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resources, and then we reinvented ourselves over and over with new ideas, new industries, new innovations; and at each stage big dreams matched with hard work and shared sacrifice led to historic success. Now Denver is ready for a new dream.
Our Dream of Denver is when you land at your lowest, without a job or a place to stay, shackled by addiction or struggling with mental illness, we will not judge you or abandon you, and we will not give up on you. We will get you a home, we will get you help, we will get you healed.
Our Dream of Denver is a city that belongs to all of us, so if you serve this this city, as a nurse or a teacher or a waitress or a bus boy or a bus driver, you can afford to live in this city and raise a family here.
Our Dream of Denver is a city where you feel safe in every part of our city, so you can send your kids out to play in any neighborhood at any time of day and not once worry about their safety.
Our Dream of Denver is refusing to abandon our city center, but promising to reimagine it, as centers of commerce and culture, art and music, where all of us can live and work and play. To build industries that manifest the creativity of our diverse entrepreneurs, that showcase what makes us different and what makes us Denver, in spaces where all of us feel seen and safe and celebrated.
Our Dream of Denver is that the things we build support the people that built them; houses that house those who built them; hospitals that serve those who serve us; and roadways that carry home the hands that paved them. Our dream is a city that asks not only what we are building, but who we are building it for, mindful always of how we build a city that serves those who have been left out of the cities successes for far too long.
That is our Dream of Denver.
So today, we dedicate ourselves to two essential American ideas: every problem we face is solvable, and we are the ones to solve them.
Those of us on this stage swore an oath today, but for us to succeed, every Denverite must take their own oath, an oath to dream, serve, and deliver.
To dream a Denver bold enough to include all of us, to serve our city above ourselves, to march on shoulder to shoulder, undeterred by failure, until we deliver results.
That is our oath.
Democracy is the simplest belief to explain, and the hardest one to practice. At its essence, Democracy is an act of love. Our instinct as people is to reserve love for those closest to us, and reserve suspicion for everyone else. But the essence of democracy is that it calls on our ability to do something that feels unnatural — to love those who are different than us, to believe in them, to work with them, to sacrifice for them, to deliver for them.
That is our Dream of Denver, that is our promise to our people, that is our pledge to each other.
That is how we put our arms around those stuck in a cycle of hurt, and pull this city back into a cycle of hope. It is how we dream, serve and deliver Denver as America’s best city.
Now let’s get to work!.