Not Just a Seat
A Pathway for Our Communities
"I’m running for Council Member At‑Large, Seat B to ensure every community has a voice. As the first tribally enrolled Native American woman to run for this seat, I bring not only my lived experience but the strength and stories of those historically left out of city decisions."
-Kristina Maldonado Bad Hand
Headshot taken by Mark Woolcott
Indigenous People's Day celebration 2025, photo taken by eight16creative
Leadership You Know
Integrity and Action
Kristina Maldonado Bad Hand is a Sicangu Lakota and Cherokee artist, organizer, and advocate for equity, inclusion, and authentic cultural representation. She is a small business advocate dedicated to strengthening Indigenous creative communities. With over a decade of experience in youth arts education, she advances literacy, social-emotional learning, and cultural representation through partnerships with organizations like RedLine Contemporary Art Center and the Denver Art Museum. Through her leadership and her work on the Living Land Project with Denver Parks & Recreation, she champions cultural practice revitalization from an ecological perspective, reconnecting communities to land-based knowledge, sustainability, and Indigenous creative economies.
The Vision:
Our Common Future
Rooted Here. Invested Here.
Denver’s land, homes, and storefronts should be owned by the people who live and work here , not out-of-state developers or hedge funds.
We must prioritize Colorado-based ownership in new development, help small businesses buy their buildings, and create pathways from renting or homelessness to affordable homeownership
Goal: A Denver for the people who love here, raise families here, and invest their lives here.
Protecting What Sustains Us.
Clean water, healthy neighborhoods, and a resilient environment are the foundation of a thriving city, and by following science and honoring Indigenous ecology, Denver can grow in ways that respect the land, the climate, and the generations who will depend on both.
Goal: Ensure that everyone has access to clean, protected water and that all climate‑change solutions are grounded in ecological knowledge and evidence‑based environmental science.
Lasting Home for Creativity.
Denver’s arts and education communities thrive when the people who create, teach, and live here can shape the city’s cultural landscape not be pushed out of it.
Artists, educators, culture bearers, and small creative businesses help define Denver’s identity.
A thriving city doesn’t push out the people who create its culture. It invests in them. We should make it possible for the next generation to live, work, create, and build a future here.
Goal: Lived Perspective at the Center of Denver’s Creative Future
From Vision to Action
Real change doesn’t happen because one person has a good idea, it happens when a community comes together with a shared purpose. Moving from vision to action means building real partnerships, listening deeply, and creating space for every voice to shape the path forward. As a community organizer, I know that progress is never top‑down. It grows from relationships, trust, and the belief that we are stronger when we work side by side.
Collaboration isn’t just a strategy; it’s the true meaning of community. People coming together, pooling their strengths, and turning collective hopes into concrete solutions that improve all of our lives.