As one of the two Denver City Council At-large members, I have a dual role: to focus my attention on specific issues impacting neighborhoods and communities across Denver and to consider how these issues and all others impact and relate to the City of Denver as one whole community. I can tell you that this is a challenging and exciting task and I am committed to it.

My work, goals and beliefs are guided by several key interests: children, families, neighborhoods, and economic development. I believe that we must work to preserve Denver’s past while focusing on the future. We can balance stability and change while supporting the unique character of each of Denver’s diverse neighborhoods.

We must also ensure that Denver remains family-friendly. Denver’s children thrive when they have high-quality, accessible, safe places to learn and play. As past executive director of the Mayor’s Office for Education and Children under Mayor Wellington Webb, I championed the opening of Denver Head Start, started a school-to-career program in every Denver public middle school, and provided literacy grants to local community coalitions during the return to neighborhood schools. 

A few of my recent accomplishments of which I’m most proud include:

• Led the effort to add more police officers using current city resources
  
• Pushed the state to improve Early Childhood Education programs
  
• Worked to increase transparency of City budget and accounting
  
• Key player in the redevelopment of the Lowenstein Theater/Tattered Cover Bookstore
  
• Helped revise zoning to support small businesses
  
• Denver leader for “Preschool Matters” initiative
  
• Denver leader in supporting changes to TABOR to free up funds for education

Some of my goals for the future are making the Denver Preschool Program a reality for our children, redeveloping areas of Colfax extending from west to east as well as other aging corridors such as Federal Boulevard, and ensuring that the 38 FasTracks transit stops are planned in a sound, “neighborhood-friendly” way.

I have two staff members to assist me, Lisa Zoeller and Rachel Kurtz-Phelan. You may know them from their other community work. Lisa is a past executive director of Colorado NARAL and was the director of news media at University Hospital and the CU-Health Sciences Center. Rachel grew up in Denver and worked for five years in Washington, D.C. in development and marketing for two non-profit organizations. I hope that you will contact us if you have any questions about City issues or if you have any thoughts or suggestions that you would like to pass along. We can be reached at (720) 865-8100.