>> Hi, everyone, I'm Kyle DYER.

This week has been hot and we have seen wildfires in several counties.

We wish our fire fighting crews the best as Colorado's brief break from being in a drought is over as we near the end of another month.

It is Friday, July 28th.

We have Patty Calhoun today, Krista Kafer, and Alton Dillard, a community and media relations consultant after years with the city of Denver as a election spokes person.

And George Brauchler who was supposed to be with us couldn't be here because he was called to duty by the Colorado national guard.

We have a smaller group, but there is a lot to get to.

Just as a formal emergency declaration went into effect, a report came out that shows a 30% increase in the amount of people experiencing homelessness compared to last year.

Patty, this puts a bigger exclamation point on what mayor Johnson wants to accomplish.

>> And the most important thing is the annual point in time survey done every January and it showed that yes, homelessness is up in Denver, but it is up much more in the surrounding areas.

This is not just a city of Denver problem.

It is a metro wide problem and it goes across the state.

Mike Johnston made it the centerpiece of his campaign and so people will be very critical of what he is doing right now to get things started.

One of the issues is will sweeps continue or as it is called decommissioning the street camps.

To decommission you have to have commissioned and no one has commissioned street camps even though urban camping is banned by the 2012 ordinance that Michael Hancock signed in, sweeps have been legal unless there is no place for people to go.

If there are shelters, you could technically sweep.

That was the federal ruling years ago.

Now with Michael Johnston the big difference is with the decommissioning is he says he will have places for them to go.

The question becomes what happens to the people that choose not to go.

That is one of the big issues.

We're hearing just how tough it was in the neighborhood.

There was a meeting here on Tuesday night.

Curtis park, you could tell that people are fed up.

It is the stickiest problem.

It is going to be very hard to solve and it is not just Denver.

>> No it's not.

Krista?

>> No and I think Denver is going the way of San Francisco with permanent encampments that keep getting larger and larger.

There are people who cannot afford rent, hard working, working full-time, and they're just struggling in some way.

Most of those people have mental illness issues or they're on drugs and alcohol.

If you have a policy in place that enables that, where you have people allowed to panhandle, you have people dropping off meals three times a day, a lot of folks have no incentive to get help.

If you talk to anyone that runs a large shelter, they say don't give money to these folks.

Don't enable a lifestyle that you would not want for your worst enemy.

We need to get them into recovery and a system where they're working towards sobriety, towards getting a job, and working towards getting housing.

My concern with the housing, first, is that you may take a group of people who have no desire to get sober, no desire to work, and put them into a taxpayer supported housing unit and in some of those cases people will simply die behind closed doors.

You get them out of public view, but they're no better off.

I think you have to ask yourself is that fair to them or the tax pay tore give free stuff to people that have no desire to make any changes in your life, Alton, what are your thoughts?

>> My thoughts are a couple things.

One I agree with a lot of your points.

Even though the mayor of Denver and Denver's offices are nonpartisan, I'm seeing the democratic play book being played right here where you try to play everything down the center and provide soft landings for all.

And people have to remember in a Johnston's opponent ran essentially on a platform of scooping up people that will not accept help.

I also like the fact that we do some segmentation fan.

And I caution against youing homeless as an umbrella term.

Some people have drug abuse and alcohol issues.

One thing to keep in mind with the whole tent thing is remember this goes all of the way back to occupy Denver.

Occupy Denver and then the unsheltered homeless kind of paired up and that is where you started seeing the encampments in the civic center and the one surrounding the governor's mansion in particular.

I have been to REI enough that I know what a $600 tent looks like.

There was crossover in that audience into it is going to be interesting to see if the Johnston administration listens to both sides but understands that A, folks are tired and B, they have to remember using 16th street mall as an example.

It was turning into the zombie apocalypse before COVID.

We can't say it was COVID related.

We have to get the city back to where it can be enjoyed by everybody.

Let's help the people that need the help.

>> The coalition for the home less will be involved and it has been a major problem.

So Johnston said he will work with four different agencies.

We spoke with the coalition on the homeless so we know they be involved.

He is doing four different kinds of housing and he will push for services, too.

The hardest question is how do you get people off of the streets that don't want to get off of the streets.

We're not talking about people that necessarily don't apt free room.

How do you get them out and get them to recognize they need help nap will be Denver's biggest challenge.

If you drive on 225 you see encampments in aurora and all over the metro area, they're not just as big.

>> That is what frustrates me.

We have natural areas where there is wildlife and they get in there and leave tons and tons of trash.

>> You talked about the different agencies.

In the Hancock administration there was a host of agencies that did a homeless coalition and helped out.

How is this different from what went on them?

>> I think they will focus on a few but they will work with almost anybody.

The Gary foundation will be involved because that is where Michael Johnston had been before.

He brought some of the people in.

He has nine of ten appointee that's are working on the homelessness plan.

Cole Chandler who was tiny villages.

They have people that understand the possibilities but which ones work?

You have to mix and match and you cannot focus on just one thing.

>> And the public wants to know when.

When they can walk down 14th street.

They want to know when they can walk down 20th.

>> Yeah, okay.

All right.

Thank you all.

Aurora voter wills be deciding on shifting the way the city is run to having the mayor make all of the executive decisions.

Once all of the signatures were gathered we heard from one of supporters who was quiet for quite a bit, Krista.

>> I understand why the mayor would like it.

Right now he is largely ceremonial.

He meets with people, he can break a tie vote, but it would give him authority and puts him more in line with Denver, Colorado Springs, Colorado's larger cities that typically have this model.

But other cities have the city manager system where the counsel picks a city manager and they do all of the things that the counsel is voting for.

I think there is advantages in both systems, I think it comes down to what the voters decide.

>> You worked for so long with the Hancock administration with that too, Denver being a mayor strong city.

>> Yeah, one of the things I have been keeping an eye on for Aurora is remember that Coffman has one more term.

A city the side of Aurora that does not like being considered Denver's little sister could use a strong mayor form of government.

But the thing that concerns me is the petitioning process.

Colorado is one of maybe -- I'm going to say 28 or 30 states that even allows is citizen petition initiative.

Everything else happens through the legislative bodies.

And this is no shade on petition gatherers.

They're all allowed to make a living, but if you met anyone that is a professional petition gatherer are like carnies.

They will travel the country, issue to issue, and there has been an issue about okay, now we talked about single subject here.

And all of the news reports are like people say this only had to do with term limits.

And then there is a little section at the bottom about going strong mayor.

Were they honest about what the people signed?

I'm not going to sign a petition without reading top to bottom what it is about.

>> We know that Pueblo has problems with the strong mayor system.

One of the problems is accountability.

If you're a resident and you vote for a couple people at large in your own representative.

If it was not a strong mayor system you would not be voting for the mayor.

With a strong mayor system there is more accountability from the citizens.

If Aurora goes to the strong mayor set up it gives the Colorado GOP a larger pence in the metro area after recent losses by republican candidates.

Peaking of republicans having future opportunities in office, let's talk about an idea floating around the state GOP that would really cut back on unaffiliated voters being able to vote in pry -- primaries.

>> They have the vote in the state of Colorado because of the dysfunction and organization in the state GOP they are essentially grasping at straws.

There is a couple things when that legislation passed that allowed unaffiliated to participate in primaries.

Both sides were party to that.

This is not anything that was just voiced on one party by another.

And the other component of that is Colorado, even though people want to say it is an open primary because of your ability to choose one or the other, that is actually a closed primary.

Unaffiliated voters get the ballot of both parties, but they can only return and vote one.

So if you send them both back, that cancels out your vote.

So the other part of that legislation that also caused a lot of heartburn was yes, your vote itself is always private, but which primary you participate in is public record.

And so there was people in the media that were freaking out, DAs, judges, and attorneys saying okay, based on the fact that I participated in this particular primary, I'm either going to be a conservative whack job or a liberal whack job because of how I leaned in that particular thing.

And that will cause credibility issues as I do my job on the bench or in media.

So I think that they need to continue to let everybody participate.

This is why we're a representative democracy.

>> Well, I agree because essentially anyone can run.

You can have a third party candidate, but the odds are that it will be one of the two major party candidates.

Everyone is paying for the election, it is part of the state and local government, so why not let the unaffiliated that are a third of the voters to decide, pick a primary, your voter registration is public, but which one you go for in the primary -- I had not really thought about that.

If you're nervous don't tell people, don't vote in the primaries.

But I think it is critical that we be able to have more choice in who we will see on that ultimate ballot.

That is very important, especially right now with the republicans who are trying to jerry rig this and it is only some republicans, but it is the ones in power so that they can have a fix be in so the whack jobs are the ones that make the ballot.

>> I know Krista wants to talk about it.

>> Yes.

I wrote about it.

Let's describe it as a cluster.

And it is a nut job at the top, other crazy folks, and they decided that if they can just get rid of the primary, the vast majority of unaffiliated voters, but republicans that don't attend caucuses either.

You get rid of the unaffiliated and also the main stream republicans.

And only those that go to caucus can determine who the candidates are.

Take the most passionate individuals, some of whom are also the most diluted, and then have them decide who the candidates are.

We're not going to get the kind of main stream candidates that have a chance.

I believe like Maryland and Massachusetts, a blue state does periodically pick a good strong republican with broad appeal.

In this case we're going to have a handful of mixed nuts deciding on candidates like Dave Williams and other folks and then you have normal republicans just sort of sitting it out.

You want to go from a minority party to a minuscule minority.

And then they want to change the rules at the next meeting so anyone that doesn't show up for that meeting their vote will be considered in the affirmative to make this change to get rid of the primary and just have the caucus.

>> A caucus system is a museum piece and a relic.

We had a visit from one of the members of the federal elections assistance commission came to Denver.

He was like let me see if I have this straight.

You all still sit around in high school lunchrooms and elementary classrooms and do a show of hands as part of your democratic process?

I have to come see this in person and he flew here from Washington DC to witness is and to be fair we took him to both sides and the republicans and their smart numbers didn't want people to know their last name.

The democrats wanted to know what precinct and you should have seen the lines.

>> Coming up is back to school time and we're going to see what it is like to be part of the Denver public school board.

You want to talk about a video that was released that really did not show a good picture or scene after the east high school shooting.

>> The dysfunction was so frightening and no one came off looking good in this.

Certainly not the overall DPS board that fought releasing it.

Good for the media outlets that sued saying this should have been an open meeting.

When it was released we found the school superintendent wanted to go into executive session and close the doors on things that should technically always be open to the light of day.

People played games, went back and forth.

It was just an appalling look at the school board.

We're seeing now what is going on with DPS.

You have school choice in and east high is way down.

Normally there is a big waiting list.

McAuliffe had no waiting list, and he talked about his concerns about school safety.

He did not violate privacy, but there are things that the DPS will be held accountable for.

>> And parents are ready to send their kids back and they don't know what is going on.

>> There needs to be complete transparency.

The board needs to discussion it and understand the public's concerns.

They're sending their most precious people in their life to this school, so they deserve the most transparent board possible.

And the best policy possible that helps the most amount of kids and does not compromise safety while providing an opportunity for a few of these kids that are kind of on the cusp.

>> My thoughts are that the 1% don't get to affect the 99%.

There are kids that make bad decisions, but I'm going to make a differentiation, but I will choose someone that steals a cheeseburger than someone that needs to be patted down for weapons.

There are certain charge that's can be discussed, but if you are suspected of having a weapon at some juncture you had a weapon.

One of the things, also, back to the McAuliffe situation, they were concerned about having untrained people doing the pat downs.

I attended the press conference where Dean Mason, a victim of the east high shooting spoke.

And he said that what happened was he was coming to the aide of another dean who the kid had sort of taken advantage of in the room, and they were success tussling.

Dean Mason is ex-military.

He has a different way to go hand to hand with somebody but you cannot have a situation where 1%, and I'm not saying throw them out in the streets, but they have to be in a setting where people are trained to deal with trauma.

Trained to deal with substance abuse or mental health issues in the home.

That is very specific.

The deans are supposed to be watching the doors of these five schools that day.

That is outside of their skim -- swim lane.

>> Okay, I saw a headline that said there is a new killer in Colorado.

An animal killer.

It is not a bear, not a coyote, it's the mosquitos.

Last year 20 people died in Colorado because of west Nile virus.

Already we have our first case in is a problem this year, guys.

We all felt the mosquitos and it is because of our weather.

>> I'm a cyclist so I try to make sure I'm out as early in the morning as possible.

In the evening if people are going to be outside you have to have your candles going and go through the full nine yards.

I also went to safari in Africa and because of concerns of malaria, you have to be out with your legs and arms covered.

>> Mosquitos kill more people worldwide than any other animal.

And ultimately spraying is not the best way to go about it.

It kills beneficial insects and mosquitos are food for bats and birds.

What I think is exciting about the future, when you brought up this question I was like cool I get to nerd out.

They're now looking at hundreds of species of mosquitos, but only a handful carry these different diseases, malaria, west Nile virus, but they're looking at genetic tricks of being able to basically wipe out certain types of mosquitos that carry these diseases while allowing other mosquitos to exist that are good food for -- and the male mosquitos do pollinate, they are food for bats and birds and we don't want to take that away.

>> Speaking as a child of the Midwest, I could have lived a long time without the feeling of mosquito bites again.

And it seems really unjust since we're back in a drought situation.

We are still itching.

>> I heard of a hack.

I heard someone tell me bubble machines.

Put a bubble machine on your deck and it scares you away.

So a run on Amazon bubble machines.

Let's start with a low for Patty.

>> No matter how you feel about immigration and whether or not we should have a wall, I think we should all agree that you should not rip off people.

And we just saw Tim Shay get sentenced to over five years as part of the "we build the wall" scam.

Steve Bannon was part of it.

Just the most cynical and ridiculous action.

They have all been sentenced except for Steve Bannon who has a federal pardon but he will be tried in New York.

>> I just saw a report that the abortion rate in Colorado that is gone up by like 500%.

We have become a designation -- destination state.

We give abortions up to the time of birth.

We should maybe adopt an law like in Indiana, the baby's in Indiana have to be buried.

When I read that statistic, I thought where are all of these babies buried?

They end up in medical waste dumps.

If we have this tragedy we should have some dig any -- dignity.

>> This is not on the Johnston team.

The city is a cone zone.

How can you be there perpetually and not see any improvement.

Broadway, Lincoln, Welton, everywhere you go it is just bananas.

I understand that we have winters and it's seasonal and all of that.

I'm looking forward to some projects being completed and getting back to three lanes some part-time this summer.

>> Broadway is really tough.

>> Something good, Patty, please.

>> When you're going down Broadway stop at history Colorado on August 1st and celebrate Colorado day and look at John fielder's photographs that he donated to the state of Colorado.

Incredible act of generosity and a great love of the state.

>> Theater works, the play troupe that is with the university of Colorado and Colorado Springs.

They do shake spear.

I think they're in the shadow of boulder, but if you have a chance to see anything at theater works they're just doing such a great job.

>> Thank you for the tip.

>> Live music season, put on your DEET and get out and enjoy live music.

Everything from the winter park jazz festival to the fact that most of Denver and Colorado's master plan communities now have little amphitheaters in them.

Get out and be request your neighbors and see all genres of music.

>> My positive is our women's soccer team.

Especially our Colorado players.

And the team's first home game, Sofia was just called up to the team and she scored two goals in the first game against Vietnam.

And a huge hats off to Lindsey Hurran who hit a header into the goal.

A win with that.

So man, those girls from Colorado to see their parents in the stands we're so happy to see them.

Our Colorado girls are shining and we're proud of them and we hope you a winning week as well.

Thank you for watching or listening.

If you have us on your podcast.

I'm Kyle Dyer.

I'll see you next week, or should I say next month, here on PBS 12.

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