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Just why Denver needs a major-league hockey team is beyond me. I can see all the ice I care to view, just by lifting mine eyes up to the hills. If I feel some perverse need to see people in weird outfits like gaudy shorts worn over long underwear with knee pads, I can visit any shopping mall or urban street. If I want to see a brawl, well, what are bars for?
So I don't envy the marketing department of the Denver
Whatevers. They've got a major challenge, getting folks to
pay $33 a ticket for spectacles that are available for
free. Then again, this is a country where Kato Kaelin and
Dan Quayle are authors, Dumb and Dumber
is a hit
movie and Oliver North is a philosopher.
But out here in the hinterlands, the city has already been providing plenty of entertainment to the masses, just by holding a mayoral election as required by law and custom.
From here, of course, it's hard to get a handle on the real issues. The crime rate is down, but this information seems to have escaped Mary DeGroot.
The last I heard, she plans to shut down half a dozen crack houses as soon as she takes office. Now, if she knows where these crack houses are operating, why hasn't she called the police already? Don't good citizens report such things?
No, good DeGroot citizens cruise the alleys, looking for defaced trash receptacles. When one appears, the DeGood Citizen opens the trunk, finds the appropriate color of spray paint, and repaints the receptacle in a bland hue. Can you guess how excited I am by the prospect of visiting Denver and driving down the alleys and seeing all those matching drab trash receptacles?
Of course, there's also the chance that I'll be afraid
to visit if DeGroot's maximum harassment
policy is
pursued. At some point, they'll run out of kids that appear
to be in gangs, and then they'll have to find new targets
for official harassment -- perhaps rubes and hayseeds in
faded blue jeans and rumpled T-shirts.
There is a quaint notion that the police are supposed to preserve public order, rather than hassle citizens for violating the DeGroot dress code. Is she running for mayor or principal?
She also charges that the Webb administration is a
hotbed of cronyism.
This news is approximately as
surprising as an announcement that the sun will rise in the
east. When a politician gains the power of appointment,
he's supposed to appoint strangers when he has friends? Is
Mary DeGroot's knowledge of municipal government derived
solely from textbooks?
Just whom would she appoint to patronage positions if she won? I suspect that she'd appoint people she knew and felt comfortable with -- I know I would if I were in that position -- and that's cronyism. That's also American politics.
This is not to say that Wellington Webb is all that a mayor can be, at least from a boondocks vantage.
For at least a century, Denver has been the leading city of the Mountain West, and it appears to have abdicated its leadership role. The energy that runs Colorado and the region isn't generated in Denver any more.
Look at our state politics. The leader of the state senate? Jeff Wells of Colorado Springs. The speaker of the house of representatives? Chuck Berry of Colorado Springs. The source of vexatious Amendment Two? Colorado Springs. The home base of Emperor Douglas Bruce? Colorado Springs. The city with the new airport that already foresees expansion? Colorado Springs.
This cannot bode well for Denver's future, but I haven't seen or heard a word about it in the mayoral campaign.
No talk about how Denver might work to improve its agricultural connections to its own region, so that San Luis Valley potatoes go to Denver, rather than Texas, while Denver eats Idaho potatoes.
Nor have I noticed any discussion of the city's water needs, which could be substantial with the redevelopment of Stapleton and Lowry.
Neither has there been any real discussion of state-wide communications. As far as Denver is concerned, we're supposed to send our money in every month to the urban headquarters of the cable or telephone monopoly, and that's it. Urban interests fight every effort to improve rural telephone service, and yet you'd think that a regional city would place a high priority on staying in touch with its region.
As for transportation, what about Interstate 70? Does either candidate have a position on whether it should be expanded into the mountains? Or whether there are alternatives, and what they should be?
Granted, mayoral campaigns primarily concern the city proper, and that's as it should be. But Denver doesn't exist in a vacuum; it's part of a region, and the leader of Denver ought to have some ideas about Denver's relationship to that region.
But to date in this campaign, the relationship is pretty simple. Denver's job is to provide entertainment for the region.
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