Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and 13 council members took their oath of office on Monday, suffusing the air at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House with optimism as the old administration passed the baton to the city’s newest set of leaders. 

Here are three takeaways from the inauguration ceremonies.   

Succinct ceremony reflects ‘get to work’ temperament 

Stripped down to its essentials, the inauguration ceremonies for the mayor, new council, Auditor Timothy O’Brien and Clerk and Recorder Paul Lopez lasted 1.5 hours.

In staccato fashion, the speeches, prayers and poem were short and to the point, conveying a sense of hurry best encapsulated by the last sentence of Johnston’s speech: “Now, let’s get to work!” 

Indeed, the ceremonies veered away from anything splashy. What organizers emphasized, instead, was the amalgamation of voices on stage – the poem from poet laureate Bobby LeFebre; the blessings from Rick Williams, a Cheyenne and Lakote elder; the prayers from Rev. Eugene Downing of the New Hope Baptist Church, Rabbi Sarah Shulman of the Hebrew Educational Alliance, Imam Abdur-Rahim Ali of the Northeast Denver Islamic Center, Father Joseph Dang of the Catholic Apostolic Church International, and Rev. Ian Cummins of Montview Boulevard Presbyterian Church; and, the speeches from Ean Thomas Tafoya, councilmember Jamie Torres and outgoing mayor Michael Hancock. 

Johnston’s speech itself last about 11 minutes, and he stayed away from the latest incarnation of political speechifying, in which the speaker, primarily for effect, would line up guests to thank or tell stories about. 

New mayor offers analysis of what ails Denver

In his speech, Johnston offered an analysis of what’s ailing Denver, and, by extension, major American cities.

To Johnston, Denver finds itself “halfway to the summit,” a city that now needs to assess where it’s been and where it’s going. It’s a city, he said, beset by big problems – facing the lingering effects of a global pandemic, addiction, homelessness, shootings, as well as the exodus by many who can no longer afford to live in the city – at a time when Americans saw public discussion “go from productive to combative, from optimistic to antagonistic, from hopeful to heartbroken.”

What’s more troubling, he suggested, are not the problems per se, but people’s response to them: “Instead of turning to each other, we turned on each other, instead of reaching out a hand, we pointed a finger.” 

Johnston asked Denver residents to “recapture that animating spirit that allowed the city to flourish at the base of a mountain range, survive devastating fires and flood, connect a railroad to the rest of the world, (reinventing) ourselves over and over with new ideas, new industries, new innovations, and at each stage big dreams matched with hard work and shared sacrifice led to historic success.”

Dream today, details tomorrow 

Repeating a key theme in his victory speech back in June, the new mayor said the proper response to Denver’s woes is to dream with him, to envision a city at the foot of the mountains that is once more flourishing.

Indeed, instead of outlining a specific prescription, Johnston said the essential question is not to ask: “How we found ourselves here, but how we find our way out of here.”

While Johnston deliberately chose not to talk about a specific policy agenda on Monday, he promised to announce more details on Tuesday. For now, all Johnston wanted to achieve is to set a tone. 

“In Denver, we have the drive to dream something different, which is to believe we can build a city that is big enough to keep all of us safe, to house all of us, to support all of us,” Johnston said after he took the stage to thunderous applause. “That is our dream of Denver.”