7 OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2025 westword.com WESTWORD | CONTENTS | LETTERS | CALHOUN | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | Market, perhaps another Day of the Dead Festival, like the one that packed the place this past weekend. “As the park’s partners, we’re very excited to continue to activate Civic Center Park through the construction,” says Eric Lazzari, executive director of the foundation. “We’re working to accommo- date groups.” He can’t speak for those groups, all inde- pendent entities that put on events like the 4/20 festival, Cinco de Mayo and other an- nual traditions. But just knowing that some of the park may stay open is giving people hope that at least some of the party can proceed. If people are still in a mood to party, that is. Although the 16th Street project is fi nally done, the Bus Rapid Transit project could snarl Colfax for years. People are tired of construction. They were accustomed to coming to Civic Center for big bashes, not construction barriers. But when I suggested to Mayor Mike Johnston (in my cover-story list list of ten ways to help downtown last winter, and again in person just a few weeks ago) that the Civic Center project be post- poned — perhaps indefi nitely — in order to save the budget-strapped city $50 mil- lion and a lot of headaches, he insisted that project is essential to making the park serve as a proper gateway to downtown, to funnel people downtown. And if you buy that, I have a $28 million bridge to sell you. And I’d set up a booth at any of Civic Center’s 2026 events to help bridge this state’s divides. Colorado still has a chance to offer a proper celebration for this state’s 150th. A celebration that acknowledges the ghosts of our past, and promises better for the future. A monument that acknowledges this state’s darkest day, and illuminates the way forward. By next year, work could even be un- derway on the memorial to the victims of the Sand Creek Massacre, a project in the works for more than a decade and has had more twists and turns than Polis’s bridge. The Colorado Legislature fi nally approved its creation last session, voting to put it in the place of the Union soldier, to “memo- rialize the Cheyenne and Arapaho people and their ancestors, promote cross-cultural understanding, and educate the public about the massacre and the events surrounding it to foster healing.” The Sand Creek Massacre Foundation is currently raising funds for the memorial, which will be called “Peace Keepers.” “The memorial will be dedicated and the instal- lation begun by November 29th, 2026, the year coinciding with the 150th anniversary of Colorado statehood, signifying the State’s willingness to acknowledge the truth of its history,” according to the foundation. “Despite broken promises by the United States government, our Chiefs honored the agreements made: They believed in peace until their fi nal breath... “Healing is not forgetting. It is not absolu- tion. It is a choice – a powerful and deliberate choice — to keep our humanity intact.” The ghosts have given us a ghost of a chance...and quite a gift. Email the author at [email protected]. Jared Polis’s Colorado 150 Pedestrian Walkway. The new design for Civic Center Park was kept under wraps until last fall. COLORADO.GOV DENVER.GOV
