Grass-roots city

Hickenlooper fleshes out his vision for second term

Published July 17, 2007 at midnight

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It was no understatement when Monday, near the beginning of his second inaugural address, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper said "it is my nature not always to do the conventional thing."

Indeed. The mayor's quirkiness, energy and humor have been among his most endearing traits. More substantively, he has shown a fondness for dramatic programs that move beyond the nuts-and-bolts of most traditional municipal governments: His proposal to "end" homelessness within 10 years; the tax increase that will allow more 4-year-olds to attend preschool; and the Greenprint Denver environmental agenda for the city immediately come to mind.

And yet Hickenlooper has not attempted to impose this ambitious agenda by simply having his administration write the proposals itself. Instead, he has prodded residents to participate - to help both set the priorities and design the programs that allow these ideas to become policies.

One example of this connection between citizen involvement and community health has been the deployment of the "broken windows" approach to neighborhood law enforcement. If the city's reading of crime statistics is correct, last year the crime rate fell faster in Denver than in any other major U.S. city. And while the rate still remains higher than city officials should tolerate, the trend is finally in the right direction after several years, straddling two administrations, in which the news was not always as good.

The mayor has emphasized strategic planning, and has consciously chosen to anticipate problems rather than simply react to them.

But it's not enough to articulate big ideas. It's important to get the details of governance right. We hope the second Hickenlooper term will not shortchange what he called "the features and dimensions (of governance) which may lack drama and glory."

Public safety of course heads that list. But there are other essential, day-to-day problems - traffic, street repairs, snow removal, public health - that the city has to continually manage if it hopes to maintain public support for the mayor's far-reaching ideas.

We'll see a major example of nuts-and-bolts government this week when the mayor reveals his recommendations stemming from a citizen task force on infrastructure.

This report has been two years in the making. From it, the council is expected to refer measures to the November ballot that will seek new taxes and borrowing authority to repair and upgrade some of this city's neglected public facilities.

We'll have more to say about the mayor's recommendations when they're made public. In the meantime, it's worth pointing out that the task force represents another instance where Hickenlooper has prodded residents to embrace civic life and not be passive observers.

"What we're really talking about . . . is a new urban renaissance," the mayor said Monday, "the restoration of the local republic, the empowerment of all of our citizens to rise to the challenges we face together in our neighborhoods."

Some might call that vision fanciful in an era in which so many people seem to spend their lives cocooned in ultra-private worlds where the Internet and mobile entertainment rein supreme. But Hickenlooper isn't buying any such excuses for apathy - and so far, at least, the public seems inclined to prove him right.

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