Judy Montero

The blog will be on hiatus through the holiday season. Regular posting to resume after the first of the year; hope to see you then.

Happy and safe holidays to everybody in District 9 — and all over Denver, Colorado, and the world.

Kim Kucera will be leaving Judy’s office at the end of the year for a new job with CRL Associates. Teresa St. Peter will take over as council aide.

Kim has been the council aide for District 9 for nearly a decade, working first under Debbie Ortega and then under Judy. Her knowledge of the people, processes, and politics down at City Hall have been invaluable to this district; so, too, her knowledge of neighborhood issues and leaders. Kim always knew who to call and how to get things done, how to get problems solved. She’ll be sorely missed, but we all wish her all the success in the world at her new job.

Teresa St. Peter comes to the job from Colorado Media Matters, the watchdog organization that keeps writers, editors, and broadcasters honest. She’s well acquainted with District 9, having worked with Judy on her first campaign in 2003. Teresa holds a degree in English from the University of Northern Colorado and did graduate work in anthropology at CSU. Judy’s excited about adding her to the staff.

Here are a couple of quick followup notes to the news that Denver ranks as the nation’s fourth most walkable city:

First, Denver is the only non-coastal city in the top 5, and one of only 3 in the top 15 (the others being Chicago and Pittsburgh). Anybody know why coastal cities are so much more walkable? My own guess is simply that they’re more populous and more wealthy; it takes money to develop walkable spaces and lots of pedestrians to sustain them. Whether or not these factors cause cities to be walkable, they certainly characterize them: The other cities on this list all have much higher populations and/or much larger economies than Denver.  This list is another sign of the type of transformation taking place in our city — another sign that we’re becoming more like San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, and Miami.

A second item: the Brookings Institute report that contains this walkable-cities list included two key findings related to rail transit. The first reads: “Rail transit seems to play a significant role in catalyzing walkable urban development”:

The relationship between rail transit and the existence of walkable urban places is very strong with 65 percent of the walkable urban places being served by rail transit service. In the top 10 metro areas for per capita walkable urban places, 80 percent (84 of 105) of these places have rail transit service.

The second finding is that cities with newer rail systems seem to be more walkable:

Most of the top-ranked metro areas in walkable urbanism have recent rail transit systems (Washington, San Francisco, Denver, Portland, Pittsburgh, Miami, among others). This could indicate that a metro area with a newer rail transit system can catch up with and even pass the older rail transit metro areas in walkable urban development on a per capita basis.

So a decade from now, when the FasTracks buildout is complete, Denver just might rate as the most walkable city in America.

The 14th annual Luminarias de Santa Fe takes place on Friday night, in conjunction with First Friday. The street will be aglow with candles and other festivities — carolers, mariachis, Aztec dancers, Santa Claus, etc. It’s an outstanding family event, so check it out.

While you’re down there, drop in on some of the galleries. A number of new shows are opening Friday night. Translations Gallery is exhibiting weavings by James Koehler. Habitat Gallery has new paintings by Blake Flynn and images of Denver by the husband-wife team of Joseph Miller (oils) and Tammy Strange (pottery). And Sliding Door Gallery will be opening a collection of photos by Karl-Heinz Dukstein and paintings by Marius Lehene.

Congratulations to Escuela Guadalupe: Its emergency fund-raising campaign netted more than $300,000 in less than 2 months, enabling the school to remain open. Quite a show of support by the community; but then, Escuela is quite a school. Through an extensive scholarship program, it provides high-level elementary education to students from low-income families. Its CSAP scores are among the highest in Colorado.

Because most of its population can’t afford Escuela’s tuition, the school relies to an inordinate degree on private donations. More than 120 new donors contributed during the emergency campaign, an encouraging sign for the school’s long-term existence. Visit Escuela’s website if you’d like to add your support.