Copyright The Denver Post
For children living in Denver’s Sun Valley neighborhood, places to play outside are hard to come by. There’s a small temporary park and a couple grassy areas near Lakewood Gulch. But other than that, the street is the only place to pass a football or play tag. “It’s quite dangerous,” said Jeanne Granville, the president of the Sun Valley Community Coalition. “If you’re in a suburban area, you can kind of do that. But here, there are businesses and construction trucks and all kinds of other things.” The mixed residential-industrial neighborhood, just south of Empower Field and tucked between Federal Boulevard and the South Platte River, is one of the poorest in Denver. Over 80% of the population lives below the poverty line, and 94% of the housing market is subsidized, according to the Denver Housing Authority, which has been redeveloping a swath of the area. On the edge of the neighborhood, along the banks of the South Platte, a new place to play is in the works — and it’s one of dozens of projects that would receive small-dollar contributions from the Vibrant Denver bond if voters approve the near-$1 billion package in Tuesday’s election. The Sun Valley Riverfront Park plan would receive $5 million under the proposal, a meager sum compared to larger projects in the package. The newly opened Park Hill Park would receive $70 million, two bridges near the site of the next Broncos stadium would receive a combined $140 million, and another $75 million would go toward construction of a new combined training facility for the sheriff, fire and police departments. While some of those flashier — and more expensive — proposals have gotten most of the attention, and at times have drawn criticism, some Denverites are supporting the bond measures with the hope that their communities will win a mere fraction of the $950 million in bond dollars. The Sun Valley project, which calls for building an 11-acre regional park, is budgeted to cost $20 million overall. The plan calls for more trees, sports fields, a garden and a dog park. An executive committee for the bond process proposed that some of the smaller projects — like the Sun Valley Riverfront Park and a Sloan’s Lake restoration effort — should receive higher amounts. But the final proposal from Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s office ultimately reduced those allotments. Ballot Issues 2A through 2E ask voters to approve $950 million for projects in Vibrant Denver bond package Proponents of partially funded projects like the park in Sun Valley will still have to find more grants or money, with help from the city, to get them across the finish line. But the bond offers a starting point. The bond package appears on voters’ ballots as five questions — Ballot Issues 2A through 2E — with each one dedicated to a category of spending. They cover transportation, city facilities, parks, housing, and health and human services. Here's a look at some of the other small projects that are important to pockets of Denver. Sloan’s Lake restoration Advocates for Sloan’s Lake are also hoping the bond will offer them a lifeline as the increasingly shallow lake creeps closer to becoming a stagnant, lifeless pond. The lake, which sits in northwest Denver, has become so filled in with sediment that it is only 3 feet deep on average. That makes it difficult for fish to survive and creates an environment conducive to dangerous algae blooms. Eventually, the lake could become fully stagnant, which could result in putrid smells, dangerous bacteria, dead fish and a massive release of methane gas. In recent years, long periods of summer heat already have resulted in floating fish. “Look at any puddle on day two after a rain, and what does it look like? It’s green. It smells,” said Kurt Weaver, a spokesman for the Sloan’s Lake Park Foundation. “A stagnating lake is a massive problem for a community.” Without any intervention, that’s what will happen to Sloan’s Lake in the next five to 10 years, Weaver said. It will cost at least $130 million to remove the muck from the bottom of the lake and move it elsewhere, he said. The executive bond committee originally recommended that the project receive $40 million, but the final proposal from the mayor’s office contained only $5 million for Sloan’s Lake. That won’t be enough to begin dredging up the mud at the bottom of the lake, but it will help start the necessary steps that must come first — like bank stabilization and new stormwater infrastructure. “This is such a huge catalyst to start the project and show people we’re serious about this,” Weaver said. Library branch projects More than $30 million of the bond would go toward various projects that bolster library branches across the city. “The library is largely dependent on the bond process to update those facilities,” said Laurie Matthews, the president of the Denver Public Library Commission. “It’s an uphill battle to make sure people know this bond is important and (that) the library is in this bond.” About $11 million of the library funding would go toward completely renovating the Montbello Branch Library in far-northeast Denver with new lighting, meeting rooms and outdoor seating. Another $12 million would go to renovating the Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library in Five Points. The Decker Branch Library, which opened in 1913 in Platt Park as one of the city’s nine Carnegie branches, would get about $4.5 million for a full renovation and historic preservation. About $1.6 million would go to building an “idea lab” at the Green Valley Ranch Library. The idea labs, which also exist in other library branches, have sewing machines, 3D printers and other creative tools. Matthews said public libraries serve as some of the city’s only free facilities and offer a place for children and adults to meet up and learn. So far this year, Matthews said, an average of 6,300 people per week have visited downtown's Central Library, which was spruced up and renovated through a previous voter-approved bond. “You have to go in, like your house, and keep it fresh and welcoming and safe,” she said. “These are really special places, so we have to keep investing in them.” Voters rarely reject bonds In years past, Denverites have mostly approved new bond issuances when they've appeared on the ballot. In 2021, though, Denverites rejected one proposal while passing several other bond measures. The rejected measure would have issued bonds to help build a 10,000-seat arena for the National Western Center. At that time, there was an organized coalition against that specific measure. This year, organized opposition groups have criticized the concept of borrowing money to pay for projects, but they haven’t homed in on any specific proposals. The group Citizens for No New Debt argues that issuing nearly $1 billion in debt would be fiscally irresponsible and that the city should pay for its construction projects up front instead. Bonds are a common way for cities to pay for projects. If approved, the bond measures wouldn’t increase taxes. The city would use previously authorized property tax dollars to pay back the debt as older bonds are paid off. If voters rejected the proposals, those same dollars would be used to pay back existing debt more quickly, without immediately reducing taxes, city officials have said. “From what we’ve seen, things are looking good for all the bond ballot measures,” said Mike Strott, the spokesman for the bond campaign. Some on the City Council and beyond have criticized the package because of which projects stand to benefit the most. Two of the costliest projects — for the bridge repairs on West Eighth and Sixth avenues — are next door to the future Broncos stadium site and would, in fixing the aging structures, also benefit any future project. “If someone else could pay for it, we shouldn’t,” said June Churchill, a cycling advocate who is the budget chair of an advisory board for the Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure, in August. But city officials are hoping that enough voters will see the benefit of supporting the package as a whole that all the measures pass.
