How should Denver spend $800 million? Residents pitch bond ideas for street repaving, parks and rec centers.

In a middle school cafeteria in southeast Denver, a smattering of residents and Mayor Mike Johnston discussed the future of the city over slices of pizza.

“At Hampden and Locust, it’s like you take your life in your hands when you’re trying to cross those streets,” said Sandra Prodan, a Southmoor Park resident. “That needs to be improved.”

“Repave Monaco! Please!” interjected another Denverite.

During 11 meetings at schools, recreation centers and churches across Denver over the last two months, City Council members and Johnston have listened to hours and hours of people sharing their ideas on how to improve the city. The “community conversations” are part of Johnston and the council’s “Vibrant Denver” proposal for the city to take on new debt — in the form of a general obligation bond likely reaching hundreds of millions of dollars — to underwrite dozens of city projects.

The bond, which must first get voter approval, could pay for things like road projects, new bike lanes and recreation centers, along with building renovations and upgrades.

“What we are doing is identifying key opportunities for investment and capital projects in your neighborhood that create moments of joy,” Johnston said at the gathering Wednesday. He has attended each of the community meetings.

City officials plan to take the public input they solicited through the community meetings and surveys and create a list of projects the bond could finance. Then voters will get to decide in the November election if they like the plans enough to authorize the new debt.

The bond, if approved, wouldn’t increase property taxes because it would replace earlier debt currently being paid off. While city officials say the exact figure won’t be pinned down until the project list is final, it’s likely to amount to around $800 million in investment.

During the public input period, which ended Thursday, more than 750 people attended the in-person meetings and 5,300 filled out the city’s survey, said Laura Swartz, the communications director for the city’s Department of Finance.

A new library? How about pickleball courts?

The highest number of responses by neighborhood came, in descending order, from Park Hill, Capitol Hill, Congress Park, Central Park and College View, according to information updated April 14 on the city’s dashboard.

Respondents ranked parks and playgrounds as the highest-importance priority among things the bond could improve. The next-highest was a category for street, bike and pedestrian safety.

Ideas submitted ranged from a new library along East Colfax Avenue to more pickleball courts in north Denver to a downtown extension of the protected bike lane on Broadway.

The city is specifically looking for concepts and projects that it could complete in the next six years.

Now that the public input portion of the process is over, community-led subcommittees will review and evaluate the ideas in coming weeks. There will be five subcommittees on connectivity, arts and cultural venues, facilities, safe and healthy neighborhoods, and parks and climate. Each will include council members, subject-matter experts and residents.

The subcommittees will then rank the project ideas and refer them to an executive committee, which will create the final package proposal. The executive committee members haven’t been chosen yet but the roster will consist of some subcommittee members, council President Amanda Sandoval and the city’s chief financial officer, Nicole Doheny.

The mayor’s office will choose the members of the subcommittees and the executive committee, Swartz said.

City leaders said that when they choose the projects, the committees will consider equity and which communities historically have missed out on investments.

During the final community conversation session about the bond at Hamilton Middle School on Wednesday, attendees broke into topic-specific groups. City staffers helped facilitate the conversations, reminding residents what types of projects are possible and breaking up the occasional argument or digression.

The ideas vary from standalone suggestions to coordinated community proposals, Johnston said in an interview.

“What I love is it’s a beautiful picture of democracy in action,” he said. “There are small, everyday things people really care about, and there are big dreams they care about. You see them come together on both.”

Several people who spent their evening in the middle school spoke highly of the process.

“I feel like they listen and get things done,” said Prodan, who pushed for the street safety improvements in southeast Denver.

Denver’s reliance on bonds

General obligation bonds are a common tool for cities to build infrastructure. Denver lately has asked voters to approve new bonds every four to 10 years.

In 2021, during the pandemic, voters approved RISE Denver, a 5-year, $260 million program. In 2017, Elevate Denver — a 10-year, $937 million package — passed. Both still have projects in the works.

Bonds have built or contributed to dozens of projects in the city, including the 16th Street Mall improvements, the Carla Madison Recreation Center on Colfax and the animal hospital at the Denver Zoo.

For this round, Johnston isn’t the only one who has been at every public input meeting. Jason Bailey, who runs the group Citizens for No New Debt, has also attended each one to disperse flyers opposing the initiative.

On the handout, Bailey argues that bonds aren’t a good financial choice for the city because the long-term cost for a project paid for using debt is higher than it would be if it were paid out of pocket. The trade-offs are similar to purchasing a new car with a financing plan versus cash.

“Mayor Johnston and City Council are wasting precious time and millions of dollars all in order to get the city further into debt,” he wrote.

Swartz, with the city’s finance department, says it’s true that the debt approach costs the city more for a single project. The main benefit of bonds, however, is getting multiple projects off the ground at the same time, saving the city money by averting inflation in the future.

“We see construction costs increase more every year than the interest cost on the bonds,” Swartz said.

But for voters concerned for Denver’s budget, the city’s website identifies another possible drawback to issuing bonds: “If voters choose not to approve new bonds, existing taxes could go toward paying down current bonds faster.”

The subcommittees and executive committee are expected to finalize the final package this summer.

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