CENTENNIAL, Colo. — This September 12 will mark 25 years since voters approved the formation of the City of Centennial, which was formerly part of unincorporated Arapahoe County.
Throughout the next year, the Centennial community is planning to celebrate the milestone anniversary with a series of events and other commemorations.
“We're very fortunate that we're going to be celebrating the 25th anniversary of Centennial as the State of Colorado is celebrating 150 years, and our nation is celebrating 250 years. So, what a great way to have the community come together and really look back and see all the things we've accomplished in the last 25 years as a city,” Centennial Mayor Stephanie Piko told Denver7 | Your Voice.
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Piko, who’s lived in Centennial since its founding, said one of the first events to celebrate the 25th anniversary is the Centennial Chalk Art Festival.
“One of the big events we have every year is our Centennial Chalk Art Festival. It's out at The Streets at SouthGlenn, and we tend to hold it on the same weekend-‘ish’ around what we celebrate as the vote that made the City of Centennial complete," Piko said. "So, what we ended up doing, we're doing the chalk art fest again this year, and we're having an extra little special pancake breakfast in the morning to celebrate the people who helped form the city."
Pikio said the group that founded the city at the time got together for pancakes at the Pancake House to outline how they would form the city.
"And so that's just been kind of our tradition,” she added.
Centennial’s founding
Centennial Founder John Brackney shared the history of the founding of Centennial a few weeks ago for the first part of this Denver7 | Your Voice series focusing on Centennial.
“The nice neighbor to the north of ours, Greenwood Village, was doing some major annexations and I hadn't heard about that yet. I was a county commissioner. I maybe had a little bit of inklings, but that's what cities do. They look for tax base, you know, they want to provide benefits to their citizens,” Brackney said. “But at a certain point, the law said they have to inform the county that they're doing an annexation. So the short story is the mayor and the Mayor Pro-Tem and the city manager called up their county commissioner… and they said, 'Here's what we're doing. We're annexing a huge commercial swath near Arapahoe Road and I-25' and well, they had to inform me or us.”
Brackney, who was born and raised in the area, was immediately concerned.
“Our property taxes would increase. Our sales taxes would go because they would go to the city and we wouldn’t get any of the benefit of the property tax or sales tax increases; it would go to other elected representatives bases, providing benefits to their citizens. Well, that's good for them, but really bad for us,” Brackney said.
Brackney said the city founders decided to then form a city to stop the annexation.
“Did we want that? Not particularly. We kind of want to be left alone. Historically, and even currently, there's a healthy trend of ‘just do your thing.' I want to do my thing, and [let the] government kind of stay out of our lives. We want to just live our lives, raise a family, work, travel, retire, I mean, just kind of normal things that most people want,” Brackney said.
Centennial today
“Self-determination was a big part of why Centennial formed in the first place, and we're still making that fight,” Piko said.
Piko described the current fight to maintain home rule in Centennial, specifically when referring to housing.
“We look at housing, we look at density, we look at projects and how they're going to impact the surrounding community. Do we have the services to support added populations in those places, and will they create a new neighborhood? That's how we look at new development,” Piko said.
Piko said she’s very proud of the work Centennial has done to accommodate the city’s growth and she’s thankful for the city partners who provide many outsourced resident services.
“We are a contract city. We don't have our own health department, we don't have our own water department, things of that nature,” Centennial City Councilwoman Marlo Alston said.
Alston has lived in Centennial for 21 years.
"Safety is really important to me, and also diversity. I live on the east side of Centennial. It's on the southeast border of Aurora, where there's a lot of diversity, and that was important for the area that I moved to, to have my children raised around all types of people," Alston said. “We set out to be the Number 1 city, and we accomplished that. Regarding the city, the safety, staffing, the infrastructure,” Alston added.
But Alston and Piko said the work isn’t finished, and they’re working to address residents' concerns, including those regarding traffic and parks.
“Arapahoe Road is technically CDOT’s, so that's not us. We do work hand-in-hand with them, and we are very much aware, we do traffic studies and things of that nature. So, we are working to try to get that under control as best we can,” Alston said.
Piko said the city is also working on a major upgrade to improve access to Centennial’s outdoor spaces and parks.
“There is an underpass under Arapahoe Road that connects the Lone Tree Creek Trail from the north and south sides of Arapahoe Road. Unfortunately, it's not pedestrian friendly. It's not biker friendly right now. So we're engaging in a project starting this fall that will create a pedestrian and bike access under Arapahoe Road so people don't have to cross on top,” Piko said.
Piko and Alston said they look forward to continuing to address the city’s growth and to another successful 25 years.
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