Tyler Drum
From Ballotpedia
This page was current at the end of the individual's last campaign covered by Ballotpedia. Please contact us with any updates.
Tyler Drum ran for election to the Denver City Council to represent District 8 in Colorado. He lost in the general election on April 4, 2023.
Drum completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2023. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Tyler Drum's professional experience includes working as a nonprofit professional. He earned a bachelor's degree from Colorado State University in 2013.[1]
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 |
| Brad Revare (Nonpartisan) | 48.8 | 7,119 | ||
| 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 |
| ✔ | Brad Revare (Nonpartisan) | 33.5 | 4,764 | |
| Leslie Twarogowski (Nonpartisan) | 13.5 | 1,916 | ||
 | Tyler Drum (Nonpartisan) | 9.1 | 1,294 | |
 | Christian Steward (Nonpartisan) | 7.5 | 1,063 | |
| Rita Lewis (Nonpartisan) (Write-in) | 0.8 | 113 | ||
| 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. | ||||
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Michelle Mondragon (Nonpartisan)
Campaign themes
2023
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Tyler Drum completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2023. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Drum's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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I am running to represent our community on Denver City Council! I have been a resident of Montbello for seven years and love Montebllo so much!
I graduated from Colorado State University in 2013 with my Bachelors in History and Political Science. I then moved to Denver right after graduation and started working as a major and planned giving fundraiser for Children’s Hospital Colorado Foundation for six years. I most recentas a fundraiser for the Jewish Community Center in Denver.
I have also served for the past four years as the Captain for the Democratic Party of Denver for House District 7, during my time leading the house district I have focused on Spanish language outreach for the party and have supported democratic candidates running in the district and beyond as well as supporting progressive ballot initiatives and values whenever they are on the ballot.
I met my husband, Vanya, in 2019 when he was a foreign exchange student from Crimea, Ukraine. He was forced to return due to Covid and we got married before he left in March of 2020. Due to our country’s complicated and irritating immigration system, we have been separated for over three years. My mother-in-law, Lyuba, arrived as a refugee on the Uniting for Ukraine program in June of 2022 and lives with me in Montbello. My husband currently is in the Ukranian refugee program in Canada because he was accepted into their program but did not qualify to come in on America's program. We hope to be reunited soon!- Denver is facing a homelessness and housing affordability crises.
- Gentrification, we are developing luxury units that are unattainable to most people in Denver and not building the units we need to prevent people for being displaced in our city.
- Air quality, our proximity to the Suncor plant is a huge concern of mine.
Community Question Featured local question
We must transform underutilized commercial space into more residential housing. The pandemic has transformed how our city works and we must keep up with those changes by reimaging large swaths of our commercial space downtown.
Community Question Featured local question
We should redirect large portions of their budget to the STAR program and other similar measures and devote more resources to community-based violence interruption, housing, education, and substance and mental health treatment programs so we are using more of our resources on helping people and preventing crime and less on enforcement of a broken system. We must remove law enforcement as the default first responders when individuals are experiencing mental health or substance use crises, or other medical emergencies best addressed by health professionals.
Community Question Featured local question
We all deserve to be safe in our homes, at work, and in our community. Not only from violence, but from the economic, social, and environmental conditions that fuel violence. We must address the social determinants of health and safety to prevent violence at its root causes. The best way to address these issues is implementing preventative health and safety interventions. By providing robust mental health care, lifting people out of poverty, and providing our neighbors with the support of their community we can overcome the factors that cause people to turn to crime and achieve a new vison for public safety. Public health and safety are deeply interconnected. Increased access to health care, mental health treatment, and substance use treatment is closely tied with reductions in crime. By viewing issues of violence through a lens of public health we can address the societal factors that increase susceptibility to violence, while advancing protective environments that foster safety, health, and well-being.
Community Question Featured local question
First, I would work on expanding some of the key programs we have in place already to be more accessible and robust such as the heat pump program to help buildings and homes offset energy costs. I would prioritize that we are meeting the renewable standards we have already set for our governmental buildings in Denver. We had set a goal of having all governmental buildings running on 100% renewable energy by 2025 and currently, we are far from that important benchmark. I would also work with CSAR, DDPHE, and the Mayor's office to create an envelope program that certifies that the structure is 100% energy efficient for buildings and homes. I would also work with RTD, Denver Department of Transportation, and DPS to work on electrifying our buses. Lastly, I would work to expand the newly created Denver Department of Transportation, to aid in inequitable access of transportation in our communities.
The climate emergency is already happening, and we need to focus on being resilient to its inevitable effects by having a plan for those who are most vulnerable and working to reverse the harm currently being inflicted on people. We must also find a multitude of solutions to reduce vehicle traffic and auto emissions in a way that does not increase the burden on the working class, as well as making sure public transit is expanded to those who need it the most. We have to make sure when renegotiating the contract with Xcel that we are moving as much of our utilities to 100% renewable resources, while making sure costs are not passed on to those that can least afford it.
The climate emergency is already happening, and we need to focus on being resilient to its inevitable effects by having a plan for those who are most vulnerable and working to reverse the harm currently being inflicted on people. We must also find a multitude of solutions to reduce vehicle traffic and auto emissions in a way that does not increase the burden on the working class, as well as making sure public transit is expanded to those who need it the most. We have to make sure when renegotiating the contract with Xcel that we are moving as much of our utilities to 100% renewable resources, while making sure costs are not passed on to those that can least afford it.
Community Question Featured local question
I would first and foremost listen to community members and advocates of police reform and the community to hear what they want changed about policing. Some of the ideas I would bring to the table are that Denver needs to move away to measuring an officer's productivity by stops, citations, and arrests, the measure of their success should be metrics measuring the feelings of overall safety and security of the community. I would work with the community to see how they feel most safe. Officers should be assigned to a specific neighborhood for years at a time when it should be strongly encouraged they live near or in and require they are bilingual in the communities that need it. We should implement the strictest use-of-force policy we can so that it is only used as an absolute last resort. We should redirect large portions of their budget to the STAR program and other similar measures and devolve more resources to community-based violence interruption, housing, education, and substance and mental health treatment programs so we are using more of our resources on helping people and preventing crime and less on enforcement of a broken system. We need to decriminalize substance use and treat substance addiction as a health problem. We must remove law enforcement as the default first responders when individuals are experiencing mental health or substance use crises, or other medical emergencies best addressed by health professionals. We should not allow our police force to purchase or use military weaponry. All complaints against the police should be investigated by civilian oversight committees from the neighborhoods they serve with subpoena power. Officers should have a legal obligation to intervene, prevent, and report misconduct, with criminal penalties for failing to do so along with strong consequences for codes of silence, and zero tolerance for dishonesty.
Community Question Featured local question
In order to prepare for the next crisis, we should improve communication with vulnerable groups. People with low incomes, older people, people who are experiencing housing insecurity, and people with preexisting health conditions are most likely to be at most in need of critical information and less likely to get it. These populations may not have access to typical communication outlets the city uses to communicate with the population, such as the internet. We should invest in figuring out how to reach everyone, so we are ready when the next crisis hits. We need to practice countering misinformation, fostering inclusive decision-making, build trust in credible sources, and communicating risks clearly and honestly so that we are in a position to best educate the city when the time comes.
Denver is facing a homelessness and housing affordability crises, people are being forced out of Denver to find more affordable places to live, wages are not rising while costs are, and attainable unites are not being built in a quantity to keep up with the rising need. We need to focus on a housing first policy on homelessness to people can get their lives situated from a place of stability. We need to expand ADU zooming so more families can grow and stay together. We need to have more first time home buying grants. We need to ban Airbnbs so they don’t affect the housing stock, we need to build more attainable units around public transit. We must also support the funding of tenant education programs, legal counsel for tenants, and enforcement of state tenant and housing laws.
Gentrification, we are developing luxury units that are unattainable to most people in Denver and not building the units we need to prevent people for being displaced in our city. In my district this is an impending disaster in East Colfax. We need to make sure new housing units are not displacing those already living in a community by controlling what developments get approved.
I will listen and learn from those who know more about a policy area than I do. I will lead through my community, I have integrity, self-awareness, courage, respect, empathy, and gratitude so that I can be a trusted source of help for everyone in our city. I will co-govern with my community to find the most effective and equitable solutions for all. I will fight when there is injustice, and amplify the voices of those who do not typically have one. I will admit when I am wrong and work very hard to learn and better myself and my city. I will never sell out to special interests and I will stand in solidarity with the people of Denver!
I have integrity, self-awareness, courage, respect, empathy, and gratitude so that I can be a trusted source of help for everyone in our city.
I want to live in a Denver where people my age are able to buy homes and afford to build a family. A Denver where our air is clean, our streets are safe, and my neighbors in mental health emergencies can find an inpatient bed to receive treatment and are not left with an unaffordable health care bill by doing so. I want to live in a Denver where the developers are not the ones calling that shots in our city government and those decisions are returned to the people. We must fight for this future.
Probably 9/11, I was 9 at the time, I remember it was a scary day because my grandpa worked at the Pentagon.
My first job was washing dishes at Noodles and Company in high school, I was 16 at the time. I had it for around two years until I went off to College at CSU.
I am consistently present at every community meeting. Going back to when I first moved to the neighborhood, it’s not something I view as a task, it what I genuinely enjoy doing. I’m extremely accessible, I answer every call and am constantly out visible in the community. I speak Spanish and Russian, helping me connect with all of my neighbors. I cannot say why they are running but I’m running because my neighborhood (Montbello) is constantly an afterthought to the City and I am doing this to make sure that changes.
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See also
2023 Elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on March 10, 2023
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