Ever the politician, Johnston offers a locally-focused icebreaker is his initial post announcing the AMA: "I got to check out the (in)famous tunnels beneath Denver International Airport this summer. Happy to share exactly what I saw down there."
There aren't a lot of softballs lined up for Mayor Mike, unfortunately. Locals want to know about recent city layoffs during a budget deficit and the city's homeless problem. One commenter, Far_Row7807, writes, "Im happy to talk tunnels all day, once you address the things people care about."
"What plans do you have in place if Denver is occupied by the national guard?" asks solarcowherder.
"Why are our roads so dangerous?" writes chicago_hokie. "The constant car + bike/pedestrian crashes this summer has me scared to ride my bike."
Hot Topics for Denver's Mayor
Fentanyl. Construction on Colfax. Disappearing bike lanes. Struggling small businesses. Violence. Crime. Affordable housing. Those are the issues on residents' minds that logged on to r/Denver today — at least most of them. One poster asks if he's gotten a haircut.With two minutes to go until the mayor logs on, there are now 355 questions and comments awaiting him. As we hit 10:30, user Kursawow posts, "No question, just shame."
The mayor's first reply is to a member of the Mayor's Bicycle Advisory Committee, asking when and how to get on the mayor's calendar. He says they'll schedule it: Pretty low energy, Mr. Mayor.
The next question he tackles, from user Ask_me_who_ligma_is (wait, who's ligma?), asks what peer cities Johnston and staff look at while trying to improve Denver. Boston for crime reduction, he answers, Austin for permitting, and Houston for homelessness strategies, plus Detroit for its "deep city spirit."
Softballs So Far
Six minutes in, the tone is looking fluffy: Johnston answers a question about the best burger in Denver. He shouts out Cherry Cricket. This is going to be a long hour for those of us looking for something of substance.User Iloveyou143143 asks about repairing roads and bridges, to which Johnston pivots to promote the Vibrant Denver bond package that will be on the November ballot.
The brief and easy answers keep coming: Would Johnston fistfight with Douglas County commissioners to keep the Broncos in Denver? "The first rule of fight club is we never talk about fight club," Johnston types. He's handled five questions in ten minutes by our clock, which is a decent pace, but he's saying virtually nothing so far.
Eat_the_rich1969 asks about Denver being a safe haven for LGBTQ and trans people, and asks what Johnston and Polis are doing to keep the queer community safe. Johnston shouts out the city's LGBTQ commission, but pivots to branding on the question: "I want someone in the lavender hill movement to create a whole brand of Queen city/LGBTQ branded for Denver, but yes, we continue to be loud and proud about our support for services programs."
Then he finally gets his airport tunnels question, and gets to be cheeky: "Nope, no aliens, no pyramids, no Illuminati. Definitely nothing else except boring tunnels, and JFK and Elvis playing cards with Marilyn Monroe."
Addressing Tougher Questions
A lull hits, and we hope that means Johnston is tackling some of the serious questions in the thread, which has nearly 500 questions and comments twenty minutes in. He does answer a question about when BRT construction on Colfax will end. Johnston says he met with his full team yesterday to talk about helping Colfax's small businesses thrive by shortening construction time in front of individual businesses, providing direct grants to businesses, and holding campaigns to support businesses on Colfax. He says he'll be calling bingo and bartending at Goosetown Tavern in a few weeks.Johnston takes a swing at a homelessness question, though the first paragraph of it is defensive, a litany of the progress the city has made and a decrease in violent crime. "I totally agree with you that the work is not over," he writes, and notes that the city is now focusing on quality-of-life crimes, like public drug use and shoplifting. He also touts mental health and addiction services available if you end up housed at the county jail.
Answering a question about federal immigration enforcement and Flock, the Big Brother-style camera network that tracks license plates, Johnston types, "We have not seen a single instance of Denver's flock data being used for the purposes of civil immigration enforcement," and defends the technology.
Halfway through the AMA, Mayor Johnston addresses a question about potential occupation by the National Guard, and what the city would do if President Donald Trump were to send troops here. "Any first year law student in America could tell you that deploying the US military on the streets of American cities in times of peace to enforce domestic law is clearly illegal...We will be prepared to take them to court on day 1 if they threaten to do so," he responds.
It's solid ground opposing the Trump administration back in D.C., so Mayor Mike takes another question about losing federal funding: "We will continue to aggressively push back at the Trump Administration's unconstitutional threats to withhold funding...Denver follows all state, local and federal law, and we expect the administration to do the same."
The City of Denver filed a countersuit against the United States Department of Justice earlier this week after the DOJ accused Denver of being a "sanctuary jurisdiction" and violating federal law. The city has sued the federal government five times since Trump took office again in January after the president and his administration have withheld federal funding for a variety of needs such as transportation projects and local counterterrorism.
City Staff, Local Projects
SmoothBrainMillenial asks, "Do you think the way you communicated the layoffs to city employees was appropriate?" Johnston replies that this was the hardest part of his job as mayor, and recounts the difficulty of the process. "One of the most important ways to build back trust with employees is to be able to protect the city from future financial uncertainty...with this round of balancing we have built a budget for 0% growth in 2026. That is as conservative a budget as I know of, if we stay at or above 0% growth we will not need to do layoffs or furloughs in 2026."Johnston takes another opportunity to promote the Vibrant Denver bond when asked about Denver Health, the safety net hospital serving the community. As the clock ticks down, with just over ten minutes left in the promised hour, Johnston addresses the question mentioned above — Where do you go for critiques of your strategies as you're vetting them? The mayor says he thinks he has more contact with council than any past administration, and outlines his extensive communication protocols with councilmembers. "I trust the council," he types, "like working with them and think they have been a great partner in difficult times."
Winding down now, Johnston takes a question about his nominee to lead Denver's Department of Public Safety, Al Gardner. "Why did you place someone with zero public safety service or experience as Manager of Safety?" Lucky_Buy_2082 writes.
Johnston defends Gardner, and writes, "Al is a proven great leader and manger with deep community relationships: the manager of safety is meant to be a great leader and manager with strong community and council relationships who can help be the intermediary between those agencies, the public at large and the mayor and I think Al will be great at that."
SnugAsARug gets in one of the last questions, this one about huge sections of downtown becoming ghost towns and empty business parks. Johnston says the city is "very focused on this," and says "the big strategies are converting empty commercial office buildings into 4,000 new apartments, filling another 3 million of empty office space with new offices, artists and non profits, building great public spaces that activate downtown."
The hour is about over as one more answer drops from Johnston, this time about bad drivers and traffic scofflaws. Johnston says he supports more red light cameras and speed cameras, and the city does occasional surge enforcement on unregistered license plate tags.
Questions are still coming in — there are more than 700 questions and comments now, but it appears the mayor's Ask Me Anything has concluded.
A post by PDXPTW sums up many other responses to the mayor's third AMA public forum on Reddit. The user writes, "What's the point of this AMA if all we are getting is canned PR polished fluff answers? I want to know how the Office of the Mayor of Denver will respond to a Federal Agent occupation and how they will protect the rights of their constituents. 'We will take them to court' is an empty, cowardly, shortsighted answer. Why is it so difficult for ANY politician to engage constructively and answer difficult questions with more than a softball PR response? Denver deserves better dialogue with its elected officials."
