AURORA | City council will finalize choosing members of the newly created Colfax Downtown Development Authority with a vote later this month.

The candidates that were recommended to be appointed are Amanda Blaurock, Priscilla Montoya, Alemayehu Eshete, Katie Goldman, Matthew Horne, Cynthia Moreno-Romero, Thoa Nguyen, Natasha Sztevanovity and Johnny Watson.

The city started with 33 eligible candidates and interviewed 12 people as finalists before selecting the appointees. City council will vote on the appointees at the June 22 meeting.

If approved, the appointees will have staggered terms. Blaurock’s and Montoya’s terms go through June 2027, while terms for Eshete and Goldman go through June 2028, terms for Horne, Moreno-Romero and Nguyen go through June 2029, and terms for Sztevanovity and Watson will go through 2030.

The Colfax development authority is a special district that will be overseen by the appointed board with the ability to levy taxes with the goal of revitalizing the area. Voters approved the Colfax development authority last November after years of conversation about how to renew the East Colfax area. 

To be eligible for the board, the appointees must live, own property or have a business in the boundaries of the development authority. The DDA covers a section of East Colfax Avenue from Yosemite Street on the west end and Peoria Street on the east, as well as north to East 16th Avenue and south to East 14th Avenue.

Of the selected board members, five are local business owners. Nguyen owns Bánh & Butter Cafe; Sztevanovity owns Society 303; Moreno-Romero owns Ollin Cafetzin; Goldman owns La Victoria Healing Kitchen; and Eshete owns Park Motel and Jet Wash. 

Many are also community leaders, including Watson, who is a former city council member, and Horne, who is the pastor at Calvary New City church. Montoya is the executive director of Downtown Aurora Visual Arts and Blaurock is a founder of the Village Exchange Center.

They will join Councilmember Alli Jackson and future representatives of the Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit helping revitalize the area, to make up the Colfax DDA board. 

Originally, the council expected to appoint six candidates to the DDA board, but because of the strength of the applicants, the city expanded the recommendation to appoint nine board members.

“Let me just say that this was a very difficult process because there were so many talented people that stepped forward that that really passionately wanted to be appointed to the board,” Mayor Mike Coffman said. 

The new board’s first major responsibility will be to refine and adopt the Colfax Community Vision and Action Plan as the authority’s legally required plan of development, with final approval by city council, city officials said earlier this year. The draft plan was shaped by extensive community engagement with more than 870 attendees at 24 public events and input collected from more than 100 residents, business owners, property owners and organizations. 

City officials say the authority and its board will work in tandem with the Community Development Corporation to pursue additional funding streams and support a broader set of initiatives in and around the corridor. Together, these entities are intended to help improve public spaces, support small businesses and foster economic growth while preserving neighborhood character.

The first board meeting for the Colfax DDA is expected to be in July or August, according to city officials.

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