"The sidewalks are small, so I have to go out in the street," says Mack, 75, who uses a motorized wheelchair to get around. "It’s very dangerous."
Mack lives in a DHA complex that caters to senior adults and people with disabilities, and when she and her neighbors leave their apartments each day, they are forced to rely on Denver's treacherous pedestrian infrastructure to navigate a path to the nearest RTD bus stop.
"This is a senior disabled building, so a lot of people are on scooters or on walkers. When it snows, no one goes out because the streets are so bad. And the sidewalks, you can’t go down because they’re so small. And then when it snows, you can’t even see them," Mack says, noting that she isn't even able to leave her apartment complex when it snows.
But in the future, the route that Mack and other senior adults take to the bus stop from their complex on the southeast corner of West Mosier Place and South Raritan Street will look much different, because the sidewalks will be getting an upgrade. And that's thanks to Mack.
On January 11, the Denver Department of Finance announced the winners of the Mile High City's first-ever participatory budgeting program, whereby Denverites submitted projects for an allocation from a $2 million pool of funding for equity-focused initiatives. After receiving more than a thousand ideas for how to spend the money, a group of community members assembled by the city winnowed the list down to 23 potential projects.
And after a citywide vote, nine projects were chosen to receive funding, with Mack's idea to improve the sidewalks next to Walsh Manor winning $400,000, the most money allocated to any of the projects.
"This is the kind of collaborative mindset that spurs equitable investments and lasting progress in our city,” Mayor Michael Hancock says of the process.
The Department of Finance had launched the participatory budgeting program in late 2021, and not long after, Mack heard about the new initiative when city staffers presented it to the Denver Housing Authority's Residential Council Board, a governing body composed of representatives from all of the DHA complexes, including Mack.
Mack decided to apply for a grant to conduct research on what Walsh Manor residents wanted out of the participatory budgeting process. She admits that she was a bit nervous about writing the application at first, and so she spoke with friend Jonathon Stalls, who advocates for better pedestrian infrastructure through his TikTok account, Pedestrian Dignity.
"He read the application and everything, and he told me to go for it. I went out of my comfort zone," Mack says, noting that she also got help from Kim McReynolds, a grant writer at the Denver Housing Authority. Going for it paid off: Mack landed the grant money and began her research.
"We had about three or four meetings. I got ideas from the residents on what they wanted to see done. And the sidewalks were the most popular one," Mack recalls.
She then submitted the sidewalk-improvement project to the city. To Mack's delight, the project made the final cut for voting, which featured 3,100 submitted digital and physical ballots.
"Voting events took place in unconventional places, including the Denver County jails, where currently incarcerated individuals had the opportunity to vote, and at Denver’s Safe Outdoor Spaces, where people experiencing homelessness could vote. Youth also had a chance to develop their civic skills, with voting events at elementary schools, where hundreds of third-, fourth-, and fifth-graders learned about the process, discussed projects and cast their ballots," says Kiki Turner, a spokesperson for the Denver Department of Finance.
And as Mack, Stalls and others rallied people to support the sidewalk project, it became obvious that persuading anyone who knew about the condition of the sidewalks around Walsh Manor to vote in favor of the initiative was going to be easy.
"They had all seen that we needed wider sidewalks and smoother sidewalks for pedestrians to walk and roll safely," Mack says.
When the results came in, there were nine winners, including Mack's $400,000. One project that won is for a $200,000 allocation to build five more tiny homes in the tiny-home villages run by the Colorado Village Collaborative. Another winner snagged a $362,500 allocation for new or renovated light fixtures in parks and along trails in Montbello and Green Valley Ranch.
"All projects will begin this year, and project timelines will depend on their specific scopes. Some projects will require design, while others may be quicker hits," Turner says. "The sidewalks will need to be designed, for instance. The residents wanted to prioritize the sidewalks on West Mosier Place from South Quivas Street to South Raritan Street and along South Raritan Street from West Mississippi Avenue to West Mosier place. The city will construct as much sidewalk as we can within the $400,000 budget."
The buildout of the project can't come soon enough for the residents, including Mack, who will be closely involved over the next year.
"I’m going to be on the planning committee where we’re going to have meetings, and we’re going to sit with the city planners, and they’re going to tell us what steps they’re taking and how they’re going to build the sidewalks and maintain," Mack says, adding, "I am very happy, and I'm pleased, and I just thank everyone that voted for this sidewalk project, because it’s really needed, and it will help everyone who walks and rolls."
