If you live, work or run a business in Aurora, you can attest that compared to most municipalities here, and across the country, the city is well run, and for the most part, life and business here are good.
That’s not by accident.
For decades, the metro area often sneered at Denver’s “step-sister” city for its sprawl, its big-city issues and its working-person neighborhoods. Meanwhile, Aurora persistently assembled reliable and safe water, solid streets, great schools, astounding parks and amenities, once-enviable police and fire departments, a welcoming atmosphere to people of all backgrounds, beginnings and races, and a solid government to keep it all going.
Almost all of this happened because for decades, elected Aurora leaders have laid out goals and policy themes, and then asked the experts they hire to find a way to make things happen.
This council-manager system of government has served Aurora well for far longer than anyone here has been around. The wisdom of electing “just folks” to choose a direction, and for experts to find a way, is the reason Buckley Air Force Base is here, and that it is an active Air Force Base and not a defunct Air National Guard post. It’s the reason the University of Colorado School of Medicine, University Hospital, Children’s Hospital, VA Medical Center and some of the most critical research projects in the world are on the Aurora Anschutz Campus.
Because former Aurora lawmakers, varying groups of moms, dads, small-business owners, teachers, secretaries and almost solely people like that got elected and then directed city staffers, the city ensured that Denver did not dictate Aurora’s growth plans. It did that by developing dependable, independent water sources.
A vision for Aurora being able to leverage the creation of Denver International Airport in this city’s back yard led to city staffers finding a way to land the behemoth Gaylord Hotel and Conference Center project and one of the largest and most vast commercial warehouse campuses in the nation.
All of this was made possible by Aurora’s part-time city council/manager form of government. At the same time, the city has a long history of being one of the most sound financial municipalities in the state.
All of this is at risk right now.
It’s at risk because there’s a small, vocal but persistent group of city lawmakers who are working to abandon Aurora’s sound form of government.
Councilmembers Dustin Zvonek, Danielle Jurinsky and Mayor Mike Coffman have consistently moved to dictate not just policy but also procedure to city staffers on a growing number of instances. They’ve either shunned or outright ignored sound advice from the experts they pay to advise them. It has created unstable and clearly wasteful projects that do not represent the values of most Aurora residents. At times, councilmembers Francoise Bergan and Steve Sundberg have either joined in the dais mismanagement or enabled it.
These city lawmakers, and the rest of city council, were absolutely on target in realizing Aurora must do something about the crisis of homelessness. But these three city councilpersons were dead wrong in leading the charge that changed policy, against expert advice, of simply evicting homeless campers, sending them on to just another unauthorized public Aurora campsite.
Now, in an effort to fix the damage already done, Coffman has proposed a new homelessness project, creating a single campus where all homeless people can be sent to or received — as long as they get a job.
Working diligently to help people become self-sufficient through education, job training, job referral, mental and physical health care, addiction treatment, counseling and life skills is a direction representing values and pragmatism of just about everyone in the city.
Undermining this critical, life-saving work — by forcing people who are realistically incapable of being able to “get a job” — exemplifies this bent form of leadership in Aurora.
Even those who have no sympathy for homeless people benefit by programs that succeed in ending homeless for the most vulnerable among us. It saves net tax dollars and makes the entire community safer for everyone.
During the past few weeks, Aurora lawmakers have gathered to set immediate and future directions of the city by setting budget priorities.
A recent, virtually unwatched, budget workshop, was the scene of these city lawmakers and others scrambling to make unreviewed cuts and changes to a draft budget, eventually undermining their own self-serving exploits.
Just last week, a move to “save money” by cutting into the city’s public defender budget, diminish programs focusing on equity and police reform, all without research, counsel and review by city staff, made clear that Aurora’s trusted and successful government is endangered.
For months, city residents, taxpayers and staff have been subjected to seat-of-the-pants schemes shoved through city council, making for bad policy, confusion and wasted resources.
By no means is every plan, proposal or program set in motion by city staff above reproach. The give and take among policy makers and policy enablers is what’s led to the success of Aurora.
But for months, these city lawmakers have hinted, swiped, insulted and ignored the sound and evidence-based work of the people who actually make things happen for every business and resident in Aurora.
As the 2023 budget is finalized, every city lawmaker should reflect on ways to ensure they work to represent the values of all Aurora residents, who by their very nature take precedence over all other concerns — not businesses, and not party politics. Being part-time laypersons, as the city was designed, the goal of city council members should be to ensure city staff provide mechanisms to enact city’s goals, substantiated by consistent, fact-based data and research.
Anything else undermines the generations of success that have elevated the city to this point.
The Aurora City Council hasn’t taken a vote to see if the majority agrees to cut 5.9 MILLION dollars in the
budget just so people and employers won’t have to
pay a head tax.
This proposal deserves a strong no vote if and when it is introduced in a regular meeting of the Council.
I don’t think Coffman has the support of the majority on council.
Will be interesting to learn who supports this.
Well, Sugar Honey, would I be off base to mention that the elimination of the Aurora Head Tax was not mentioned or inferred in this editorial?
So why comment on it, here and now?
I actually hope you don’t respond as I just bring this up to show other commenters to watch out for your historical and future comments that more than not are actually not related to reality.
I have every right to make comments here
as you do.
So pleased that you take the time to read mine!
Of course you do, Sugar, have every right.
It was all at risk last year when you and the rest of the local media barely covered the city council races and failed to see who Zvonek and Jurinsky really are. How gallant to now editorialize these concerns about said “step sister” when we could have had other council members who would prioritize the valuable aspects of our community that you mention. How do you adequately govern a city that is bought and paid for by big conservative interests and developers? Keep lamenting the good old days of Aurora, because they are gone.
Wrong Carol. The last election had the Sentinel do everything they could to elect socialists and at least one past felon to City Council. They did to a degree when the child legislator/socialist was reelected in Ward I. They also helped elect Rubin Medina, barely, a socialist leaning candidate in Ward III.
The problem for the left is the At-Large candidates were elected by the entire City and the two conservative candidates won at large. The citizens realized that the past two years from the prior elections had elected a majority of socialists and neo socialists and our City began to make poor decisions. This last election stopped the spread of socialism and gave the City a majority of Conservatives.
The next election will have the two card carrying socialists eliminated in Ward IV and V and the Sentinel would try to stop that but they will be out of business by that election and two more conservatives will be elected At Large. At that time, the Council will have only two socialists and will be on track to make Aurora great again. Marcano will run for Mayor and lose with the whole City voting. Even if he wins he will be powerless with a Council of 8-2.
Lastly Carol, please believe that, “big conservative interests and developers” have never had much to do with Aurora politics in any way. Why? There have never been any of these that lived or cared much about the City of Aurora. Aurora has always been a sleeper suburb offering rich, conservative people nothing to care about when compared to other Colorado cities.
Oh, Dick, you’re so absolutely wrong.
Oh, K., thanks for reading. It’s only one old guy’s, living in Aurora since 1982, views. We’ll see if the thoughts become reality.
One person out of almost 400k. No one cares about your opinion alone other than you, Dick.
Dick, I will agree with you since I first became to Aurora, in 1951, for training at Lowry AFB. Back in 1952, to marry Denver born woman, 70 years ago in church on York St, just off Colfax. She was in Denver, with our 3 children, when I was at Goose AB, Labrador, and Russia was placing missiles in Cuba. 1963, I returned to Colorado, and we bought home in Aurora, that I still own.
In 1963, Aurora kicked my 2 children out of school at Easter, demanding I pay a premium for the to return, and Aurora police targeted military at that time. Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News existed, and we got progressive with conservative views, and made our own decisions.
So I have seen many changes in Aurora, Denver, Colorado, and USA, some good, and some not-so good. Retired 1976, returned to house in Aurora, which had been in rental status from 1965 until 1977, when big changes happened. We are going to have problems in getting Police Chief, with Colorado being first to legalize Pot, with policies changing, and Fracking bringing new residents to Colorado.
Now whole world in turmoil with youth not knowing what gender they want to be known as. Also swapping partners until they decide, with different cultures, beliefs, and needs. Living together, not marrying, and many not having children, with wildly different views.
I voted my views, but fear for my children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren (3 living).
Speaking from experience, K?
It happened because our elected leaders listened to the people an did their bidding, not the recent political agenda. In days gone by, we didn’t even know a candidate’s party affiliation.
It happened because our elected leaders listened to the people an did their bidding, not the recent political agenda. In days gone by, we didn’t even know a candidate’s party affiliation.
This is what happens when you elect a spate of candidates with only-one goal. And then you get all the ugliness that goes along with that as they empower themselves to become bullies.
Yes Joe, we elected in the last election a spate of candidates with only one goal and that is to take back government leadership from socialists and far left leaning candidates. It has worked and it will only get better after the next election.
Also Joe, I always knew, since 1982 the political affiliation’s of every City Council candidate. You just didn’t try hard enough or didn’t really care. I really did care.
Okay Moore, Dick, please list the accomplishments, in terms of service to constituents, that have been achieved by the members who took back ‘government leadership’ from the folk you identify with the dog whistle term ‘socialists.’
I get that you are only trying to insult me by making fun of my real name and I and other readers understand that is your real intention in your comment.
I have no idea what your dog whistle term ‘socialist” means. I’m guessing you really know how to define a socialist in our current world and city.
The conservatives accomplishments in the short time they have been in control is to undo past left wing spending and currently to keep Marcano and Coombs socialist ideas from coming to fruition. I suspect you understand outspoken Marcano and Coombs continue to come up with unamerican ideas to run our City.
If two members of the council identify as DSA members, that doesn’t make it a dog whistle, Gene. And if you know what a dog whistle sounds like, that means you’re a dog.
The elephant in the room you are ignoring is the simple fact that your “good old days” were created by a majority conservative–dare I say, Republican–council members. For decades.
The city jumped the shark with the election of a brief democratic majority propped up by Emerge Colorado–one of whom still sits on the dais (Murillo). Thankfully, progressives Johnston and Hiltz retreated or were dispatched but along came socialists Coombs, Marcano, and water-carrier Medina to fully poison the punch bowl.
A year ago, the community of Aurora begged for a return to law and order, a place that doesn’t glorify criminals, that’s business friendly, that eschews socialistic ideology, and that can recognize identity politics for what it is.
This recaptured new conservative majority is not the problem. They are the result. And I’m here for it.
So what have they accomplished?
Again, what they have accomplished is to begin to eliminate the ideas of people like you, Marcano and Coombs that are trying to change the way that America and Aurora citizens live.
Off the top of my head, with their conservative colleague majority, they have begun to fix our roads after 20 years of underfunding, strengthened consequences for criminal activity like car theft and retail theft, banned squatting as a precursor to addressing a rampant drug addiction problem resulting in homelessness, and identified red tape that bogs down the city processes. Not a bad start. I won’t do any more of your research for you. You can do it on your own.
So stifling dissent and opposing points of view are accomplishments? Following your logic, I guess the People’s Republic of China, the governments of Venezuela, India, Brazil, and North Korea have all been success stories. Would you be happier in any of those places?
No one is stifling your side’s dissent and opposing point of view, Gene. You’re just mad that you can’t dominate the conversation.
See my comment on Dick’s post below
Dog whistle, red herring, whatever. People on the left have NEVER been in the majority in Aurora. EVER. And you know this. You’ll just do anything you can to deflect and place blame with people you don’t like. No majority was “recaptured.” It’s always been there.
Man, you marxists really don’t take it well when you lose, do you?
” The wisdom of electing “just folks” to choose a direction, and for experts to find a way, is the reason Buckley Air Force Base is here, and that it is an active Air Force Base and not a defunct Air National Guard post.”
LOL, no it’s not. Buckley survived due to those rather large radomes that are sitting on the property and the agencies that use them, not due to anything the city councils during the last 50 years have done. When the BRACs took place, the DoD determined that moving everything down to Peterson or Schriever would cost too much, and they also needed a place to provide administrative support for the remaining offices that continued to operate at Lowry after that base was deactivated.
It became an Air Force base because the Guard couldn’t handle the responsibility of taking care of all those mission partners by the end of the 90s, so the Guard and Governor Owens asked the Air Force to help them figure out a solution. THAT’S what led Buckley to becoming an Air Force base. The implication that it was ever going to shut down if not for the Aurora city councils is sheer fantasia.
But leaving that aside, yes, the city did run rather well, and in mostly a bipartisan fashion, for decades. Republicans were the majority, but they didn’t have an issue working things out when Democrats were on the council. What changed this wasn’t the current council makeup, but Perry’s allies in the Emerge/DSA claque that came in and immediately turned the administration of the city into an exercise in partisan political gamesmanship–the Sentinel even admitted this a few months after Marcano and Coombs came on board, albeit in a sideways manner that tried to avoid implicating the Emerge/DSA members directly. Not surprisingly, their obnoxious, pompous, attention-seeking behavior ended up causing a backlash that led to more conservative council members getting elected. But don’t expect them to exercise any self-awareness on that.
The conservative members of the city council have demonstrated a decided disdain for expert opinions. This way of dealing with problems runs counter to what conservatives championed for years and it is the opposite of how successful businesses run. What concerns me more is the effort to deny input and conceal decisions from the public. Open meetings demonstrate democracy. What we are getting is my way or the highway. Next year we are presented with another opportunity to replace the demonstrably dysfunctional council and mayor! It’s time to begin planning…
I suppose your definition of “expert opinions” is quite different from my definition. I know that the next Aurora elections will only help throw out the outspoken card carrying socialists. They are the ones that have created dysfunction for the past three years.
These “expert opinions” are simply akin to “expert witnesses” that show up in court for a price. It just depends on what agenda your’re willing to pay for.
Nary a council meeting goes by without one of the comrades on the council (Murillo, Coombs, and Marcano) calling out the latest laughable social BINGO square: “evidence-based.” Funny, they NEVER offer what “evidence” they refer to.
Do they think that if they repeat it enough times, unwitting citizens will just believe them instead of their own lying eyes?
BINGO.