Not everything on the Denver City Council’s latest list of proposed priorities for next year is without merit. But there’s plenty in the council’s “2023 Policy and Budget Priorities” – a roster of recommendations released last week in advance of the mayor’s budget, due in September – that reminds Denverites their local lawmakers dwell in an alternative universe.

Nowhere in the document is that more startlingly apparent than in the priority that purports to address public safety. It’s No. 3 on the list, mind you – not even No. 1 despite a crisis of skyrocketing homicides and other violence, and unprecedented property crime rates, especially for auto theft. It reads like a sketch-comedy spoof of the crime fight.

“Reframe safety in a public health, evidence-based, and anti-racist context with community investment to ensure healthy neighborhoods,” the council’s precious verbiage oozes. At the top of the “primary considerations” for the priority are, “fund mental health, wellness, and addiction services prioritizing mental health and addiction services for residential and in-patient care,” and, “increase counseling, addiction recovery beds, and other direct-service tools.”

Rome may be burning – but the council would rather heal those who started the fire.

At least, there is a call to “restore staffing at the Denver Sherriff’s (sic) Department,” which runs the jail.

Inexplicably, the public-safety priority includes a recommendation for, “an Office of Neighborhood Safety” that would be “connected to, but not run by, the Department of Safety.”

But how about funding a new police rapid-strike force to deal with downtown’s rampant illegal drug trade at places like Union Station? Or, funding a special, local-state-federal dragnet operation to stem auto theft? Colorado leads the country in stolen cars and trucks. Maybe expanding the public safety budget to improve recruitment and retention of cops and putting more of them on the beat? Nope.

Little surprise, perhaps. In fact, the word “crime” itself only appears once in the entire public-safety provision, in a recommendation at the bottom for “expanded funding for the Correlates of Crime program piloted in DPD District 4.”

But then, this is substantially the same council that oversaw police budget cuts less than three years ago amid the fever pitch of the absurd “defund the cops” movement. One council member even called less than two years ago for abolishing the police force and replacing it with a “peace force.” (For a change, the rest of the council resorted to reason and ignored her.)

Meanwhile, as The Gazette recently reported, Denver police numbers show aggravated assault crimes involving guns are up 73% so far this year compared to the three-year average from 2019-2021. Fatal shootings are also on the increase – and 59% of the victims are Black, according to Denver police numbers, even though African-Americans make up less than 10% of Denver’s city population. It is a grim reality that you’d think would alarm the “anti-racist” council.

As The Gazette also reported not long ago, Denver, Adams, Broomfield, Douglas, Arapahoe and Jefferson counties experienced a 24% increase in auto thefts across the metro area in the first quarter of 2022 compared with the same period last year.

Crime is at an epidemic level – and the Denver City Council wants to respond with more assistance for “employment and child care.” Yes, that’s in there, too. Perhaps it all makes sense on the council’s planet – while the rest of us are forced to take cover back here on Earth.

Denver Gazette editorial board