Finishing the Model City Program in Denver: Sources of Failures, the City Development Administration, and the Westside Street Academy: 1970-1974 While Wilder can assert with personal impunity the total worthlessness of the CDA and the Denver Model City Program because he was not personally responsible for the development and administration of either, Mayor McNichols does not enjoy such a lack of direet responsibility... Wilder's view is correct that the Denver program was too expensive and wasteful... [i]f..the Program was “‘confused,”...iff..the CDA was an incompetent “massive bureaucracy, "...[i]f the CDA was totally devoid of value to the City after the investment of more than $4 million on non-programmatic activities over five years...Who was in charge all the while? Wilder's personal... view of Denver's Model Cities experience, paints a picture of a City administration under Mayor MeNichols which is notably unflattering.’ — Andrew A. Vogt, Deputy Director of the City Development Administration (CDA), Feb. 14, 1975 " Denver Publie Library Westem History Collection, The William McNichols Papers, WH 1015, Box 107, Range D3B, Section 3, Shelf 6, FF 10, The Denver Model City Program: An Assessment of Long Term Institutional Impact (Report), 50.Denver’s Model City Program terminated December 31, 1974. The Model City Program (MCP) in Denver (1966-1974), as one of the many federal urban development and renewal aid grant programs, contained copious similarities to the programs of other cities. However, the control exerted by the administration of William H. McNichols, Jr., made Denver's Model City Program (MCP) distinct from any other federal aid grant program before or after. Both the City Development Administration (CDA) and the Westside Street Academy (WSA), created by Denver's MCP (Model City Program), exhibited the major failures of the DMCP (Denver Model City Program) under the MeNichols Administration. The CDA (City Development Administration) to a significant degree, and the WSA (Westside Street Academy) to a lesser extent, displayed a familiar pattem of the major failures in the DMCP (Denver Model City Program). Thus, the failures of both illustrated the pattern of failures running through Denver's MCP under the MeNichols Administration, Six overlapping categories comprised the major failures of Denver's MCP. The first category of failures involved inherent flaws or contradictory goals of both program projects and agencies. The second category involved the mitigation of citizen participation in MCP areas. The strain and confusion resulting from changes in administrative officials and objectives defined the next category of problems. Additionally, discrepancies between the programs’ plans and actions, or a divergence between plan and reality, fashioned the fourth of these categories. Furthermore, non-congruency between the overall federal objectives and the local administrative ‘management exhibited yet another problem category. The final category of failures, caused mostly by the eventual neglect and abandonment of long-term commitment toward Denver's MCP, consisted of the inability to preserve numerous MCPs with lasting significance and impact, following the end of federal funding. These six combined categories, exhibitedinfrastructures, businesses, and education, the metropolises could defeat major problems associated with urban life. ‘The DCMDA of 1966 created the MCP. This differed in important ways from previous federal programs. This federal program encouraged the cities, more than ever before, to design and implement the local action themselves to deal with local problems, but still within the federal guidelines determined by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.‘ By 1970 however, national direction impeding local action problematically continued. Model Cities: A ‘Step Toward the New Federalism — a 1970 Report of the President’s Task Force on Model Cities ~ found that overregulation by the federal government, “tended to prevent the [MCP] from realizing its full potential.”* Hence, a slight shift took place in the federal language of organizational goals for MCP after 1970. ‘The MCP originated with the purpose of restructuring and reformatting the implementation of federal programs, to better serve the same kinds of programmatic goals and objectives of its predecessor federal programs, through the local city administrations. Prior to the MCP, the federal government retained direct control over the use of funds. This case continued at the beginning of the MCP. The MCP altered later on however, during the change in presidency from Lyndon B. Johnson to Richard M. Nixon, so the mayor of the model city consolidated the control and power to exercise funding. The mayor gained power over delegation and funding, once granted through successful yearly applications, called comprehensive city demonstration plans (CCDP), which the federal government required cities to submit in order to receive funding for the MCPs. Hence the MCP, much more so than prior urban federal aid programs, demonstrated a pronounced shift in the delegation of power for funding the planning and “Thid.,2 * Thid,,3. Vogt’s Assessment included frequent citations and quotes from sources, and this is but one such instance.sources, which could continue on “permanently applied” with other DMCPs into “the normal operations of the cities” following its conclusion.* Denver's MCP created numerous programs and agencies including the City Development Administration (CDA) and the Westside Street Academy (WSA). “Clearly,” stated CDA Deputy Director Vogt, in his 1975 report referencing the DMCP, “the expenditure of $5,766,000 annually for four years produced a variety of services of varying degrees of efficiency and worth.” ‘The CDA (City Development Administration) originated with the express purpose to ‘manage the formulation, implementation, and continuation of programs for urban development, especially through federal grants well after the end of the MCP. Meanwhile, the WSA originated as an experiment in alternative education designed to rehabilitate “troubled” students back into normal public schools. Again, the failures of both the CDA and the WSA illustrated the failures running through the MCP in Denver. The first category of failures found in the MCP involved inherent flaws, and contradictory, or self-defeating, goals of the programs and agencies. The MCP in Denver left its primary goal, the development of permanent management processes for urban development projects funded from federal sources, assimilated into city operations beyond the terms and limits of the MCP, largely unsatisfied. Understanding such assertions properly requires knowledge of how the MCP in Denver ended, as well as knowledge about the management and administration, of the program. Empathizing with the frustrations of the bureaucracy helps in understanding the failures of the MCP in Denver. Andrew Vogt, the Deputy Director of the CDA, directly under the control of CDA Executive Director Louis R. LaPerriere and Mayor MeNichols, during and following the * Tid, Tid, 2Vogt correctly denounced the city administration for not fulfilling a primary mandate of the MCP. Vogt foremost “considered” the MCP a “management process” “designed to bring about significant institutional changes” to the way “local government allocated its resources.” Hence an important aspect of the MCP constituted a “management process” both developed and integrated into permanent city operations. Vogt felt Denver’s administration took money from the MCP. Yet instead of integrating the programs developed under the MCP, into regular city operations, when the MCP’s federal funding ended, such that the city took on responsibility for keeping the programs going, financially and otherwise, the McNichols Administration merely terminated the various programs. In the cover letter brief to Vogt’s report, he explained how the key factor for determining the long-term institutional impact of the venture, depended entirely upon the preservation of the MCPs beyond the term limits of the MCP’s federal funding grant, He “concluded” $25 million dollars invested by the HUD in the DMCP, among other things, “had a very small permanent impact on Denver's resource allocation processes.” The CDA’s “limited” “significance” amounted to “the administration of activities funded through” the federal MCP grant, “When the grant funds ended” the administration “dismantled” the CDA, and “little” “evidence of Model Cities processes remained.””? ‘Vogt also said the actions of city officials responsible for ensuring preservation of gains from DMCPs left much to be desired. No reasonably adequate preservation, permanently integrated into city processes or operations, of DMCPs followed the end of the federal MCP funding. This disappointing outcome begs asking why it happened. Especially when people took the time, among other things, to make building a better permanent local city implementation and " Denver Public Library Western History Collection, The William MeNichols Papers, Box 107, Range D3B, Section 3, Shelf 6, FF 10, The Denver MCP: An Assessment of Long Term Institutional Impact (Report), Cover Letter Page Two,10 students as possible toward an eventual career. Alternative education capitalized on appealing to students dissatisfied with normal public schooling, by directing itself especially toward those the current public system did not want to, or could not utilize, Yet, the WSA did not fit the moulds of these other MCP alternative education projects, as these vocational and night schools heavily emphasized careers, not rehabilitation of dysfunctional youth into a system already proven to fail them. This inherent flaw and contradiction within the project provided one of many reasons why the WSA did not achieve the permanency of other education projects initiated by the MCP. ‘The WSA signified pethaps the first time Denver legitimately acknowledged the value of taking children, whom the public school system failed, and provided them with an alternative ‘means to acquire the skills, socially and academically, to allow rehabilitation back into the public education system by high school (earlier if possible). Hopefully this strategy enabled students to become productive members of society. Again, the WSA served nearly the same purpose as the night and weekend colleges, and vocational schools: alternative education. The crucial difference of the WSA’s objectives rested in, rather than preparing its students directly for a future career in the workforce, it prepared “troubled” students for getting back into the very public schools troubling them to begin with, and made them un-troubled in the process, This rather ambitious project automatically made visible some inherent contradictions, The people involved in the WSA, however, determined to do whatever they could to help out, committed themselves wholeheartedly to the task of taking students who did not fit the public school mould, and attempted to shape them into students who could,WSA and CDA shared a startling endemic connection in terms of how these programs terminated. ‘The WSA’s experience with funding, precursors the eventual experience of the CDA. Indeed, the WSA and CDA shared the problem of not having city financial investment, and by attribution, meaningful political investment either. Vogt remarked sadly in the cover letter of his submitted report. “The purpose and function of the [CDA] remained inextricably tied to the City’s receipt and expenditure of Model City grant funds. When the grant funds ended, the agency...dismantled.”"” Evidently the WSA and CDA remained tied to MCP federal funding. These projects died out, albeit for different reasons. Yet the WSA and CDA both died off, once the MCP no longer funded the venture, Unable to keep alive, by securing local investment in any feasible monetary terms, both died off from similar failures, though at separate times. Evaluating the achievement of relative degrees of success in virtually all the MCP projects required the CDA to develop an evaluation division. DMCP management used systems of evaluations for education programs, and, as with almost all of DMCPs, this is how the bureaucracy and administration kept tabs on suet es and failures of each program. Opposition, frequently criticized MCP projects, unable to match plan to reality, as evidence of a program's wastefulness or negligence. In the instance of the WSA, their evaluators from the CDA failed to even record the number of students attending in the first year, despite it being one of their most important evaluating criteria! In the final performance evaluation findings, included in the appendix of Vogt’s report, with all other MCPs's final evaluations, under number of persons served " Ibid., Cover Letter Page Two.4 labeled as difficult to teach, but also confionted numerous other challenges. Most notably this included terrible failures, oftentimes completely beyond the faculty's control, revealing an almost frighteningly hilarious series of exploits. In one instance, plans required qualified (college degree) Spanish teachers, ideally from the same MNAs the WSA served (highly unlikely), from a teacher shortage with none such available. Yet the WSA faculty still found itself downgraded again and again, for not having a qualified Spanish teacher.” In another instance, the teachers needed to fulfill a physical ‘education requirement, but the rented buildings used as the WSA facilities, frequently did not have access to a gymnasium or a nearby park. Despite its repeated requests for help in addressing this problem, the WSA yet again found itself downgraded by the evaluation division of the CDA, this time for repeatedly not adequately fulfilling the physical education requirements.”? The faculty also invested outside time and energy into ridiculous concerns. These ridiculous concerns included such occurrences as settling reimbursements for paid janitorial services never rendered to the school, or getting the landlords to take care of the pests and rats infesting the rented property leased by the WSA to conduct schooling.” Before long the WSA dismantled, despite valiant and sincere efforts from many of the students and WSA staff, The students sent back to whatever school they originated, if not already expelled, suspended, or outcast. Meanwhile the WSA teachers and aides from the MNAs went unemployed, or, if lucky, absorbed into DPS (Denver Public Schools). While inherent flaws and contradictory goals of the projects and agencies involved in the MCP constituted the first category of failures, the next category involved the problem of © Denver Public Library Western History Collection. Denver Model City Program Records, Series 14: Education, Box 209 Westside Street Academy. » Ibid, * Ibid,the second action year of the CCDP, lasting for an extension of 14 months, and concluding on December 31, 1970. The elections of representatives from MNAs for input on Denver’s MCP, pointed toward further complications to the objective of mitigating citizen participation, RPDI disbanded, The DMCP now developed the idea, in unison with the Denver Election Commission, to hold elections for representatives of the MNAs concurrently, at the same polling places scheduled for regular municipal elections, on May 4, 1971. Then, only a few days before, the Election ‘Commission reversed this decision, determining the MCP MNA elections must be held in separate locations. ‘A debacle ensued with the May 1971 elections for MCP representatives of MNA, attempting to fulfill the necessary resident citizen participation mandated by the HUD.”’ As Deputy Director Andrew Vogt later noted, this abrupt change in polling locations caused predictable confusion, “and undoubtedly. ..a contributing factor to the disappointingly small participation of only about 2,000 voters in an MNA which contained some 125,000 citizens of all ages. To this day, many of the participants in the election fiasco of 1971 harbor suspicions...””* 100 resident MNA representatives to twenty geographically oriented committees of ten MNA districts, by this way of suspect election, demonstrated failures of trying to properly mitigate citizen participation in Denver’s MCP. A dizzying structure of committees existed in the MCP processes involving MNA resident participation. Chairmen selected by and from each of the ten committees" ten MNA programs’ (such as housing, education, health) representatives, and the MNA’s distriet’s resident representatives, became members of the Program Policy Advisory Board (PPAB). The PPAB ” Ipid,, 15-17 and 12-13, * Tid, 12-13,18 cexperience...wasted” because their programs provided “valuable lessons about how to, and...how not to, administer funds, get citizen input and set priorities.”*° The termination of the DMCPs did not sit well with its staff because they found themselves unfaitly discontinued. Chaotic disorder caused by the federal government, contributed to the failure of strain and confusion resulting from changes in administrative officials and objectives. The Watergate Scandal removed President Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew from office, leaving the Speaker of the House, Gerald R. Ford president. Ford adopted the policies of his predecessor in so much as they could be upheld, for the federal block grant program and the new federalism formulated by Nixon's administration, went ahead as planned with minor alterations, following, Congress’s enactment of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974.2! Nixon's. plans to freeze MCP funding, set for midway through the final year of the MCP, applying pressure on Congress to approve his administration's federal block grant system — desiring to replace the MCP six months sooner than the original design plans of five years for the MCP now backfired. Congress allowed further funding until the original end date of December 31, 1974, as initially planned, both for the purpose of making good on promises, and absorbing the management and administrative infrastructures of the MCP permanently into cities, readying them for the new block grant system. This failed freeze of MCP funding, nonetheless proved quite serious for the MCPs in Denver. ‘The second through fourth action year plans in Denver, demonstrated increasing efficiency and better signs of progress and improvement, toward goals of developing experienced administration and management systems capable of planning and implementing city improvement programs. The DMCP even demonstrated progress toward solving some problems * Wid. 36. Ibid, 3420 The city administration, following Johnson’s term in office, wielded the most power over Denver’s MCP. Mayor Thomas G. Currigan first created Denver’s MCP under the DCMDA of 1966, through the comprehensive city demonstration plan (CCDP), completed and submitted on November 29, 1968, beginning Denver’s five year plan and its first action year plan. As required by the act, the Denver Board of Councilmen passed it. Denver gained approval of its CCDP. despite delays caused by the change in presidents from Johnson to Nixon. By August of 1969, the City and County of Denver entered the grant agreement, with HUD governing the implementation of Denver’s MCP until its conclusion.** Locally, McNichols then succeeded Curtigan as Mayor, terminated Currigan’s CDA appointee, Lee F. Johnson, and appointed Michael A. DiNunzio as Executive Director of Denver's MCP. Michael DiNunzio shaped the administrative bureaucracy of the DMCP in important ways. The CDA administered Denver's MCP, recruiting a diverse staff through the City’s Career Service system. The CDA accorded each staff member the full status of regular permanent city employees (with all rights, privileges, and opportunities appertaining thereto), and operated the three divisions of the agency: program development, evaluation, and administrative and fiscal services.** Additionally, DiNunzio created the Urban Resources Development Agency (URDA) with the CDA now a subordinate component of it. The City Council unanimously agreed to authorize URDA, under the mayor’s control, as an umbrella organization, including in its purview six federally funded categorical programs under the HUD and the Department of Labor, subsequently containing the MCP and CDA.” As a result, DiNunzio, and his successors, filled dual roles as de facto executive director for both URDA and the CDA, and thus Denver's entire * hid. 6. Ibid. 7, *Thid., 7-8 Wid. 8well before Nixon’s election.”* In the first three action year plans, Denver's MCP demonstrated progress in acquiring the essential ability of facilitating a seamless assimilation and expansion to the new community development block grants. Yet, Denver found itself unprepared for disruptions to the local program processes originating in the federal government. The fourth action year plan proved decisive in how the MCP ended. The federal administration placed a “freeze” on MCP funding effective June 30, 1973, in the hopes of getting the community development block grants system to replace the MCP more expediently by forcibly enacting the legislation, considered desirable to the Nixon Administration. Unable to get a CCDP for a fifth year, required Denver to make its approved, twelve-month fourth action year plan, last eighteen months instead!*? With some sense of urgency then, John J. Wilder, an assistant regional administrator for the HUD’s Region VIII, through an inter-governmental personnel exchange program, gained a very influential position in the outcome of Denver's MCP. MeNichols delegated immense power to Wilder, through retaining of his status as a federal employee, in addition to his appointment as both Administrative Assistant to the Mayor and Director of Community Development. Wilder ‘gained this enormous power despite having been sent under contract, only to help with consolidating and coordinating the carry-over of community development projects in Denver, and, in the process, thereby gain improved understandings of local government functions as they applied to changing federal programs and goals.” Wilder’s appointment effectively supplanted the executive director of the CDA and URDA for control of the MCP. “The new job....federal coordinator... will make Widler second * Ibid. 18. » Tid, 26 “© Tbid., 29-30. The wording of Wilder’s contract to Denver does not reflect the amount of power he ends up allocating through McNichols.24 inefficiencies, and the opposite of progress when seeing such things as projected goals, decreased. Unsympathetic, Wilder and others like him, called the programs wasteful, and these views, coupled with low evaluated performance scores, could seal the fate of a single program, or even later the MCP as a whole. Returning now to the WSA, January 19, 1967 marked the date the Denver Board of Education pledged formal co-operation with the MCP." Yet the WSA, the most audacious and experimental of the alternative education MCPs, apparently did not adequately achieve the goal of coordination with the DPS (Denver Public Schools). Its final performance evaluation concludes: “iJnterviews and research conducted by the CDA Evaluation Division revealed that little coordination existed between the Street Academy Centers and other junior high faculty members.”*° While certainly true, the DPS in the 1970s, not in the most stable of places themselves, also confronted pivotal issues hovering overhead for years like so many buzzards, such as affirmative action, busing, and desegregation. Other such issues included minority staffing and teacher strikes, Strikes alone illustrated the point of non-coordination even within the schools, and made it of course forgivable the experimental WSA lacked coordination with other schools. Both the Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post reported on DPS strikes for years, such as the wildcat strike in 1966," with strike legacies continuing through the 1970s. Disgruntled teachers formed the Denver Classroom Teachers Association (DCTA) as their representative “ Denver Public Library Archives, Denver Model City Program Records, Box 212, Range 33, Section 8, Shelf 4, cited in a Memorandum by Richard P. Koeppe, the Assistant Superintendent for Instructional Services. © Denver Public Library Archives, The William McNichols Papers, Box 107, Range D3B, Section 3, Shelf 6, FF 10, The Denver MCP: An Assessment of Long Term Institutional Impact (Report), Appendix. Taken from the final performance evaluation findings included in the appendix with all other MCP’s final evaluations. *© See the Wildcat Strike article in the Rocky Mountain News, November 24, 1966, 31. Also strikes occurred in 1969, prior to and around September, for example.statements from the evaluation performance, condemned the WSA to dismantling, especially once the knowledge of a freeze going into effect became known, The city’s knowledge of a freeze going into effect, in addition to the five year limit and presumed assimilation by the city toward the block grant system, already known by the administration since early 1971,” put the WSA in a very precarious position of judgment. Evaluations concluded student's attendance rates remained at the same level or went below theit prior WSA rates, severely criticizing the school and teachers. This happened despite teacher protests over not being their student's “mommies or daddies,” and their belief that evaluations based on attendance rates, embodied an unfair grading criteria of both the school and teachers, ‘The evaluation also concluded however, the teachers demonstrated helping the students gain higher academic achievement rates. “Achievement scores, however, while not dramatic, did signify progress among a highly disturbed and alienated student population.”® Thus, the teachers, insofar as fulfilling the role of teachers, did precisely as expected. Yet the tension between the CDA evaluators and the WSA staff, also characterized the fifth category of failures, non-congrueney between the MCP objectives and the local management of the programs. The fifth major failure category displayed by the MCP under the MeNichols Administration, included a non-congruency between the MCP objectives and the local administrative management of the program. The HUD Assistant Regional Administrator, Michael Kastanek, emphasized to the Mayor and City Council in 1971 the long-term objectives of the MCP for good management, via an established process of local city development, and the permanent assimilation of programs into city operations. “It is a process which assumes that if ® Bemard J. Frieden, and Marshall Kaplan, The Politics of Neglect: Urban Aid from Model Cities to Revenue ‘Sharing (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1975), 266-267, © Denver Public Library Western History Collection, The William McNichols Papers, Box 107, Range D3B, Section 3, Shelf 6, FF 10, The Denver MCP: An Assessment of Long Term Institutional Impact (Report), Appendix. ‘Taken from the final performance evaluation findings included in the appendix with all other MCP"s final evaluations,28 how the McNichols Administration exploited the objectives of the MCP. The city officials in charge, by not fulfilling the objective of achieving programs with lasting impact on city operations, enabled the failure of non-congruency between the goals of the MCP and those of the city administration, ‘The regional HUD exerted strenuous efforts by repeatedly advising the cities to prepare for the anticipated community development block grant funding — part of the Nixon Administration's new federalism and revenue sh: 1g policies ~ through bolstering and reemphasizing the local assimilation and permanent application of the MCPs beyond its term of federal funding, First Kastenek and France vainly tried to impart this agenda to Denver’s city officials. Next, the regional HUD administrator, Robert C. Rosenheim, sent a letter to McNichols. on December 22, 1972, “convey[ing]” a “sense of urgency” about Denver's lack of progress toward preserving the programs of the MCP beyond its term of federal funding, and lack of preparation for the new block grant system of federal grants for cities. The MeNichols Administration proved unable to provide a major intention and program priority of the MCP, from its inception, by not developing programs able to assimilate into the city’s operations beyond the limited five year term of federal funding. In other words, the city needed not only to run the MCPs, but preserve and assimilate the programs into the city following the end of federal MCP funding. Robert Rosenheim’ “major concern” with MeNichols, stemmed from an inability for MCPs to continue into “more typical city functions” of Denver, after spending more than $3 million in federal funds to achieve this specific purpose. Rosenheim sharply and repeatedly pointed out MeNichols’s city administration did not use this “increased local management capacity” of the MCP beyond the “administration30 of living, and population for Denver and the nation,° MeNichols, because of he and his administration’s gross neglect, let numerous MCPs dissolve into nothingness with no useful legacy; but he continued to reside over a wave of prosperity, and avoided jeopardizing his incumbency. Among other reasons, some years later, Frederico Pena’s same charge of neglect and disinterest by McNichols, allowed Pena to defeat him, surprisingly, in the run-off elections for Mayor of Denver. He attacked MeNichols by saying, “I think people are concerned the city seems to be drifting along with growth that doesn’t seem to have any rational, logical, consistent pattern to it.”"' Despite Pena’s quote coming from the context of a later time, the MeNichols ‘Administration’s management of the MCP upheld this criticism, The political landscape, comprised of substantial economic growth, and other more influential social issues diverting consideration and attention away from the MCP, allowed the MoNichols Administration to neglect and abandon further commitment to the MCP, without compromising too much of its political power. McNichols, taking little personal interest in the MCP, delegated his power to appointees throughout the MCP’s duration, With hands arguably already full, MeNichols dealt with many pivotal concems such as affirmative action, desegregation, busing, reelection, public relations, and the Olympics. Regardless, MeNichols for years, rather than taking a noticeable personal interest in the MCP, obsessed over the possibility of him bringing the Olympics to Denver. He exerted himself wholeheartedly to make the Olympics coming to Denver a reality. While MeNichols never took pictures with WSA students, © See Table 1 in the Appendix for a more detailed understanding of economic growth. For a more detailed understanding of population growth, see Richard M. Nixon’s March 5, 1971 Address to Congress, 1. A full transcript of this Address is also included in the Appendix section of Vogts MCP Assessment report. Nixon mentions in the Address several statistics: 56% of the population in 1950 lived in metro areas compared to 69% in 1971. Three-fourths of the population growth in the previous ten years came in metro areas, and the suburbs grew by ‘more than 25%. © colleague of the author, Justyn Larry, brought this source to his attention: Dave Krieger, “Pefia Launches Marsh ‘Attack Against Mayor” Rocky Mountain News, July 14, 1982, 6+.32 Yet, all of McNichols’s work toward the Olympics coming to Denver, including presentations, initiatives, and the occasional public relations quips, such as the Olympics Art Competition for elementary students at DPS, ended in vain. A new governor, Richard Lamm, later a supporter of MeNichols’s successor in office, Frederico Pena, ardently disapproved of having anything to do with Olympics hosted by Denver. Governor Lamm, using a ballot measure and the help of Colorado’s voters in 1972, defeated McNichols’s dream of Denver hosting the Olympics. By then only two years remained on the DMCP’s federal funding grant, and McNichols evidently wasted a great deal of his time with concems apart from the MCP, such as failed attempts to get the Olympics hosted by Denver. The various MCPs’s members and employees, perhaps much more so than Vogt, experienced tremendous difficulty ascertaining the grand reasoning for why they terminated with the programs. In the case of the WSA and perhaps others, they probably, with some justification, felt it came from unfair evaluations, In any event, judging by what happened to all the other MCPs, even if not dismantled prior to the end of the MCP, inevitable termination would befall the WSA. ‘The employees and associates of various MCPs, no matter how wise or clever, found divining the ultimate reasoning behind the almost complete termination of the DMCPs impossible to do. Try as they might to ascertain why, no sound reasoning, behind the decision to formally terminate the MCPs without continuity, actually existed. “When Wilder and LaPerriere were asked for a reasonably factual explanation of the actions taken by the Mayor’s authority, they appeared unwilling to do so. In reality, they were probably unable to do so.” Vogt elucidated about the decision to terminate the MCP and any remnants, almost in their entirety. “There had been no thorough and objective analysis prior to the decision to abandon the City’s4 out date.” Again, LaPertiere used “phase-out” instead of continuity. He also harshly “teemphasized” staff members “not cease your efforts to obtain employment elsewhere,” “[i]f another job opportunity is offered — grab it!” because he gave “absolutely no assurances of future employment with the City." Furthermore, the city administration violated a prohibition in “Section 96.24 of regulations governing” the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), by “the displacement of currently employed workers with CETA personnel,” when “assigned” CETA personnel, paid for by money saved from the “termination of CDA personnel,” displaced CDA personnel in “directly perform[ing] remaining Model City work.” This appalling and indefensible failure of non-compliance, with the overriding objective of the MCP, casts an ugly shadow over the McNichols Administration. The Denver City Council on February 10, 1975, gave approval to Council bill #75, including in the allocation plan, $764,000 in administrative costs for “establishing the necessary management structure to plan and oversee the program.” In effect, this precisely conveys what the MCP had hoped to achieve. Instead this in fact signaled the ultimate failure of not integrating and achieving lasting institutional impact from the MCPs, especially in regard to “establishing the necessary management structure” on a local level “to plan and oversee” federal programs directed toward developing the city of Denver. On numerous occasions, different people, such as Vogt, Kastenck, France, and Rosenheim, correctly identified long term impact and continuity of MCPs by the cities, as the most crucial objective sought by the MCP. Despite this, plenty of city projects implemented and then died with the MCP when the period of federal funding ended. Louis R. LaPerriere, Letter to CDA Staff, October 10, 1974. Vogt’s report also contained a full copy of this letter in the Appendix. © Denver Public Library Western History Collection, The William McNichols Papers, WH 1015, Box 107, Range DSB, Section 3, Shelf 6, FF 10, The Denver MCP: An Assessment of Long Term Institutional Impact (Report), 55- 56. © Ibid, 37. Vogt made it abundantly clear Denver should not have needed to set up a management structure to plan and oversee the program, iFit had merely done the sensible thing, and preserved the programs and institutions the MCP built during the last five or more years.36 agencies existed. Second, mitigation of citizen participation in MCP areas proved problematic. Third, strain and confusion resulted from changes in administrative officials and objectives. Fourth, noticeable discrepancies appeared between the programs’s plans and the reality of actions performed. Fifth, non-congruency emerged between the overall federal objectives and the local administrative management. Lastly, the proven inability to preserve numerous MCPs with lasting impact, caused mainly by the MeNichols Administration's eventual neglect and abandonment of its long-term commitment toward Denver’s MCP. Evidence indicated MeNichols cared very little about the MCP, and the political environment secured this ability as it did not compromise his political position in doing so. The possibilities, opportunities, and gains, lost to Denver, certainly did paint a “notably unflattering” picture of the McNichols Administration, resulting from the ultimate failure to achieve the primary purpose of the MCP, through the irresponsible and scandalous actions of MeNichols and Wilder. The troubled Vogt, even in his vexation and constemation, managed to cope with what he had bitterly witnessed and felt accessory to, by pouring his heart into a report, he desperately wished somebody would listen to and leam from in the future. While people exploited the goodwill faith and intentions of such programs, others, like Vogt, redeemed faith in the ideally embodied compassion and benevolence of the MCPs, but the myriad forces against them proved too much to overcome. Vogt’s innermost feelings, revealed in the last words of his cover letter, remained true in his commitment to serve Denver, providing a model of profound loyalty to the eity: “This report is submitted in the hope that such a recording of the Model Citites experience in Denver will be of benefit and assistance to those who recognize that what is past is indeed prologue.”*” Indeed, how cherished a reward, for disciples of history to hear. © Whid,, Cover Letter Page Three.38 APPENDIX TABLE 1” Category, 1966 1970 1974 1976 Change over ten years Colorado per capita yearly income $2,970 $4,040 $5,837 $6,880 + $3,910 National per capita yearly income $3,062 $4,084 $5,708 $6,754 + $3,692 1969 1979 Colorado median yearly family income $9,552 $21,279 + 811,727 Colorado median yearly houschold income $8,423 $18,056 + $9,633 1966 1970 1974 1980 Colorado State Tax Funding for Higher $44 $87.1 ‘$140.3 $246.8 Education million million million, million 1970 1974 1975 5 year change $10.4 $17.67 $19.78 Colorado Gross State Product billion billion billion + $9.38 billion Industries % change of total GSP_ Construction ‘$634 million $1.15 billion -3% Manufacturing $1.45 billion $2.8 billion = +.1% s19 Government billion $3.5 billion —-.9% $l4 FIRE. billion, $2.82 billion + 1.3% ® Sources are from the United States Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Bureau of Economic Analysis on Per Capita Personal Income, the United States Census Bureau's Decennial Census Data, the Colorado State and Local Tax. Fund Appropriations, and the National Center for Education Statistics. The data is compiled and included in:Tom Mortenson, Colorado Higher Education Opportunity Databook, compiled and updated (2003-2005) by Lorraine Ludwick, updated by Camille Stocker (2006-2007, 2009), and updated and amended by Nicole Brunt (2007-2010). Sections used include spreadsheets titled: “Colorado Per Capita Personal Income Analysis, 1929-2009”, “Colorado Median Family and Household Income", “Colorado State Tax Fund Appropriations Effort for Higher Education”, “Colorado Median Family and Household Income”, and “Colorado Gross State Product by Industry Amount, Percent of Total GSP, and Rank”