Mayor Hickenlooper: DNC week busy, rewarding
By Kevin Vaughan, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published August 29, 2008 at 11:05 a.m.
Updated August 29, 2008 at 11:05 a.m.
DENVER — City and state officials gathered this morning in celebration hours in the wake of a Democratic National Convention that ended with no major headaches.
“Wow,” Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper said. “It has been one of the busiest weeks and I think one of the most rewarding weeks in the history of this city, and I think probably in the history of the Rocky Mountain region.”
The convention wrapped up the night before at Invesco Field at Mile High, where Barack Obama formally accepted the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination before a crowd of roughly 80,000 and uncounted millions watching on television.
And many of the problems that had been feared - clogged streets, massive protests, arrests - never materialized.
Although downtown was packed with people during the four-day convention, life in the city was not disrupted in a major way. And the 152 arrests was a far cry from the more than 1,800 people who were jailed during the Republican National Convention in New York in 2004.
And while it is too early to quantify the economic impact, Tamara Door, president of the Downtown Denver Partnership said the preliminary anecdotal reports were good.
“Our businesses were packed, restaurants were overflowing,” Door said.
“I have one word for the hundreds of millions of people who watched Colorado and Denver in the last week,” U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar said. “And that’s the word ‘perfect.’ Perfect. It was an incredible, incredible achievement for all of the 5 million people of our state, for the City and County of Denver.”
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August 29, 2008
12:13 p.m.
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rockygirl writes:
The cover of the Rocky today leaves a lot to be desired. Denver just had an historical event take place last night, and the cover photo is of an empty interstate? How about a shot of the stadium filled with people that were in our city to attend an event that is being covered around the world?
August 29, 2008
12:22 p.m.
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ISKIFREELY writes:
How much did this brouhaha cost?
August 29, 2008
1:27 p.m.
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dirkle writes:
I may be proved wrong and apologize if so, but my guess is with what appears to be a successful week, with minimal security issues and much "cashflow" into downtown hotels, restaurants, bars, etc. - that this convention will in the long term be judged a success, with the inflow of conventioneer money significantly outweighing the costs of putting "the show" on. Even DIA pulled through. (and the weather didn't hurt either!)
All I know is, I have lived here for over 40 years, I am a cynic, and I was expecting a big, ugly mess, possibly a security disaster ... and today the Dem convention appears to have been anything BUT. Congrats and props to Mayor Hick, the cops, all the State & local folks who worked hard & pulled it off without a major hitch. All in all imo, ya' done good.
It would be cool if the Rocky would put together a fairly accurate estimate of costs incurred vs revenue obtained. I would love to see that, and I bet it would have black ink on the bottom line.
Mongo impressed!
August 29, 2008
3:07 p.m.
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arvada_mark writes:
I sure did not agree with most of what went on downtown this week (politics-wise), but I do agree with how a good majority of those people spent a lot of their money in our city. On Monday, I went to the mall like I normally do for lunch, I couldn't get a table anywhere in a timely manner. I've been brown-bagging it since. Plus, & I hate to say it, but the Mayor was right, the TV coverage was great pub for us. And all the libs I conversed with had nothing but good things to say about our city.
August 29, 2008
3:27 p.m.
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marling writes:
We spent a lot of time downtown this week - day and night - checking it out, mostly on Larimer Square http://www.larimersquare.com/. We were able to get tables and the stores were open late. The energy in downtown was amazing. I only wish we had these kind of happy, spendy crowds in downtown all of the time.
August 29, 2008
3:53 p.m.
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joggle writes:
I'm definitely being a bit of an optimist here but hopefully this will be the first step towards an eventual winter Olympic bid by Denver. I'm sure that's still far in the future thanks to Denver declining the bid when they won in the 70s and also because America recently hosted the winter Olympics but at least now people will know that Denver can host a good party and perhaps the locals will be less opposed to hosting one.
However, unlike the DNC convention, lots of money would have to be spent by the city and state in order to pull that off so it still wouldn't at all be an easy thing to do any time soon politically or economically.
August 31, 2008
9:55 p.m.
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bradkevans writes:
I live downtown. this event kicked butt.... Denver came off looking like a world-class city, and to think the word "Denver" has been spoken, written and thought of like a bazillion times over the past 5 months... that's something special...
and a very special thank you to the the Denver Police Department for their work (most were working 12 hours on/12 hours off)... hats off for making the city safe and secure, and not the war zone that everyone expected.
My only concern now is what did DPD spend the $50m on, and what will it look like now that they have all these high-tech gadgets to monitor its citizens?