Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman has been pointing his finger at Johnston for weeks now, but he made his allegations even more stark on Sunday, January 5, with an op-ed in the Denver Gazette blaming Johnston for a Venezuelan gang controversy that caused "a national embarrassment" in 2024.
And so, despite wanting to tout how his administration reached 2024 goals for homelessness, crime reduction and downtown improvement during a press event on Monday, January 6, the Denver mayor had to respond.
"For us, the high-level headlines when looking at 2024 that we found was we delivered the largest reduction in street homelessness in recorded history," Johnston said. "We saw the steepest drop in homicides in decades, and we ignited a new era of revitalization of downtown."
In February of last year, Johnston had laid out an initiative titled Citywide Goals 2024, declaring that he wanted to reach 2,000 people moved indoors from homelessness — a continuation of his House1000 goal from 2023 — while reducing development permitting time by 30 percent and decreasing violent gun crime in the city by 20 percent. The mayor also pledged to hold public meetings throughout the city, among other goals. Johnston said he reached these benchmarks based on data from city agencies, including the mayor's office, Community Planning & Development, and the Denver Police Department.
But the neighboring mayor's op-ed clouded Johnston's victory lap. About 43,000 migrants, mostly from Venezuela, have come through Denver since December 2022, according to estimates by the Denver mayor's office, and more than half of them are still somewhere in the metro area.
Neither Aurora nor Denver tracks how many migrants live in Aurora, but the state's third-largest city has seen plenty of controversy and media coverage regarding alleged gang activity by Tren de Aragua, a multinational gang that originated in Venezuelan prisons.
In August, footage of six armed Venezuelan men at an Aurora apartment complex went viral. The video shows men walking with rifles and handguns, knocking on a door and filing into the apartment. The Aurora Police Department later explained that the men in the video were connected with the murder of a man who they thought was hiding in the unit.
The video brought the national spotlight and parachuting reporters to Aurora, spurring reports claiming the city was being taken over by violent Venezuelan gangs. While Aurora officials, including Coffman, have argued those headlines are exaggerated, events like the kidnapping and torture of a couple on December 17 at those same apartments have emboldened the belief that Aurora has a Venezuelan gang problem.
In his op-ed, Coffman alleged a "lack of transparency" from Johnston about how many migrants the City of Denver or nonprofits working with Denver have placed in Aurora, and where the migrants were placed. Leaving the City of Aurora in the dark prevented Aurora law enforcement and city officials from preparing for and policing against Venezuelan gang activity at the Edge of Lowry apartment complex at 1218 Dallas Street, Coffman wrote.
"He affirmed that Denver had contracts with nonprofits that 'have' placed migrants from Denver to Aurora, but he refused to confirm a number," Coffman wrote. "As the mayor of Aurora, I'm asking that Mayor Mike Johnston be transparent and tell the truth."
In his op-ed, Coffman said he expected Johnston to say that "it wasn't his decision to put them in Aurora; it was the nonprofits."
On Monday, Johnston said, "Denver never places anyone anywhere. It's the nonprofit partners that do that."
However, Johnston went on to say that the nonprofits often place migrants with the help of state-funded contracts, in which case "we don't pay those partners, we don't supervise them." At other times, the city pays nonprofit partners to support migrants but doesn't decide where to house them, he added.
"In the places where we have city dollars, we give them dollars and they decide the housing," Johnston said. "Every day it's looking for where that housing is and identifying what an open unit is. You might go to Thornton, you might go to Northglenn, you might go to Denver."
In February 2023, members of the Aurora City Council, including Mayor Coffman, voted to pass a resolution promising they would not fund a migrant response within their city because it doesn't have the same resources as Denver, leaving nonprofits to organize a local migrant response.
The Aurora mayor first threw Johnston under the bus for the city's migrant crisis during a press conference on December 20, but in his op-ed, Coffman added that Johnston's decisions "harmed the image of our city in a way that could have lasting economic consequences."
Johnston said he bears no responsibility for Aurora's migrant woes.
"We run the City of Denver, and he runs Aurora," Johnston said. "They control the outcomes in their city, and we control what happens in ours. We're responsible for our voters, he's responsible for his. We made a strategy to provide a set of services and supports, and that's worked for us. They make their own decision about what works for them."
A year ago, Johnston revealed a new budget strategy to continue supporting migrants while ending temporary cuts to Denver DMV and Parks & Recreation services. But he didn't touch on the migrant crisis through most of the January 6 press event, saying migrants weren't a part of his 2024 Citywide Goals. Johnston didn't respond to Coffman's complaints until reporters brought it up. "I reject that narrative," he said of Coffman's piece.
"I'm surprised. Mayor Coffman and I are regularly in touch. He has my cell phone number. He can call me anytime. We have standard calls all the time. We can talk about this anytime," Johnston said. "If there's a problem, he knows he can reach out, but we've talked about this multiple times."
On Monday, Johnston tried his best to focus on goals reached in 2024. According to the mayor, of the more than 2,200 homeless residents housed since he took office in July 2023, about 82 percent of those people are still indoors.
He also boasted that the number of firearm homicides in Denver is down by about 30 percent while the number of "persons shot" is down by 23 percent. His excitement about downtown came from plans moving forward in November to invest $570 million through the Downtown Development Authority and expectations for the 16th Street Mall renovations to finish this year.
According to Johnston, he only fell short on trash and recycling pickup goals, such as completing trash routes more frequently and delivering compost carts, which he blamed on a workforce shortage. The mayor also failed to pass a sales tax to fund affordable housing, which wasn't part of his citywide aspirations until later in 2024.
Johnston said he plans to reveal his 2025 goals on January 29.
He also boasted that the number of firearm homicides in Denver is down by about 30 percent while the number of "persons shot" is down by 23 percent. His excitement about downtown came from plans moving forward in November to invest $570 million through the Downtown Development Authority and expectations for the 16th Street Mall renovations to finish this year.
According to Johnston, he only fell short on trash and recycling pickup goals, such as completing trash routes more frequently and delivering compost carts, which he blamed on a workforce shortage. The mayor also failed to pass a sales tax to fund affordable housing, which wasn't part of his citywide aspirations until later in 2024.
