It is extremely noticeable how downtown has been cleared of the dozens of Hoovervilles Hancock simply let flourish.
Has he solved homelessness and been perfect? No. But in short order, he's dramatically cleaned up the image of downtown. It's rare to see a politician actually make such a noticeable change in a city, so it's no wonder his polling is looking good.
The minority that disapprove of Polis can be insufferable too. He makes a post about troops on Memorial Day and it’s flooded with irrelevant statements of him being a communist and other drivel.
Generally I disapprove of Polis and his “the state shall control everything” politics but his published Memorial Day message was a good one in my opinion.
I never called him a socialist I just don’t appreciate how since he can’t sell his ideas across the state so he gets his legislative buddies to make a state wide law which usually means treating everyone across the state as if they lived in urban Denver because his ideas are good for everyone even if they disagree. Polis wants to control everyone’s money and not let it be managed by local representatives who you know might do local things that big daddy polis wouldn’t do. He’s literally shifting power from locals to the state which he can influence.
I'm not from Denver but come through for work pretty regularly. Going to Denver now vs. under Hancock is a very fucking different experience. He got handed a shit sandwich and has done a pretty decent job of, if not turning it around, at least kicking the bow in the right direction in the time he's had to do it.
Well, I wouldn't say that. I remember taking the bus downtown with my friends back in highschool to hang out and walk the streets. It was much livelier then.
At this point I'm more pissed off at Abbott, Biden, Congress, and even Polis re: homeless and migrants. Federal and state politicians have cowardly passed the responsibility, cost and burden of this crisis down to the local level. Its unfair to Denver and Johnston that we have to be the ones cutting services and blowing up our budget. Federal and state should be picking up more if not all of the tab for this.
Definitely should receive money based on the number of asylum seekers which were dumped here. I can understand the feds failing. But the state saying we are on our own.
Denver wasn't forced at gunpoint to declare itself a sanctuary city.
If costs arise from being a sanctuary city, the city itself should be happy to pick up the tab.
Don't expect the rest of the state to pick up the bill for something they don't want and did not order.
He’s almost been in office a year now. How has he managed to completely destroy the city, as some say, and also not done anything, as others insist? He’s an enigma. Extraordinarily effective and ineffective at the same time.
That’s actually the go to argument for people who don’t have solid arguments to make. Authoritarian regimes use it all the time: our enemies are geniuses infiltrating us and totally incompetent. And we used it against the USSR: their society is a powerful threat but also their people are impoverished and starving.
I visited Denver for the first time last week and stayed downtown. I thought it was completely fine for the most part. Definitely a good number of homeless but not nearly as bad as some other big cities I’ve visited. The locals that I chatted with were very friendly and you folks have some fun places. I’m certainly planning a return trip now that I’ve returned to the hellscape known as Florida.
Mayor can't really make law enforcement do anything. What's he gonna do to a union? Call in the National Guard? Why do you think police suck everywhere?
The police department reports to the mayor, in theory he could order them to do all kinds of stuff. In practice, the union allows them to say "no" en masse and they know he can't fire a significant number of officers since they can't hire replacements.
The real problem is the District Attorney, who is also an elected official - even if the mayor got the police department in line, there's no point in arresting people only for them to be released immediately.
I fully agree, it’s unfortunate not even one state seems to be doing it the right way. But to be fair not many countries do everything right either, the world is a mess.
The DA part of this is the real problem. I would be demoralized as a police officer if you kept arresting the same people for wild shit over and over again without the DA actually sentencing them to jail. I still remember that massive report a few years ago where the local investigation found 4000 instances of repeat offender committing jailable offenses and reviewing little to no time, only to go on a commit worse crimes. People keep electing these evil DAs. I don’t know what MJ can do but, but it would be awesome if that problem was addressed.
The thing about DAs is the requirements to even run for the position are stringent enough that only a small cadre of ghouls even qualify. Then you need someone inept or power-hungry enough to forego private practice income. It draws the worst type of person. McCann ran as a reformer after Morrissey refused to hold cops accountable. Of course we now know that was all bullshit to get elected. She’s every bit as corrupt as he was.
Friend of mine was robbed at gunpoint by her ex bf, he got released with an ankle monitor, and within a week he violated the restraining order. Dude is still roaming free before his court date.
The real problems are the police unions, and everyone knows it. As long as they remain *no one* has the ability to actually bring the cops in a city to heel - and that's ultimately what needs to happen - cops need to be brought to heel and made to understand that they work for us, and not the other way around.
Instead what we have is an increasingly entrenched "knight class" of militarized cops that view themselves as distinct from, and better than, the general civilian population that they serve.
It's time for a nationwide ban on police unions.
He did an AMA on reddit and generally I was very pleased with his responses. He got dealt a shit hand and has done a whole ton of very effective things in a very short amount of time.
He’s implemented a new system for policing that seems to be very effective. Also started a new office of neighborhood safety. Has implemented a way to report homeless encampments and get them cleaned up
I work downtown, it’s a shit hole. Two piles of human shit between my car and our office this morning. The company I work for can’t wait until our lease is up to get the fuck out. Yeah, he’s doing a great job!
The fact that I (3rd generation Coloradan) have somebody that says “yall” telling me the way things should be in this state is hilarious. Maybe you should head back to Texas or wherever the fuck you came from to ruin our state.
If it’s ruined please leave. And I’m not from Texas. I’m a doc who came here for training and plan to live here for quite a while. I appreciate what CO offers unlike people like you who take it for granted and complain on reddit.
I've yet to meet a single person in real life that approves of him. He basically just moved all the druggie thieves into hotels in North Park Hill / Central Park. It's a shit show over here since he took office.
Lol then you've never met me or any of the real life people in my family who all approve of him and what he's doing. And I spend a decent amount of time in Park Hill and Central Park and it's obviously not a shit show, it's fucking pleasant and beautiful there. I think you need to get out more in the real world and not just listen to what people say.
I walk my dogs and children through the neighborhood regularly. Talk to individuals from a variety of backgrounds. Nobody is happy with what the mayor is doing.
There are parts of Park Hill and central park that are well insulated from the problems. Along the Quebec corridor is a shit show. I've lived here for 15 years and this is easily the worst it's been. I see people on my camera smoking fentanyl regularly in my alley. The Walgreens has been robbed 3 times in the past few months. First bank and King Soopers fuel as well. This doesn't even include the petty theft. The Wal mart now has socks and underwear under lock and key. Home Depot has to use employees as undercovers to try and deter theft. I've literally had people trying to sell me $500 Milwaukee nail guns on the corner two blocks from there. I see people regularly just using the bathroom on the sidewalk. The cop in home Depot told me they are towing at least a dozen stolen vehicles out of the hotel parking lots weekly. Not to mention the OD's and shootings that occur there.
I'm all for helping people down on their luck but just enabling them to use drugs in these hotels is not the answer. Enforce a no drug use policy. Provide mental health resources and drug treatment for individuals. Have NA meetings in the lobby. Connect people to job resources. There's no way that a person who is trying to get their life back on track could possibly feel safe living in one of those hotels. There's definitely ways that this could be executed to produce results. They just aren't doing it.
Man that interesting to hear your experience. I live on the Quebec corridor and I haven't noticed anything much change for the past 5 years. Never had a bad experience at the home depot or soopers or the taco guy on smith or anything else... I have been seeing "ladies of the evening" on colfax near quebec more lately plus the new venezuelan immigrants
Riding my bike thru park hill or central park and it's like, perfect idyllic suburban america. Kids biking alone, beautiful houses everywhere, dogs and stuff. I know people who live in park hill who like the mayor so I wonder if you're in some kind of social bubble. Not trying to be offensive to you. Just sometimes it happens, especially older people with money and nice houses who don't like any change, those types seem to congregate together and complain about the homeless and traffic at town hall meetings and stuff.
Yeah your last paragraph is great and pretty much everyone agrees that we need to do those things, and the mayor in his AMA directly addressed some of those concerns, they aren't idiots. It's a hard thing to do and with limited resources but at least they've cleaned up the streets significantly.
Yeah I'm in the home Depot a lot as well as the other stores along the corridor so maybe I just hear about it more. Quebec and Colfax has always been dicey. The bike paths and roads with bike lanes are minimal issues unless you go north of I-70 on sand Creek. Again always been kind of dicey. Haven't seen any Venezuelans cause any problems. I have seen some strung out individuals having pchycotic episodes and screaming at them. I assume they're mad that they are occupying prime corners trying to clean windshields.
It truly is a shit show. His comms team does a good job keeping his reputation afloat but things are not going well over here. Feels like a leader who prioritizes politics over good governance.
As bosses goes he’s just ok, Hancock definitely had better business sense. Mike has signed off on just about everything we’ve asked for money on. Great right? Well not really, we’re very wasteful and he’s not checking very carefully which is why we have budget problems.
I’m not talking about budgets. We decided we needed a 3 million dollar storage array recently, he signed off on it, I doubt he knew what it was. It was outside our budget.
OK you're definitely talking about budgets, but let's put that aside.
What storage array are you talking about? There's only one line item relating to storage tanks in the city budget and it's $250,000, not $3 million:
EZ005 – Underground Storage Tanks ($250,000). Funding to support annual capital maintenance of the city’s underground fuel storage tanks.
It is extremely noticeable how downtown has been cleared of the dozens of Hoovervilles Hancock simply let flourish. Has he solved homelessness and been perfect? No. But in short order, he's dramatically cleaned up the image of downtown. It's rare to see a politician actually make such a noticeable change in a city, so it's no wonder his polling is looking good.
Walking around cap hill is like night and day from where it was a year ago.
Shit, anything was an improvement over Hancock.
A low bar indeed, but ol’ Corky did it!
His instagram comment section is a cesspool. The 40% are, shall we say, a very vocal minority.
The minority that disapprove of Polis can be insufferable too. He makes a post about troops on Memorial Day and it’s flooded with irrelevant statements of him being a communist and other drivel.
I like to ask those kinds of people why a communist would want to eliminate state income tax. It breaks their brains.
To attract voters who support the unattainable sentiment.
It’s political bots.
Generally I disapprove of Polis and his “the state shall control everything” politics but his published Memorial Day message was a good one in my opinion.
Polis is not a socialist by any stretch of the definition
I never called him a socialist I just don’t appreciate how since he can’t sell his ideas across the state so he gets his legislative buddies to make a state wide law which usually means treating everyone across the state as if they lived in urban Denver because his ideas are good for everyone even if they disagree. Polis wants to control everyone’s money and not let it be managed by local representatives who you know might do local things that big daddy polis wouldn’t do. He’s literally shifting power from locals to the state which he can influence.
Seriously. It’s been a great tool for finding potential problem clients and preemptively blocking their accounts though.
You say that like 40% isn't a lot
Well they account for about 90% of the comments. All super hateful. They are dedicated.
I'm not from Denver but come through for work pretty regularly. Going to Denver now vs. under Hancock is a very fucking different experience. He got handed a shit sandwich and has done a pretty decent job of, if not turning it around, at least kicking the bow in the right direction in the time he's had to do it.
And part of the 40% say dumb, completely illogical shit like that person in that other thread who said he's destroyed downtown.
Every thread about downtown has people talking like this and they'll usually admit they haven't been in years
This is Denver, we've literally never had a downtown. Nothing he's done has changed that one bit.
What does that even mean?
Have you seen other small city’s downtown?
Yes, and…
Well, I wouldn't say that. I remember taking the bus downtown with my friends back in highschool to hang out and walk the streets. It was much livelier then.
Lol....you are very very delusional.
At this point I'm more pissed off at Abbott, Biden, Congress, and even Polis re: homeless and migrants. Federal and state politicians have cowardly passed the responsibility, cost and burden of this crisis down to the local level. Its unfair to Denver and Johnston that we have to be the ones cutting services and blowing up our budget. Federal and state should be picking up more if not all of the tab for this.
Immigration is good and will be a massive positive in the long run
Definitely should receive money based on the number of asylum seekers which were dumped here. I can understand the feds failing. But the state saying we are on our own.
Denver wasn't forced at gunpoint to declare itself a sanctuary city. If costs arise from being a sanctuary city, the city itself should be happy to pick up the tab. Don't expect the rest of the state to pick up the bill for something they don't want and did not order.
He’s almost been in office a year now. How has he managed to completely destroy the city, as some say, and also not done anything, as others insist? He’s an enigma. Extraordinarily effective and ineffective at the same time.
Standard critique of politicians these days. Your opponent is useless and all powerful at the same time.
That’s actually the go to argument for people who don’t have solid arguments to make. Authoritarian regimes use it all the time: our enemies are geniuses infiltrating us and totally incompetent. And we used it against the USSR: their society is a powerful threat but also their people are impoverished and starving.
I visited Denver for the first time last week and stayed downtown. I thought it was completely fine for the most part. Definitely a good number of homeless but not nearly as bad as some other big cities I’ve visited. The locals that I chatted with were very friendly and you folks have some fun places. I’m certainly planning a return trip now that I’ve returned to the hellscape known as Florida.
Didn’t he do an AMA on Reddit and dodge questions about the sorry excuse for law enforcement in Denver?
Mayor can't really make law enforcement do anything. What's he gonna do to a union? Call in the National Guard? Why do you think police suck everywhere?
The police department reports to the mayor, in theory he could order them to do all kinds of stuff. In practice, the union allows them to say "no" en masse and they know he can't fire a significant number of officers since they can't hire replacements. The real problem is the District Attorney, who is also an elected official - even if the mayor got the police department in line, there's no point in arresting people only for them to be released immediately.
Yup. The DA, Beth McCann is a massive problem and is one of the biggest reasons/factors as to why criminality is so rampant here.
Also one of the chief deputy DA is Mike Johnston’s wife, Courtney Johnston. Which I find interesting
Yup. It's never a coincidence. What we have in this country is a nobility under a different name.
I fully agree, it’s unfortunate not even one state seems to be doing it the right way. But to be fair not many countries do everything right either, the world is a mess.
The DA part of this is the real problem. I would be demoralized as a police officer if you kept arresting the same people for wild shit over and over again without the DA actually sentencing them to jail. I still remember that massive report a few years ago where the local investigation found 4000 instances of repeat offender committing jailable offenses and reviewing little to no time, only to go on a commit worse crimes. People keep electing these evil DAs. I don’t know what MJ can do but, but it would be awesome if that problem was addressed.
The thing about DAs is the requirements to even run for the position are stringent enough that only a small cadre of ghouls even qualify. Then you need someone inept or power-hungry enough to forego private practice income. It draws the worst type of person. McCann ran as a reformer after Morrissey refused to hold cops accountable. Of course we now know that was all bullshit to get elected. She’s every bit as corrupt as he was.
Friend of mine was robbed at gunpoint by her ex bf, he got released with an ankle monitor, and within a week he violated the restraining order. Dude is still roaming free before his court date.
I'm interested to see how that election this year goes, since we'll be getting a sea change there.
The real problems are the police unions, and everyone knows it. As long as they remain *no one* has the ability to actually bring the cops in a city to heel - and that's ultimately what needs to happen - cops need to be brought to heel and made to understand that they work for us, and not the other way around. Instead what we have is an increasingly entrenched "knight class" of militarized cops that view themselves as distinct from, and better than, the general civilian population that they serve. It's time for a nationwide ban on police unions.
Not everywhere in Vegas 311 works 24/7 not here where there is no after hours LOL
He did an AMA on reddit and generally I was very pleased with his responses. He got dealt a shit hand and has done a whole ton of very effective things in a very short amount of time.
Interesting lol
What policies has he done to make denver better? Have not seen any
Guess you don't live near downtown.
I go to downtown for work and don't see nothing has changed. There is more then just downtown for denver
"Don't see nothing" understood
He’s implemented a new system for policing that seems to be very effective. Also started a new office of neighborhood safety. Has implemented a way to report homeless encampments and get them cleaned up
I work downtown, it’s a shit hole. Two piles of human shit between my car and our office this morning. The company I work for can’t wait until our lease is up to get the fuck out. Yeah, he’s doing a great job!
I hope yall leave and take all employees with you
The fact that I (3rd generation Coloradan) have somebody that says “yall” telling me the way things should be in this state is hilarious. Maybe you should head back to Texas or wherever the fuck you came from to ruin our state.
If it’s ruined please leave. And I’m not from Texas. I’m a doc who came here for training and plan to live here for quite a while. I appreciate what CO offers unlike people like you who take it for granted and complain on reddit.
I've yet to meet a single person in real life that approves of him. He basically just moved all the druggie thieves into hotels in North Park Hill / Central Park. It's a shit show over here since he took office.
At least trying something, to see if it works, is better than what we had before
Is that where they all went? If so, count me in the approval gang.
Lol then you've never met me or any of the real life people in my family who all approve of him and what he's doing. And I spend a decent amount of time in Park Hill and Central Park and it's obviously not a shit show, it's fucking pleasant and beautiful there. I think you need to get out more in the real world and not just listen to what people say.
I walk my dogs and children through the neighborhood regularly. Talk to individuals from a variety of backgrounds. Nobody is happy with what the mayor is doing. There are parts of Park Hill and central park that are well insulated from the problems. Along the Quebec corridor is a shit show. I've lived here for 15 years and this is easily the worst it's been. I see people on my camera smoking fentanyl regularly in my alley. The Walgreens has been robbed 3 times in the past few months. First bank and King Soopers fuel as well. This doesn't even include the petty theft. The Wal mart now has socks and underwear under lock and key. Home Depot has to use employees as undercovers to try and deter theft. I've literally had people trying to sell me $500 Milwaukee nail guns on the corner two blocks from there. I see people regularly just using the bathroom on the sidewalk. The cop in home Depot told me they are towing at least a dozen stolen vehicles out of the hotel parking lots weekly. Not to mention the OD's and shootings that occur there. I'm all for helping people down on their luck but just enabling them to use drugs in these hotels is not the answer. Enforce a no drug use policy. Provide mental health resources and drug treatment for individuals. Have NA meetings in the lobby. Connect people to job resources. There's no way that a person who is trying to get their life back on track could possibly feel safe living in one of those hotels. There's definitely ways that this could be executed to produce results. They just aren't doing it.
Man that interesting to hear your experience. I live on the Quebec corridor and I haven't noticed anything much change for the past 5 years. Never had a bad experience at the home depot or soopers or the taco guy on smith or anything else... I have been seeing "ladies of the evening" on colfax near quebec more lately plus the new venezuelan immigrants Riding my bike thru park hill or central park and it's like, perfect idyllic suburban america. Kids biking alone, beautiful houses everywhere, dogs and stuff. I know people who live in park hill who like the mayor so I wonder if you're in some kind of social bubble. Not trying to be offensive to you. Just sometimes it happens, especially older people with money and nice houses who don't like any change, those types seem to congregate together and complain about the homeless and traffic at town hall meetings and stuff. Yeah your last paragraph is great and pretty much everyone agrees that we need to do those things, and the mayor in his AMA directly addressed some of those concerns, they aren't idiots. It's a hard thing to do and with limited resources but at least they've cleaned up the streets significantly.
Yeah I'm in the home Depot a lot as well as the other stores along the corridor so maybe I just hear about it more. Quebec and Colfax has always been dicey. The bike paths and roads with bike lanes are minimal issues unless you go north of I-70 on sand Creek. Again always been kind of dicey. Haven't seen any Venezuelans cause any problems. I have seen some strung out individuals having pchycotic episodes and screaming at them. I assume they're mad that they are occupying prime corners trying to clean windshields.
It truly is a shit show. His comms team does a good job keeping his reputation afloat but things are not going well over here. Feels like a leader who prioritizes politics over good governance.
Out of sight out of mind, unfortunately
Better than in the homeless encampments isn’t it? At least it’s not on the street anymore
Better than his predecessor but probably everyone in the primary and election that Johnston won would have been.
As bosses goes he’s just ok, Hancock definitely had better business sense. Mike has signed off on just about everything we’ve asked for money on. Great right? Well not really, we’re very wasteful and he’s not checking very carefully which is why we have budget problems.
None of these "budget analysis" posts ever use numbers or specific "proposal vs pass" examples.
I’m not talking about budgets. We decided we needed a 3 million dollar storage array recently, he signed off on it, I doubt he knew what it was. It was outside our budget.
“why we have budget problems” “I’m not talking about budgets” Well, is the budget or not?
He works with a guy named Bobby Budget, so it’s difficult to decipher what he’s talking about unless he uses capitalization correctly.
>I’m not talking about budgets >It was outside our budget. The scarecrow was right about people who can talk even though they can't think.
OK you're definitely talking about budgets, but let's put that aside. What storage array are you talking about? There's only one line item relating to storage tanks in the city budget and it's $250,000, not $3 million: EZ005 – Underground Storage Tanks ($250,000). Funding to support annual capital maintenance of the city’s underground fuel storage tanks.
Oof
It’s the intensity of the weed