👀 Has the mayor kept his campaign promises?

⚖️ City Auditor Pushing for More Subpoena Power

Denver City Council is voting this week on City Auditor Tim O’Brien’s bill to grant his office the authority to subpoena records related to city contracts with businesses. O'Brien says this move is an effort to track the city's spending of taxpayer dollars, but some on council are skeptical. [Axios]

🤢 Extreme Heat Contributing to Bird Flu Outbreak

After a commercial flock of chickens was infected in Weld County earlier this month, Colorado has become the site of an unprecedented outbreak of six bird flu cases. Extreme heat made it harder for workers to handle the infected chickens, and personal protective equipment likely couldn’t fully protect them. [Colorado Sun]

🍸 Sputnik Under New Ownership

The South Broadway bar and restaurant has been sold. Opened in 2003, the popular cocktail and vegan food staple will change hands for the first time in 21 years as former Sputnik employees Joe Phillips and Spencer Madison take over. What changes can we expect at this neighborhood go-to? [Denver Post]

👀 Key Takeaways From Mayor Johnston’s State of the City

Mayor Johnston shared his hopes, dreams, and new plans for Denver in his annual State of the City address on Monday. From his affordable housing tax plan to a new monthly citywide volunteer service program, Johnston has a lot on deck for his second year. [City Cast Denver 🎧]

Mayor Mike Johnston came into office last July with a lot of enthusiasm and some ~really~ big promises. So now that it’s been a full year since his inauguration, we’re checking in on the state of some of his major campaign pledges.

🏠 Homelessness and Housing

The promise: While Johnston made a lot of grandiose promises on this particular issue, his biggest one was to end homelessness in his first four-year term. While he’s still got a long way to go, he is making strides.

Per his one-year report on the All In Mile High initiative that his office published last week, the program has moved 1,673 unsheltered Denverites indoors and connected 583 people to permanent housing since the mayor took office. For context, the 2023 annual Point-In-Time count tallied 9,065 people experiencing homelessness in metro Denver on a single night last January. Additionally, the annual "State of Homelessness Report" released by the Denver Metro Homeless Initiative reported more than 30,000 metro Denver residents used homelessness services over a 12-month period.

Still, the program isn’t without its flaws. Critics have questioned who benefits from this program, the quality of service provided by the city’s biggest contractor, and what counts as a negative or positive housing outcome.

🚔 Public Safety

The promise: Johnston pledged to make Denver the “safest big city in America” through a strong, compassionate, and fair approach to public safety. The plan is multi-faceted, but one of the most notable goals in this department was to beef up the presence of first responders — EMTs, mental health clinicians, and police officers — on the streets of Denver.

Last September, Johnston committed $8.2 million of the city’s 2024 budget to bring the Denver police force to its full authorized potential by adding 167 more officers. In April of this year, a status check showed the city was off track for that goal with its first two recruit classes of the year coming in well under what officials had hoped for. He also launched the Denver Office of Neighborhood Safety in May.

The new office will take over managing things like the city’s youth safety programs and the alternative-policing Support Team Assisted Response (STAR) program. Though many question if it will make a meaningful change to the city’s public safety approach or “simply shuffle responsibilities within the same structure.” In his State of the City address on Monday, the mayor also unveiled a new plan for “trust patrols”, which would potentially place police officers on regular beats in neighborhoods across Denver.

Overall though, in a recent survey from the Colorado Polling Institute, 58% of respondents stated they believe the mayor “has made no progress or needs to do more on crime and public safety.”

Key Takeaways From Mayor Johnston’s State of the City

In his annual State of the City address on Monday, Mayor Johnston championed his administration’s accomplishments over the last year — but also rolled out new goals for bringing Denverites back downtown, tackling housing affordability, and increasing neighborhood police patrols.