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Giellis: Coronavirus shutdown offers opportunity to rethink Denver’s priorities Plans for airport, convention center, National Western complex should change By JAMIE GIELLIS | Guest Commentary April 25, 2020 at 6:59 a.m.
I have been spending my days listening, working closely with friends, neighbors and elected leaders all sobered by this challenging moment and what lies ahead. This pandemic has shaken us, shedding light on the fractures in our society.
It has also, however, revealed our common good. Our community has united to lighten the load of those hit hardest in so many ways. I myself have spent my days sewing — part of an army of people across the city making masks for our front- line workers and others in need. Each stitch represents hope, and I believe we have every reason to hope that something good will come out of these long, challenging days.
Ensuring that happens means our city leaders must seize the opportunities for change this crisis has presented. Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that we live in an “inescapable network of mutuality” and this pandemic has laid that bare. Nobody is untouched by its impacts, and light has been shed on the economic vulnerability of so many. Old recession playbooks won’t work to pull us all out of this together. Instead, investing in programs that help us rebuild a sustainable and resilient economy must be our approach going forward. Housing, jobs, small businesses, food security, health care and equity are core to that.
As we all individually adjust to new realities, we must ask our leadership to do the same. The city of Denver faces a dire financial future – $180 million in lost tax revenue already with bigger losses to come. Tough decisions will need to be made about projects to keep or cut. It is time to step back and hit the reset button on our priorities. If we carry on as before ignoring the deep fissures in our system,
we will only perpetuate this crisis. Our city’s leaders must focus on rebuilding with resiliency – lifting up and creating a safety net for those this pandemic has impacted most – our small businesses and workers, our community of individuals experiencing homelessness, our elderly community, our kids. The pandemic has forced Denver to act on issues that have long challenged all of these groups; our legacy coming out of it should not be temporary interventions, but permanent changes.
A critical component to this is pivoting away from big physical infrastructure projects that are no longer relevant, freeing up resources to focus on the wellbeing of the people of this city. This means:
• Substantially paring back the renovation of Denver International Airport to focus only on the necessary. We’ve already lost hundreds of millions of dollars to mismanagement; as airlines and concessionaires face extraordinary losses of their own, this is not the time to add more cost burden.
• Halting the expansion of the Colorado Convention Center. The bid-rigging scandal cost taxpayers tens of millions, and now conventions themselves face an uncertain future.
• Shelving indefinitely the $100 million 16th Street Mall renovation. The city should work with the Denver Urban Renewal Authority (one of the major funders) to redirect those dollars to city and school coffers for essential programs and services.
• Reimagining the vision for the National Western Complex to one that’s focused on community resiliency, particularly for Globeville and Elyria-Swansea. The Complex is now home for our homeless – let’s find a way to make housing, services and jobs a permanent part of National Western’s legacy.
• Spending the nearly $1 bllion general obligation bond approved by voters in 2017 on only critical physical infrastructure, redirecting the remainder to social infrastructure. We also need to make strategic cuts in what appears to be a bloated city of Denver budget. Can we reduce the pay of our top elected leaders and political appointees? Can we encourage early retirement options? Let’s take the lead on creatively and thoughtfully trimming costs while preserving critical jobs and services. This is a new day. There is no going back to where we were – but that is not something to fear. Instead, this is a moment to rethink the city we want to be – one that lifts people up first. We should become a place where social issues bear more weight than legacy projects.
As I watch the people of this city fight to stay afloat, and as I engage in gut- wrenching conversations with my 10-year-old son about a return to “normal,” I realize we have been given a gift, an opportunity to create our new normal together. The people of this city are working hard to reimagine the future. It is time for our government to join us.
Jamie Giellis is president of the urban planning consulting firm Centro Inc. and a former mayoral candidate for the city of Denver. She can be reached at jamie@becentro.com.
O’Brien: Shake Shack, then Harvard: who’s minding that $2.6 trillion? By TIMOTHY L. O'BRIEN | Bloomberg Opinion April 23, 2020 at 3:00 p.m. We aren’t living in an ideal world, of course. This $380 billion follows a previous $349 billion lifeline Congress teed up for small businesses. That earlier fund evaporated in just a couple of weeks, and perhaps only about 5% of the nation’s 30 million small businesses — and possibly significantly less — got their hands on it. Some of it went to more well-heeled enterprises, including Shake Shack and, as the Associated Press reported, 94 publicly traded companies that didn’t appear to be prime candidates for small-business rescues. Shake Shack gave the money back. Others haven’t.
Upon learning that Shake Shack disgorged its $10 million in public aid, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who stewards the small-business program, took to Twitter on Monday to note that he was “glad” the company did so. Given that there are likely to be myriad companies and possibly many billions of dollars that wound up in the wrong hands, Mnuchin might stow his joy for the moment. It was his team’s responsibility to make sure banks properly vetted and prioritized borrowers to avoid foul- ups before taxpayers’ money went out the door, not after.
Although Mnuchin has used selective data to spin the first round of aid as a success, he and the Small Business Administration haven’t released enough information about exactly who was funded, and how much they
received, to convince outside observers to agree with him. The money was meant to support employees of small businesses, and it’s not clear yet whether workers received it or what impact it will ultimately have if the crisis is prolonged. And the Treasury Department, like so many federal agencies these days, also may not be in fighting shape — which raises questions about its broader ability to manage the most sweeping financial rescue in history. Senior positions at the Treasury Department have gone unfilled, and the agency’s lack of experienced leadership and expertise is particularly apparent in its domestic finance unit, which would normally handle the bulk of financial engineering needed in a rescue of this magnitude.
All of which begs a more general question about oversight of what is now a $2.6 trillion federal airlift of individuals, businesses, state and local governments, health-care providers and other public institutions: Who’s minding the store?
Let’s put aside the question of whether the federal government had to embrace its inner Keynes to stem the havoc COVID-19 has unleashed (I think it certainly needed to). Instead, let’s consider whether the money has been deployed with enough transparency and accountability for the public to monitor the effort in real time.
Legislators created the bipartisan COVID-19 Congressional Oversight Commission to help answer these questions. Four of its five members have been appointed, but it still lacks a chair. President Donald Trump, who has resisted oversight of the bailout, derailed a panel of inspectors general meant to do similar work. A vacancy for an oversight official in the Treasury Department hasn’t been filled because the Senate isn’t present to confirm him. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi moved to appoint her own oversight commission to fill the gap, but it can’t get moving until the House reconvenes to approve it. The Government Accountability Office is likely to emerge as the most sophisticated, reliable and independent auditor of the stimulus package. It received special funding to oversee the bailout and is stocked with experienced nonpartisan experts who helped monitor the federal bailouts after the 2008 financial crisis. But its first report isn’t likely to arrive until the end of June.
Meanwhile, consider the biggest tranches of aid and how little we know about how they’re being put to use (these figures are approximations):
• $729 billion for small businesses (loans/aid) • $561 billion for individuals and families (largely enhanced
unemployment payments and “recovery rebate” checks) • $510 billion for large businesses and governments (loans) • $298 billion in corporate/individual tax cuts (largely corporate) • $195 billion for public health and social services (aid) • $150 billion for state, local and tribal governments (aid) • $71 billion for transportation • $45 billion for disaster relief • $40 billion for educational institutions
We already know some of the follies and tragedies associated with all of this money: rebate checks the Internal Revenue Service sent to the wrong people; Harvard University, proud possessor of a $40 billion endowment, receiving almost $9 million in educational aid (as with Mnuchin and Shake Shack, Trump said Harvard, not the White House, bore responsibility for that one); Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell suggesting that states short on adequate federal financial aid could simply declare bankruptcy; a continued lack of federal support for ubiquitous testing to determine where, exactly, the coronavirus resides; and health-care aid allocated without considering which hospitals are actually sagging the most beneath coronavirus burdens. Some of this may amount to nitpicking once we have a handle on how the rescue is being orchestrated. Some of it surely won’t, especially when it comes to people’s jobs and health. To their credit, Congress and the White House moved quickly to pull the rescue package together when speed was of the essence. Until there’s better monitoring of the effort, and greater transparency surrounding the funding, we won’t know if speed trumped efficacy and social equity.
Timothy L. O’Brien is the executive editor of Bloomberg Opinion. He has been an editor and writer for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, HuffPost and Talk magazine. His books include “TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald.”
Opinion: Earth Day reminds us to appreciate nature during uncertain
times PUBLISHED ON APR 22, 2020 2:59AM MDT Carlos Fernandez
Special to The Colorado Sun
On April 22, 1970, the United States celebrated the first Earth Day, a day set aside to recognize the importance of environmental protection.
Now, 50 years later, our celebrations to mark this day are quite a bit different. While our gatherings and events have been canceled, Earth Day still provides us a chance to celebrate our planet and reflect on what nature and the outdoors mean to us.
In my role as the State Director for The Nature Conservancy in Colorado, I spend a lot of time working with colleagues to protect and restore the Colorado we love. As our work continues during this pandemic, I’ve been thinking about our planet even more lately while I’ve been home over the last month working and spending time caring for my family.
As with many families, not only has my home become my place of work and that of my wife, but it has also become a full-time daycare for my daughter. I have taken to going outside every day safely, of course, even just in my own backyard to enjoy the fresh air, smell the flowers blooming and hear the birds chirping.
My daughter and I have gone on nature scavenger hunts in our neighborhood, we have played many games of fetch with our dog, Kumba, and have worked on perfecting our birding game.
Even as the recent snows fell, I sought ways to bring nature into our lives through books, articles and online wildlife cameras and videos.
I’ve always held nature in high regard, it’s one of the many reasons I chose to work for The Nature Conservancy. Here in Colorado, the outdoors are part of our DNA.
As with so many, I had to forgo the rest of my ski pass this year, I’ve canceled travel plans with friends, and I don’t know if the yearly camping trips my family takes will still be viable. But I do know that now more than ever, nature has been my savior.
So, on this Earth Day, I’m taking the day to reflect on what nature means to me and how nature can be a powerful tool to help us all through this incredibly difficult time.
Nature has the power to soothe, calm, uplift and restore. Nature is resilient and can remind us of our own resilience especially in times like this, when we are all struggling with this “new normal.”
Nature can also be a beacon for the future. I know that once we are able to return to our favorite outdoor places, I will appreciate them even more and it gives me something to look forward to, a light at the end of the tunnel.
While we don’t know how long social distancing will last and the impact it will continue to have on our lives, I do know that nature will continue to provide solace, community and hope, and that is something I don’t take for granted.
Please join me in celebrating 50 years of Earth Day. We all need some bright spots in our lives right now and this is one celebration I think we can all agree we need now more than ever.
Carlos Fernandez is Colorado State Director for the Nature Conservancy
The summer of isolation is the time to replace your grass with water- friendly plants By KRISTA KAFER | Columnist for The Denver Post PUBLISHED: April 23, 2020 at 9:45 a.m. | UPDATED: April 23, 2020 at 9:46 a.m.
Travel plans on hold. Gym membership terminated. No more cable. Magazine subscriptions canceled. Belt-tightening has begun. What other nonessential purchases can I eliminate from the budget so I can pay my mortgage? That’s a question many of us are asking. It’s going to be a lean year.
What if you could lower your water bill? You can reduce water use not by forgoing the recommended eight daily glasses of water, showering less often, or draining the fishbowl but by cutting back on grass, the turf kind, that is. Half of a single-family home’s water use goes to lawn irrigation according to Denver Water, the utility that supplies water for Denver residents. In summer, Denverites use up to 120 million gallons a day watering their lawns. That’s a lot of water.
Although replacing turf with low water plants such as sage, hollyhocks, spirea, and succulents requires some upfront costs, the investment pays for itself. Grass requires not only more water than plants better suited to our climate, it needs to be mowed, fertilized and managed for pests. Ever wonder where all those awful Japanese beetles come from in early summer? Having nibbled on grass roots all spring, they emerge from under the sod to eat everything else in the yard.
Using less water during a lean year makes sense. While household finances will improve over time, thinking lean is the habit of mind we need for managing water in the future. In a study published this week in the journal Nature Climate Change, scientists predict a 7-degree hike in temperatures will decrease the winter snowpack and negatively impact the amount of water available for agriculture and other uses.
The snow that falls in the Colorado Rocky Mountains is essentially our water bank. As it melts, some of the runoff is captured for later use in dozens of reservoirs around the state, and the rest leaves via several major rivers including the Colorado, Arkansas, Rio Grande, Yampa, South Platte, and North Platte Rivers. Lives and livelihoods depend on these rivers.
The 1,450 miles long Colorado River and its tributaries slake the thirst of 40 million people, 5.5 million acres of crops, and countess wild and domesticated animals in seven states and Northern Mexico. The waters that flow from the mountains in Colorado and Wyoming also generate power through dams and provide for human recreation. Less snow means less water for all of these purposes. “The western United States is in a tough spot with climate change and changes in snowmelt affecting water resources,” concludes Colorado State University environmental scientist Nathan Mueller, one of the authors of the study in Nature Climate Change.
Over the past 15 years, Colorado River flows have decreased by 6%. At the same time, Colorado and several other states in the Colorado River Basin have increased in population. To make matters worse, obligations under the 1922 water compact among the Colorado River Basin states could require Colorado to cede more water to lower states within the basin. Unless the compact is revised, Denver could lose half of its water supply during a dry spell.
There is little that the average Coloradan can do about a century-old, multi- state compact, but we can determine how to best use the water at our disposal. Without reducing water for drinking, cooking, and bathing, we downsize our water use by reducing or eliminating lawn turf. Garden centers will soon open their doors. In the meantime, Denver Water, the Denver Botanic Gardens, and CSU Extension have tips and resources for water-wise gardening available on their websites.
Conserving water will be essential during a financially lean year. Future declines in snowpack from a warming climate will mean thinking lean about water for the foreseeable future.
The NFL Draft Shows Just How Much America Needs Sports
BY SEAN GREGORY TIME MAGAZINE APRIL 24, 2020 5:38 AM EDT
The enduring popularity of the NFL draft has always left me mystified.
For months before the annual spring event, pundits endlessly speculate
about where the best football prospects will land. A year ago, the three-
night draft reached more than 47.5 million viewers. Some 600,000 people
gathered in Nashville to catch it live. All for what? To watch football
players put on hats?
A couple of weeks ago, the thought of the NFL conducting a virtual version
of its draft felt wholly inappropriate. During this devastating pandemic,
with the rest of the sports world shut down, the league was going to
conduct business as usual?
But America, it seems, is longing for the kind of shared communal
experiences that sports can deliver. A week ago, the WNBA draft — also
conducted virtually and broadcast on ESPN — saw its viewership rise 123%.
The long-awaited 10-part docuseries about Michael Jordan and the 1997-
1998 Chicago Bulls — The Last Dance — debuted on Sunday, April 19; the
film averaged 6.1 million viewers, making it the most-viewed ESPN
documentary ever.
Slowly, we were starting to embrace some version of sports normalcy.
So on Thursday night, I was suddenly all-in on the first round of the NFL draft. The show, conducted out of the suburban New York basement of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, went off without much of a hitch. The NFL’s ability to pull off the event will have real impact: the draft inches us even closer to the return of sports as we knew it, even if the games come back with no fans in the stands, which seems very likely. But the NFL draft also served as a reminder of all that sports fans are missing. As hard as the NFL tried to recreate the feel of a typical draft — fans cheered on a screen behind Goodell before he announced each pick — social distancing steals the fun. When a player’s name was announced, he didn’t immediately celebrate in his home: it seemed there was some kind of communication delay. We missed the joy a player feels when he hugs his family and accepts congratulations from fellow draftees before taking the live stage. Not that the quirks of the virtual draft weren’t delightful. Social media honed in on interior design rather than the draftees’ sartorial choices. We enjoyed seeing snack spreads and kids of coaches and executives wandering into the typically self-serious draft “war rooms” — aka some spare space in the house with an acceptable backdrop. New York Giants general manager Dave Gettleman put on a mask, inside, for some reason. ESPN analyst Louis Riddick had the 1970s handheld electronic football game, in which the players were, literally, blips on a screen, on his bookshelf. Henry Ruggs, a wide receiver from the University of Alabama whom the Las Vegas Raiders took with the 12th pick,rocked a bathrobe.
Watching the family of new New York Jets offensive tackle Mekhi Becton, a
6’ 7” 369 pound giant from the University of Louisville, pile on top of him
on his couch after his selection was just joyous.
The dearth of technical glitches would seem like good news. But let’s face
it, the chance of seeing frozen internet or some kind of hack — how many
first round picks did the Giants acquire in that trade? 28? — was part of this
draft’s allure. We still have two more nights, however. We shouldn’t write
off the possibility just yet.
But mostly, we hope we get to see draft picks like Joe Burrow — the
Heisman Trophy winner taken first overall by the Cincinnati Bengals —
throwing a football. We hope to see Chase Young, an Ohio State defensive
end with Hall of Fame promise, tackling quarterbacks. Ultimately, we hope
the players — football, baseball, soccer, basketball, whatever — can get
back on the field.