Nicolais: Monica Martinez will score plenty of goals on Denver’s City Council

On the bumpy pickup pitch in central Denver, the short, determined woman closed me down, stole the ball and made me look silly. In a few days Monica Martinez will make her detractors for the Denver City Council At-Large campaign know how I felt. 

I recently read a news article in another paper about lawyers and real estate developers backing Martinez. The author seemed intent on finding an angle or exposing some weakness by linking Martinez to professions most voters via unfavorably. It felt like a click-baity piece.

Of course, maybe I felt that way because I am, in fact, a lawyer. And I did, in fact, give a contribution to Martinez.

But my support of Martinez had zero to do with my legal profession. I based it entirely on the woman I have come to know after years playing pickup soccer with her at Cranmer Park (colloquially “Sundial Park”) just east of Colorado Boulevard and the Cherry Creek Mall. She is kind, smart, fierce and good-natured. She is the type of person who makes me smile when I show up and see her lacing up her cleats. 

Denver needs strong leaders like Martinez right now. The city’s decades of desirability led to rapid growth and change, not always comfortable or positive. Prices for housing skyrocketed as demand exceeded supply. Roads became congested and dilapidated. Small businesses struggled to keep leases in evolving neighborhoods.

Standing with those Denverites, Martinez has led The Fax Partnership for years. As neighborhoods changed, she has helped preserve Denver’s culture, protect its people and planned to make change work for everyone. That is not easy.

Colfax has more than a local ethos. Unsubstantiated Denver lore holds that a publication once dubbed it “the longest, wickedest street in America.” Home to the Colorado State Capitol, a Catholic Cathedral, historic East High School, Mile High Stadium and a slew of legendary music venues, Colfax has always hummed as the intersection between people from all walks of life.

Into that thrum Martinez pitched herself and her team. Too often places like Colfax have been targeted for wholesale change. High crime rates and the presence of people struggling on the fringe of society cause many to search for solutions that would wipe the slate clean and start anew. Not Martinez.

Martinez understands the history of Colfax, and through it, the story of Denver. She knows that clear-slate “solutions” have broken along the cracked asphalt of Colfax for a century. It is resistant to those changes because its very character makes it strong. So Martinez and her crew have instead embraced the area, warts and all.

That should be music to the ears of any Denver voter. Even those who do not live along Colfax itself understand the pressures placed upon neighborhoods across the city. Evolving while keeping a city’s soul is a tricky endeavor. It requires principled leadership, dedication, and many, many, many community meetings. Martinez is no stranger to any of those traits.

If anything, she is too humble and self-effacing. I literally kicked at her shins for years before I even began to understand what she did day-in-and-day-out for the Denver community. Playing between popup nets on the sloped field, she would casually talk about different projects and the people she wanted to help. 

As the pieces started to come together, even a dense lawyer like me eventually came to realize those waterbreak tidbits added up to a fulltime job caring for people. The epiphany was a blinding glimpse of the obvious: of course this constantly smiling dynamo spent her career working on behalf of others.

While many Denver politicos have spent recent years infighting over control of the Democratic party, Martinez has been engaged in community level development and support. 

I did not know she even harbored public office ambitions until I saw a post in our pickup soccer WhatsApp group. It should not surprise anyone that the response from the group who have played with both of us for more than a decade was more than supportive, but instead downright jubilant.

The next decade in Denver will be critical for its future. Dealing with the cumulative effects of tapering growth, economic and affordability pressures and political turmoil will be a substantial challenge. Our leaders will need to be both experienced problem solvers and trusted community members. Martinez embodies both. 

More than four hundred years ago, Shakespeare wrote the much quoted line, “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” While frequently uttered in jest, it is also almost universally taken out of context. The line is delivered by Dick the Butcher, a villain in Henry VI, Part II. He works with another, unscrupulous individual willing to make outlandish promises (“There shall be in England seven half-penny loaves sold for a penny: the three-hoop’d pot shall have ten hoops …”) to secure a position of leadership (king).

The real lesson — beyond the reality that lawyers are not that bad! — is to be wary of those making promises without a provable history of success and accomplishment on behalf of others. Denver voters do not need to worry about that with Martinez.

On Tuesday, I expect Martinez to score her goal and win a victory for communities across the city. After years of watching her do it against me, I would not expect any less.

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