(单词翻译:单击)
On a Wednesday afternoon in March, the Montview Boulevard Presbyterian Church, in Denver’s South Park Hill neighborhood, was packed.
三月的一个周三下午，丹佛南帕克山附近的蒙特维尤大道长老会教堂挤满了人。
The local chapter of the progressive group Indivisible was sponsoring a mayoral-candidate forum.
进步团体“Indivisible”的地方成员正在为一场市长候选人论坛捐款。
Five candidates had been invited to attend.
这场论坛邀请了五名候选人参加。
The moderator asked the usual questions about crime and public safety, homelessness and guns.
论坛主持人先问了一些诸如犯罪、公共安全、无家可归、枪支等常规问题。
Then came a question comprehensible only to a close observer of Denver politics: “Do you support releasing the city-owned conservation easement on the Park Hill Golf Course to allow the currently proposed redevelopment of this site?”
随后又问了一个只有密切关注丹佛政治的观察员才能理解的问题：“你是否支持解除帕克山高尔夫球场的市属保护地役权，以容许对该场地进行当前提议的重新开发?”
Four candidates raised their hands, a couple only halfway, as if that sign of reluctance might lessen the coming disapproval. It didn’t. The crowd booed.
四位候选人举起了手，其中两位手只举了半高，似乎这种不情愿的表现会减少即将到来的反对。然而并没有。人群发出嘘声。
In 1997, Denver paid the owners of the Park Hill Golf Course $2 million to place a conservation easement on the property, limiting how it could be used.
1997年，丹佛市向帕克山高尔夫球场的所有者支付了200万美元，以获得这片场地的保护地役权，从而限制该地的用途。
More than 20 years later, Westside Investment Partners bought the by-then-defunct golf course for $24 million.
20多年后，西区投资合伙人公司以2400万美元的价格买下了这个当时已不复存在的高尔夫球场。
After a contentious community-input process, lawsuits, and allegations of stolen lawn signs, the company settled on a proposal to build 2,500 homes (including a significant number of affordable, family, and senior units) as well as some commercial space.
在经历了颇具争议的社区意见传票，诉讼，盗取草坪标志指控后，该公司敲定了一项提案，将建造2500套住房(包括相当数量的经济适用房、家庭单元楼和老年单元楼)以及一些商业空间。
It also promised to reserve two-thirds of the 155-acre property as open space.
该公司还承诺将这155英亩土地中的三分之二保留为开放空间。
In 2021, Denver voters approved a ballot measure giving themselves the power to decide the easement’s fate.
2021年，丹佛选民通过了一项投票议案，赋予选民自身地役权命运决定权。
On April 4 of this year, voters declined to lift the easement.
今年4月4日，选民拒绝解除地役权。
The split was 59–41, not exactly close.
投票结果是59比41，并不十分接近。
Some observers have taken this outcome as a signal that the people of Denver (or, at least, the fewer than 100,000 who voted down the proposal) reject new development.
一些观察人士将这一结果视为一个信号，表明丹佛人民(或者至少是投票否决该提案的不到10万人)拒绝新的开发项目。
But in that same election, voters sent two candidates who supported the proposal to a mayoral runoff.
但在那次选举中，选民将两名支持该提案的候选人送进了市长决选。
Back in the 2022 statewide election, almost a quarter million Denver voters supported Democratic Governor Jared Polis, who campaigned on increasing housing supply and dismantling local roadblocks to construction in order to get a handle on Colorado’s housing-affordability crisis.
早在2022年的全州大选中，近25万丹佛选民支持民主党州长贾里德·波利斯。贾里德的竞选目标是增加住房供应，拆除当地的建筑障碍，以控制科罗拉多州的住房负担能力危机。
Also that year, nearly 1.3 million Coloradans voted to dedicate hundreds of millions of dollars to increasing affordable housing.
同年，近130万科罗拉多人投票决定投入数亿美元用于增加经济适用房。
In Denver, the measure won 70–30.
在丹佛，该议案以70比30获得通过。
Deciding “what the people believe” is not so easy.
决定“人们相信什么”并不容易。
