The Vibrant Denver bond package currently includes 59 projects that would cost about $950 million. Mayor Mike Johnston first proposed the general obligation bond in February as a way to raise $800 million to fund improvements to city infrastructure and facilities during the next six years.
Since then, Johnston has toured Denver neighborhoods to hear what they want to see in the package, and appointed a committee of business leaders and elected officials to select the projects for funding. On July 8, the committee published a list of four dozen proposed projects; Johnston has since added and removed projects while recommending higher or lower investments for others.
In order for Vibrant Denver to get on the November 4 ballot, councilmembers must approve it by August 4 (August 25, if the council president allows an extension). Before that, though, Johnston could submit a revised project list for the bond.
More than 110 residents had signed up for the July 28 public hearing; only about twenty actually had the chance to speak during the hour-long session.
Here were the comments that stood out:
More Biking and Pedestrian Infrastructure
The most common complaint from residents was that not enough bike and pedestrian infrastructure projects are part of the package."Bicycle infrastructure is conspicuously absent," said Pete Piccolo, the executive director of Bicycle Colorado, a nonprofit. "A vote for this list of projects is a vote to double down on car dependency, and with it, all of the negative consequences that come with car dependency: more traffic fatalities, dirtier air, reduced mobility."
Barnum resident Jeff Helgerson spoke against the bond package because of "a lack of safety improvements for bicycling and walking infrastructure," saying that "there's basically none."
The list does include a $15 million Evans Avenue project that would add pedestrian crossings and a $2.3 million project to improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists at the intersection of East First Avenue and University Boulevard. However, Helgerson said that after witnessing a cyclist being hit by a truck and dragged twenty feet last week, he felt strongly that more safety measures were needed.
"I very much doubt that his priority as a constituent of all of yours was to replace bridges," Helgerson said of the cyclist. "I would guess that he would have preferred protective bike infrastructure that was promised to my neighborhood years ago."
Avi Stopper, the founder of the route-mapping app Bike Streets, urged the council to use the funding to turn Denver's residential roads into neighborhood bikeways, which are streets made safer for biking with sharrows, low speed limits and other measures.
"People across the city want to reduce high-speed, cut-through traffic on their neighborhood streets, and people want to ride bikes where there aren't moving vehicles all over the place," Stopper said. "We have all the ingredients for the country's best complete high-comfort network."
Support for the American Indian Cultural Embassy
A couple of people spoke about the importance of the American Indian Cultural Embassy, a project that was originally slated to receive $5 million from the Vibrant Denver bond. Johnston has since increased the proposed investment to $20 million.According to Dustin Baird, a resident who serves on the Native American Housing Circle board and was a tribal liaison for the American Indian Academy of Denver, the embassy "will establish a formal space for tribal nations to engage in government-to-government relations with the City of Denver." At the hearing, he also touted the opportunities for cultural exchange between Native American tribes and with Denver residents.
"Denver should be recognized as a crossroads of Indian country, not just because of the geographic centrality, but because of the deep and layered history of many tribal nations who have passed through," said Baird. "Due to the absence of a formal tribal embassy or gathering space, other cities in the lower 48 have laid claim to that title, but let me be clear: that title belongs here in Denver and the greater Front Range."
Baird cited U.S. Census numbers that estimate more than 100,000 Native Americans live in Denver, making it "one of the largest urban populations of Native Americans in the U.S."
Elleni Sclavenitis, the executive director of the Sand Creek Massacre Foundation, said the proposed embassy would allow the Cheyenne and Arapaho descendants of the 1864 massacre "to reclaim a small part of what was once theirs and recognize they are welcome home."
More Funding for Affordable Housing
Denver advocates have called on the Vibrant Denver bond to fund affordable housing during the last few months, and on Monday, residents again made that plea."What we're demanding is deeply affordable housing that's guaranteed to be affordable by the city," said Alex Kananov. "What scant affordable housing proposals are in this bond are wholly insufficient. Our council's unwillingness to even pretend to fight for affordability is disheartening."
The proposed project list has a $50 million line item for "Affordable Housing Project Development." Councilwoman Amanda Sawyer criticized the project's description as "vague" during the meeting.
Katelyn Stenger, who introduced herself as a middle-income Denver renter, suggested funding city-owned, cost-controlled housing and called out Johnston and the bond committee for not taking such proposals seriously while putting the project list together.
"The executive committee and mayor's office repeatedly resisted or watered down proposals for permanently affordable, municipally owned affordable housing," Stenger said. "Our community shared our priorities throughout this process. We need you to understand that this is such a priority for us. Every single one of you ran on the promise of addressing housing affordability in our city."
Katelyn Stenger, who introduced herself as a middle-income Denver renter, suggested funding city-owned, cost-controlled housing and called out Johnston and the bond committee for not taking such proposals seriously while putting the project list together.
"The executive committee and mayor's office repeatedly resisted or watered down proposals for permanently affordable, municipally owned affordable housing," Stenger said. "Our community shared our priorities throughout this process. We need you to understand that this is such a priority for us. Every single one of you ran on the promise of addressing housing affordability in our city."
Stenger called on council to add a project to build deed-restricted homes. Last year, Johnston proposed a half-cent sales tax that would build homes with deed restrictions, which are clauses that limit how a property can be used. Johnston would have paid developers to build housing on the condition that they accept deed restrictions that would only allow tenants making a certain income.
Affordable Denver failed at the ballot box, however, after going through a process similar to what's being used to push the Vibrant Denver bond, including Johnston's neighborhood tour and a council hearing — where residents also expressed concerns.
