We are on the November ballot. Now we need 100 neighbors to chip in by 3pm Friday. Give $5, it becomes $50 →

City Council · At-Large Seat B · Nov 3

Keeping Denver's doors open.

I'm Cynthia Diaz, a small business owner and economist running for City Council. I open my doors every morning. I'm running to keep this whole city open for everyone who does the same.

Give $5, it becomes $50 See the Santa Fe Ledger

Small business owner. For Denver.

Open doors for small businessOpen doors for our neighborsOpen doors for immigrantsOpen doors for a strong middle class

One phrase. Four open doors.

Door One

Small Business

The independent shops that give Denver its character are going dark. I've lived the squeeze firsthand. I'll fight to keep their doors open.

Door Two

Our Neighbors

At my shop, nobody who walks in hungry leaves without a meal. A city should look after its people with that same care.

Door Three

Newcomers

Immigrants contribute to this economy in ways the numbers record and the rhetoric ignores. They make Denver stronger.

Door Four

A Strong Middle Class

When small businesses thrive, ordinary people build good lives. That's the engine of a strong middle class, and the heart of this campaign.

I sign the lease. I make payroll. I know what this city costs, because I pay it every day.

My name is Cynthia Diaz, and I'm running for Denver City Council, At-Large Seat B. I own Tonantzin Casa de Café on Santa Fe Drive, a coffee shop rooted in indigenous and Latin American tradition, the kind of small, independent place that gives a neighborhood its soul.

Over the last few years I've watched too many shops like mine go dark, run by families who came here with nothing and built something real. The cost of everything keeps climbing, and small businesses are getting squeezed out. Small business is the backbone of a strong middle class. It's how ordinary people build a good life.

Let me be clear: I support a livable minimum wage. Workers deserve to afford the city they help run. The answer isn't choosing between fair pay and small business survival. It's a city that stops making it so hard to keep the doors open in the first place.

Where I stand.

Four priorities, all built around the same idea: a Denver that stays open to the people who make it work.

Small Business

Cut the red tape, fees, and costs the city piles on the shops that can least afford them. Make it possible to open, and to stay open.

Cost of Living

Back working families and a livable wage, while easing the pressure forcing both renters and small employers out of the city.

Community

Keep our doors open to the unhoused with real dignity, and to the immigrants who strengthen every corner of our economy.

Character of Denver

Protect the independent, family-owned places that make Denver feel like Denver, not like anywhere else.

We are on the ballot.

On Monday, August 24, the Denver Clerk and Recorder issued the Notice of Sufficiency. The petition qualified, and Cynthia Diaz is on the ballot for At-Large Seat B in the November 3 special election. Every name on those sheets was written by hand, in person, by a registered Denver voter who stopped what they were doing to do it, and every sheet was carried by somebody willing to ask strangers on my behalf. That is the entire reason this happened. Thank you.

What happened

The Clerk checked every line

Registration, address, whether the same person had already signed. Signatures that did not match were struck, and what was left was enough. That is the only test there is, and the petition passed it.

What is next

100 neighbors by 3pm Friday

Denver matches the first $50 from a Denver resident at 900 percent, so five dollars arrives as fifty. We are asking 100 neighbors to do that. It is the count of people that matters, not the size of the checks.

Meanwhile

The Ledger carries on

The construction does not wait for an election. We publish what it is costing Santa Fe businesses every week, and being on the ballot changes nothing about that.

Give $5, it becomes $50 See the Santa Fe Ledger

Get the numbers

Every week we publish what the construction is costing Santa Fe businesses: median revenue, median customers, block by block. No spin, no press release, just the figures the businesses reported.

Campaign news is a separate box on purpose. The Ledger is a service, and it should be possible to want it without wanting anything to do with an election.

Your $5 becomes $50.

Denver's Fair Elections Fund matches the first $50 from every Denver resident at 900 percent. You give five dollars, the city adds forty-five. There is no more powerful five dollars in this election.

We are on the ballot for November 3. What this campaign needs next is 100 neighbors, by 3pm on Friday, September 4. Not a number of dollars, a number of people. Every one of them counts once, and five dollars counts the same as five hundred.

$5becomes $50 $10becomes $100 $25becomes $250 $50becomes $500

Give another amount →

We are counting neighbors, not dollars, and the deadline is 3pm on Friday, September 4.

The match is for Denver residents. If you live in the city, your first $50 is matched at 900 percent; if you live outside it, your contribution still helps and simply is not matched. The minimum contribution that qualifies is $5, and at $50 and above Denver requires your employer and occupation. Contributions are subject to Denver's campaign contribution limits and are not tax deductible.

Paid for by Committee to Elect Cynthia Diaz.