A scorecard for Hickenlooper's promises

Daniel Chacon of the Rocky Mountain News offers a rare and balanced profile of Denver's most overcovered campaign: that of Mayor John Hickenlooper. The article entitled Hickenlooper: Success, unfinished business is excerpted below:

The mayor, who faces nominal opposition in his re-election bid Tuesday, has made myriad commitments in the last four years. For the most part, he's done what he set out to do, but other promises still need more work...

In other big cities, crime is up. But not in Denver, which saw a 10 percent drop in 2006 after the city invested $22 million in safety-related technology and hired a consultant who believes — in a nutshell — that fixing "Broken Windows" and other signs of lawlessness leads to safer neighborhoods...

He's visited nearly every public school, telling wide-eyed Denver children that college translates into $1 million more in earnings over the course of their lifetimes.

The city is also going "green," encouraging energy conservation and recycling, and the mayor, a geologist, is leading the way by driving a hybrid Ford.

His 10-year plan to end homelessness has helped hundreds of people find shelter and services...

However, several of the mayor's initiatives haven't been so successful. Some of his highly-publicized promises to reform city government have yet to be realized...

Andrew Wallach, a senior aide to each of Denver's past three mayors, including Hickenlooper, said Hickenlooper hasn't fulfilled a promise to find ways to track the performance of city agencies...

Wallach ran the office of accountability and reform for Hickenlooper for eight months. He says the mayor backed off major reform after running into opposition from the bureaucracy...

Hickenlooper promised that Blueprint Denver, the city's land-use and transportation plan, would be a guiding vision in the preservation and revitalization of the city's neighborhoods. But some elected officials and residents say the plan offers no incentives for investment in "areas of change" and that development in "areas of stability" is ruining neighborhood character...

Hickenlooper advocates transparency in government, but he refused to identify the person who offered to donate $150,000 to support gang prosecutions...

Parents of former Cole Middle School students say the mayor promised "full college tuition" to every 2003-04 Cole student who graduated from high school. But the mayor says he promised that money wouldn't be a barrier for them to attend college, and the city would help cover the "gap" between tuition and other scholarships and financial aid won by the student.