EDITOR’S NOTE: An earlier version of Perry’s column wrongly stated that Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky voted against a final funding resolution on Monday. Jurinsky voted for the resolution when it was offered to the city council.
It’s hot, smoky and humid, a perfect mix for making me Colorado cranky.
And I’m irritable enough to call BS on two Aurora lawmakers laying a stinking pile of big-OH-tree on the council dais this week.
The two-doo drop was against this city’s LGBTQ+ residents who call Aurora home, or those who trek here to shop, eat or just sit in traffic like the rest of us.
It’s nearly Aurora Pride day, folks. Proudly wave your rainbow flag or head out to the Aurora Reservoir Aug. 3 for what has become the coolest, most fun and family friendly Pride-fest in the region.
And thanks to some serious sensibility from nine other city lawmakers, there ain’t nothing council members Danielle Jurinsky and Stephanie Hancock can do about it.
Although, they tried. Hard.
For the past few years, the City of Aurora, the Sentinel, Visit Aurora, local health departments, Xcel Energy, University Health, Kaiser Permanente, the Community College of Aurora and — well, you get the idea — nearly everyone has stepped up to sponsor and celebrate Aurora Pride.
It started at city hall about six years ago, but a handful of city officials, supporters and promoters came up with a cool idea to set Aurora’s event apart from others, and help make it the outdoor, outstanding family-fun-and-friendly event that it is.
There’s no parade or march. It’s a day at the beach, literally.
Food, music, entertainment, markets and camaraderie among the region’s LGBTQ+ residents, friends, family and those who just like festivals.
More than anything, it’s a moment in time to underscore that queer, gay, lesbian and trans people should have pride in who they are and what they can accomplish.
This is the antidote to cake bakers and website designers who hide behind religion, fake science or nostalgic bigotry to illegally and unethically discriminate against people.
In what most everyone around here remembers as unanimous agreement on the city council, Aurora conservatives and liberals stepped up fast to join the queer community in creating Aurora Pride in 2017.
For the last few years, Aurora has ponied up cash and access to the reservoir.
Last fall, as the city was preparing its 2024 budget, Pride sponsorship, around $15,000 in cash and trade, oddly got left off the list.
Councilmember Alison Coombs, who’s openly queer and a leader in that local community, started pressing to get the mistake corrected.
But for the past few weeks, Hancock and Jurinsky used a city council procedural scheme to keep the question of funding Pride, already at a discount from previous years, from reaching the city dais and a vote.
The farce ended Monday after Coombs pleaded with fellow lawmakers to give this venerable cause its due consideration.
Councilmember Francoise Bergan said she’d found a private funder to donate half of what was requested already. She’s long supported Aurora Pride and previously sat on Aurora Pride Board of Directors.
Councilmember Curtis Gardner said the event sponsorship looks like all the rest in Aurora. Mayor Mike Coffman said he’s going.
So the rest of the city council pretty much told Hancock and Jurinsky to pound sand.
I suggest they try it on the beach at Pride in a couple of weeks.
The lame excuse both naysayers gave for wanting to not fund the festival was that it was just too-bad-so-sad that Pride got left off the budget block last fall. Better luck next time, because the city can’t spend new money once the budget is closed.
What a load of crap that is. I’ve watched this city council for decades reopen and amend the city budget, many — if not dozens — times a year. The mechanism and procedure for out-of-cycle budget requests is tried and true, and it just got implemented on a unanimous vote Monday.
Jurinsky eventually voted to offer Aurora Pride the funding. Hancock abstained from voting.
The other reason Hancock and Jurinsky balked at funding Pride was that they think it’s horrifically heinous that the reservoir is reserved one day for the thousands of people who turn out for the event each year.
“I believe everybody already knew it wasn’t going to be something we could fund,” Hancock said Monday, in error. “It’s unfair to have one group rent out the entire park, and we never should have done it in the first place.”
Professing to care so deeply about the folks who feel shut out of the reservoir, and the requirement to pay $10 to get in, these two lawmakers overlook that there is nothing keeping anyone out of the reservoir during Pride.
It’s called “inclusion.”
In fact it’s one of the few days you can get into the reservoir, and Pride, for free — with advance online reservation of a ticket. Really.
Want to ride your bike on the path as everyone around the local talent stage has all the fun? Go for it. Fish from shore? OK.
It’s hardly unusual for this city or any other to close or limit access to parks, trails or other venues for special and large events. Yeah, like streets, too.
Every year, the city closes public access to its massive soccer-baseball field venue for national contests.
Unfair to the kids who wanted a pick-up game that day? Please.
The city itself holds giant events on the Great Lawn at city hall. Everything from fireworks fiestas to Global Fest.
Should Hancock get out there and shake her fist at the food trucks, grumbling, “Get off my lawn”?
Get a grip. Get a life. Get a cause that isn’t homophobia so thinly veiled that nobody but these two council members and Lakewood’s tiresome baker of straight cakes and Parker’s pernicious web coder can feel good about.
Everyone else? Head on out for some beers, some beach and some laughs and a dose of pride.
Follow @EditorDavePerry on BlueSky, Threads, Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook or reach him at 303-750-7555 or dperry@SentinelColorado.com
Gormless fascists and bigots haunt city hall, but no matter how often they step in it the vintage whites from south east Aurora keep voting for them. It’d be nice if more than the absolute worst among us cared to vote.
Ward 6 CM Bergan (SE Aurora) stepped up to not only vote support but also to secure a sponsor, while Coombs or any other liberal on the council added nothing but last-minute panic. Check your bigotry.
Surely this is Gregg Bergan coming to Francoise’s aide, as usual.
I completely agree with you Dave. Those two city council members are a disgrace to our city and I can’t wait for the next election and hopefully those two will be voted out of office!
I could care less if the the gay people in Aurora have a day at the park. If they want to do gay things for gay people why don’t they raise funds in the gay community for that fun? I do not believe that I must, as a citizen of Aurora, help pay for that fun. Neither do CM Hancock or Jurinsky. I thank both of them for representing me in not subsidizing their fun. Keep up the good work in representing so many of us that believe in paying their own way.
Seems like Aurora Reservoir is becoming a political tool recently. Maybe it’s just not well run. It was built only to provide water to Aurora citizens. Maybe trying to get secondary use out of it by bringing in recreation is the problem. Maybe the problem lies in the leadership of the Aurora Recreation. Maybe the old saying of, “If you can’t run it right don’t run it at all”, fits. Jason B, maybe you should look at this a bit closer. A body of water should not be so political.
Amen! I am so thankful for Jurinsky and Hancock.
Jurinsky and Hancock bring me so much hope for the city of Aurora. This has nothing to do with what the event is. This has everything to do with shutting down the reservoir to the public. Charging annual season pass holders to come into the reservoir. This is a for profit group making money off of a publicly owned asset. Jurinsky said it “not for any amount of money can you rent out and shut down to the public the Chatfield reservoir or the Cherry Creek reservoir. The people of Aurora finally have a voice at the table. Dave Perry all you do is divide this city. Do better.
False. They are not for-profit.
So– when the KKK shows up at city hall for their application or Hells Angels want their annual meeting coupled with their typical peaceful gathering out at the Reservoir it should look about the same for a nice drama-free day. Should be easy-peasy permits. We don’t want to give the impression of being discriminatory against anyone.
BTW, the water level out there is as low as I have seen it in 15 years. In addition the reservoir is clearly unhealthy. All of the reeds, rushes, willows and water flowers which for years have flourished are dead and rotting into the water. The ducks and geese who make the reservoir their home have had no hatchlings this year while in most years they have . The crayfish which use to proliferate in huge shoals of tens of thousands are gone. The cormorant population is way down and the cranes which once hunted the shallows are not out there this year. The water in the shallow end of the bays stinks and is covered with what appears to be the same algae that has made the Quincy Reservoir toxic. The swim beach has been closed at least twice this year due to bacteria. Maybe with the attention on the reservoir Aurora Water can tell us what is going on out there before allowing the facility to host an event. Are the potential event goers aware of the condition of the water?