Profile: Lynn Smith (CD8)

Several candidates for the District 8 City Council seat were profiled in the March 2007 edition of Life On Capitol Hill.

Lynn Smith's candidacy was described as follows:

Lynn Smith, who has owned and run Kate's on 35th for 30 years, formerly coordinated special projects for the city. When she worked for the city she was "connected to the authority and resources of the administration."

As a private citizen she has come to realize that accessing the services citizens are entitled to "requires the kind of time, focus and political connections most residents don't. have (since) such a system is inherently ineffective and inherently unfair."

If elected, she plans on committing full-time energy and focus to initiating and developing such major projects as: ombudsman offices for historic preservation and neighborhood senior services; express lanes in regulatory agencies; revitalization grants for neighborhood-commercial districts; and prototype xeriscape and median strips designed by Denver Botanic Gardens with trained youth installing and maintaining them.

Smith intends to give the neighborhoods north of Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. more help than at present since they are currently areas with "residents for whom access to even basic services is limited," people who are "long overdue for a champion on City Council."

Specific projects targeted in those neighborhoods could include full-service grocery and general (such as Walgreens) stores; pedestrian pathways; and careful monitoring of zoning laws and Public Works' priorities "to ensure that neighborhoods and individual rights are respectfully and equitably protected."