Kelly Brough was serving then-Mayor John Hickenlooper as chief of staff when the Great Recession took its toll and local governments’ budgets went into a downward spiral.

Denver runoff elections: Ballots mailed Monday

So, rather than planning for spending in good times, Brough found herself building a budget for Denver in the worst of times.

And because around 70% of the city budget is allocated for personnel, she knew each reduction would directly affect someone. 

“It’s one thing to build budgets when revenues are growing, and it’s another thing to build a budget when you’re cutting,” Brough said in a recent interview. “Every decision you make affects individuals and their quality of life, and you’re always trying to figure out how to live inside your budget but deliver the services our residents need.”

By Brough’s retelling, this juncture in her career helped equipped her to tackle Denver’s myriad challenges as its next mayor. Brough faces Mike Johnston, a former state senator and nonprofit head, in a runoff election on June 6 to replace outgoing Mayor Michael Hancock. 

Indeed, the 59-year-old Brough often points to experiences she says have prepared her precisely for this moment. She has, after all, achieved a lot of “firsts” – first on-call female snowplow driver at Stapleton Airport, first female head of human resources at the City of Denver, first female president and CEO of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce.

She’s asking voters to make her the first female mayor of Colorado’s largest city.  

“My personal background and my professional experience prepared me for this job, and so that’s why I decided to go for it,” she told the Denver Gazette in February. “Being the mayor requires someone who’s been an executive, and I have that as CEO of the chamber.”

“This isn’t a stepping stone for me,” she had added.

Denver has long recovered from the 2008 downturn precipitated by the collapse of the housing market. Since Brough’s time at the city, Denver and the rest of the world have weathered a global pandemic that again brought economies to a standstill.

To Brough, the principles of good governance stay the same, whether applied in a crisis situation arising out of a recession or to the numerous challenges Denver currently faces.

One of those principles, she said, is always telling the truth, particularly when things are rough. 

During the recession, Brough said she did her best to partner with city departments, finding common ground while laying out the facts. Despite cuts to their departments while she was in the executive office, police, firefighter and sheriff’s unions have endorsed her campaign to succeed Hancock. 

Another governing principle, she said, is figuring out what motivates people and addressing their worries.

When she was working on implementing the 311-call service, she said, the team wasn’t making a lot of headway. She soon discovered that some feared losing their jobs.

Brough told them the only loss of job cuts would be through natural attrition, and less than nine months later, the municipal information hotline was operational, she said.  

She stressed the importance of working collaboratively, especially when the parties don’t agree. 

Her previous jobs as the mayor’s chief of staff – followed by a dozen years as chamber CEO – taught her much about the importance of collaboration in the midst of often strong disagreement, she said.

Kelly Brough touts endorsements in her campaign’s first TV ad for Denver mayoral runoff

Brough’s track record of getting things done collaboratively, she said, makes her “uniquely qualified” for the job of Denver mayor. She’s worked across city government, she noted, having served all 13 members of the city council and later run the city’s human resources department.

At the chamber, Brough worked with 55 board members and 3,000 member businesses who brought to the table a range of views. 

Given her deep ties to the city’s business community, how will Brough ensure she will put the interest of Denverites ahead of companies’ agendas?

She said she certainly “understands the distinction.” 

“This position is about representing Denverites,” she said of the mayor’s office. “Most of my career has been serving Denverites, and I’m excited to be in service to the residents of this city again. I’ve spent this entire campaign in people’s living rooms and coffee shops all over the city, which really helped me understand the challenges they’re facing.”

A key part of Brough’s campaign narrative is that she, in fact, understands what these struggles look like. 

“Like a lot of families, my story started tough,” she said in the campaign video that launched her run. 

Brough’s father was murdered when she was an infant, leaving her mother to raise two children in rural Montana. Her mother later remarried, but her stepfather was injured on the job, and their family had to rely on public assistance while he couldn’t work. He went back to college and the whole family found work.

After saving up enough to go to college, Brough married her husband and they moved to Denver, where they had two daughters, but her husband suffered from addiction and eventually committed suicide.

Indeed, Brough said, her understanding of what ordinary people face has helped shape her platform.

The way she would tackle public safety and the perception that Denver is unsafe, for example, is to confront crime head-on but also also “make sure we do everything we can that results in you never calling 911.”

She pledged that under her administration, Denver would focus more on the “drivers of crime.”. 

Those drivers, she said, include access to economic opportunities, stable housing, safety nets to get people back up on their feet and recreational and education opportunities for kids.

The principles she follows may also help to explain why Brough has been reluctant to sharply criticize her rival on the campaign trail, or the Hancock administration. She said she doesn’t think the city needs more discord, given all the problems it faces. 

“Every decision for me is about how do you position this city to address the issues we face today, and I think the best way to do it is to start bringing people together, not further division,” she said. “We could spend our time blaming… But I’m going to focus everybody on the work ahead and how we do it together.” 

And if something goes wrong? 

“I’ll take responsibility for what I do well, and what I do poorly, but I don’t need to put that on someone else.”

Denver firefighters union endorses Kelly Brough

Ballots for the runoff election start going in the mail to Denver voters this week. They’re due back by 7 p.m. June 6.