The Mayor Just Held a Q&A With Reddit. Let's See How It Went.

Mayor Mike Johnston has been holding town halls in Denver neighborhoods to cover tough subjects like crime and homelessness, but he just faced his most dangerous crowd: the internet.

Armed with a laptop and ready to answer pressing questions from the likes of youngcockdrew and FuckAXS, Johnston held an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on the r/Denver Reddit page on Wednesday, May 8. Johnston stayed longer than the planned hour to answer more than twenty questions from Redditors about homelessness, construction, police reform, crime, transportation and other pressing issues in Denver.

According to the mayor's office, Johnston's staff and moderators of r/Denver had been setting up the conversation for "a couple of months" after the mayor expressed interest in an AMA to "connect with more people" across the city. In a post announcing the session on May 6, Johnston told Redditors that his administration "changed how this city addresses homelessness, laid out specific plans to make Denver safer and set out to revive our downtown."

"Outside of that, I’m a dad. I love Colorado sports. I am a former school principal. And I never met a donut I didn’t like," he continued.

Johnston was asked several questions about doughnuts, hot dogs and the struggling Denver Nuggets. ("Alright let's be honest, this is the one question I was terrified about," he replied when asked about the Nuggets.) But the majority of questions centered on the state of downtown construction and commerce, particularly the 16th Street Mall, as well as street and traffic crime, housing prices, police reform, homelessness and alternative transportation.

User WeddingElly knocked out three in one, asking Johnston about the 16th Street Mall reconstruction status, police response times and downtown crime and cleanliness.

According to Johnston, the "first few blocks" of the 16th Street Mall will be open this summer, but the construction project, ongoing since April of 2022, won't be finished until the end of next summer. He then cited "more security downtown" with the city's new downtown ambassadors program, complete with chic yellow Cotapaxi vests and a local grant program for downtown businesses.

"In the mean time we are working on real efforts to revive downtown, obviously all the work on getting folks access to housing, for the first time in as long as I can remember there is a not a single tent or encampment in downtown," part of his answer read — although there have been vocal critics of Johnston's temporary housing strategy for migrants and homeless individuals in Denver, which has cost the city over $80 million since he took office.

The mayor teased a "major announcement on big plans for downtown coming tomorrow" in his answer. In a response to user youngcockdrew about the 16th Street Mall's chances at a return to being "a jewel of downtown Denver," Johnston mentioned "some big ideas" and "really unique activations and public spaces like the ones we have at Larimer Square."

Johnston also touched on police response times as well as issues like car theft, street racing and traffic deaths with other Redditors.

"I’ve gotten my vehicle stolen as well, it was not an easy or fun process. We have announced a major new initiative on this that includes adding over 100 license plate readers which are cameras on intersections that allow us to track stolen cars across the city, we also have a Denver track program you can register your car with so we can immediately track your car when stolen, that was [how] DPD helped me find mine, and then we have been launching events with highly stolen vehicles like Hyundai to do software upgrades that prevent them from being stolen," part of one answer reads.

The Denver Police Department's auto theft squad has recently broken up multiple "big rings," which has quickly and drastically cut into auto theft at Denver International Airport, according to Johnston.

The mayor's office is considering new legislation that would add more red light cameras to slow speeding in high-injury areas of the city, he said. Regarding long emergency responder times, a complaint cited by Denver residents and business owners alike, Johnston said he was "aware of the 911 and sometimes 311 response times" and hopes to streamline the processes by merging staffing for 311 and 911 call lines.

"That would allow us to have 311 up 24 hours a day and on weekends and use more staffing resources to staff 2 lines well," Johnston wrote.

Johnston brought up law enforcement response times in another answer regarding police reform:

"One of the major issues why we have slower response times and difficulty following up on the number of calls is that we have an understaffed department, we are about 167 officers short and why we have set our goal to add 167 officers this year to restore capacity. Also the success we have had with clearing encampments and moving people into housing frees up officers time that were spent responding to encampments. Last year we had more than 8000 calls to encampments alone which in some police districts took up more than 50% of our patrol time. We are also working hard to make sure we recruit more diverse classes of officers that represent the communities they serve. And we are working hard to make sure we train support and hold officers accountable, I think we have a great team of officers and a leadership team that is very clear about our job to be good public servants and public serving!" the answer reads.

The mayor fielded a question about ticket pricing at Denver event venues, too. One question from u/FuckAXS brought up "inflated prices" and "abusive" fees and reselling tactics by event promoters AEG and AXS.

"Please take a look at the extensive public outrage against this multi billion dollar corporation, it exists virtually every single time a show goes on sale at Red Rocks in particular. ... To my knowledge this contract is up this year and has not been renewed. Is there any way for the public to push for a new ticketing service that does less harm to music fans for their own profit? This needs serious change," part of the question reads.

According to Johnston, AXS "had the best proposal" in 2019 after a bidding process against Ticketmaster.

"We hear concerns about a variety of things, which usually aren’t related to the ticketing system, which is essentially a software program. Promoter fees and ticket availability are concerns we hear about, unrelated to AXS. Of course we want to keep our venues affordable and accessible and will continue looking for ways to do that," he continued.

Homelessness and housing were frequently brought up by Redditors, with Johnston calling housing affordability "the most important issue Denver is facing."

"This has to be a city where teachers and nurses and servers can afford to live, this is why we have set incredibly ambitious goal to bring on 3,000 affordable units every year, that would mean any person who lived in one of these doesn't need to pay more than 30% of their income to rent, so if you are a server making 40,000 a year you wouldn't pay more than 1000 a month for rent and your rent doesn't go up unless your income goes up," he wrote in response to u/finsternis86. "Also really critical to work on building more affordable options for home ownership which would be more condos that can be a first homeownership opportunity. If we can do 3000 a year that would put us on path for 25,000 affordable units over next 8 years which would be most ambitious plan to close this gap of any city we know."

The mayor also brought up efforts to bring more child care downtown, weekend enforcement against street racing, and increased public bike facilities and bus routes in 2024.

"The goal is to provide people with other options to move around the city safely and effectively so they can travel in the ways they choose and have options to not have to use their cars," he wrote while answering a question about alternative transit projects in Denver.

Johnston signed off after about ninety minutes, but promised that "it won't be the last time we do this!"