On Wednesday night, dozens of District 10 residents packed into a room at The Commons on Champa with ideas for how to spend potentially hundreds of millions of dollars on recreation centers, libraries, playgrounds, and more.
It was a “dress rehearsal,” said Mayor Mike Johnston, for the months-long process of designing Denver’s next package of debt-funded infrastructure projects. It was the first of over a dozen planned community meetings about the proposed municipal bonds, which Johnston and other city leaders unveiled last month.
With the city wrapping up payment on its previous infrastructure debt packages, city leaders say now is the right time to fund the city’s next infrastructure upgrades.
The proposed bond package wouldn’t raise property taxes, instead keeping them the same rate. The city has capacity for up to $1 billion of bonds, but hasn’t said how large this package might be.
The bond package is set to go to a vote in November.
Ideas included bathrooms in parks, more street lights and micro-police stations.
Municipal bonds are a kind of debt issued by cities to finance major projects, typically with relatively low interest rates and long repayment periods. Bond packages usually include dozens of projects spread across the city.
This initial meeting was focused on a district that includes a big chunk of downtown and the neighborhoods around East Colfax Avenue. Attendees split into several groups to discuss project ideas.
One group focused on improving outdoor spaces. Their suggestion to build permanent public restrooms in Cheesman Park elicited applause.
A group focused on transportation infrastructure ended up splitting in two due to its size. Bradley Abeyta was in one of those groups.
“Our big question here is should we build infrastructure for the existing modes of transit or should we build infrastructure for other modes that we may want to see more of?” Abeyta said.
His group proposed improvements like streetlamp replacements and speed reduction measures, like permanent speed cameras, along busy corridors, like Speer Boulevard.
Other ideas from the crowd included building more police stations, building a giant climbing wall in downtown and building better bikeways in Capitol Hill.
The meeting was hosted by the mayor’s office and Denver City Council members Chris Hinds and Serena Gonzalez-Gutierrez.
One attendee wanted to push the boundaries of the bond package, while another rallied against a bond package.
Shannon Hoffman, a Capitol Hill resident who ran for city council in 2023,was in the group focused on recreation centers, libraries and facilities.
She argued that since the city used previous bonds to build temporary shelters for unhoused people, they now should build permanent affordable housing.
“We came to a consensus as a group that we don't want to see dollars used for that in the future because that's not a permanent solution, which is why we went to see these bond dollars used for true affordable housing,” Hoffman said.
One person attended to protest the very concept of bonds. Jason Bailey said he supports the idea of building new amenities for communities that need them, but said the city shouldn’t take on debt to do so.
“You just don't want to live on credit cards unless it's an emergency and you're doing it to save your life because you need to buy some food to eat,” Bailey said. “But if you're doing it for things that are not absolutely an emergency, you're cheating yourself.”
Johnston said the city is pushing forward the bond package because they want to fund projects without cutting into the city’s budget.
“This is the ability to make investment in infrastructure that doesn't raise taxes, doesn't get under other general fund expenditures, and yet can accelerate our ability to make things happen that people want for services,” he said.
These ideas won’t necessarily make it to the final bond package.
Those attending the community meeting represented just a small fraction of District 10’s residents and it was far older and whiter than the average makeup of the district . The meeting was held at 5:15 p.m. in a part of downtown where parking is expensive and public transit is sparse.
Councilmember-at-large Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez urged people who didn’t attend the meeting to submit their ideas and feedback online.
“It's not just these meetings, it's hearing from people from everywhere, knowing that not everybody's able to access these meetings,” she said.
All council districts will have their own meetings and at-large council members will also hold citywide meetings. After the city finishes collecting data, committees made up of residents and city officials will whittle down the giant list of proposals into ones that will be included in the final bond package.
Once the package is finalized, it will go to voters in the fall.
