Even as John Hickenlooper was heading to the Capitol the day after the election to discuss his plans for the state, city employees were reading this e-mail from the governor-elect: "Many of you have already asked what happens now. As excited as I am for my new role, we want to honor to the best of my abilities our commitment to you and all Denver residents by staying on as Mayor until the Inauguration at the Capitol on January 11."In the Denver Post yesterday, former city councilwoman Susan Barnes-Gelt chided Hickenlooper for not leaving his Denver office sooner -- but she got the math wrong, which threw off her argument.
In fact, Hickenlooper did the city a favor by not resigning last January in order to run for governor, and he's doing the city a favor by staying at the mayor's office until next January. As he noted when he first decided to run, it's almost as though the people who wrote Denver's city charter anticipated Denver's mayor moving across the street and up the hill to the governor's office.
Under city charter, if the Denver mayor resigns more than 120 days from the next regular election -- which is May 3, 2011 -- the city must hold a special election to fill the empty office. And not only is a special election costly (estimates run about a half-million), but it has very different rules from a regular election, when a mayoral candidate must win by a majority of the vote or go to a run-off between the top two vote-getters (the usual situation). – More -
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