July 16, 2025 • 22 mins
Mike Johnston is the mayor of Denver. I like Mike though we probably only agree about half the time. I've been looking forward to this conversation and hope you find it informative.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Mayor Mike Johnston of Denver.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
We had a ton of stuff to talk about today, Mayor.
It looks like your camera went off. I don't know
what happened there, but if you can get that back on,
that would be good, but not absolutely necessary.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
So first of all, Mike, can you hear me? Are
we still good?
Speaker 3 (00:15):
I sure can.
Speaker 4 (00:16):
I was turning video off because it's a little choppy though.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Oh, okay, help if the audio.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
If the audio gets bad, we'll turn it off again.
So I'm gonna I'm gonna start by putting you in
a very bad position because you should never ask a
politician what's their favorite. But I'm gonna ask you what's
your favorite? Because it's National hot Dog Day? So do
you have a favorite place in Denver to get a
hot dog?
Speaker 4 (00:37):
Wow?
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Yeah, the Actually, the one has to be We have
a hot dog vendor right outside of the city County buildings.
She's been here for thirty five years. It's fifteen feet
from my office. So that is my most go to,
most loved hot dog.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
All right, do you remember her name? You want to
give her a shout out or anything.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Yeah, it's Marcella is her name, and she's been here
forever awesome.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
All right, Marcella, it's a free shout out on KA.
I got a ton of stuff I want to talk
to you about. A few days ago, I saw a
headline at Axios Denver says Denver's eight hundred million dollar
bond package for infrastructure projects takes shape, and then just
a couple days later, still on Axios Denver's eight hundred
million dollar bond proposal is in political peril. And the
(01:22):
short version of the story is it seems like some
city council members aren't aren't too happy with the structure
of it or something.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
So I have two questions for you.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
One is is it reasonable for a city in county
that is having some financial, significant financial issues to take
on this much debt? And then on the political side,
you know if the answer to that is yes, And
I assume you think it's yes.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Or you wouldn't be doing it.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
But what happens now that it seems like the city
council isn't fully on board?
Speaker 4 (01:57):
Sure, And first of all, Ross, thanks for having me.
It's good be back. Aways love conversation with you.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
You always get good, fair feedback, and so I always
enjoy getting to chat with you. So first one is
we do think actually that it is important because of
these actual financial times to make sure the city keeps
investing in public infrastructure, because you got to still repair bridges,
you got to still repair roads, you got to make
sure you take care of parks and rec centers in
(02:22):
our public facilities, and so we want to keep doing
those things to repair and protect the city infrastructure because
it's what makes the city move. And we think in
times where you have potential recession or you have people
being more concerned about whether they can take their family
out to dinner or go on vacation, and you have
flattening revenue, you do want to invest in still creating
(02:43):
jobs and getting projects moving. And so these will create
thousands of jobs in the city, they'll get projects up
and moving, and they'll protect core infrastructure. So we do
think it's an important time to do it. Really importantly,
it does not raise taxes, and we have real bond capacity.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
I can send you the.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
Chart that shows we keep a careful track of what
our bond and borrowing capacity is. We have a huge
drop off of debt that's been paid off over the
last five years that gives us this capacity to do it.
We wouldn't do it otherwise, and it won't increase the
mill levee or anything else, and it won't we won't
have any impact on tax burdens.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
So that's really important for us too.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Okay, and then get to the other part, like what
is this other parts so upset about and how are
you going to sort that out?
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (03:26):
So the reality is and this is also why it's
important to do this, you know, you imagine you know,
it's kind of like when you have your honeydew list
if you do from your wife. I do, and I
got fifteen things to do on any given Monday night,
I can't do it. Saturday is the day you catch
up on all those things you haven't done. You know,
we have six billion dollars of infrastructure projects the city
needs around the city. We're never going to catch up
on that at you know, the twenty or thirty million
(03:47):
dollars a year we spend on capital improvements. So you
do these bonds every six to ten years to try
to take a big chunk out of that list and
catch up.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
That means two things.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
One is we're not going to be able to get
to the whole list because we certainly do and have
the capacity to do a six billion dollar bond, and
that wouldn't be responsible. So we had seven thousand Denver
rights who gave ideas. We had eleven hundred projects that
were about another total of about six billion. No way
we were going to be able to do all of them.
But we have to make hard decisions, and the council does.
We had you know, fifty different public meetings with these
(04:18):
committees and that reviewed projects they proposed. These we've modified them,
but always true for me, true for every council where
there's projects we wanted that we weren't able to fund,
and so we totally understand that we're working with them
to try to get to the best possible compromise of
what gets the most urgent things across the finish line.
And this is a reasonable council who wants to get
things done, and we're confident we'll work with them and
(04:39):
find the right compromise.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
I was talking with listeners a couple of days ago,
anticipating our conversation, and I was wondering, so I made
a bad analogy, which is, you know, President Trump sometimes
will say things to Congress that he knows members of
Congress won't necessarily like but he thinks they'll go along
with it just because there are rate of ham or whatever.
(05:02):
I don't think you have quite that same relationship with
the Denver City Council. But and I mean, this is
a really serious question. So how much do you think
you will be able to pressure? Isn't the right word?
Convince city council members that you really went through as
diligent a process as you can and you came up
with the best result, and that you really don't want
(05:24):
to see changes or at least big changes in the
list of projects because it is already the result of
a thorough process. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
I think the benefit is they know that because they've
been a part of it. I mean, you know, our
council president was helped to share the executive committee that
helped make these decisions. We had council members that hosted
all of these town halls in their communities. Council members
sat on the subcommittees themselves that reviewed all these projects
and advanced them. So they've been very involved throughout it
(05:54):
and have been very engaged. It doesn't mean there always
won't be one more park you want in your district,
or one more street light or intersection you want. That's
them doing their job and fighting for their district. We
understand that, but they also, i think understand the nature
of having the whole city to serve, and so I'm
quite confident that we're going to have a shared vision
on the things that we want, and we'll work wherever
(06:15):
we can to try to make adjustments or changes to
get those key stop lights or park improvements done, and
if it's something they can't get done in this bond
will help show where we have the capacity on the
list of capital improvements in the years that are coming
to say those things are still priorities. The benefit of
taking a billion dollars of stuff off the list is
those things that were farther down the list to get
(06:36):
done on year to year operations can now move up farther.
So we think that's why it's a win for both lists.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
All right, just give me a quick answer on this
last question on this topic, and then we'll move to
another topic. Were you surprised at the lack of support
at city council the other day for this or did
you kind of know that was coming.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
I think a lot of questions were around process, and
I think there are always I think people this is
the process people go throughout ben and delivered. I was
in the Senate before. When you first see a proposal,
you have a lot of questions. You ask what the process,
you ask what the content. You get more information. We're
doing briefings with all of them. They're getting clearer, so
I'm always prepared people to have questions at the beginning.
I think that was consistent of what we thought, and
(07:16):
I think we're going to get to solution that they'll
be supportive of.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
We're talking with numbers.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
We're talking with Denver mayor Mike Johnston, who is in
the Oval office, which I can see Mike because we're
on zoom. You can only hear him. But it looks
like it may actually be an oval.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
It is it might actually be a square.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
I haven't mentioned me in a circle, but it is
somewhere between a circle and a noble But it is
a beautiful space that Denright should be proud of. I
was not aware how beautiful it was un till I
got here.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
I would like to ask you to talk about us
for a second. Kowa is one hundred this year, and
would you like to say anything to Koway.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
A happy birthday, Koa. You don't look a day over
ninety nine.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
That is impressive and not at all with every mayor
i'll talk to you from penon, they'll always talk about
their relationship with how they got the word out, and
Kawa as always in that list. You all been breaking
stories for one hundred years, and I think covering complicated
topics and depth for one hundred years, and I'm delighted
that you're still doing it.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
I saw a bunch of stories recently, so we were
talking about some. We touched on some of the city's
fiscal troubles, a two hundred plus million dollar deficit, and
part of what you are doing to deal with that
is some layoffs of city workers, at least temporarily, and
I wanted to take an opportunity to publicly say thank
(08:41):
you for doing this the way you're doing it.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
I don't think you're.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Probably getting enough credit, and I think is probably not
the easiest decision, especially for a democratic mayor, to do
something that pushes back a little bit against the or
maybe more than a little against the wishers of the
government union. And basically what you are doing is you
are significantly including merit and skill sets and stuff like
(09:08):
that in the in the calculation for who's going to
get laid off and not just seniority. Can you please
tell me about reaching that decision. And again I really
did want to take the opportunity to thank you in
public for that.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Well, well, I appreciate that. Obviously, we never want to
lay off an employee. That's never anybody's goal. And we
have incredibly hard work in city employees who every day
get up and make this place runs. Every time your
trash gets picked up, where you call nine to one
and someone responds. We're incredibly grateful for the city employees
to do that. And we know that like any family
or like any small business, you got to live within
(09:44):
a budget, you know, and we have to figure out
how we can deliver government that works better and cost less,
and we think that is an important priority. And so
what we're doing is really focusing right now on how
we can reduce our costs and still deliver on the
core public services public safety, street cleaning, trash pickup, homelessness,
(10:05):
affordable housing, all those things. And we think that in
a city where eighty plus percent of our costs are people,
it's not really possible to balance a budget like that
without some impact on people. And when you have to
make those decisions, we think it's really important that those
decisions are based on merit and on performance. And when
you have to have a smaller team, you have to
(10:26):
make sure you have the strongest possible team you can
to deliver the best results. And so we certainly consider
people's years of service, but we think the balancing factors
are we want the strongest team members who can make
the biggest impact to be able to stay, and so
we supported changing the career service rule that does that.
There also was a practice I think was very disruptive
(10:48):
to the city and to the employees, which was called
a bumping system, which was if you say you wanted
to reduce some of the overhead and government, and you
have governments that have gotten top heavy, maybe you have
four deputy directors in the department will only need three. Well,
if you wanted to remove one of those deputy directors,
say on the transit department, well that person could then
(11:13):
take the job of the senior manager beneath them. They
could take the job of the junior manager. They could
take the job of the truck driver that picks up
your trash. At the end of the day, you've let
go of frontline worker who we need to pick up
trash every day, when what we wanted to do was
to slim down some of the some of the more
senior positions maybe aren't as frontline facing. And so we
(11:33):
also change that practice of bumping. So if there is
a strategic decision to lay off a role because that
role is not as important, we don't want that to
impact four or five other employees who all end up
being demoted into jobs that they're not trained for or
prepared for or the best app.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
So just one more on this.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
It's obvious to me and anybody who's ever run a
business and I.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Have that what you're doing is correct.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
You've got to prioritize merit and skill set and just
and not just who's been there longest. But given that
these are government workers who are heavily unionized, and you
are a Democrat and a democratic city, was it difficult
for you to make that decision or once you thought
of it or someone said it to you, like, oh,
(12:21):
we have this problem, was it immediately obvious we need
to fix this and I'm going to fix it, and
I don't care if the union's.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Mad, I think, for here's a question, what seems the
most fair like both to the city, Because you know,
my job is to serve the seven hundred and twenty
thousand residents and give them the best possible services. This is,
I think clearly the way to give them the best services.
And so then we worked with the Career Service Board
to change the rules to do that and still to
(12:47):
say yes will include seniority as one.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
Of the criteria, but it can't be the only one.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
And we don't want to disrupt five families or five
employees or five departments every time we have to make
one change. We want people to think really carefully about
how we're going to build departments that can maybe do less,
but do it better and really deliver high quality service
in all the areas that we're engaged in and figure
out what lines of work may not be as essential
as they were ten years ago, we might not need anymore.
(13:13):
And so we're focusing at the same time on how
we cut red tape and reduce the regulations in government
to make it burdensome for residents and burden some for employees.
How we can put more and more services online, so
that's easier and faster for residents and faster for employees.
So we're looking at all those things. But yeah, this
seemed clear to be the right thing and the fair
thing for me to do, so we did it.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
There are a couple of major areas that you have
had to take on as mayor that I would say
were primarily things you inherited rather than things that you
caused or that even happened while you were mayor. High
crime rates and high homelessness. And I want to ask
you about both of those. Will do them in separate,
(13:53):
in separate topics, to ask you how you think progress
is going in Denver on these issues.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
And let's talk about crime rates.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
I did see something on Denver seven, the ABC network
channel from May I think it was that said Denver's
homicide rate dropped by fifty eight percent compared to twenty
one percent average decline among the largest cities nationwide. But
how are you feeling about crime rates in Denver?
Speaker 1 (14:19):
And also, as part of your answer, how are.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
You feeling about the level of staffing and ability to
recruit for the Denver Police?
Speaker 4 (14:31):
Thanks? Ros, This is incredibly important.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
It's one I've spent so much time on over the
last two years, and we are very, very proud of
the progress.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
As you mentioned, we have a great police department.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
They've done fantastic work, you know, on everything from not
just reducing violent crime, but from managing protests around the
city that have gone off peacefully, whether those are you know,
connected to national politics or local issues. I think they've
really handled this remarkably well. So we are thrilled. Yeah,
as you mentioned, fifty eight percent drop in the homicide rate,
(15:02):
that is the largest drop of any top one hundred
city in the country. That's fantastic for us. Most importantly,
it's one of the lowest homicide rates Denver's had in
our recorded history at this stage, and so we want
to keep it there. And a big part of this
has been we want more officers on the streets and
that's been a clear priority for me since the beginning,
because we know more officers we have, the more responsive
(15:25):
they can be. Whenever someone wants nine one one, they
don't want to be put on hold, they want to
have an officer deployed immediately. And so each of the
last two years we've been proposing the largest expansions to
the police force to help rebuild our authorized strength. We'll
probably put another one hundred and sixty eight officers on
the street this year and so, and we we're working
hard to Right now, we're bargaining with a police department
(15:47):
on getting to a contract extension with them that we
want to be one that's going to continue to attract
officers to want to work in Denver and to want
to stay in Denver. So they are credit is part
of our success. Credit to them for all the progress
we're going to keep pushing.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Let me jump in just for a second, give me
some slightly shorter answers, because I only.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Got about four more minutes with you.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
So when if if you took office and the position
we were in in this city when it came to
crime rates was was zero and your goal was ten
whatever that is, right? Where are we now from zero
to ten with zero being where you started and ten
being where you'd like to be.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
I'd say on violent crime, we're at like an eight
or you know, I think we're making really good progress.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
The largest reduction in the country is great.
Speaker 5 (16:33):
The places we still have more work to do is
what I would call the quality of life crimes. That
is still people using drugs in public, dealing drugs in public,
stuffed from your local grocery store when a guy runs
out with a cart full of groceries.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
That's the next stage of the work. We're going to
really engage and do more and more on that. But
on violent crime, we are exactly on path we want
to be. We want to keep dropping that. We want
to be the lowest crime rate in the country. We're
about second right now after Boston. But we're going to
keep fighting. But that progress is great. More work to
do on quality of life.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Before I get to the homeless thing.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
What's the status or time frame for opening whatever is
going to happen at Park Hill.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Yeah, so we are working on a preliminary openings that
folks can walk through and walk paths and take their
dogs out for walks this summer. So we think we'll
have it a preliminary opening this summer, and then obviously
we want to do a full buildout to make that
into a full functioning park. That will be one of
the items that's currently on the bond that we think
is a real historic opportunities in the city.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Let's talk homelessness for a minute. I saw a headline
over at the PBS television station. City officials and homeless
advocates disagree over Denver homeless count, and one of the
things they mentioned in here is they say, Okay, the
count is down a lot, but it also seems like
maybe some of these people.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Are hiding because they're afraid of the police.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
One of my colleagues also notes that it seems like
the number of outdoor deaths are pretty high this year.
What's your take on the status of the homeless issue.
And I do note that you said you're this may
be a little different from homeless, but you're going to
lease another thirty eight rooms in a motel for seven
hundred grand, So there's a lot going on here.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
Yeah, I mean, this is one where I think our
success is compelling. And yeah, as you know, folks are
entitled to their own opinions, not to their own facts.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
I mean, I think the facts here are federally.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
Tracked database that tracks every city in the country shows
Denver's had the largest decrease in street homelessness of any
city in American history, not just for Denver, not just
over the last two years, of any city. We've dropped
by forty five percent in the last two years that
would have been you know, when we talked two years
ago I took the oath of office, that would been
beyond my wildest dreams of what we could do in
the first two years.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
So that's a great step.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
What we're doing is got people off the street into
transitional housing, then they move up into permanent housing. That's
the right path, and we still have more.
Speaker 4 (18:52):
Work to do there.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
We've still got fifty percent of people that are still
left on the street. We got to get them off
and a lot of those folks. You know, we've closed
every large encampment in this city. There's no encampments. We've
become I'm very proud of this ross with the largest
American city to end street homelessness for veterans. We're the
biggest city ever to say no veterans are left on
our streets.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
We can't get access to housing.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
But the people that are left are folks that are
really seriously addicted, very mentally ill. They're not living in encampments,
they're just using and passing out. That's our real next
phase is to get to those people, get them to services,
get them rehabilitated and back on their feet.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
And that's what the next two years will focus on.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
I've got about one minute left, so my last question
for you is tell me a question that I should
have asked you that didn't, and then tell me the
answer to it.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
I mean, I think we're really focused on the economic
recovery of this city, and homelessness and crime were big
parts of that. We know, for people to want to
open a business or open a restaurant in Denver, you
got to feel safe, and you got to feel like
you can have people walking and out of your door
without there being a tent in front of it. So
we think, you know, we're really focused on downtown's revitalization.
Sixteenth Street reopened for the first time in what three years.
(20:00):
It is great. Downtown feels alive again. We got out
to our concerts, we got summer festivals. I think the
real thing is, I'd say, for folks who haven't been
to downtown in a while and you've heard that it
doesn't feel safe. We built a whole new downtown police
unit justin downtown, you're gonna find it is safe. It
is vibrant. Come back for a game, come back to
take your family out to dinner. We're really committed to
(20:21):
making downtown everybody's living room, and we're excited about the
progress that's making there.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
All right, I'm gonna ask you one quick follow up
on that and then we'll call it good for today.
So are you seeing any data or is it too
early to see any data as to whether these efforts
on crime and Sixteenth Street mall and all this are
making inroads in the mindsets of tourists or businesses that
(20:45):
would have business meetings or conventions and stuff like that
in Denver to bring people back to Denver.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
And also and also maybe whether there's more.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Uptake in office office space rental in Denver and even
going on with any of that that you can see
so far.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Yeah, that is exactly our focus. We're really excited about
the fact that we have had three times more leasing
requests for commercial property on Sixteenth Street in the last
three months than we've had in the last three years combined.
So like it is clear that now all of a sudden,
people see the drops and crime, they see the drops
and homelessness, they see the downtown's open, and people want
(21:25):
to come back. I just talked to two other a
restaurant owner and a retail store owner, both beloved local
businesses who want to move and open branches on sixteenth downtown.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
So we are.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
Seeing that we're going to work to fill seven million
square feet of empty office space down there. That's going
to be adding about four thousand units of housing. So
we got more people living downtown and refilling those commercial spaces.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
But we are seeing good momentum on foot traffic.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
We're seeing restaurants downtown that are up thirty fifty, some
of them one hundred percent on revenue, and so we're
seeing people are coming back and spending, and that's the
most important thing.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Denver may Or, Mike Johnston, thanks so much for making
time or us. Hope to get you back on again
a little bit sooner than every couple of years. And
I hope for our listeners, I hope you found that
conversation very interesting. And Mike, since it is National hot
Dog Day, go buy a hot dog from Marcella in
an hour or two.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
I will look forward to that. Thanks for having me
ros all right
Speaker 1 (22:21):
All right, thanks for being here, Mike,
Mayor Mike Johnston of Denver.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
We had a ton of stuff to talk about today, Mayor.
It looks like your camera went off. I don't know
what happened there, but if you can get that back on,
that would be good, but not absolutely necessary.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
So first of all, Mike, can you hear me? Are
we still good?
Speaker 3 (00:15):
I sure can.
Speaker 4 (00:16):
I was turning video off because it's a little choppy though.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Oh, okay, help if the audio.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
If the audio gets bad, we'll turn it off again.
So I'm gonna I'm gonna start by putting you in
a very bad position because you should never ask a
politician what's their favorite. But I'm gonna ask you what's
your favorite? Because it's National hot Dog Day? So do
you have a favorite place in Denver to get a
hot dog?
Speaker 4 (00:37):
Wow?
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Yeah, the Actually, the one has to be We have
a hot dog vendor right outside of the city County buildings.
She's been here for thirty five years. It's fifteen feet
from my office. So that is my most go to,
most loved hot dog.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
All right, do you remember her name? You want to
give her a shout out or anything.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
Yeah, it's Marcella is her name, and she's been here
forever awesome.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
All right, Marcella, it's a free shout out on KA.
I got a ton of stuff I want to talk
to you about. A few days ago, I saw a
headline at Axios Denver says Denver's eight hundred million dollar
bond package for infrastructure projects takes shape, and then just
a couple days later, still on Axios Denver's eight hundred
million dollar bond proposal is in political peril. And the
(01:22):
short version of the story is it seems like some
city council members aren't aren't too happy with the structure
of it or something.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
So I have two questions for you.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
One is is it reasonable for a city in county
that is having some financial, significant financial issues to take
on this much debt? And then on the political side,
you know if the answer to that is yes, And
I assume you think it's yes.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Or you wouldn't be doing it.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
But what happens now that it seems like the city
council isn't fully on board?
Speaker 4 (01:57):
Sure, And first of all, Ross, thanks for having me.
It's good be back. Aways love conversation with you.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
You always get good, fair feedback, and so I always
enjoy getting to chat with you. So first one is
we do think actually that it is important because of
these actual financial times to make sure the city keeps
investing in public infrastructure, because you got to still repair bridges,
you got to still repair roads, you got to make
sure you take care of parks and rec centers in
(02:22):
our public facilities, and so we want to keep doing
those things to repair and protect the city infrastructure because
it's what makes the city move. And we think in
times where you have potential recession or you have people
being more concerned about whether they can take their family
out to dinner or go on vacation, and you have
flattening revenue, you do want to invest in still creating
(02:43):
jobs and getting projects moving. And so these will create
thousands of jobs in the city, they'll get projects up
and moving, and they'll protect core infrastructure. So we do
think it's an important time to do it. Really importantly,
it does not raise taxes, and we have real bond capacity.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
I can send you the.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
Chart that shows we keep a careful track of what
our bond and borrowing capacity is. We have a huge
drop off of debt that's been paid off over the
last five years that gives us this capacity to do it.
We wouldn't do it otherwise, and it won't increase the
mill levee or anything else, and it won't we won't
have any impact on tax burdens.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
So that's really important for us too.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Okay, and then get to the other part, like what
is this other parts so upset about and how are
you going to sort that out?
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (03:26):
So the reality is and this is also why it's
important to do this, you know, you imagine you know,
it's kind of like when you have your honeydew list
if you do from your wife. I do, and I
got fifteen things to do on any given Monday night,
I can't do it. Saturday is the day you catch
up on all those things you haven't done. You know,
we have six billion dollars of infrastructure projects the city
needs around the city. We're never going to catch up
on that at you know, the twenty or thirty million
(03:47):
dollars a year we spend on capital improvements. So you
do these bonds every six to ten years to try
to take a big chunk out of that list and
catch up.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
That means two things.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
One is we're not going to be able to get
to the whole list because we certainly do and have
the capacity to do a six billion dollar bond, and
that wouldn't be responsible. So we had seven thousand Denver
rights who gave ideas. We had eleven hundred projects that
were about another total of about six billion. No way
we were going to be able to do all of them.
But we have to make hard decisions, and the council does.
We had you know, fifty different public meetings with these
(04:18):
committees and that reviewed projects they proposed. These we've modified them,
but always true for me, true for every council where
there's projects we wanted that we weren't able to fund,
and so we totally understand that we're working with them
to try to get to the best possible compromise of
what gets the most urgent things across the finish line.
And this is a reasonable council who wants to get
things done, and we're confident we'll work with them and
(04:39):
find the right compromise.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
I was talking with listeners a couple of days ago,
anticipating our conversation, and I was wondering, so I made
a bad analogy, which is, you know, President Trump sometimes
will say things to Congress that he knows members of
Congress won't necessarily like but he thinks they'll go along
with it just because there are rate of ham or whatever.
(05:02):
I don't think you have quite that same relationship with
the Denver City Council. But and I mean, this is
a really serious question. So how much do you think
you will be able to pressure? Isn't the right word?
Convince city council members that you really went through as
diligent a process as you can and you came up
with the best result, and that you really don't want
(05:24):
to see changes or at least big changes in the
list of projects because it is already the result of
a thorough process. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
I think the benefit is they know that because they've
been a part of it. I mean, you know, our
council president was helped to share the executive committee that
helped make these decisions. We had council members that hosted
all of these town halls in their communities. Council members
sat on the subcommittees themselves that reviewed all these projects
and advanced them. So they've been very involved throughout it
(05:54):
and have been very engaged. It doesn't mean there always
won't be one more park you want in your district,
or one more street light or intersection you want. That's
them doing their job and fighting for their district. We
understand that, but they also, i think understand the nature
of having the whole city to serve, and so I'm
quite confident that we're going to have a shared vision
on the things that we want, and we'll work wherever
(06:15):
we can to try to make adjustments or changes to
get those key stop lights or park improvements done, and
if it's something they can't get done in this bond
will help show where we have the capacity on the
list of capital improvements in the years that are coming
to say those things are still priorities. The benefit of
taking a billion dollars of stuff off the list is
those things that were farther down the list to get
(06:36):
done on year to year operations can now move up farther.
So we think that's why it's a win for both lists.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
All right, just give me a quick answer on this
last question on this topic, and then we'll move to
another topic. Were you surprised at the lack of support
at city council the other day for this or did
you kind of know that was coming.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
I think a lot of questions were around process, and
I think there are always I think people this is
the process people go throughout ben and delivered. I was
in the Senate before. When you first see a proposal,
you have a lot of questions. You ask what the process,
you ask what the content. You get more information. We're
doing briefings with all of them. They're getting clearer, so
I'm always prepared people to have questions at the beginning.
I think that was consistent of what we thought, and
(07:16):
I think we're going to get to solution that they'll
be supportive of.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
We're talking with numbers.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
We're talking with Denver mayor Mike Johnston, who is in
the Oval office, which I can see Mike because we're
on zoom. You can only hear him. But it looks
like it may actually be an oval.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
It is it might actually be a square.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
I haven't mentioned me in a circle, but it is
somewhere between a circle and a noble But it is
a beautiful space that Denright should be proud of. I
was not aware how beautiful it was un till I
got here.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
I would like to ask you to talk about us
for a second. Kowa is one hundred this year, and
would you like to say anything to Koway.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
A happy birthday, Koa. You don't look a day over
ninety nine.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
That is impressive and not at all with every mayor
i'll talk to you from penon, they'll always talk about
their relationship with how they got the word out, and
Kawa as always in that list. You all been breaking
stories for one hundred years, and I think covering complicated
topics and depth for one hundred years, and I'm delighted
that you're still doing it.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
I saw a bunch of stories recently, so we were
talking about some. We touched on some of the city's
fiscal troubles, a two hundred plus million dollar deficit, and
part of what you are doing to deal with that
is some layoffs of city workers, at least temporarily, and
I wanted to take an opportunity to publicly say thank
(08:41):
you for doing this the way you're doing it.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
I don't think you're.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Probably getting enough credit, and I think is probably not
the easiest decision, especially for a democratic mayor, to do
something that pushes back a little bit against the or
maybe more than a little against the wishers of the
government union. And basically what you are doing is you
are significantly including merit and skill sets and stuff like
(09:08):
that in the in the calculation for who's going to
get laid off and not just seniority. Can you please
tell me about reaching that decision. And again I really
did want to take the opportunity to thank you in
public for that.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Well, well, I appreciate that. Obviously, we never want to
lay off an employee. That's never anybody's goal. And we
have incredibly hard work in city employees who every day
get up and make this place runs. Every time your
trash gets picked up, where you call nine to one
and someone responds. We're incredibly grateful for the city employees
to do that. And we know that like any family
or like any small business, you got to live within
(09:44):
a budget, you know, and we have to figure out
how we can deliver government that works better and cost less,
and we think that is an important priority. And so
what we're doing is really focusing right now on how
we can reduce our costs and still deliver on the
core public services public safety, street cleaning, trash pickup, homelessness,
(10:05):
affordable housing, all those things. And we think that in
a city where eighty plus percent of our costs are people,
it's not really possible to balance a budget like that
without some impact on people. And when you have to
make those decisions, we think it's really important that those
decisions are based on merit and on performance. And when
you have to have a smaller team, you have to
(10:26):
make sure you have the strongest possible team you can
to deliver the best results. And so we certainly consider
people's years of service, but we think the balancing factors
are we want the strongest team members who can make
the biggest impact to be able to stay, and so
we supported changing the career service rule that does that.
There also was a practice I think was very disruptive
(10:48):
to the city and to the employees, which was called
a bumping system, which was if you say you wanted
to reduce some of the overhead and government, and you
have governments that have gotten top heavy, maybe you have
four deputy directors in the department will only need three. Well,
if you wanted to remove one of those deputy directors,
say on the transit department, well that person could then
(11:13):
take the job of the senior manager beneath them. They
could take the job of the junior manager. They could
take the job of the truck driver that picks up
your trash. At the end of the day, you've let
go of frontline worker who we need to pick up
trash every day, when what we wanted to do was
to slim down some of the some of the more
senior positions maybe aren't as frontline facing. And so we
(11:33):
also change that practice of bumping. So if there is
a strategic decision to lay off a role because that
role is not as important, we don't want that to
impact four or five other employees who all end up
being demoted into jobs that they're not trained for or
prepared for or the best app.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
So just one more on this.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
It's obvious to me and anybody who's ever run a
business and I.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Have that what you're doing is correct.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
You've got to prioritize merit and skill set and just
and not just who's been there longest. But given that
these are government workers who are heavily unionized, and you
are a Democrat and a democratic city, was it difficult
for you to make that decision or once you thought
of it or someone said it to you, like, oh,
(12:21):
we have this problem, was it immediately obvious we need
to fix this and I'm going to fix it, and
I don't care if the union's.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Mad, I think, for here's a question, what seems the
most fair like both to the city, Because you know,
my job is to serve the seven hundred and twenty
thousand residents and give them the best possible services. This is,
I think clearly the way to give them the best services.
And so then we worked with the Career Service Board
to change the rules to do that and still to
(12:47):
say yes will include seniority as one.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
Of the criteria, but it can't be the only one.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
And we don't want to disrupt five families or five
employees or five departments every time we have to make
one change. We want people to think really carefully about
how we're going to build departments that can maybe do less,
but do it better and really deliver high quality service
in all the areas that we're engaged in and figure
out what lines of work may not be as essential
as they were ten years ago, we might not need anymore.
(13:13):
And so we're focusing at the same time on how
we cut red tape and reduce the regulations in government
to make it burdensome for residents and burden some for employees.
How we can put more and more services online, so
that's easier and faster for residents and faster for employees.
So we're looking at all those things. But yeah, this
seemed clear to be the right thing and the fair
thing for me to do, so we did it.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
There are a couple of major areas that you have
had to take on as mayor that I would say
were primarily things you inherited rather than things that you
caused or that even happened while you were mayor. High
crime rates and high homelessness. And I want to ask
you about both of those. Will do them in separate,
(13:53):
in separate topics, to ask you how you think progress
is going in Denver on these issues.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
And let's talk about crime rates.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
I did see something on Denver seven, the ABC network
channel from May I think it was that said Denver's
homicide rate dropped by fifty eight percent compared to twenty
one percent average decline among the largest cities nationwide. But
how are you feeling about crime rates in Denver?
Speaker 1 (14:19):
And also, as part of your answer, how are.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
You feeling about the level of staffing and ability to
recruit for the Denver Police?
Speaker 4 (14:31):
Thanks? Ros, This is incredibly important.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
It's one I've spent so much time on over the
last two years, and we are very, very proud of
the progress.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
As you mentioned, we have a great police department.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
They've done fantastic work, you know, on everything from not
just reducing violent crime, but from managing protests around the
city that have gone off peacefully, whether those are you know,
connected to national politics or local issues. I think they've
really handled this remarkably well. So we are thrilled. Yeah,
as you mentioned, fifty eight percent drop in the homicide rate,
(15:02):
that is the largest drop of any top one hundred
city in the country. That's fantastic for us. Most importantly,
it's one of the lowest homicide rates Denver's had in
our recorded history at this stage, and so we want
to keep it there. And a big part of this
has been we want more officers on the streets and
that's been a clear priority for me since the beginning,
because we know more officers we have, the more responsive
(15:25):
they can be. Whenever someone wants nine one one, they
don't want to be put on hold, they want to
have an officer deployed immediately. And so each of the
last two years we've been proposing the largest expansions to
the police force to help rebuild our authorized strength. We'll
probably put another one hundred and sixty eight officers on
the street this year and so, and we we're working
hard to Right now, we're bargaining with a police department
(15:47):
on getting to a contract extension with them that we
want to be one that's going to continue to attract
officers to want to work in Denver and to want
to stay in Denver. So they are credit is part
of our success. Credit to them for all the progress
we're going to keep pushing.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Let me jump in just for a second, give me
some slightly shorter answers, because I only.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Got about four more minutes with you.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
So when if if you took office and the position
we were in in this city when it came to
crime rates was was zero and your goal was ten
whatever that is, right? Where are we now from zero
to ten with zero being where you started and ten
being where you'd like to be.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
I'd say on violent crime, we're at like an eight
or you know, I think we're making really good progress.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
The largest reduction in the country is great.
Speaker 5 (16:33):
The places we still have more work to do is
what I would call the quality of life crimes. That
is still people using drugs in public, dealing drugs in public,
stuffed from your local grocery store when a guy runs
out with a cart full of groceries.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
That's the next stage of the work. We're going to
really engage and do more and more on that. But
on violent crime, we are exactly on path we want
to be. We want to keep dropping that. We want
to be the lowest crime rate in the country. We're
about second right now after Boston. But we're going to
keep fighting. But that progress is great. More work to
do on quality of life.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Before I get to the homeless thing.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
What's the status or time frame for opening whatever is
going to happen at Park Hill.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Yeah, so we are working on a preliminary openings that
folks can walk through and walk paths and take their
dogs out for walks this summer. So we think we'll
have it a preliminary opening this summer, and then obviously
we want to do a full buildout to make that
into a full functioning park. That will be one of
the items that's currently on the bond that we think
is a real historic opportunities in the city.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Let's talk homelessness for a minute. I saw a headline
over at the PBS television station. City officials and homeless
advocates disagree over Denver homeless count, and one of the
things they mentioned in here is they say, Okay, the
count is down a lot, but it also seems like
maybe some of these people.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Are hiding because they're afraid of the police.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
One of my colleagues also notes that it seems like
the number of outdoor deaths are pretty high this year.
What's your take on the status of the homeless issue.
And I do note that you said you're this may
be a little different from homeless, but you're going to
lease another thirty eight rooms in a motel for seven
hundred grand, So there's a lot going on here.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
Yeah, I mean, this is one where I think our
success is compelling. And yeah, as you know, folks are
entitled to their own opinions, not to their own facts.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
I mean, I think the facts here are federally.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
Tracked database that tracks every city in the country shows
Denver's had the largest decrease in street homelessness of any
city in American history, not just for Denver, not just
over the last two years, of any city. We've dropped
by forty five percent in the last two years that
would have been you know, when we talked two years
ago I took the oath of office, that would been
beyond my wildest dreams of what we could do in
the first two years.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
So that's a great step.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
What we're doing is got people off the street into
transitional housing, then they move up into permanent housing. That's
the right path, and we still have more.
Speaker 4 (18:52):
Work to do there.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
We've still got fifty percent of people that are still
left on the street. We got to get them off
and a lot of those folks. You know, we've closed
every large encampment in this city. There's no encampments. We've
become I'm very proud of this ross with the largest
American city to end street homelessness for veterans. We're the
biggest city ever to say no veterans are left on
our streets.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
We can't get access to housing.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
But the people that are left are folks that are
really seriously addicted, very mentally ill. They're not living in encampments,
they're just using and passing out. That's our real next
phase is to get to those people, get them to services,
get them rehabilitated and back on their feet.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
And that's what the next two years will focus on.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
I've got about one minute left, so my last question
for you is tell me a question that I should
have asked you that didn't, and then tell me the
answer to it.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
I mean, I think we're really focused on the economic
recovery of this city, and homelessness and crime were big
parts of that. We know, for people to want to
open a business or open a restaurant in Denver, you
got to feel safe, and you got to feel like
you can have people walking and out of your door
without there being a tent in front of it. So
we think, you know, we're really focused on downtown's revitalization.
Sixteenth Street reopened for the first time in what three years.
(20:00):
It is great. Downtown feels alive again. We got out
to our concerts, we got summer festivals. I think the
real thing is, I'd say, for folks who haven't been
to downtown in a while and you've heard that it
doesn't feel safe. We built a whole new downtown police
unit justin downtown, you're gonna find it is safe. It
is vibrant. Come back for a game, come back to
take your family out to dinner. We're really committed to
(20:21):
making downtown everybody's living room, and we're excited about the
progress that's making there.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
All right, I'm gonna ask you one quick follow up
on that and then we'll call it good for today.
So are you seeing any data or is it too
early to see any data as to whether these efforts
on crime and Sixteenth Street mall and all this are
making inroads in the mindsets of tourists or businesses that
(20:45):
would have business meetings or conventions and stuff like that
in Denver to bring people back to Denver.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
And also and also maybe whether there's more.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Uptake in office office space rental in Denver and even
going on with any of that that you can see
so far.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
Yeah, that is exactly our focus. We're really excited about
the fact that we have had three times more leasing
requests for commercial property on Sixteenth Street in the last
three months than we've had in the last three years combined.
So like it is clear that now all of a sudden,
people see the drops and crime, they see the drops
and homelessness, they see the downtown's open, and people want
(21:25):
to come back. I just talked to two other a
restaurant owner and a retail store owner, both beloved local
businesses who want to move and open branches on sixteenth downtown.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
So we are.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
Seeing that we're going to work to fill seven million
square feet of empty office space down there. That's going
to be adding about four thousand units of housing. So
we got more people living downtown and refilling those commercial spaces.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
But we are seeing good momentum on foot traffic.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
We're seeing restaurants downtown that are up thirty fifty, some
of them one hundred percent on revenue, and so we're
seeing people are coming back and spending, and that's the
most important thing.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Denver may Or, Mike Johnston, thanks so much for making
time or us. Hope to get you back on again
a little bit sooner than every couple of years. And
I hope for our listeners, I hope you found that
conversation very interesting. And Mike, since it is National hot
Dog Day, go buy a hot dog from Marcella in
an hour or two.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
I will look forward to that. Thanks for having me
ros all right
Speaker 1 (22:21):
All right, thanks for being here, Mike,
The Ross Kaminsky Show News
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