Two different men, two different moments. But a singular thread unites. Imagination.
It was the late Carl Sagan who brought the science and wonder of the Universe to the fore. “Imagination,” he said, “will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it, we go nowhere.”
It is, in fact, imagination, its lure, its possibilities, that brought a self-described ‘kid from south Texas’ to a launchpad called Denver and lit a fuse that changed the city forever.
On July 1, 1983, a 36-year-old bespectacled Federico Peña became Denver’s first Latino mayor and, also, one of the first Latinos to lead a major U.S. city.
While as much as he engineered and is remembered for, the transformation of a city, turning it from a modest Rocky Mountain hub into an international city, it is also four simple but profound words that will forever be linked to the man and Denver’s DNA. ‘Imagine a great city.’ It is the exhortation that inspired a generation.
Peña’s accomplishments as a two-term mayor of Denver were officially acknowledged by Denver City Council at its August 25th meeting. 25-1242.pdf. The proclamation was unanimously approved.
From building an airport that has connected Denver to the major capitals of the world to injecting life into a moribund corner of the city now known as LoDo, Peña not only imagined but turned the knobs that redefined the city. It was no accident.
Once given the keys to the city, Peña and his team—a team that for the first time truly reflected the diversity of Denver—got to work. “We clearly had many issues on the table from day one,” he said. Understated as ‘issues,’ were a new airport, Central Platte Valley development, Major League Baseball and neighborhood revitalization. It didn’t stop there.
It would be difficult to find consensus on a ‘greatest accomplishments’ list of the things Peña oversaw and achieved in his two terms. But launching an airport that now ranks as a ‘top five in the world,’ and landing the city’s number one summer tourist attraction, the Colorado Rockies, would certainly be easy choices. Still, it’s an argument that would be both provocative and entertaining.
“Federico Peña was a once in a lifetime mayor,” said one long-time Denver politico who asked his name not to be used. “He was more than just a visionary. He was the right person at the exact right time.”
But Peña recalled he did not come to Denver with the idea of planting roots. The young lawyer’s first visit was exactly that. His brother, Alfredo, also an attorney, had relocated to the city from Texas. Once here, Peña knew it was no longer a visit. He was home.
While practicing law in his new city was what he had trained for, he knew there was something else, perhaps something more fulfilling, more rewarding. And he found it, but perhaps more accurately, it found him. People saw in him that proverbial ‘it’ quality.
“I never pre-planned my political career,” he has often said. In fact, politics were not part of the plan at all. “I was recruited,” and he ran. Twice. And there began his ‘rule of two.’
“Two legislative terms, two Mayoral terms, two Cabinet positions,” he recounts. But that was enough. Once finished serving the city, the president and the country, he returned home. “I always believed in serving to achieve my goals and then passing the torch.”
Peña’s fingerprints on the city and the state are indelible. Former Rocky Mountain News reporter now Denver city councilman, Kevin Flynn, covered city government for Peña’s two terms and more.
Flynn, as rock solid and dogged as any city hall reporter who has ever covered city government, spared neither a mayor nor glorified one. And while stopping well short of canonization, he ranks Peña at or near the top of the city’s chief executives.
“I came to view Peña’s 1983 election as one of those transformational shifts that occur every so often in cities, states and nations.” Flynn, who also voted in favor of the Peña honor, included him “on a par with that of Mayor Quigg Newton and his administration.”
Peña Flynn said, “brought with him a clean sweep in leadership across city agencies, with fresh ideas and young blood.” Denver’s 41st mayor, the current city councilman said, energized Denver in “a way that brought it into the top tier of American cities.”
While Peña’s name will always be connected with the city’s most visible undertakings, he also made major contributions in ways that, perhaps, don’t quite have the same cachet, such as civic projects that might go unnoticed.
Included among these accomplishments are the construction of the Colorado Convention Center, a facility that now attracts major national and international gatherings each year, the downtown library that served as host for the 1997 Summit of the Eight and the establishment of the ‘One Percent for the Arts’ program which helps fund the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District across the six-county metro area.
Though it might be easy to bask in accomplishment, one thing Peña admits to as a singular, haunting failure is not tackling a problem that today remains —and as it did then— in need of fixing.
“I regret that I could not help the very disadvantaged in our city,” he said. But the economy, he said, “was so challenged that I was focused on just resurrecting the broader economy, business generally and improving neighborhoods.” Perhaps, had he served a third term, he said, he could have “focused deeper on the underprivileged and improving DPS (Denver schools).”
Today, Peña and his wife, Cindy, a former Denver television executive, live in the city. They have, between them, four children and three grandchildren.
