Tomorrow is Election Day; if you haven’t voted yet, please do it tomorrow. Register your voice; don’t let the rest of us down.
At tonight’s Council meeting, Judy and her colleagues will focus in on the budget, offer amendments, and put the bill into its final form. Next Monday (November 10) they will vote thumbs up / thumbs down on the budget. We looked at the budget in its entirety last week; this week I’m going to zero in on three specific departments (Public Works, Parks / Rec, and Planning) that are important to District 9. We’ll start today with Public Works.
A lot of people don’t really know what Public Works does. That’s because the department does a little bit of everything. Its responsibilities fall into two broad categories: building and maintaining infrastructure (sewers, roads, alleys, buildings, streetlights, parkways, etc etc), and keeping the city clean (graffiti removal, trash / recycling pickup, snow removal). All but a few of their duties fall into one of these two categories. In 2009, Public Works’ general priorities are:
- To support City Council and Mayor Hickenlooper’s priorities (which include tackling graffiti, for example)
- To deliver the capital improvement projects approved by voters in the Better Denver Bonds
- To launch the Environmental Management System to support water quality
- To increase cleanliness and support Greenprint Denver’s sustainability goals
Thanks to Judy’s advocacy, City Council named graffiti control as one of its top priorities for 2009. So she has looked closely at the Public Works budget to ensure that anti-graffiti programs are appropriately funded. The money is in place for Public Works to maintain a two-day response for abatement calls, even though it is now managing a half million more square feet of graffiti than in previous years. Other Public Works projects in District 9 that Judy has watched in the budget include:
- Greenprint Denver Energy Audits (like the one in Sunnyside that happened in October)
- 38th pedestrian underpass
- Capital Improvement for Washington Street phase two street work
- 46th Street Improvements
- 53rd & Brighton repave and drainage
- Central Street Improvements (to follow CDOT work in the area)
- 32nd & Pecos curb repair
- 32nd pave and stripping between Zuni & Tejon
- 32 & Speer improvements
- 16th & Boulder curb/street repair
- Pedestrian crossing enhancements at Platte and 16th
- Park Avenue irrigation
- Broadway from Welton to Park Ave improvements
- Broadway median from 20th to Blake
- Broadway intersection reconfiguration from 19th to 21st
- Brighton infrastructure plan
- Widen rail road underpass at 38th
- Widen 38th Blake to Brighton
- Additional river crossing around 35th
- Multimodal reconstruction Broadway N/Brighton
- Bike station at DUS
- Southbound Speer Lawrence street pedestrian underpass
- New connection between Pepsi and Speer/Wewatta
- Street improvements on Larimer between 15th and 17th planning on ’09 and completion in 2010
- Parking Study and implementation
- Denver Health Expansion
- 14th & Colfax for 1. street improvements by 2011 and 2. streetscape by 2011
- LaAlma Lincoln park irrigation
- Rude Rec Center bathroom rehab to be completed by ’09
- Federal Street improvements construction by 2010 and Federal bridge designed by ’09 and built by late 2010
- Lakewood Gulch improvements
- Pedestrian improvements along Federal
- Speer Blvd irrigation improvements done by ‘09
- #11 fire station renovation
