It may be only speculation but don’t be surprised that in just a matter of days or weeks before Denver’s new mayor is christened with a nickname. ‘MJ’ or ‘Mayor Mike’ seem likely possibilities. But whatever lands, Denver’s newly minted mayor will be calling the shots from City Hall for the next four years.
On Monday, July 17th, Denver’s 46th chief executive, Mike Johnston took the oath. In his first official address as mayor, the youthful looking Johnston threaded his speech with an almost buoyant optimism.
“For us to succeed,” he said, “every Denverite must take their own oath.” It was an altruistic urging for people to join with him in a singular community of hope.
That pledge called for ‘dreaming, serving and delivering’ what he called an essence of democracy empowering every citizen of the city to move ahead.
Also taking the oath with Johnston at the Ellie Calkins Opera House were members of the Denver City Council with whom he will have to work to cobble together his agenda. The 13-member council, for the first time, will be dominated by women. Nine of its members are women and six are Latinas, including Flor Alvidrez, who will be representing council District 7. Alvidrez gave Johnston’s speech high marks for its optimism and its call for results.
“I think him acknowledging the reality of where we’re at and being courageous enough to believe that we can solve these large problems,” was what Alvidrez liked best in Johnston’s short but uplifting inaugural address. “I also think the thing I carried away is how he talked about it being a team effort and that everyone is part of the team.”
The 48-year-old Johnston enters what many believe to be the most powerful political position in the state with a blue-ribbon résumé. Johnston has served in elected office as a member of the state legislature. He also brings a long tenure as an educator and school administrator.
Johnston, married to a Denver Deputy District Attorney, is father to three young children. It is perhaps one of the reasons he seems to exude an optimism for the future, one that as mayor, he will play a major part in shaping.
For Johnston and the city to succeed, he will have to figure out how to meet some very immediate and daunting challenges. One is a homelessness crisis, an issue he repeatedly underscored in his campaign.
“Our dream for Denver,” he said, “is when you land at your lowest, without a job or a place to stay, shackled by addiction or struggling with mental illness, we will not judge you or give up on you. We will give you a home, we will get you help, we will get you healed.”
Johnston also assured the several hundred who came to the inauguration, including former Denver mayors Federico Peῆa, Wellington Webb and now Senator John Hickenlooper, that he also wants to find a way to stem the tide of people moving out of Denver because of real estate prices that have steadily risen and a spike in violent crime.
While the city has emerged from a seemingly interminable pandemic, some of the virus’s lingering residue remains. Once listed as the state’s number one tourist attraction, the 16th Street Mall no longer reflects vibrancy and an air of enjoyment. The mall is in the midst of a huge construction project designed to return it to its glory days.
Johnston is also the man now pulling the switches at DIA, now ranked as the third busiest airport in the world. The airport is also undergoing a serious facelift in what is knows as the ‘Great Hall.’ DIA passenger levels are up but for those who remember when it was streamlined and easy on the eye, many say it is now akin to watching a surgical procedure in real time.
Johnston and his staff, along with City Council, must also figure out a way to address another highly visible scar left by the pandemic, a downtown whose occupancy rate has steadily inched up with once reliable firms now finding new homes and a workforce more than happy to work from home just as they did during the pandemic.
Once a dreamliner of a business hub for the entire region and that greeted more than 100,000 workers each day, Denver now finds itself struggling to right itself and rebrand as a certifiable gem and not costume jewelry.
A new mayor with a new vision also means a day of celebration and Inauguration Day in the city was no different this time. Denver Union Station was ground zero for the Johnston era celebration that stretched into a nearly perfect summer evening. It featured a menu of live entertainment, food and drink from the brick-and-mortar restaurants to a squadron of food trucks serving everything from crepes to carnitas.
Johnston, like other Denver mayors will be accorded a honeymoon as he settles in picking a cabinet and finding his footing. But his succinct day one message echoed the sentiments of another not that long-ago youthful politician who also dared to inspire.
‘If you wish to build a ship, do not divide the men and women into teams and tell them to simply go and gather wood,’ the late John F. Kennedy used to say. ‘Instead, inspire them to long for the sea.’
