Christian Steward

This page was current at the end of the individual's last campaign covered by Ballotpedia. Please contact us with any updates.

Christian Steward

Nonpartisan

Elections and appointments

Last election

April 4, 2023

Personal

Birthplace

Denver, Colo.

Profession

Government

Contact

Campaign website

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Christian Steward ran for election to the Denver City Council to represent District 8 in Colorado. He lost in the general election on April 4, 2023.

Steward completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2023. Click here to read the survey answers.

Biography

Christian Steward was born in Denver, Colorado. His career experience includes working as a community connector for the city and county of Denver

Steward has been affiliated with the following organizations:

• Dr. King Jr Colorado Holiday Commission,
• Saint Clair Drake Enrichment Program
• Gifted and Talented State Advisory Committee
• Urban Leadership Foundation of Colorado
• Regional of Institute for Health and Environment Leadership
• East Colfax Neighborhood Association
• Foundation for Sustainable Urban Communities

Elections

2023

See also: City elections in Denver, Colorado (2023)

General runoff election

General runoff election for Denver City Council District 8

Shontel Lewis defeated Brad Revare in the general runoff election for Denver City Council District 8 on June 6, 2023.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Shontel Lewis (Nonpartisan)	51.2	7,476
	Submit photo	Brad Revare (Nonpartisan)	48.8	7,119

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	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 14,595
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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General election

General election for Denver City Council District 8

The following candidates ran in the general election for Denver City Council District 8 on April 4, 2023.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Shontel Lewis (Nonpartisan)	35.7	5,083
✔	Submit photo	Brad Revare (Nonpartisan)	33.5	4,764
	Submit photo	Leslie Twarogowski (Nonpartisan)	13.5	1,916
		Tyler Drum (Nonpartisan)	9.1	1,294
		Christian Steward (Nonpartisan)	7.5	1,063
	Submit photo	Rita Lewis (Nonpartisan) (Write-in)	0.8	113

---

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 14,233
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

• Michelle Mondragon (Nonpartisan)

Campaign themes

2023

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Christian Steward completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2023. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Steward's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.

Expand all | Collapse all

Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

My name is Christian Alexander Steward, I am a native of Denver Colorado. I attended Denver Public Schools and received a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of Colorado-Denver. I have experienced most of my professional life through the lenses of community advocacy, entrepreneurship, and servant leadership. Some of my accomplishments include taking a vow of poverty working with foster care and adoptive care families for Americorps in Orlando, Florida. I am a published writer and poet, and the Co-chair of the Dr. king Jr. Marade, the largest celebration of its kind in the nation. I am the former Secretary and President of the East Colfax Neighborhood Association, a registered neighborhood organization. Most importantly, I am a father of 3 and partner.

I am currently working with the City and County of Denver as a Community Connector for the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (DOTI). I am the only candidate that works for the City of Denver. The intersectionality of serving residents as a Community Connector in the neighborhoods of District 8 gives me a unique opportunity to be impactful immediately as the City Councilmember. I have working relationships with city employees and have worked with many of them to deliver projects, services, and programs that meaningfully impact our neighborhood and city.

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

• My purpose is service- I have spent most of my life serving community. Through service, I learn compassion and the understanding needed to address the complexities of our society. My time serving humanity has given me an appreciation of the emotional intelligence required to connect to people, to provide the resources and counsel needed to solve our toughest challenges. I believe I will be a great city councilor because I am committed to serving our district. I plan to create cohesive neighborhood coalitions to identify areas to streamline government systems and processes.
• Housing and Workforce Development- My time in office will be devoted to creating strong partnerships between developers, community based organizations, and residents in order to address the rising costs of housing. I will work with the city auditor to find creative solutions to address tax incentives or mill levies that fund vocation job training and other housing opportunities. I will work with city departments that focus on housing so we can create opportunity zones and fast track permits and incentivize affordable housing developments. I want to create workshops that minimize the time spent on processing building/remodeling applications for developers and residents. I will create more pipelines into home ownerships.
• Safety and Wellness- Collaboratively, we will create a neighborhood safety department that develops and deploys volunteer based community patrol groups. It will be pertinent to recruit a collective of diverse community members to serve on oversight committees. In addition to community patrol groups, I will create walking groups to connect the residents in our different neighborhoods. Resident connectivity has shown to be essential to increase safety. I will work with the city departments to implement sustainable road diets that enhance safe routes to school. I will work with other city council members to increase funding for Vision Zero programs to prevent traffic fatalities. I will prioritize budget to address mental health.

Community Question Featured local question

Did the COVID-19 pandemic change your approach to local policy issues? If so, please give us an example. If not, why?

The only approach it changed was offering remote access to the meetings.

Community Question Featured local question

Do you believe crime rates are changing? Where do you get your crime rate data from? Would you make any changes to existing public safety policy?

Yes. Things are becoming more dangerous and we are losing our mental health resources. I would create more mental health outpatient services.

Community Question Featured local question

Do you think the downtown area is healthy? What is your definition of a healthy downtown? What changes, if any, would you like to make?

I think it could be healthier.

Investments should encourage organizations to move into downtown and the city as an employer should subsidize housing for its employees. This could increase sales tax revenue and data shows a stronger downtown is an indicator of a strong city.

Workforce housing is a great option for Downtown Denver. To support this type of model we could limit the parking requirements if they build meaningfully around transportation centers. This model of housing could recruit global companies and diverse families to enjoy and participate in the Downtown economy. We could also fast track development projects like these.

My plan to improve these issues by modernizing government processes and systems. This will decrease the time of permit applications, increase resources for developers and resident leaders, and simplify the contract and payment systems. We will create portals for employers to hire qualified candidates from surrounding neighborhoods. We will recruit, retain, and support BIPOC businesses in downtown

Community Question Featured local question

How important is it to involve residents in the government’s decision-making process? What plans do you have regarding resident involvement in this process?

It is essential. My background in community engagement with the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure has led me to robust techniques and tactics to involve community. My goal is to build advocates within our district to be decision makers. I will give them authority to craft bills and be present when they are passed. I will collect policy priorities from the community based organizations that are doing the work of people. I will create a podcast of the residents in our 5 neighborhood to digest the information of bills passed and how these bills will impact residents in our neighborhood.

Community Question Featured local question

How should record requests from the public be handled? Do you have any policies around transparency and accountability you want to enact?

No. Not yet.

Community Question Featured local question

How would you address crime and public safety? Do you have a different stance than current city council policy?

Creating a neighborhood safety department that deploys and supports police patrol groups and community patrol groups to address safety and provide wellness checks. The principle of these groups is to coordinate community policing with police officers and other public health city officials. I think it is prudent to recruit and TRAIN community members to be on oversight committees for police officers, district attorneys, and judges. The community should be more interwoven into our justice system.

Community Question Featured local question

How would you balance the needs and desires of existing business and housing communities with new development? Would you take gentrification and displacement into consideration when planning neighborhood development?

We craft laws and pass laws, policies impacting us all.

We craft laws and pass laws, money impacting the budget.

Approving the mayoral appointees, these are the roles and responsibilities that could be appointed to me.

Community Question Featured local question

How would you set priorities and develop plans in a way that will reflect community values and goals?

My priorities will be creating coalitions of decision makers. I will go door to door, email, and use social media to recruit neighbors to participate in the budgeting and law making efforts that will effect them on a daily basis.

Community Question Featured local question

What do you think about the city's current approach to public safety? Would you take any different positions?

The greatest public safety concern is the eroding mental health of our residents. There is a strong correlation between addiction, domestic abuse, suicide, homelessness, and the declining mental health of our population. "Mental illnesses can be associated with distress and/or problems functioning in social, work or family activities" There are a few ways to address it: Creating properly trained citizen patrol groups to address safety and provide wellness checks. The principal purpose of these groups is to coordinate community policing with police officers and other public health officers/offices. We must address the cost of living with policies that include the feedback of the community.

Community Question Featured local question

What do you think about the city's environmental health? Would you make any changes to current policy?

I think our Office of Climate Action, Sustainability and Resiliency is doing a great job at offer solar panels, and energy efficient appliances. I would just recommend we have a more robust approach to community engagement.

Community Question Featured local question

What plans do you have regarding infrastructure?

I plan to work with city departments to create sidewalk networks that are funded by local active living organizations. I will protect bike lanes with vertical components and add more lighting to streetscapes. I will encourage traffic calming demonstrations and permanent installations that create safe pickups and drop-offs for schools. I want to create green infrastructure that plants more trees and creates more spaces for gardens and farmers markets. I would like to create opportunities for shopping centers to install solar panels.

Community Question Featured local question

What plans do you have regarding the police department? Would you make any changes from current policy?

I have a great working relationship with the Denver Police. I think we could recruit more diversity to the police force. As I stated before, I think we should recruit people from a neighborhood to serve as police officers in their neighborhoods. We need more people of color on the committees that give oversight to our justice system. We should have more mental health resources for our officers. We should give them more vacation and professional development opportunities.

Community Question Featured local question

What policies would you have implemented in reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic? Why did you select those policies?

I was co-author to the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Community Engagement Guide. This department wide policy set standards for engagement for our department. After Covid-19, we used this model to provide compensation for community stakeholder groups and streamline our engagement process in neighborhoods, this helped us address engagement fatigue. We also implemented virtual hybrid requirement for public meetings.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

The area of public policies that I am personally passionate about include: Housing, safety and wellness, workforce development, care of our seniors, care of our youth, and economic advancement.

What qualities does this office possess that makes it a unique and important part of the state government and legal system?

Making laws are important to set historical and economical precedents for the residents.

Who do you look up to? Whose example would you like to follow, and why?

Dr. King Jr. I am the co-chair of Denver's celebration of Dr. King Jr. We have the largest celebration of its kind. I would like to follow his example because he served humanity. He served love. He practiced servitude and had little regard for his life in exchange for what is right.

Is there a book, essay, film, or something else you would recommend to someone who wants to understand your political philosophy?

No

What characteristics or principles are most important for an elected official?

Integrity and being present in the neighborhoods. Learning is an important principle for this elected office.

What qualities do you possess that you believe would make you a successful officeholder?

I am honest and proactive

What do you believe are the core responsibilities for someone elected to this office?

Core responsibilities include: Respect, team work, creativity, and being present.

What legacy would you like to leave?

One of love and service

What is the first historical event that happened in your lifetime that you remember? How old were you at the time?

9/11 and I was 18

What was your very first job? How long did you have it?

Arby's- 18 months

What is your favorite book? Why?

Alchemist, it is the first book that showed me how powerful I could be.

What was the last song that got stuck in your head?

I Can- Nas

What is something that has been a struggle in your life?

I have lost my son and mother since Covid-19

Are there any little-known powers or responsibilities held by this office that you believe more people should be aware of?

No.

Do you believe that it's beneficial for holders of this office to have previous experience in government or politics?

Yes. I am the only candidate in my race that has worked for the City and County of Denver.

What kind of skills or expertise do you believe would be the most helpful for the holders of this office to possess?

Compassion, engagement, creativity, and inclusion.

Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.

Note: Community Questions were submitted by the public and chosen for inclusion by a volunteer advisory board. The chosen questions were modified by staff to adhere to Ballotpedia’s neutrality standards. To learn more about Ballotpedia’s Candidate Connection Expansion Project, click here.

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