (Kilyn) Lewis and Aurora’s inadequate response to it.”

Jackson, 30, has joined the protesters in the audience at council meetings since the May 2024 death of Lewis. Now she’s on the other side of the dais after landing second in the at-large race, which was won by the top two vote-getters. She said she hoped to follow “best practices for smoother city council meetings.”

“I am confident the new City Council can make adjustments and offer better solutions so the community will not feel the need to disrupt the meetings,” said Jackson, who works for Arapahoe Libraries and has lived in Aurora her entire life. “I am confident I can find common ground with all my new colleagues.”

Andrews, who founded and leads One Voice Coalition, a nonprofit that helps people find employment, said “public participation is not a disturbance” but rather “a cornerstone of democracy.”

“Our job is to honor that right, while ensuring the council remains a place where all voices can be heard and where the city’s work can get done,” he said. “I believe we can strike that balance with thoughtful leadership and real engagement.”

A hope for common ground by Mayor Mike Coffman as he took in the results, which he attributed in part to an off-year Trump effect that hurt conservatives. The former Republican congressman sits on the council and wasn’t up for election this year.

Later in Monday night’s meeting, the new council selected Coombs, one of the returning left-leaning members, as the mayor pro tem.

During council comment, Councilwoman Stephanie Hancock welcomed her new colleagues but warned them that any honeymoon period will likely be brief.

“Expect to get emails from people who hate everything you do,” she said to laughter.

Ahead of the meeting, Andrews cited economic opportunity, affordable housing and public safety as his top goals as he takes his seat on the council.

“A safer Aurora requires investing in proven strategies like youth programming, mental health response, violence prevention, and stronger relationships between residents and the city,” he said.

Wiles said she wanted to bring improvements to roads and other infrastructure, like recreation centers and libraries, to her ward. Ward II covers a wide swath of northeast Aurora. She also said retail development is “badly needed” in her part of the city, calling her ward a “food desert” dominated by gas stations, liquor stores and car washes.

“I had begun a strategic plan during my election to be able to attract retail, and now I will work with city staff to combine our work to get my ward the services they deserve,” Wiles said.

Restoring public comment to council meetings (it currently occurs during a separate time slot before meetings officially start) and emphasizing in-person proceedings whenever possible are other priorities for Wiles.

Horton, who easily beat two contenders in the Ward I race last month, did not respond to several questions The Post sent via email. Horton’s ward covers northwest Aurora.

From the other side of the political aisle, Councilwoman Francoise Bergan said she hoped for “civil discourse” among her new council colleagues and the chance to “work together.”

Bergan, who has been on the Aurora council for a decade, said her priorities in the new term that began Monday would include “pushing for strong public safety.”

“I’m also focused on supporting our local businesses,” she said, with plans this month to bring a resolution to the council that would help revitalize struggling retail zones in the city and fortify connections with commercial brokers and businesses.

“And housing has always been important to me — I want to make sure we’re providing quality options and more opportunities for homeownership for our residents,” she said.

In the meantime, Bergan said Wiles reached out to her for coffee ahead of Monday’s swearing-in ceremony.

“We’re working on a date,” she said.

The intent is to turn that feeling into a motivational force. For his part, Mayor Mike Coffman prefers to refer to the three-tiered residential system at the homeless navigation center as an “incentive-based program” — one that awards increasingly comfortable living quarters to those showing progress on their journey to self-sufficiency.

“The notion here is (that) different standards of living act as an incentive,” Coffman said in early November during a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the campus, which occupies a former Crowne Plaza Hotel at East 40th Avenue and Chambers Road. “The idea is to move up the tiers into much better living situations.”

Clients in the new facility, which opened its doors on Nov. 17, start at the bottom with a cot and a locker. They can eventually migrate to a hotel room, with a locking door and a private bathroom.

But that upgrade comes with a price.

“To get a room here, you have to be working full time,” Coffman said.

It’s an approach that the mayor says threads the needle between housing-first and work-first, the for addressing homelessness today. The housing-first approach emphasizes getting someone into a stable home before requiring employment, sobriety or treatment. A work-first setup conditions housing on a person finding work and seeking help with underlying mental health and addiction problems.

“We’re providing a continuum of services that starts with an emergency shelter,” said Jim Goebelbecker, the executive director of .

Advance Pathways, the nonprofit group that ran the Aurora Resource Day Center before its recent closure, was to operate the new navigation campus in Aurora — with $2 million in annual help from the city. Goebelbecker said the tiered approach at the new facility “taps into a person’s motivation for change.”

The Aurora Regional Navigation Campus’ debut nearly completes a mission that has been in the works for more than three years. It is the fourth — and penultimate — metro Denver homeless navigation center to go online since the Colorado General Assembly passed in 2022.

The bill allocated American Rescue Plan Act dollars to stand up one central homeless navigation center. The plan , with locations in Aurora, Lakewood, Boulder, Denver and Englewood. The Colorado Department of Local Affairs in late 2023 . The final center, the Jefferson County Regional Navigation Campus in Lakewood, is undergoing renovations and will open next year.

Aurora’s center, with 640 beds across its three tiered spaces, is by far the largest of the five facilities.

Cathy Alderman, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, said the opening of Aurora’s navigation campus is “a really big deal.” Aside from serving its own clientele, she expects the center to send referrals to the coalition’s newly opened near Watkins, where people without stable housing go to address their substance-use disorders.

According to the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative’s , Aurora had 626 residents without a home — but up sharply from .

“A person can go to one place and get multiple needs met,” Alderman said, referring to the array of job, medical and addiction treatment services that give homeless navigation centers their name. “We are excited that the new campus is now up and running.”

‘How do I move up?’

Walking into the Aurora Regional Navigation Campus feels like walking into, well, a hotel.

The swimming pool was removed during renovation, as was a water fountain in the lobby. Everything else stayed, including beds, bedding, furniture — even a stash of bottled cocktail delights. But not the alcohol to go with it.

“They left everything, down to the forks and knives and a wall of maraschino cherries,” said Jessica Prosser, Aurora’s director of housing and community services, as she walked through the hotel’s industrial kitchen.

The kitchen, which was part of the $26.5 million sale of the Crowne Plaza Hotel to Aurora last year, was a godsend to an operation tasked with serving three meals a day to hundreds of people. The city spent another $13.5 million to renovate the building.

“To build a new commercial kitchen is a half-million dollars, easy,” Prosser said.

The layout of the navigation center was deliberate, she said. The hotel’s convention center space is now occupied by Tier I and Tier II housing. 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.

On the other side of a nondescript wall is Tier II, which is composed of a grid of 114 compartmentalized, open-air cubicles with proper beds and lockable storage. The center assigns residents in this tier case managers to help them treat personal challenges and get on the path toward landing a job.

Tier III residents live in the 255 hotel rooms. They must have a full-time job and are required to pay a third of their income to the program. Residents in this tier will typically remain at Advance Pathways for up to two years before they have the skills and stability to find housing on the outside, Goebelbecker said.

People living in the congregate tiers can house their dogs in a pet room, which can accommodate 40 canines. (No cats, gerbils or fish). The center also doesn’t accept children. Around 60 staff members, plus 10 contracted security personnel, will work at the facility 24/7.

Shining a bright light on the path forward and upward inside the facility — the windows of some of the coveted private rooms are fully visible from the lobby — is an “intentional design feature,” Prosser said.

“How do I move up?” she mused, stepping into the shoes of a resident eyeing the facility’s layout. “How do I get in there?”

It’s a system that demands something of the people using it, Coffman said, while at the same time providing the guidance and help that clients will need.

“This is not just maintaining people where they are — this is about moving people forward,” the mayor said.

The approach is familiar to Shantell Anderson, Advance Pathways’ program director. She told her life story during the ribbon-cutting ceremony, bringing tears to the eyes of some in the audience.

A native of Denver’s Park Hill neighborhood, Anderson fell in with the wrong crowd. She became pregnant at 15 and got hooked on cocaine. She spiraled into a life on the streets that resulted in her children being sent to an aunt for caretaking.

But through treatment and by intersecting with the right people, she recovered. She earned a nursing degree and worked at RecoveryWorks, a nonprofit organization that operated a day shelter in Lakewood, before taking the job at Advance Pathways.

“This is a system that honors people’s dignity,” Anderson said, her voice heavy with emotion.

In an interview, she said assuming the burden to improve her situation was critical to her transformation.

“I actually did that — no one gave me anything,” said Anderson, 48. “If it was handed to me, I didn’t appreciate it.”

How much responsibility to place on the people being helped by such programs is still a matter of intense debate by policymakers and advocates for homeless people. The housing-first approach favored by Denver and many big cities across the country is anchored in the idea that work or treatment requirements will result in many people falling through the cracks and staying outside, particularly those who face mental-health challenges.

The Bridge House in Englewood, one of the five metro area navigation centers, follows a “Ready to Work” model that is similar to that of the upper tiers of the Aurora Regional Navigation Campus.

Opened in May, the Bridge House has 69 beds. CEO Melissa Arguello-Green said the organization asks its clients (called trainees) to put skin in the game by landing a job with Bridge House’s help and then contributing a third of their paycheck as rent.

“We help them find employment through our agency so they can leave our agency,” she said. “We’re looking for self-sufficiency that will get people off system support.”

Arguello-Green said she would like to see more coordination between the metro’s five navigation centers, though she acknowledged it’s still in the early going.

“We’re missing that come-to-the-table collaboration,” she said.

Homeless numbers still rising

Shannon Gray, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Local Affairs, said her department had started convening quarterly in-person meetings across the locations.

“While each navigation campus is unique and reflects community-specific strategies, they are all a part of a regional effort to bring external partners together onsite to provide needed services and referrals,” Gray said. Together, they are “building towards a larger regional system to connect homeless households to a larger network of opportunities.”

The centers are permitted to “tailor their approach to their unique needs and vision,” she said. While Englewood and Aurora use a tiered system, Gray said, the other three centers don’t.

“It is important to understand that DOLA serves as a funder for these regional navigation campuses — we do not oversee their operation or maintenance,” she said.

Denver’s navigation center, which opened in December 2023 in a former DoubleTree Hotel on Quebec Street, offers 289 rooms to those in need, said Julia Marvin, a spokeswoman for the city’s .

She called the facility an “integral component of Denver’s All in Mile High homelessness initiative,” Mayor Mike Johnston’s ambitious effort to appreciably reduce homelessness in the city. The center is just one of several former hotels and other shelter sites in the system.

Earlier this year, his administration cited annual count numbers showing a 45% decrease in the number of people sleeping on the streets since 2023 — dropping from 1,423 to 785 people, despite overall homelessness continuing to increase in that time.

In fact, homelessness numbers are still going in the wrong direction across the seven-county metro, per the latest Point-in-Time survey from the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative, which captures a one-night snapshot. The January count revealed that on the night of the survey, up from .

The one-night count in 2020, by contrast, came in at in metro Denver.

Anderson, the Advance Pathways program director, said the new Aurora facility was opening at just the right time. Despite a recent calming in runaway home values in metro Denver, the $650,000 median price of a detached home in October still demarcated a housing market that was out of reach for many.

“I am excited,” Anderson said of the Aurora navigation campus’ debut. “I’m waiting for people to walk through the door and start the next chapter of their journey.”

Here in Aurora, where I have led as the mayor for the last six years, the city and our nonprofit partner, Advance Pathways, have developed a unique approach to addressing this seemingly intractable problem. It hinges on incentivizing individuals who have experienced homelessness to take the steps needed to stabilize their lives and to join the workforce and reach the maximum level of self-sufficiency they are capable of.

I believe this strategy, focused on meeting people where they are and giving them tangible, concrete incentives to make progress on the goals that will improve their lives, could set a new model for compassionately, and effectively helping lift people out of homelessness.

On Nov. 17, the Aurora Regional Navigation Campus (ARNC), formerly the Crowne Plaza Hotel & Conference Center, located at Chambers Road and Interstate 70, will open to serve the needs of the area’s homeless population. The facility will have the capacity to serve up to 600 individuals with a clean and safe place to stay, services to address their challenges, job training and employment opportunities. Transitional housing will be available to participants with jobs who are on a path to self-sufficiency through employment.

The entire cost of purchasing and renovating the building was $40 million, with all the funding coming from the American Recovery Plan Act (ARPA), which appropriated federal dollars to state and local governments during the pandemic. Aurora received a contribution in ARPA dollars from Adams County, Arapahoe County, and Douglas County, which are the three counties that Aurora is in, from the State of Colorado, and, of course, contributed its own ARPA dollars.

The city of Aurora will contribute approximately $2 million a year to support the ongoing cost of maintaining the facility and Advance Pathways will raise the remaining $8 to $9 million of the annual operating budget. The Daniels Fund and the Anschutz Family Foundation have already stepped up to help meet Advance Pathways’s operating budget requirements.

The program is neither a “Housing First” model, where individuals experiencing homelessness are given private rooms with the understanding that once stabilized they will want to take advantage of the wraparound services provided for them, nor is it a “Work First” model, where individuals, who have experienced homelessness, are required to work in exchange for receiving assistance.

I like the “Work First” approach but that model is only effective for individuals who have already made the decision to change their behavior. Our challenge is we want to take everyone in need whether or not they have made a decision to change their behavior.

This incentive-based program will have three separate tiers to it. Tier 1 is a low-barrier shelter for newly arrived individuals, many just off the streets, who are provided with emergency services including  cots, and basic nutrition.

Tier 2 has better living conditions than Tier 1 as an incentive to participate in case-managed mental health care, addiction recovery, and job training. Participants in Tier 2 are offered semi-private accommodations, a bed instead of a cot, places to store their personal items, and better food choices.

Tier 3 is comprised of 255 private rooms set aside as transitional housing for individuals who are working full-time but are still in need of some services. Those in Tier 3 will be expected to pay a third of their income back to support the program.

Aurora and Advance Pathways are committed to accountability in the same way we ask our participants at the ARNC to be accountable. We will be tracking outcomes and reporting them in our push to reduce homelessness in Aurora by 50% by 2030.

This is not about competing with other communities when it comes to different approaches, this is about finding solutions that work and can be replicated.

Mike Coffman is the mayor of Aurora, who represented Colorado in the U.S. House of Representatives.

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“It was simply shock,” Gianina Horton, one of four new faces coming to the council on Dec. 1, told The Denver Post on Wednesday.

With progressive incumbent Alison Coombs not in contention Tuesday, the five victors, including another incumbent, will increase the council’s left-leaning representation to six on the 11-member body if the results hold. Some ballots remained outstanding Wednesday evening.

Mayor Mike Coffman, a Republican former member of Congress, said the power shift at the ballot box largely reflected what happened in 2017, the year after Donald Trump — now early in his second term — won his first presidential election.

“The nonpartisan local elections across much of the country went to progressives who were motivated to go to the polls to vent their frustrations,” he wrote in a text late Tuesday night. “We’ll have to see if that’s the case nationally, but if feels like it tonight.”

Democrats scored resounding victories across the country Tuesday, while closer to home, liberal-backed measures — more money for school meals and nearly $1 billion dollars for infrastructure investment in Denver — prevailed.

Since Coffman won the mayor’s race six years ago, liberal voices on the Aurora council have been in the muted minority. And things looked difficult for left-leaning hopefuls headed into Tuesday’s election, as they found themselves battling against a tidal wave of outside money supporting conservative candidates. (Officially, candidates run for council seats without party affiliations.)

But as of late Wednesday afternoon, results from the showed definitive leads holding for five progressive candidates. In the at-large contest, Rob Andrews and Alli Jackson were the top two vote-getters, at 26.1% and 25.7%, respectively. That means the tenure of conservative firebrand Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky — who was running third, at 22.1% — is likely over.

Jurinsky made national headlines during last year’s presidential race when Aurora exploded into the larger debate over immigration. Fellow incumbent Amsalu Kassaw, a conservative who has held his seat for less than a year, was in fourth place out of five at-large candidates.

In Ward II, Amy Wiles held on to a 7-point lead over conservative incumbent Councilman Steve Sunberg. And in Ward III, incumbent progressive Councilman Ruben Medina enjoyed a massive lead over Marsha Berzins, a well-known conservative voice in Aurora who previously served on the council for a dozen years.

Attempts to reach Andrews, Wiles and Jurinsky weren’t successful Wednesday.

Horton, the newly elected council member, works for the Colorado Department of Safety as a reducing racial and ethnic disparities coordinator and has lived in Aurora for the last four years.

“We’re going to show up, we’re going to problem solve,” she said.

She and her new colleagues will join a body on Dec. 1 that has been through the wringer as of late, with frequent protests over the May 2024 killing of Kilyn Lewis, an unarmed Black man, by Aurora police disrupting proceedings and the council moving to remote quarters to conduct city business on numerous occasions. The council has met virtually since June, citing a lawsuit filed over the shooting, but it .

The officer who shot Lewis, who was being sought by police in an attempted murder case out of Denver, was cleared last year by the 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, as well as by the Aurora Police Department.

Horton, 33, said she can bring her expertise to bear in her new position.

“We’ll be looking at our police department and see where we can put in a mechanism of transparency and accountability,” she said. “There’s a responsibility of council members to acknowledge when the system has failed.”

Coffman, who is midway through his second term as mayor, said he would do his best to see eye to eye with his new council colleagues — no matter the makeup of the body.

“I will work hard to find common ground with the new progressive majority over the next two years,” he said.

Two left-leaning candidates — Rob Andrews and Alli Jackson — are still comfortably leading in Aurora’s at-large race, where conservative firebrand Danielle Jurinsky continues to trail in third place as of 7:30 a.m. Wednesday. Only the top two vote-getters in the at-large race will win seats on the council.

Meanwhile, a progressive incumbent held onto a huge lead in Aurora’s Ward III race, while a conservative member of the council in Ward II was narrowly trailing in his race.

The large city’s council races were among metro Denver’s most notable contests and ballot measures in the off-year election.

In results posted at 7:30 a.m., support for a controversial ballot measure in Littleton that could slow down the construction of denser housing in the city of 44,000 was leading by nearly 10 percentage points.

Colorado election results by county

Voters in at least 65 cities and towns across Colorado have been mulling municipal contests in the election. More than 100 municipal ballot issues -- many of them revolving around tax and charter language updates -- were up for a vote statewide.

Aurora City Council

In Aurora, 13 candidates jostled for five council positions in Colorado's third-largest city -- three representing individual wards and two elected at large. The ranks of left-leaning council members in Aurora have thinned over the last few election cycles, starting with Mike Coffman, a former Republican congressman, winning the mayor's seat in 2019.

In this cycle, conservative kingmakers have far outspent their counterparts in support of right-leaning hopefuls and incumbents in the races, with the aim of keeping the council out of liberal hands. But things were looking increasingly shaky for the conservatives as the night went on.

In results as of 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, Andrews had top billing in the at-large race with 26% of the vote, while Jackson was next with 25.3%. Jurinsky, who made national headlines during last year's presidential race when Aurora exploded into the larger debate over immigration, trailed with 22.5% of the vote.

Incumbent Amsalu Kassaw, a conservative, held fourth place out of five candidates.

Ward III incumbent Councilman Ruben Medina, a progressive, held a monster 25-plus percentage point lead over opponent Marsha Berzins, a well-known conservative name in Aurora politics. And in Ward I, progressive Gianina Horton held a sizable lead over conservative Stephen Elkins -- 57.7% to 29.4%, while Reid Hettich claimed 12.9% of the vote.

In the Ward II race, incumbent Steve Sunberg, a conservative, was trailing his progressive opponent, Amy Wiles, by 53.4% to 46.6%.

Littleton's Measure 3A

The most compelling suburban Denver issue this fall came out of Littleton, where voters in the southern city were being asked to decide whether stronger guardrails should be erected against denser styles of housing.

The campaign for Measure 3A spawned countless yard signs and even a traveling billboard -- a truck plastered with a trio of electronic screens urging voters to check "yes." The Littleton City Council passed a resolution last month urging voters to turn down the measure.

As of 7:30 a.m., Measure 3A was leading 54.8% to 45.2%.

Central City's Measure 2A

For those with bawdier interests than single-family homes versus triplexes, look no further up the road than Central City. Voters there were deciding whether on the gambling town’s historic Main Street in Measure 2A.

As of 7:30 a.m., the no votes were ahead 57.7% to 42.3%.

Fire department, district funding

There was a lot of money requested from voters by agencies both north and south of Denver that provide fire and rescue services to a wide swath of the metro population. And all were winning in results posted Wednesday morning.

In Denver's northern suburbs, Westminster voters were asked to pass a 0.4% sales and use tax to raise $14 million annually to hire 30 firefighters and emergency medical and support personnel. The money from  would also fund the construction of a new fire station, as well as the purchase of new emergency vehicles.

As of 7:30 a.m., the measure was leading by a 51.7% to 48.3% margin.

The South Adams County Fire District, which covers fast-growing Commerce City and adjacent areas, is asking voters for a . The increase would raise $12.5 million a year to quicken response times, lower ambulance costs and ensure firefighters and paramedics have the proper training and life-saving equipment. The ballot issue is Measure 6A and it was leading by a 57.7% to 42.3% split as of Wednesday morning.

South of Denver, one of metro Denver's largest firefighting forces -- serving nearly 600,000 residents -- is on the ballot asking for a property tax increase to address an anticipated $500 million shortage over the next decade. The measure was prevailing by a margin of 55.6% to 44.4%.

If South Metro Fire Rescue's passes, a homeowner with a $750,000 house — the district's average — will pay about $140 more per year.

Aurora officers carried out more chases in the six months after the policy change than in the last five years combined, according to data provided by the police department in response to open records requests from The Denver Post.

The city’s officers conducted 148 pursuits between March 6 — the day after the policy change — and Sept. 2, the data shows. That’s up from just 14 police chases in that same timeframe in 2024, and well above Aurora officers’ 126 chases across five years between 2020 and 2024.

The number of people injured in pursuits more than quintupled, with about one in five chases resulting in injury after the policy change, the data shows. That 20% injury rate is lower than the rate over the last five years, when the agency saw 25% of pursuits end with injury.

Chamberlain, who declined to speak with The Post for this story, has heralded the department’s new approach to pursuits as an important tool for curbing crime. Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman believes the change has already had a “dramatic impact” on crime in the city.

However, the effect of the increased pursuits on overall crime trends is difficult to gauge, with crime generally declining , including in Denver, which has a more restrictive policy and many fewer police pursuits.

“You throw a big net out there, occasionally you do catch a few big fish,” said , a criminology professor at the . “But you also end up with the pursuit policy causing more accidents and injuries.”

More people died in police chases in this Denver suburb than in the state’s biggest cities

Impact of Aurora's pursuits

Eighty-seven people were arrested across more than 100 pursuits in Aurora between April and August, according to by the overseeing court-ordered reforms at the Aurora Police Department.

Of those 87 arrestees, 67 had a criminal history, 25 were wanted on active warrants, 18 were on probation and seven were on parole, the monitor found.

"What we find is that people who steal cars, it's not a joyriding thing, it¶¶Ňőap not a one-off, they tend to be career criminals who use these vehicles to commit other crimes," Coffman said. "There seems to be a pattern that when we do apprehend a car thief, they tend to have warrants out for their arrest, and we do see the pattern of stealing vehicles to commit other crimes. So we are really catching repeat offenders when we apprehend the driver and/or passengers."

The soaring number of pursuits was largely driven by stolen vehicle chases, which accounted for 103 of the 148 pursuits since the policy change, the data shows.

Auto theft in Aurora dropped 42% year-over-year between January and September, continuing a downward trend that began in 2023. In Denver, where officers do not chase stolen vehicles, auto theft has declined 36% so far in 2025 compared to 2024.

Denver police officers conducted just nine pursuits between March 6 and Sept. 2, and just 16 so far in 2025, data from the department shows. Four suspects and one officer were injured across those 16 chases.

"I think there are broader societal factors at work," Nix said of the decline in crime, which has been seen across the nation and follows a dramatic pandemic-era spike. "When something goes up, it is bound to come down pretty drastically."

Aurora officers apprehended fleeing drivers in 53% of all pursuits, and in 51% of pursuits for stolen vehicles between March and September, the police data shows.

Coffman said that shows officers and their supervisors are judiciously calling off pursuits that become too dangerous. He also noted that every pursuit is carefully reviewed by the police chain of command and called the new policy a "work in progress."

"I get that it is not without controversy," Coffman said. "There wouldn't be the collateral accidents if not for the policy. So it is a tradeoff. It is not an easy decision and it is going to always be in flux."

Thirty-three people were injured in Aurora police chases between March 6 and Sept. 2, up from six injured in that time frame last year. Those hurt included 24 suspects, five officers and four drivers in other vehicles.

One bystander and one suspect were seriously injured, according to the police data.

The independent monitor noted in its October report that it was "generally pleased" with officers' judgments during pursuits, supervisors' actions and the post-pursuit administrative review process, with "two notable exceptions" that have been "elevated for additional review and potential disciplinary action."

The monitor also flagged an increase in failed Precision Immobilization Technique, or PIT, maneuvers during pursuits, which it attributed to officer inexperience. The group recommended more training on the maneuvers, which are designed to end pursuits, and renewed its call for the department to install dash cameras in its patrol cars, which the agency has not done.

"It sounds reasonable," Coffman said of the dash camera recommendation. "They are not cheap and we need to budget for it."

'No magic number'

It's up to city leadership to determine if the benefits of police chases outweigh the predictable harms, and there is no "magic number," Nix said.

"When you chase that much, bad outcomes are going to happen," he said. "People are going to get hurt, sometimes innocent third parties that have nothing to do with the chase. You know that is going to be a collateral consequence of doing that many chases. So knowing that, you should really be able to point to the community safety benefit that doing this many chases bring."

The majority of large Front Range law enforcement agencies limit pursuits to situations in which the driver is suspected of a violent felony or poses an immediate risk of injury or death to others if not quickly apprehended.

Among 18 law enforcement agencies reviewed by The Post this spring, only Aurora and the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office explicitly allow pursuits of suspected drunk drivers. The sheriff's office allows such pursuits only if the driver stays under the posted speed limit.

Aurora officers pursued suspected impaired drivers 13 times between March and September, the data shows, with five chases ending in injury.

Omar Montgomery, president of the , said he is a "cautious neutral" about the policy change, but would like Aurora police to meet with community members to explain the impact in more detail.

"People in the community do not want people on the streets who are causing harm to other individuals and who are committing crimes that makes our city unsafe," he said. "We want them off the streets just as bad as anyone else. We also want to make sure that innocent people who are not part of the situation are not getting harmed."

Topazz McBride, a community activist in Aurora, said she has been disappointed by what she sees as Chamberlain's unwillingness to engage with community members who disagree with him.

"Do I trust them to use the process effectively and responsibly with all fairness and equity to everyone they pursue? No. I do not trust that," she said. "And I don't understand why he wouldn't be willing to talk about it. Why not?"

Montgomery also wants police to track crashes that happen immediately after a police officer ends a pursuit, when an escaping suspect might still be speeding and driving recklessly.

"They are still going 80 or 90 mph and they end up hitting someone or running into a building," he said. "And now you have this person who that has caused harm, believing that they are still being chased."

The police department did not include the case of Rajon Belt-Stubblefield, who was shot and killed Aug. 30 by an officer after he sped away from an attempted traffic stop, among its pursuits this year. Video of the incident shows the officer followed Belt-Stubblefield's vehicle with his lights and sirens on for just under a minute over about 7/10ths of a mile before Belt-Stubblefield crashed.

Police spokesman Matthew Longshore said the incident was not a pursuit.

"The officer was stationary, running radar when the vehicle sped past, and the officer was accelerating (with both lights and siren eventually) to catch up to the vehicle," Longshore said. "The officer did not determine nor declare that he was in pursuit of the suspect¶¶Ňőap vehicle before the suspect crashed into the two other vehicles."

The officer, who has not been publicly identified, killed Belt-Stubblefield in an ensuing confrontation. Belt-Stubblefield, who was under the influence of alcohol, tossed a gun to the ground and was unarmed when he was shot.

Whether or not a pursuit preceded his death was one of several questions raised in the independent monitor's Oct. 15 report, which characterized the shooting and the department's response to the killing as a setback in otherwise improving community relations.

Liberal stalwart Crystal Murillo chose not to run for her Ward I seat this fall, joining other progressive council members who have exited the body in recent years , including Nicole Johnston, Allison Hiltz and Juan Marcano, who lost a 2023 mayoral bid to Mayor Mike Coffman.

While Councilman Dustin Zvonek resigned last fall, he was quickly replaced by a fellow conservative, Amsalu Kassaw. The city is led by Mayor Mike Coffman, a former Republican member of Congress, who also sits on the council.

“Depending on the outcomes of these races, I could be alone out there,” said Alison Coombs, a progressive member of the Aurora City Council since 2019. “It gets harder and harder to find like minds.”

While Aurora City Council races are nominally nonpartisan, there’s no escaping the politics of the day as hot-button issues like crime, immigration and police conduct insert themselves, often loudly, into discussions on the dais — and among those sitting in the council chamber audience.

How much they play into this year’s race and who they benefit or hurt — 13 candidates are running for five council positions this cycle — is the million dollar question, said Robert Preuhs, chair of the political science department at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

Were he a betting man, he’d place better odds on the conservative side of the ledger running for Aurora City Council.

“Crime, homelessness and immigration were dominant issues in 2024’s presidential election,” Preuhs said. “Those issues both mobilize the conservative/Republican base and those are the folks that are also most likely to vote in an odd-year election.”

Add in the massive financial advantage for the conservative slate of candidates — backed by nearly $300,000 in independent expenditure committee money — and “there is a good chance that they will retain their majority,” the professor said.

Kassaw, an Ethiopian immigrant who is defending his seat less than a year after having been appointed to it by a majority of his fellow council members, said his campaign is forbidden by state election law from coordinating with Building Aurora’s Future, the independent expenditure committee that has collected $280,000 in support of conservative candidates in the race.

New Era Colorado Action Fund, which supports liberal candidates, has put just a few thousand dollars into Aurora’s city council race, according to filings on the city’s campaign finance website.

Backing from Building Aurora’s Future, Kassaw said, “means a great deal to our campaign.”

“I believe they recognize that my campaign is focused on putting public safety first, building safe and strong neighborhoods, and creating opportunity and growth for the community Aurora deserves,” said Kassaw, who works as a lieutenant for the GEO Group, the private contractor that runs the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Aurora.

Like several candidates The Denver Post spoke to for this story, Kassaw said the voters he talks to are mostly interested in enhancing public safety in Colorado’s third-largest city. That’s also true of what Stephen Elkins, who is running for Ward I as part of the conservative slate, is hearing on the campaign trail.

Elkins, who works in the data center industry, said voters he’s spoken to were frustrated by some politicians and media outlets downplaying the presence of the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua in the city last year, despite police documenting intimidations and attacks by the gang members across three apartment complexes in the city. Another 11 suspected Tren de Aragua members were hit with multiple felony charges in December after a couple living in the now-shuttered Edge of Lowry apartments was kidnapped and tortured.

“We had almost our entire political establishment gaslighting us and saying nothing was wrong,” Elkins said. “People just wanted safety and peace in their neighborhoods.”

This year, crime has plummeted in the city. According to Aurora Police Department data, in the first 9 1/2 months of 2025, homicides are down 25.8%, robberies are down 35.6% and automobile thefts are down 42.3% compared to the same period in 2024.

Michael Fields, president of Advance Colorado Institute, said his organization donated $130,000 to Building Aurora’s Future to support conservative candidates because it wants to keep the city on that positive trajectory.

“Aurora is the third most populous city in the state and the mayor and city council have been doing a great job over the last few years addressing public safety and homelessness, as well as attracting good jobs to the city,” he said. “We would like to see that work continue.”

Ruben Medina, a progressive first-term councilman representing Ward III, said more money for his side would be nice but it doesn’t replace getting out into the neighborhoods and speaking to folks. He beat his opponent four years ago despite being outspent, he said.

“It’s about knocking on doors and walking the walk, talking the talk,” he said.

The former firefighter and EMT, who now works as a project manager at the Foundation for Sustainable Urban Communities, said he has hosted more than 80 town halls and attended more than 250 community events over his four-year term.

And as the federal government shutdown drags on, he said, he’s hearing from increasingly nervous constituents who worry about seeing their SNAP food assistance benefits disappear. He also gets an earful from federal workers who have been laid off by the Trump administration.

“These basic human needs are also going to be top of mind,” Medina said.

At-large progressive candidate Alli Jackson has taken to the microphone at council meetings to decry the increasingly restrictive public participation rules that have been put in place as proceedings have descended into chaos at times — largely involving protesters demanding justice for the May 2024 fatal police shooting of Kilyn Lewis, an unarmed Black man.

In June, the City Council voted to meet virtually and do away with public comment sessions until the city resolves a lawsuit filed by Lewis’ family.

“The majority on our City Council is not approachable,” Jackson said. “They have a lot of money but money doesn’t vote.”

Marsha Berzins, who is running as part of the conservative slate of candidates and is taking on Medina in Ward III, said constituents she used to represent asked her to make a run for her old seat, citing crime and identity politics as top issues to combat. Berzins served for three terms on Aurora City Council, starting in 2009.

“It was never my intention to come back,” she said. “I waited for someone else to step up and no one did.”

Berzins said she hopes to use her 12 years of experience on council to smooth out divisions and nurture better consensus in a new tenure.

“I can help the council by trying to be a calming voice and a voice of reason,” she said.

Fresh off a recent meeting with the team, Douglas County’s three commissioners weighed in publicly for the first time to urge the NFL franchise to build a new football stadium in a place that “can deliver like no other.” They added their voices to that of Lone Tree Mayor Marissa Harmon, who is pitching the planned City Center development off Interstate 25 as a perfect site.

In a statement shared exclusively with The Denver Post, amped up local officials’ call for the Broncos to vacate the city where they’ve played for 65 years.

“Douglas County is open for business and proud of our reputation for intentional, strategic partnerships that strengthen our economy without raising taxes, whether that¶¶Ňőap welcoming a Fortune 500 enterprise, supporting a local family-owned business or exploring the opportunity to host Colorado’s most iconic team,” the commissioners said.

Relocating to Douglas County, the commissioners wrote, would place the Broncos “just minutes from Dove Valley and Centennial Airport, with unmatched access, infrastructure, and convenience for players, fans, and executives alike.” Dove Valley is where the Broncos’ practice facility is located.

Commissioner Abe Laydon told The Post that he and his two colleagues met recently with team president Damani Leech and other Broncos executives but declined to provide details about the conversation.

Douglas County Commissioner George Teal said the meeting took place on Aug. 6 and lasted “about an hour.” It was the first meeting that all three commissioners have had with the Broncos regarding a new stadium location, he said.

But Douglas County isn’t new on the team’s radar.

For months, the Broncos have acknowledged that, in addition to Burnham Yard in west-central Denver, they are also considering Lone Tree, a suburban city of 15,000 in northern Douglas County, as a potential stadium site if they decide to leave Empower Field at Mile High. The team’s lease at Empower Field expires in early 2031.

The team has also said it is looking at Aurora for a new home.

The team, , has played in two stadiums — each bearing the Mile High moniker — just west of downtown Denver since 1960.

Despite the entreaties from suburban locales to build a stadium outside Colorado’s capital city, most reporting this summer has pointed to evidence that the Broncos are most strongly exploring a site that would keep them in Denver. Recent media reports say the team and its owners are connected — through a series of limited liability corporations and lawyers — to more than $150 million spent over the last year to purchase more than a dozen parcels of land near Burnham Yard. The state-owned, 58-acre former railyard is in the La Alma Lincoln Park neighborhood.

But that hasn’t quelled interest from surrounding communities to be the franchise’s next home. This week, Harmon described the city’s talks with the team as “exploratory and constructive” in a statement by 9News.

She highlighted , a planned development at the southeast corner of I-25 and Lincoln Avenue, as “metro Denver’s next large-scale vibrant downtown.” The 440-acre site, the mayor said, aligns with the Broncos’ vision of “an activated, year‑round destination integrated with transit, walkable streets, and first‑class mobility.”

Lone Tree sits near the confluence of three major highways — I-25, C-470 and E-470 — and is at the terminus of the Regional Transportation District’s southeast light rail lines.

But “no formal proposals have been submitted, and no decisions or commitments have been made,” Harmon said.

Broncos spokesman Patrick Smyth told The Post that the team has had “several productive conversations” with Lone Tree officials while also “engaging with” Douglas County commissioners.

A source with direct knowledge of the talks said the Broncos have been in communication with Lone Tree and Douglas County officials more recently and frequently than officials from the Aurora Economic Development Council. Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman said this week there’s been “nothing new” regarding talks between the city and the team.

“We appreciate these ongoing discussions and continue to carefully evaluate all options pertaining to the future of our stadium,” Smyth said.

In Lone Tree, most of the City Center site — north of RidgeGate Parkway — is owned by the Coventry Development Corp., the city says. It’s part of that spans both sides of the interstate.

An email obtained by The Post through a public records request confirmed that Broncos general counsel Tim Aragon met with Lone Tree city officials as early as January 2024. In an email sent after that meeting, Aragon asked executives at Coventry about site-specific environmental reports, which they didn’t have.

Aragon also asked about Federal Aviation Administration height restrictions that might apply because of the proximity to Centennial Airport.

“We are trying to understand the soil and any issues especially in the circumstance where we might have to dig a bit to fit within height restrictions,” Aragon wrote.

More than 18 months after that outreach, Douglas County commissioners slathered some complimentary and self-congratulatory frosting on this week’s invitation to the three-time Super Bowl champions to make their next home 20 miles south of Empower Field at Mile High.

“The Broncos deserve the very best, and in Douglas County, that¶¶Ňőap exactly what they will find,” they said.

Staff writer Parker Gabriel contributed to this story.

We know that many city council members in Aurora, one of the nation’s 51 largest cities, are working far more than a part-time job representing thousands of constituents across the sprawling municipality. For many Aurora residents who would consider running, the part-time salary of $22,000 makes it impossible to do the job well because holding a second job would be a necessity. Conditions are even worse in Colorado Springs, where city council members still earn what is essentially a $6,250 stipend, and in Greeley, where voters recently rejected a pay raise, keeping the salary at $12,600.

We want public office to be open to everyone, not only to the independently wealthy.

Still, we applaud the Aurora mayor and city council members for rejecting this particular pay package.

Pay raises must be commiserate with work expectations.

Voters in these cities should be asked two questions at the same time: should the job description for their city councils change to full-time with more frequent meetings and more expectations, and should the pay be increased to go along with those new hours?

City Manager Jason Batchelor, who requested the raises for his bosses, is right that the job overseeing one of the nation’s largest cities is no longer part-time, but the City Charter must change first to make the positions full-time before salaries jump from $22,700 to $75,000 for council members.

There are many issues with Aurora’s City Charter – particularly how it handles discipline, hiring and firing in the police department – and we don’t think the city should be afraid of asking voters to amend the document. In an election in 2023, voters approved several fixes to the charter.

We know many city council members work more than just the two public meetings a month, but we are also certain that many do not. The pay increase must be commiserate with an official increase of hours worked. Even elected officials need accountability. If the charter changes and council members are working a full-time job every week then we think an annual salary of $75,000 would help attract qualified and committed candidates without attracting people who are in it for the money.

As for the mayor’s salary, which would have increase from $98,500 to $150,000 annually, we have to agree with Mayor Mike Coffman that it is inappropriate.

Coffman, perhaps one of Colorado’s most honest and forthright politicians, pledged to oppose putting the measure on the ballot unless his salary increase was removed from the proposal.

“Public service is, by itself, supposed to be a sacrifice,” Coffman said.

Amen.

We appreciate the selfless people who step into the limelight to serve their community, often taking on public scrutiny and uncomfortable situations in addition to late-night meetings and campaigning. We agree that making the job full-time will generate more economically diverse candidates who can hold the position without trying to also hold a full-time job, something that today is hard to do with any kind of position that doesn’t have extreme flexibility.

The last thing we want is for public office to only be available to the affluent.

But, in the case of the mayor, we think $98,500 is a full-time salary that a person in Aurora could live on without having to maintain a second job.

We’d also like to point out that in many of these cities, elected officials are already getting cost-of-living increases annually.

People, whether elected or at-will, should be paid for the work they do. These cities are booming, and we no longer think part-time council work is sufficient to meet the needs of the community. Once the roles change, their salary should increase as well. But not before.

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