When Tuesday’s election results rolled in, some outcomes swiftly became crystal clear. From Denver’s school board races to Aurora’s municipal showdowns and the statewide Proposition HH, voters didn’t just decide on candidates and ballot measures. They slammed the door on dysfunction — and averted disaster in the process.

Denver Public Schools wears dysfunction like a well-worn cloak, its tattered edges often dissected in my columns. The district has been in disarray — beset by the self-serving theatrics of outgoing board member Auon’tai Anderson, with his complicit colleagues marred by a collective inability to prioritize what truly matters: the students.

Facing a dismal 9% approval rating and inevitable defeat, Anderson decided not to seek reelection. Incumbents Scott Baldermann and Charmaine Lindsay lost by large margins. They’ll be replaced by John Youngquist, Kimberlee Sia and Marlene De La Rosa, respectively, who have a chance to breathe new life into the board.

Over months of individual conversations with Baldermann and Lindsay, our policy disagreements were often evident. Yet, amid tumultuous turbulence in DPS, both emerged as relative adults in the room.

While their colleagues overshadowed everything with outrageous antics, Lindsay stood out as the first board member to publicly endorse the return of school resource officers, and Baldermann candidly admitted having made a mistake in his 2020 vote to remove them. Both championed greater transparency and stricter checks on board members’ spending.

Let’s be clear: The departure of Baldermann and Lindsay isn’t the disaster that DPS averts; nor is it simply Tay Anderson leaving his role as posterchild for dysfunction.

The real catastrophe lies in the resounding condemnation of the whole board, echoing through the hallways: No more “clown shows.” Get your act together, cut the theatrics, ditch the interpersonal squabbles and refocus.

Voters demanded immediate action on school safety and student discipline — rejecting the notion of waiting for distant assessments from Harvard elites. Fresh district leadership must prioritize learning outcomes and discipline reform — all guided by new legal counsel focused on transparency, abandoning public records runarounds and hours-long executive sessions behind closed doors.

The upcoming vote on Treasurer Scott Esserman’s outlandish proposal for a 400% raise in board member salaries to $33,000 — a move widely considered unearned and shameful — demands robust budget constraints, deterring the kinds of financial abuses undertaken by Anderson, Esserman and others.

As I’ve previously written, amid countless crises — many self-inflicted — DPS has itself become the crisis. Should the new board heed this message, perhaps future disasters will be averted. Of course, Denver isn’t the only city to dodge further dysfunction on Tuesday. Voters in neighboring Aurora rejected a different brand by reelecting Mayor Mike Coffman over socialist Councilman Juan Marcano by a significant margin.

Marcano’s embrace of radical movements like “8 to Abolition” — which advocates defunding the police, closing prisons and removing police from schools — exemplified an extreme approach that threatened the city’s stability in a time of rising crime.

His divisive rhetoric — such as labeling Republicans colleagues members of a “sadistic death cult” and equivocating on condemning Hamas’s brutality against Jews and Israel — typified a brand of politics that has only derailed collaboration and good government.

Voters rebuked Marcano in favor of Coffman’s deep policy knowledge, seasoned experience and pragmatic strategies for addressing crucial issues like crime, homelessness and economic development — giving voters the kind of confidence that an entrenched, radical ideologue couldn’t offer.

While Marcano’s fellow socialist traveler, Councilwoman Alison Coombs, managed to secure enough votes in the 4-way at-large race to remain on council, she will now lead a small band of three progressives/socialists after Stephanie Hancock won Marcano’s old seat in Ward IV and current at-large member Angela Lawson won Coombs’ current seat in Ward V.

In choosing to fortify a common-sense, center-right city council, Aurorans embraced stability — navigating away from the discord of extreme ideologies and the disaster of irrational governance.

Prop HH similarly exemplified dysfunction through the deceptive tactics employed by proponents, including Gov. Jared Polis and Democratic legislators, who attempted to disguise a massive, long-run tax increase as a modest property tax cut. This campaign, subverting Coloradans’ right to receive future tax refunds under the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, violated every precept of good governance.

Proponents now attempt to justify Prop HH’s failure — a measure forced onto the ballot by the Democrat-controlled legislature — by claiming the feeble defense that it was “too complicated.” Such an argument belies the very disdain for the average Coloradan that generated Prop HH in the first place.

Even the Wall Street Journal warned that discarding TABOR might result in the debilitated governance that dominates TABOR-less states such as California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York — with unchecked government expansion, crushing tax burdens and unending fiscal challenges.

By wisely upholding Colorado’s unique tradition and method of fiscal responsibility, voters again dodged the inevitable long-term calamities of losing TABOR.

Let’s be clear: Voters are sick and tired of dysfunction. We’ve seen it for too long in Denver’s school board. We see it in the U.S. Congress. We see it in our divisive political discourse.

Coloradans are smart enough to know this kind of governance isn’t healthy for our society, our state or our nation. Fortunately, reality is starting to intervene — and it was reflected at the ballot box on Tuesday.

Jimmy Sengenberger is an investigative journalist, public speaker, and host of “The Jimmy Sengenberger Show” Saturdays from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. on News/Talk 710 KNUS. Reach Jimmy online at Jimmysengenberger.com or on X (formerly Twitter) @SengCenter.