When I asked a friend to the Taste of Ethiopia festival this summer in Aurora, she was nervous. That’s what watching Fox News will do — scare a person away from the world’s best coffee.
We encountered nary a gang member and instead enjoyed the hospitality of the city’s Ethiopian community. On the way home, I introduced her to my food utopia, the grocery store H-Mart, again without incident.
Aurora has more than 200 restaurants serving food from around the globe and hosts several fantastic festivals. It truly is the World in a City. I worked in the city for years and ate well. Equally important, I never once feared for my safety.
Aurora’s affable Mayor Mike Coffman, who moved to the city when he was a kid, is a strong and consistent advocate for his city and its unique, international flavor. Too bad that can’t be said of all the city’s elected representatives. One city councilwoman in particular, Danielle Jurinsky, has lately generated much negative press for the city and contributed to the false narrative spread by former President Donald Trump.
Jurinsky continues to say that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua has taken over several Aurora apartment complexes. Trump echoes these claims, most recently declaring the gang is “unleashing a violent killing spree all over America, especially in Aurora, Colorado.” He promised to liberate the “conquered” city.
At a recent town hall, Coffman corrected the record. “There was a probable but there was a law enforcement response to that problem.” Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain said, “This city is not overrun by TDA. This city is not controlled by TDA. I’m going to stand up in front you right now and say that is an incredibly false narrative. It is a narrative that is not validated or back up by any statistics, any data, any information.”
Records show that nine gang members were charged with around a dozen criminal incidents over 10 months including shootings, assaults, thefts, and menacing people with guns. While these are serious crimes, Aurora, a city of 400,000 people, is not living under gang rule.
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More negative press ensued after the Aurora Sentinel obtained Jurinsky’s f-bomb-laden texts to conservative colleagues over a proposal to reinstate an employee tax Jurinsky had worked to rescind. “And I hear you’re a co sponsor, [Councilwoman Françoise Bergan]. You can definitely go (expletive) yourself! You’ve never owned a business or a (expletive) thing in your life you pretentious (expletive)!” reads one such text. The other texts are similarly rated R for language.
Jurinsky’s colorful umbrage is apparently not unusual. It was successful in getting the measure tabled. Bullying colleagues might work but it doesn’t garner goodwill or positive press exposure for the councilwoman or the council itself.
Of the state’s largest cities, Aurora alone is headed by a Republican mayor and council majority. Overall they have governed well, bringing investment into the city, pioneering a work first-based approach to homelessness, and tackling the issues endemic to any large city such as crime and traffic. Bad press for unstatesmanlike behavior by an elected official or fear-mongering over crime by the same casts a shadow over the good work of the elected officials and the city they represent. Aurorans deserve better.
Krista L. Kafer is a weekly Denver Post columnist. Follow her on Twitter: @kristakafer.
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