Photo: Mayor Mike Johnston | By John Wenzel, The Denver Post | Denver Mayor Mike Johnston has a simple answer for why he attended Yale, why he named his first-born son after a playwright, and why he spends each morning and night reading Pulitzer Prize-winning books like Colson Whitehead’s “The Nickel Boys.”
“I’m an arts nerd at heart,” said the 49-year-old Democrat, who hurried into his office recently, a few minutes late for an interview after dropping his daughter off at school. “I was very active in theater a lot of my early life. My dad owned an art gallery, and I ran an arts school as a principal” — the Mapleton Expeditionary School of the Arts in Thornton.
“It’s been a fundamental part of shaping my life.”
But more than six months into his new administration, Johnston hasn’t shown his artistic leanings. In fact, he’s still in the thick of his transition, having taken office in June, and is naming department heads, negotiating budgets, and working to fulfill a promise to take 1,000 unhoused people off the streets. That’s in addition to tackling a dramatic and growing migrant crisis in the city, wrestling with a hollowed-out urban core, and negotiating with city council members.
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Read the full descriptive, informative article here:
https://www.denverpost.com/2024/01/09/mayor-mike-johnston-denver-arts-venues-budget-plans/
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January 11, 2024| Music-Related Business| Barb Dye