Meet Councilman Watson

Council member Darrell Watson represents District 9 on the Denver City Council. He is the vice-chair of the Land Use Transportation and Infrastructure committee, a member of the Safety, Housing, Education & Homelessness Committee and the Boards and Commission Committee. He is the vice-chair of the Metro Area County Commissioners.

He enjoyed a 30-year career in finance, most of that time working at TIAA. He is the co-founder and principal of the Watson Wenk Group, a catalyst transforming how governmental agencies, for profit businesses, and nonprofits leverage justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) as transformational tools for collaborative engagement in BIPOC (black, indigenous, people of color) and other untapped communities.

Darrell currently sits on the boards of the Colorado Men of Color Collaborative and the Colfax Marathon. He was the founding chair of the Housing Stability Strategic Advisors board, co-creating with community common sense policies to address the housing crisis as well as developing strategies to increase wrap-around services that lead to permanent housing for currently unsheltered residents.

As the former co-chair of the Denver Game Plan for a Healthy City, a former chair of the Denver Parks and Recreation Advisory Board and former chair and founding board member of the Denver Park Trust, Darrell has collaborated with community members, Denver Parks and Recreation, and Denver City Council to pass common sense policies that created a dedicated funding source for parks, created a foundation to increase park space and quality parks throughout Denver and created the 30-year strategic plan, Gameplan for a Healthy City, detailing strategies that will lead Denver in reclaiming its ‘City in a Park’ heritage.

As the former co-chair of the Denver Biased Policing Task Force, Darrell coordinated with Denver City Council, Denver Mayor’s Office, Denver Police Department, and the wider community to update DPD training when contacting community members and create tactics to reduce instances of biased policing across the city.