Denver Mayor Mike Johnston on Monday announced the creation of a new office tasked with tackling public safety but with a pronounced shift away from law enforcement and an emphasis on “racial and social equity.”

The new Office of Neighborhood Safety brings together four major city programs, including the Support Team Assisted Response and youth safety programs, under one office, which seeks to keep communities safe in ways that, Johnston said, don’t require law enforcement.

Denver officials didn’t describe in detail what the daily operations of the new office would look like — or what its specific responsibilities would be. But in creating the new office, the Johnston administration signaled it is viewing public safety through the lens of “racial and social equity.” 

Without expressly saying so, the city appears to have adopted the critique, espoused by progressive Democrats, that American society is suffused with systemic injustice, with law enforcement as one of the expressions of that inequity. The opposite view is that American society, even with its flaws, offers equal opportunity to everybody regardless of race and with laws that are fairly applied.      

“You cannot create a safer city without clear commitments to racial and social equity and justice,” said Ben Sanders, executive director of the Office of Social Equity and Innovation. “For generations, we’ve lived inside of realities where community have said, ‘Why don’t we just take some of what’s in the Department of Public Safety and move it so that it’s closer to community so they can help fix some of what’s happening?’”

“I’m proud to say today that we are doing just that.”

Officials said the new program will transfer $11 million and 65 employees from the Department of Public Safety to the Office of Social Equity and Innovation, and the new office will encompass resources under the Safety Youth Programs, the Office of Community Violence Solutions, The AID Center, and STAR 911 Operations.

Calling it a “strategic reallocation of resources,” the mayor’s office said in a news release the move “marks a significant shift from the Department of Public Safety to OSEI.”

The move “grounds Denver’s Office of Neighborhood Safety in a commitment to racial and social equity,” the mayor’s office added. 

Johnston’s administration said that, “unlike traditional safety departments,” the new office will be housed within the the Office of Social Equity and Innovation, with support and resources from the Department of Public Safety.

The city describes the mission of the social equity office as overseeing efforts to “eliminate social inequity, and race and social injustices by evaluating institutional and structural government systems, policies, and practices to dismantle racism.”

The mayor said Armando Saldate, executive director of the Department of Public Safety, championed the transfer of resources from his agency and the creation of the new office.

In a news release, Saldate, who was unable to attend the news conference due to an illness, said he and other officials “recognize that law enforcement may not be the answer to every problem.”

“Through the ONS and collaboration with OSEI, we aim to address the concerns we often hear from communities and increase community involvement in safety initiatives,” he said. 

Johnston, Sanders and Nicole Monroe, director of the Office of Community Violence Solutions, held the news conference at 3333 Holly St., the former site of the Holly, which was destroyed by gang members in 2010.

Sanders claimed that Denver is a city where race and other social identities predict someone’s outcome in life.

The move drew the criticism of a group called the Task Force to Reimagine Policing and Public Safety, which accused the Johnston administration of “co-opting” and “competing” with its efforts to create a “community-led Office of Neighborhood Safety.”

In a news release, the group “condemned” Johnston’s plan, claiming he rejected recommendations made by the organization, a city office and councilmembers to “create an office to support alternatives to policing.”

“It’s like a child who abandons a toy until others show interest in it, and then he wants it back. But it’s too late because this initiative belongs to the community, and we will see it through to fruition,” said Robert Davis, the group’s coordinator. 

“I strongly objected to his plan because it was contrary to community input. Now, he’s giving the concept to his equity office director who has failed to collaborate with key stakeholders and will be competing against us for limited funding,” Lisa Calderón, a community activist who ran in the mayoral contest that Johnston won, also said in the release. “We will not be co-opted like the STAR program that was started by community organizers sidelined by city officials who grew their agency budgets.”

Johnston and Sanders defended the new office.

“I don’t view the good work that that task force and those community members do as competition,” Sanders said. “We’re willing to work with anyone, including that outstanding taskforce in the work they’re trying to advance.”

The office will be so complex it requires a central city-based leadership, Johnston added. A central city agency can lead and oversee the office, while coordinating efforts in and outside of the city more efficiently, Johnston said.

“We’ve been working on this idea since the beginning of the administration, and we’ve been in talks with community members about it,” the mayor said. “It just took finding the right place, the right partners, and the right budget.”

Sharon Simmons, who used to live in the area and remembers when the Holly was “bombed,” said she’s excited to see what the new office would bring.

“This is wonderful. I grew up in this neighborhood, so it’s very special what they’re trying to do,” said Simmons, who has since moved out of Denver but maintains a network of connections to the city. “But they need to keep in contact with each other to make all of this happen and for it to spread.”