A proclamation celebrating and thanking Michael Anderson for fifteen years of outstanding service to the City and County of Denver upon his retirement.
two pedestrian mall Tennyson Streetscape portions from 38th to 44th West 32nd Avenue, pedestrian mall. West 44th Avenue and Elliott Street pedestrian mall. And that takes us to our proclamations. We do have two proclamations this evening. Councilwoman Susman, will you please read Proclamation 1155? Thank you, Mr. President. It is my pleasure to read a proclamation celebrating and thanking Michael Anderson for 15 years of service. Whereas Michael Mike Anderson grew up in Iowa and was inspired by his father to become an engineer attending and graduating from CU Boulder. Spending a portion of his career at the Los Angeles County Flood Control District and Department of Public Works, initiating planning for the now 1 billion plus revitalization of the concrete channels of the Los Angeles River. And. Whereas, Mike relocated to Denver in 2002 and secured a position as a stormwater planning engineer in public works where he was instrumental in developing, get this, the 2005 storm drainage master plan, which was the first update since 1989, as well as developing both the 2009 and 2014 storm drainage master plans. And. Whereas, Mike was responsible for constituent complaints regarding drainage and often would meet with residents one on one, resulting in Mike getting to know them personally, especially after flooding events in 2005, 2008 and 2013, just to name a few. And. Whereas, Mike has managed numerous drainage studies across the city with the Urban Drainage and Flood Control District, managed several drainage studies that allow the city to see predicted surface flow depths during large storms. Mike taught me that those mean program storm drainage capital project for the annual budgets and manage the 2017 Storm Drainage Metrics Study to prioritize city drainage basins. And. Whereas, Mike facilitated numerous public meetings with a special style that explained things well, calm people down, and brought multiple agencies together, such as Parks and Rec, community planning and development to collaborative, to collaboratively work on drainage issues and develop strong relationships with several past and current council members. Whereas Mike was a willing mentor to news staff, a repository of engineering and institutional knowledge for colleagues, and an inspiration to others to be like Mike. Solely by example. His legacy will live on in the staff he mentored and the future stormwater planning studies built upon the work he pioneered and championed. Now, therefore let it be proclaimed by the Council of the City and County of Denver that Section one. The Council hereby recognizes and thanks, Michael Anderson, for his 15 years of service to the city and wishes him a wonderful retirement. Section two, the clerk of the city and county of Denver shall attest. And a fix the seal of the city and county of Denver to this proclamation and that a copy be delivered to Michael Anderson . Thank you, councilwoman. Suspend your motion to adopt. I move that we adopt the proclamation. It has been moved and seconded. Councilwoman Sussman. Thank you very much. I first met Mike about four years ago. When, of course, we were having flooding problems in my district, the Upper Montclair Basin. First thing he just suggested was let's meet with the maybe with the neighbors. Of course he did. He was great at it. We met with about 30 neighbors one evening, some having experienced flooding in their homes, some having cars that had floated down the street. Some with people in them. The mood was very tense. I then watched this Mike Anderson suit the whole atmosphere in the room. His straight talk and empathic manner was an experience to see and hear. I started writing down not just the things he was saying, but the way he was saying them. Realizing I could learn a lot from this guy about effective and sensitive communication. You see, he really only had bad news for the neighbors that night. Only bad news. It was going to be more than 20 years before the city could get around to fixing the problem of that flooding. He did say Intel, what they were doing in the meantime to get ready to address the issues. But. But even with bad news, the back and forth went smoothly. And remarkably, remarkably, as neighbors were leaving that meeting, they were satisfied content, understood the issues and laughing with each other. I never saw anything like it. And since then, I've watched him do it over and over again with neighbors. So I have decided to name him officially The Constituent Whisperer, and I am very pleased to do this proclamation tonight and urge my fellow councilmen to vote for this proclamation. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilwoman Cohen. Each. Thank you, Mr. President. I appreciate my colleague bringing this forward. I think I met Mike closer to six years ago, shortly after I got elected. And there is an area that constituents is a little bit different. It wasn't so much. The reaction is more is the visioning phase where constituents had a vision for a brownfield and they'd had the experience of the city saying, no, it seemed too hard. And it but yet at the same time, there was a flooding study that seemed to indicate that in this area we needed some kind of city investment. And so I volunteered to try to help them kind of gather multiple departments together. And my simple appreciation to Mike was for being the first person to say, Yeah, that might make sense. If we're going to have to spend money there any way we might be able to do it in a way that actually meets these community vision ideas and wow, wouldn't that make sense rather than kind of thinking separately about our city infrastructure? And so although it wasn't his project to lead and Parks ended up taking the lead, it was him saying, yes, we will be having to invest in this area. And if we had others that were bringing money to the table and had a vision for how to do that, it might make sense. And so it gave me the hope to continue working on it. It might take another six or seven years until we get to a groundbreaking who knows? These things have a very long horizon, thus the patience that Councilwoman Susman described being so valuable. But I just you know, so I got to say, you know, there's always a reason why something's hard and there's always ten reasons why it might not work. But I appreciate you being the first interaction. I had to say, yes, we should think about this and it could be possible and it could be come together. And really that helped to kick start something that's now becoming a real project, which is the platform Open Space in Globeville. So thank you on behalf of those residents in that community for for saying yes to some creative thinking and to keep us moving in that direction. And I wish you the best in your retirement. Thank you so much for all your service to the city. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman Cashman. Thank you, Mr. President. Pro tem. So it's always great when you work with people in the city that you agree with and you work together hand in hand to accomplish projects. That was has not been my experience with Mike. Our interaction has been as much on projects that I disagreed with as those that I agreed with. And I think that's those times where we were in disagreement is where I think I saw the character that people are talking about with Mike. And that wasn't about politics, it was about public service and public safety. And he expressed a respect for my opinions, though, being steadfast in his as well. And as far as expertize in the area of city drainage projects, I'm quite sure that his expertize exceeds mine. But it was an experience that I enjoyed. You know, there's been a couple of people that have left the city recently that I just feel cheated about. You know, I got I've had a brief couple of years to work with Mike and Mr. Broad well before him and some others who have gone on to other pursuits. So I as well would like to wish you a wonderful retirement. Mike and Mike was in my office earlier this afternoon, and you just need to appreciate how thoroughly uncomfortable I'm sure he is hearing people talk about what a fine job he's done for the city because he's as humble a human being as he is a skilled engineer. So. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Councilman. Madam Secretary, roll call. SUSSMAN Hi. Espinosa Hi. Gilmore Gillmor I heard in Cashman I can eat new Ortega. Hi, Mr. President. Hi. Madam Secretary, please close the voting and announce the results. 1999 is proclamation. 1155 has been adopted. Councilwoman Sussman, is there someone you would like to invite up to the proclamation? I think I'd like to invite Mr. Mike Anderson to the podium. Good evening, counsel. Thank you. Thank you very much. I am humbled by this. I look around and I was thinking all day about the various districts that I've worked in just about all across the city. And. It's really neat and rewarding for me to drive around the city and say, Oh, I remember that problem that's fixed. That's fixed. There are some that are going to take a long time, but it's really rewarding to see things that are fixed from southwest Denver to north east Denver and all points in between. I want to thank your city council and all of your aides. I want to thank the prior city council and all of their aides. It's great to see Councilman Robb here. I haven't seen her since she retired. The legislative analyst staff has been wonderful to work with and the mayor's office as well, especially Diane and Skye. I want to thank, obviously, my father, who was a civil engineer. He never pushed me into engineering. He allowed all of us children to choose our own path when I don't know if any of you ever remember seeing the flier that we sent out, but there was a cartoon at the bottom from Calvin and Hobbes about a thriving little city in a sandbox, and tragically, it laid beneath Hoover Dam. And he's got a little bucket. And that was me as a kid, you know. And when I'm about seven years old, we had an oak tree. No grass grew underneath it. I would carve out this little settee and drive my matchbox cars through the city, and then I'd take the dirt and I build a dam and I'd fill it with a hose, and then I'd blow up the dam and flood the town. So I am I, you know, and in the summers we play in the in the pool and in the river, and I dam up the gutter and the snowmelt. And, you know, it's when I went away to college and ended up getting an offer with the L.A. County Flood Control District, my family said, Yeah, that's Mike. That's Mike. So I said, I want to thank my father for his guidance. I grew up with Civil Engineering magazine. I got a C on a physics exam one night and he I was in tears and he said, don't worry, I never use it. So that gave me some comfort. My mom, my sister, my brother, my aunts and my uncles and my grandparents, who are all hardworking farmers, they instilled in me a sense of a work ethic and a sense of honesty, which I think has come through in the meetings to always be honest. And my teachers that I grew up with, an elementary school, high school, oddly enough, the ones that probably had the biggest impact on me or my English teachers, Mr. Foresman and Mrs. Belsky and Mrs. Adams, that taught me how to write because I've met a lot of engineers who can, and I counseled a couple of engineers that were graduating from SIU recently and and I said, You can be the best engineer in the world, but if you can't communicate in writing or in a presentation, it ain't going to happen. So how are your communication skills? My friends that have supported me through my ups and downs of my life, there have been downs. It hasn't all been great. There have been some real down times, but my friends and my family and my mentors have gotten me through those. I hope they're. Oh, hi, mom. Hi, Lisa. They're watching tonight. I forgot. And my coworkers, Bruce and Jennifer and Ron are here with me in the audience tonight. They've been absolutely wonderful to work with, and they give me the confidence to retire knowing that the next generation of engineers are. They're young. They're energetic. They have new ideas. They have a lot of computer skills that I admittedly don't have. I sometimes feel like a dinosaur. I know what I want and I know how to get it. But they can actually do it, and so can my consultants. And last but not least, I want to thank my partner Marcus here tonight for all of his support through all the years and all the community meetings and all the angst and talking me down afterwards when the adrenaline is running for an hour and a half. I'm sure you all have experienced that as well. So each and each and all of you have contributed a piece of yourselves to me and nurtured me along the way and created the person who stands here before you tonight. It's nothing I did myself. It's everyone that I've named and how that named. But name by name. So I'm really I really feel truly blessed to have had inspiring teachers growing up and supportive friends and family and colleagues and guidance from so many to give me such a rich and rewarding career. Thank you for the opportunity to serve the public and to have had an amazing career and to be of service. And thank you so much. This just means the world to me. Thank you. Thank you. All right, councilman, do you please read proclamation 1157.