I’m running to represent you and District 7 on Denver City Council.
I’m a career nonprofit leader, a volunteer, a husband and a former elected official. I’m passionate about making city government deliver excellence for everyone. And I’m proud of my accomplishments representing working people and keeping them safe, providing essential, foundational services, and engaging in the hard work of making a community a better place to live.
Denver is at a crossroads. Our crime rates are rivaling grim 1980’s records. Our unhoused population has exploded and our infrastructure is creaking under the pressures of growth that our current leaders took for granted and didn’t plan for. Housing is unaffordable and building permits take longer to approve than a kitchen remodel takes to get finished. Denver has all the promise of a world-class city, but its services are lagging and the city’s customer service mentality needs an upgrade.
I know how to solve these kinds of problems and put a city on course for a bright future. In 2002, when I was 25, I was elected to the Casper, Wyoming, city council. I’m proud of my work as a councilman and later as mayor — Wyoming’s first openly gay elected official and Casper’s youngest-ever mayor.
I rebuilt a bus system after almost 50 years of its absence. I cast the deciding vote for a downtown office building’s rebirth as affordable housing – with daycare on the ground floor. I helped transform a dilapidated stretch of crumbling buildings into a new commercial district. I oversaw balanced budgets, reinvestment in core services, and a people-centered response to a drug epidemic.
Education and career opportunities brought me and my husband to Denver. We lived many years in the Speer neighborhood before moving to Baker, near the Santa Fe Art District. I serve the nonprofit community, volunteer for progressive causes and sit on the neighborhood board. Around me, I see you and your families navigating the challenges of making it in Denver today, just like we do.
I see in our future “A Braver, Safer Denver.” Braver for being frank about its shortcomings and what it will take to solve them. Safer for making sure that we, our homes and our businesses are secure from violence and property crime. Braver for asserting our place on the world stage, and safer for us to walk and cycle and take transit to get to where we need to be.
No one else in this race has ever been a councilmember, built coalitions, represented people, mastered the infinite details of a city government and been accountable to voters for the opportunity to do it. I’m passionate about city government because that’s where all of us live our lives. I don’t aspire to a career in elected office. I want to fight a city that can give all of us the opportunity to make the most of our lives.
Website: guyfordenver.com
Contact: guy@guyfordenver.com; 303-351-1433