PHOTO VIA CITY OF AURORA
Take a trip back in time with me to the spring of 2023.
Let’s take this journey after Sentinel Editor Dave Perry in his June 18 column went down a dead end inferring that Mayor Mike Coffman somehow deserves credit or even a nod for backing a new city council measure to ensure Aurora landlords adhere to the law.
In 2023, United for a New Economy (UNE) was helping tenants at 1568 Nome St. organize against their slumlord, connecting them with city officials to bring the squalid conditions they were suffering through due to CBZ’s neglect to light. I and several of my colleagues were invited to tour the property, and documented what we saw through photographs and a lengthy email to the city attorney’s office. Ultimately, this led a few of us to introduce a rental registry ordinance crafted in partnership with UNE and the directly impacted tenants which would have created a system that allowed tenants to submit evidence to the city and provided a means for the city to crack down on slumlords before they become a larger problem for us all.
The ordinance would have doubled the number of code enforcement officers in the city, required regular property inspections (to include special inspections when ownership turns over) to be conducted by the city, and stiffened penalties with the goal of making business as usual for slumlords unprofitable and to make retaliation against tenants unlawful. The net benefit to renters would be a right to safe, clean, and dignified living conditions backed by the city, and all Aurorans would have benefited from a reduction in derelict properties owned by people just looking to extract as much wealth as possible from our neighbors.
This effort was shot down by the Republican majority at the time, with former Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky and Coffman being the most vocal opponents of the measure. Before this vote, Coffman saw the conditions the 1568 Nome St. tenants were living in. Despite this, he said that the current process was sufficient even though he and every member of the Aurora City Council knew what the conditions at the Nome property were like. Every. Member.
Nome Street and other properties owned by CBZ were later used as a political prop by the Trump campaign, Jurinsky, and Coffman to propagate the lie of Aurora being “taken over” by gangs. Coffman later walked back his lies after receiving flack from the immigrant community in Aurora, but by then the damage had been done.
The only group Aurora has been “taken over” by are special interests groups seeking to profit off our collective labor while impoverishing more and more people, aided and abetted by the candidates they buy each election cycle, with Coffman being their highest return on investment.
Coffman is not a friend to tenants or working-class Aurorans. He hasn’t been over his nearly 40 years in office, and he hasn’t suddenly turned a new leaf now that he’s finally in the minority on council. He’s behaving in the same way he has during his whole political career – opportunistically changing his position in an attempt to brace against the political headwinds around the corner at our next municipal election, and in hopes that Aurorans will forget his complicity fueling the anti-immigrant lies that caused reputational and economic harm to our city.
Let’s give credit where it is due: to the voters of Aurora who in November 2025 elected four new council members not beholden to special interest groups, providing our city council with the political will for Mayor Pro-Tem Alison Coombs and Councilmember Ruben Medina to build on the work we began in 2023 and pass a long-overdue ordinance to crack down on slumlords operating in our city. This victory belongs to you.
Juan Marcano is the former Ward IV Council Member, current Colorado Transportation Commissioner, and prays that 2027 is the year when Mike Coffman’s teflon finally wears off.
I will never forget where Coffman stood on this issue in 2023. He refused to support change that would have helped residents live in safety and have recourse when their safety was threatened. He chose to do nothing except use their lack of safety as a political…I don’t know what. I could not and can not still figure out what the gain was for allowing our beautiful city to be portrayed as a war zone in national press. Coffman is terrible for our community and can post all of his little “feel good, of course I love our community and our diversity” on social media all he wants but his actions on issues where he could have an impact show us who he really is. And we see it. And we know. And will not forget.
“He refused to support change that would have helped residents live in safety and have recourse when their safety was threatened.”
Your team doesn’t give a rip about safety. It’s why you have two tiers of rules, where yours demands that it gets to do what it wants with impunity while your political enemies have to be handcuffed.
” I could not and can not still figure out what the gain was for allowing our beautiful city to be portrayed as a war zone in national press.”
LOL, Coffman wasn’t doing anything of the kind, but anyone driving through north Aurora would be hard-pressed to call it “beautiful.” It’s been a garbage heap for decades, and the last ten years certainly haven’t put a shine on it. It has the reputation it deserves.
You should be studied. The level of projection you’re engaging in would make an IMAX blush.
And yours can be seen all the way from Alpha Centauri.
City Council just economically sodomized every resident of Aurora — putting three tax hikes on the November ballot.
When on council, what did you do to attract significantly more visitors to spend in Aurora? Anything?
So let’s just ignore how Council has failed and instead waste time trashing the character of a weak, nearly lame duck mayor. That’ll lead to immediate collaborative solutions to the city’s most difficult problems — not.
Is trashing a weak mayor really the highest and best use of anyone’s time?
Coffman isn’t lame duck, he can (and will) run again in 2027. That’s why he’s doing all these stunts and starting to rewrite history of how he acted in 2023 and 2024, because he’s gearing up for another run.
I stand corrected on “lame duck.” But under the weak mayor form of governnent, I still see lttle point in trashing the current mayor. It accomplishes absolutely nothing.
How about actual, politically viable solutions to the city’s financial issues? I hear CRICKETS coming from the good Mr. Marcano. In this regard, he’s no better than Mayor Coffman. Both have their head in the sand.
The new Council, not beholding to corporate interests just recently approved a massive new subdivision for which they have no plan on how to supply it with water other than cutting off water to the rest of us, and have no plan or money on how to provide it with fire protection. They did this while the City budget is upside down and looking to be for the near term future at least. Seems to me they sold us out to developers. Isn’t that being beholding? As for new ordinances maybe simply write one to pull the certificates of occupancy from properties with three or more code violations as to habitability (meaning heat, water, sanitary plumbing and vermin infestations) which have remained uncured for more than 30 days in any calendar year. Once pulled the C.O. cannot reissue until all code violations at the property are cured and until the landlord proves that all tenants displaced by the closure have been rehoused in properties of similar square footage and rental payments, meaning within 5% of their situation when the closure occured. This simplifies things. No criminal charges so service and notice are easy, the City does not have to know the owner or find the owner, the City merely serves the property by posting at the property. The onus is then on the owner to find the City.