Denver and Colorado face significant challenges in health care, education, transportation and economic development. Denver needs a strong, experienced voice to ensure its interests are an important part of the solutions.

My strength has always been that I bring people together to find common sense, effective answers to tough problems. I served Southeast Denver for 10 years on Denver City Council and I served the entire City and County of Denver as President of City Council.

Over the years, we rebuilt University Hills Mall, developed the Southeast light rail and specialized bus services such as the Bee Line between U-Hills and Cherry Creek. I resolved challenges with the tow-truck industry and cleaned up the paramedic support services. I have been working for a long time on these issues. I bring a willingness to listen to all sides and relentless determination to bring all sides to common sense answers and action.

It is this long record of good work, experience, knowledge and judgment that I offer to the voters of Senate District 35. Together we will move Colorado forward.

Health Care | Education/Youth | Transportation

In the late 90’s, Joyce helped the Denver Paramedics to negotiate for better facilities and ambulance services so they could better serve the Denver public.

Health Care: A Basic Human Right

• Over 50% of personal bankruptcies are caused by illness and/or medical costs.
• About 75% of those bankrupted by medical bills actually had insurance at the time they got sick.
• Approximately 69% of each American healthcare dollar is spent on healthcare, while 31% is spent on administrative costs.
• Over 777,500 Coloradans, including 161,000 children, currently have no health insurance and an equal number are underinsured. Eighty percent of the medically underserved in Colorado are working adults and their children.

American healthcare is a $2 trillion Wall Street-entrenched industry, providing billions in annual profits to insurance companies, corporate executives and shareholders while denying health access and services to millions of working people and their families.

I believe:

• Access to quality affordable healthcare is a basic human right;
• Creating an efficient public healthcare system is not only an urgent public-interest priority, but is a primary and basic role and function of state and federal governments; and
• Health care is a moral mission. Our access should not be determined by business’ bottom line.

I support a single-payer healthcare delivery system in which:

• A Single-Risk Pool includes all Coloradoans, both children and adults;
• Patients can select the doctors and/or hospital of their choice;
• All preexisting health conditions are covered;
• Prescription drugs costs, dental care, eye care, prenatal care and childhood vaccination services are covered;
• The Colorado health care system would be funded by individuals’ premiums to the state provider (to be determined) based on a sliding scale using individual federal income tax returns and supplemented by state and federal funding; and
• Doctors and hospitals would remain private and would be guaranteed reimbursement within 31 days.

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Joyce has three grown children and six grandchildren.

Education/Youth

I believe funding full-day kindergarten should be the state’s most vitally important education initiative. The research is clear: high-quality early childhood education – including reading-a-loud, storytelling, music, drawing and physical play – are cornerstones of lifelong academic and professional success.

I wholly support Governor Ritter’s P-20 (preschool through college) plan to reform school testing and return the focus where it belongs – on local control, high academic standards, high academic achievement and learning, rather than on mere test-taking (i.e. CSAP).

I strongly believe the Colorado Legislature can and should approve real incentives for teachers in Colorado’s poorest, most disadvantaged and most academically-underperforming schools and also for our state’s most outstanding math, science and special education teachers.

As the mother of three children, each of whom earned higher education degrees, and the grandmother of six precious children who live right here in Senate District 35, I will work to increase Colorado’s higher education funding. (Colorado ranks 49th in per student funding, just above Mississippi.)

I also know a four-year bachelors degree is not the goal of every young person. We hurt our youth and future workforce by failing to re-brand and re-invigorate “vocational training” as a viable, respected and valued option. As a former Director of Employment Services and as your Senator, I intend to reach out to the business community, chambers of commerce and labor unions to partner with high school and community college students to create multi-year public/private partnerships, on-the-job-training, apprenticeships and professional mentorships.

While on Denver City Council, I worked with parents and the DPS School Board to reopen both Slavens and Southmoor elementary schools. I was a staunch supporter of Summer Scholars, Safe City, and other summer youth initiatives. I have always valued strong after-school and summer youth programs and supervised activities. I’m particularly proud of convening and partnering with youth from every middle and high school in Denver to collaboratively spearhead the creation and design of, and funding, for Denver’s outdoor youth Skate Park in the Central Platte Valley. Upon opening in 2001, it was the largest free outdoor skate park in North America.

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Ribbon cutting of the Light Rail opening at Hampden Station. Pictured from left to right: City Councilwoman Jeanne Robb, Mayor John Hickenlooper, Former City Councilwoman Joyce Foster, City Councilwoman Peggy Lehmann, Former RTD Boardmember and Former CDOT Commissioner Albert Melcher, and City Councilperson Doug Linkhart.

Transportation Infrastructure: Economic Life Blood

Take a moment to look around your home, office or school. Literally everything you see, every tangible item and service upon which you and your family rely, ultimately arrived courtesy of Colorado’s transportation infrastructure. Our food, clothing, furniture, computer, cell phone and television – from firefighters and teachers to baby bottles and prescription drugs, from farm to market, and from DIA to Colorado ski country – our economy and quality of life rest with our collective willingness to build and maintain the infrastructure that provides our people, tourists, goods and services with safe, efficient and environmentally responsible mobility.

• As a Denver City Councilwoman, I worked hard for years with hundreds of neighbors, constituents, community groups, CDOT, RTD and elected officials to plan and fund the I-25 / I-225 Highway and Light Rail Expansion Project (T-REX project). It opened on time and under budget just one-and-a-half-years ago.
• As your State Senator, I will work with constituents, colleagues and stakeholders to export T-REX and FasTracks models throughout the state so more Coloradans benefit from increased highway capacity, more transit options, less traffic congestion and better air quality.
• Investing in public infrastructure means quality Colorado jobs and better economic opportunity, tourism, public safety and air quality.
• Are you aware that Colorado has over 100 structurally deficient bridges, about 40 of which are in metro-Denver? With thousands of disintegrating state and federal highway lane-miles; and given Colorado’s rapidly increasing population, traffic congestion and number of ground-level ozone/air-quality violations; we face extraordinarily tough decisions about how best to maintain our infrastructure while accommodating the intense demand for congestion relief, system capacity and mobility.

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Joyce at the Revamping of University Hills Mall, where construction commenced August 4, 1996.