Boulder Weekly 4.08.21

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How the media covered the shooting at King Soopers, part 2

by Matt Cortina

Federal funding of CPW’s predator control plans was illegal, judge says

by Rico Moore

buzz: Sculpture dedicated to Los Seis de Boulder highlights difficulties in permitting Boulder’s public art

by Caitlin Rockett

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events:

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drink:

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weed between the lines:

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Face Vocal Band and livestreams at Stone Cottage Studios benefit Colorado Healing Fund, plus events, music, theater and art

by Caitlin Rockett

Despite pandemic, more craft breweries are operating now than ever

by Matt Cortina

Full-spectrum LEDs allow cannabis grows to control size and shape of plants while saving money and energy

by Will Brendza

departments 5 6 6 22 23 24 25 27

Guest Column : Generational opportunity for Colorado’s transportation system Writers on the Range: We need to act now to fight wildfires Guest Column: Boulder County should have the final say on Gross Dam expansion, and it should say no Words: ‘The Studio,’ by Kristoff Malejczuk Savage Love: Concessions Astrology: by Rob Brezsny Film: ‘Slalom’ to play Women+Film Festival Food/Drink: Zucchini Bread @ Breadworks

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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APRIL 8, 2021

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Publisher, Fran Zankowski Editor, Matt Cortina Circulation Manager, Cal Winn EDITORIAL Senior Editor, Angela K. Evans Arts and Culture Editor, Caitlin Rockett Contributing Writers, Peter Alexander, Dave Anderson, Emma Athena, Will Brendza, Rob Brezsny, Michael J. Casey, Sarah Haas, Jim Hightower, Dave Kirby, John Lehndorff, Rico Moore, Amanda Moutinho, Katie Rhodes, Leland Rucker, Dan Savage, Alan Sculley, Ryan Syrek, Christi Turner, Betsy Welch, Tom Winter, Gary Zeidner SALES AND MARKETING Market Development Manager, Kellie Robinson Account Executives, Matthew Fischer, Sami Wainscott Advertising Coordinator, Corey Basciano Mrs. Boulder Weekly, Mari Nevar PRODUCTION Art Director, Susan France Senior Graphic Designer, Mark Goodman CIRCULATION TEAM Dave Hastie, Dan Hill, George LaRoe, Jeffrey Lohrius, Elizabeth Ouslie, Rick Slama BUSINESS OFFICE Bookkeeper, Regina Campanella Founder/CEO, Stewart Sallo Editor-at-Large, Joel Dyer

April 8, 2021 Volume XXVIII, Number 34 As Boulder County's only independently owned newspaper, Boulder Weekly is dedicated to illuminating truth, advancing justice and protecting the First Amendment through ethical, no-holds-barred journalism and thought-provoking opinion writing. Free every Thursday since 1993, the Weekly also offers the county's most comprehensive arts and entertainment coverage. Read the print version, or visit boulderweekly.com. Boulder Weekly does not accept unsolicited editorial submissions. If you're interested in writing for the paper, please send queries to: editorial@ boulderweekly.com. Any materials sent to Boulder Weekly become the property of the newspaper.

690 South Lashley Lane, Boulder, CO, 80305 p 303.494.5511 f 303.494.2585 editorial@boulderweekly.com www.boulderweekly.com Boulder Weekly is published every Thursday. No portion may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. © 2021 Boulder Weekly, Inc., all rights reserved.

Boulder Weekly welcomes your correspondence via email (letters@ boulderweekly.com) or the comments section of our website at www.boulderweekly.com. Preference will be given to short letters (under 300 words) that deal with recent stories or local issues, and letters may be edited for style, length and libel. Letters should include your name, address and telephone number for verification. We do not publish anonymous letters or those signed with pseudonyms. Letters become the property of Boulder Weekly and will be published on our website.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

Generational opportunity for Colorado’s transportation system

by Audrey DeBarros, Commuting Solutions

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olorado and the nation are on the brink of a large infusion of federal and state dollars for infrastructure from the American Rescue Plan, Colorado Recovery Plan and American Jobs Plan. This funding presents a new opportunity to think boldly about the future of getting where we need to go.

I recently completed an annual virtual visit with federal elected leaders and policy makers as part of the Northwest Mayors & Commissioners Coalition, and received broad support for fixing our infrastructure, improving transportation’s impact on climate I

change and bringing the Front Range into air quality conformity. It is clear the multimodal vision we have in mind for the northwest metro region is in keeping with the Biden administration’s policy focus.

Transportation is the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in Colorado, so we must invest in the infrastructure, services and programs to shift single occupant vehicle travel and modernize the ways in which transportation is paid for. Prioritizing new funding to advance the full vision for the SH 119 corridor between Boulder and Longmont is critical to improve regional mobility APRIL 8, 2021

in the northwest metro region. And partnering with the RTD, Amtrak and Congress to support funding for Front Range Passenger Rail (FRPR) in the federal transportation bill authorization is something we should all get behind.

At the state level, the Colorado legislature will soon introduce a highly anticipated bill with the intent of addressing the structure of how transportation is funded while modernizing the modes to reflect how our infrastructure is being used today, addressing climate, electrification and air quality.

I am more hopeful we can accomplish bold transportation investments than have been made in a long time.

This opinion column does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly.

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We need to act now to fight wildfires

By Harrison Raine

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or the 2021 fire season, the writing is on the wall. The West, despite a few days of intense winter, is far drier than it was leading up to last year’s record-breaking fires.

As a hotshot crew member, the reality of what’s to come fills me with two distinct thoughts: money and dread. With my financial stability tied to overtime pay, I know that my pockets will be full when I am laid off next winter. But the unrelenting fires that stand between now and then make me nervous.

I also know that I am not alone. Across the West, people in homes and communities are filled with anxiety as they look at dry timber and brown hillsides that are usually white this time of year. For them, when the air fills with smoke, there won’t be any fire paychecks, just a prolonged sense of uncertainty.

Drought levels often serve as a good indicator of the fires to come, and things are far worse now than they were in the build-up to 2020.

Rich Tinker, an author of the U.S. Drought Monitor at the Climate Prediction Center, told me, “In 2020, the highest we got to anywhere, was a D2 — Severe Drought. Now we are looking at D3 — D4 — Extreme and Exceptional Drought across much of the West and almost all of the Southwest.”

When Nick Nauslar, a fire meteorologist at the National Interagency Fire Center, talks about the fire season to come, he’s particularly blunt: “The deck is stacked against us. I

fully expect a busier season than normal across the Southwest.”

For Tinker and Nauslar, the areas of concern primarily encompass the Four Corners states of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona.

When you put together light snowpack, dry fuels and high temperatures, every wildland firefighter knows what that means.

In my time as wildland firefighter, the question I get asked again and again is whether I am ever scared.

The answer to this question is “yes,” but not in the life or death way in which it’s asked.

There are far more constant threats than the flames themselves.

Smoke, for one.

Carbon emissions, for another.

I think I’m worried most by the knowledge that damage from these wildfires affects the health of millions of people, and that the large wildfires of today are ensuring bigger ones in the future.

Everyone should be concerned about this reality, not just those of us on the fire line.

Wildfires and their management are known by some researchers as a “wicked problem,” where no optimal solution exists. For decades, forest managers were convinced that suppressing all fires was the answer. But we’ve known for a while now how misplaced those beliefs were, even as many agencies cling to that failed strategy of a century ago.

Jerry Williams, former fire and aviation director for the U.S. Forest Service, puts it best about our stub-

As a hotshot

crew member, the reality of what’s to come in this year’s fire season fills me with two distinct thoughts: money and dread.

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see WRITERS ON THE RANGE Page 9

APRIL 8, 2021

Boulder County should have the final say on Gross Dam expansion, and it should say no

by Anita M. Wilks

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enying Denver Water’s 1041 application may be our only hope of saving Coal Creek Canyon and the north shore of Gross Reservoir from many years of devastation beyond imagination: noise and air pollution, hazardous chemical exposure, road safety and extended travel times, sharing our two-lane roads with massive trucks, and long-term extended delays on all our roadways.

Expanding Gross Dam could also deplete the Colorado River to an extent it may not recover or survive.

It’s up to Boulder County Commissioners to approve or deny the project, but as someone opposed to Denver Water expanding Gross Dam and Reservoir, here are a few of the blatant issues listed in Boulder County’s Land Use Code — 1041 Permit Application (Article 8: Location & Extent Areas & Activities of State Interest).

Denver Water intends to produce concrete for a larger dam and this process will use many acre-feet of water, disrupt soil at the dam site and along shorelines, and degrade environmental resources. This appears to I

be in contradiction to the purposes and intent section, especially point no. 4: “Conserve soil, water, forest resources, and Environmental Resources.” The cement industry is one of the two largest producers of carbon dioxide, creating up to 8% of worldwide man-made emissions of this gas, of which 50% is from the chemical process and 40% from burning fuel. The 1041 permit also includes a requirement (no. 5) to protect the beauty of the landscape. As noted, producing concrete, as well as making new roads and removing thousands of mature trees along the shorelines all will destroy the beauty of the existing landscape.

The County is also required to regulate projects that would otherwise cause excessive noise, water and air pollution and would degrade and threaten the existing environmental quality of the County (no. 7). This proposed project would be the largest and most damaging construction project in Boulder County history so it only goes to prove all of these issues would be adversely affected, see GUEST COLUMN page 8

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GUEST COLUMN from Page 6

not only during the construction, but also for decades to come.

No. 10 requires that municipal and industrial water projects shall emphasize the most efficient use of water, including, to the extent permissible under existing law, the recycling and reuse of water. Certainly, cement production’s massive use and waste of water is in direct conflict with this requirement. Also, conservation of water in nearby metro and urban development has a long way to go since many still use Kentucky bluegrass sod and mature tree landscaping surrounding all new subdivisions and even commercial building development.

“Ensure site selection of arterial highways and interchanges and collector highways occurs so that community traffic needs are met, desirable community patterns are not disrupted, and direct conflict with adopted local government, regional, and state master plans avoided,” the regulations state (no. 13). All proposed road construction to accommodate this proposed project will disrupt, and are in direct conflict, with the two-lane state highway that is the only main road in and out of the impacted communities. Other arterial roads such as Gross Dam Road, Lazy Z, Tunnel 19 and Miramonte are unimproved and mostly single-lane dirt roads that residents must use daily as their only options. So, Denver Water’s mitigation plans are not conducive to this regulation of the 1041 permit either.

Many of the requirements also pose regulation conflicts from Denver Water’s proposal no matter what design is chosen to mitigate usage (no. 15, 16 and 17.) Likewise, the definitions section (8-210 B, 2 c.

“Will not cause significant adverse environmental impacts on the unincorporated County”; and d. “Will not overburden the infrastructure of the unincorporated County in areas surrounding the proposed service area”) addresses the problems with the massive road construction that Denver Water proposes. Since these bedroom communities have only the one paved state highway in and out of their homes, this is an impossible mitigation by the applicant and any suggestions otherwise are untrue and risk the safety and continued unhinI

dered movements of the existing population.

The Land Use Code also requires that the Commissioners protect the public health, safety, welfare and the environment. This particular regulation cannot be achieved by this applicant for reasons too numerous to list, but here are but a few: Health of residents in Coal Creek Canyon and upon the north shore of the existing reservoir are sure to suffer air and noise pollution at levels the applicant cannot control and enough to create disease-related conditions to not only humans but also the wildlife we hold dear and live here to enjoy. Our very welfare is conditional upon the peace and quiet and natural environment of woodland and forest.

Years of construction of the proposed levels have the potential to cause chronic health issues for the residents and also be the reason wildlife leaves to never return. Even the Final Environmental Impact Study (EIS) listed long-term destruction to aquatic life in a new reservoir so severe that no fish would ever live in its waters again, including stocked fish from upper South Boulder Creek. At true risk again are the Winiger Ridge elk herds and their calving grounds. Boulder County has done extensive study and the findings can be found at assets.bouldercounty.org.

The next section of the land use code (8-206) makes it clear that Boulder County has the final say on this project: “Review or approval of a project by a federal or state agency does not obviate, and will not substitute for, the need to obtain a permit for that project under these regulations.” Although the Federal Energy Regulation Commission (FERC) and Army Corps Records of Decision have approved Denver Water’s expansion, that cannot override Boulder County’s Commissioners, who represent county residents and interests and need to protect our county. Neither of those permits have the necessary guidelines to prevent the destruction of our environment surrounding the existing dam and reservoir.

Section 8-507 has always been a point of contention between Denver see GUEST COLUMN Page 9

BOULDER WEEKLY

GUEST COLUMN from Page 8

Water and the opposition, not to mention Denver Water recipients and its Denver customers i.e., its own bylaws and water numbers. It requires a “detailed inventory of total commitments already made for current water in terms of taps or other appropriate measurements.” Initially Denver Water had sights on the Two Forks Dam in southern Colorado and once that project was rejected and killed by the EPA many years ago, the Denver Water Board set its sights on expanding existing Gross Reservoir. Over the course of many scoping meetings, public hearings and botched Intergovernmental Agreements (IGAs), the utility is now using a heretofore and untrue reason — storage stability for growing populations in the Denver Metro and surrounding suburbs it sells water to — to push this project through.

The utility has never been able to prove a need for the mere 8% an expanded Gross Reservoir might provide to the entire Denver Water system. Real conservation, reuse and recycling of water would allow the existing water system the stability and growth potential it says the expansion of Gross Reservoir might provide to support growing popula-

tions moving to our metropolitan area, not just Boulder County.

Too much time and effort has been spent to stop this destructive massive proposed project. Now that FERC’s permit to amend the hydroelectric generating station in the existing dam has put strict timelines on Denver Water’s efforts to push this application process through, it is apparent not all of Boulder County’s land use requirements, including adequate public comment review, can be done to satisfy the FERC’s time standards. In letters between FERC and Denver Water, it is most concerning that FERC does have grave concerns about who the applicant (Denver Water) will hire for any dam construction. The only possible outcome is for Denver Water to be denied Boulder County’s 1041 permit and to go on its way by doing the environmentally responsible things the utility should already be doing — real conservation.

Anyone may submit comments regarding this proposed project via email to GrossReservoir@bouldercounty.org with Docket #SI-20-0003 in the subject line of the Email.

This opinion column does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly.

WRITERS ON THE RANGE from Page 6

born wrongheadedness: “Every year we set a new record, we invest more in (fire) suppression, invest less in mitigation and wonder why we’re not getting on top of it.” If someone who directed the largest wildland firefighting force in the world makes this statement, it’s probably time to try something else.

What we need are policies and programs that address wildfires in ways beyond putting fires out. This spring, Colorado showed that it’s willing to learn from last season’s pain when Gov. Jared Polis and state legislators from both sides of the aisle released a series of bills aimed at wildfire mitigation, not only wildfire suppression.

These bills are exciting for several reasons such as: allocation of millions for forest health projects and grants for communities and individual homBOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

eowners to carry out their own hazard reduction projects. Also there is an effort to seek out incentives for markets to address fuel mitigation through biomass energy.

The millions the state spends now on restoring forests and hardening homes pale in comparison to the costs of firefighting and rebuilding homes.

Every dollar spent on prevention saves $17 in suppression, according to a report from former Utah Gov. Gary R. Herbert.

There is also a bill to allow former inmates with firefighting experience to seek future employment with the state, which will help ensure a consistent workforce.

I hope the federal government is taking notes.

This opinion column does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly.

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What did we need to know during the shooting?

Part 2 of our series on how the media covered the tragedy at King Soopers

by Matt Cortina

B

efore the shooting had ceased at King Soopers on March 22, there was a livestream on YouTube of it.

Within minutes of the stream going live, viewers could see people on the ground and hear gunshots in the store, and, eventually, watch police escort the cameraman behind caution tape as they worked to secure the area. (Despite the expletive-laden claims of the person livestreaming the shooting that he’s a journalist, the Constitution does not necessarily afford the right to members of the press to be in a crime scene.)

The livestream can still be accessed on YouTube; the company justified that decision to The Guardian, saying that content that has “sufficient news or documentary context” can remain on the platform.

It’s a unique aspect of the Boulder shooting — that it was filmed and broadcast live without any context — but it’s just a microcosm of a larger debate about the role and responsibilities the media (national, local and “citizen journalists”) have in covering mass shootings. What do we as community mem10

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bers — and the rest of the country — need to see and hear in the immediate moments during and following a mass shooting?

“The livestreaming and the live tweets actually pose some immense ethical challenges, because what the public actually needs, what those in the store need, what those on the scene need, is safety,” says Bruce Shapiro, executive director of Columbia University’s Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, which encourages innovative reporting on violence around the world.

“What the public needs in that super breaking news phase is accuracy.”

In fact, the Boulder Police tweeted during the event that people should not “broadcast on social media any tactical information you might see” because of the potential it had to alert the shooter to police activities and the locations of other potential victims.

Elizabeth Skewes, chair of the CU journalism department, sees the value in documenting events as they happen, but questions the benefit of doing so without editing, such as in a livestream.

“If somebody records something like that,

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maybe it is documentary, but I don’t think you have to livestream it,” she says. “I don’t see the value in giving people chaotic, haphazard info, especially about something like this. ... The fact people were seeing victims lying on the ground, it strikes me as voyeuristic and disrespectful. If you feel the need to record as a citizen journalist, record, but take a look at what needs to be published out to the world.

“This wasn’t a case where livestreaming it saved lives or saved people; they knew something awful was happening there and to stay away from the area,” Skewes adds.

And yet, many national and local media outlets linked to the livestream, or used photos and video from it in their coverage.

Doesn’t the inclusion of that content condone the ethically questionable manner in which it was gathered? And if these media organizations provide the crucial step of editing — so unidentified dead bodies aren’t included, and time elapses so police and bystanders are no longer in danger — is it fair game to run the footage?

Maybe answering those ethical questions around the livestream are up to the viewers themselves. Generally speaking, though, Shapiro and Skewes say network media BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW

companies are using more care than they used to when it comes to identifying shooters and victims, and picking the right images to put into stories.

Skewes says, over time, media companies began to ask (and answer) questions like, “Should we be covering this so family members are seeing this in the news before they get a knock on the door from somebody in law enforcement?”

But in a world “full of news without any act of journalism being committed,” as Shapiro says, where Twitter is mired in half-truths and outright lies, it’s important in the moment, during a mass shooting or another acute tragedy, to be accurate.

“My view is the news sites that have the luxury of being a little more thoughtful or being more rigorous, the faster the news cycle is going, the higher the life-and-death stakes, the more important it is to slow down and not take the bait,” he says. “Because the consequences of missing something or getting it wrong are so huge.”

For instance, coverage of the Columbine shooting was rife with mentions of the shooters’ associations with a so-called “trench coat mafia,” a group of goth kids supposedly out for revenge on popular kids. But it was a myth, at once an exaggeration and an oversimplification of the shooters’ motives, and Shapiro says that twisted the conversation in a way that had nothing to do with the root cause of the shooting. Other errors in previous shootings include misidentifying suspects and victims, as was the case at Sandy Hook, when the shooter’s brother was misidentified by news outlets as the perpetrator. NPR first reported Gabby Giffords died when she was shot at a public event.

Other ethical questions arise in the moments during and immediately after a mass shooting, and long-lasting ramifications depend on the answers.

For instance, before the Virginia Tech shooting, the shooter sent his manifesto to NBC, which had to decide whether or not to publish it. After wrestling with the decision, it ultimately decided on a limited released, broadcasting parts of the video and publishing parts of the text once, and then with heightened scrutiny in the future — but you can still access it all after five minutes of internet searching.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

As Shapiro says, even if the decision was to publish it once and then never again, the internet can circulate things so fast, it quickly becomes no longer one media company’s decision whether to unpublish something or not. And the danger is that in the media’s haste to publish anything related to a shooting in the immediate aftermath, those materials could live online forever and become repeated viewing for those on the fringe who might have thoughts of committing similar atrocities.

All of this isn’t to say that there isn’t a valid argument to be made about documenting events without a filter. Nightly images of the carnage in Vietnam changed the perception of that war, anecdotally at least. And Mamie Till famously wanted an open casket so the world could see what racial violence, bigotry and hatred did to her son.

Plus, both Skewes and Shapiro say, people who have lost loved ones in a mass shooting, or who have survived one, may feel a need to tell their stories. But do they need a camera shoved in their face 20 minutes after the shooting ends?

“My grandma taught me the do-unto-others rule, it’s a simple one,” Skewes says. “If I was going through that, would I want a reporter asking me questions? Probably not. Journalists need to tread carefully because in the immediacy of the moment, family members are grieving and they’ve been stunned by this awful thing that has happened. …

The kind of information you might get, it might be useful. You get hobbies, what the person was like. It’s helpful, I suppose, but is it worth the potential harm? Probably not.”

Says Shapiro: “You can see the anger and distress that people have when they see the satellite trucks take over a town and then go away. … One of the big things with traumatic events is losing a I

APRIL 8, 2021

sense of your own safety. The bigfoot media sometimes acts in a way that amplifies that loss of control. That’s an accelerant on distress. It makes ‘The Media’ an easy focal point for anger. On the other hand, it’s also true that people want and need their stories attended to and reported on.”

Covering a mass shooting as it happens can also have negative impacts on the mental health of journalists.

Research indicates as much — a Finnish COLUMBIA study found 10% of JOURNALISM journalists experienced REVIEW and the Dart Center published and PTSD after covering distributed fill-in-thethe Japanese tsunami, blank news stories that highlight how the nation- whereas 30% of journalal media treats mass ists reported mental shootings as rote and health issues after a inevitable. shooting in Uotya, Norway, in 2011.

Looking forward, the media chaos that ensues when a mass shooting happens may actually have longer lasting impacts, hampering the ability of local journalists to do impactful work in the future.

“In every single case,” Shapiro says of previous shootings, “the national media comes in and then goes away and often wrecks carefully cultivated local relationships; everyone comes to hate ‘The Media.’”

Local reporters who work with the cops, courts and local government may have to work harder to restore trust based on the actions of outside media, Shapiro says. But getting through those obstacles, repairing relationships and sticking with the story is the value local media brings to events like these.

In fact, it’s stories from local news outlets that might affect real change and serve communities best in the long run. Stories that require reporters to connect with families that want to talk about loved ones. Investigations into what happened that led to the shooting (and thus, find solutions to prevent the next one). Tracking changes in the community as a response to the tragedy. And so next week, in the final part of this series, we’ll look at how the current media playbook of covering mass shooting impacts a community’s ability to move forward.

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Federal funding of CPW’s predator control plans was illegal, judge says

by Rico Moore

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unding from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services (USFWS) of the Colorado Division of Parks and Wildlife’s (CPW) two predator control studies for black bears and mountain lions was illegal, a judge ruled in the U.S. District Court of Colorado on March 30. The judge cited a faulty environmental assessment created by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services, which was adopted and approved by the USFWS. The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Humane Society of the United States and WildEarth Guardians.

The conservation groups hailed the judgment. “This ruling immediately halts the use of taxpayer dollars for the slaughter of Colorado’s mountain lions,” said Andrea Zaccardi, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a press release.

“I’m so pleased that the court put a 12

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stop to these scientifically baseless plans that needlessly targeted Colorado’s ecologically important, native carnivores.”

The conservation groups alleged that the environmental assessment adopted by the USFWS in order to approve funding for CPW’s Upper Arkansas River and Piceance Basin projects was incomplete because it didn’t provide baseline population estimates of black bear and mountain lions in the study areas, which they argued made it impossible to assess the environmental impacts of killing them. The groups also claimed the agency failed to consider scientific research relevant to how predator control plans impact deer populations (See the “Off Target” series at boulderweekly.com).

In ruling against the USFWS’ funding of the projects, the judge also cited differences in the environmental assessment between the actions APRIL 8, 2021

proposed for funding by CPW and the vast majority of Wildlife Services’ actions in Colorado, which primarily deal with responding to livestock depredation and human safety issues. The environmental assessment adopted by the USFWS was created by Wildlife Services, which was contracted by CPW to kill black bears and mountain lions in an effort to reduce predation on wild deer.

In December 2016, the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission (PWC) approved the two predator control plans that allowed CPW to conduct two separate studies evaluating whether or not killing black bears and mountain lions might increase mule deer populations. Mule deer hunting license sales provide significant revenue for CPW. Critics claim, however, that native carnivores like black bears and mountain lions are critical to the healthy functioning of ecosystems and don’t actually limit deer populations; instead, weather, climate, development and hunting have a bigger impact on deer populations.

Prominent wildlife scientists were highly critical of the plans as they I

were being approved and implemented.

The plans have shared origins in CPW’s West Slope Mule Deer Strategy, which previous reporting by BW indicates was based more in CPW’s public outreach design than in science. The Mule Deer Strategy also served as the basis for CPW’s recently approved West Slope Mountain Lion Plan, in which CPW states, “efforts to reduce lion predation impacts to mule deer are likely to be expensive and the effect, if any, is likely to be relatively short-lived.”

Likewise, research has suggested that doing so may actually increase the likelihood of mountain lions attacking people. BW also previously reported that CPW appears to have worked to conceal this from the public in the context of international media attention surrounding an attack. (Critics contend killing female mountain lions often orphans subadult cubs who are more likely to have negative interactions with humans and other animals.) The Upper Arkansas River predator control study area is 25-30 miles from where a boy was attacked by a young mountain lion in 2019.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

halts the use of taxpayer dollars for the slaughter of Colorado’s mountain lions.”

— Andrea Zaccardi, Center for Biological Diversity

The Piceance Basin study focused on black bears was completed in 2019, but the agency has released no information on its findings, despite significant public interest in the plans.

The project had significant blunders, including the agency relocating black bears who had gotten into trouble into the very area it was simultaneously studying bear predation on mule deer fawns, potentially tainting its research findings. (The same findings were used to justify the need for a predator control study.) Wildlife Services trappers also killed a mother black bear with cubs during the course of the project. (CPW won’t divulge what was done with the cubs because research analysis isn’t complete.) At its base was a question over whether the move to kill native carnivores wasn’t actually off target, with the real culprits for the population struggles of mule deer in the area more likely the oil and gas industry.

(The agency itself admitted as much in documents detailing land exchanges with oil and gas companies.)

The nine-year-long Upper Arkansas River study was ongoing prior to the judge’s ruling. It was designed to study whether killing approximately 50% of the mountain lion population would impact mule deer populations. However, CPW estimates prior to the study’s beginning showed the deer population was already increasing. Other research indicates that killing mountain lions may actually increase predation on mule deer, as it can lead to an influx of younger animals that prey primarily on deer, having a potentially negative impact on the benefits mountain lions provide to biodiversity.

Similarly, CPW hasn’t given the

public any information regarding preliminary findings — on impacts to mountain lions or mule deer. Given the judge’s ruling that the environmental assessment underlying the major funding for the project is illegal, the status of the project is unclear.

“Any impacts from the ruling to ongoing projects are not yet known,” stated Travis Duncan, public information specialist with CPW. PWC policy requires that predator control plans don’t jeopardize federal funding, and CPW staff asserted in its 2016 proposal that they didn’t.

However, following the judge’s ruling, which said the federal funding that comprised the majority of the projects’ funding was illegal, it is unclear whether the predator control plans prepared by CPW, which depend on that funding, are in accordance with that policy.

The funding for the two predator control studies came from the USFWS via the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act, which comprised 75% of the total funding of the estimated $4.6 million projects.

According to conservationists, the judge’s ruling stops the federal agency from further funding the Upper Arkansas River study. But it remains unclear what CPW must do with the money already spent both in that study and the completed one in the Piceance Basin, and what this means for the black bears and mountain lions killed — and the ecosystems they inhabited — in an attempt to boost ailing mule deer populations.

“The [USFWS] is aware of the court’s decision and will be considering next steps,” stated Allison Stewart, USFWS public affairs specialist, in an email.

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CAITLIN ROCKETT

Misfit review process

Sculpture dedicated to Los Seis de Boulder highlights difficulties in permitting Boulder’s public art

by Caitlin Rockett

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ext year, when Jasmine Baetz’s sculpture ‘El movimiento sigue’ takes its permanent home on 28th Street, on a sliver of grass in front of Burger King, it will sit in nearly the exact spot where three Chicano activists died in a still-unsolved car bomb in 1974: Florencio Granado, 31; Heriberto Teran, 24; and 20-year-old Francisco Dougherty.

But until then, the sculpture will sit on the northside of the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art (BMoCA), a resting point after more than a year of complications in the public art permitting process kept the sculpture from its proposed historical site.

The situation isn’t unique: According to City of Boulder staff in multiple departments tasked with helping bring public art projects to fruition, several projects like Baetz’s have endured an overly complicated permitting process, costing artists and the City time and money, with at least one project never seeing the light of day.

It’s a problem that’s been brewing for nearly six years, since the City formalized its public art program in 2015. But now, with new leadership at a newly merged Planning and Development Services department, staff are hopeful they can streamline the process to keep artists like Baetz from languishing in bureaucratic minutiae.

“The best way I could categorize [the problem] is that the process used to permit public art was a process that was BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

designed for other things,” explains Matt Chasansky, manager of Boulder’s Office of Arts and Culture. “The permitting office (Planning and Development Services) follows the building code very closely. They’re very mindful of how to build a house or a commercial building or an ADU or all of these things, but there was no real definition or criteria that applied to public art. When an art permit was applied for, frontline staff did the best they could to find a category for it. The results of that were that there was never a situation in those six years where a piece of public art was reviewed as public art. It’s not anybody’s fault or mistake but simply the nature of how these things are viewed.”

While a graduate student in fine arts at CU Boulder, Baetz became aware of the two unsolved car bombings that ultimately killed six Chicano activists in Boulder in 1974 — one near Chautuaqua Park and the other at 28th Street. In 2017, Baetz found grant funding and enlisted the help of the community to create a sculpture dedicated to “Los Seis de Boulder,” the six of Boulder. The concrete, clay and grout monument featuring the faces of the dead stands on campus at the TB-1 building, just east of Macky Auditorium, where, in ’74, Chicano activists had been engaged in a weeks-long I

occupation demanding continued funding for the Educational Opportunity Programs that helped many marginalized students get to college.

“When we were working towards that installation, part of the conversations that we had at our community making days were around marking the sites of the bombings,” Baetz says during a recent phone call from Charleston, South Carolina, where she now resides. “[TB-1] is this historic location that needs to be marked, but also these places where students were killed, but there was no tangible marker.”

A stone inscription was placed at Chautauqua Park (May 2020), but Baetz hoped to facilitate another communitymade sculpture for the 28th Street site, which she approached the City about in late 2019.

It seemed easy enough at first. The City has a program that allows artists to donate works. There was a sliver of open land in almost the exact spot where the bombing occurred, just big enough for a wedge of a sculpture. Working with Mandy Vink, administrator for public arts APRIL 8, 2021

at Boulder’s Office of Arts and Culture, Baetz began the process of getting the appropriate permitting. She thought her biggest obstacle would be a right-of-way permit from the Colorado Department of Transportation, but that permit came fairly easily.

“Then [Planning and Development Services] said, ‘This needs a sign permit,’” Baetz says. “And I was like, ‘OK, not great, because that’s an additional permit beyond the permit we’ve already gotten, but fine.’ ... But very quickly [Planning and Development Services was] like, ‘Nevermind, it’s not a sign. We need you to get a multifamily dwelling permit. “[The sculpture is] 6 feet tall, 5 feet wide and under 2 feet in depth,” Baetz adds. “So it’s solid. There’s no dwelling or residing or being in it. ... But in order to submit a permit for a multifamily building, you need to be a certain kind of contractor, and because I had [worked with contractors] who do not build buildings, they couldn’t apply for the permit.”

After four months of waiting for an answer, according to both Baetz and Vink, Planning and Development finally issued an exception around October 2020 allowing Baetz to obtain the permit she needed — but then quickly informed her that the maps she’d been given to determine whether the piece of land was see PUBLIC ART Page 16

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PUBLIC ART from Page 15

a viable site for the sculpture were wrong. Turns out the sliver of land was private property.

“From all perspectives that both she and I had, this is the map that was provided by our colleagues; we have reason to believe this is accurate,” says Vink, from the Office of Arts and Culture. “For this relatively small structure to get stuck in a four month review to then [have Planning and Development] come back and say, ‘Actually, there’s conflicting boundaries,’ it was like, wait, what?

There were so many subconscious cues along the way that we were moving in the right direction — everything seemed to be advancing. And then it was like, how did we not know this earlier?”

The City picked up the tab for the extra costs incurred from the unforeseen permitting issues, and there’s an active conversation with the private property owner to see if the City can enter a licensing agreement or easement for the sliver of land the sculpture will sit on.

Until then, “El movimiento sigue” remains at BMoCA. Other projects have suffered even worse fates. A project called “Oculus,” developed by students in CU Boulder’s Environmental Design program, endured similar permitting snafus, lasting so long that the semester ended and the students were never able to install the work at the proposed site near the HarbeckBergheim House, which is now Museum of Boulder.

“It wasn’t so much that what was being requested [by Planning and Development Services] killed this project,” says Chasansky of the Office of Arts and Culture, “In this case it was time — the back and forth with permitting officials, leadership at Planning and Development, meant that the environmental design class graduated and moved on. We ran out of options. It wasn’t possible to line up a new class to redo the process, and we couldn’t hire a fabricator to finish the job because it would double the cost.

“It’s these unintended consequences of the necessary care Development Services take that lead to projects getting scuttled,” Chasansky adds. “The fact of the matter is there’s nothing ready to say, ‘This is how you review public art,’ the criteria — they had to make some stuff up, invent things. That’s where the real challenge is. That fact we don’t have a process for public art.”

Vink is optimistic that Baetz’s sculpture will find its way to its historic home, but she and other City staff, including Jacob Lindsey, the newly minted head of Boulder’s Planning and Development Services, want to make sure future proj16

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ects are executed with less hassle.

Lindsey says the complexity of public art permitting was one of the first issues that was brought to his attention when he started the job in November 2020.

“The Arts Commission and City Council have recognized this challenge and they deserve credit for putting it on our plate,” he says. “And the City staff have done an amazing job of convening around this issue and putting forth a good faith effort to make some changes.

“But,” he adds, “Boulder has a complex permitting landscape because of many different regulatory hurdles that include compliance with flood regulations, compliance with traffic safety regulations and third, and most importantly, structural requirements to be sure that something doesn’t fall and injure someone. Those different regulations can create a challenging regulatory process for people who aren’t experienced with navigating those regulations every day.”

At the same time, Lindsey understands that some art projects are being subjected to regulations that don’t fit the scope of the project, and says Planning and Development Services is collaborating with other City staff to streamline the process.

“That includes staff from the City Attorney’s office, the Planning department, Arts and Culture and Finance, and one of the challenges that we have identified is the complexity of the permitting process,” he says. “We do think that permitting processes can be streamlined and simplified for smaller scale projects [like] murals [that] don’t require review for life safety, or they require lesser review for life safety due to the nature of the artwork.”

Vink, who managed public art projects with the City of Denver and Denver International Airport before taking on her role in Boulder, believes that communication is one of the first steps to alleviating the issue, simply making sure that someone from Planning and Development Services is present throughout the development of the project so they understand the backstory and the needs from day one.

“It feels like the review process was so much about a misfit, where there’s these templates that are great for buildings and for structures, but to try and have a public art commission go through that template makes for so much extra work,” she says. “I think the round peg/square hole analogy fits.

Obviously this process isn’t the right fit, and so we really need to move on this as opposed to continuing to try the same thing again and again.”

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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events

FACE VOCAL BAND.

7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 10, facebook.com/FaceVocalBand Face Vocal Band will take to the BDT Stage to benefit the Colorado Healing Fund, which is providing support for the families and the community affected by the tragedy at the Table Mesa King Soopers. Viewers can tune in and donate via the band’s Facebook and YouTube channels. Through beatboxing and multi-part harmonies, Face reimages beloved pop hits as a cappella numbers for a rousing show.

If your organization is planning an event of any kind, please email Caitlin at crockett@boulderweekly.com.

POETRY READING: AN EVENING WITH ABIGAIL CHABITNOY.

7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 8. Live-streamed to Facebook, LongmontPublicMedia.org, and Local Comcast Channel 8/880, longmontcolorado.gov Abigail Chabitnoy, winner of the 2020 Colorado Book Award for Poetry, will read from her work. The evening will also feature an upand-coming poet and an open reading. Poets interested in participating in the open reading should email StewartAuditorium@LongmontColorado.gov.

RED THREAD PLAYBACK THEATRE PRESENTS LOST AND FOUND STORIES.

STORIES ON STAGE PRESENTS ‘COLOR PLATES.’

7 p.m. Friday, April 9, livestreaming from The Nomad Playhouse.

Ticket holders will receive a link to the performance. Tickets are $15 and available at storiesonstage.org or by calling 303-494-0523 Randy Moore, Anne Penner and Geoffrey Kent will read from Adam Golaski’s Color Plates, a series of interrelated stories set in a mysterious art museum curated by a sort-of Mary Cassatt. Four rooms of Mary’s museum are open to the public. The small fictions in Color Plates will engage and challenge you to consider the intersections between art and time.

2021 POLAR PLUNGE.

8 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Saturday, April 10, Boulder Reservoir, 5565 51st St., Boulder. There is a $75 minimum fundraising fee, specialolympicsco.org/event/boulderplunge The 2021 Polar Plunge benefiting Special Olympics Colorado is back. Plunge and/or run in person at the Boulder location or sign up for the virtual plunge from the comfort of your home. Visit specialolympicsco.org/plunge to register and learn how in-person events have been modified to ensure a fun and safe event for all. All funds raised benefit more than 15,000 Special Olympics Colorado athletes (children and adults with intellectual disabilities).

7 p.m. Saturday, April 10. Sliding scale of $5-$20, redthreadplayback.com/upcoming-shows As a form of theater improv, people from the audience tell their true stories and Playback Theatre company members play them back. For this virtual performance, audience members are asked to think about a time when they lost or found something. Lose an engagement ring once? Or maybe you found a decades-old newspaper article about your grandfather. Maybe you lost or found your confidence.

Whatever the story, Red Thread wants to help you make it come alive. Participation is not required. Only 30 people will be allowed to attend the show.

ART CLASS AT THE MUSEUM OF BOULDER WITH BOHEMIA ART: PALETTE CLASS.

5:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 14, Museum of Boulder, 2205 Broadway, Boulder.

Tickets are $55, bohemiaboulder.com or 303-709-8450.

This art class, presented by Bohemia Boulder, is all about Colorado colors.

Attendees will be able to utilize magazines, fine papers and mod podge to make a beautiful piece inspired by the Centennial State. The ticket price includes all materials and encouraging instruction.

TEDXCU 2021 — ‘BOUNCE.’

2 p.m. Sunday, April 11. This is a free virtual event, but registration is required: eventbrite.com/e/tedxcu-2021-bounce-tickets To bounce is to rebound. To bounce is to ricochet. To bounce is to react. In life, we bounce back from hard times and into good ones. We bounce to and from new experiences and remember the old. We use the bounces of our life to tell our stories.

In it’s ninth mainstage event, TEDXCU 2021 explores the bounces of our world in the spirit of ideas worth spreading, as an independently organized local TED event.

Event links will be emailed to those who have registered. TEDxCU is a project of the College of Media, Communication and Information and the Department of Communication, consider making a tax-deductible donation to TEDxCU when registering for free.

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

TAYLOR SHAE RELEASES NEW SINGLE AS A FUNDRAISER FOR ROCKY MOUNTAIN MUSIC RELIEF 6:30 p.m. Saturday, April 10, The Wheel House, 101 Second Ave., Suite B, Niwot. Tickets are $15 at Eventbrite: bit.ly/2PVrtGM

music

COURTESY TAYLOR SHAE

music

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ith just a month left before graduation at CSU, local Americana troubadour Taylor Shae has hit that phase of her senior year in college when everyone has an opinion on what she should do next.

But Shae knows what she wants to do; with four full-length albums under her belt at just 20 years old, the Longmont native wants to keep making music. Her new single, “Holding On,” is a battle cry for following your passion in a world that’s all too ready to tell you why you shouldn’t. You can stream or purchase the track beginning on April 9, but Shae will debut the song live at a limited attendance show at The Wheel House in Niwot on Saturday, April 10 as a fundraiser event for Rocky Mountain Music Relief, which will receive 100% of the proceeds to help support those in the music industry affected by the pandemic.

“I was getting a lot of advice from people about my future on a personal

MUSIC

OTHER COLORADO RELEASES AND LIVE SHOWS

release more singles this summer that showcase new skills and moodier sounds.

“I think my music is going toward that alt-country, Americana roots blues sound,” Shae explains. “There’s an edgier, dustier sound — maybe this first single isn’t the best representation of that, but the stuff in the works is definitely incorporating more slide guitar. That was one thing I got to learn and practice over the pandemic that was kind of inspired by a little Larkin Poe and Robert Ranolph and, on the local level, A.J. Fullerton.”

—Caitlin Rockett

COLE SCHEIFELE, COURTESY PRESSED PR

of the families of victims of the Boulder shooting.

Thursday, April 8 — Brad Corrigan supporting Love Light & Melody Friday, April 9 — Hunter Stone sponsored by Mesa Saturday, April 10 — Andy Sydow supporting Nature Conservancy

NEW RELEASES Colorado folk artist Cole Scheifele is back with an acoustic single called “Back Then.” Showcasing Scheifele’s peaceful vocals and gentle guitar stylings, “Back Then” explores the feeling of being stuck within yourself and your own mindset.

Boulder Theater, bouldertheater.com

Fort Collins/Denver post-songwriter solo project Nadalands released The Vernal Equinox EP on March 19. John Lindenbaum weaves ethereal stories about an addict meeting a revolutionary on a park bench, a pandemic survivor’s yearning for connection on the dance floor, and the musings of a religious skeptic. Listen and buy on Bandcamp.

Sunday, April 11 — Manic Focus: Night Three with PHYPHR. Tickets start at $40.

Wednesday, April 14 — Marvel Years with Funkstatik. Tickets start at $30.

Thursday, April 15 — An Evening with The Intolerables and Special Guest DJ Sully. Tickets start at $50.

LIVE SHOWS

Jewels of Jazz Live at Farm 49.

5 p.m. Saturday, April 10, Farm 49, 7180 N. 49th St., Longmont. Tickets are $55 / free for children up to 16

Stone Cottage Studios Livestreams, stonecottagestudios.com/livestream

All Stone Cottage Studio shows this week will donate a portion of the proceeds to Colorado Healing Fund in support

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

level, about the music industry, and I think I kind of realized that if I’m really passionate about music I just need to go for it,” Shae says over a phone call. “The chorus goes: ‘I’m holding on until the moment that it’s gone / Through the highs and the nights that are long.’ If you love something, you’ll do anything to keep it a part of your life no matter what challenges you face. But I think on a broader level, [the song] ties back to the pandemic. Everyone’s going through a tough time right now, especially the music industry. Everyone is holding on and staying hopeful about what’s to come.”

The uplifting track features three-part harmonies from Shae’s confident alto, which at turns alludes to powerhouse vocal inspirations like Nicki Bluhm and Grace Potter.

“Sometimes you see it / and then it’s gone,” Shae sings on the track. “Just when you need it / It’s hard to find / Thinking the path you’re on seems wrong / Will get your left behind.”

The single comes on the heels of Shae’s fourth album, Legend Keepers, released in October 2020. She plans to

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EVENTS from Page 19

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#BOULDERSTRONG: CROCHET MEMORIAL BY STEPHANIE BURIEL.

Corner of Broadway and Arapahoe, Boulder Boulder resident Ellyn Perreault had never met Stephanie Buriel before she asked the California artist to make one of her crochet artworks in memory of the victims of the King Soopers shooting.

Perreault had only seen Buriel’s whimsical yarn art on Instagram: flowers framing the words “cancer sucks,” lips with the message “kiss this virus good-bye,” entrities to “love unconditionally.” Burial would mount her works on public fences in her hometown of Hot Desert Springs, California, post pictures to Instagram and add hashtags like #yarnbombing, #streetart and #cancersucks, which is how Perreault, a cancer survivor, came to follow her.

“When [the shooting] happened — I don’t know why, it’s really strange — I just sent her a message and said, ‘Can you make something for this?” Perreault says.

She’d planned to have Buriel send the pieces of the installation to Boulder where Perraeult would mount them.

“And then the next day she was like, ‘I’m coming out. I’m going to help you mount it,’” Perreault says.

The 5-by-5-foot heart lined with 10 flowers, one for each victim, took Buriel about 35 hours to make, the artist estimates.

“I’m excited to be here and to do it for this community,” Buriel says. “It was just a coincidence, but I was in El Paso right after the Walmart shooting. You could feel the heaviness in the community — it was palpable, you know. I’ll never forget it.

When Ellyn reached out, I loved her idea of trying to uplift the (Boulder) community after something like this.”

The installation is mounted on the south-facing wall of The Riverside at Arapahoe Avenue and Broadway. —Caitlin Rockett

‘HOME IS WHERE THE ART IS’ BY BETSY ANDERSON.

April 8-May 9, Firehouse Art Center, 667 Fourth Ave., Longmont, firehouseart.org With the multitude of narrative objects presented in this exhibit, artist Betsy Anderson centers the presence and perspective of women through paintings, embroidered works, pillowcases and fabric displays. The exhibit also features vintage aprons and bras altered in a reflection of their purpose. Anderson uses vintage or heirloom fabrics, then indigo and rust dyes before working in embroidery details and drawings.

‘EL MOVIMIENTO SIGUE’ COMMEMORATING LOS SEIS DE BOULDER.

Through March 14, 2022, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, 1750 13th St., Boulder, bmoca.org Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art is now home to “El movimiento sigue,” a sculpture by Los Seis de Boulder Sculpture Project and Jasmine Baetz. “El movimiento sigue” (The movement continues) commemorates Los Seis de Boulder, six activists who died in two car bombings in Boulder in 1974. Francisco Dougherty, Florencio Granado, Una Jaakola, Reyes Martínez, Neva Romero, and Heriberto Terán were involved with Chicano Student Movement activism at CU Boulder.

“El movimiento sigue” will be on view outside in front of BMoCA as the City of Boulder Office of Arts & Culture plans for its permanent placement at 28th Street and Canyon Boulevard in 2022.

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Streaming now through April 18, betc.org/event/co-2020

APRIL 8, 2021

ith every shot in every arm, it feels more and more like we’re actually going to come through the other side of this pandemic. A Virtual theater from around the region year ago it was hard to conceive — now here we are, the light visible at the end of the tunnel.

But the last 12 months showed us things we can’t unsee, asked us to redefine what was and wasn’t essential — who was and wasn’t essential. The pandemic laid bare the racial inequities this country is built on, the misogyny, the wealth gap, the unpaid labor.

Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company’s newest piece of theater, CO2020, is an invitation to continue the conversations we started last year. Built around interviews with more than 50 Coloradans of diverse backgrounds and beliefs, the nearly two-hour piece of devised theater covers a broad swath of the rugged terrain that was 2020.

“But it’s not really about the pandemic,” explains Stephen Weitz, BETC’s founder and producing artistic director. “It’s about people’s lived experience of the pandemic, about how it affected their family or their business or their church. ... It was important for us to get it captured and get it out there while that was still fresh and active in people’s lives.”

Beginning in the summer of 2020, Weitz built a team of five cocreators to help conduct interviews, pour through transcripts and finally form a script that would merge the interviews into a sort of theatrical documentary combining actual interviews with re-enactments, news clips, poetry and photos — a piece of “devised” theater.

“The profundity of the things that people are thinking about and dealing with and struggling with, and have been struggling with their whole lives, are just incredibly powerful,” Weitz says.

Participants varied in age from Boomers to Gen Z, with equally varied experiences: a police officer, comedian, former Broncos player, religious leaders, politicians, community justice leaders, professors, medical professionals, artists and school-age children, all talking about the pandemic, systemic racism, protesting and more.

“There’s been plenty of commentary on the year 2020, but not in the way that we did it,” says CO2020 cocreator Ilasiea Gray, whose own experience as a black activist is detailed in the film. “I’m proud of the diverse participant pool that we had, especially the kids. We need their perspective on all of these things: COVID, racism, activism. It’s very different than talking to adults.”

It’s an emotional look back, finding particular poignancy in exploring responses to the deaths of both Elijah McClain and George Floyd. But the film counts blessings when it can, searching for light through the cracks of a dismal year: how people came together, how we learned to care for ourselves and each other. And there are opinions that may surprise or even frustrate, but that’s the point.

“I think we all run the risk of getting locked in our little bubbles and forgetting how many different lived experiences and perspectives there are just within our little circle of Colorado, and our even smaller circles of cities and neighborhoods,” Weitz says. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sifted through all of this material, and I’m just constantly struck by the power and depth of people’s lives.”

—Caitlin Rockett

THEATER

VISUAL

BETC PRESENTS ‘CO2020’

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THEATER

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

Let’s Go Out! It’s Time...

Save on local dining, entertainment, retail and wellness. bestofboulderdeals.kostizi.com Go to website to purchase

The Studio

by Kristoff Malejczuk My mind is unwritten music And a million notes played at once: A blank stave overflowing.

And in this chaotic emptiness Lies the melody that seeks to be found!

Comprehensive vision and ocular health exams

Not merely a blank canvas Nor a concealed masterpiece, smothered in grime; An unobserved quantum state, It is both at once!

I paint as I dust.

This is the studio And in the studio I am free To twist and turn and bob and weave!

I would come here often But it’s not often that I have the key.

Dr. Terri Oneby 303-443-4545

Kristoff Malejczuk, a citizen of Boulder, is a Canadian engineer and host of The Studio with Kristoff Malejczuk, a podcast exploring society, culture and the nature of being.

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BOULDER WEEKLY

BY DAN SAVAGE Dear Dan: I’m a 29-year-old straight telling your girlfriend about it even though male. I’ve been with my 25-year-old partshe most likely was never going to find out ner for six years. I love her and think that about it and you quickly came to regret it. we are perfect for each other. We have all The fact that you haven’t cheated on her the things that make existing with somesince is a pretty good indication that your one wonderful. But about two years into regret was sincere. And now here you are our relationship I had a two-week-long four years later, DRUGS, waking up every affair while I was out of the country. I day and getting back to work on those fucked up. I came clean to my partner and trust issues. Because you’re still in trouble. we’ve done our best to work through this Famed couples counselor Esther over the last four years, but it has obvious- Perel urges people who’ve had affairs to ly caused some trust issues between us. consider the “burden of knowing” before I’ve never cheated again they disclose. If you sinand I try every day to work ROMAN ROBINSON cerely regret the affair and through these issues I it’s not going to happen caused in our relationship. again and your partner is There’s also been two not in any physical risk and recent instances of me is unlikely to hear about the breaking her trust. On a paraffair from a third party, ticularly stressful day I was sparing them the burden of caught sneaking a cigarette knowing is the second-most — the sneaking part is the loving thing a person can issue — and on another do. (Not cheating at all occasion I did drugs in our would be the most loving communal back garden with thing a person can do.) a friend after she had gone I think telling your particto bed. I owned up to both ular girlfriend was the right straight away. I view both of these as thing to do because she’s telling on herself being a symptom of the lockdown/pannow. If she doesn’t feel like she can trust demic prompting me to break with my you ever again then she needs to end this “normal” behavior. But my partner is no relationship. But she hasn’t ended the relalonger comfortable allowing me to have tionship, DRUGS, and you need to ask the freedom to go out with my friends and yourself why. partake in drugs without her express perSomeone who cheats and gets caught mission, which she already said she’s and discloses and wants to make it right unlikely to grant me. The other element to can expect to spend some time in the dogthis is, we want kids in three years. We’ve house and, to extend the metaphor, they agreed that I will fully abstain from all should expect to spend some time on a drugs after we become parents. short leash. But a person can’t spend the My problem is that I feel trapped rest of their life in the doghouse. A cheater between a desire to meet the wants of my has to take responsibility and be considerpartner while also maintaining a degree of ate about insecurities the affair may have autonomy. When we discuss these matters created or worsened. But if a cheater has — which we’ve been doing frequently lately done all that and years later the person — her argument boils down to this: “You they cheated won’t let them out of the dogdid a bad thing, you need to make conces- house, then the doghouse is where the sions so that I feel safe, you having to seek cheated wants the cheater. The wrong my permission makes me feel safe.” It’s thing you did allows her to control you for coming to loggerheads and I don’t know if the rest of your life. But it shouldn’t. And if I’m the unreasonable one here, especially she insists it does, DRUGS, you should since I’m arguing for the freedom to do an leave her. illegal drug. I would appreciate your exterAbout those caveats: You don’t specify nal, outside, drug-positive perspective in the drug you used in the backyard with your this. friend but I’m gonna assume it was weed ...

—Don’t Really Understand Girlfriend’s if we’re not talking about hard drugs and Sentiment you don’t have addiction issues, DRUGS, you shouldn’t have to beg your girlfriend’s Dear DRUGS: My outside, drug-posipermission in advance — which she’s tive-but-with-caveats perspective on your denied in advance — to smoke a little pot dilemma boils down to this: Do not make with a buddy. babies with this woman.

Send questions to mail@savagelove.

Yeah, yeah: You did a bad thing. You net, follow Dan on Twitter @fakedansavage, had an affair and you made the mistake of and visit savagelovecast.com.

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BY ROB BREZSNY ARIES

MARCH 21-APRIL 19: Author Susan Sontag defined “mad

people” as those who “stand alone and burn.” She said she was drawn to them because they inspired her to do the same. What do you think she meant by the descriptor “stand alone and burn”? I suspect she was referring to strong-willed people devoted to cultivating the most passionate version of themselves, always in alignment with their deepest longings. She meant those who are willing to accept the consequences of such devotion, even if it means being misunderstood or alone. The coming weeks will be an interesting and educational time for you to experiment with being such a person.

TAURUS

APRIL 20-MAY 20: In the 1930s, Taurus-born Rita Levi-

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Montalcini was a promising researcher in neurobiology at the University of Turin in Italy. But when fascist dictator Benito Mussolini imposed new laws that forbade Jews from holding university jobs, she was fired. Undaunted, she created a laboratory in her bedroom and continued her work. There she laid the foundations for discoveries that ultimately led to her winning the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. I foresee you summoning comparable determination and resilience in the coming weeks, Taurus.

GEMINI

MAY 21-JUNE 20: Religious scholar Karl Barth (1886–

1968) wrote, “There will be no song on our lips if there be no anguish in our hearts.” To that perverse oversimplification, I reply: “Rubbish. Twaddle. Bunk.

Hooey.” I’m appalled by his insinuation that pain is the driving force for all of our lyrical self-revelations.

Case in point: you in the coming weeks. I trust there will be a steady flow of songs in your heart and on your lips because you will be in such intimate alignment with your life’s master plan.

CANCER

JUNE 21-JULY 22: “It is not easy to be crafty and winsome

at the same time, and few accomplish it after the age of six,” wrote Cancerian author John W. Gardner. But I would add that more adult Crabs accomplish this feat than any other sign of the zodiac. I’ll furthermore suggest that during the next six weeks, many of you will do it quite well. My prediction: You will blend lovability and strategic shrewdness to generate unprecedented effectiveness. (How could anyone resist you?)

LEO

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of inquiry. She says that “asking the proper question is the central action of transformation,” both in fairy tales and in psychotherapy. To identify what changes will heal you, you must be curious to uncover truths that you don’t know yet.

“Questions are the keys that cause the secret doors of the psyche to swing open,” says Estés.

I bring this to your attention, Libra, because now is prime time for you to formulate the Fantastically Magically Catalytic Questions.

SCORPIO

OCT. 23-NOV. 21: In April 1933, Scorpio-born African

American singer Ethel Waters was in a “private hell.”

Her career was at an impasse and her marriage was falling apart. In the depths of despondency, she was invited to sing a new song, “Stormy Weather,” at New York City’s famous Cotton Club. It was a turning point. She later wrote, “I was singing the story of my misery and confusion, of the misunderstandings in my life I couldn’t straighten out, the story of the wrongs and outrages done to me by people I had loved and trusted.” The audience was thrilled by her performance, and called her back for 12 encores.

Soon thereafter, musical opportunities poured in and her career blossomed. I foresee a parallel event in your life, Scorpio. Maybe not quite so dramatic, but still, quite redemptive.

SAGITTARIUS

NOV. 22-DEC. 21: I love to see you enjoy yourself. I get a

vicarious thrill as I observe you pursuing pleasures that other people are too inhibited or timid to dare. It’s healing for me to witness you unleash your unapologetic enthusiasm for being alive in an amazing body that’s blessed with the miracle of consciousness. And now I’m going to be a cheerleader for your efforts to wander even further into the frontiers of bliss and joy and gratification. I will urge you to embark on a quest of novel forms of rapture and exultation. I’ll prod you to at least temporarily set aside habitual sources of excitement so you’ll have room to welcome as-yet unfamiliar sources.

CAPRICORN

DEC. 22-JAN. 19: Capricorn poet John O’Donahue sug-

gested that a river’s behavior is worthy of our emulation. He said the river’s life is “surrendered to the pilgrimage.” It’s “seldom pushing or straining, keeping itself to itself everywhere all along its flow.” Can you imagine yourself doing that, Capricorn? Now is an excellent time to do so. O’Donahue rhapsodized that the river is “at one with its sinuous mind, an utter rhythm, never awkward,” and that “it continues to swirl through all unlikeness with elegance: a ceaseless traverse of presence soothing on each side, sounding out its journey, raising up a buried music.”

Be like that river, dear Capricorn!

AQUARIUS

primitive ancestors. As they sat around campfires and focused on the steady burn, they were essentially practicing a kind of meditation. Doing so enhanced their ability to regulate their attention, thereby strengthening their working memory and developing a greater capacity to make long-range plans. What does this have to do with you? As a fire sign, you have a special talent for harnessing the power of fire to serve you. In the coming weeks, that will be even more profoundly true than usual. If you can do so safely, I encourage you to spend quality time gazing into flames. I also hope you will super-nurture the radiant fire that glows within you. (More info: tinyurl. com/GoodFlames)

JAN. 20-FEB. 18: “Is life not a thousand times too

VIRGO

FEB. 19-MARCH 20: I know of four different governmental

AUG. 23-SEPT. 22: Physicist Victor Weisskopf told us,

“What’s beautiful in science is the same thing that’s beautiful in Beethoven. There’s a fog of events and suddenly you see a connection. It connects things that were always in you that were never put together before.” I’m expecting there to be a wealth of these aha! moments for you in the coming weeks, Virgo.

Hidden patterns will become visible. Missing links will appear. Secret agendas will emerge. The real stories beneath the superficial stories will materialize. Be receptive and alert!

LIBRA

SEPT. 23-OCT. 22: Jungian psychoanalyst and folklore

short for us to bore ourselves?” wrote philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. In response to that sentiment, I say, “Amen!” and “Hallelujah!” Even if you live until age 99, that’s still too brief a time to indulge in an excess of dull activities that activate just a small part of your intelligence. To be clear, I don’t think it’s possible to be perfect in avoiding boredom. But for most of us, there’s a lot we can do to minimize numbing tedium and energy-draining apathy. I mention this, Aquarius, because the coming weeks will be a time when you will have extra power to make your life as interesting as possible for the long run.

PISCES

organizations that have estimated the dollar value of a single human life. The average of their figures is $7.75 million. So let’s say, for argument’s sake, that you are personally worth that much. Does it change the way you think about your destiny? Are you inspired to upgrade your sense of yourself as a precious treasure? Or is the idea of putting a price on your merit uninteresting, even unappealing?

Whatever your reaction is, I hope it prods you to take a revised inventory of your worth, however you measure it. It’s a good time to get a clear and precise evaluation of the gift that is your life. (Quote from Julia Cameron: “Treating yourself like a precious object makes you strong.”)

expert Clarissa Pinkola Estés celebrates the power

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APRIL 8, 2021

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Downhill

‘Slalom’ to play Women+Film Festival

by Michael J. Casey

L

yz Lopez started skiing when she was 4. Who knows ON THE BILL: ‘Slalom’ will play what first drew her to the sport, but 11 years on the the Denver Film’s slopes have shaped Lyz the prodigy into Lyz the virtual Women+Film competitor. She’s 15 now, and with proper instruction, Festival April 13-18 she could be the best in France, maybe even the (denverfilm.org), and then virtually world. The Olympics are right around the corner, and coach and in select theFred believes Lyz could medal. All Lyz has to do is trust him. aters on April 16.

Trust him she does — even when he tells her to strip down for a weigh-in. He pinches her stomach and tells her to lose weight. Also, bulk up: He asks for two additional pounds of muscle and tosses her a tub of protein powder the size of a stockpot. And how are your periods? Lyz stammers. “It’s important for training,” he says. She’s caught off guard, but his questions and comments are direct, going hand-in-hand with his overall demeanor. Sticky notes dot Lyz’s hotel room with directions and reminders.

Who knows if the other skiers under Fred’s tutelage live in a similar situation, but we know he’s got his eye on Lyz and where that could lead.

As we’ve seen in other sports, the Olympics attract the very young and the very impressionable. It’s not hard to manipulate a teen living in a sports bubble; even easier to take advantage of the parent who dreams of their kid standing on a podium while sponsorship offers roll in. When and why Lyz’s parent’s split up remains a mystery, but with Dad absent and Mom working in Marseilles, Lyz will have to go it alone. That’s when Fred offers to take her in: She’s something special, he tells Lyz’s mother.

You can probably guess where all of this is heading, and you’re right, but the power of French filmmaker Charlène Favier’s debut drama, Slalom, derives not from the dread of what’s-to-come, but from the understanding of how it happens. Jérémie Renier plays the 30-something former skier turned trainer with quiet depravity. A rudimentary health check becomes a violation of privacy; a preparatory rubdown gives way to groping; a post-workout massage transgresses whatever boundaries remain.

Favier and cinematographer Yann Maritaud open these scenes with tight closeups and foreboding pools of deep blacks and garish reds. Then the lighting and image shift into something colder, sicklier, uglier. Actress Noée Abita traces a similar path in her performance — passivity giving way to absence. It’s as if she is forcing herself outside her body.

Abita excels in these scenes and in the quotidian moments of a 15-year-old trying to figure out the world and her place in it. She’s in practically every frame of Slalom, yet this is not her movie, and when it comes time for the credits, Favier places Abita’s name right next to Renier’s. Lyz may be free of Fred physically, but his shadow will loom over her for years to come.

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BOULDER WEEKLY

BOULDER WEEKLY STAFF

Try this week:

BREADWORKS. 2644 Broadway, Boulder, 303-444-5667, boulderbreadworks.com

Zucchini Bread @ Breadworks

BOULDER’S BREADWORKS is a lot of things — at times a high-end cafeteria with dozens of breakfast and lunch options; other times a comfortable coffee shop in which you can grab a pastry and a hot beverage.

But bread’s right there in the name, so you know you’re going to get the good stuff, whether you stop by the Broadway location, order for pickup at the Boulder County Farmers Market or grab a loaf or two from another retailer. Baguettes, batards, boules, ciabiatta loaves, pretzels, quick breads — it’s all there. We grabbed one such quick bread recently, the zucchini bread, which is made with a lot of zucchini, walnuts, brown sugar, sour cream, nutmeg and cinnamon. It’s moist, and bursting with flavor, with little zucchini slivers providing a surprise crunch.

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1 A discussion on the culinary future of Boulder LAST YEAR, First Bite’s Jessica Benjamin published A Bite of Boulder, which pulled together stories and recipes from dozens of local chefs — and the proceeds of sales helped support the restaurants included in the book. Now, as we anticipate better, post-pandemic times, Benjamin and chefs/restaurateurs Erin Banis (Japango), Eric Skokan (Black Cat) and Kelly Whitaker (Basta/ Dry Storage) will chat about what that future looks like in a virtual talk with Boulder Book Store on April 14 at 5 p.m. More info, tickets and a place to submit questions ahead of the event available at boulderbookstore.net/event/culinary-future-boulder-contributors-bite-boulder.

BOULDER WEEKLY

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Distillery in progress LONGMONT’S DRY LAND Distillers is offering the unique opportunity to check out its renovation work in its new location at 519 Main Street. The team has made a lot of progress restoring the building, which once housed the Valley Farm Dairy. They’ve hand-dug trench drains, removed thousands of pounds of debris, cut holes in brick walls and more. See it all, plus the custom 1,000-gallon still that will be built on site.

There’ll be food and treats and the chance to purchase barrel shares in Barrel Zero — the first whiskey barrel to be produced in the new location. Reserve your spot from 1-8 p.m. on April 23 and 24, at bit.ly/3wEDpNV.

APRIL 8, 2021

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

Despite pandemic, more craft breweries are operating now than ever

by Matt Cortina

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t wasn’t looking good for craft breweries this time last year. On-site and draught sales were way down, and half of breweries indicated in a survey that they’d have to close for good if stay-at-home orders were extended into June.

Plus, about 10,000 craft brewery workers nationwide were laid off in the first few months of the pandemic.

At the time, Bart Watson, economist for the Brewers Association (BA) — the Boulder-based trade group for the country’s 8,000-plus craft breweries — said hundred of breweries could close in 2020, but cautioned that many would have closed anyway; that is, the pandemic would’ve only hastened their closures.

Now, new data from the BA bears out the impact of the pandemic on the craft brewing industry.

In 2020, small and independent brewers produced about 23.1 million barrels of beer — which marked a 9% decline from the year prior.

As production was down, so was revenue, about 22% from 2019. And, jobs were down too, 14% from the year before.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

But, again, this decline was expected. It was a unique year, with unique challenges. And the silver lining is that maybe it wasn’t so bad as those earlier projections anticipated.

“2020 was obviously a challenging year for many small brewers, but also one that proved their resilient and entrepreneurial nature,” Watson says.

“In a year where U.S. draught sales were down more than 40%, small brewers found new ways to connect with their customers and keep their businesses running.”

In fact, breweries continued to open in 2020, reaching an all-time high of 8,764 across the country. That breaks down to 716 openings and 346 closings, about only half of which can be attributed to the pandemic — market competitiveness was another main factor, which was evident before 2020. Watson says government financial support was a big contributor to keeping the number of closings low.

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“While many small breweries will remain under pressure until they can fully reopen and welcome their communities into their breweries, the 2020 closing rate has remained on par with 2019, suggesting that the vast majority of breweries will survive going forward,” he says.

Though there were fewer openings than in years prior, one interesting aspect of the data is that taprooms (which sell 25% of beer on-site) surpassed brewpubs (which have a food component) as the highest growth category.

The BA also tracks “breweries in planning,” which can be anything from a person with a business plan to a brewery that’s already secured a space and equipment. Watson says there are about 1,000 such breweries the BA knows about, and he anticipates “a large number of breweries to open in 2021.”

For the full data set, visit brewers association.org.

APRIL 8, 2021

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Shaping growth

more stems or bigger leaves.”

Frender grew up in Boulder, learning how to plant seeds at the age of 3 from his grandfather, and has been gardening ever since.

Today he helps develop Black Dog’s innovative full-spectrum LED grow lights.

He’s something of a mad-botanist. He grows more than 400 different species of exotic fruit trees, carnivorous plants and flowers from around the world — all from the comfort of his Longmont home — all with Black Dog LEDs. He explains that plants have two main types of chlorophyll pigments that absorb light: chlorophyll A (which absorbs a lot of red and some blue spectrums of light) and chlorophyll B (which absorbs a lot of blue and some red spectrums). With fullspectrum LEDs, cultivators like Frender can dial down the yellow and green spectrums of light, which cause plants to produce big leaves and long stems; and instead, amp up the blue and red spectral output.

That produces the biggest cannabis flowers and the smallest leaves and stems, maximizing the efficiency of any commercial or independent grow operation, Frender claims.

“There’s a lot of different lights that can grow plants, but there’s a very particular spectrum that can get plants to do exactly what we want them to do,” he says. “[Full-spectrum LEDs] offer enough control over how the plants grow that we can actually get the plants to stay shorter and actually (produce) bigger (flowers) than they would under natu-

Full-spectrum LEDs allow cannabis grows to control size and shape of plants while saving money and energy

by Will Brendza

T

he color of light plants grow under makes an enormous difference in their physical properties, which is critical knowledge when you’re growing a specific plant for a specific purpose.

If you want rhubarb or celery, you’ll want to grow your plants tall and stemmy — however, if you’re growing cannabis, you’ll want exactly the opposite.

“It’s not good enough when you’re doing indoor agriculture just to get the plants to grow,” says Kevin Frender, chief science officer for Black Dog LED. “You need to maximize whatever quality it is that you’re trying to get from those plants, whether it’s flowers or fruit. And you want to try and keep the plants as small and compact as possible so you can fit more of them in your expensive-toset-up indoor grow.”

That means setting up lights that can be dialed in to target exactly the spectrum of light those indoor plants need, to grow exactly how you want them to.

“Modern LEDs are far surpassing the traditional [lighting] technologies in terms of efficiency,” Frender says. “With spectral control, we can really tune the plant’s growth in to be exactly what we want it to be and make them produce more flowers as opposed to

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ral sunlight.”

Full-spectrum LED bulbs also last longer, he says, reducing the cost of frequent replacement. They’re also more energy efficient than traditional high-pressure sodium (HPS) bulbs, reducing power-usage costs; and, perhaps most importantly, they don’t run as hot as HPS bulbs do, Frender says.

“That really helps if you’re trying to stack them for vertical growth,” he says.

Because HPS bulbs run so hot, they require a lot of space between them and the plants. If they’re too close, the bulbs will burn the crop. And, Frender points out, the plants will also naturally grow taller under traditional HPS bulbs, further reducing the available grow space in a room.

Full-spectrum LEDs by comparison put out significantly less heat. And because the plants will be shorter under the spectrums put out by LEDs, vertical cannabis farming becomes a viable option, according to Frender, potentially doubling or even tripling the production capability of any given grow space.

For the individual growing their own cannabis, full-spectrum LEDs could offer a much more efficient and effective means of growing at home than HPS bulbs. And for commercial growers too, these LEDs are becoming a more financially attractive and incentivized option. On top of all the saved energy costs LEDs offer, the Colorado Energy Office’s recently launched Colorado Cultivators Energy Management Pilot Program is also working with public utility companies to help get energy rebates for commercial cannabis cultivators (and beer makers) that make the switch from HPS bulbs to LEDs. As for Frender, he’s tried all the alternatives, but he says they simply can’t compete with LEDs. “For decades a light bulb was a light bulb was a light bulb. You could get a ‘warm’ light or you could get a ‘cold’ light, but that was pretty much your only choice between different light bulbs,” he says. “Now we can combine different colors of LEDs and different ratios to get any particular spectrum of light we want, and that gives us the complete control that we’ve always been lacking in the past over how plants grow.”

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