AURORA | Four years ago, Debi Hunter Holen was an upstart candidate who surprised many by besting a sitting at-large council member at the ballot box.
Not only was that the first political race for Hunter Holen, who at the time served as assistant to the Chief of Equity and Engagement at the Aurora Public Schools district, but she edged out longtime incumbent Brad Pierce by nearly 1,000 votes in the race for one of two open at-large posts.
Since that time, Hunter Holen has won quite a few battles in her council seat, despite finishing third behind incumbent Bob LeGare and newcomer Angela Lawson and now finding her time on council limited.
In the past four years, Hunter Holen has helped the city reinvigorate its Sister Cities program, open an immigrant welcome center and has supported a three-year plan for how to better integrate the people from 140 countries who make up Aurora.
“That started with four votes and led to what we have now,” she said of the city’s efforts to better integrate a population, where 1 in 4 residents are foreign born, into civic life. “We’re right next to a port, an airport. We need to find ways to take advantage of that, to become more global.”
Hunter Holen said she is also proud of leading the initiative that instituted the city’s first poet laureate, Jovan Mays, in 2014.
Holen’s role with poetry in the city dates back to the 1990s, when the E-Steamers coffee shop at Alameda Avenue and Chambers Road drew writers near and far with its popular open-mic nights.
Hunter Holen is a member of the original E-Steamers group and a former student of active poet Wayne Gilbert, a former Community College of Aurora English professor.
“I would like to get back into creative writing,” she said when asked what she would do with more free time now that she is leaving city council. “That’s why I was so excited we got a poet laureate.”
Hunter Holen said she is also proud of her efforts to shed light on the day-to-day struggles of Aurora families who earn minimum wage during her time as an at-large councilwoman.
In 2014, when President Barack Obama signed a federal farm bill, which reduced food assistance programs by more than $8 billion, Hunter Holen and her husband, Arapahoe County Commissioner Bill Holen, spent a week living on $170, the amount of government assistance for which an impoverished family of two with no dependents would typically qualify.
A story on the Holens’ experience helped bring more awareness to city council and city officials, she said.
According to USDA data, the number of Colorado households receiving benefits has climbed from 138,000 in 2009 to 231,000 in 2013. That 67 percent increase outpaced the growth of food stamp use nationally, which climbed 51 percent during the same stretch.
The USDA data, released in July 2013, looks at information from 2011. At that time, Aurora was split across two congressional districts: the Seventh — represented by Democrat Ed Perlmutter — and the Sixth, represented by Republican Mike Coffman. The district lines have since been redrawn and Aurora is now solely in the Sixth.
According to the USDA, the Sixth Congressional District — which at the time the data was taken included the bulk of Aurora — had the lowest percentage of people on food stamps in the state with fewer than 3 percent, 8,760 people, of the population receiving the benefits. The seventh had 8 percent, or 23,290 people, of the population receiving food stamps, the third-highest figure among the state’s seven congressional districts.
Hunter Holen said as the Aurora City Council moves forward she would like to see more transparency, and would like to see council members form an ethics committee.
“I just think we need to hold each other more accountable than we’ve been able to in the past,” she said. “For the city council members who are screaming for transparency all of the time, this would be important for them.”
Ward V Councilman Bob Roth said he enjoyed working with Hunter Holen on city council issues.
“Even though we didn’t agree on everything, I really believed she always had the best interest of Aurora in her heart when she was making decisions. She was prepared, understood the issues and did what she always felt was right,” he said of Hunter Holen.
As for what’s next, Hunter Holen said right now she is taking her time and focusing on other elections.
“My husband is up for reelection. I want to focus on that,” she said.
— Aurora Sentinel Staff Writer Brandon Johansson contributed to this story.
hooray Debi
I like the way the article writer shortened Debi’s name to Hunter Holen, which at first I thought was her husband.
why did she lose her seat?