Meet the Mayor's Cabinet

Last Thursday, I was privileged to attend the Downtown Denver Partnership’s Member Forum and hear from leaders that are guiding Denver from the great city it is to a world-class city, (and people are taking notice). We heard from Public Works Manager Jose Cornejo, Parks and Recreation Manager Lauri Dannemiller, Deputy Mayor and CFO Cari Kennedy, Community Planning and Development Manager Rocky Piro and Director of Economic Development Paul Washington.

Public Works

One of Denver’s major public works initiatives is two-way street conversions. Traffic signal studies are underway now. Stakeholder outreach and funding research will begin in June, and final designs will be completed in August.

Improvements to the 16^th St. Mall are another major initiative with $63 million in upgrades planned during the next several years. Phase I, which will start in May 2014, will focus on upgrades to the first two blocks at either end of the mall. Designs for Phase I improvements are expected to be complete by January 2014.

Another exciting public works development includes creating protected bike lanes along 15^th St. As Cornejo explained, bikers are currently using all three lanes of traffic and the sidewalks, so creating a bike lane will help the 100 bike riders that pass along that corridor during peak times to more safely navigate the city. Unfortunately, this will require removing 28 parking spaces. The protected bike lane is expected to be completed by the spring of 2014.

Parks and Recreation

Denver’s parks are as diverse as its residents with 250 urban parks, an elk and a bison herd, 27 rec centers, mountain parks and 5 golf courses. Major changes for Confluence Park are in the planning stages and implementation is scheduled to begin in 2014. These changes include improving access, enhancing access and land use along the river, and adding more gathering places along the river that can be used for leisure and recreation purposes.

Finance

Denver is in a strong financial position with decreasing unemployment, increasing tax revenues and a strong real estate market. The city enjoys a AAA credit rating and offers the 8^th lowest sales tax rate. In June, the treasurer’s office will launch the city’s checkbook online, so everyone can see how Denver’s funds are being spent and accounted for.

Community Planning and Development

Rocky Piro joined Mayor Hancock’s cabinet in January and is focused on transforming Denver into a top-notch city. Transit-oriented developments like Union Station will help lead that transformation, as will effective neighborhood plans that cultivate healthy, vibrant communities in areas such as Globeville, Swansea, RiNo and Sun Valley.

Regional development opportunities around DIA also hold enormous potential for Denver’s future.

Economic Development

The city's vision is boldly ambitious, with innovative, forward-thinking policies that are intended to deliver a world-class city where everyone matters. To achieve this, Paul Washington and his office are focused on connectivity, sustainability, economic vibrancy and administration.

"Tuesday is Turkey Day for Nashville Rescue Mission"

Our client, The Boedecker Foundation donates 700 turkeys to feed the homeless

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The Boedecker Foundation donated 700 turkeys to the Nashville Rescue Mission in Nashville, Tenn., for its Thanksgiving turkey fry to help ensure no one is turned away from the Thanksgiving meal.

“[Mr. Boedecker’s] gift will enable us to serve a wonderful meal to over 7,000 men, women and children over the holidays. Our ability to reach out to the least fortunate of our community is made possible only through the generosity of those who care, such as the Boedecker Foundation,” Glenn Cranfield, National Rescue Mission president and CEO, said.

Boedecker is principal founder of the Boulder-based footwear company Crocs, Inc. He founded the Boedecker Foundation in 2009, channeling his philanthropy into four initiatives: youth development, family and community development, education, and health and wellness.

Country music artist Tracy Lawrence started the Mission Possible Turkey Fry Day six years ago. Since its inception, the Nashville Rescue Mission has collected more than 6,000 turkeys, served more than 75,000 meals to the homeless and raised more than $100,000. This year’s Mission Possible Turkey Fry Day will take place at the Nashville Rescue Mission (639 Lafayette Street) on Tuesday, Nov. 20, from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.

About the Boedecker Foundation

The mission of the Boedecker Foundation is to provide critical resources to nonprofit organizations that inspire positive change within communities around the world.

Catching up with Maura O'Neal...

Recently, Maura has been very engaged with community involvement in Commerce City.  On Tuesday she attended the city’s Quality Community Initiative, essentially a public forum that aims to find out the community’s priorities and use that information to propose recommendations to the City Council.  Looking at billions of dollars worth of infrastructure and amenities projects that need to happen in the next 20 years, the initiative intends to find out what the public most wants accomplished in the next 10 years.   Another goal involves finding the best ways to fund these projects.

Maura has also been very busy in her role as a board member of the Commerce City Cultural Council.  One exciting upcoming event is its first theater performance, called History Hunter.  Another ongoing effort of the Cultural Council is coordinating with the city for the Public Art Forum.

Another activity Maura has been actively involved with is the upcoming Commerce City 9Health Fair, which is the biggest family health fair in the state.  Looking for resources has been challenging, but overall, it has been an informative and educational experience.  Working on the fair has also given her an opportunity to interact with a wide variety of organizations.

Next week Maura will attend the Northern Colorado Real Estate Conference.  She looks forward to hearing dovetail client Chad McWhinney’s presentation on 2013 trends in the Colorado real estate market.  She will also be going to a Business Marketing Association event called Go Vertical to Grow: Mastering an Industry Approach to Customer Acquisition.  This event will discuss vertically focused marketing and how to specialize in integrated, multi-channel marketing campaigns.

Behind the Scenes at the Presidential Debate

Last Wednesday, the University of Denver hosted the first presidential debate of the 2012 election season.  One member of the dovetail team took part in all the excitement: our very own Jeremy Story volunteered at the event as a board member of the Colorado Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America.  The PRSA was one of several professional organizations that supported the Commission on Presidential Debates efforts.

Jeremy’s role involved media relations, clearly a significant aspect of the event; the debate attracted over 5,200 members of the media from all over the world. One aspect of Jeremy’s debate duties was keeping track of the protesters, including Occupy Denver, which took advantage of the event.  Although there was a designated protest area in the middle of the DU campus, most of the protesters chose not to stay there and instead moved freely around the campus, even blocking traffic at University and Evans.  Jeremy helped keep track of where they went in order to inform the media so they could catch up and cover them as part of the story.

Another part of Jeremy’s work on the debate involved providing background information to the media about the state of Colorado, the city of Denver and the University of Denver.  Hosting the first presidential debate of the season was a great opportunity to showcase Denver’s many attributes to the rest of the nation and the world, and Jeremy was pleased to be a part of it. 

Project C.U.R.E.

Here at dovetail solutions, community involvement is a huge priority.  One important aspect of this is our annual team service project.  Last Saturday we volunteered at Project C.U.R.E., a nonprofit organization that impacts lives around the globe.

Project C.U.R.E. sends medical equipment to over 120 developing countries all over the world.  Originally founded in Evergreen, Project C.U.R.E. now has collection centers in 10 cities across the United States.  By performing on-site needs evaluations in each country the organization operates in, they ensure that they send the most needed medical supplies to each location.  In order to do so, they depend on donations of supplies and equipment from medical manufacturers, wholesalers, hospitals and clinics. They also rely on volunteers to organize and package donated equipment.  That’s where we came in.

We showed up early last Saturday morning at Project C.U.R.E.’s Denver location to help sort equipment.  The Project C.U.R.E. space is essentially a warehouse filled with stacks upon stacks of cardboard boxes.  Our job as volunteers was to sort through these boxes of medical supplies and categorize everything.  We got set up at a table and began the process of unpacking box after box.  We sorted through vast piles of equipment, digging through jumbles of test tubes, respirators, electrodes, bandages, blood pressure gauges, and a wide variety of other objects and looking up what bin to put them in.  The task never got repetitive because of the sheer array of equipment, most of which was completely foreign to me.

When it was time to go, one of the Project C.U.R.E. staff members asked us, “How many things did you touch?  Hundreds?  Thousands?  Think about it this way: every item that you touched helped change a life.”

That really put everything into perspective for me.  Every blood pressure gauge helped evaluate someone’s health.  Every syringe helped someone get the medicine that they needed.  Every piece of respiration equipment helped someone take another breath.  In just a few hours, we impacted so many lives in such an important way.

For some people, the old adage “time is money” comes very close to the truth.  We’re all busy and we have to choose how we spend our time wisely.  Volunteer work is a difficult commitment for many people to make.  Even just a few hours, however, can make a big difference.  Volunteering at Project C.U.R.E. was a phenomenal opportunity to both make a difference in the world and to spend time together as a team.  We thank Project C.U.R.E. for the opportunity to contribute to such an important cause.