"Equity" is the key word as Denver City Council moves a $937 million bond program closer to the ballot - Denverite, the Denver site!
Aug. 08, 2017, 12:02 a.m.
That Denver’s 2017 general obligation bond will right long-standing wrongs and make this city a better place for all its residents is the promise held out by City Council members who voted unanimously Monday to move forward a $937 million bond program, half of which would go to roads, bus infrastructure, sidewalks and bike lanes.
This, even as some community activists decried the lack of funding for housing needs in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods. Without housing support, long-suffering residents won’t get to enjoy the fruits of the bond program, they said.
Other Globeville and Elyria-Swansea residents urged the City Council to approve the bond package that contains money to redo Washington Street to be safer, to build a pedestrian and bike bridge over the railroad crossing at 47th and York and to complete sidewalks and add bus stops around the neighborhoods — all projects included in neighborhood plans developed with community input over a period of years.
The large majority of speakers were there to champion specific projects and urge adoption of the entire bond package.
There were the heads of Denver Health, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, the Denver Art Museum, the Denver Botanic Gardens and the Denver Zoo, whose institutions collectively will get $191 million from this package, 20 percent of all the spending, and whose fundraising capacity and political capital are expected to help carry the bond.
And there were teenagers from Westwood who described being stuck at home because the nearest rec center was too far away and their parents work and can’t shuttle them around town.
Norma Brambila, a longtime Westwood resident and community leader, also used that word: equity.
and $1.9 million will go toward West Colfax transit enhancements.
Transit is important, but the thinking here is that the Federal transit project ultimately wouldn’t improve mobility along the corridor that much compared to the impact of sidewalk improvements.
City officials said they had wanted to use these Federal transit investments to move buses better in the absence of a full bus-rapid-transit system on a corridor with some of the highest ridership in the system and a lot of pedestrian injuries and fatalities.
Councilman Christopher Herndon decided not to bring forward an amendment that would have added money for a teen center in the Denver Central Library, and Councilman Paul Kashmann decided to make do with the sidewalk funding levels in the recommended package. Council member after council member said the city needs to find more money to address massive needs outside the once-a-decade bond process.
Council President Albus Brooks said the lack of contention and strife during the public hearing — the last real chance for the public to change what’s in the bond package — showed that the process was done right.
Brooks said the decision to prioritize transportation in the bond, even at the expense of housing, was the only way to make sure the bond will have a real impact.
Nonetheless, there is a lingering dissatisfaction that housing needs are not being addressed.
The council voted on seven separate ballot items and an overarching ordinance that describes all the projects.
Each of these will be on the ballot as a separate item.
The city is not asking for an increase in the tax rate, but property owners will be paying more for debt service than in the past because their property generally is worth more. The city’s financial analysis assumes interest rates between 4.4 percent and 5.8 percent. The city has a AAA bond rating.
There’s one more step before the bond package goes to the ballot. Denver City Council will hold a second vote on Aug. 14.
Herndon said all the hard decisions to reach this point were actually the easy part of the process.
“It’s all for naught if we can’t get it passed in November,” he said.