DENVER – Transportation infrastructure, workforce development and the city’s homeless population are among the things the Denver City Council hopes to address the year, it said Monday as it outlined its goals for 2017.
Among the first issues the council says it hopes to address this year is how to pay for more than $1 billion in infrastructure needs and requests.
City Council President Albus Brooks said Monday the council is looking at a potential sales tax or bond in order to raise some of the money needed.
Among the chief projects the city hopes to fund is the Colfax Avenue redevelopment.
“We’re excited about that,” Brooks said. “We’ve got all the bids together and there’s going to be a lot of funds put into that to re-imagine the street.”
It also hopes to pay for additional sidewalks in places that don’t currently have them; one proposal under consideration would charge property owners.
Brooks also says he hopes to include money for a continued downtown police presence, as well as finding a way for low-income residents to get some of the new jobs coming into the metro area.
“How do we use some of these larger projects – whether it be National Wester, Panasonic, I-70 – to hire and target their hiring in these high-unemployment neighborhoods?” Brooks said.
The council also said that in addition to working groups for mobility and transportation, sidewalk working group, housing and homelessness and economic and workforce development that it would be creating an ad-hoc working group for urban design and beautification.
The full priorities document sent to the mayor by the council can be found here.
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