My name is James Mejia, and I am running to be the next Mayor of Denver, Colorado.
Over the past six months I have traveled to every corner of our city to listen to people talk about Denver's future. In many conversations people talked about our unmatched arts and culture scene, some talked about selecting their neighborhood because they are near beautiful parks, and others talked about our great outdoor culture. In every conversation I have been reminded what a privilege it is to live in Denver.
Denver is ranked top five in bicycle friendly cities, top three in green canopy and top five in best places to do business. The problem is that none of these measures take note of how many people are struggling in our city today. We all know someone who is unemployed or underemployed. We must put the city back to work.
As the former Deputy Director of the Mayor's Office of Economic Development, I know what it takes to make sound loans to small business, the kind of businesses that have created 80% of our jobs in the last five years. It is time to establish again the city's Small Business Revolving Loan Fund to help small business in Denver leverage additional funding from local banks. It is time for the Mayor's office to send the message to the banking community that we will only invest city resources, taxpayer resources, in banks that loan money to small business.
When Denver puts the small business loan program to work, great things happen. Take the Great Divide Brewing Company. Brian Dunn started this firm about 10 years ago with three employees and a loan from the city. Ten years later, Brian employs 35 people. A true case of small business success and some damn good beer. It is time to put the small business loan program back to work and help people like Brian Dunn create jobs in Denver.
We must be wise about investing taxpayer dollars. As the Project Manager of the Denver Justice Center, a $400 million project brought in on time and on budget, I worked with the private sector to create hundreds of local jobs. We employed numerous small, local firms in architecture, engineering, finance, and construction. The Courthouse, Detention Facility and Parking Garage were our city government's first three buildings of new construction to achieve LEED certification for sustainability in design and construction.
The only aspect of the project I did not oversee was the selection of art. It is up to the public to judge the art, but one thing about its selection still bothers me. Though hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on art for the Courthouse and Parking Garage, none of the artists were Denver artists. Our tax dollars spent on art for that project didn't create Denver jobs.
The Four Seasons, a new five-star hotel in Denver just up the street, is filled with beautiful art. The Four Seasons bought 90% of its art work from right here at home in Colorado. This is important because $.77 of every dollar we spend with a local firm is recycled in Denver. When we spend out of state, only $.33 gets recycled in Denver. The City of Denver can create more jobs simply by hiring local firms to do local work. The art work at the Denver Justice Center is just one example of where the City has an opportunity to invest more wisely and create jobs with taxpayer resources.
Denver citizens should be very concerned with the $100 million budget gap that we face in our budget of $895 million. We should be asking, who has the experience of closing budget gaps in difficult economic times in City government? I have done it, and I can do it again. The last time the City faced massive budget shortfalls, I was managing the Parks and Recreation department in Mayor Webb's cabinet. We faced two years of 10% budget cuts, used 30% less water because of the drought, and still managed to expand the system by 25%. We developed new parks at Lowry, Stapleton and the Central Platte Valley. We constructed and renovated six recreation centers, built a golf club house, and put into place the first-ever parks master plan in the 100 year history of the department. So how did we do all that while sustaining budget cuts? We took our case to the employees of the department. The employees knew we were operating under four different irrigation systems which were costly in staff and repairs. Parks employees had the idea to standardize to only one irrigation system and we have been working towards that as a city ever since, becoming more efficient, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars.
It is this kind of collaboration and efficiency that I will bring to every department in city government.
While working in the Mayor's Office of Economic Development, I helped to lead the team working to bring Boeing to town. The competition came down to Denver and Chicago, and, sadly, Denver lost the bid to be Boeing's new headquarters. There are a lessons to be learned as we look to bring more large firms to Denver:
- Denver needs more direct flights to international destinations out of DIA.
- Denver needs an improved education system to have the kind of schools where executives want to send their children and ones that can produce tomorrow's workforce.
- Denver needs to be aggressive in recruiting firms to Denver. We cannot wait for those firms to seek us out. As Mayor, I will work with the Governor and the private sector to recruit companies to Denver from aerospace, health, and the new energy sectors.
As a candidate for Mayor, I've talked about how we can make our great city even better. As a candidate for Mayor, I am committed to making mine a positive campaign. We will focus on leadership and experience and not the shortcomings of others. We will always be professional and will treat all candidates with respect and dignity. We are the hardest-working campaign, the campaign that is building momentum, and the campaign that will celebrate our hard work and our victory on May the 3rd.
They say it takes a village to raise a child. That's true. It also takes a village to elect a Mayor. In my village is the woman who has dedicated her life as a teacher and counselor to the children of Denver, my wife, Dr. Heather Riley, and my three beautiful daughters, Moya, Alexandra and Riley. They are beautiful, but, as we believe in our house, it is more important to be intelligent, and most important to be kind.
Next in my village is the extraordinary woman who, after years of picking beets in Northern Colorado was the first in her family to go to college: my mother, our family matriarch and early childhood educator, Ophelia Mejia. My father, David Mejia, served for 37 years as a teacher in Denver's Public Schools and served our country as a Korean War veteran. My village is filled with extraordinary family members, including 12 siblings, each of whom attended college just one generation after my parents were the first in their families to attend.
This family story is one of resilience, high expectations and determination. Denver's story is one of resilience, high expectations and determination. As I run for Mayor I will share this story up and down Federal Boulevard and Colfax Avenue. May it echo down the Platte River and skim across Washington Park. May it speak to those from the Sun Valley projects to the mansions of Country Club. The local economy is down but do not count us out. We are the city that has come back from boom and bust in mining, we are the city that has come back from boom and bust in oil and gas and we are the city that has come back from boom and bust in technology. Each and every time we have emerged stronger, we have emerged smarter, and we have emerged more determined than ever to hoist our children upon our shoulders and build this city into the place we call home.
I ask for your support and hope you will join with me to put our people back to work. Join me to help those in need, and join me to make this great city even better.
My name is James Mejia, and I am running to be the next Mayor of Denver, Colorado.