Stacie Gilmore has lived in Montbello for almost 30 years, and she's spent the past eight of them advocating for District 11 on City Council.
"Listening to my constituents, I believe, has gotten me to this place right now," she said. "I have one phone, I pay for it personally, I will give my cell phone number out to anybody. You can text me a picture, you can call me. It doesn't matter what time, because I'm here to serve the community."
Now Gilmore is running for her final term unopposed.
For new residents of the district and those looking to get reacquainted: Gilmore got her start co-founding Environmental Learning for Kids, a non-profit that seeks to make environmental education and the outdoors accessible to kids in marginalized communities. She did that for around 20 years. During that time, she said she grew increasingly frustrated with the lack of services for the families she worked with in Denver. So she pivoted to local government, and won her first term on Council in 2015 and her second in 2019, serving as Council President from 2020 to 2022.
Gilmore's worked on a range of legislation in recent years, from protections for renters to labor laws.
She introduced legislation increasing protections for residents of Homeowners Associations (HOA) facing foreclosures, after a majority of court cases involving HOAs taking residents to court came from the Green Valley Ranch Master HOA in her district. She also introduced a bill requiring landlords to get licenses in order to improve oversight and safety conditions for renters. Compliance with that program has been lagging.
Gilmore was also involved in a multi-year effort to increase wage theft protections for workers, which Council passed in January.
"I'm super grateful that I've had the community support, and my colleagues' support to pass really important legislation over the almost eight years," she said.
In her district, Gilmore said she's proud of the affordable housing units that have popped up and workforce development programs. She supported efforts to address food deserts in her district, with new grocery stores in Montbello and Green Valley Ranch. She's also worked to improve transportation options with things like bike lanes and the Connector Microtransit Program, which provides free on-demand trips within a certain area in Montbello. She hopes to expand the connector program into Green Valley Ranch in coming years.
Looking to her third and final term, Gilmore wants to continue her work on affordable housing and food access, as well as focus on mental healthcare.
"We're unique in the community because Green Valley Ranch has a lot of covenants on their land, and homeowners associations that also have their own bylaws," she said.
Because of that, Gilmore wants to look into accessory dwelling unit possibilities in her district, along with group living options. On homelessness, Gilmore hosts a Safe Outdoor Site in her district, and wants to see a point in time count more than once a year, to get a better sense of Denver's unhoused community.
On a personal level, Gilmore recently celebrated four years of sobriety from alcohol, which she said has her thinking about improving mental health resources.
"I would love to see us as a city really talking more so about access to therapy," she said. "There's so many stigmas around it, that we've got to start having honest conversations about this, or I don't see how we're going to make sure that we have a safe society where people can express themselves and be supported for being who they are."
As for what's next after she hits her term limit in four years, Gilmore's not sure. "I don't know what the future will bring, but always excited to serve community," she said. "We'll just see."
