Park Hill Character: Searching For Honest Answers
Michele Wheeler On Life, Building Bridges And Tackling Tough Issues Of The Day
By Jack Farrar
Special to the GPHN
When I served on the Board of the Greater Park Hill Community, Inc., we periodically discussed how to expand the cultural and geographic relevance of the organization by engaging more often and more meaningfully with so-called “North” Park Hill – in particular the Northeast quadrant, which historically has been underrepresented on the board and detached from many activities and public events “south of the border” (which might be defined currently as Martin Luther King Boulevard).
I recently spent two hours at Spinelli’s café and bakery with Michele Wheeler, a woman who has devoted much of her life to building bridges in Park Hill, connecting people and interest groups with historical, sometimes deeply entrenched, differences.
For years, Wheeler has been president of the Northeast Park Hill Coalition. The organization was formed in the early 1990s when several foundations, including United Way and Norwest Banks, identified five low-income Denver neighborhoods – including Northeast Park Hill – as being in urgent need of financial resources and leadership.
The coalition adopted this mission statement: “Create a safe, viable community that encourages neighborhood involvement, beneficial development, and connections to neighborhood resources in Northeast Park Hill.”
“The Northeast quadrant has felt disconnected from the city’s social and political mainstream,” says Wheeler. “Race is certainly a big factor. But I think class and economic status are really more divisive.”
Since she has been at the helm of the Coalition, Wheeler has managed dozens of special events, forums and meetings, trying to find common ground on such issues as crime, zoning, parks, recreation, health services, access to fresh food and literacy.
She has been intimately involved with the redevelopment of the Dahlia and Holly Shopping Centers, projects which are finally coming together, but not without a good deal of delay and frustration.
“It’s been a struggle,” she says. “A bunch of different players in government and business battled for so many years, it began to feel like nothing would happen. But things finally came together. I think what’s happening now is wonderful – the senior housing and the health complex on Dahlia and the Boys and Girls Club on Holly. And I’m proud to say that the Northeast Park Hill Coalition played a big role, especially in getting the word out to residents about what different options were. The residents didn’t get all they wanted with redevelopment. I wish we could have a major food store, for example, but that just wasn’t in the cards.”
Among the Coalition’s most gratifying accomplishments in 2016 were the defeat of a second liquor store on Holly, more frequent meetings with the Greater Park Hill Community (focusing on such issues as property use and zoning), help with the renovation of the HOPE Center, and a new walking path at City of Axum Park.
Wheeler ran an unsuccessful campaign for the state legislature last year, losing a three-way Democratic primary to James Coleman. Prior to serving with the Northeast Park Hill Coalition, Wheeler was the Park Hill liaison with the Denver District Attorney Community Outreach Program, which was designed to improve communication between the DA’s office and the African American community. She’s also worked with the Independent Monitor’s Office.
“Relations are better, but the police are still reluctant to admit that racial profiling exists,” Wheeler says. “They use euphemisms for it, but won’t say the words. It’s frustrating. Some technical advancements have been, like the cameras, but sometimes those cameras get mysteriously turned off.”
Wheeler grew up on Monaco. I asked her if she remembers the late Sonny Liston, who was World Heavyweight Champion until knocked out by an opinionated young man named Cassius Clay. “Oh, yeah,” she says, “I used to see him jogging up and down the street all the time.”
She attended East High School during the mid-60s, when integration was a very polarizing issue in Denver. “To tell you the truth, race was not a top-of-the-mind thing with me. I had black friends, white friends, Hispanic friends. I ran track and that was very integrated. Ironically, the first time I experienced racism was in Washington, D.C., when I was in college. I remember buying something at a general store and the clerk wouldn’t give me the change directly. He put it on the counter. It came to me later that it was a subtle, racist thing. He didn’t want to touch me.”
These days, Wheeler is still searching for honest answers to questions about racial identity in Park Hill. Why were no African-American contractors used in the Holly redevelopment project? Why has a second King Soopers opened in Stapleton, when there is still no major grocery store in North Park Hill? And what happened to the so-called seamless green belt between Stapleton and the west side of Quebec?
Jack Farrar is a longtime Park Hill resident and board member of the nonprofit Park Hill Community Bookstore, at 23rd and Dexter. This is an installment of a regular feature about people who help make the neighborhood great. Past Park Hill Character profiles can be read online at greaterparkhill.org.