Denver civil authority rival Jamie Giellis discharged a campaign video over the long holiday weekend that aimed to clarify her position on the city’s urban encampment ban, which she long has aforementioned she wants to repeal.
On that, it failing — creating the clear appearance of a flip-flop with her apparently straightforward comment: “As city manager, I cannot and will not repeal the urban encampment ban.”
Media questions and confusion caused by the new video, which was posted atop her web site Sunday, prompted her campaign to put out a statement Monday insistence that Giellis hadn’t changed her support for repealing the encampment ban. But interpreter Meghan Dougherty aforementioned Giellis would do so only after “we have a smart policy in place to address condition in a compassionate way.”
So, what gives?
First, there are linguistics and poorly chosen words, according to her campaign — which aforementioned Giellis was trying to explain that the city manager can’t unilaterally change city ordinance without the City Council’s support. She’s made that point more clearly in other settings recently.
“She will, however, make implementing new policy around condition a priority,” Dougherty aforementioned. “And she’ll work with City Council to do that.”
But the flub besides is the latest evidence of a shift in emphasis by Giellis on how she would approach condition since the May 7 election vaulted her into a June 4 runoff with city manager Michael Hancock.
Giellis has affected away from declaring she’d repeal the encampment ban — an idea that proved unpopular with Denver voters when more than 80 percentage rejected Initiative 300 in the recent election. That measure would have rescinded the 2012 ban and granted homeless people more rights to occupy public property.
Instead, Giellis has focused on what she’d do instead, including providing more housing options and employment for the homeless piece ending the city’s revenant sweeps of encampments, which have occurred under some other city ordinance.
Hancock’s campaign suspect Giellis on Monday of “trying to erase her antecedently held public stance on an issue that is critical to Denver’s public health and safety.” Hancock antecedently has criticized Giellis for opposing I-300, which she aforementioned would have gone too far, piece besides career for a encampment ban repeal.
“This is yet some other example of why Jamie Giellis is not ready to lead on issues that are important to our residents and neighborhoods,” Hancock interpreter April Valdez Villa aforementioned in a statement. “It’s exhausting to keep up with her mistakes, excuses and distractions.”
Despite Giellis’ campaign expression that she had not changed her position, her web site still featured the video Monday night.
Dougherty aforementioned recently expanded homeless policy plans on Giellis’ web site reflect a more elaborate strategy formed in consultation with former candidates Lisa Calderon and Penfield Tate, who supported Giellis after the May 7 election.
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Giellis’ web site once clearly indicated a plan to end the encampment ban, but the updated plans now say only that she would “replace” the encampment ban with “tools that work.”
In the new video, Giellis followed her comment that she “cannot and will not repeal” the ban by expression she would be “focused on how we work together with our business community, with our neighborhoods, with our City Council, to solve this complex problem.” And she criticized Hancock for a recent audit finding that the city lacks a “cohesive overall strategy” on condition.