Coloradans who live outside the city of Denver have just as much at stake in this year’s mayoral election as those who live in the city. 

What happens in Denver doesn’t just stay in Denver. The rest of the metropolitan area, along with communities across the state, will be directly affected by what happens in this election and its aftermath.

As a 40-year resident of Jefferson County who was born and raised in rural Colorado, I have never lived in Denver. But just like hundreds of thousands of other suburbanites, I spent many years working in downtown Denver and loved its cultural and culinary attractions. 

But that attraction has dramatically waned as the city allowed itself to be swallowed by rising crime and homelessness. Certainly, the pandemic intensified and accelerated these challenges but even during the years leading up to the shutdown, Denver was asleep at the wheel.

Complicating the slow decline was a state legislature and a Denver district attorney who seemed more concerned with coddling criminals and undermining law enforcement than keeping the city and, for that matter, the entire state safe.

And now all the mayoral candidates are almost desperately trying to define an agenda that will turn the tide on Denver’s decline.

I believe the 2023 election for a new mayor of Denver is the most important and consequential since 1983 when a brash young Democratic state representative unseated a 15-year incumbent from a legendary Denver Democratic family.

Mayor William H. “Bill” McNichols was mayor from 1968 to 1983. His father was Denver city auditor for 34 years. His brother, Stephen L.R. McNichols, served as governor of Colorado from 1957 to 1963 and was the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in 1968. If there was such a thing as royalty in Denver Democratic politics, the McNichols family was it. 

Mayor McNichols, who was 73 years old, might have been elected to a fourth term in 1983 but Mother Nature intervened with a massive snow storm on Christmas Eve 1982 that paralyzed the city for days. The McNichols administration was heavily criticized for not being prepared for the storm and for ineffective efforts to clear the streets. 

Meanwhile, a 36-year-old state representative from Denver, Federico Peña, became the first Hispanic to be elected mayor of Denver in 1983. He captured the imagination of Denver voters with his exhortation to “Imagine a Great City.”  Mayor Pena led the efforts to build Denver International Airport (DIA) and to bring the Colorado Rockies to Denver

DIA was certainly not without controversy as there were contrary efforts to maintain the old Stapleton International Airport. Voters in Adams County had to approve Denver’s annexation of the land northeast of the city, which was no easy task. Denver voters had to approve building the new airport as well.

Chronic problems with a new automated baggage system delayed the planned 1993 opening of DIA for two years, but Pena’s successor, Mayor Wellington Webb, successfully got it open in 1995.

Though DIA is under the control of the city of Denver, there is no doubt the entire state has benefited from the new airport regardless of the mismanagement that has plagued it in recent years. The Colorado Rockies might play at Coors Field in lower downtown Denver, but as the name suggests, the entire state embraces the team despite their frequent mediocrity on the field.

But rather than planning and building the big, transformational projects that dominated the 1983 election, the city of Denver is facing seemingly intractable problems of crime and homelessness in 2023.

“Imagine a Great City” has become a question of “Can We Imagine Denver as a Safe City Again?”

The brutal truth is that unless Denver gets control of these problems, other cities such as Aurora and Lakewood, which border the city, will not be able to successfully deal with crime and homelessness. 

Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman and the Aurora City Council are aggressively dealing with crime with tougher penalties but also effective and compassionate approaches to the homeless. Fortunately, most of the candidates for Denver mayor are stressing regional cooperation but wholly different approaches to these problems is concerning.

I remember the first time I saw downtown Denver and the State Capitol as a young boy during a trip to the National Western Stock Show with my parents. I hope Denver’s voters elect a mayor who is up to the formidable challenge of restoring the city to its former glory.

Dick Wadhams is a Republican political consultant and a former Colorado Republican state chairman.