A bill for an ordinance renaming a portion of Weir Gulch Park located north of West Alameda Avenue, south of West Bayaud Avenue, north and west of South Weir Drive, and south and east of South Windsor Drive, as “Ruth ‘Lucille’ Dreiling Park”. (INFRASTRUCTURE & CULTURE) Re-names a parcel of Weir Gulch at West Alameda Avenue and South Weir Drive to “Ruth Lucille Dreiling Park” in Council District 3. The Committee approved filing this bill at its meeting on 6-29-16.
Thank you, Mr. President. I move that council bill 473 be placed on the floor and do pass. It has been moved and. We'll try again. Let's. The pick on the bush patching up. We have moved. Can we get a second? Got it. It has been moved and seconded. So what our courtesy public hearing for Council Bill 473 is open council members. We've had a request from the Department of Parks and Recreation to deliver the staff reports on both park renaming Council Bill 473 the ruthless the old Drilling Park and Council Bill 474 The MLA, Sam Sandals Park one right after the other. Then we will hear separate testimony on each bill and finally vote separately on each bill. If you have questions from Parks and Recreation staff regarding either bill, please ask those questions during this public hearing. And with that, may we have the staff report? Councilor. Good evening, Mr. President. Pro Tem Members of council. My name is Happy Haines, executive director of Denver Parks and Recreation. And Mr. President, if I could prevail upon you to give us a few moments, the folks who are here for these hearings have been waiting patiently outside and would like to file in for this, if we may . Sure thing. How long do you think we just need filing? They're heading in. All right. This is just one more. Looks like that, everybody. We've got. Everybody. All right. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you so much. It is my distinct pleasure to be here this evening to recommend. And I'm going to speak, Mr. President pro tem, if it's all right on both at the same time and in recognition of the time this evening and trying to remain brief. Yes. So I will speak to both hearings, even though I know they will be separate. And so it is my distinct pleasure to recommend that the parcel of Wear Gulch at West Alameda and South where drive be named in honor of Ruth Lucille drilling. It is also my pleasure to recommend that Barnum Park North between Sixth Avenue, Knox Court and Federal Boulevard be renamed in honor of M l Sam Sandoz. These processes started last fall. The families and community members in and this is all one community in the Barnum Park neighborhood began the process of renaming these parcels, distributing and circulating the petitions. And we were fortunate enough to witness the results of those. Let me say a word or two and a you've received the memos that I sent for both individuals, but I would like to take a moment to say something about each one of these individuals. Let me start with Ruth. Better known as Lucille Drilling, who is a long time resident of Barnham West neighborhood. I think she came there in the 1960s, and it was her efforts that really led to the creation of Weird Gulch Park. And, you know, Ruth was one of those people that when you called, people answered, whether you were a neighborhood person, a Boy Scout or a council member or ahead of a department in city hall, she she was truly a force of nature. And it was her single mindedness about transforming what really was just a ditch where people thought they should ditch their trash, in fact, into something better. She had a vision for that area. That is what we it is transformed today and what we hope will continue to happen into a beautiful, natural area in park that serves the community that she so loved. And so in 1972, where Gulch Park became a reality and it really was thanks to her tenacious efforts to get that done. And she remained an advocate, so she never stopped it. It was named a park. And that wasn't good enough. She wanted to make sure it was the best park and that it was well maintained and that people used it and so on. So she remained a real champion and advocate for this park until her passing in 2008. Let me move on for a moment to someone who really was a mentor for me. Emil Sam Sandoz. Councilman Sanders was serving on this council when I was just a pup, along with my former colleague, Councilwoman Ortega. And we we were serving as aides along with our friend Ramona martinez, who served with Sam. And he taught us an awful lot about not about city government. We learned a lot about city government, but what he taught us. Was. About community. What he taught us was how to respond and how to use the energy and the commitment from people in a neighborhood to make changes in the community that they wanted to see happen. And so he was a lifelong resident of the Villa Park neighborhood and served on this council in Council District three from 1975 to 1987. He started so many programs to serve the community that there are too numerous to mention. I know that many of you and many folks in the city have participated in in the annual holiday. Drive. That that continues to this day. And it's something that Sam started the Hispanic annual salute. Again, another extraordinary event that helps support our young students and their dreams for college. And that continues today. Thanks to the efforts of his family, which have carried it out. So. Over over 700 signatures were obtained on both of the petitions for the renaming of these. Parks. And letters of support poured in, including from Councilman Lopez, who really was a champion and continuing on in the tradition of Admiral Sam Sanders responding to the needs of his community and helping them to bring this forward. This evening, I'm going to. Let you hear the. Details from the people who will speak this evening. But after a public hearing on Thursday, April 4th, between the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, where we heard some of the passionate stories you're going to hear a little bit tonight, the the Parks and Rec Advisory Board voted unanimously to recommend that. Barnum North. Park be renamed M.L. Sam Sanders Park and that the Weir Gulch be renamed for Ruth Lucille Drilling. Thank you very much. Thank you. We have seven individuals sign up to speak this evening on Council Bill 473. I'm going to call the first five speakers and I do apologize if I say your name incorrectly when I call your name. If you could make your way up to the front bench, that will help speed up our proceedings. So the first five are Bill drilling, Paul Santos, April Crumley, Ethel Santos and Tim Santos and Mr. Darling. Bill Darling, you're up first. Thank you. My name is Bill Rowling, and I'm here. I'm going to wing this because I didn't write anything up. When my parents moved to that gulch. In late 1959, I was just a youngster. And I remember that ditch being full of weeds, ten foot deep marsh machines in their cars, garbage cans, tires, everything you could think of. And my mom pursued and she had us boys over there working, cutting weeds after we cleaned up our own yard, which the home had been repossessed. And we picked it up. But. We worked and worked on that park for many years, and she just was totally avidly after the city. Constantly, every mayor, every councilman she could get her hands on, she would take them a cake or whatever she could do to even talk to them, you know. But in a way, I loved my mother and I think she really deserves this. And I hope you all can see it our way. And I want to thank everyone from the drilling family and the Santos family for being here tonight. This is just a great honor for all of us and for her. I know she'll be up there smiling if it passes. Thank you. Thank you. Paul Santos? Yes. Hi, I'm Paul Sanders. And a wonderful find Duluth roots drilling. In 1972, I was a sophomore down the street at Denver West High School. I just learning to drive. And my father had us involved in any kind of political campaign you could imagine. Roots, of course, was quite a bit older than I, and I was just a young kid. And she turned to me after everybody got picked for all of the coal jobs and said, You know what, we have to flip pancakes for over 400 people. That's like a thousand pancakes. Are you up to the task? And she immediately told me how she was not a show horse, she was a workhorse and that I was, too. I took a love to Ruth and told her that I had just been jilted by my girlfriend at high school. And so she made me the very first pancake I'd ever seen with a mickey Mouse sign. And she put little you got it right, the blueberries for the eyes and the whole body. And she cheered me up every campaign from Senator Wirth, Pat Schroeder. I was always picked to work with, really. So we became very close when she started to work on the on going. Of course, I had my new car, which is an old car for a kid on. I love that car. But she convinced me I needed to put this old mattress in the back of that trunk and take things over. Ruth drilling. She was an amazing lady. I always wanted to marry her. I'll be honest with you. I was a young cow. I got as close as I could to Ruth driving. And my wife Crystal is here to attest to that. Thank you to Ruth has worked tirelessly for for Denver and for our website for your time. Thank you, April Crumley. Hello. April Crumley, 215 South King Street in Barnum. Lucille was a big driving force in Barnum. And this is such a great honor that we're doing two individuals, Lucille and Sam, together. She used to tell me how they would pull things out of the garbage, shopping carts and tires and bicycles. And towards the later years, she'd sit there on the porch and applaud, you know, work more, work more. But she never as happy said she never stopped with her political affiliations. And I think she stopped in front of your office with her big car, my house, and laid on the horn. My house. Was. My house. I had your. House, too. Well, I was in your office and she had something to report and something to drop off. And I go, What is this, curb service? And she was she had porch meetings, current events. She started the transplant program season, the transplant program through Denver Urban Gardens. She started planting marigolds along the gold and Weir Gulch is this strange thing that runs through our neighborhood. And I've often said it's one letter away from weird. But. You know, when you find kids playing in it, I go, you find something alive and you can play in it. It's that simple, you know? So she was always an advocate for getting politicians involved. At her funeral, she had a pickle recipe. The family had done a pickle recipe with the notice, and someone was saying that they needed help in heaven making dill pickles. But there were so many politicians there and speaking that you wondered how the government survived that day because they were all at her funeral. Weird Gulch is an open drainage ditch and it's now beautiful Green Parkway, thanks to Lucille Drilling and others. And thank you for considering both these good people. Thank you, Ethel Santos. Now I'm going to tell you how it all came about, because it was my husband, Sam Santos, that we went. He was just barely elected and we didn't know diddly about city works or anything else. He had gotten into this job because he thought he could help more people if he did it well. We went to the Concerned Citizens for Barnum meeting. Well, who did we meet there? But Lucille Drilling and her neighbor and little German lady that spoke very poor English. And the two of them tore into Sam like, you know, on an ape. But they wanted that gulch cleaned up right now. And I mean, they demanded. And so Sam thought he had to do it himself. He didn't know that, you know, you can call city services and they would do this sort of thing. But anyway, he got his friend Joe Lucero with a great big truck and all of our many sons. And every Saturday they cleaned the girls. And so they finally, when they would get down to the end, which is where the Sandoz part started in, we were in the gully, and by then we had it all together and the kids would all have hot dogs and they didn't mind working and helping. So anyway, that's how the girls finally started getting cleaned up. But then Sam started to get a little bit wise too, and knew that he could ask for help and get it. So now, like the lady just said, it's a beautiful park. There is the the playground for the children and Lucille drilling. See, I love her to death. And so she would sit on her porch and she would admire all that stuff. And if anybody was hanging around the kids playground, she ran them off. I mean, it was just the way it was. And she took care of it. And if anybody never came to mow the lawn or tram or whatever, she was on the phone to City Hall and she would walk into to Hickenlooper's office with a red velvet cake. And when she came out, she was getting done what she wanted to get done. So at her funeral. Hickenlooper was there. He was mayor at the time. And he and I both promised her that we would see that that park was named after her and Vine, that it's being done. And God bless you, Lucy. And just to enjoy what you got that you did for us. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Tim Sandoz. And while Mr. Sandoz is working his way up, I'll call the last two speakers. You can work your way to the front bench. Erica Pollen and Debbie trailing. Good evening, Mr. President. Members of council. My name is Tim Sandoz, and I live in Centennial, Colorado. Looking forward to moving back in Denver when we get the affordable housing done so I can afford to live here again. I really want to pick up where my mother left off about Mrs. Driving because to us when we were younger, she was Mrs. Dry Lang. We were raised that way. But one of the things that we learned about Mrs. Driving is the drive that she had and Poppa learned how to work within city government. And all of us did, in fact, as a result of a lot of Lucille's drive and say Mama said, Papa didn't know that you could find resources to do the cleaning, so we did it ourselves. But then he was able to learn how to develop the summer youth employment programs, to bring young people to be able to do that work and to better the community. Help them to learn about the legacy of creating a better community that you live in. Now I'm going to ask you to keep that word, legacy in mind as we go through the evening. Ruth's legacy was We Are Gulch, and it started out just looking at how we changed the appearance. It was used as a trash dump. So how do we clean it up? How do we make it more palatable for the people in the neighborhood? Once that was completed, she was kind of like the movie Lilies of the Field, you know? And he got one job done. Then she would, okay, but now we have to do this. And so was Ruth trailing Drive. The next thing that happened was one of the least sexy projects that any council member will ever have to deal with. And each and every one of you, I'm certain, will deal with it at some point. And that was the urban drainage portion. You see, the culverts were so small and everything was backing up and all the neighbors homes and it was just a mess every time you had a heavy snow or a heavy rain. So once the gulch was cleaned up, the next step had to be, how do we address the flooding in people's homes? Thus we are goals project was created. It was my father's first major project as a member of the Denver City Council and he would not have gotten the support that he had from his colleagues without the drive of Lucille Drilling. Now, I don't suggest anybody just take up red velvet cakes as a way to negotiate getting things done. That was one of her many ways, but she was very convincing, made sure everybody participated and then protected and nurtured that park to become a park later on. We'll talk a little bit later about the funding of these things, because that was created in 72. But much of the funding did not come for generations later until 1989. So Ruth was a mentor to all of us. She helped me, my father and others understand what city government should be doing for its people, and the naming of this park is extremely well deserved. Thank you so much. Thank you. Erika Pilon. Hi. Forgive me if my voice shakes. Some Erika pile on from Firestone, Colorado. I am one of the grandchildren of Lucille Driving or Granny D, as we called her. And as a. Child I. Remember going to her house. And playing at that park and playground. I don't ever remember there being anything there other than a playground that we were able to play in because she created it. I remember catching crawdads with my brother and being able to be safe in that area because of her. We cleaned up trash. And she taught us to clean up trash because that's the right thing to. Do. And that's what you do. When there's a mess, you clean it up. And the biggest thing that we learned is what it means to speak up for your community. And so now that I live in Firestone, we speak up for our community all the time and we're on our way boards and things because it's important to speak up for your community and to have a part in your community. I can take my own children. My own children played over there. My Uncle Irv still lives in her house. And so to be able to go over there and visit and have my children have play on the same playground I was able to play on and be safe is a really lasting legacy. And I speak for all her grandchildren that I can't tell you how many times we heard you better get this park named for me. Like, don't forget to get this park named for me. And so I don't know what will happen if this doesn't happen. So I just urge you on behalf of her whole family that you would name this park in her honor and. Such a lasting. Legacy that she's left in all of us her first great, great, great, great grandsons in the room as well. And just such a legacy that she's left. In all of us to teach us what it means to be a part of your community. Thank you. Thank you. And last up, Debbie dryly. Yeah, my name's Debbie. Debbie dribbling. And Ruth was my mother in law for over 40 years. So I came into the family in 1967. They had moved in there in late 59, early 60. So much of it was cleaned up by the time I became part of the family. But every weekend that was part of our duties was to come over and help clean up. And I don't know if you ever heard the word bigot. When's the last time you heard the word bigot? We heard it every weekend. Trash begets trash. Let's get it cleaned up, because if we don't get it cleaned up, there will be more next week. Trash begets trash. And it was true. You know, if we were busy for a week and we came back the next time, there'd be more trash. There were shopping carts and tires and washing machines. I mean, it was unbelievable. Rats. I mean, it was it was disgusting. There was no place for children to play. So by the time my children were born, they were able to play there. And it gives me great happiness to see my grandchildren play on those playgrounds that she worked so hard to put together. We've been friends with the Sanders family all those years. You know, she met Sam when he was the councilman and she, you know, browbeat him into helping her with the park. But, you know, we've been lasting family, friends. We've always worked on the Christmas baskets with them, you know, wonderful projects to do with them, you know, great for family friendships. I would like and I know, you know, you guys are here really late tonight. I don't want to keep this too long. We can go on and on and on about it. But I would like to ask everybody in favor of Lucille Drilling Park. Please stand up. Thank you. Thank you. That concludes our speakers. Are there any questions? Questions from members of council. Councilman Espinosa. Where is my red velvet cake? Thank you. Councilman Espinosa, any other questions? At the public hearing for council bill 473 is closed. Comments by members of Council. First up, Councilman Lopez. Thank you, Mr. President. I am very proud to sit here on this dais in front of my community and see this come up in front of us, on our screen, on our desk, and to be able to vote on it. I. We were ready to do this when she was still alive. Unfortunately, the rules in our city force us to wait seven years. And every single year we made sure this was on our radar screen. And when that year came up, when that September came up, we were ready to go clipboards. Pens. Everybody ready? And knocked on those doors. It is unfortunate that well, I guess the only thing that I that I resent is that she is not here to see her flowers while she is still alive. She really clean that not just the the the the gulch shop, but our neighborhood. It's that kind of civic participation, that insight and that inspires everybody else to do it. When you when I say legendary district three, you know, we play around as the front door to Denver and somebody else has the highest point in Denver, the heart of Denver or whatever we say, legendary district three. And we say that because of people like with driving and because of people like Councilman Sanders. But Ruth was amazing. Come into the office. And she always had a presence to her. She knew she owned that office. She knew when she would walk in there. Red velvet care. Cake or not that. She'd get what she needed done. Not out of fear, not out of some ego trip, but out of love. It was infectious. It was. You'd catch it right away. She'd look at you with her eyes and. And sometimes I think maybe it was just me, but she looked at me like she would look at you and you couldn't avoid staring at her eyes. You have them and I could see them right now. And they made you feel like you did something wrong or you were an idiot. And I felt like I did something wrong. But no, no. She just was serious. And she had this sense of integrity. She had this sense of courage. She was true grit. But just surrounded with love. Everybody in the neighborhood respected her. And not not for something that was born out of ego, but for just straight an aura of respect for this woman. She would have these neighborhood meetings in her driveway. Everybody would be there. The governor would be there, the mayor would be there. The mounted patrol, which I had no idea we had until it was at her meeting. You had the Jimi Hendrix of accordion players who lived in our council district, right? They'd come and I'd say Jimi Hendrix, because they would play an accordion and they'd get on the floor and do this. The only thing that needed to be done was the light, the accordion on fire when they were playing it. But that was Ruth trailing. And it was the donuts, it was the coffee, it was the music. It was the fact that you join that neighborhood association to be part of something great and positive, not to be something negative. Not to say, well, not in my backyard, but to say yes, let's do it. Starting with this. Got you first. And she would hand you that rake that broom. Well, this gulch had been it currently no name except for the Weird Gulch. And only because the guy who owned the plot of land. Right. This park because it's always been a park. And when even before, when the city wouldn't consider it a park, it is a park and is a park. Because of where? Because of Lucille driving. And her work and what she stood for. And so today with her family here, you could, you know, dedicate that in her memory and in her honor. And every single kid, every single family, every single pet that's on a leash or walks through that park will be walking through Lucille Ruth Training Park. From here on out and let there be a heck of a lot more of that. So it's with great pride and honor that I ask my colleagues to support this renaming, long overdue renaming for this park in her honor. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you. Guzman-Lopez Councilman Flynn. Thank you, Mr. President. Pro Tem. I think, Councilman Lopez, if anybody is intending on voting no, we should subject them to accordion music. There's a I think there's nothing would get me to give you what you want faster than to get that recording and music to stop. But. But I just want to honor Lucille for reawakening the. The knowledge of our cultures that they are not garbage pits that the South Platte River once was. They are not places to dump things. They are assets in the community. And we on the West Side, we we love our water courses all the way from Bear Creek, West Harbor Gulch, Sanderson Weir, even Lakewood and Dry Gulch as they kind of define the West Side. And to see them change over the years, from garbage dumps to assets to playgrounds to places where you can actually go and enjoy your community is just it's remarkable. And it's it's much more than fitting that that we that we all vote yes on this. Mr. President, I will proudly vote yes. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Flynn. Councilman Kinney. Thank you, Mr. President. I just want to say that that is one of the sweetest public hearings I have been a privilege to hear in my time in office. I am so thankful for all of you for coming out. And what an amazing way to bring government and people and public spaces and history all together. Thank you so much. And I will be very happy to support this tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. I'll just add before we vote here that our waterways in Denver have been so neglected and abused and forgotten, whether it's the South Platte River, the Bear Creek or the Cherry Creek or Weird Gulch and really. What has happened to reclaim them is this story. And it's what inspired me in a different version to do the work that I've done my whole life and to be sitting here tonight. And so I'm so excited and thrilled to be able to vote, to put this name on this park so that every single one of us will always be reminded that really one person can completely change their community. One person can turn something that's a trash dump into something that's a treasure. One person can create a space for kids to catch crawdads. Memories that they will take with them for the rest of their life and challenge all of us every time we are in this space to say, what is that space that still has trash? And how do we how do we take that next step and and live up to this legacy from legendary District three? So I'm very excited to be able to support this site. And with that. Madam Secretary, roll call. Lopez. I knew Ortega. Absolutely no. Black eye. Espinosa. Flynn, I. Gilmore. Cashman. I can eat. Mr. President. I. Madam Secretary, please close the voting and announce the results tonight. Tonight, accountability for 37 has passed. Councilman Cashman, will you please vote council bill 474 on the floor for final passage? Yes, Mr. President. I move the Council Bill 474 be placed upon final consideration and do pass. It has been moved and seconded. The one hour courtesy public hearing for Council Bill 474 is open. We have seven individuals signed up to speak this evening on Council Bill 474. Just like before I called the first five speakers. When I call your name, if you can make your way up to the bench. First up, we have Joanne Phillips, Debbie Drilling, Bill Drilling, Paul Santos and Tim Santos. And Joanne Phillips, you're up first. Good evening. My name is Joanne Philips. I live at 936 Mead. I want to talk to you about Sam Sanders. I first met Councilman Sanders when I was when I had my second child in 1982. I had been working, but then with my second child, I decided to stay home. And so we had a Franjo Lucero. He said, Joanne, you got to come down and you have to work on this program. I says, What is this that's just come down and let's see what's going on? I says, okay. So it was the Sam Sanders District three Christmas basket program. And so I started in 1982. It's been a long it's still going this now, but I don't remember when it really started. But anyway, so I started with that, started working with Councilwoman Martinez. Now this is 1982. This is when you had typewriters, you had you didn't have all these fancy computers. So we we had cards because we worked with Social Security, social services to make sure that everybody got a basket and they didn't get populated with because everybody called for basket. Every they called everybody for a basket. So we would have to write they had to write these cards out. We had to have people in the community actually took phone calls, said, hey, I need a basket. This is where I live. This is, you know, whatever, my fellow. This is how much I make. This is how many kids that we had that we have in the household, how to feed. And then once we got that all cleared up, then we had the day that the baskets were going to be put together. Everybody helped. The Sanders boys went and got all the food, which I was Sarah And then they then they packaged them together. And then on a Saturday morning, we got up quite early and we distributed all this. And then we also at that time, if there was some people that couldn't come to deliver it or come to pick it up, we had people that would deliver it. So that was, you know, we had a lot of people, we had the firemen, we had the police, we had public works because we had to have some of the dumpsters to throw some of the the boxes out from that we had used to put all the produce in. So this was quite an event. And it was, you know, it's one of those things where that the way it started, because Sam had such a big heart and people would come to him and they didn't have any money for food they didn't have, especially in the holidays. And so that's how I believe he started doing this. And one of the things is that he was always he said, Joann, don't you know? I says, you know, other people always talk about their program, says Joann. That's all right. He says, I'm doing this for the community. That's who Sam Sanders is. He does what he has done is done for the community. So after that, I sort of stayed with him. We did. We did things together in the community. He would call me. We come over, we talk about stuff that was going on. And Sam works almost 24 hours a day, 24, seven. There would be nights I would get a call, maybe about nine or 930, and Sam would call me and he'd just start talking about something that was going on. And I go, Sam, do you know what time it is? It's like, Oh, okay, but let me finish this. And I go, Okay. So that's how hardworking he is. Man had courage. He loved he loved his community. He'll have God, his community, his family and his community. He was a member in presentation church. He sang. He was always involved with that. And then when he'd be so this is how I know Sam. And I just want I'm so proud that something is is going to be named after him, especially the Barn and Park North, which is in Villa Park, even though it says Barn and Park, it is in the Villa Park area. So it all used to be Villa Park between sixth Avenue came along Sixth Avenue divide at that. So we have Villa Park on one side and Barnum on the other side, but Barnum North, it's always been called Barnum North, so it's really great to have this name after Sam . Sam Sanders, who actually lives in Villa Park. So he you know, he's he he's such a he was such a good man. And you always you always he always gave you his best. He always told you the truth. And he always worked with both sides. Even if you didn't even if he was on opposing. He always would go to the opposition and shake their hands and would talk to them. So that was Sam. He was he I just can't tell you how much I appreciate and love Sam.