AURORA | Many of the Aurora City Council’s top priorities from 2022 remain pressing in 2023, including responses to homelessness and deteriorating roads and streets.
Later this year, the city is also scheduled to hold elections for the mayorship and five council seats. Here’s a quick rundown of topics we’re expecting to see the city and partner agencies focus on in 2023:
Homelessness
While Aurora has stepped up sweeps targeting homeless campers in 2022, introducing a ban on homeless camping earlier this year, it’s not clear what lasting impact the policy will have on the prevalence of street homelessness.
In December, city staffers told the council that bids would be requested early this year for an agency to run the homeless navigation center envisioned by the mayor as part of his “work-first” plan for addressing homelessness.
Volunteer teams are scheduled to locate and talk with homeless residents on Jan. 31 as part of the point-in-time count conducted on behalf of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which is the city’s primary source of information on the size of its homeless population.
Public safety
Aurora police reported a roughly 21% bump in motor vehicle thefts in 2022 compared to 2021. Deputy city manager Jason Batchelor told the council last month that a program to help victims of car theft with towing and storage costs would be introduced in 2023.
Currently, Aurora residents have to pay around $200 to retrieve their stolen vehicles from a third-party lot. Council members voted last year to research the costs of the city setting up its own lot, which could spare car theft victims the added inconvenience of a fee.
The city will continue to implement the five points of a crime reduction plan passed by council conservatives last year, which include adequately funding the Aurora Police Department, expanding youth violence programming and APD’s mental health co-response program, and dealing with the public health impacts of homeless encampments.
The council is also expected to sign off on the appointment of a new fire chief and (possibly) a new permanent police chief in 2023, after Fernando Gray stepped down and Vanessa Wilson was fired last year.
Recreation
Later this month, Aurora’s newest city recreation center will open its doors to the public. Work on the Southeast Recreation Center and Fieldhouse began in early 2021, funded by marijuana tax revenues.
The finished facility is west of Aurora Reservoir off of South Harvest Road. Starting Jan. 17, the facility will be open 5:30 a.m.-8:30 p.m. on weekdays, 8 a.m.-7:30 p.m. on Saturdays and 8 a.m.-6 p.m. on Sundays.
Aurora Public Library is also extending hours at its larger branches. The Central and Tallyn’s Reach libraries will be open 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Mondays through Thursdays as well as 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Fridays and weekends, including Sundays.
Odds and ends
The council will hold its first regular meeting of the year Jan. 9, following a two-week holiday break.
While the repeal of the city’s occupational privilege tax isn’t scheduled to take effect until 2025, compensating budget cuts and any new, offsetting revenues could be identified during this year’s budgeting process. The repeal is expected to remove $6 million annually from the budget. Cuts will not be made to public safety departments or the city’s road maintenance fund.
Build Up Aurora, a citywide road maintenance campaign funded by $35 million worth of certificates of participation, is also scheduled to break ground this year.
Final design work will also continue on the Colfax Bus Rapid Transit project, which is now slated to become operational in 2026. Council members voted to contribute roughly $2.3 million to the project last year.
Perhaps 2023 will be the year city council owns up to the absolute failure that is retail, dining and entertainment in Aurora. It’s the root evil behind nearly all of our city government’s problems.
With no strategy whatsoever, council is leaving over $30 million per year in additional tax revenue on the table. That’s the gain if Aurora’s retail would attain the per-capita average among Colorado cities — rather than limp at 14% below it.
Even after learning that the Denver SCFD Ponzi scheme bleeds Aurora for over $6 million per year, this council remains content to sit back and watch our local economy decline further.
Denver’s retail tax base measured per capita exceeds Aurora’s by 59% so obviously Denver needs Aurora to keep on subsidizing Denver’s cultural gluttony. It’s just easier politically to keep treating Aurora like a S__hole. After all, it’s Aurora, right?
Sarcasm doesn’t have to make sense.
It’s taken the Dems and the GOP working in concert at the state, county and city-level for over 30 years to screw Aurora over this badly.
Perhaps 2023 will be the year more Aurorans choose the to Unaffiliated path and just say “no” to the Dems and GOP both.
Mr. Brown, Aurora is woefully short on entertainment, but it seems not as simple as waving a magic wand and they will appear. This is not a “build it and they will come” situation (unless we are talking about homeless facilities, but that’s another subject entirely. Sort of.)
The sad reality is MUCH of Aurora has deteriorated. It’s infested with gang violence, anti-police sentiment, and takers. People don’t go where they can’t feel safe.
Some exceptions are the area surrounding the Gaylord and the eastern side from DIA through Aurora Highlands and down to the growing Southlands, which just recently announced a new Nordstrom Rack.
It should be noted that Stanley Marketplace proved that a good retail experience can revive a formerly dangerous and struggling area but GeNtrFiCatioN!
Retail/restaurant success can be achieved through developing the few aforementioned bright spots, as well as making a SERIOUS investment in an ethnic restaurant row in the Havana corridor to create a genuinely unique world cultural dining experience. But that’s quite an ambitious effort with Murillo, Marcano, and Coombs at their helms.
It’s unlikely that any of this will be pursued if our mayor and socialist council members continue to look to pour good money after bad into the ghetto of North Aurora, and waste tax dollars on those with their hands out for government dollars — illegal immigrants, voluntarily homeless, and the bulk of non-profits out there.
We pay $7 to 8 million per year for cultural and scientific facilities and over 90 percent goes elsewhere.
Please tell me why this city can’t replicate and improve upon the success realized by Irving, Texas ( pop. 230K) with the city-owned Toyota Music Factory where the city partners with a private consortium that includes LiveNation.
Irving replaced the 800k NFL fans who would annually attend Cowboys games with 3 million concert fans. And like Aurora, they did it next to a major airport.
See grand opening at https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi64Rhc7Zic
So who’s courageous enough to stand up to the Dem and GOP state party leadership so that Aurora can vote on a better use of OUR SCFD funds?
Does anyone have a better solution? The recent $35 million in debt to fix the roads is a CLEAR INDICATOR that the city is in trouble long term.
Crickets.