Mail ballots are due Tuesday at 7 p.m. For voters who have yet to cast their votes, The Denver Gazette editorial board offers its recommendations once more, below.

Denver Public Schools

The Gazette editorial board highly recommends four bold, smart and dedicated candidates for the four openings on the DPS Board of Education on this fall’s ballot. They will champion four essentials: student achievement, parental choice, school safety and district accountability.

CARON BLANKE for east Denver’s District 3 on the DPS board. A DPS parent with a deep background in early childhood education, she has been recognized for her leadership in education and nonprofit work and is currently director of the JCC Early Learning School in Denver. Vote for Blanke.

MARIANA DEL HIERRO for southwest Denver’s District 2 seat. Another DPS parent and executive director of community nonprofit Re:Vision, Del Hierro wants to move past the public education establishment’s rhetoric about equity to bring about equity in outcomes. Vote for Del Hierro.

TIMIYA JACKSON for northeast Denver’s District 4 board seat. The DPS parent is a former dean of students, nonprofit executive and now a dropout re-engagement specialist. Jackson, too, will demand accountability of the currently unaccountable district administration, promising to “push for a clear, public breakdown of how funds are spent and who benefits.” Vote for Jackson.

ALEX MAGAŇA for the one open at-large seat on the DPS board. A parent of two DPS graduates, Magaňa is well known as a veteran DPS math teacher, assistant principal and principal. In the wake of campus violence that has marred DPS, Magaňa’s campaign website offers a potent assurance: “Every child deserves to walk into a school where they feel safe, seen, and supported.” Vote for Magaňa.

Denver municipal government

Referred Question 2G — Vote YES. Denver’s two at-large City Council members aren’t elected the same way as the other 11 council members, who represent districts. District council members must win a majority of the votes cast in their districts; at-large members, who theoretically represent the entire city, can take office with only a slim minority of the vote. Worse still, both at-large members are chosen from the same race; the top two vote getters in what’s typically a crowded field of candidates automatically get the two spots on council. They don’t face a second, runoff race as other council members do if they don’t win a majority in the first round. The current process defies logic. 2G would fix that problem. It would create separate “A” and “B” races for the two at-large council posts, and if a candidate for either race got a majority of votes cast in the first round, the candidate could claim that seat. If not, the two finalists in each of the two races would go to the runoff. It would restore majority rule. 

Referendum 310 — Vote YES. It would keep in place the Denver City Council’s ban on the sale of flavored tobacco products, which all too easily fall into the hands of kids. The ban actually was enacted by the council nearly a year ago but was challenged by some tobacco retailers, who managed to petition a reconsideration of the council’s ban onto this fall’s ballot. (Please note: A “yes” vote keeps the council’s ban in place; a “no” vote eliminates it.) We get the push-back from some small businesses that have grown to rely on tobacco sales for their bottom line. But protecting young people from addictive nicotine is a higher priority.

Issues 2A, 2B, 2C, 2D and 2E — Vote NO. This five-part bond issue to fund capital projects is a laundry list that lacks any credible semblance of priorities. It’s a mishmash of pressing, nice-but-not-essential and patently superfluous projects. Last summer, we called for breaking down the then-pending bond proposal into more bite-sized chunks to give voters a chance to prioritize what the city wouldn’t. What followed was a breakdown into five questions — each of which continues to reflect confused priorities. Issue 2A, for example, combines essential bridge projects with more dubious expenditures on the likes of bike lanes. 2D combines a critical, first-responder and public safety training center with assorted cultural amenities. Underlying it all are our deep misgivings about handing the administration of Mayor Mike Johnston so much money at once. Entrusting this a dizzying array of projects to this administration, with its record of mismanagement, amounts to blind faith. 

Statewide ballot issues

Propositions LL & MM — Vote NO. A “no” vote on Propositions LL & MM on this fall’s statewide ballot won’t prevent needy Colorado schoolchildren from getting free school meals. LL & MM are just a money grab placed on the ballot by Colorado’s legislature to fund free meals — for the children of everyone else. Meaning, kids from households that can afford to feed them and always have. The tax hikes are in fact a bailout for the state’s fiscally foundering “Health School Meals for All” program, created a few years ago by the legislature. Only politicians could have been surprised it costs so much to feed nearly a million kids a day.