Call Me At-Large Councilwoman with Sarah Parady

This week, Dai and David are joined by City and County of Denver At-Large Councilwoman Sarah Parady.  They discuss Councilwoman Parady's first year and a half in office, Denver's history of civil rights, shifting power back to the people, rethinking public safety, collaboration with colleagues, recent local election results, 2025 budget wins, growing up in a rural area, and much much more.

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SPEAKER_00 0:26

Hello and welcome back to another episode of your favorite podcast. It's your boy Dave. And I'm David, and together we are creating conversations. This is Call Me Limbo. Today we are joined by an incredibly special guest. She is someone I call a friend. She's an attorney by trade. She is the 2023 Friend of Phoebe Award recipient for community inclusion. And she just so happens to be one of the at-large city councilwomen for the city and county of Denver, representing over 700,000 constituents. Councilwoman Sarah Parity is here. Welcome.

SPEAKER_02 1:07

Thank you. I'm really, really excited.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Yes. Well, we are so appreciative of you being willing to do this. So you have been in office now for a little over a year. And we're just curious, what's it been like? What are some of the highlights that you've experienced since you've taken office?

SPEAKER_02 1:24

You know, I actually love this job, which my colleagues kind of make fun of me because it's most people will say that government service is like hard or like it's a mixed bag. It's hard, but I really love it. Um, and I especially love that I get to represent the whole city because that sort of frees me up to like I can get out of the um kind of fights of like, you know, where should a shelter go? Well, it has to go somewhere. And my job is to just be like, well, we need a shelter, you know what I mean? Um, rather than to kind of get dragged into NIMBYism of things, I guess. And also because like Denver, I've learned a lot about the city in the last year, including just that like we have a major role in almost every civil rights fight in our country's history. Um, there is a 1919 Colorado Supreme Court ruling from kids at manual high school suing to desegregate their after-school activities. And they won that under the state constitution. So, you know, decades before Brown versus Board, kids at Manual High School, which I live three blocks from, we were the seat of the ADA was born in Denver, quite literally. The people that crawled up the Capitol steps were from Denver. Obviously, the Chicano movement and the walkouts at North High School, I think people know maybe a little bit more about that. The um, I forget it's called like the Denver Declaration of Principles from back during the days when people were dying of AIDS and nobody knew why. And between that and sort of like the um the gay takeover of uh City Hall, of this chamber right over here, when the police were really hassling gay bars, like there's um a huge history of like LGBTQ history and advocacy um that again went national. Like the Denver principles are a national, like known thing. So I love learning that stuff. I love meeting people that like have ties to all of that history who are here. Um I just feel really grateful to be here and be in the seat.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Yeah. Well, you've done a great job from from my perspective. And you I was gonna say you talked a little bit about some of the civil rights activism and movements here in here in Denver and in Colorado. One thing that I'm particularly impressed by you about is you have a little bit of a history of creating some legislation and civil rights movement. You were one of the primary drafters of the Colorado Equal Pay for Equal Work Act before you became a councilwoman. And I think that is, I think that's amazing too. So I was like, you're building your legacy right now, too. And you, you, you're part of this, this civil rights movement as well. So I think that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 3:49

Yeah, that's a really kind take. I mean, I, as a lawyer, I got to work on a lot of like, on a lot of legislation that was either for workers or around anti-discrimination or like equality in different ways. Actually, one of the legislators who passed that bill was Serena Gonzalez Cocheros, who's now my co-at-large council member, which I love. All things like that have like many parents, you know. Um, like there are a lot of people that that are like butt four causes of that equal pay act. What I like about that act is that in the course of writing that bunch of attorneys get together. We're thinking about like, what should the statute of limitations be? Like when people sue, blah, blah, blah. No, the most powerful thing in that act was not anything around people finding a lawyer and going to court. It was just the piece around publishing salaries. It was transparency because information empowers people always, right? Like the best thing you can always do as a policymaker is like give people more information, more access, meet their basic needs, and then people will do what needs to be done. So I took that to heart in a really big way coming out of working on that bill. And I'm proud of a lot of the stuff I did as a lawyer, but I'm also I'm not practicing now partly because I just wanted to get in a lane where when you're a component of the court system, you're sort of by the nature of things participating in like very entrenched and very hierarchical power systems. And I didn't mind being able to like grab a little bit of power back for people that had been, you know, victimized at work and things like that. That was great. I love doing that. I loved all of my clients. But I really am happy now to be more like thinking about changing those structures and shifting power, like always shifting power. That's like the key thing in this office is it's like, how do we put things back in people's hands because then they know what to do.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

Piggybacking on that, how has your insight into the legal system and use your work in the law field overall? How has that served you now in your new role?

SPEAKER_02 5:30

You know, it's hopeful mostly in kind of like it's sort of like telling people that they can't weaponize that kind of like systems knowledge against me. I'm like, no, like sorry, I'm wise to this. Like you can't, you can't use that language and try to like, you know, cow me in some way because that happens all the time. Like people will come speaking the language of systems and speaking the language of the existing law and the status quo and like why things have to be the way they are. Um, and it helps, it's a good credential to like push back on that. It's also it's a nice shortcut, you know, it gives you lawyers are very structural thinkers. And so it's it's nice to take like a social problem and be able to think through like, um, where can we meaningfully impact that and and what things can we not really impact or can we not impact through legislating? Do we have to think about in a different kind of way? But I don't think it's like the most important credential by any means. So just to say like the reasons that people should serve on a body like this are really about like how deep you go into the community and how much you can be a voice for a really lot of different people. That's like that's the actual qualification to be here.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

That's cool. Yeah. Because we see a lot of a lot of, especially like our Congress people there, a lot of them come from that background. So I was curious, since you have followed that trajectory in your own way, if you can see why that space kind of naturally tends to produce so many people that work in government.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

Yeah, I mean, it's a mix of things. Like part of it is that on the one hand, I think people often very idealistically go to law school thinking that it's actually about policy. And it's not like if you go to law school, you're gonna follow all the policies and laws that someone else already made, and you're just gonna be there trying to like enforce them or take advantage of them for your particular client or whatever. But and you might be making new law to like a tiny degree, like when it's a matter of interpretation. So a lot of people I think have that heart to begin with, but also like there's a lot of lawyers are um are given a lot of like social standing, right? And so it's a profession that tends to both produce or or people who are attracted to it often have a lot of confidence in that kind of way, like think highly of themselves. Um, and then also the profession like reinforces that in you. So, you know, it's like both things.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

Not as bad as surgeons, allegedly. No, I'm just kidding. Allegedly. I something you mentioned earlier in your first uh speech response was you said talking about getting dragged into fights versus saying, you know, we just need this, and now you have the power to do that. So I was curious, what is something you think people that are not in your work would be surprised to learn about behind the veil, I guess. They're not trying to make a wicked reference or anything to Oz, but what would people be surprised in? Maybe what were you surprised about when you got in?

SPEAKER_02 8:03

Yeah, that's a really good question. I think one of the things that I thought was really interesting in Denver right now is that we're always talking about like how do we do public safety a little bit differently? And we're reasonably good at that in Denver, but also we have the same basic systems that everywhere has, you know, um, most of the funding within safety goes to the police department. They have, you know, up to 1600 officers in a city of 700,000 people. And I had had litigation against the police department in the past. So, you know, I've had cases um where they violated people's constitutional rights. And that that's just the nature of like when you empower people to use force, like that's gonna happen. And so the the way that I like to think about that, and the thing that people in all kinds of movements have done a really, really good job of like lifting up for public consumption and like making more mainstream is just the idea of like you have to really think about when do we want to use force and when is the person that we want to send in someone that we've trained primarily to react to and use force and to fear use of force and to be like where that's kind of their frame, you know, and they have a gun, right? So when do we want to send that person? When do we want to send someone else? The thing that pleasantly surprised me, very pleasantly surprised me, was the first meeting that I had with our current police chief, who's someone who came up through the ranks of DPD. He brought up that he had seen um on my like campaign material that I wanted to see police get out of the business of doing low-level traffic stops because, like, sort of what's the point of that as a use of resources? And also that's what we know escalates. Like that's how Alex Landau got badly hurt. It can be used for racial profiling, you know. So why are we doing it? And he actually said, um, would you be open to the police department doing this internally as a matter of policy before city council legislates about it? Obviously, I was like, Yes, please do. They wrote a policy that is excellent and they're not doing low-level traffic stops in Denver. And that puts us at the lead of Philadelphia has done it legislatively. I think our policy that our department voluntarily adopted is stronger. So I'm trying really hard to like find those coalitions around safety and just open people's minds to the idea that, like, quite genuinely, if we just like take a step back and think clearly and honestly about like why we're sending an officer with a gun, we're gonna find a lot more common ground than I think people would presume. And so I'm trying to hold on to that in what's probably the most like fraught area of policymaking. So it was a nice surprise. There's lots of surprises, but that one was a really good one, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Yeah, thank you for saying that.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

Yeah. So you mentioned a little bit about the the safety budget, and at least in Denver, it's it's the largest budget item. And that's the way it is in most cities. Um, it's also kind of reflective of our national budget, where over half of our money goes to the military related, I suppose. You just wrapped up the 2025 budget process. And this was your first budget where you actually got to participate in the process from start to finish. Like last year when you were inducted, is that the what's the word? Inducted. You were elected, you were sworn in. There you go. Um, yes, when you were sworn in, you kind of came into the process a little bit toward the toward the middle. Like it was basically the mayor announced his budget, and we kind of like went through all of it, trying to make sense of it. What was that like this year? Kind of being part of those conversations from the beginning, and the the budget was just adopted and passed. What are you really proud of that made it into the 2025 budget that you that you fought for?

SPEAKER_02 11:26

Thank you for asking for that. So I think partly or asking that last year in Denver, we had a new mayor for the first time in 12 years, and we had six new members of council on a 13-member body. So it did feel like a really big change. But also, to your point, everybody, including the mayor, who has a lot of control over the mayor, drafts the budget to your point, right? So that's the biggest piece of control over the budget. Um, city council approves it in a very compressed timeline. So we're kind of at a disadvantage in that way. But the mayor came in in July and the budget had to be completed by November by city charter. And so we were having budget hearings in August and September, I think, and then voting um on amendments and all that, like in October. So it's very compressed. Um, and we were all brand new. And city council, with the help of a lot of amazing volunteers and committee members, I look at David because he was one of my like budget nerds.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

It was fun. That's why you received the community inclusion award because you included me in this in this process.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

So our first year of awards.

SPEAKER_02 12:22

So thanks for inviting my dad. Yeah. And I was like, your dad looks great, baby. So yeah, so we had we that's what we did because we were on such a short timeline and we were new. We threw it open to we had like 20 people sitting and reading the budget book, and sometimes physically in my office, which was really fun, just people we know who wanted to. So that was cool. But as a result of that, and as a result of a lot of community organizing that had happened throughout the campaign trail and everything else, one of the things that we pushed really, really hard for and ultimately got every single member of city council to co-sponsor was a massive increase to rental assistance, which is the most direct way to prevent evictions. And a prevented eviction prevents homelessness, stabilizes families. Like the harm that comes with an eviction is so immense that you maybe can't count all of those cost impacts and non, you know, non-monetary impacts, but they are there. So we went from a budget where the mayor had proposed $5 million of rental assistance to a budget with just five $30 million of rental assistance, which is like 6,000 families last year. That money has all gone out the door. So that's literally money. So because of that, um, I think that the administrative or the executive branch was surprised. I don't think they ever thought that city council would sort of come in that strong. And we did that through a very small across the board services and supplies cut to every agency, including safety. So we cut the entire city budget to move money to rental assistance, which was, you know, pretty cool. So we did that. And as a result of that, when this budget came out, we got the administration handled it very differently. We got a lot of calls in advance, sort of trying to figure out like what we were going to push for. They included a much more appropriate level of rental assistance, although we did still have to push back and then they increased it. But essentially what you saw was throughout the process of council kind of articulating its shared values and priorities, the administration incorporated many of those in their very first draft of the budget. They incorporated a whole lot more of them in the second draft of the budget, and they agreed to even more of them at the point when amendments were on the floor. So you could see that they were trying to avoid another headline of like, you know, city council like winning. Well, I don't care. To me, it's a win if the thing gets funded. So by the time we got to votes on amendments, those were like a really small remaining bucket of things that we hadn't already secured. And they were the things that tend to be the hardest fight, including moving budget between public safety and public health. And so those things lost with a decent number of votes. I'm still proud to have brought them to the floor. But in the course of that, we got much more, again, money for rental assistance, far more than what he had proposed in the past budget. And we ultimately got that up to about the level of last year. We got funding for our migrant program. Um, so we've had a training program for newcomers that's done through El Centro Humanitario. They've never been a city partner before. I was really excited that they got brought in on this contract in the first place. And they created a whole program to help people figure out what their path is to meaningful employment in an American context. It's been really powerful. The city was not planning to re-up it for a second year. We got that done. That's like $620,000. We got two inspectors added for public health inspections of residential buildings based on advocacy from our tenants union and a whole coalition with them. And there were a lot of council members interested in that. Council member Gonzalez Gutierrez really led on that piece. We got funding for a lot for gig workers. They all wait out at the airport. And that's like their workplace. So they're in this parking lot all day. If they're trying to take a break between Lyft or Uber rides, they're literally in this lot. And so we got the airport to set aside $175,000 to improve that lot, to add better Wi-Fi, better bathrooms, space for prayer, because a lot of them are Muslim food tables, just like basic things, so it can be a decent workspace. That was through advocacy from the driver's union. And then we also got the airport to agree to triple the amount of funding in their like climate-oriented transportation demand management program from what they had proposed. And then at the very last minute on the floor, we got the administration to commit that they will shift an additional half a million dollars. So they already increased the budget for the um support team assisted response, our police alternate response. They had increased it by 620,000 from the previous year and they committed to another half a million dollars. Um, we're waiting on like a report that will talk about how to scale that program, and then they've committed they'll find that money as well. So those were like all the wins through the course of the whole budget process and um all stuff that I like am really you know proud to stand by.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Wow. You all hear that? Yes. You hear that? Yes. This is what happens when we elect good leaders that we can get good policy and good funding for these programs that actually help people. So yeah, congratulations. That's that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 16:41

And in all instances, that's the community, just to be fair. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

No, you mentioned that. And I I I want to talk about something. This is kind of how my brain works. So you I think the laundry list of things that you mentioned were incredible. And I do love that in so many of those steps you talk about whether it was the drive, the the the driver's union, whether it's the community saying, Hey, we need this, you guys are very responsive in a way that I think people feel their national leader or federal leadership is somewhat unresponsive. And I think it does make it different when you live and you work in the community that you're in. It affects you directly. So I love that. But something you said that stuck out to me was there was a moment where they didn't want to give you all the win of the headline of, you know, city uh council people fight for this. And I and I understand your sentiment when you said, you know, I you know at the end of the day, it's about the people, which I 100% agree with. I think what I do find interesting in that though, is that there is an element of theater in the in the political space. And I think what I'd be curious to hear about is you have all these wins and all these things are great, but do the people and the citizens make those connections? Because it's a lot easier when you don't know for you know what the work for you all to be doing, like they'll highlight they're doing this for migrants, but then ignore all of the other things that you all have done as well, and it can create this clash. So I guess my question is how do you all still ensure that people recognize that you're doing the work and or have they made those connections that it is because we've elected quality people that we're getting these quality results?

SPEAKER_02 18:19

Man, that is like such a good question, and that's deeply on my mind because um we have a challenging media environment in Denver, so to speak. We have the like small but mighty Denver and CPR teams, and I'm really grateful for them. And they're not the only, I mean, there's a lot of strong Denver Post post reporters as well, but we've cut, we lost the Rocky Mountain News, we cut the Denver Post newsroom quite a bit, and the Denver Gazette is sort of ascendant, and that is a fully right-wing, like Pete Corps funded mouthpiece. Um, and you can see they their headlines are hilarious. They last year they wrote a headline that was all about me. I was like, oh, I've arrived. It was like an attempted assault on Denver's police because I wanted to move one million dollars from the $320 million safety budget and move one outreach team from the police to somewhere else in the city. And that, and so that was an attempted assault. So anyway, sorry, I'm digressing. But to your point, I will say No address the rumors.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

It's okay.

SPEAKER_02 19:13

Right. Partly because I am a lawyer. Um, I don't do that well with the um, or I try to, but it's like not my natural inclination to do like the truth telling and sort of like go to the public, go to the media. That stuff can be really uncomfortable for me. I've done that some on council. We stood with the um former director of the civil service commission when she stood up to talk about shortcuts that were being taken in the vetting of police candidates. So, you know, I'll do that, but it is not my strong suit. And so I've been talking with some of my closest folks on council about how we start to be just a little more strategic and like recognize the realities, you know, um, and how we start to just communicate with people like directly. I and really the best thing, honestly, is the more I can get people directly reading and like signing up for my long dorky newsletters or like follow me on Instagram, that kind of thing. Like that actually is really helpful because that's direct, you know, it's not filtered through like a reporter and who's just giving like one quote or whatever. So, but that is, I mean, I think about that all the time. I'll put it that way. Thanks for the podcast, by the way.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

Like, thank you for being willing to do this. And yeah, we'll put links in the show notes to your to your newsletter so people can find up. Um, I do love writing my news, my newsletter. I love it. It's great. It's way too long.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

It's great, it's great. I love what you're saying because to me, you're highlighting that yes, you've come in with a skill set as a lawyer that not everyone that came in with you has, and that's a great asset, but it still shows that no matter where you come from in your walk to get into this position, there's always going to be something that maybe isn't your strong suit and something that maybe you are consulting with colleagues who are very comfortable, say, for like, oh, I know how to do this whole public relations thing really, really well, and collaborating. And I think, you know, I don't live in Denver, of course, but what I've loved, at least in my conversations with David and the things I've seen, is how collaborative it seems that you and your colleagues like Chantel are. And that's something that, you know, we branded, you know, certain elected officials like the squad per se, but they've come out publicly saying that that's actually not how they operate behind closed doors when it comes to legislation. So I'm very curious how, if at all, has collaboration impacted your ability to do the job that you do well, or what impact does collaboration and working with others have in this space?

SPEAKER_02 21:23

Yeah, I mean, that's like that's such a key thing in local government. You know, like you can't, you shouldn't be doing this job if you're not a collaborative person. And I think one thing that's interesting, two of the people that I am closest to on council, it's a it's a little bit about ideological alignment, but it's actually more about personalities. Um, and so that would be council members Lewis and Gonzalez Guterres, who I've mentioned. Both of them were elected officials before, and both of them are just naturally those people who they want to have a relationship with every human. They like see the good everywhere, they see potential in everybody, and they're constantly in that like building frame of mind, you know. Like when you watch either one of them, they're I admire both of them a huge amount because you can see them out in community constantly, like looking for that connection with somebody, looking for, you know, a way to bring somebody in. And so that's like a very core value, I guess. On the council, so there's 13 members, there's nobody that I don't think there are any broken relationships on the council. And almost everybody you'll see like co-sponsoring legislation together, like finding those overlaps. And that's a point of pride, I know for me, and I would say again for you know those two colleagues of mine, but really for like a lot of people on the body. So that That's nice. It can be hard. The other thing that makes that easier, though, honestly, and to your point about kind of broken federal politics, and I don't know how this works, like where you live, but we're a nonpartisan body. And I don't take that to mean like middle of the road. Like I know all of us are like registered Democrats, and I'm a progressive, you know, very left person. And I'm very proud of that. I don't water that down for anybody. But because we're not, we don't have any kind of party structure that we're beholden to or that we report up to. So there's no caucuses, there's no whips, there's no the party's not going to sort of like try to punish you in your political career if you don't do what it wants, that kind of thing. So we're just sort of free agents. And so what that means is you're dealing with 13 people who they're hearing from whoever they hear from, they're hearing from their district, they're hearing from interest groups, whatever. But at the end of the day, there's a lot of room there to like persuade and build different little clusters around different issues instead of this really entrenched, like, okay, party A, party B, you know, here's what party A does, here's what party B does. We don't have that. We have much more of the range of like what is within the Democratic Party, which is becoming like the only politically viable entity. And so it's nice. I find it really nice not to have to operate within a party. Um, and that isn't to say I'm not like a Democrat when I need to be on the national and state level. Um, but here within this body, it's it's a lot more nuanced, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

I love that. I love that because that could be its own episode just in the entrenchment of democratic politics on the party. David and I will have to table that for another another episode. But no, I I thank you for sharing that because I guess my last piece was putting a question over for David is I know that there are 13 of you, which is interesting because it's an odd number. There's also going to be friction points. You did mention everyone on your council for intents of all intents and purposes are a Democrat, but I always say that there's different shades of blue. And you know, you can go from the very progressive to the very, was it blue dog damn, very pro-business side. So how do you operate in that space? Because I would assume that those relationships can be very it doesn't take much to sever them, and it could have a ripple effect on the people that you represent. So, how do you navigate those areas where you disagree in a way that allows you all to still function as a body and productively?

SPEAKER_02 24:34

I mean, I think there's two things. I think one, always be organizing. So that's the like you don't give up on people, you look for those openings, and they can come in really unexpected ways. One of my colleagues asked a really earnest question one day, the one who would be the staunchest supporter of always more police funding, asked a question and said, a neighbor of mine was experiencing domestic violence and she didn't want me to call the police. What should I have done? And I was like, ah, there's an opening. Not the police aren't everything, you know. So that's one thing, always be organizing. Everybody has like emotional connection points, I guess. And then number two, you have to always operate with integrity in the sense of like, don't backstab people, tell people what your position is honestly ahead of time. Like, you know, do what you say you're gonna do, show up for them in their districts and their communities when they need the support. So I'm an at-large member. I try hard to do that. I can't be everywhere all the time. But if one of my district members is like, I need you at this community meeting, it's gonna be nasty. I will do everything I can to be there. So that integrity piece um matters a lot. And and then, like tending to the relationships. Councilmember Lewis will tell you she she likes to brings the joy and she does. Like she shows up and is silly and sparkly, and people bring bakeds. That stuff is important. Like we're people, you know? Yeah, she really is. I give her a ton of credit for that because she also is like a black core woman. Like she doesn't always get that return to her in kind, but she just that's how she's gonna show up. And she refuses to let anyone take that from her. So I've learned a lot from her in that way. And I think the, yeah, like ultimately, these are 12 other people. It's important to me to have a relationship with every one of them. At the end of the day, like there would be things they could do that would break that. It would have to be something that I thought was really like a betrayal, you know, of the people in Denver. There would be a time that that could happen. But up until that point, I'm really like intent on maintaining those relationships with those other human beings.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

I love that. And you just made me think of this because you were talking, and I was like, first of all, thank you again, Councilwoman Chantea Lewis, for coming on. Let's we need to go ahead and complete the trio because yes, we'll get Gonzalez Gutierrez on here too. We'll have a whole episode with everyone. But you said something that really stuck out to me. And I'm not sure if you're aware. David and I had a running joke in the beginning of the podcast about how I feel like Denver should be the new DC because of all the work you're doing. And I would say this kind of harkens back to the media question, but we always hear about cities where progressive politics have failed, whether it be, you know, Minneapolis's, uh New York, et cetera, where they want to highlight that. So I'm very curious. I think that Denver has is doing some of the most incredible initiatives, some of the most, and not just doing them, but finding success in them. I mean, we just heard all the list of things that you're doing, so much of which the American people would support. So I am curious why isn't Denver plasted everywhere on the news as a beacon of progressive politics and action? Because you're not a small city. It's a very, very substantial size city, especially, you know, in context on the West Coast. So it's like, what is stopping you all from getting out there as that light?

SPEAKER_02 27:27

Man, okay. So, first of all, I've had the opportunity to meet a lot of local elected officials from those bigger cities that you would think of as more like innately progressive. So, you know, people who are on council in New York City, in Philly, in Chicago. And I do think that we if you look at like our code of city ordinances, we have a ton of room. Like there's a lot that we still need to do. And there is a lot of like incrementalism and kind of like timidity. And so we're moving things forward, but there's there's like a really long list of stuff that I'm like, a city has done this. We need to do this too, you know. So I don't know. There's also the like yes, yeah, but but I mean, you're right that our electorate is right there. Like we just our electorate just voted to um allow our city employees to unionize, which was something that the three of us triple S, there, um, put on the ballot. We got it through council again with 13 votes. We dragged the mayor along, kicking and screaming, and ultimately got him to be neutral on it. So people in the city, and everybody said it's failed twice before on the ballot in Denver. So it's been sent to the ballot twice, and the voters of Denver in I think the 90s was last time, refused to allow our municipal workers to um unionize. They voted it down. This time 65% support. Um yeah, and so so our voters are there, and that's again like this is this history of Denver, right? That I talk about that, like people don't think of us as this like civil rights beacon. And I swear, I really think we are. I used to have a joke when I moved here where we would be like, oh, this is like we watched a play, and here's the review of the play. The play was in Denver. It was amazing. Like we kind of have a complex. So yeah, I don't know. The policy is in Denver, I don't know. We we grew a lot in a short period of time. Like the city grew both like numerically and um changed a lot politically. So I don't know, it feels a little bit like we don't have the old machine politics. We haven't been a very blue city for like a really long time. We just have our own, like we're kind of this self-contained little like, you know, city on the plains that has changed a lot in in like a very grassroots-driven kind of way. I don't know. I don't know if that answers your question. I wonder about it.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

You're kind of like the wakanda of park progressive politics, just hidden away from the rest of the world.

SPEAKER_02 29:23

When are you moving here? When are you coming? Right.

SPEAKER_01 29:25

Listen, I definitely I have friends that have moved there from like my time in college and everyone and couldn't, and then David, I'm always like, my life would just be easier if I just went there. But I also feel an allegiance to where I'm at to transition the shade of blue from one that's a one way to another.

SPEAKER_02 29:44

I worry that it's a little thin in Denver too, because I like I don't know, we we do have a lot of stuff we need to work out because, for example, um, like the black population of Denver and the Latino population of Denver are shrinking because people are being priced out. Really? So it's gentrifying here that you know, like we have, you know, we have our shit. It's not like it's not utopia, but it does feel like the local government is um like accessible to those ideas and like people can really like create a groundswell and create a change. That's where I think of like the the unionization ballot initiative, for example. So it's open. There's possibility here.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

Yeah. Got one last question for you, councilwoman. I talk a lot about it's and it's kind of a a shift to more like personal. I talk a lot about the little boy from Nebraska, little David from Nebraska. And I think back and I was like, I have always been an activist. I have always pushed causes from childhood on. And so I'm curious what little Sarah from Wyoming was like, and if you were all if you've always been an activist, if you've always had a strong sense of justice, and like where your sense of sense of justice comes from.

SPEAKER_02 30:59

That's such a good question. I don't know, let's call my therapist. No. But I just I just saw mine yesterday. There you go. That's why it's on your mind. You're working it out here on the show with me. So yeah, I mean, first of all, I really relate to that because I think that feeling, I think a lot of people who grow up in rural places, those places tend to be like narrow and oppressive, like in my experience. And that's for a lot of different people, right? I was like a, I don't know, like a tiny nerd, I guess. And my I grew up across the street from the public library now, go over there and hide and like read the books and stuff. Yeah, and whatever we could talk about that a lot. And and it was um, I had friends that were queer and closeted. I saw a lot of like it's just a harsh place. The methamphetamine epidemic hit when I was in like junior high high school. So I'm guessing like some similarities. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think that just gives you um a feeling of like gratitude when you come to somewhere that is more open and more like affirming and more it does allow people to be more of who they are. Like I remember getting to um just cities. Like I finally managed to like live in New York. I was a teenager and I was like, oh my God, like, you know, because it just there is such a such a bigger range of how you're allowed to be. And so that's important to me. And I worry, honestly, that in Denver, this has been that place. Like a lot of the um queer kids I know or like first first generation immigrant kids have come from all these surrounding rural places, including my hometown, to Denver because it's the nearest like big city. So it's a place you can kind of like make a go of it or whatever. And the more we, the more the prices rise, the less that's possible. Um, the less you can literally like get out of your high school and and get here and like have a different kind of life. And so that like, I don't know, the immediacy of that, like we need to keep being that kind of beacon. I mean, people came up here from the Jim Crow South similarly, right? Like, so we got to keep that and we don't need to be, we don't need to become sort of entrenched and exclusive. And that's what I worry about with our prices right now.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

I agree. How can people get involved in the movement that you're creating?

SPEAKER_02 32:47

Okay, so my office has been creating a community asset list. You are on it. Yeah, so thanks. Yeah, we decided kind of in response to the election. I mean, I I've always thought this, but now it feels really urgent that like the key thing is we need people to know each other, we need people to know their neighbors, and we need everybody to kind of like bring somebody along and like know who they're looking out for and taking care of. And you know, and so we're we have lots of ideas. But the I will say this if someone is listening and they live in Denver, please just literally send us an email. Tell us who you are, introduce yourself, tell us what you're interested in, what you care about, anything like that, where you live. So the email is parityp-a-r-a-dy at large. So a t l a r g e at symbol denvercov.org. Love a government email address. You can also find it completely.

SPEAKER_00 33:35

We'll put a link in the show notes. Yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 33:37

Thank you for that. Um, but literally, like send us an email. We're, you know, we um we hear from we hear from people all the time. And I have four amazing people that work in this office. So a city council member is actually five people in a trench coat. Um they're great. Um, and so we are able to like respond to that kind of thing, and we're building out our sense of like who is interested in coming and getting presentations from us about how to engage with city government. Jessica Zender in my office will do that presentation to anybody, you know, your bowling club, she'll come, she'll talk to you. What's a bowling club?

SPEAKER_00 34:02

I just um and out recently that evidently bowling as a sport is increasing, but clubs are decreasing. So this is more why we need a community. This is why we need community, yes.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

So as a fan of bowling, he is correct.

SPEAKER_02 34:16

Lord, that's so sad. Um, but that's true across the board. Like a lot of our institutions are crumbling a little bit. And then we have this idea that we're gonna um we're working on creating a little toolkit that we're gonna call build your block or build your building, except that maybe needs tweaking, where it's like literally telling you, okay, here's something you can print out, put it on your neighbor's doors, introduce yourself to them, give them your cell phone number and say, like, give me your number back, like so you can find out who lives alone, who might be worried about. Like, like in the pandemic, I got really worried about some of my elderly neighbor neighbors, you know, who has a dog, who has small kids, just like get to know your immediate people because many of us don't.

SPEAKER_01 34:47

Be YOB, build your own building. I love it.

SPEAKER_02 34:50

And that stops people from calling 911 quite so easily. If so and so is partying and you know so-and-so, maybe you won't actually dial that number and you'll just like walk over there. That has happened a little bit on my block, which I like. And then also when we start facing more of these kinds of like natural disasters or you know, just scary kinds of instability, you just gotta know your people immediately around you, right? Like and take care of each other. That's so email us, we'll put you on our community asset list because you are a community asset, whoever you are. And then we'll we'll be talking to people a lot about some of these ideas, including um getting to know your people that are right around you.

SPEAKER_00 35:21

Yeah. Well, yes. Well, our largest listener base here is in Denver. We have had listeners in 57 countries, which is kind of mind-blowing. Yeah. Very mind blowing. So third of all the countries. Right. I know, right? So yeah. So we're really proud of the reach, and we're really proud of the the work and the reach that you you have done, councilwoman um Sarah Parity. So thank you for joining us. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, you can rate it five stars on the platform where you listen. Get in touch with us at call me limbo pod on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and threads. Call me limbo pod at gmail.com. Become a Patreon member. Patreon.com slash call me limbo pod. One-time contributions on Venmo at call me limbo pod. We appreciate your support. Yeah, and yeah, that's yeah. And so seriously, councilwoman, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 36:11

You guys are this was super cool. That's pretty good. Super glad.

SPEAKER_01 36:14

Can't wait to have you back again. And remember everyone out there, when they go low, we create legislative change at the local level. So call me limbo.

SPEAKER_00 36:24

Bye.