"I'm begging and pleading, don't forget about Montbello," said Neicy Melton, a forty-year resident. "I don't like driving through my neighborhood and it looks the way it does."
Melton was complaining that too many houses and greenways in Montbello have weeds and overgrown grass, including the area outside the Montbello Recreation Center, at 15555 East 53rd Avenue, where the meeting took place, and along East 56th Avenue.
Johnston has hosted nine Community Conversations across the city focused on safety with the goal of collecting the feedback and coming up with targeted plans. The meeting on June 6 was for City Council District 11, which covers Montbello, Green Valley Ranch and Denver International Airport, but the meeting focused almost entirely on Montbello.
Montbello is a northeast Denver neighborhood bounded by Havana Street to the wast, Chambers Road to the eest, Interstate 70 to the south and East 56th Avenue to the north. It's long been hurt by problems with crime, gangs and food deserts. Its population of about 40,000 residents is 65 percent Latino and about 20 percent Black.
While Melton spoke, she looked Johnston in the eyes and said "I dare you to hire me" to cut the lawns in her neighborhood; her comments to the mayor were met with applause by other residents during the meeting, which featured more criticism of the mayor than previous Community Conversations. After the meeting, though, she told Westword that she believes "that's the government's job. That's the mayor's job."
Councilwoman Stacie Gilmore, who represents District 11, tells Westword that "people are frustrated" because they feel like the city government isn't listening to concerns they've had for decades. They felt like the Community Conversations are a repeat of other town halls where their comments didn't lead to action, she says.
"It's frustrating to have to say over and over and over to power, to people in positions of power, what we need," she says. "It seems redundant."
Gilmore says that she's been waiting since former mayor Michael Hancock was in office to get $31 million worth of traffic medians installed in her district. "It's disrespectful, especially to communities of color who have gone through generational trauma, to make them repeat over and over what they need. We've already said it with our chest."
Councilwoman Stacie Gilmore from District 11 says that her Montbello constituents are "frustrated" that they have to bring up the same issues to city leaders without seeing solutions.
Bennito L. Kelty
Among the residents who turned out for the meeting were Robert Davis, the project coordinator for the Denver Task Force to Reimagine Policing and Public Safety and a Green Valley Ranch resident. He was joined by Lisa Calderón, who ran against Johnston in the 2023 mayoral race and is now a critic of his public safety policies; she's a former Montbello resident and still has family in the neighborhood.
Davis called the Community Conversations a "do-nothing move" and a "PR stunt" while speaking with Westword after the meeting.
"It's checking off the boxes," Davis says. "They're not going to do anything about these recommendations that came out today. ... At these community meetings and everywhere else, the desires and the wishes of the community are ignored."
When Johnston announced the meetings in late February as part of his Citywide Goals 2024 initiative, he said that the feedback from residents will be used to design policies and action plans. He's already planning citywide road safety improvements based on feedback from the town halls.
Davis says he attended the meeting because the task force is starting its own Office of Neighborhood Safety — an idea that Johnston "co-opted" by starting his own, according to the task force. To form that office, it has to "listen to what the issues are, because if the city's not going to do it, then the community has the responsibility to step in," he says.
"That's what you really heard here tonight: What is the community going to do?" Davis says. "You heard that over and over again, about how community can step up and solve a lot of these problems, even to the point of 'I'll cut the grass if I have to.'"
"It's checking off the boxes," Davis says. "They're not going to do anything about these recommendations that came out today. ... At these community meetings and everywhere else, the desires and the wishes of the community are ignored."
When Johnston announced the meetings in late February as part of his Citywide Goals 2024 initiative, he said that the feedback from residents will be used to design policies and action plans. He's already planning citywide road safety improvements based on feedback from the town halls.
Davis says he attended the meeting because the task force is starting its own Office of Neighborhood Safety — an idea that Johnston "co-opted" by starting his own, according to the task force. To form that office, it has to "listen to what the issues are, because if the city's not going to do it, then the community has the responsibility to step in," he says.
"That's what you really heard here tonight: What is the community going to do?" Davis says. "You heard that over and over again, about how community can step up and solve a lot of these problems, even to the point of 'I'll cut the grass if I have to.'"
During the Community Conversations, residents get into groups with at least one city official. Residents share their positive and negative feedback about safety in their neighborhood or council district, and then one person from the group — usually a city official — will read the feedback to the rest of the room. Typically, Johnston and a councilmember will talk to the whole room at the beginning of each meeting.
The mayor has already visited West Colfax, the Ballpark District, Highland, southwest Denver and other parts of the city for this series. The other neighborhoods have all unanimously named speeding as a top concern, but others have brought up homelessness, crime and open-air drug deals and use.
The mayor has already visited West Colfax, the Ballpark District, Highland, southwest Denver and other parts of the city for this series. The other neighborhoods have all unanimously named speeding as a top concern, but others have brought up homelessness, crime and open-air drug deals and use.
About forty residents showed up for the Montbello meeting, including some from nearby District 8. Residents complained about the area's problems with speeding, drag racing, ATVs driving in the park, gunshots, youth violence, parties in short-term rentals, poorly kept rental properties and not enough public transportation or grocery stores.
Montbello residents also shared that they felt like other neighborhoods were treated better. "Green Valley [Ranch] has more walking spaces," one resident's comment read. "Why aren't we like Cap Hill and getting roundabouts at busy intersections?" one resident asked.
Johnston stayed to listen to the conversations at a handful of tables and for some of the feedback that was shared with the room, but given his busy schedule, he had to leave early — which didn't sit well with some residents. "He got out of here pretty fast," Melton tells Westword after the meeting.
"It's indicative that we don't have the person in the room for half the meeting," Gilmore says. "It matters."
One of Mayor Mike Johnston's most prominent critics, Lisa Calderón, attended Thursday's Community Conversation.
Bennito L. Kelty
"For our seniors, the ability to get access to transportation," Johnston continued. "Some concerns about grocery store access and fresh food. Obviously some people were really excited about the new Costco in Green Valley Ranch, but some wanted to make sure there's access to safe, healthy foods in Montbello."
Larry Murray, president of the Golden Age Club of Montbello, said that he was grateful for the Costco Wholesale at 4741 Airport Way. "Many of us here have been working on that project for a long time," he said. Speeding and gunshots were big issues in Montbello, Murray added, and he blamed them on youth with nothing to do.
"These are children involved in this a lot of the time. What about a space for them to hang out? That could be monitored?" he suggested, looking around at police officials in the room. "They don't have an outlet except for violence."
At the top of the meeting, Gilmore told the room that parties in short-term rentals in her district are one of the worst problems that the city isn't doing enough to solve; she told everyone to read a March 19 Westword story to understand how severe the problem is.
"Look up that article," Gilmore said. "It is appalling what we have been faced with in our neighborhood."
Montbello is represented by council districts 8 and 11. One of the comments from residents was that "we only need one councilperson; we don't need two." Gilmore agreed, but explained that it had to do with the population growth in Green Valley Ranch. She used to represent all of Montbello before redistricting put her in charge of only the older, eastern half of the neighborhood, she explained.
Melton wanted more residents to show up, saying during the meeting, "This room should be filled." She was upset she had to hear about it "through the grapevine and from the media." Ben Norman, the Denver chief equity officer who has been moderating all of the Community Conversations, assured Melton that the mayor's outreach team works hard to notify people about the gatherings.
But Calderón agreed with Melton.
"Montbello is a changing and diverse community, and unless you do intentional outreach and give people what they need when they need it, you're going to continue to see these low turnouts," Calderón tells Westword. "I agree with what the people are saying. The city needed to do a much better job at outreach."
Johnston has one more meeting, scheduled for District 10 — covering downtown neighborhoods like Congress Park, Union Station, the Golden Triangle, City Park West and Capitol Hill — on June 25 at 5:30 p.m. at Morey Middle School, 840 East14th Avenue.
Another series of Community Conversations will take place with a focus on three more topics: vibrancy, affordability and great government. The schedule has not yet been set for those meetings, but the June 25 meeting will be the last to focus on safety.
On Monday, June 3, Calderón and Davis called for Johnston and the Department of Public Safety to disband the Street Engagement Team, an unarmed civilian unit that responds to complaints about homelessness. But Johnston told Westword after Thursday's meeting that he doesn't plan to disband SET.
"No, we're not planning to do that," Johnston says. "They still play an important purpose, and they've been helpful in helping us get folks off the street and into housing."
Neither Davis nor Calderón were surprised to hear that Johnston had no interest in disbanding SET. "The city often resists change and often doesn't change until they're made to change, so we're going to keep at it," Calderón tells Westword.
For her part, Gilmore demanded that Johnston "codify" the feedback that came out of the meeting "because it's a grave injustice...every time we have to start over on what we need and what we want."
