People Power

After getting married, Nevitt and his wife — Lisa Reynolds, a political scientist — headed to Arizona State University for teaching positions, with Nevitt lecturing on "intersections of economics and politics" in Russia and China. After three years, they decided to leave academia and began thinking about where they might go. Reynolds's family were Denver natives, so they thought, "Why not?"

They bought a house in West Washington Park, and Reynolds enrolled in law school while Nevitt was hired by the Denver Area Labor Federation to form a think tank focusing on worker issues. As executive director of the Front Range Economic Strategy Center, Nevitt helped produce two in-depth studies in 2003 that effectively derailed an urban-renewal project that would have erected a Wal-Mart at the long-languishing Alameda Square.

Meanwhile, the city and local developer conglomerate Cherokee Denver were drooling over the opportunity to redevelop the former Gates Rubber Company site, at Broadway and I-25, into a massive fifty-acre transit-oriented urban hub. Talk of a possible $126 million public-financing scheme to pay for site cleanup and infrastructure gave Nevitt and FRESC the leverage to enter into negotiations with Cherokee for a slate of concessions for the community.

"We're the public. We're investing our money in this project. And so as an investor, we expect to get top value for our dollar," he says. "We can't just count on the market to produce the outcomes that we want. We have to make clear what we desire and hold developers accountable."

FRESC involved more than fifty groups in the process, from environmental organizations to housing advocates, and came out with an agreement that included a ban on big-box stores, a significant increase in low-income units and a pledge to hire workers from surrounding neighborhoods.

Nevitt used the notoriety from this success to launch a campaign both heavily staffed and heavily funded by labor groups. And it's no secret that Nevitt sees advancing the union cause as a main thrust of his agenda. At his first meeting on Denver City Council, Nevitt took a brief mention of the new justice center as an opportunity to suggest that major city projects should be built with unionized construction companies.

"Because when a project is being built union, you look up at the guy on the iron and you know, for a certainty, that he has health care and his family has health care," he says. As Nevitt continues on about union pipe-fitters and sheet-metal workers, you almost expect "Streets of Philadelphia" to softly play over the PA. But being on council for these few weeks has made Nevitt appreciate the other side of the process. "There's a whole different set of pressures and responsibilities that you have," he says. "The buck stops with you, and things are definitely moving fast and furious.

"I am not a wild-eyed radical," he insists. "I am not a romantic unionist. I'm a political economist by trade, so I look at all of this pretty coldly."