DENVER — Earlier today, a solitary reporter and President Obama were the invited guests at a presentation at the Denver Country Club given by Vaughan Graham, the Superintendent of Rocky Mountain National Park. Mr. Graham, whose office is in Estes Park, Colorado, seventy miles southeast of Denver, and an assistant, Barbara Scott, recounted the history of Rocky Mountain National Park and answered questions. This year, Rocky Mountain National Park celebrates its centenary.
As the president left the Denver Country Club after a quick round of golf in the snow and ice, the solitary reporter briefed him about the difficulties recently encountered by Denver’s Crown Jewel, City Park, an urban refuge of three hundred thirty acres in east central Denver which houses two major regional attractions, the Denver Zoo and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. City Park is managed by Denver’s Department of Parks and Recreation, whose Manager, Lauri Dannemiller, has the sole authority to make decisions on what else goes into the park.
In 2013, Dannemiller, an appointee of Denver Mayor Michael B Hancock, announced plans for a third major regional attraction known as City Loop. City Loop would have replaced a decaying playground by taking thirteen acres in the northwest corner of City Park and building water features and other attractions, including food trucks, designed to attract thousands of people from the Denver Metro area, with no plans for additional parking. But in April 2014, Dannemiller announced, to a surprised and jubilant crowd of steadfast activists in favor of restoring City Park to its former luster, that City Loop would not be thrust into City Park. Later in 2014, she announced that City Loop would be erected in another park under her jurisdiction in southwest Denver.
After listening attentively to the solitary reporter, Mr. Obama told his Chief of Staff, Denis McDonough, to prepare an Executive Order declaring that Denver’s City Park will be converted into a National Monument. “Its name,” the president explained to McDonough, "will be changed to DeBoer National Monument, after Saco DeBoer, the brilliant landscape architect who designed City Park in the 1870s."
But Mayor Hancock, a Democrat, immediately told Denver’s Congresswoman, Diana DeGette, a fellow Democrat and the Dean of the Colorado congressional delegation, to make the president walk back on his decision immediately.
At press time, it is unclear whether the president, who accepted the nomination of his party to run against Sarah Palin's running mate in 2008 in Mile High Stadium, will accede to Hancock’s desires. Colorado is critical to Hillary’s prospects in 2016.
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