Mayor targets traffic, opioids
Hancock wants to “keep families who want to stay in their neighborhoods from being displaced”
Providing more affordable housing, softening the blow of gentrification in Denver’s neighborhoods, adding 125 miles of bike lanes and blaming drugmakers for the city’s opioid crisis were among the major themes of Mayor Michael Hancock’s State of the City speech on Monday.
The mayor’s nearly hour-long speech came in his seventh year as head of the city, and Hancock has indicated that he will run for a third term in May.
“We should never stop investing in our neighborhoods or making the improvements that raise residents’ quality of life,” Hancock said to a crowd of several hundred inside the Carla Madison Recreation Center on East Colfax Avenue. “But we should also have strategies to keep families who want to stay in their neighborhoods from being displaced.”
To that end, the mayor said the city would soon unveil a Neighborhood Equity and Stabilization Team, or NEST, that will work with private developers in an attempt to get ahead of new construction that could alter the character of neighborhoods, especially ones largely populated by lower-income families.
“The team will deploy resources specifically tailored to neighborhoods that are under threat of gentrification as new public and private investment comes in,” Hancock said. “They will jump in
with residents and local businesses to understand their needs and blunt any threatened loss of culture, character and community that investment can cause.”
The mayor specifically made mention of the controversy last fall when a coffee shop in Five Points put out a sign that stated it had been “happily gentrifying the neighborhood” since 2014. The comment brought protesters out into the streets and made Hancock a target of criticism for not doing enough to halt the trend. On Monday, he called the sign that Ink! Coffee placed on the sidewalk “reckless advertising.”
“There is a responsibility that comes with change. We should be looking beyond building new things, we should be elevating the people and places that make our neighborhoods so special,” Hancock said. “These are people and places with history and community. They should be added to, not displaced or replaced.”
Kayvan Khalatbari, who is running against the mayor in 2019, delivered a response to Hancock’s speech across the street from where the mayor spoke. He criticized how Denver has managed its growth over the last few years.
“This growth has been poorly managed and has led to displacement, a dramatic surge in the cost of living, and tensions in our community,” Khalatbari said. “People whose families have lived in Denver for generations are wondering if they can stay. Students, young professionals, creatives and families are struggling to plan for the future, and those who have lived here for decades look around and don’t recognize the city they call home.”
Another of Hancock’s challengers in next year’s race, disability rights activist Kalyn Heffernan, said the mayor’s talk on affordable housing rings hollow.
“I hear Hancock speaking a lot about affordable housing and supporting our rising homeless population, however I don’t hear Hancock’s commitment or priority to end the urban camping ban, which effectively made it illegal for people to sleep in the public spaces he so much loves to show off,” she said. “While I hear Hancock’s proud accomplishments in employment, I sure do not hear his commitment to creating better wages that reflect our exponentially higher cost of living.”
Hancock faces at least four opponents in his run for re-election in May 2019. Attempts to reach Ken Simpson and Marcus Giavanni, the other two declared mayoral candidates, were unsuccessful Monday.
In his speech, the mayor also struck on the need to improve mobility in Denver, by adding 125 miles of bike lanes over the next five years and launching a shuttle service that will connect downtown with the Capitol Hill and Cherry Creek neighborhoods.
“An 8 a.m. commute where everyone is driving in a car by themselves cannot be Denver’s future — even if those cars are self-driving,” Hancock said. “It’s a contradiction in a city on the rise.”
He also got a loud round of applause when he urged the Regional Transportation District to reduce fares for students and lowincome families, an idea the transit agency is openly discussing this week and next through a series of open houses.
Hancock took a stern line with the manufacturers of opioid pain killers, blaming their “greed and indifference” for hooking thousands of people in the state on the powerful drugs and helping push a 15 percent increase in overdose deaths in Denver in 2017. He said he had directed the city attorney’s office to “use every legal tool” to hold drug companies accountable for the damage they have caused.
Hancock, who turns 49 at the end of July, noted for the crowd his accomplishments since first being elected mayor in 2011, while also alluding to recent trouble he had caused himself through his own behavior. After entering office in the wake of the Great Recession, he said his administration has created 90,000 new jobs, 6,600 new businesses and brought the unemployment rate down to 2.4 percent.
“Denver is on the rise,” Hancock said.
Minutes before, the mayor tearfully turned to his family and praised them for enduring the scrutiny that comes with holding elected office, “especially over the past six months.” In February, a former security detail officer for the mayor disclosed publicly text messages she received from Hancock six years ago that she found offensive and sexually harassing. The mayor apologized to the officer, Leslie Branch-Wise, but refused to step down.
“Thank you for being my rock,” he told his wife and children.