What's in a name.

Does a rebrand change the reputation of an entity?

Or will we locals continue to use names like Buckingham Square?

The Aurora mall, Dia or even the breakers.

Can a leopard change its spots?

We can ask that same question of the Denver Public Schools as once again, drama ensues.

Is Colorado serious about housing reforms?

The jury's still out on that question.

But the jury is no longer still out on Denver's budget situation.

Our insiders will have plenty to say.

So let's take a deep dive on this week's edition of Colorado Inside Out.

Let's get right to our insider panel for this week.

Patty Calhoun, founder and editor of Westword Alayna Alvarez, reporter with Axios.

Denver and Ed Sealover, vice president of strategic initiatives and editor, the sum and substance for the Colorado Chamber of Commerce.

And Jesse Paul, reporter and editor with the Colorado Sun.

The City of Denver budget forecast calls for stormy weather ahead, but some were painting a rosier scenario someone's math ain't math.

And Mayor Johnston says that there will be pain.

Patty your thoughts?

Well, it sounds like there is going to be $250 million of pain over the next two years if the predictions are correct.

He announced this in the Denver Public Library on Thursday.

Looks beautiful.

Let's be glad the Denver Public Library renovation is done, because a lot of the projects that are in the works might get cut.

The first big cuts will be, well, there will be furloughs.

There will be layoffs.

We know that.

We don't know specifically.

We know the hurt will come.

The higher up you are for the number of days you have to take.

But we don't know what projects will be cut and what programs will be cut.

But 250 million is a lot of money, 50 million from sales tax receipts, less than they thought they would be, 200 million from the feds.

So it may turn out that the best 2 million we spent will be for that outside law firm.

If they can really fight the federal cuts and bring more money back to Denver, because it looks like we're going to need it.

what we've seen in the past during hard budget times with Denver, you know, Covid or during the migrant crisis, we've seen cuts to the DMV and Parks and Rec.

So those are a couple of agencies that I'm going to be looking at pretty closely to see if those are some of, where the layoffs are impacted most or where those budget cuts are coming from.

We did hear from Mayor Johnston saying, that, you know, his homeless initiative is something that he's really, made a top priority.

We'll see some cuts.

What won't, though, or if it does get cut, it will be cut.

Most likely the least is around public safety.

so he's he's really pledging on that front.

this is a long budget process.

So we've got, you know, many months ahead, we've got, council members who are going to battle with the mayor, this fall around what they want to see funded.

and it's not until, early November that the whole budget has to be approved, but, Mayor Johnson will present his version of the budget in September.

So that will be something to really pay attention to.

And we'll get a really good idea on what exactly is being cut, how many city workers are going to be laid off?

but the, you know, the furlough days start June.

So next month, hiring freeze is, immediate.

So things are already happening.

And and it looks like also, this may be almost a fundamental reshaping of city government.

What are your thoughts on.

Well, I.

Think you have to look in a situation like this, that what you can control the most.

And that may not be the federal funding.

It may not even be the global economic picture.

But you can look at why are your sales tax is down, what is the city done to drive them down?

Look, we had a long discussion in the legislature this session, about one issue that did that.

And that is particularly restaurants.

I mean, the city's going out of its way to to bring in a new restaurant liaison to see how it can stem the the 22% decline, dine in restaurants, the 473 fewer restaurants that operate at the end of 2024 than the beginning.

the legislature will actually give the city one way to cut back on restaurant costs and hopefully keep them running and keep them bringing in both sales tax and income tax to the city.

and that's the idea of extending the, the tipped wage credit.

basically rolling back a bit, the minimum wage for tip servers who typically already make a lot more than minimum wage.

Most, Colorado Restaurant Association estimates are between 39,000 and 42,000 a year.

and and consider rolling that back to help out restaurants who say that that is costing them too much and it's forcing them to cut other jobs.

So I would advise that that would be one thing the city could look at to try to raise its sales tax revenues.

And that is an interesting take.

With more and more restaurants calling it quits, these days.

Jesse.

I'm interested.

You know, I look at all these things from the state perspective, and I wonder if Denver situation is kind of a canary in the coal mine for state government.

Obviously, the legislature had its own, fiscal problems this year, separate from the ones that we're talking about in Denver.

But there are some parallels, right?

I mean, state government is funded mostly by income tax revenue, but there is a portion of it that sales tax revenue.

So any reduction in that, and if we start to get below the Tabor cap, there could be some issues there that the legislature will have to work at work on.

and I also think it's interesting that this highlights kind of the importance of government reserves.

I know that the mayor is saying, basically look my predecessor into these reserves several times in the past.

That's part of the reason why we're going to be in this situation.

There's not enough in the reserves to go there.

And the legislature, there's always this perennial discussion about how much should we dip into the reserves, should we lower the reserve amount, should we, you know, increase it?

What should we do with those, those those dollars that are in there?

And I think you're starting to see the consequences of when you dip into that too much and you get into one of these kind of tricky financial situations, you know, bad things can happen.

And it sounds like to your point that there are some parallels, because just like what they're seeing at the state, that there's going to be even more pain down the road, that's definitely going to bear some watching.

what is old is new again, as the 16th Street Mall is now drum Roll 16th Street.

So I guess my signs 1982 16th Street Mall lithograph is going to become a real collector's item.

But the question is, will this hundred thousand dollar rebranding campaign get downtown's revitalization over the hump and back to the downtown alive days?

Elena, what's your thought?

That is the question.

I mean, there's only so much a name can do, and that's even if people call it by that name, which I, you know, we'll see.

No one calls Dia den.

I will say that the nine of the 13 blocks that are complete, they look really nice.

they're clean, they're fresh.

You know, the pavers, which they made a very big deal about.

They look good.

and I'll be curious to see how busy the area gets when Mayor Johnston plans to open up these.

It's not quite a common consumption area, but basically small to small areas where you can drink alcohol and move about a little bit.

there's going to be a grand opening this upcoming weekend, so it'll be it'll be interesting to see.

But at the end of the day, I think it all comes down to how safe people feel in the area.

And that's, you know, not only lowering crime, which they have done, but changing that perception, which is so hard and sticky.

so that's that's really where the main effort, I think, and where we'll see some real results about what, you know, is ahead for the 16th Street Mall.

Because one of the big.

16th.

Street, 16 streets, because one of the big tipping points, if you remember a few years ago when that guy was swinging that eight foot length of PVC pipe at people by the old McDonald's.

And that's one of the things that started downtown on that trajectory.

And, I think there's a lot of fun talk about, you know, three words or two words describe the city's main promenade.

But I think there's a couple numbers that city officials need to pay closer attention to.

Mainly the 22% retail vacancy on 16th Street.

The fact that we are still at 71% of foot traffic versus 2019 on weekdays, that's why the mall or the non mall is suffering right now, not because of its branding issue.

The idea that people don't want to go downtown because, as Elena referenced, there are still safety concerns even if crime is coming down there.

But the fact is, you're not going to alleviate those concerns until you get more people back into offices to get more people back in Austin, you need to concentrate on safety, and you need to give them incentives to go downtown, which is where the retail vacancies come in.

They're not going to go downtown if they struggle to find a place to go to lunch or to go grab a drink with friends after work, I think that's where you need to concentrate.

Don't talk about the branding, talk about what is on that promenade.

And that's when you're going to start to see changes.

All right.

And from your vantage point up at the Capitol, Jesse, I'm sure if you get a chance to see the 16th Street or the 16th Street Mall fairly frequently, what do you think?

I actually never go down 16th Street when I'm at the Capitol for, for various reasons, and I think people have touched on here.

But there was a fellow reporter, mine, when I used to work at the Denver Post.

He said, you can't make chicken salad out of chicken poop.

It's a different, different word.

It's use one that I can't say on, PBS, but I think it's relevant here.

Right?

I mean, if you can't, you know, give people a reason to go down there.

Doesn't matter what it's called.

I don't care what the name is.

It's got to have, you know, attractions.

People have to be safe and personally, you know, I know for my family, right?

We don't go down there because it's there's not a lot to go see.

Right.

I mean that a lot of the restaurants are chains and it's not kind of geared toward Denver centric Denver local type of businesses.

So, on a on a positive note, I mean, I almost never, you know, go to any Union Station.

I took the light rail down there to see a Rockies game the other day.

It was a great experience.

You know, the train was clean.

It was, only a few people doing drugs on the train while I was on it.

And, you know, it.

I felt relatively safe.

And it was it was a good experience.

So, you know, I don't care what the name is.

Just just make it safe, make everyone feel good when they're there.

All right, well, the last word on that topic goes to our favorite downtown fan.

That's pretty Calhoun.

No need to mock me about this.

I went back and looked over some of the stories we'd written, and in 2019, the mall, it was still a mall was getting bashed as there weren't things to go to.

We'd already lost the department stores a long time before.

People didn't like it.

They didn't like the chains.

There wasn't that much going on.

So we have to remember, even though it used to be busier, people have made fun of it for a while.

I think you have to keep $100,000 in perspective, because that also includes listening groups and this logos and everything else, and it's a drop in the bucket compared to $175 million to fix a 43 year old mall.

So keep that in perspective.

the 22% vacancy is the issue.

You walk along a beautiful stretch of very nice pavers and you look up and the places are empty.

So as people come in, the incentives to bring businesses back is going to be key.

I have to say, I feel just as safe downtown as I do on South Broadway or in Reno.

You find the the the crime is pretty much the same in a lot of those places, but you can usually find parking a little faster.

Colorado recently.

Took some steps toward creating some housing reforms.

But six localities said not so fast and sued Governor Polis on the grounds that two land use bills passed last year violate local control provisions.

And the implications are huge here.

What are you hearing?

Well, let's go back to the 2023 and 2024 sessions.

And governor pulls this push was we need more housing constructed.

Specifically we need more multifamily housing around transit hubs constructed because that will allow people to live there a little bit cheaper, not have to drive cars.

and housing.

Our lack of housing is one of the biggest reasons we see such an in affordability problem right now.

So the legislature, with his urging after rejecting them in 23, passes two bills in 24.

One of them says, okay, you're going to have to zone for more density if you're around a transit hub, if you're a local city.

the second one says, and by the way, you're going to get rid of your minimum parking requirements.

We've known for a year that the cities were going to rebel against this, and they specifically rebelled against a recent executive order in which the governor said, oh, and by the way, if you don't do this, we're going to take funding from you in other areas as well.

The governor this year, signed a housing bill, looking to fix construction defects, reform problems.

that's going to make it easier to build.

owner occupied, housing, hopefully.

I don't think there's an easy answer here, but what comes out of this, whether it is, is state matter of concern or a local matter concern is going to affect a lot of bills going forward on subjects from public safety to how local governments are allowed to deal with federal government in terms of, say, immigration reform.

Jesse, so I asked the governor about this the other day because I think his relationship with local governments is really fractured.

And his kind of spin on the situation is there are a number of local governments who support what we're doing.

We've got a few mayors and city council people who come to these press conferences.

But I think the reality is, you know, far and large, far and away that that most municipalities and counties in Colorado have some frustrations around some of these bills.

And I think the result of that was the failure of the governor's.

You can rebuild the Capitol this year, the yes in God's backyard bill.

That would have basically allowed for, zoning lists or overcoming zoning, restrictions for church properties and for schools and basically just another way to kind of build more housing.

And that died in the Colorado Senate as a result of local government.

The local government concerns.

And I don't even know if they were as opposed to this as they were the previous bills, but I think they were so fed up with some of the legislation that has been passed in recent years that they kind of said no more.

We're not working with you guys on this anymore and have kind of turned some lawmakers against what the, the, the, the governor's housing agenda.

And with one year left in office, I think it's interesting.

It'll be interesting to see if if you can get any of these folks on board, get pass get at some of these other local control issues that he wants across the finish line.

And, as of now, you know, with with local government suing him, I think the outlook is fairly bleak.

Fairly bleak.

Patty.

Interesting to see which government sued and which ones haven't.

I mean, you'll notice Aurora's front and center there.

Denver is not part of it, but Denver has its own big problem coming up soon.

When you talk about the lack of parking that they are now going to remove, it looks like they will remove parking requirements for minimum parking requirements for developments.

And you see the blowback there, because unless you happen to live by transit or happen to have a parking place somehow with your dwelling, there's so few places with parking right now in Denver, in the inner city neighborhoods, and it's becoming a big issue that is dividing people a lot in Denver.

So the parking issue, much worse in Denver than obviously in the cities that sued, but that's going to be will have blowback to with Denver and especially as I guess they'll keep the parking monitors going no matter what the the meter maids and the others who ticket, because that'll bring in plenty of money because people are parking illegally all over the city already.

Well, that's always one of my number one criteria.

And you want to ask me?

Go do something.

Is there somewhere to park?

Elena.

I think policies relationship right now with local governments is just fascinating to watch.

And I'm almost like, Frank is are you better move aside.

There's a new strong arm in town, strong arming all of these local governments.

It's really interesting because of course, you know, leans libertarian.

And to see him sort of stomp all over local control is I think some people might see us surprising.

also, he's his administration is compiling a list by early October of compliant and non-compliant local governments.

so he can prioritize which get state grant dollars.

And this feels very familiar.

because we've seen this a lot at the federal government under Trump right now.

He's dangling dollars for, you know, cities and states that are complying with him.

so it's, you know, a little bit Trump esque and a little bit surprising there.

I think, you know, between the lines, affordable housing is such a top priority for us.

And because he's term limited obviously can't seek reelection.

I wonder if he's just not, you know, in a place doesn't see it in his interest to play nice anymore.

In November of 2023, there is an election for Denver school board directors.

Fun fact one at large and roughly half the district seats are up that year.

And now the other At-Large and district seats are up this November.

There was belief that the 2023 election would turn the page on the school board.

That just seemed to be mired in perpetual drama.

Well, now that doesn't appear to be the case.

Jesse, what's going on?

DPS headquarters at 18th and Lincoln.

Well, thankfully, I get to cover the state so I don't have to deal too much with the Denver school board, but more interpersonal drama.

And and I'm hoping some of the other panelists have insight into kind of the details of what's going on there, because we haven't been reporting on it in depth.

But what it really highlights is this fact is the fact that school boards across the state have very little oversight, right?

A lot of times the folks on the school boards aren't paid.

they're elected.

You know, by a subset of the electorate.

And, you know, the campaign finance limits, they've been kind of reined in.

But, you know, they're not even part of the state's ethics process.

And the legislature has been trying year after year to kind of rein them into the bring them into the ethics fold.

And so far, you know, that hasn't happened this year.

It failed again because of questions about, you know, funding and, you know, the state's ability to pay for all those kind of investigations.

But it's always a reminder that that these, school boards are oftentimes fickle.

A lot of local political drama, national, local, state political drama kind of flows through them and gets boiled down.

And I think you're seeing that play out again in Denver once again.

Patty.

Well, Denver isn't the only school board that has a lot of trouble, internal trouble, but we don't hear as much about it because you don't have this many reporters.

You also don't have as much transparency.

We all remember that.

We've been fighting for more transparency, more access to information.

We remember what happened with the DPS after the shootings at East High School when they weren't transparent.

You've gotten a lot of issues, and we right now are trying to get documents from the DPS, and that another publication got two years ago for free, and they're charging us huge amounts of money.

That is not transparency.

So we need transparency and the school closures.

Remember, the vote and the school closures didn't come up until the bond had passed in 2024.

That wasn't being honest with the electorate either.

So it is time for the DPS to get their house in order.

If they don't like each other, that's fine.

But do the public bidding.

Be honest with the public and let's educate the kids and focus on the the people who really need help.

Now process a little bit personality.

What a novel concept.

Elena.

It's it's a novel concept.

Again, you guys have all said this is the latest example of dysfunction in the school board.

you know, we have Superintendent Alex Morrow trying to, censure another member, last name youngest about, what Moreira is alleging is racial discrimination.

this, you know, censuring school board members, at DPS is rare, but it's not rare.

Within the last four years, we saw this happen with agent, Anderson.

Only a few weeks ago did we see, some controversy come up around the contract to, extend Alex Moro's, position.

So he's, you know, his current contract lasts through, 2026, but the school board quietly behind closed doors, decided to extend it through June 2028.

And this is before he even had his performance evaluation, which was scheduled in October.

And it's also coming before four members are up for election this November.

And they have a say in whether they would have had a say if his contract could be extended.

on top of that, they also made it.

The school board made it harder for, him to be removed from his position.

So now it requires a supermajority instead of a majority.

you know, you wonder why we're seeing, school enrollment at public schools in Denver, decline in charter schools and private school enrollment go up.

And this is, you know, if you're a parent, this is one additional reason why, you know, at least it gives you some pause to keep your kid in public schools.

Yeah.

Because you know what DPS isn't talking about right now.

All they're talking about this conflict and that is student results.

I mean, what we really need to be talking about are, are our schools producing students who can go out and find jobs and succeed in today's society?

To that, I want to switch it up a little bit and, and throw some light on something that happened this week that kind of flew under the radar.

That could be big in that respect.

Governor Polis issued an executive order in which he essentially told, the departments of education, higher education, and, labor and Employment to break down their silos and figure out how they're going to work together to help students.

they are criticized right now.

these are three departments that oversee K-12 education, higher education and workforce training grants.

they're criticized for defending their own territory and their own budgets.

Right now and not thinking about, hey, as we are seeing less students going straight to four year degrees, which are not needed as much as they used to be, how do we actually help these students pull this?

Can have told them, I'm tired of this.

I want to see a plan for how we advance students through the different levels of educational attainment, even if they're not going on a traditional two year or four year college path.

And how we get the three of you putting your resources together toward that, I think that could lead to some big discussions about education funding in the 2026 legislative session, and possibly some bigger changes down the road.

All righty.

All right.

Now it's time to go down the line with each of you mentioning a high and low of the week.

Patty, we'll start with you.

And they low note.

Journalism is not cheap.

It is not easy as everyone in this table could tell you.

But when the National Trust for journalism came in and bought Colorado Community Media and said they were going to save all these local papers, they were represented as heroes.

They got funding from local foundations, too.

Now they have sold 21 of those papers to an Arizona company.

By all accounts, worse than it needs to be.

And they are not the heroes.

And a lot of people have lost their jobs.

And more important, a lot of small communities are going to lose their their journalism and voice.

I'm going to switch into sports mode.

I was really bummed to see, Jokic did not win the MVP.

he was beat out by Oklahoma City Thunder Shay, Gilgeous-Alexander, which everyone kind of knew was coming.

But it still was such a bummer.

It added insult to injury after we just lost to OKC, this past Sunday.

So all I will say is Jokic is still you know MVP of of my heart.

I love it.

There's a lot of talk about what's in the federal budget.

Coloradans need to be concerned about something that's not in the federal budget.

And that mainly is funding for eight planes, 30 year old planes down at Peterson Air, Space Force Base, to be upgraded to new planes.

These are called C-130s to go from the air models of the J model.

The reason this is so important is that, in the time of federal budget cuts, bases have to grapple for relevance.

See if Peterson is one of the few bases in America that is still working on 30 year old planes, and these are 30 year old planes that are responsible for our aerial firefighting missions out here.

It's going to have a hard time justifying keeping that unit.

77 members of Congress just wrote a letter saying, we need to fund these upgrades.

And I think the federal government, especially Colorado's delegation, needs to pay attention to that.

All right, Jesse, I'll.

Pivot back to sports.

I'm a Rockies partial season ticket holder, and, it has been a sad year for me to go to those games.

I'm not even necessarily Rockies fan, but it is just hard to go watch those guys.

I they they gotta figure it out.

I was at the Phillies game when they gave up 17 hits and yeah, it's pretty bad.

So we also like to always in the week on a high note so we can dictate the energy going into the weekend.

So what's something this going to be your high note Patty.

Well Jared Polis seems to like to veto things on Fridays right before this show airs so that we can't talk about it.

But I do want to talk about a veto I liked, which is if we can have a 79 year old president, 72 year olds can serve on juries.

So he vetoed that opt out.

You can still opt out if you've got medical issues.

Depending on your age.

You don't have to be 72.

But I liked it that he vetoed that.

Right?

Well, I'm staying in sports mode.

The best summer sport, in my opinion, in Colorado is burro racing.

And it's back, this weekend.

So there are two different races in Idaho Springs and Georgetown.

And basically, you know, trail runners run six miles hauling up a donkey with them.

It's a it's a whole it's a whole it's really funny.

but it's a nod to the old Mountain West.

And I think it's, you know, just another thing that makes Colorado great.

I'll stay in education mode.

Has been very involved with the Regional talent summits that the Office of Economic Development International Trade has been putting on, 1 to 2 this week in, in the past week in Grand Junction in Durango.

It's fantastic to see the ideas that employers and educators are bringing forward to how they can partner better to get, kids the skills they need to be successful in the workforce.

To everyone who is attending or has a chance to attend the regional Talent Summits, it's a great use of your time and can really help our future.

Jesse.

I was telling these guys, my wife and I are under contract for new House, and Ed and I were reminiscing about how awful was buying a house during the pandemic, so things were a lot better this time.

So for folks who are who are maybe searching, hopefully they have a similar experience.

My high is that it is graduation season.

I was honored to lead my 1981 graduation class at Denver East into the Coliseum.

Not because of my academic prowess, but because I sang in the choir and I had to be the first in so I could get to the top role of the choir riser.

Seriously though, I know so many young people graduating from high school and college and spreading their wings that I'm very optimistic that our society will be in good hands.

Thank you all for watching along with us or listening to our podcast available on Spotify and Apple.

I'm Alton Dillard and it's been fun.

Guest hosting Kyle Dyer will be back next week here on PBS 12.

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