Greeley officials work to remake downtown

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GREELEY, COLORADO $1.50 VOL. 145 NO. 24

A TRIBUNE SPECIAL INVESTIGATION

ACCESS DENIED Weld high schools left with multiple disability access violations after multimilliondollar construction projects

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Business, C1: Keynote Coffee opens in Greeley, joins co-op workspace trend.

By Tyler Silvy tsilvy@greeleytribune.com

wenty years ago, the Gilcrest and Johnstown communities celebrated fresh construction projects at their high schools.

Construction crews breathed new life into decades-old high school buildings using millions of dollars approved by voters in the Johnstown/Milliken Re-5J and Valley Re-1 school districts.

In the past year, the two school districts have relived those projects in great detail on the cusp of their 20th anniversaries. They’re not celebrating anymore.

During random inspections this past year, civil rights monitors discovered those schools didn’t meet many requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Now the districts stand to spend more than a quarter-million dollars to correct problems that never should have existed.

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G2K, D1: Your guide to cutting your own tree, from choosing the perfect one to keeping safe once home.

A6: Access

PHOTOS BY ELIOTT FOUST/efoust@greeleytribune.com

A HANDICAPPED PARKING SIGN sits in front of Valley High School at 1001 Birch St. in Gilcrest. Valley has increased ac-

cessibility for disabled students as a result of recent civil rights monitoring visits. BELOW, Joshua Delange, a freshman at Greeley Central High School, gets off an elevator Tuesday after his lunch period. The school likely will undergo inspections this academic year to determine if it is in compliance with standards set by the Americans with Disabilities Act .

» Cost of compliance School

District

# of issues*

Cost**

Valley High School

Valley Re-1

29

$102,550

Roosevelt High School

Johnstown/Milliken Re-5J

21

$160,000

Eaton High School

Eaton Re-2

9

$7,720

Briggsdale High School

Briggsdale Re-11

21

$4,225

Weld Central High School

Weld Central Re-3J

7

N/A***

Fort Lupton High School

Fort Lupton Re-8

13

N/A***

*Physical accessibility issues identified. Many districts also had issues with communication of required information, noncompliant grievance procedures and the languages covered in promotional materials, all lower-cost fixes. **Estimated cost to repair. ***No cost estimate provided.

Greeley officials plan for future of downtown

By Catherine Sweeney

» What’s next?

csweeney@greeleytribune.com

Downtown Greeley could look like a brand new city in five years, depending on how a few dominoes fall.

City officials are working on two major projects: bringing in a hotel and conference center and building a new city hall.

Plans are taking off during a time of downtown revitalization, as community events such as Fri-

The Greeley City Council will discuss its potential meeting room move during its regular meeting at 6:30 p.m. Dec. 15 at the city council chambers, 919 7th St.

day Fest become ever more popular and businesses continue to pack into and around the crowded 8th and 9th Street plazas.

It’s all in the planning stage, said Assistant City Manager Becky Safarik. Few details have been nailed down, and no contracts have been signed. But officials have a good idea of what they would like to see unfold over the next few years. If everything goes according to plan, a new hotel and conference center will sprout across the street from the Union Colony Civic Center. Then a new city hall and office complex will come into existence at 10th

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Street and 11th Avenue, allowing officials to consolidate the city’s offices and council meeting room WEATHER in one location.

Officials have been taking steps Mostly sunny to make all this happen, which inHigh 46 Low 25 clude buying up and condemning ight south properties, forging space-sharing B10: Weather agreements with other agencies 25 and working with developers.

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CONTINUED A7: Downtown

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Advocates: ADA experts should be involved in building projects « ACCESS

From A1

In some cases, systems designed to ensure the new schools complied with federal law failed in every conceivable way.

At Roosevelt High School in Johnstown and Valley High School in Gilcrest, more than half of the problems found during the random monitoring visits were from those large construction projects in 199596 that should have complied with 1991 ADA guidelines, documents obtained through a series of Colorado Open Record Act requests show.

Those two schools are the worst examples, but inspectors found an average of 15 or more violations at each of six high schools those inspectors visited in the past five years.

Some superintendents were shocked. They said they’ve never received a complaint. If they had, they said they would have been quick to address issues.

Disability advocates don’t share the superintendents’ surprise.

“We think that the state has not taken ADA compliance as seriously as they need to be,” said Julie Reiskin, executive director of the Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition. “And this is the consequence when people don’t take this seriously.”

2013-2014 » Brighton 27J (Brighton High School) » Cañon City Re-1 (Cañon City High School) » Cherry Creek 5 (Overland High School) » Eaton Re-2 (Eaton High School) » Pueblo City 60 (Central High School) » Pueblo City 60 (East High School) » Sheridan 2 (Sheridan High School) » Woodland Park Re-2 (Woodland Park High School) » Pueblo Community College (Durango Campus) 2012-2013 » Academy 20 (Pine Creek High School) » Aspen 1 (Aspen High School) » Briggsdale Re-10J (Briggsdale High School) » Falcon 49 (Vista Ridge High School) » Haxtun Re-2J (Haxtun High School) » Mountain Valley Re-1 (Mountain Valley High School) » Pueblo City 60 (Centennial High School-Pueblo) » Woodlin R-104 (Woodlin High School) » Red Rocks Community College (Arvada Campus) 2011-2012 » Arapahoe 28J (Rangeview High School) » Arriba-Flagler C-20 (Flagler Jr-Sr High School) » Burlington Re-6J (Burlington High School) » Jefferson County R-1 (Warren Tech) » Manzanola 3J (Manzanola High School) » Plainview Re-2 (Plainview School) » Weldon Valley Re-20J (Weldon Valley High School) » Widefield 3 (Discovery High School) » Morgan Community College (Burlington Campus)

BUILT TO FAIL

The Colorado Community College System, the organization responsible for inspecting high schools and community colleges for civil rights compliance and accessibility, sent inspectors to Valley and Roosevelt this past year, Eaton in 2013, Briggsdale in 2012, and Fort Lupton and Weld Central in 2010. The organization randomly inspects nine schools each year.

It will cost at least $275,000 to bring those schools into compliance.

Greeley Central High School will host inspectors this school year.

The biggest violators, in terms of number of problems and cost to repair them, are Valley and Roosevelt.

The biggest problems haunting those schools originated with projects finished four to five years after 1991 ADA guidelines took effect.

Projects at each school passed through at least 10 layers of oversight. That oversight started and ended with state inspectors, something Reiskin saw as proof of the state’s lack of interest in ADA compliance.

At Valley High School, the state Division of Labor and Public Safety approved architectural plans.

During construction, the project received eight additional reviews, including electric, plumbing and fire safety inspections.

The division then issued a certificate of occupancy Nov. 10, 1995, overlooking 29 violations inspectors with the Colorado Community College System noted during the recent visit to Valley High School 20 years later.

Violations at Valley ranged from missing handrails on ramps to insufficient handicapped accessible parking spaces. Fifteen of those deficiencies were from the 1995 construction project.

In all, retrofitting solutions will cost Valley more than $100,000.

At Roosevelt High School, where inspectors found 21 accessibility violations, including 11 from the 1996 addition, it will cost $160,000.

“Oh my goodness,” said Marty Foster, Johnstown/Milliken Re-5J superintendent. “Trying to come up with $160,000 when we’re scraping for every dime we can get?”

When they learned about the violations, Valley Re-1 School District officials did not try to contact architects or contractors from the 1990s.

Foster said he could not determine the general contractor for the 1996 project, and he said the district didn’t reach out to the architect, DLR Group.

FCI Constructors was the general contractor for the Valley High School project in 1995. Steve Conklin, general superintendent for FCI Constructors, was with the company when it did the job. Most recently, Conklin was superintendent on site for construction of Prairie Heights Middle School, the new Greeley-Evans School District 6 middle school in Evans which opened in August.

Conklin has worked on many projects since Valley High School, but he said the company always has followed architects’ designs to the letter.

The architect for the Valley project, Doug Hagen, who is now a freelance architect, didn’t want to comment.

» Closer look Below is a list of all the Colorado high schools and community colleges to undergo civil rights monitoring visits from the Colorado Community College System in the past five years.

2014-2015 » Durango 9-R (Durango High School) » Eagle County Re-50 (Eagle Valley High School) » Valley/Weld Re-1 Gilcrest (Valley High School) » Johnstown/Milliken Re-5J (Roosevelt High School) » Montrose County Re-1J (Montrose High School) » Thompson R-2J (Loveland High School) » Trinidad 1 (Trinidad High School) » Valley Re-1 (Sterling High School) » Community College of Aurora (Lowry Campus)

PHOTOS BY ELIOTT FOUST/efoust@greeleytribune.com

THOMAS RING, 19, IS HELPED down a wheelchair accessible ramp inside Valley High School in Gilcrest. BELOW LEFT, new handicapped parking spaces and striping were added to Valley High School’s main gym parking lot. BELOW RIGHT, Jovan Granado, a sophomore at Greeley Central High School, uses a wheelchair-accessible ramp Tuesday to walk towards the school’s cafeteria.

2010-2011 » Bennett 29J (Bennett High School) » Keenesburg Re-3J (Weld Central High School) » Littleton 6 (Options Alternative High School (Littleton)) » Miami/Yoder 60 JT (Miami High School) » Pueblo County Rural 70 (Pueblo County High School) » Vilas Re-5 (Vilas High School) » Fort Lupton Re-8 (Fort Lupton High School) » Wiley Re-13JT (Wiley High School) » Trinidad State Junior College (Trinidad Campus) Data from the Colorado Community College System

“

People with disabilities are a part of our community. So if you’re not involving people with disabilities in management, and you’re not reaching out to the communities (during projects), this is the consequence. This could have been prevented.

— JULIE REISKIN, executive director of the Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition

Andy Ernsting, spokesman for the DLR Group, which served as architect for 1996 construction at Roosevelt High School, said architects went back through the 20-year-old drawings line-by-line and found half of the violations weren’t part of work DLR performed.

“There might have been a couple of things,” Ernsting said. “But not $160,000.”

Ernsting also said DLR architects identified some of the violations as stemming from work likely performed by a civil engineer not associated with DLR. The DLR Group did renovation work at Aims Community College’s Cornerstone Building unveiled in February.

In the end, the local school districts paid the cost of meeting the federal guidelines.

For Roosevelt High School, the money spent on compliance could have been used to pay salaries for three teachers to reduce class sizes, which at 22:1 are the highest among high schools in Weld County, according to data from the Colorado Department of Education.

“The bottom line on it is about $160,000,” Foster said. “It’s not

cheap any way you look at it to go back and make all of these corrections. It was not a good time to have all that hit us, but I don’t know if there is a good time for that.”

INSPECTING AFTER THE FACT

Experts from the Colorado Community College System inspect buildings for ADA compliance because the system has oversight responsibilities for the state’s career and technical education programs.

The organization’s visits are random, and are not based on complaints.

The state is mandated by federal law to appoint that level of oversight. The bad news, for Weld schools which have had visits from the group, is the oversight comes after construction projects have been completed, forcing districts to essentially pay twice for the same project.

As it turns out, that’s by design.

The Americans with Disabilities Act, like the Civil Rights Act before it, is a complaint-driven law. Generally, individuals must file complaints for problems to be dealt with.

It also means ADA guidelines are not part of building codes subject to

inspection like electrical wiring or plumbing codes, said Maggie Sims, project manager for the Rocky Mountain ADA Center, a for-profit resource center that provides continuing education on ADA guidelines for groups affected by the law.

But any public building, including schools, designed or built after Jan. 26, 1992, should follow 1991 ADA guidelines, Sims said. Valley and Roosevelt high school construction projects from 1995 and 1996 would have qualified.

Superintendents say navigating the tricky territory of ADA compliance is beyond their districts’ capabilities.

“We absolutely don’t have anybody on staff that knows (about ADA compliance issues),” Foster said. “Who except somebody who was an expert in this would know?

That’s why you have to put faith in an architect, a general contractor.”

Menda Ide, executive director of LaSalle-based nonprofit Access and Ability, agrees with Sims. Ide’s organization advocates for people with disabilities.

Ide has two children with disabilities who attended the Valley Re-1 School District.

Despite her work and the intimate access to Valley High School

she and her children had, Ide was surprised by the litany of violations inspectors uncovered this past year.

Ide, whose previous surname was Warne, isn’t one to ignore problems, either. She once sued and settled with the Greeley Stampede over accessibility.

The one problem she remembers with the district was a new playground she said was less accessible than it was before it was updated.

She brought it to Valley officials’ attention and it was fixed, Ide said.

Ide’s concerns, or lack thereof, demonstrate how easy it is for ADA compliance to slip through the cracks.

“The thing with public schools is … it’s always been the, ‘We’ll fix it when somebody makes us,’ mentality,” Ide said.

Although Reiskin would prefer school districts get things right during construction, she seemed pleased there was some form of monitoring taking place in the state. Through her ongoing work as an advocate for people with disabilities statewide, Reiskin said she knows noncompliant conditions are pervasive. And, frankly, she’s getting tired of it.

“The law’s been around for 25 years,” Reiskin said. “Especially

with new construction, it’s getting really hard to stomach, ‘I don’t know.’ ” Colorado Community College System inspectors look for a multitude of things, but most of it boils down to one word: accessibility.

Accessibility means different things, depending on a student’s particular physical limitations.

Whether students can physically access a building or classroom is one part of accessibility. But other considerations, such as design that accommodates students with learning disabilities, visual or hearing impairments or other challenges, also must be taken into account.

Colorado Community College System inspectors check all of that and more.

High schools were criticized for lack of accessible bathrooms, no handrails on ramps, unpaved parking lots and ramps which were too steep. In all, Colorado Community College System inspectors identified 100 unique instances of noncompliance at the six Weld high schools inspectors have visited in the past five years. Fifty violations stemmed from construction projects — large and small — that took place after 1991 ADA guidelines were in effect.

Some superintendents have lashed out at the findings, citing a lack of complaints and pointing to small compliance infractions (the amount of force needed to open a door, for example) that cost thousands to fix.

Citing a 50-year-old ramp identified as out of compliance because its grade was 1 percent too steep, Foster said some of the findings really “stuck in my craw pretty bad.”

“Nobody has ever complained once on this,” Foster said.

However, Reiskin said district officials would be wise to fix the problems and move on. If it wasn’t a Colorado Community College System inspection, it could have been an even more expensive lawsuit, Reiskin said.

With the 25th anniversary of ADA guidelines this past summer, the U.S. Department of Justice is taking notice, too, Sims said.

Sims cites the U.S. Department of Justice’s program, Project Civic Access, in which the department has taken action against more than 200 municipalities across the country — including six in Colorado — since 2000 as evidence.

“It really is a big thing,” Sims said. “The Department of Justice is really focusing in, particularly on government agencies.”

OUNCE OF PREVENTION

Although the state has shifted responsibility for school construction approval to different agencies in the past 20 years, current inspectors still aren’t specifically checking for ADA compliance.

Twenty years ago, when the Johnstown and Gilcrest communities were celebrating multimillion dollar projects, the Colorado Division of Labor and Public Safety approved school construction. Then, it was the Division of Oil and Public Safety. Since 2010, the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control has adopted building and fire codes for all public schools and two-year colleges in Colorado.

And does the division check for ADA compliance?

“Not specifically,” said Rob Geislenger, section chief for the division.

Instead, the division uses accepted industry standards from the international code council. If there are ADA compliance deficiencies, Geislenger said, most would be addressed during plan review — the part of the process when the division reviews and approves architectural drawings.

Geislenger said things are better than they were 20 years ago, even if the process is similar.

“Prior to (Geislenger’s division taking over), there weren’t a lot of resources in Colorado dedicated to plan review,” Geislenger said.

The result, for school districts like Valley and Roosevelt, is a system that has forced taxpayers to pay twice for the cost of one compli-

ant structure. Superintendents like Foster, who don’t have ADA experts on staff, throw up their hands and point to architects and state inspectors.

When it comes to how this could have happened, Ide takes it a step further, suggesting perhaps those architects and inspection organizations don’t have an ADA expert on staff, either.

“Whatever process they come up with (to fix this), they need to have an ADA consultant, not just an engineer or an architect who took a couple of classes,” Ide said.

Voters in those districts in 1994 (Valley) and 1995 (Roosevelt) agreed to property tax increases to pay for construction. Construction compliant with ADA at the time would have been less than 1 percent of the cost of construction, according to the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission.

At Valley High School, 1995 construction was paid for with a $22 million bond issue voters approved in 1994. About $6.5 million of that was spent on construction and renovations at the high school, meaning it would have cost $65,000 at most to make the building ADA compliant. When adjusted for inflation, that $65,000 balloons to what the district is paying now: About $102,000 to retrofit structures to comply with those standards.

At Roosevelt High School, where $8 million was spent on an addition in 1996, proper ADA compliance should have cost $80,000 or less.

Adjusted for inflation, that comes to $120,000 today, still less than the $160,000 the district spent to fix the problems.

It doesn’t have to be this way, state disability advocates say.

ADA experts should be involved in all school and public building construction projects, they said. At the very least, they say, residents with disabilities should be involved.

“People with disabilities are a part of our community,” Reiskin said. “So if you’re not involving people with disabilities in management, and you’re not reaching out to the communities (during projects), this is the consequence. This could have been prevented.”

Tyler Silvy covers education for The Greeley Tribune. Reach him at tsilvy@greeleytribune.com. Connect with him at Facebook.com/TylerSilvy or @TylerSilvy on Twitter.

« A7

Downtown hotel, conference center huge part of plan « DOWNTOWN From A1 A downtown hotel and conference center, which forms the linchpin of the entire plan, has been on Greeley leaders’ radar since the ’90s. Officials say they hope to sign a contract with a developer by the end of February, allowing everything else to move forward.

The conference center is the important part, Safarik said. Corporate meetings, seminars, weddings and other events bring in money — not only directly when companies and organizations spend money to rent space, but indirectly once the people get downtown.

It increases demand for services in the area, such as restaurants and hotels.

Attaching a hotel to the center would be a boon to the people who travel for the events.

The oil and gas industry has kept Greeley’s hotel occupancy rates high; they’ve hovered between 75-80 percent for the past two years. That market makes construction a financially sound decision, Safarik said.

Planners decided the block north of Lincoln Park on 7th Street could be a good location, and they released a request for proposals in February.

The area is home to the city council chambers, Fire Station No. 1, the city’s information technology headquarters, the municipal court and a High Plains Library District branch.

New locations for these offices are one of the factors still up in the air.

The city of Greeley and Greeley-Evans School District 6 officials are working on an agreement that would allow the city council to temporarily use a meeting room inside the school district’s building at 1025 9th Ave. Each organization will have a vote on the agreement — the school district during its Dec. 14 meeting and the city council during its Dec. 15 meeting.

That’s the only entity with a new home close to being pinned down. Because it is so early in the process, the game of musical chairs seems to have infinite possibilities.

The conference center and hotel could take up only the south half of the lot, allowing the offices to stay put. But the hotel and conference center developers might want to take up the whole lot, so the city services would have to clear out.

City officials have been in talks for months to acquire the downtown Safeway location, which the grocery store chain vacated this past spring.

Officials aren’t sure how they’ll use the location, Safarik said, though it likely would play a role in providing temporary homes for many of the agencies the hotel plan displaces. City officials could choose to update the inside of the store or use temporary buildings in the parking lot.

They also could approve the new municipal complex west of the current city hall, start constructing the first section of it and move the services in there.

The municipal complex has been on the table since about 2011, Safarik said.

Right now, the city’s offices span five buildings, some sections of which have aged to the point of disrepair.

The spread is inconvenient to residents and

inefficient for officials, and updating the existing buildings would be expensive, said Victoria Runkle, Greeley’s director of finance. The buildings need millions of dollars in work.

Planners have to weigh whether they want to sink money into the aging buildings or save it to build a new one in the future.

In case they decide to go with a new building, officials have been buying up property on the block west of city hall, at 10th Street and 11th Avenue.

There’s already an annex on the block that houses a few departments, including planning, water and sewer.

The properties include a vacant bank building, an apartment complex and a century-old house.

There are about a dozen ways Greeley could pay for the complex, and this piece of the puzzle is one of the most undecided, Runkle said. Finance planners are looking for ways to pay for it without raising taxes, which could include continuing existing taxes that expire soon.

Both projects could lead to increasing a source of revenue for the city: property taxes. The hotel and conference center would be owned by a private company, which would pay property taxes. Consolidating city administrative offices into one building would open the other space for private sector offices, which also would pay property taxes.

These taxes are based on the value of a building.

For example, the owners of a well-maintained skyscraper are going to have a steeper property tax bill than someone who owns a small, standalone restaurant.

Government agencies such as the public works department don’t pay property taxes, so the more room the city of Greeley takes up downtown, the less property tax it’s going to earn.

Downtown is in what’s called a tax increment financing — or TIF — district. These are government-designated areas.

An organization, such as a city government, draws an area, and every building in that area is eligible for financial help on updates.

The organization helps pay for the updates, which increase the property’s value. When the property’s value increases, so does the amount the owners have to pay in property taxes. So the updates pay for themselves, and then they raise money for the organization that helped.

Greeley has five such districts, four of which are administered by the Greeley Urban Renewal Authority.

One of Greeley’s most successful is the Western Sugar area, which is now home to Leprino Foods.

The city invested in infrastructure and updating the facilities in that area, and now one of the city’s biggest employers is there. They probably wouldn’t have come in without the tax-increment financing district, Safarik said.

Downtown’s financing district is through the Downtown Development Authority. The authority helps front the money, and it does get some of the property tax, but so does the city of Greeley.

Officials believe any financial help the hotel and conference center would get — given a deal goes through — would be repaid by property tax revenue.

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GREELEY, COLORADO ONE DOLLAR VOL. 145 NO. 78

5 come forward in nurse groping inquiry

THUNDER before the

STORM

Greeley-area women say they are victims of the former nurse PHOTOS BY JOSHUA POLSON/jpolson@greeleytribune.com

THUNDER, MASCOT FOR THE DENVER BRONCOS, stands near his stall Thursday at a ranch in Bennett.

Denver Broncos mascots prep for big day away from players

B

By Nikki Work nwork@greeleytribune.com ENNETT — While the Denver Broncos

prepared Thursday at Dove Valley for the Super Bowl, Thunder was training in this small eastern Colorado town.

He’s done this before. The horse used to be the acting Broncos mascot, but retired two years ago.

Now, a new Thunder has taken his place — Thunder Tres. That’s right. Three different Thunders have stormed the Broncos field, but the first died several years ago. Thunder Tres will accompany the team to Super Bowl 50 in Santa Clara, Calif.

With more than a week to go before the game, Thunder Tres was nestled under a blue and orange blanket in his stall at Judge’s Choice Training Center. But his nearly identical counterpart — Thunder Dos — was saddled for the first time in more than a year, trotting circles around an arena.

When the home team goes to the Super Bowl, even re-

tired mascots have a job to do.

If the Broncos win the game, the victory parade will take place the following Tuesday in Denver. Since the third Thunder always travels by horse trailer, and it moves slowly, he won’t make it back in time for

«

CONTINUED A4: Thunder

» Connected to the Super Bowl The Denver Broncos will play Feb. 9 in the franchise’s eighth Super Bowl, and we’d like to hear what that means to you. » Share your memories: Just about all of us have a favorite story about a past Super Bowl.

Maybe you watched the big game with your dad when you were a kid. Or maybe, you even got the chance to go to a Super Bowl when the Broncos were playing.

We’d like to hear your experience and why it has special meaning for you. Write about your favorite Super Bowl memory and send it to us. We’ll publish the submissions in The Tribune and online on Feb. 8. Stories and no longer than 300 words. Please include a photo of yourself, if possible. » We’d also like to know if you, or someone you know, is a Broncos super fan. We’ll feature stories about some of Weld County’s biggest Broncos fans in the run-up to Super Bowl 50. » Going to this year’s game? If you’re lucky enough to have tickets to this year’s Super Bowl, we’d like to include your story as part of our coverage.

Email your Super Bowl memories or tips about fans or trips to the big game to citydesk@greeleytribune. Include your name and a phone number where we can reach you.

Car dealer must repay customers $700K Herbies Auto Sales guilty of fraudulent practices, government agency charges

By Sharon Dunn sdunn@greeleytribune.com

One of Greeley’s largest used-car dealerships has been slapped with a $700,000 hit stemming from a government investigation into fraudulent practices in selling its cars.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reported this month that it will require Y Kings S Corp., which does business in Greeley as Herbies Auto Sales, 2563 28th St., to pay $700,000 in restitution to the more than 1,000 customers per year who bought cars between 201214 in the dealership’s buy-here, pay-here plan. The plan was discontinued in May

« WHAT’S INSIDE CLOSING IN

ON CLICK! Tribune’s Weld County photography contest is underway, but the last day to submit photos is coming up.

News, Page A2

2014 at the end of the bureau’s investigation.

The bureau charged Herbies for its “abusive financing schemes, hiding auto finance charges and misleading consumers.” If Herbies does not repay the money per a settlement agreement, it will face an additional $100,000 civil penalty.

“It was certainly never our intention to deceive our customers,” wrote Lee Yoder, owner of Herbies Auto, in a letter addressing the agency’s investigation and sanctions. “Nevertheless, the CFPB insisted that we sign a consent order or face a law enforcement action.”

The sanction is part of an agreement Yoder worked out with the agency, but

» Consumer protection The Consumer Protection Finance Bureau was created in 2010 with the Dodd-Frank act, billed as Wall Street reform. Anyone who has a concern about lending practices in their consumer spending can file a complaint with the bureau at www.consumerfinance.gov/complaint.

only under the threat of the agency taking legal action, Yoder wrote. The order states the bureau reached agreement without Herbies “admitting or denying any of the findings of fact or conclusions of law.”

«

Group pushes to give bikes access to the wilderness. B1

GOP debate

Check out a recap of Thursday’s GOP debate, the final before the Iowa caucuses. A10

Five Greeley-area victims came forward recently after a nurse who treated them was arrested by Fort Collins police for sexually assaulting women in his care, but only one opted to report his behavior at the time it happened.

According to a Greeley police affidavit, most of the victims came forward recently, almost two years after Moore incidents in which they said Thomas Mark Moore, 43, fondled them after administering morphine and other pain-killing drugs to them while at the University of Colorado Health emergency room in west Greeley from March 2014-April 2015.

One complained to staff at UCHealth’s emergency room, according to the affidavit.

«

CONTINUED A10: Nurse

Greeley locals confirm roles in downtown hotel, center

By Catherine Sweeney csweeney@greeleytribune.com

Some of Greeley’s most prominent businessmen have confirmed they’re chipping in for the proposed downtown hotel and conference center.

Auto dealer Scott Ehrlich is heading up the group and serving as the spokesman.

Rockies co-owner Dick Monfort confirmed his involvement Thursday in the project, as did Arlo Richardson, who owns Mineral Resources Inc. And Richmark Development, which has been working on several projects in Greeley.

“They’re all local guys,” Ehrlich said.

“They’re all Greeley guys. … This is something that our community really needs.”

The group wants to bring in 14,000 square feet of conference center space and 150 hotel rooms, which would be in a Hilton brand hotel. Hilton’s brands include Hampton Inn, Doubletree and Embassy Suites.

«

CONTINUED A4: Herbies

Adventure

By Sharon Dunn sdunn@greeleytribune.com

CONTINUED A4: Hotel

« WHAT’S NEWS

« INSIDE B1-B2: A9: C1-C12: C12: C7: B8: A9: A8: B3-B10: C5:

« WEATHER

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A4 »

FRIDAY, JANUARY 29, 2016 » THE TIBUNE

Details of plan still in flux as development process persists « HOTEL From A1

PHOTOS BY JOSHUA POLSON/jpolson@greeleytribune.com

THUNDER’S PREDECESSOR, THUNDER DOS, rides around a small indoor arena Thursday with rider Ann Judge at Judge’s Choice Training Center in Bennett.

Thunder Dos calls it quits « THUNDER From A1 the parade. Even though the second Thunder won’t be in California with the team, he’ll be waiting to welcome them home and trot proudly alongside the players in Denver.

Thunder Dos is 22 this year. Two years ago when the Broncos last went to the Super Bowl, his trainer and rider, Ann Judge, and owner, Sharon Magness Blake, decided it was time to let a new Thunder roll in.

Thunder Dos had his last game at the AFC championship. He » Ann Judge Ann Judge runs is the only one of the horses who hasn’t had the chance to Judge’s Choice Traingallop out of the tunnel onto the ing Center in Bennett, field for a Super Bowl. The first where she trained Thunder watched the Broncos both Thunder Dos win two Super Bowls in the and Thunder Tres. For 1990s, and Thunder Tres was more info on her and in New York when the Broncos on the Thunders, go to lost to the Seattle Seahawks in www.judgeschoicetraining.com.

Super Bowl XLVIII. Judge also runs a Judge teared up when she tried to explain how much it women’s horsemanmeant to her to have both the ship retreat called horses play a role in the Bron- Cowgirls Up, where she teaches women cos’ big moment this year.

“I love them both,” she said. to connect with their horses in wildlife. More “It’s a little overwhelming.”

Judge has trained horses her information can be whole life and worked with all found on her website, three Thunders, though some- at www.cowgirlsup. net or by contacting one else initially trained the Judge at (303) 644first. All three horses had vastly 3144 or annjudgewedifferent personalities, she said, gener@netecin.net. something that’s been fun for her to experience.

She also said it’s been incredible to train horses, a naturally timid and flighty animal, for a high-energy situation like a football stadium. She doesn’t look at it like trying to desensitize the animal, though. Sensitivity is one of the beautiful things about horses, and she wouldn’t want to take that away.

It’s about the trust between the horse and rider.

“You want them to look to you for the appropriate response and for confidence and faith so that the flight response doesn’t get initiated,” she said.

All three Thunders have reacted to the stadium differently.

The first needed to be facing the field when he was on the side-

A DECORATIVE HALTER rests on Thunder’s

nose Thursday in Bennett.

line. Judge said it was almost like he was watching the game.

Thunder Dos wanted to watch the crowd — his eyes always darted to the rowdiest part of the stands. The newest Thunder doesn’t watch either. Instead, he faces sideways and snuggles his head into Judge or Magness Blake.

It’s been incredible to be part of the Broncos franchise, Magness Blake said. Broncos officials called her decades ago and asked if she had a white horse as part of her large Arabian breeding operation. She was thrilled. Now, even though the team is a large organization, she said it still feels like a family, and she’s proud to be the owner of the Broncos’ bronco.

“We like being a small part of the team,” she said.

The brands cater to different audiences, Ehrlich said, and they have to find the one that best fits Greeley.

All plans are preliminary. The investors, the city of Greeley, the Downtown Development Authority and other parties are still working on a development agreement, which puts each party’s responsibilities in black and white, such as how long the facility will take to build, development codes the contractor will have to follow and how much money the developers expects to bring. Until that is finalized, many details are still in the air.

Dick Monfort and his brother Charlie Monfort own the Colorado Rockies.

They used to own Greeley’s beef packing plant, which now belongs to JBS. The brothers run a philanthropic foundation, which has given millions to organizations such as the University of Northern Colorado and Habitat for Humanity.

“You look at it as a business opportunity, but probably more so on this you look at it as an opportunity for the community,” Monfort said of the hotel and convention center investment.

Arlo Richardson echoed the sentiment.

“There’s no hesitancy whatsoever to try to improve downtown,” he said.

“There’s a lot of loyalty there.”

He said the group aims to bring a hotel to the city that residents can be proud of, and that the location near Lincoln Park and the Union Colony Civic Center would make it the perfect spot.

The hotel and conference center are slated to go up on the block that holds the city’s Lincoln Annex

» What’s next?

The proposed downtown hotel and conference center is part of an overarching plan to revitalize Greeley’s downtown. One of the puzzle pieces is a consolidated city hall complex, which planners hope to build on the block west of Greeley’s current city hall, 1000 10th St. They’ve already begun clearing the area.

The next event will be the Carrel House move.

A church bought the historic home at 1115 11th St. and will remove it from its foundation and truck it across town. The move will take place at 10 p.m., Feb. 5. For more information on the church’s project, go to www.focgreeley.org.

Center, 919 7th St. The plan is to allow the city to maintain ownership of the block, leasing it to the facility’s owners and managers.

The area is now home to the city council chambers, Fire Station No. 1, the city’s information technology headquarters, the municipal court and a High Plains Library District branch.

Each will move before the project starts.

Organizers hope the plan will go before the Greeley City Council in March. If it gets approved, more details will be released, Ehrlich said.

City planners view this project as a linchpin for another big undertaking — a consolidated city hall complex.

The city already has begun buying properties in preparation, including the $1.73 million Safeway building on 11th Avenue, which city leaders plan to use for temporary space during the transition.

Feds claim Herbies duped customers with hidden charges « HERBIES From A1 “Although we disagree with the CFPB’s allegations that we violated the law, to avoid the costs and burdens of litigation we agreed to a settlement …” Yoder wrote in the letter. “The primary provision of the consent order is that Y King S. Corp. pay compensation to consumers who purchased vehicles under the Buy Here — Pay Here plan. The compensation will be in the form of cash payments or credits to loan balances. … The overall plan still has to be approved by the CFPB. We anticipate that the compensation program will commence in the next few months.”

The bureau was created by the The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. The order against Herbies was announced Jan. 14

and is the third such resulting sanction the bureau has issued since it started in 2011. Two other nationwide dealerships, Drive Time and Car Hop, were fined $8 million and $6.4 million respectively.

Specifically, the bureau charged Herbies with advertising a low 9.99 annual percentage rate, with hidden charges that bumped it up measurably.

“This ruse helped Herbies convince consumers that they would get the 9.99 percent APR instead of the much higher rate actually charged,” reported a statement by the protection bureau.

Some of those charges were for a warranty and a GPS device installed on every car purchased through the program.

Yoder, in his letter, explained that these charges were for the consumers’ protection, and con-

sumers were fully aware of them.

Yoder said in the letter that if buyers experienced mechanical problems with their cars, they could end up defaulting on their loans, so Herbies created a warranty program, “for an additional cost, to cover many mechanical problems, protect the customer and reduce purchaser defaults.”

The consumer protection agency stated the company charged $1,650 for the “required repair warranty.”

Herbies also installed GPS devices, “with the customer’s knowledge,” Yoder wrote, on the vehicles in the program in the event the vehicles needed to be repossessed. Yoder said the devices also would serve as a reminder that a payment was due. That cost was $100. The agency stated that also was fraudulent.

“We believed this was in the cus-

tomer’s best interest,” Yoder wrote.

Other concerns raised by the consumer agency included charges that the dealership would not negotiate prices for credit customers and inflated those vehicle prices, but Herbies would negotiate prices with cash customers.

Herbies in that time sold about 98 percent of its vehicles on credit in what are called “sub-prime” loans, or to those who struggled with little-to-no credit.

Additionally, the agency stated the dealership engaged in false advertising.

“Herbies’ financing scheme lured consumers with misleading advertising and then kept them in the dark about the true cost of financing the cars they were buying,” the bureau reported. “This took advantage of consumers’ inability to protect their interests in selecting or using Herbies’ financ-

ing, among other things.”

Yoder wrote in the letter that Herbies was not given any warning that the protection agency believed the car dealership was violating the law, or given “any chance to remedy their concerns.”

The bureau, is requiring payback to customers who purchased vehicles after Jan. 1, 2012, “except those whose accounts were charged off due to default.”

Herbies also will have to submit a timeline for repayment, and give the agency regular progress reports on its compliance. The agency also ordered Herbies to “stop deceiving its customers” in the financing process; post automobile prices clearly and prominently and provide certain financing information, such as annual percentage rate and all finance charges, in advance to its customers.

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Exploration in music NextNC, Page C1

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GREELEY, COLORADO ONE DOLLAR VOL. 145 NO. 98

State wrestling preview Sports, Page B1

« GREELEY CHURCH moves historical home across town

OIL AND GAS

Noble plans big spending in Weld

By Sharon Dunn sdunn@greeleytribune.com

PHOTOS BY JOSHUA POLSON/jpolson@greeleytribune.com

CREWS WORK AROUND A SEMITRAILER from Mammoth Moving and Rigging as it hauls a historical

home out of downtown Greeley on Tuesday night. The home, the historical Bessie Smith House, was moved on behalf of Family of Christ Presbyterian Church in an effort to spare it from demolition.

KEEP ON TRUCKING ByCatherineSweeney csweeney@greeleytribune.com

Like all other oil and gas exploration and production companies these days, Noble Energy shut the door on 2015 with another loss.

The company closed the final months of the year with a $2 billion loss and a 2016 spending plan cut in half.

The good news is the lion’s share of the company’s global capital spending will come back to Colorado via Noble’s drilling program in the Denver-Julesburg Basin, primarily in the Wells Ranch northeast of Greeley and an area called East Pony in northeast Weld County.

The company set its sights on spending $600 million in Weld while running two drilling rigs — that’s 40 percent of its global program of $1.5 billion. Noble, in fact, will spend more in Weld than all of its offshore and non-U.S. assets combined. Noble’s three other U.S. assets will share

«

CONTINUED A6: Noble

» Crude prices

O

range flashing lights and the roar of diesel engines cut across Greeley late Tuesday night as a moving company trucked a three-story house from one side of town to the other.

Family of Christ Presbyterian Church bought the historical Bessie Smith House, 1115 11th St., to save it from demolition. It sat on the block slated for Greeley’s City Center, the city hall complex to be.

The house sat on beams above its foundation for a few weeks as utility companies and agencies worked to coordinate taking down power lines and swiveling stoplights so the house could get through.

It went on a tow truck at 10 p.m. and began its trek to 2410 35th Ave. “They say faith can move mountains,” said church leader Nathan Soule-Hill. “Well, it

«

CONTINUED A6: Historical Home

U.S. crude prices rose $1.62 Wednesday to $30.66 per barrel, up nearly 5.3 percent. For more, go to page B5.

Colorado youth detention centers understaffed Budget requests $4.75M to bring levels up to standard TRUCKS WARN PASSING CARS of the massive load a semitrailer carries

as crews move a historical home down 12th Avenue on Tuesday night in downtown Greeley. Crews had to remove low-hanging power lines, lights and street signs for the three-story home to pass through.

» What’s next? » During the next phase, workers will dig and build a new foundation for the house. Family of Christ will work with a local engineering firm to design a foundation, as well as a new site plan for the property. The goal is to have the house

« WHAT’S INSIDE

on its new foundation by August, allowing the church to apply in October for a Colorado state historical preservation grant; the house must be attached to its new foundation before the grant application can be submitted. » Exterior rehabilitation will start as soon as the church

gets historical preservation grant money. The city of Greeley had the interior taken down to the studs to remove asbestos. Family of Christ will design the interior space and also will begin this rehabilitation work once grant money comes.

Planners hope the work will begin in early 2017.

UNIQUE

Windsor robbery

their stories in different ways at Do Tell! event.

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Ashley Madison

STORIES Greeley residents share

Three suspects are sentenced in bizarre case from March.

News, Page A3

Greeley ranks in the top 25 Colorado communities with cheating husbands.

In the Region, Page A5

By James Redmond jredmond@greeleytribune.com

What might happen when one of two youth correction officers overseeing a pod of 20 juvenile inmates has to handle a single unruly kid and leave the other 19 with the remaining officer?

It’s thoughts like those that worry Colorado’s Department of Human Services Director Reggie Bicha daily. Bicha was in Greeley on Wednesday for a tour of the Platte Valley Youth Services Center in north Greeley and to

«

CONTINUED A6: Detention Facilities

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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2016 » THE TRIBUNE

Church plans to turn house into community center « HISTORICAL HOME From A1

looked like a mountain moving around that first corner.”

Soule-Hill, his family, his church family and Greeley Historic Inc. members stood by and watched the spectacle.

“The curiosity really piqued,” said Family of Christ member Deana Davies. “It’s really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Although she found it interesting the house was a Greeley historical treasure, she was more excited about the building’s future.

Family of Christ plans to use it for a community center, which will be open to residents for meetings and classes.

The church’s current facilities are pretty limited, Davies said. For example, the kitchen is small, which makes hosting meals or cooking classes difficult. The sanctuary is one of the only meeting spaces.

“With a house, we can do so much more,” she said.

Especially a house this big. The 50- by 30foot house has two stories and a basement. It barely made it under the power lines along 12th Avenue.

An Xcel Energy crew member watched the house start to take off under the first set of power lines from inside the cherry picker he used to adjust them.

“You’re going to go real slow, right?” he called out to the driver.

The crowd laughed together. At one point, the house got jolted and shook slightly from side to side. They gasped together.

Linde Thompson of Historic Greeley Inc., a local nonprofit dedicated to preserving buildings like this, helped the church plan for the move.

She and her husband Ron have been involved with a host of moves, but none like this.

“This is the biggest I’ve ever seen,” she said.

PHOTOS BY JOSHUA POLSON/jpolson@greeleytribune.com

SHAYNE DAVIS, WITH MAMMOTH MOVING AND RIGGING, waits for the route to be cleared as he drives a truck hauling a historical home from its original foundation Tuesday night in downtown Greeley. The home has been moved to 2410 35th Ave. in Greeley.

In a bout of serendipity, she brought the idea of moving the Bessie Smith house to the church. She heard the city of Greeley wanted to raze that block, and she wanted to find someone to buy the house.

She talked about it during the community garden tour in August. And what do you know? Family of Christ had a community garden on the roster.

It’s the only building on the block west of Greeley’s current city hall slated to be saved.

“We were curious what the significance was,” said Brent Cisneros, a 12th Avenue resident.

Like many nearby neighbors, he came out that night equipped with his cellphone. He stood on his wide, Victorian porch watching

the house crawl down the street and video chatted the scene to his old neighbor.

Bessie Smith, Greeley’s first female architect, designed the house at the turn of the last century. City records aren’t conclusive, but the consensus is it went up in 1907.

Greeley Tribune reports from the time said Smith was known for climbing on top of the buildings she designed so she could check them out from every angle.

She designed buildings throughout the city, including the White-Plumb House, which now serves as Greeley Museums’ White-Plumb Farm Learning Center and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The drive took 8 ½ hours, so the crowd

THE SEMITRAILER HAULING A HISTORICAL HOME stops on

its route as crews clear low power lines and lights Tuesday night along 12th Avenue in downtown Greeley. didn’t stick around.

Soule-Hill looked down at his son, Desmond, 4, who was asleep in his arms, and said they’d probably need to head out soon.

Soule-Hill, however, planned to see it again.

“I think I got up at about 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. again to see it,” he said.

Good thing, too. The moving company, Parker-based Mammoth Structural Movers, originally predicted four to six hours. Snags along the way — such as a power line Xcel forgot to turn off — extended the trip.

The church family will celebrate the move with a champagne toast, Soule-Hill said.

It’s not over yet. The church has about two years of renovation work to do before the community center will open.

Noble points to ’15 production record « NOBLE From A1

JOSHUA POLSON/jpolson@greeleytribune.com

VALERIE KRIER, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR THE PLATTE VALLEY YOUTH SERVICES CENTER, talks about the pods the facility uses during a tour Wednesday morning in Greeley. The gover-

nor’s budget proposal includes $4.75 million to add additional youth corrections officers, which could mean as many as 24 full-time employees at Platte Valley Youth Services.

If facilities still behind by 2017, state could lose federal funding « DETENTION FACILITIES From A1 talk up the need for more funding for youth corrections.

Youth detention facilities around Colorado are understaffed, he said, including Platte Valley. Colorado’s facilities don’t meet the level of staffing set by federal regulations, specifically the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003, or PREA. Those ordinary situations could quickly turn bad if, in the example, those other 19 youths suddenly started causing problems.

To fix that exact problem, the governor’s budget request asks for $4.75 million to add 125 new youth corrections officers at facilities across the state. If the Legislature keeps that funding in the final budget, it could mean as many as 24 additional employees at Platte Valley, which would bring the facility within three staff members of being in compliance with PREA. The act requires one youth correctional officer for every eight juvenile inmates during waking hours and one officer for every 16 inmates during sleeping hours, Bicha said.

This newest request marks the middle of a multi-year plan to reach the PREA requirement. Last year, the agency asked the Legislature to approve about 75 new staff members, and next year he said they plan to ask for the funding to finish meeting that requirement.

Platte Valley’s ratio isn’t too far below the PREA requirement now. Each

pod — which houses about 20-24 juvenile inmates — has two officers assigned to it during waking hours and one at night.

Close isn’t quite good enough, though, for the people who oversee facilities like Platte Valley. From Bicha to Platte Valley’s Director Erik Julius, officials agree the youth facility needs more staff in order to help the inmates — by creating safe environments and relationships with them that can assist their rehabilitation.

“I simply don’t have enough staff to do what we need them to do,” Bicha said.

That’s why that $4.75 million matters. Officials care about the quality of their facilities and their juvenile inmates’ safety and rehabilitation, he added.

If Colorado’s facilities don’t meet the PREA staffing requirements by 2017 the state could lose some federal funding. However, they’d stand to lose less than the cost of adding the extra employees, Bicha said.

Getting that funding could prove considerably difficult, though, as next year’s budget has become somewhat mired in political posturing. Despite the state’s budget battle — fought mostly over possible cuts attributed to state tax revenue limits — Bicha feels hopeful state lawmakers will appropriate the funding they need.

He said he thinks it’s worth the investment from the state to do their jobs correctly.

“We are the last of the line,” Bicha said. “We get kids who failed in every

» Greeley’s Platte Valley Youth Services Center » 103-bed, multipurpose facility. » Capped at 64 youth in detention and 39 in secure custody treatment services. » Houses boys and girls aged 10-17. » Serves five judicial districts in northern Colorado, including the 8th, 13th, 17th, 19th and 20th districts. » Serves 12 northern Colorado counties: Weld, Larimer, Jackson, Boulder, Adams, Morgan, Logan, Sedgwick, Phillips, Washington, Yuma and Kit Carson. » Educational services contracted through Greeley-Evans School District 6, which provides licensed teaching staff. » Children can generate credits to earn their high school diploma, GED or earn some post-secondary school credits through Aims Community College.

other system and we get kids who’ve committed murders and armed robberies. If we don’t get it right, it really means problems for those kids, their families and ultimately our communities, too. We want to make sure we get it right.”

$400 million of the total pie.

Noble is the second-largest producer in Weld behind Anadarko Petroleum, which in January reported a $1.25 billion loss in its fourth-quarter earnings. It too plans to reduce its capital spending this year by half, but officials will not report exact amounts until March 1.

“Without question, we are achieving more while spending less,” Noble CEO and President David Stover told analysts in an earnings call Wednesday.

He and other executives pointed to the company’s continued success in Colorado, which in the past three months of the year hit a production record of 121,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (that includes crude oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids such as ethane and butane).

“From an efficiency and cost perspective, the company is firing on all cylinders,” said Gary Willingham, executive vice president of operations for Noble in the earnings call. “Once again, the DJ was a big contributor to lower operating costs and productions outperformance. … After drilling and completing horizontal wells in the DJ for more than five years, our team is still driving step changes in drilling results and well performance.”

Noble reported it also reduced its drilling costs by 40 percent and lease operating expenses by 36 percent in Colorado. The company also sold off $200 million in assets in the Mediterranean, found an additional $200 million in a recent dividend adjustment and debt refinancing and shaved $95 million from its exploration costs by cutting its Nevada program. The company also laid off 400 employees in two rounds of layoffs last year, only 45 of which came out of the company’s Greeley headquarters.

The company reported it also has reduced drilling costs on what are called long-lateral horizontal wells. A typical horizontal well is drilled vertically 6,000 to 7,000 feet in the formation, then horizontally throughout the formation. Lateral portions have been growing, and compa-

» Noble 2016 U.S. capital program DJ Basin (Colo.): $600 million Eagle Ford (Texas): $150 million Delaware (Texas): $100 million Marcellus (Penn.): $150 million Offshore/other assets: $500 million Source: Noble Energy

nies are drilling as long as 9,000 feet in the horizontal portion, which allows companies to produce more while having to drill from fewer well pads on the surface. Horizontal laterals started at 4,000 feet just a few years ago, and companies’ continued experimentation with drilling and completing, or producing, the wells have improved immensely.

Efficiencies in drilling laterals in terms of amounts produced and reduced drilling times have driven costs down, and Noble reports it has its long-lateral costs down to $3 million per well — that’s down from $5 million to $7 million in drilling costs five years ago.

The majority — 70 percent — of Noble’s 2016 program in the DJ will focus on 9,000-foot laterals in the Wells Ranch. The company plans to drill 150 wells this year and see reduced production.

“While these lower activity levels suggest that DJ production will be down somewhat from last year, I’m optimistic that these new completion designs can help offset some of the potential declines,” Willingham said.

Stover said any further cutting likely will be in its overseas assets, where the company has more flexibility with assets in the Mediterranean.

“The good part about our lower-48 portfolio, it’s essentially been cleaned up and cored up to what we’re focusing on is high quality with tremendous upside value opportunities,” Stover said. “So any trimming in the lower-48 portfolio would be around the edges on that, so there’s no dependency here, if you look at things going forward on any big trimming on our lower-48 portfolio.”

ANTONIN SCALIA: CONSERVATIVE SUPREME COURT JUSTICE DIES AT 79. A8

FRIESEN

FLY TYING

FOUR

FUN

Windsor junior earns 2 more state titles. Sports, Page B1

Poudre Learning Center event helps attendees craft bait for fly fishing. Local, Page A7

GreeleyTribune SUNDAY

FEBRUARY 14, 2016

Serving Greeley and Weld County greeleytribune.com

GREELEY, COLORADO $1.50 VOL. 145 NO. 94

Pot fears unfounded PATIENT

CARE

Business, C1: Hubbard Family Dental Hygiene Clinic helps ‘overlooked’ population.

HIPPY « SEE THE NUMBERS A4: Marijuana-related offenses in District 6 schools

Early returns suggest pot use not growing in District 6 schools after marijuana legalization

USA

G2K, D1: Greeley’s HIPPY volunteers offer early language education to migrants.

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY JOSHUA POLSON/jpolson@greeleytribune.com

DATA OBTAINED BY THE GREELEY TRIBUNE

about marijuana-related offenses by students in Greeley-Evans School District 6 suggests legalized pot has not had the effect some worried it would.

BY TYLER SILVY | TSILVY@GREELEYTRIBUNE.COM

J

ohn Gates admits he was concerned after Nov. 6, 2012.

That’s the day Coloradans made marijuana a legal, taxable product, and Gates, the director of school safety and security at Greeley-Evans School District 6, wondered what would come next.

ACTION

LINE

A3: Residents ask about cling wrap on fountain in Lincoln Park and neighbor’s dump truck.

“

Our numbers don’t appear to be up, and that surprises me.

— JOHN GATES, director of school safety and security at GreeleyEvans School District 6

THERE ARE

19

JOB ADS IN TODAY'S CLASSIFIEDS SECTION.

« INSIDE C1-C5: E1-E14: E6: D1-D8: C3: A7: A6: B1-B8: E5:

« CONTINUED

A4: Pot in Schools

Officials work to change downtown’s identity

By Catherine Sweeney csweeney@greeleytribune.com

Greeley officials’ lofty dreams for downtown are finally coming to life, as wrecking crews clear away the old to make way for the new.

The area’s identity has been under construction for decades, but the next two years will bring some of the most sweeping changes in Greeley history.

A hotel and conference center is slated to go in, adding almost 150 high-end rooms, a full-service restaurant and thousands of feet of meeting space. That project — and its need for a home — tripped another: the new city hall complex, which has been named the City Center.

In a few short years, downtown Greeley will see new landmarks that will change the face of the city for decades to come.

City offices in the Lincoln Annex, 919 7th St., have to move out before the ground can break for the hotel and conference center. These offices include the municipal court, a fire station and the information technology department. The High Plains Library District also has a branch in the annex.

«

CONTINUED A5: Downtown

WHO'S ON YOUR TEAM

MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE THE GAME CHANGERS IN STROKE CARE.

uchealth.org/strokecare

» Loud and clear

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44 pages, 5 sections

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Greeley officials want to be transWEATHER parent about the work downtown, so they built a website to fill everyone in Mostly sunny on current construction and planning Mostly sunny, with High 49 Low 30 updates. You can see it at www.greewest wind at 5 leygov.com/city-center.

B8: Weather 30 The site has an interactive map that shows the various ongoing projects.

Each one gets its own box with an explainer on the project status and anticipated finish date.

« THE TRIBUNE « SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2016

« A5

Officials consider asking voters for tax continuation « DOWNTOWN From A1

Planners hope to start construction this summer, and the building has to be cleared before that.

“Then the fire drill starts,” said Assistant City Manager Becky Safarik. “Where do we put everyone?”

Most Lincoln Annex inhabitants will find temporary homes this year before settling in the City Center a few years from now.

A few properties have already clued residents in that the work is starting. The Virginian apartments, 1015 11th Ave., and the vacant bank building, 1111 11th Ave., came down last week. The Carrel house, 1115 11th St., is off its foundation, waiting to be trucked across town.

Offices will shuffle around between temporary and permanent homes.

“It’s like musical chairs on steroids,” Safarik said.

The city council was the first to play. The council moved its meetings from the council chambers in the Lincoln Annex to the Greeley-Evan School District 6 headquarters, 1025 9th Ave., early this year to prepare for the changes in the Lincoln Park Annex.

This week, crews will start knocking down the Safeway building at 1122 11th Ave. After the Safeway building is razed, the lot will host two of the services that are now in the Lincoln Annex: Fire Station No. 1 and the Greeley Municipal Court.

Officials closed on the Safeway property in late December, paying $1.75 million for it. The city had some unexpected revenues officials had saved over the past few years — such as increased oil and gas tax money — to pay for it.

Originally, officials thought they would use the Safeway building for temporary office space. They could put a host of offices — the municipal court, information technology, some fire protection people, maybe even the library — inside the old grocery store.

“It was odd, but we could have done it,” Safarik said.

City leaders soon learned it would cost millions of dollars to get the Safeway location up to safety codes and into Americans with Disabilities Act compliance.

Instead, they decided to raze it. It will cost roughly a quarter-million dollars, and it should take a few weeks.

The Safeway building’s environmental review raised some concerns. At some point, probably for the sake of fire protection, someone sprayed the exterior walls, which are made of porous cinder blocks, with asbestos.

Instead of clearing asbestos on the inside and then flattening the building, the contractor is going to have to demolish the inside and outside at the same time while the building is wrapped in a plastic material to hold the dust. These extra efforts will make the process take longer and cost more, Safarik said.

Still, it should take only a few weeks.

The lot will hold a permanent fire station and a temporary municipal court.

The fire station will go on the southeast corner of the lot, at the intersection of 12th Street and 10th Avenue. It will be two stories, so designers are looking at — and firefighters are lobbying for — iconic firehouse poles.

“They’re so excited,” Safarik said of the firefighters.

City officials aren’t sure how much the firehouse will cost, said City Manager Roy Otto.

Initial plans put the fire department’s administrative offices in the City Center. Now, they want to put the offices in the new fire station. Until the design is finalized, calculating a cost is impossible, Otto said.

It will take builders about nine months to set up the new fire station. Meanwhile, fire employees will camp out in the former Colorado Department of Transportation regional headquarters, 1420 2nd St. The city signed an 18-month lease last week.

CDOT just moved into a new building on 10th Street, leaving behind a facility with offices, meeting space and bays for truck storage.

The municipal court will temporarily be in a modular building on the other side the of the Safeway lot. The office will span

City Center Project PHAS E ON E

The city council chambers is getting knocked down.

The council has already started having meetings in Greeley-Evans School District 6’s headquarters, 1025 9th Ave. This is currently parking, but the hotel and conference center will go on top of it.

The High Plains Library District branch will move out this summer. The district is negotiating a lease for another downtown location.

Fire Station No. 1 will temporarily move to the old CDOT location, 1420 2nd St. Eventually, it will move into a new fire house where the downtown Safeway used to be, 1122 11th Ave. The municipal court will move into temporary modular buildings on the Safeway lot. Later, they will move into the City Center, a new consolidated city hall slated for the southwest side of the 11th Avenue and 10th Street intersection.

The City Center will sit on this block.

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about 8,000 feet holding two courtrooms. It will open May 3.

Officials got the date by counting backward; people who get traffic tickets have to have three months’ notice before their hearings.

Eventually, the court will move into the City Center, which will go up in two phases on the block southeast of the 10th Street and 11th Avenue intersection, one block west of the current city hall.

This block once held the bank building, Carrel house and Virginian apartments, all of which have been or are in the process of being cleared. These properties also were bought with one-time oil and gas funds.

Officials have planned for all offices in the Lincoln Annex, except the fire department’s administration, to move into the City Center’s first phase. They hope that the Public Works Department will move in there too, but that hasn’t been finalized.

A bond called a certificate of participation will pay for temporary office space, firehouse construction and the City Center’s first phase. The city council signed off on a $25-million borrowing cap during a meeting in late November.

These bonds are unique in a few ways.

“That is the only form of loaning that you can do that does not require a vote of the public,” City Manager Otto said.

Greeley officials raised taxes to pay for a bond about 15 years ago, and they paid that off this year. Instead of issuing new debt for the downtown project, officials will keep collecting taxes like they did for the bond payment and use that money — about $1.5 million per year — to make the bond payments.

There’s a limit on the number

of certificates of participation a city can use, so Greeley won’t be able to issue another for the City Center’s second phase.

The second phase isn’t nailed down so well. City leaders know it will consolidate the rest of the city government’s offices — which now span five buildings — and it will be on the same block as the first phase.

This will leave the current city hall, the round building at 1000 10th St., empty. The High Plains Library District, which will lose its downtown home because of the hotel project, is eying the building for its new branch location. The district is working on lease negotiations for its temporary downtown location and on a feasibility study for the round building.

“

Anything that can improve the city and get Greeley recognized not only in the Rocky Mountain region but nationwide … it’s great.

What they’re doing develops a sense of pride and well-being.

— GEORGE HALL, former Greeley mayor

City officials aren’t sure how they’re going to try to pay for it all, but they’re tossing around the idea taking a quality of life tax continuation to voters when it expires. Quality of life was a sales tax initiative voters approved to pay for community enrichment projects, such as the Family FunPlex and the Ice Haus.

Greeley officials want to bring

everyone together to benefit residents, make city business more efficient and save taxpayers money.

Today, the spread is inconvenient to residents, Safarik said.

And it’s worse for some than it is for others.

“If you’re getting a building permit, you might have to go to three buildings,” she said.

Keeping the offices separate makes it hard on employees, too.

The distance discourages collaboration.

Last, in addition to $6 million in expected necessary maintenance costs, existing buildings aren’t as well-suited for the work as they could be.

“The only building we really built on purpose was the Lincoln Annex,” Safarik said. “All the others … were all sort of buildings we oozed into.”

The City Center will be designed specifically for the city’s use.

Former Greeley officials have mixed feelings on the ambitious project. Former mayor George Hall said he couldn’t find one complaint about it. Former city manager Leonard Wiest criticized the lack of transparency.

“Anything that can improve the city and get Greeley recognized not only in the Rocky Mountain region but nationwide … it’s great,” Hall said. “What they’re doing develops a sense of pride and well-being.”

Former city manager Wiest didn’t have complaints about the projects alone, but he was more critical of the process city leaders have used to carry them out.

“There’s a lot of unknowns out there,” he said.

Wiest was born and raised in Greeley, and he spent decades working at the city. He said people still stop him in the grocery store and when he’s getting cof-

fee to ask about development like the hotel and conference center.

“They’re concerned about the cost,” he said.

Most of the city’s Safeway building negotiations were listed only in the consent agenda, which is read during city council meetings, but not discussed. The final purchase — and final selling price — weren’t on the consent agenda for any meeting.

None of the smaller steps along the way — the lease with CDOT, the environmental study on the Safeway building, the property purchases along 11th Avenue — were discussed during the city council meetings either.

“There’s work that needs to be done by staff (for them) to be able to take it to the council,” City Manager Roy Otto said, referring to the hiring of consultants, buying properties and others preparation work.

He said his employees have taken everything that required city council approval to the council meetings.

“That’s transparent, and it’s following the law.”

Technically, the hotel and conference deal isn’t finalized. The city of Greeley, the developers and the Downtown Development Authority are still working on a development agreement that outlines everyone’s responsibilities to carry out the hotel project. The city council should vote to authorize the agreement in April.

If the hotel and conference center deal falls through, it’s unclear how the City Center project will play out.

Safarik affectionately calls the work the “domino project,” because so many pieces need to fall into place in just the right way for that ambitious dream to become a reality.

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Serving Greeley, Evans and neighboring communities

GREELEY, COLORADO ONE DOLLAR VOL. 145 NO. 120

DOWNTOWN HOTEL AND CONFERENCE CENTER

Greeley processing designs City council set to discuss the plans April 5 barring snag in negotiations

By Sharon Dunn sdunn@greeleytribune.com

The dominoes are starting to fall in downtown Greeley.

The cascade of tiles will start with an expansive hotel and convention center planned to replace the city’s Lincoln Park Library, municipal court and Fire Station No. 1.

The private development group behind the hotel formally turned in design plans to the city this

week. They were made available late Thursday, showing a shiny new building taking up the entirety of the block at 919 7th St. “I think it’s a game-changer,” said Assistant City Manager Becky Safarik.

The plans for the hotel and convention center are set for city council discussion on April 5, barring no issues with negotiations.

City officials are still working on a development agreement with the investors group, which is

» For more For regular updates on the city of Greeley downtown projects, go to greeleygov. com/city-center.

headed by Greeley car dealer Scott Ehrlich, and including Colorado Rockies co-owner Dick Monfort, and Arlo Richardson, a Greeley developer.

“The development agreement is still being finalized,” Safarik said. “It’s still not pinned all the FOR THE TRIBUNE/City of Greeley

AN ARTIST’S RENDERING shows an areal view of the

« CONTINUED

planned downtown Greeley hotel. City leaders describe the project as transformational for Greeley’s core.

A4: Hotel

« MASCOT FORUM at Eaton High School stays cordial

Principals at Greeley West will resign over surveys

By Tyler Silvy tsilvy@greeleytribune.com

PHOTOS BY JOSHUA POLSON/jpolson@greeleytribune.com

DARIUS SMITH GIVES A PRESENTATION about how mascots can have a negative effect on a culture during the public forum to discuss Eaton’s mascot Thursday at Eaton High School. Smith was among several people invited to join the discussion and represent and share insight as Native Americans. Eaton High School’s student newspaper, Red Ink, hosted the event.

HAVING VOICES HEARD

By Tyler Silvy tsilvy@greeleytribune.com

F

ourteen years ago, Darius Smith was in Eaton, surrounded protesters who sought the removal of the Eaton High School Reds mascot.

On Thursday, Smith said a lot has changed.

He’s now the director of the anti-discrimination office for the City and County of Denver, and Thursday, he wasn’t joined by marchers, but by members of Gov. John Hickenlooper’s Commission to Study American Indian Representations in Public Schools.

And they didn’t get bused into town. They were invited, notably, by the Eaton High School student newspaper, Red Ink. The commission’s goal is built on failures, from a bill that would have banned 37 school mascots in Colorado, including Eaton’s,

THROUGH Briggsdale girls hoops smothers Heritage Christian, McGinley to head to semifinals.

Sports, Page B3

«

CONTINUED A5: Principals

Anadarko lays off 1K employees

By Sharon Dunn

» What’s next

sdunn@greeleytribune.com

The Commission to Study American Indian Representations in Public Schools must have its report to the governor by April 15. The report will include factual information about the commission’s public forums, as well as recommendations.

Anadarko Petroleum has announced it will lay off 1,000 employees from its global workforce, the latest in a long string of oil industry layoffs.

There’s no word on exactly how many employees will leave in Colorado, but company spokeswoman Robin Olsen reports that after layoffs, 1,000 employees will remain in Colorado.

which was killed last year, to that march more than a decade ago.

The response to past failings, as it were, was a different approach: a conversation in which

« WHAT’S INSIDE POWERING

Two Greeley West High School principals implicated in a twoyear scandal involving parent surveys will not work at the school or in Greeley-Evans School DisRobins trict 6 again.

District 6 officials investigated Principal Shelli Robins and Assistant Principal John Diebold starting Monday after a whistleblower at Diebold Greeley West told district staff the pair had filled

ERIN CARNEY SPEAKS during the public forum Thursday night as part of a discussion on Eaton’s mascot at Eaton High School. both sides listen to one another.

That’s how the public forum started, that’s how it ended. And most were pleasantly surprised.

«

Adventure

Niche sport skijoring questioned after injured horses put down recently. B1

Stampede

«

CONTINUED A5: Eaton Mascot

Greeley Stampede announces acts for this summer’s Free Stage. A2

CONTINUED A5: Anadarko

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FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 2016 » THE TRIBUNE

Developers want hotel built by 2017 « HOTEL From A1

way down, but it will involve making land available to build, and it will involve financing that will be available to the project, as well as a ground lease for parking.”

Safarik said there is still no price tag for the project, but plans are for a six-story hotel with roughly 150 rooms and 5,000 feet of conference space and a restaurant.

If the council approves the plans, demolition of the existing buildings could begin the next day, Safarik said.

“They would be prepared to come in and start working on the site demolition, which would start with the parking lot, and asbestos removal,” Safarik said.

“We’ll still have two users in the building, so we have some interesting challenges in making it tolerable for municipal court and the library.”

She said the development group has an ambitious time frame for construction. They would like it done by summer 2017.

Meanwhile, plans will reveal a slowly emerging picture of a new City Center on 11th Avenue between 10th and 11th streets, complete with a new municipal court and a one-stop-shop for city services.

Fire Station No. 1 will be rebuilt at the lot that used to house the Safeway building, which is being torn down now. That is expected to be done in a matter of weeks.

City officials expect the Fire Station to be built in nine months.

The municipal court will be temporarily housed in the Safeway lot, beginning May 2.

AN ARTIST’S RENDERING of the planned downtown Greeley hotel and convention center.

The library will move temporarily into the Goodwill Career Connection Center, 1012 11th St. The city is exploring the idea of moving the library permanently into the round building, or City Hall, 1000 10th St. Safarik said this is the biggest project she’s seen in at least two decades.

“When we saw the Union

Colony Civic Center and Recreation and Senior Center campus, that was a game changer 25 years ago,” Safarik said. “This is the next one, the next thing that really helps progress downtown’s future and will stimulate new investment and development in an area that will be very successful and something Greeley will be proud of.”

PHOTOS FOR THE TRIBUNE/City of Greeley

AN ARTIST’S RENDERING of the planned downtown Greeley hotel and convention center.

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Briggsdale girls show life too late in game, lose to Idalia in Class 1A basketball title game. Sports, Page B1

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MARCH 13, 2016

Serving Greeley, Evans and neighboring communities

‘Bees with no beehive’

GREELEY, COLORADO $1.50 VOL. 145 NO. 122

11 12 1 10

2

9

3 8

4 7 6

5

SPRING FORWARD Did you remember?

Make sure to move all clocks forward an hour if you didn’t do it already.

’TIS THE

SEASON

PHOTOS BY ELIOTT FOUST/efoust@greeleytribune.com

ED WILLIAMS OF GREELEY rides a bicycle Thursday in front of the Lincoln Park Annex at 919 7th St. in Greeley. The annex, which holds a municipal court, fire station, the city’s IT department and the Lincoln Park Library, is slated to be torn down this summer, displacing a social hub for many of Greeley’s homeless residents. ON THE RIGHT FROM TOP are Chris Llamas, a homeless man who worries about where the homeless will gather when the annex is torn down; Melanie Falvo, the community impact coordinator for the United Way; and Lt. Marcos Roman, an officer with the Salvation Army. Both organizations are seeking solutions to helping Greeley’s homeless population.

Downtown project to displace social hub for Greeley’s homeless

E

BY CATHERINE SWEENEY | CSWEENEY@GREELEYTRIBUNE.COM

very morning, Chris Llamas leaves his blue tent on the bank of the Poudre River and walks about a mile south to the Lincoln Park Library in downtown Greeley. He likes to get there early, before the doors unlock. That’s when everyone is outside.

The library, 919 7th St., is the homeless community’s gathering place. It’s where everyone goes to catch up and share information. News spreads fast.

The complex not only holds the library, where they go to warm up or cool down, keep in touch with loved ones on Facebook or get some help on finding a job, but also holds the municipal court and gives them a place to catch the bus.

In a few short months, that building won’t exist. The city will clear the block to make way for a hotel and conference center, one of the many pieces of a plan to give downtown Greeley a

chance to grow even beyond the revitalization the area’s experienced in the past few years.

The city plans to move the library and municipal court a half-mile south into temporary buildings. The library will be half the size of the Lincoln Park Library now. The bus station will be a mile north, off 11th Avenue and A Street.

Llamas, and many like him, worry when the building and bus station go

away, the gathering place will disappear with it.

“For a while, it will be a swarm of bees with no beehive,” Llamas said.

MORE VISIBLE

Greeley’s homelessness problem has gotten not only more severe, but

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A4: Homeless

Woman celebrates life as it slips away

By Catherine Sweeney csweeney@greeleytribune.com

Lydia Ruyle sat on an armchair draped in deep red and shimmering silver fabrics. The chair was on a stage in the back corner of the room. Her face was stoic, except in the eyes and on the edges of her lips. She looked comfortable.

For more than an hour, she had watched women perform religious rituals, praise her impact

on their lives and sing her songs they wrote.

Her daughter took her hand, walked her off the chair and slowly guided her between circles of people. A gentle voice on a microphone pushed the singers to take a break from singing praise when Ruyle walked by, and to take that short moment to share what she meant to them. They did, through tears and smiles, the way you might talk about beloved friends at a funeral.

Only this wasn’t a funeral; it was a celebration.

Ruyle was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer about a month ago. She didn’t want the party to happen after her death.

She wanted to be there.

So family, longtime friends and admirers packed into Zoe’s Café on Feb. 20.

«

CONTINUED A5: Celebrates

WHO'S ON YOUR TEAM

MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE THE GAME CHANGERS IN PRIMARY CARE.

uchealth.org/primarycare

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44 pages, 5 sections

«

Students — formal and casual WEATHER — who want to learn more about female artists, like Lydia Mostly sunny did, can now do so in a room at Mostly sunny, with High 65 Low 36 UNC named for her. The Lydia a north northeast Ruyle Room of Women’s Art isat 5 to 10 mph B8: Weather wind an archival area where students 35 can see pieces and study books.

Working UNC students can apply for a scholarship named for Lydia.

A4 »

SUNDAY, MARCH 13, 2016 » THE TRIBUNE

TRIBUNE FILE PHOTO

DAN MENDOZA, LEFT, AND Cheryl Secorski, middle right, interview two people for the United Way’s Point in Time survey for Weld County this past year at the Lincoln Park Library in Greeley. The city’s homeless are concerned about where they will gather after the Lincoln Park Annex is demolished.

Coalition seeking long-term, short-term solutions « HOMELESS From A1

also more visible, local experts say. The library is perhaps the most noticeable piece of a larger problem.

“We’re at a tipping point where we’re all uncomfortably aware we haven’t found an easy way to deal with (homelessness) yet,” said Assistant City Manager Becky Safarik. “It’s helped raise the dialogue.

We’ve got to get ahead of this issue.”

She serves as a chairwoman for Greeley’s coalition on homelessness.

It’s a partnership between the city, various nonprofit organizations and service centers, business owners and residents.

They’ve worked to form a strategic plan on how to handle the issues brought to life by the rise in homelessness. They started working on it this past May. It should be ready this May. That plan has to balance short-term needs, such as handling the library relocation, addressing bathroom shortages and finding ways to help pay for meals. But it also has to take a look at long-term needs, such as affordable housing projects, preventive services and job counseling.

To build the plan, coalition members had to get some background. They studied the different kinds of homelessness in Greeley and what may have sparked the growth.

The coalition focused on four kinds of homelessness: family, youth, veterans and the chronically homeless.

The first three groups have clear definitions: families who stay together while homeless, children who are without families and are homeless; and those who were in the military and become homeless. Many of these people aren’t necessarily on the streets. They can be “couch surfing,” or staying the night with different friends. Some are “doubled up,” which means they live in a single-family residence with other families.

This can be more trying than it sounds, said Melanie Falvo, who serves as

United Way’s community impact coordinator.

The family can be a single mother and her many children, and the “friend” they’re staying with can be a man who is exploiting the mother — and sometimes the children — for sex. When families are doubled up, it can be in a small apartment, but it can also be in a house with a meth lab.

It’s hard to know these people exist, Falvo said.

They’re private about their situations, and they’re not in homeless shelters or on the streets.

The chronically homeless are the people you do see on the streets, or in front of the Lincoln Park Library.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development defines chronic homelessness for nonprofits and organizations such as the United Way. There are a few ways to fall under the chronically homeless umbrella. A person can be homeless for a year or more or have had at least four episodes of homelessness in the past three years.

Veterans tend to overlap into this category because of the physical and mental trauma they sustain while serving. Many chronically homeless people are suffering mental illness or drug addictions. It affects their ability to maintain relationships.

“They don’t have those couches to stay on anymore,” Falvo said.

Some even prefer the streets.

The United Way conducts a point-in-time survey taken every year, and it measures the amount of people living in shelters, on the streets or areas that HUD calls “not fit for human habitation,” such as under bridges or in abandoned houses. A majority of those surveyed are from downtown.

This past year, the survey found 88 people in Weld County, and only three were outside Greeley. This year, there were 79, and 15 were outside Greeley.

“I am not confident in those numbers,” Falvo said. “I think it’s an incredibly low estimate.”

» What comes first?

Many nonprofits, government agencies and social organizations take part in the “housing first” philosophy. The thought behind it: to fix homelessness, you have to get someone off the street. It’s easier to take care of mental health issues or substance abuse struggles when there’s a roof over your head.

An integral part of housing first is affordable housing programs. These can provide apartments where residents pay lower prices or get rent subsidies. Some housing options also provide social services, such as substance abuse counseling or job training. Greeley is getting more of both. » Mission Village Apartments, 23rd Avenue and 4th Street.

The project will be built to contain 50 units, including two-, three- and four-bedroom options.

The apartments will range in price according to family income and size, and they’ll be priced in tiers according to the percentage of Greeley’s median

“

We’re not going to have nearly as many chairs and tables. It will be very disruptive to the people who count on us as a meeting space.

— JANINE REID, High Plains Library District executive director on the new library

In addition to measuring only people who are visibly homeless, the survey is an opt-in measuring device; people have to sign up.

“We had a lot of people refuse to take it,” Falvo said. “Many of those were at the library. They said they did this survey last year, and nothing has changed.”

The problem is, funding for the kind of projects that would help these people, such as funding to the United Way, comes from these numbers. So when fewer people register, less money goes to help them.

Other surveys, such as the federally mandated one District 6 conducts that looks only at students, includes the youngsters who are couch surfing and doubling up.

“The school district finds hundreds of people,” Falvo said. “The year that the flood hit (2013), it was thousands of homeless youth. That’s not even hitting their family members.”

Obviously, anyone who has lost a home has been dealt a blow economically. Safarik points to the downturn in 2008.

“We’re seeing more residual from the Great Recession,” she said. “It was too big of a hit for them.”

Weld County saw its highest foreclosure rate on record during the recession, with more than 3,300 homes taken in 2009 alone.

Marcos Roman serves as a corps officer at the Salvation Army of Greeley, 1119 6th St. He said since he got here in 2014, he’s seen homelessness grow.

He now sees more visible signs of it.

“I never saw people panhandling,” he said. Now he does.

The Salvation Army is close to downtown, and it serves lunch Tuesday through Thursday. It used to be five days per week, but budget constraints forced them to drop Mondays and Fridays.

Many of the people who eat there spend time at the Lincoln Park Library before and after.

“There’s not really anywhere (else) for them to go,” he said.

There’s a shortage of options during the day for the chronically homeless, and one of the coalition’s goals is to address that.

SHORT-TERM FIXES HARDER TO DISCOVER

Addressing short-term problems such as the library closure can be difficult.

income a family makes. The pricing also will change annually as income data for Greeley residents change.

The apartments are slated to open this fall. » The Guadalupe Apartments, 11th Avenue and O Street.

It will have 47 units, including studios and oneand two-bedroom options, and is expected to open in 2017.

It will be on the same plot of land as the Guadalupe Center, a shelter that partners with North Range Behavioral Health to offer substance abuse treatment and other kinds of counseling. Sunrise Community Health Center assists residents with medical needs. There are services for the mentally and physically disabled. The shelter has a computer room, where High Plains Library District sends librarians to help residents with computer literacy and job searches.

Organizers — and those who fund them — have to prioritize short-term help and possible long-term fixes.

“In HUD’s eyes, every dollar that’s not spent on permanent housing is a dollar that could have gone to permanent housing,” Falvo said.

Various housing projects are underway in Greeley. Housing for the formerly homeless usually falls into two categories: apartments with low prices or rent assistance only, and apartments with these services in addition to substance abuse counseling, computer classes and other kind of support.

The short-term fixes are harder to discover, Roman said. For example, various businesses and city locations don’t allow homeless people to use the restrooms.

It’s not to be mean, Roman said. Some people wreak havoc on sewage systems. He’s seen it himself at the Salvation Army.

People have flushed all sorts of unexpected items: shot glasses, shower caps, used syringes.

The city happens to be building a stand-alone restroom facility near Lincoln Park. The project didn’t come as a result of the homeless coalition’s plan; the plan isn’t finished yet. But the plan will help identify smaller projects similar to these.

It also will address where people can spend their time during the day.

Most shelters offer only

nighttime services, which is why so many end up at the Lincoln Park Library.

City officials gave the High Plains Library District, which administers the Lincoln Park Library, a June 21 deadline to be out.

District officials are in lease negotiations with Goodwill to share space at its location on 11th Street and 10th Avenue for the library. They hope to have a contract signed this month. The plan is to prepare the temporary library so it can open the day after the Lincoln location closes, said High Plains Executive Director Janine Reid.

But even if the new library is open on time, the facility will be half the size. The concern is there will not be room for both homeless people and other patrons.

“We’re not going to have nearly as many chairs and tables,” Reid said. “It will be very disruptive to the people who count on us as a meeting space.”

Where’s the new meeting space going to be for Greeley’s homeless population? No one is sure.

Llamas is an expert on Greeley. He walks all over town. One day, he walked from 59th Avenue to Greeley Central just for fun.

He can tell you where to get the cheapest bottomless coffee, where the grocery store closest to downtown is now that Safeway is closed.

His best guess?

“The parks are going to fill up.”

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MARCH 15, 2016

GREELEY, COLORADO ONE DOLLAR VOL. 145 NO. 124

« 25 YEARS of Radio Memories with Dick Williamson

GREELEY CITY COUNCIL

Plans coming into focus

Leaders set to share plans for downtown

By Catherine Sweeney csweeney@greeleytribune.com

DAN ENGLAND/dengland@greeleytribune.com

DICK WILLIAMSON KICKS OFF another of his “Radio Memories” show on a Sunday evening in Greeley. The show, which starts at 5:30 p.m. Sunday, airs on Pirate Radio, 104.7 FM in Greeley.

FIRST LOVE

Dick Williamson celebrates milestone by continuing to honor his heroes from the good ol’ days

D

ick Williamson could play it safe for his Radio Memories show. He’s got the tapes — more than 20,000 radio shows stored in his home — and the time to put them

overs as well, ship it to Pirate and call it good.

Dan

ENGLAND The Tribune

together snippets from the same kind of classic radio shows that entertained him when he was a kid. He spends a day planning them out for the month and putting them on CDs he plays on Sunday nights.

It would be easy, then, for him to do the voice-

together for a crisp, canned production.

He will celebrate his 25th anniversary of Radio Memories this Sunday, and the program is a valentine to radio, what he calls his first love. He pieces

But Williamson also likes to honor the feel of old-time radio, not just the material, and so he does it live. He wants to do it the way it was done when he was a kid. He kicked off his show Sunday with Abe Villarreal, a staple on Pirate Radio, with a clip to demonstrate why he loves live radio. It was a clip from Bing Crosby, when a trumpet player muffed a note and

«

This week, Greeley leaders will reveal how they plan to pay for their share of a planned downtown hotel and conference center, as well as how they’re » What’s going to pay for the first part of a new city next?

The hotel and hall complex.

Greeley’s finance conference center officials will intro- owners still have to duce their plan to sign off on a develappropriate more opment agreemoney to the 2016 ment that allows budget — including them to accept about $13 million in Greeley officials’ downtown project offer, but the city funding — during council has to sign the city council meet- off on the appropriing tonight. The plan ation first.

The Greeley City will be in the consent agenda so it won’t be Council will discuss discussed, but it will the payment plan and the developbe in the public rement agreement cord.

Leaders will talk during regular about the plan at meeting at 6:30 length and a public p.m. April 5 in the hearing for residents Greeley-Evans School District to share their opin- headquarters ions on it during a meeting room, city council meeting 1025 9th Ave. on April 5.

It’s normal for city officials to make budget adjustments during the spring, said Assistant City Manager Victoria Runkle, who oversees the city’s finances.

“The budget is a living document,” she said.

“It changes all the time.”

«

CONTINUED A5: Williamson

CONTINUED A3: Greeley

Former teacher accused of having sex with student strikes deal

By Tyler Silvy tsilvy@greeleytribune.com

A former Frontier Academy teacher accused of having a sexual relationship with a former student has struck a plea deal that may land her in prison for 20 years.

Katerina Bardos, a former fourth-grade teacher at Frontier Academy, pleaded guilty to attempted sex assault on a child and child abuse negligently causing

death, both felonies, in a deal earlier this month.

The child abuse charge will carry a sentence of four to 20 years in prison.

There’s just one is- Bardos sue: Nobody died.

When asked about the novelty of a plea deal featuring such a charge, Weld County Assistant District Attorney Robb Miller

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prison sentence on the child abuse charge. Bardos also will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of her life, Miller said.

A sentencing hearing is scheduled for May 3.

Bardos, who taught at Brentwood Middle School during the 2013-14 school year before moving to Frontier Academy, was arrested May 6 on suspicion of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Namely, she was accused

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seemed to indicate it’s rare.

“For the most part, we try to make plea agreements that match the facts of the case,” Miller said.

As part of Bardos’ March 3 plea agreement, two charges of sexual assault on a child by a person in position of trust were dropped.

Still, the attempted sexual assault charge will result in 10 years intensive supervised probation to be served after Bardos serves her

26

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Mostly sunny High 49 Low 26 A16: Weather

A10-A15: Classifieds A9: Comics A14: Games

of providing a former student marijuana.

It wasn’t until after the arrest police learned of an alleged sexual relationship between Bardos and her former student.

Bardos denied she had a sexual relationship with the boy, but she did tell police she and the boy de-

«

CONTINUED A5: Teacher

A5: A4: A8, 9, 15: A12:

Obituaries Opinion Sports TV grid

16 pages, 1 section

« THE TRIBUNE « TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 2016

« DAILY PLANNER TO SUBMIT AN ITEM, EMAIL EVENTS@GREELEYTRIBUNE.COM.

PICK OF THE DAY ABUSE AWARENESS MONTH POSTER CONTEST, « CHILD 5 p.m., A Kids Place, 1610 29th Ave Pl., Greeley. Details: http://www.akidsplace.org/events/poster-contest.aspx.

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REDEYE ROTARY, 6:45 a.m., Egg and I, 2305 27th St., « GREELEY Greeley. Details: www.facebook.com/GreeleyRedeyeRotary.

FOR TOTS, 9, 10 and 11 a.m., Farr Regional Library, 1939 « TALES 61st Ave., Greeley. Details: www.MyLibrary.us.

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STORYTIME, 10:30 a.m., Centennial Park Library, « PRESCHOOL 2227 23rd Ave., Greeley. Details: www.MyLibrary.us.

YOGA STORYTIME, 10:30 a.m., Riverside Library, 3700 « FAMILY Golden St., Evans. Details: www.MyLibrary.us.

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« A3

Dog that attacked boy in Greeley still at large Staff reports

Greeley police are hunting for a big, black dog that took a few bites out of a 7-yearold boy Monday afternoon.

According to Sgt. Rafael Gutierrez, the boy was preparing with his babysitter and about three other children to walk to Farr Park around 4:50 p.m. Monday when a dog, possibly a German shepherd, ran up to the boy and began biting him.

The boy was holding a bag of snacks, which the dog at first tried to get.

“Initially, we’re hearing, the dog just came running out of nowhere,” Gutierrez said. “The adult said she saw the dog go at the bag and started biting the kid. She focused on the kid and didn’t see where the dog went.”

The dog ran away almost as quickly, and police and animal control officers remain on the hunt. The incident happened at 2420 13th Ave. “From what we’re getting they didn’t have to fight the

PHOTO FOR THE TRIBUNE/Larry Bases

GREELEY POLICE CANVAS A neighborhood in the 2400 block of 13th Avenue Monday after a dog attacked a 7-year-old boy. dog off. It just took off running,” Gutierrez said.

The boy was taken to North Colorado Medical Center by ambulance with bite wounds to his head and ear.

“I wouldn’t say super-

ficial, but it was nothing life-threatening,” Gutierrez said. “The child never lost consciousness. There were some obvious bite marks.”

He remained at the hospital by 6:30 p.m. Monday night receiving treatment,

Gutierrez said.

He said if the dog is captured, it will be quarantined for 10 days as a precaution for the potential of rabies. If the dog has an owner, there is the potential for municipal charges, Gutierrez said.

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MORNING GARDEN CLUB, 9 a.m., in Centennial « GREELEY Village, 14th Ave. Greelay. Details: (970) 353-1743.

SUPPORT GROUP FOR CANCER SURVIVORS, 9:30 a.m., « YOGA North Colorado Medical Center, 1801 16th St., Greeley. Details: To register call (970) 810-6633.

AND MOVEMENT, 9:30 a.m., Riverside Library, 3700 « MUSIC Golden Street, Evans. Details: www.MyLibrary.us.

STORYTIME, 9:45 a.m., Lincoln Park Library, 919 7th St., « FAMILY Greeley. Details: www.MyLibrary.us.

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AND TALK TOGETHER, 11 a.m., Lincoln Park Library, 919 « WALK 7th St., Greeley. Details: www.MyLibrary.us.

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SOFTBALL VS. COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY, 4 p.m., « UNC UNC Campus - Butler-Hancock Playing Fields, 1600 23rd St., Greeley. Details: www.uncbears.com.

Weld unemployment falls once again

By Sharon Dunn sdunn@greeleytribune.com

While losing 800 jobs overall in the last year, Weld County’s unemployment rate in January still fell, following a yearlong trend.

But the continued oil and gas downturn is sure to change that — at least somewhat — even as the state continues to see positive growth in other sectors.

“We’re experiencing record low oil prices, at least for the past couple of decades or so, and this is occurring while we also are seeing some fallout in that particular sector. There’s a very strong likelihood we’ll continue to see that fallout throughout the year,” said Alexandra Hall, the state Department of Labor and Employment’s chief economist.

“In other sectors and the labor market as a whole, we’re in the best place we could possibly be in to continue to absorb those changes in our payroll jobs.”

Jobs numbers in the oil and gas industry are down about 7,000 from the industry’s employment peak in December 2014, Hall said. The industry lost another couple hundred from December to January.

That doesn’t include recent layoffs announced through Anadarko Petroleum Corp. and Encana, both of which

» National unemployment Nationally, North Dakota and South Dakota had the lowest jobless rates in January, each recording a 2.8 percent rate. Mississippi had the highest unemployment rate of 6.7 percent, followed

by Alaska with 6.6 percent. In all, 16 states had rates significantly lower than the national rate, and 11 states and the District of Columbia had rates measurably higher, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. had planned to reduce staffs by 17 percent and 20 percent respectively by this week. In Weld County alone, the industry is down about 3,100 jobs over the year, and 500 jobs lost in the last month, according to state data.

Weld County, also known as the Greeley Metropolitan Statistical Area, had a 3.3 percent unemployment rate for January. Last year at this time, the employment rate was 4.3 percent.

While the industry turned

» Unemployment Rates for Colorado’s metropolitan statistical areas: » Boulder, 2.5 percent. » Colorado Springs, 3.8 percent. » Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, 3.0 percent. » Fort Collins, 2.8 percent. » Grand Junction, 5.7 percent.

downward sharply, unemployment insurance claims aren’t much different than they were in the previous year, Hall said.

“There has been no surge in overall unemployment insurance claims,” Hall said.

Countywide, manufacturing, education and health services and leisure and hospitality helped absorb the losses, each gaining 500 jobs over the year so far, state data revealed.

Colorado employers added 5,200 nonfarm payroll jobs from December to January, according to the survey of business establishments.

January marks the 51st month of consecutive job growth in the state as a whole, Hall said.

The state unemployment rate decreased three-tenths of a percentage point to 3.2 per-

» Greeley (Weld County), 3.3 percent. » Pueblo, 4.7 percent.

Rates are established based on a survey of households. Unemployment rates are revised every quarter based on actual numbers reported to the state Department of Labor and Employment.

cent. The national unemployment rate decreased one-tenth of one percentage point over the same period to 4.9 percent, the release stated.

“It has been about 15 years since the Colorado unemployment rate has been in this territory,” Hall said.

The annual growth rate of Colorado nonfarm payroll jobs was 3.1 percent in 2015 revised up from the previously published 2.3 percent. The U.S. annual payroll jobs growth rate in 2015 was 2.1 percent, the release stated.

“Because 2014 saw a growth rate of 3.5 percent and 2015 saw 3.1 percent, this is the first time since the late ‘90s and the year 2000 that Colorado has had two consecutive years of nonfarm payroll jobs growth of 3 percent or higher,” Hall said.

This year’s tax surplus will go to downtown project « GREELEY From A1 Conservative revenue estimates tend to leave the city government with leftover money at the beginning of the year, to the tune of a few million dollars. This year, officials had an extra $5.2 million.

Last year, officials spent the money on roads. This year, they’ll spend it downtown.

The hotel and conference center, slated to go in at 919 7th St., will get about $4.8 million of it.

Officials will borrow from other city accounts — the general, health, workman’s compensation and public safety funds — to pitch in another $3.8 million for the project.

This is a private project, backed by a local investment group, but city officials plan to invest about $8 million into it, all of which would be paid back with interest.

In the end, the developers will pay Greeley about $11.3 million, Runkle said.

The city hall complex, or City Center as it is being called, will get about $4.5 million. Some of that will come from the rest of the leftover 2015 money.

A few years ago, city officials sat aside $1.5 million for economic development projects, Runkle said. All of that will go to the City Center fund. There also was about $1.2 million in parking permit revenue waiting in the wings.

The last $1.5 million will come from the Downtown Develop-

ment Authority, according to city documents. The DDA is an organization that uses advocacy, financial assistance and programs such as Friday Fest to help downtown businesses.

The DDA’s money will help Greeley officials pay to knock down the Lincoln Annex, 919 7th St., and build the hotel and conference center’s parking lot in its place.

The City Center fund will pay for various projects that take care of departments that the Lincoln Annex demolition will displace.

Fire Station No. 1, the city’s information technology department, the Greeley Municipal Court, the city council chambers and the Lincoln Park Library were all in the Lincoln Annex, and

they’ll have to move out by the end of June.

The city council chambers have already moved to the Greeley-Evans School District 6 headquarters at 1025 9th Ave., and city officials aren’t responsible for the Lincoln Park Library. The High Plains Library District administers the library, and its officials are in lease agreements for a temporary home downtown.

In the short term, the information technology department will move to the old Colorado Department of Transportation headquarters, at 1420 2nd St. The City Center fund will pay for the move and two years of rent.

The municipal court will move into a temporary home on the old Safeway lot, 1122 11th Ave.

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Eventually, Fire Station No. 1 will have a permanent home there.

This fund will pay for the Safeway demolition, the court’s modular building set-up and rent for two years, and the new fire station’s architectural plan.

The spring budget updates are necessary because of changes that occur naturally in the previous year’s budgets. Planners draw up the budget in November, so if state or federal grants come in after that, they have to be appropriated later. If the city council authorizes a contract for city employees to buy something or carry out a project, and for some reason those purchases get delayed, financial planners have to carry that money to the next year, Runkle explained.

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APRIL 6, 2016

GREELEY, COLORADO ONE DOLLAR VOL. 145 NO. 146

« FALLIS MURDER TRIAL an informational overload with emotional cost for jury foreperson

Juror relieved to just proceed with life D

JOSHUA POLSON/jpolson@greeleytribune.com

TOM FALLIS WATCHES AS witnesses give testimony during his murder trial this past week at the Weld District Court in Greeley. The jury found Fallis not guilty of the charges brought against him after three weeks of trial. For some in the jury, the trial was emotional and exhausting.

» Learn more Learn more about the murder trial of Tom Fallis online and checkout the timeline at www.greeleytribune.com/fallis.

Tom Fallis was charged with the second-degree murder of his wife, Ashley Fallis, on Jan. 1, 2012. March 31 a jury found Tom Fallis not guilty.

By James Redmond jredmond@greeleytribune.com

ebbie McEvers had to talk to herself some nights as she drove home alone from a day of jury duty in the murder trial of Tom Fallis.

She couldn’t talk to anyone else — not even other jurors until their deliberations began — and she needed some way to decompress so she could be emotionally present for her family. Sometimes, she ran an entire monologue during the drive, as if she was telling her fiancé about her day, trying to process the thoughts and feelings that arose.

The Fallis trial was the first time McEvers, an elementary school teacher, served as a juror. The others elected her foreperson.

For almost three weeks she heard testimony and saw evidence building the case for and against Tom Fallis, a former Weld County correctional officer who was accused of killing his wife Ashley Fallis. Ashley died of a gunshot wound to the head after a New Year’s Eve party on Jan. 1, 2012, in the couple’s home in Evans. Witnesses told the jury how officials came to originally rule the case a suicide until a neighbor, and a Weld County Sheriff’s Office deputy, came forward years later stating they heard Tom confess to shooting his wife.

McEvers teaches elementary school at Thunder Valley K-8 in Frederick and comes home to her fiancé and his three daughters in Greeley each night. She likes rules — most school teachers do — and that helped when the jury had to consider their instruction from the judge, she said.

It was an abrupt change, going from teaching elementary students to seeing the gruesome evidence of a gunshot wound to the head at close range, and the tumultuous effect of a sudden death on a family. She took her duties seriously, but sometimes, she struggled with them as well.

Some parts of the trial, like listening to the 911 Tom Fallis made after his wife suffered the fatal shot to the head, made it all difficult to sit though, she said.

“The 911 call was incredibly hard, just to hear the chaos and the panic and the fear in the girls in the background, it was difficult,” McEvers said. “I kind of felt like I wanted to throw up.”

More than four years after Ashley Fallis died and after almost three weeks of trial, more than 40 witness and 200 pieces of evidence the jury took a little more than three hours to return a verdict of not guilty on all charges March 31. In addition to second-degree murder, the jury also

«

CONTINUED A10: Fallis

UNIVERSITY SCHOOLS BOARD

Chairman resigns amid felony assault charge

By Tyler Silvy tsilvy@greeleytribune.com

The chairman of the Board of Governors for University Schools has resigned in the wake of a felony charge of assaulting a police officer, stemming from a drunken episode at The Greeley Chophouse.

Willoughby Hume was arrested Feb. 13 on suspicion of disorderly conduct after causing a scene at the upscale, downtown Greeley restaurant, according to a Greeley Police Department arrest affidavit. He later was charged with two counts of assault on a police officer, including one felony.

Hume, who has been a board member at

University Schools, a west Greeley charter school, for about five years, offered his resignation March 9, University Schools lawyer Eric Carlson said.

The incident took place during a dinner Feb. 13 with fellow board member Kara Harvey.

Harvey told police she believed Hume, who is married, wanted to become more than just friends. When she said Hume she wasn’t interested, Hume became upset and began yelling and cursing in the restaurant, according to the affidavit.

Hume also was aggressive with a man who

« WHAT’S INSIDE FORCED AIR Bears baseball whiffs 14 times in loss to Falcons.

Sports, Page B1

tried to get Hume to stop yelling at Harvey.

Hume pushed that man, according to the affidavit.

Police described Hume as visibly intoxicated and smelling of alcohol. When they arrived, he stood — and nearly fell — by the front door. He shouted an obscenity at one officer, and repeated the same obscenity when officers tried to speak with him, according to the affidavit.

During booking at the Weld County Jail, Hume spit on an officer. When Weld County Sheriff’s deputies attempted to put a spit mask

«

« WEATHER 36

Sunny

High 64 Low 36 B10: Weather

Downtown project approved

By Catherine Sweeney csweeney@greeleytribune.com

Greeley’s downtown hotel and conference center project is a go.

The Greeley City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved all the agreements needed to kick off construction, including a lease for the land to the developers and a financing plan.

A 147-room DoubleTree hotel and 14,000-square-foot conference center will go in at 919 7th St., replacing the » What’s Lincoln Park next?

Annex, which Developers houses various will hold a city offices. groundbreakThe facility ing ceremony will cost $31 for the hotel million to build, and conferand planners ence center expect to break April 12. ground this month.

They expect to open in July 2017.

The city of Greeley will hold onto the land, leasing it to the developers for 60 years with an option for extensions. The hotel will pay 0.8 percent of its gross income for rent starting 6 years after completion.

«

CONTINUED A10: Downtown

DA: Police justified in shooting man with knife

By Sharon Dunn sdunn@greeleytribune.com

Officers who shot a Greeley man in January during a residential disturbance were justified after he charged at them with a knife, according to a report from the Weld District Attorney.

District Attorney Michael Rourke on Tuesday released his findings of the Jan. 25 shooting incident at 1327 16th Ave., in Greeley, where two Greeley officers shot Joseph Valentino Perez, 27, of Greeley, with Tasers and one shot him with a firearm.

The Critical Incident Response Perez Team’s investigation into the incident revealed that Perez’s family called police about 1:30 a.m.

Jan. 25, after he began threatening them and his long-term girlfriend with a knife. At one point, he held the knife, which had an 8-inch serrated

«

CONTINUED A10: Chairman

CONTINUED A10: Shooting

« WHAT’S NEWS orthwest wind at

CITY COUNCIL

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Business A9: Obituaries Classifieds A8: Opinion Comics B1-B10: Sports Games A5: TV grid Nation & World

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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 6, 2016 » THE TRIBUNE

Official said Hume resigned of his own free will « CHAIRMAN From A1

on Hume, he kicked one of the deputies, according to the affidavit.

Carlson said the University Schools board members are aware of the incident, and the board discussed it during a closed-door meeting March 2.

The Colorado Open Meetings Act allows executive sessions for discussion of personnel matters, but forbids boards from going into executive ses-

sion to discuss elected officials like Hume.

The Tribune is attempting to gain access to the recording of the executive session so the public can learn about business discussed in the meeting. Carlson has requested an extra day to review the law.

Here’s a section: Regarding the personnel exemption for an executive session, “…Shall not apply to discussions concerning any member of the state public body, an elected official…”

Carlson said Hume resigned of his own free will, and he did not offer comment on the incident.

“What the board has said was that Will has resigned, and it’s not the board’s place to be discussing personal business,” Carlson said.

The board stood behind Hume this past fall when he defended University administrators and chastised students when some students attended an off-campus party and others were booted from school on suspicion of drug use.

Hume chose not to comment for this story. Harvey could not be reached for comment.

In his resignation letter to University Schools Director Sherry Gerner, Hume said he was resigning for personal reasons.

“I have no doubts that, with your leadership, University Schools will continue on the path as a School of Excellence and meet the many challenges provided by the current educational climate,” Hume’s letter read in part.

» What’s next Clifton Willoughby Hume is due in court for a disposition hearing at 9 a.m. on May 9.

» For more To read the arrest affidavit, go online to www. greeleytribune.com and click on this story.

$80K profit estimated in first year « DOWNTOWN From A1 Officials estimate the city will earn $80,000 in the first year of the lease and by year 30, the city will be bringing in $163,000 per year.

All city council members praised the project, but they sympathized with opponents’ most prominent complaint: downtown parking.

A handful of residents lamented the parking that will go out of commission during construction, especially the parking near the Union Colony Civic Center, 701 10th Ave. Officials say there is sufficient parking available within a three-block radius, but residents said that is too far away, especially for UCCC visitors.

“The majority of the patrons there are silver-haired,” Greeley resident Ruth Fritz said. “Many patrons will simply stop coming.”

Officials are considering a valet or shuttle service for the UCCC, but Fritz said neither of those services will help seniors who struggle to stand for a long time.

Once the project is complete, there will be more parking downtown than

there was before, Assistant City Manager Becky Safarik said.

Some of it will be in the lot directly next to the hotel and conference center. The city also bought a parking lot from Weld County, and it will add more than 130 spaces on the east side of 9th Avenue, she said.

Many residents said they support bringing a hotel and conference center to Greeley, but they had problems with how officials went about it.

Greeley resident Steve Teets took issue with the size and with the location.

“Why build such a big hotel?’ he said. “We can’t predict the economy.”

He pointed to downtown hotels in the past which have either closed or now struggle.

He also said that a fancy hotel might be better suited for west Greeley.

Greeley resident Sherrie Peif told council members the hotel and conference center project seems like a solid idea, but the lack of transparency officials displayed and their funding decisions weren’t.

She pointed to the $8.6 million approved for the project during Tuesday’s meeting, including $4.8 million

from carryover funds. Neither large expenditure went to the voters. She also pointed to the millions of dollars the council has authorized officials to spend on the new city hall complex, or the City Center, saying voters didn’t get a chance to voice their opinions on that.

The council authorized borrowing $25 million for the City Center last year. That $8.6 million loan is expected to bring in $11.3 million. But Peif said the income would only feed more spending by the city.

“What you’re getting back is coming in one hand and going out the other,” she said.

City officials aren’t the only ones who spent serious money on the project before its approval.

“Just our architecture and design has exceeded $1 million,” said auto dealer Scott Ehrlich, who acts as a spokesman for the group of 11 investors who brought the project to life.

Ehrlich also confirmed last week the investment group members are in talks with Providence Hospitality Partners of Denver to manage and operate the Lincoln Park hotel and conference center.

Tasers ineffective as man advanced « SHOOTING From A1

» What’s next

blade, to his mother’s neck, the release stated. By the time police arrived, Perez had fled.

About 45 minutes later, the family called police again when Perez had returned. When officers arrived, the report stated, he was in the basement of the home, stabbing himself in the stomach “Samurai style” with a foldable knife with 3-4 inch blade. Officers said Perez looked at them with “crazy eyes” and advanced at them with the knife. Two officers — officers Garcia and Shannon — shot Perez with their Tasers but they were ineffective, the report stated.

“Officer Jackson subsequently fired two rounds from his firearm as Perez aggressively advanced at them with the knife he was previously stabbing himself with,” the report stated.

“It happened so quickly

Joseph Valentino Perez is due to appear in court at 9 a.m. April 8 for a disposition hearing on a charge of second-degree assault for a domestic violence incident in December and for escape from felony conviction, also a felony, in a separately filed case.

The Weld District Attorney this week charged him with several felony charge of assault against a peace officer. He remains in Weld County Jail.

I thought, ‘this guy is going to stab us,’” Officer Shannon told the investigating officer in the case, according to the report.

The report only names the officers by their last names.

The report outlining Rourke’s findings was sent to Greeley Police Chief Jerry Garner, who issued a statement late Tuesday: “I have no doubt that our officers’ actions prevented something much worse from happening. I am very proud of them.”

Perez has been charged with three counts of first-degree assault on a peace offi-

cer, one count of second-degree assault on a Peace Officer, four counts of felony menacing, all felonies, and one count of third-degree assault, a misdemeanor. A Weld District Court Judge on Tuesday signed the warrant for his arrest.

Since the shooting, Perez has been held for a prior incident at the same home, where he lived, in connection with a domestic violence assault against Tomas Vasquez. Vasquez told police he had been in an off-and-on intimate relationship with Perez for the prior three years. On Dec. 9, 2015, Perez met Vasquez

» Check out more online » Police in the Greeley area have shot seven suspects in the past two years. » Read the full report on the Perez shooting.

See more on www. greeleytribune.com.

at the home to speak with him. Vasquez said Perez became angry and accused him of telling others about their relationship. Perez then began punching Vasquez repeatedly in the face, the affidavit stated.

He was charged with second-degree assault in that case, a felony.

ELIOTT FOUST/efoust@greeleytribune.com

JONATHYN PRIEST, A FORENSIC analyst, testifies in front of a mockup of the Fallis bedroom this past week at the Weld District Court in Greeley.

‘We understood the weight’ in the jury room « FALLIS From A1 considered lesser charges of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.

“I am sure it felt quick. I’m sure it did, but within the jury room it did not,” McEvers said. “We understood the weight, I mean it was a heavy conversation. The pure weight and responsibility around it was kind of daunting at times.”

To get their verdict, jury members talked over their questions, read and re-read their instructions from the judge, went through various pieces of evidence, copious amount of notes and discussed their impressions of the case, she said.

“Either way, we were breaking someone’s heart, and we had to look at the evidence to tell us what was the right thing to do,” McEvers said.

Thinking back, McEvers said the jury’s decision rested heavily on balancing reasonable doubt against the conflicting interpretations of the two crime scene experts. Larimer County Crime Scene investigator Dan Gilliam testified that his experiments confirmed the theory that Fallis’ wife killed herself. Jonathyn Priest told jurors that his

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analysis led him to believe it was not suicide.

Everything else in the trial, including testimony from friends and family of the Fallises, first responders to the scene when Ashley Fallis suffered the fatal gunshot wound, witnesses who said they heard Tom Fallis confess and more just supported, detracted from or affected analysis of the testimony of Priest and Gilliam, McEvers said.

In his testimony, Priest told jurors the evidence indicated Tom Fallis was either in contact with, or near, his wife when she suffered the fatal gunshot to the head. Before that Gilliam told jurors he did multiple tests that confirmed his theory of suicide, including the blood spatter on the wall and clothes, and the bullet trajectory.

“When you look at it being a battle of experts … you have to follow your common sense,” McEvers said. “And when you’re looking at the big picture of the expert panel and the amount of time put into it, Dan Gilliam was able to produce support for his evidence, support for his thinking and offer up a general conclusion of it could have been these things, but it could not have been this. Mr. Priest presented a compelling theory and a compelling story that made you think but did not support that with concrete evidence that could be examined.”

They voted anonymously and unanimously found Tom Fallis not guilty on all charges. Some jurors had questions about aspects of the scene, where exactly Tom Fallis was in the room and how soon he started moving toward his wife, but the bottom line was that nobody felt he was responsible, McEvers aid.

“While we were able to render a verdict that essentially gave Tom his freedom back, his life back, it doesn’t negate what he’s lost. It doesn’t negate what he experienced,” she said. “Nobody won here. Tom lost his wife, his kids lost their mom, her parents lost their daughter.”

With the trial over and the verdict in, McEvers could get back to her routine, back to her students at school. She felt secure she’d done her best as a juror and the jury had fulfilled its responsibility.

Finishing her role as a juror in the trial gave her some relief. She could finally talk about the case and get back to her life.

“When I went back to school on Friday, I was no longer juror number 26, I was just back to being Ms. McEvers. I welcomed the opportunity to just proceed with my life,” she said.

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Serving Greeley, Evans and neighboring communities

APRIL 28, 2016

GREELEY, COLORADO ONE DOLLAR VOL. 145 NO. 168

Group to fight against hotel

« GREELEY YOUNG AUTHORS launch fifth book

List of complaints include public-private partnership, lack of transparency

By Catherine Sweeney csweeney@greeleytribune.com

ELIOTT FOUST/efoust@greeleytribune.com

FLORENCE NIYOKWIZERA, A STUDENT at Greeley West High School, speaks to audience members during the Greeley Young Authors Program book launch on the campus of the University of Northern Colorado last week in Greeley. The program’s book features short stories written by high school students from Greeley West, Greeley Central and Northridge.

GOING PUBLIC

UNC, District 6 partnership gives voice to refugee, immigrant students

By Tyler Silvy tsilvy@greeleytribune.com

W

hen she was little, Tifito Zeray moved with her family to a refugee camp in Ethiopia to escape war in her homeland of Eritrea. The camp was hardly a refuge for some, including young women, who Tifito recalled often married to gain protection from men.

Tifito has gotten better at telling her story in the 10 years since she lived in the camp. She’s now a freshman at Northridge High School, and along with 16 other Greeley-Evans School District 6 immigrant and refugee students, she’s telling her story on paper.

» How to get the book

The Greeley Young Authors have published five books since 2012. Here’s a list, including the link to purchase books online.

2012 — Telling Tales; www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/6147273-this-is-who-we-are 2013 — This is Our World; www.blurb.com/bookstore/ detail/6147273-this-is-who-we-are 2014 — Same World Different Lives; www.blurb.com/ bookstore/detail/6147273-this-is-who-we-are 2015 — This is Who We Are; www.blurb.com/bookstore/ detail/6147273-this-is-who-we-are 2016 — United By Our Differences; www.blurb.com/ b/6988881-united-by-our-differences

The fifth book written by the Greeley Young Authors had its launch party Saturday at Michener Library at the University of Northern Colorado. The book is called “United by Our Differences.”

As construction crews tear into the site slated for the downtown hotel and conference center, a group of residents are starting a push to block it.

The group calls itself Stop Taxes on Private Projects, or STOPP. Its leaders filed Monday for a referendum on the ordinance that authorized the city’s 60year lease for the 919 7th St. property. They believe that’s the only part of the agreement they’ll be able to repeal, but that it will throw a wrench in the city’s plan.

Using a referendum, groups collect signatures in an effort to force the city council to either overturn the ordinance or let the city’s voters decide whether they should.

“That seems like a heavy risk for the city to be taking something that they haven’t had a great track record with,” said the group’s spokeswoman, Sherrie Peif.

In a news release, the group listed its specific complaints about the overall project. Group members argue city leaders weren’t transparent enough over the four-year planning process and kept the details to themselves until it was a done deal. Using taxpayer money to invest in private industry is improper. It gives those investors an unfair advantage over others in the industry.

The group also criticized city officials’ plan to pay for the new city hall complex, which

«

The Greeley Young Authors, and the books, are an outgrowth of the District 6 newcomers’

CONTINUED A6: Downtown Hotel

«

CONTINUED A6: Young Authors

Colo. Supreme Court won’t hear HPLD case Library board members will keep their seats

By Bridgett Weaver bweaver@greeleytribune.com

The Colorado Supreme Court on Wednesday shot down a request from the Board of Weld County Commissioners and local municipalities asking for a hearing in their dispute with the

High Plains Library District.

The decision of Colorado’s highest court will send the case, which has been ongoing since 2014, back to the district court, where it will await a trial.

The dispute began two years ago, when representatives of the two types of libraries in the district — branches and member libraries — had a difference of opinion.

Six Weld communities — Eaton, Hudson, Ault and the city and school board in Fort Lupton, plus Platteville and Johnstown — sought to remove the library district’s board of trustees that year after

tensions over how the district should be run reached a breaking point.

High Plains has full control over branch libraries, such as the ones in Greeley. Member libraries, such as the one in Eaton, govern themselves. They have their own boards and budgets, but they give a third of their property tax revenue to High Plains for support services, such as information technology.

«

CONTINUED A6: High Plains

« WHAT’S INSIDE

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THURSDAY, APRIL 28, 2016 » THE TRIBUNE

Trump gets ‘presidential’ in speech « INBRIEF

By Julie Pace and Ken Thomas Associated Press

WASHINGTON — With the general election in his sights, Republican Donald Trump delivered a sober foreign policy address Wednesday aimed at easing fears about his temperament and readiness to be commander in chief. Rival Ted Cruz made a desperate attempt to jolt the GOP race by tapping Carly Fiorina as his running mate.

Both moves underscored Trump’s commanding position in the GOP race.

Though the businessman must keep winning primaries in order to clinch the nomination before this summer’s national convention — he needs 48 percent of delegates still up for grabs — he has breathing room to start making overtures to general election voters. All Cruz can do is throw obstacles in his path.

Cruz announced Fiorina as his vice presidential pick during a rally in Indiana, a state he must win next week

ASSOCIATED PRESS

REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE DONALD TRUMP gives a thumbs up Wednesday after a foreign policy speech at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington.

in order to keep his White House hopes alive. He cast the unusual announcement as a way to give voters confidence in their choice if they vote for him.

Trump mocked Cruz at a rally in Indianapolis on Wednesday night, saying, “Cruz can’t win, what’s he doing picking vice presidents?”

Trump headed to Indiana on Wednesday, as well, following his address

in Washington.

Before an audience of foreign policy experts in Washington, Trump outlined a doctrine that he said would put American interests first, leaving allies to fend for themselves if they don’t contribute financially to back up security agreements. He vowed to send U.S. troops into combat only as a last resort, a break from years of hawkish Republican foreign

policy.

“Our goal is peace and prosperity, not war and destruction,” he declared in the 38-minute address that was heavy on broad statements and light on specific policy details. Unlike his rambunctious, freewheeling rallies, Trump read prepared remarks in a measured tone off a teleprompter.

He also used the address to target Clinton, his expected opponent in a general election. He assailed her handling of the deadly 2012 attack on Americans in Benghazi, Libya, and said that during her tenure as secretary of state, the U.S. had a “reckless, rudderless and aimless foreign policy.”

Clinton’s campaign sees foreign policy as an area ripe for a sharp general election contrast with Trump, given her years at the State Department and his lack of experience. In a campaign conference call Wednesday, Clinton supporter and former Secretary of State Madeline Albright called Trump’s views “incoherent.”

About 100 people attended book launch « YOUNG AUTHORS From A1 program, El Teatro, which features a variety of performances from District 6 immigrant and refugee students each fall. Students have performed the monologues, sharing their stories, for the past decade.

But program coordinator Jessica Cooney, who teaches at Greeley West High School, had a problem. She wasn’t sure what to do with the students’ stories. She knew she wanted to honor the stories and the memories.

That’s where UNC professor Deborah Romero came in. She actually came in to Cooney’s classroom about five years ago, and Romero suggested making a formal book during that meeting.

They did, and the first book, “Telling Tales,” came out in the spring of 2012.

At the launch for the fifth book, students, including Tifito, read excerpts of their stories.

About 100 people attended the launch.

“They have experiences that we can only imagine, yet they are still able to come out, and smile, and laugh, and share that … they are incredible students,” said Megan Stoneman, a senior at UNC majoring in elementary education and English as a second language.

Romero told people gathered at the book’s launch that she and her team of UNC students did only the

ELIOTT FOUST/efoust@greeleytribune.com

DR. DEBORAH ROMERO, the University of Northern Colorado coordinator for the Greeley Young Authors Program, speaks to audience members at the start of the Young Authors Program’s book launch last week in Greeley. most minor editing. She wanted their voices in the book.

Stoneman coordinated UNC’s part in the university’s partnership with District 6 this year. Eight UNC students worked with the young authors once per week starting in January.

“We encouraged them not to correct students but to talk to them about what they’re writing,” Romero said.

If students read aloud what they’re writing, they often catch their own errors, Romero said.

The students seemed to delight in telling their stories and the hearty rounds of applause that followed.

Cooney cried, which is kind of a normal thing, she joked to the audience. Romero was proud, as well.

“This is why I get up and come to work each day,” she said.

Tyler Silvy covers education for The Greeley Tribune. Reach him at tsilvy@greeleytribune.com. Connect with him at Facebook.com/TylerSilvy or @TylerSilvy on Twitter.

District hopes to resolve issues without trial « HIGH PLAINS From A1 In the 2014 disagreement, the district wouldn’t supply a new program to the members unless they agreed to go through the district to buy new computers, which were required for the program. The district also required a contract update, which had terms the members felt were unacceptable.

The members teamed up with the Weld commissioners, who had more legal muscle, when they attempted to oust the district’s board of trustees.

The district counter-sued to protect the trustees.

In a 2014-15 hearing, the Weld County District Court ruled in the district’s favor, finding that the board was acting in accordance with the established bylaws, and there was no reason to remove the trustees from their positions. At that time the district court put an injunction on the library board, which froze the library board members in their positions but removed their ability to make policy decisions without each member library’s permission. The library district was barred from taking any significant actions without court approval.

Since it’s start, the ordeal has cost more than $200,000 in legal fees for the local municipalities, the county and the library district. Much of that has been in lawyer fees for the library district itself, for hearings required by the district court’s injunction.

The case was taken to the Court of Appeals in 2015, where it was determined that the district court acted correctly.

Commissioners wanted the Supreme Court to reverse the Colorado

» What’s next?

The High Plains Library District will meet the municipalities and Weld commissioners at 1:30 p.m.

May 31 in Weld County District Court. During the hearing, they hope to determine if the library board’s nominating process can continue as it is to fill the two vacant seats and the one expired seat on the board.

Court of Appeals decision, but because the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, the appellate court’s decision stands.

The case has been returned to the Weld District Court.

Earlier this month, when the district wanted to move the Lincoln Park Library in downtown Greeley because of a pending project that would knock down the library building, they had to go to court for permission.

Weld District Judge Timothy Kerns ruled the district could make arrangements to move the library to the nearby Goodwill building, but he set a May 31 court date to determine if he had the authority to decide if the district’s nominating processes were adequate and relevant, given the court injunction.

With the Supreme Court’s decision this week, that authority does indeed lie in the hands of the district court.

The injunction has caused some other problems.

No changes to board members are allowed under the injunction, so although one member’s term ended in December 2015, a different Weld

judge ruled in November that he could stay in the trustee position until the case is settled.

In the April 1 hearing, the member libraries and the county asked Kerns to change the nominating process for the board so all its open seats can be filled.

The library district officials believe the five sitting board members are representative of the county and the nominating process is sound, but the defendants disagree.

Bruce Barker, the attorney for the county said they still hope to settle at least this part of the problem at the May hearing.

“The question for the court to determine is does the preliminary injunction order preclude them from going through their nomination (process),” Barker said.

Janine Reid, executive director of the library district, said they hope to use the May 31 hearing for something else.

“That’s what it was intended to address,” she said of Barker’s thoughts, “but now that we’re free to go to trial, we’re hoping the May 31 meeting is more of a trial discussion. The next step formally is going to trial, however we’re having conversations to try to figure out how to reach a settlement prior to that.”

She said the district hopes to resolve the issues without a trial.

“What we’re trying to determine is whether or not the defendants are willing to have a conversation that could lead to a settlement,” Reid said.

“We just want to get this all resolved.”

Tribune reporter Catherine Sweeney contributed to this report.

«

Relatives say 2-year-old fatally shot mother MILWAUKEE

A 2-year-old boy fatally shot his mother from the backseat of the car as she drove along a Milwaukee highway, relatives said Wednesday.

Antonio Price said investigators told him that his sister Patrice was driving with her two sons, ages 1 and 2, riding in the backseat Tuesday when she was shot.

Price said authorities told him the older boy fired the gun.

Putnam County sheriff’s officials said the boy had recently learned how to unbuckle himself. He climbed out of his seat, picked up the gun and fired through the front seat, hitting his mother in the back, investigators said.

«

McDonald’s tests McNuggets without artificial additives NEW YORK

Like the indestructible Twinkie, Chicken McNuggets are practically a culinary punchline, a symbol of hyper-processed fast food with a list of ingredients that reads like a chemistry exam.

But now McDonald’s wants to take at least some of the mystery substances out.

The world’s biggest hamburger chain says it is testing a version without artificial preservatives.

It’s the latest move by McDonald’s to try to catch up with changing tastes and turn around its business, which has lost customers in recent years.

While McDonald’s did not give full details about what is or isn’t in the test recipe, it said the new McNuggets do not have sodium phosphates, widely used food additives that the company has said can keep chicken moist. Also, the McNuggets will not be fried in oil containing the artificial preservative TBHQ.

«

Facebook isn’t a mall, but its bots aim to change that NEW YORK

It’s now possible — though neither easy nor particularly convenient — to buy stuff on Facebook via automated messaging “bots.” But it’s far from clear that people really want to go shopping on the social network.

Last month, Facebook announced that people can use its Messenger chat service to order flowers, keep up with the news and buy shoes or other goods from participating companies.

Only a few have signed on so far, but if the feature takes off, we could all be chatting with artificially intelligent bots to reserve plane tickets, book hotel rooms or order salmon teriyaki before long.

Wire reports

Group must collect 1,602 signatures

by May 5 « DOWNTOWN HOTEL From A1

won’t require a public vote.

As soon as the ordinance is passed, the clock starts ticking. Organizations have only 30 days to carry out the process, said Greeley City Clerk Betsy Holder.

What’s involved? First, they have to file the paperwork. If the ordinance is subject to referendum, the clerk’s office gets five days to process the paperwork.

Once that’s finished, the clerk’s office gives the petition packet to the organization.

The referendum goes to the council only if the group gets enough signatures. Greeley laws say enough is 10 percent of last year’s voter turnout.

Because 16,019 people voted in 2015’s election, STOPP has to get 1,602 signatures, Holder said.

The loan ordinance was approved April 5, so the organization has to get all of this done by May 5.

The group’s goal is to get a thousand signatures more than the city requires, Peif said. And the members who plan to do the signature leg work feel confident they can meet the quickly approaching deadline.

“They have a … history of being able to do that,” Peif said.

Local politician Jeff Hare is heading the group as president.

Hare, who did not return a call Wednesday seeking comment, is no stranger to political battles. He failed in a bid in 2012 to represent House District 48 in the state Legislature. He was a founding member and spokesman for the failed 51st State secession initiative in 2013. As a Frontier Academy board member, he fought unsuccessfully

»Referendum or initiative?

When residents try to change a law directly, the effort can take the form of one of two things: a referendum or an initiative.

A referendum challenges an existing law, and an initiative aims to create a new law, said City Clerk Betsy Holder. Because the community group is fighting the land lease for the downtown hotel, not trying to get one signed, this is a referendum.

to give staff members the authority to carry guns in school.

Peif, who now covers education for an Independence Institute website, is a former Tribune employee.

City officials believe this ordinance isn’t subject to a referendum, Holder said.

Although the city’s charter — a local version of a constitution — allows it, rulings from past lawsuits lead the city’s legal team to believe this kind of ordinance has immunity.

There are essentially two kinds of ordinances: legislative and administrative. Legislative ones make new laws, such as the distracted driving laws the council recently passed.

Administrative ones don’t. They just conduct city business, such as administering an $8.6 million loan.

STOPP members disagree.

“We’re going to move forward with everything while our attorney takes a look at it,” Peif said. “As of right now, everybody wants to move forward.”

Their plan: Get all the signatures and allow city officials to decide whether they’re beholden to them.

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Serving Greeley, Evans and neighboring communities

MAY 21, 2016

GREELEY, COLORADO ONE DOLLAR VOL. 145 NO. 191

DOWNTOWN FIRE STATION

« CHILDREN RECEIVE gift to pay for mom’s burial costs

City unveils initial designs Latest piece to emerge in city leaders’ plan to revitalize the area

By Catherine Sweeney csweeney@greeleytribune.com

Imagining how Greeley’s downtown will look five years out just got easier.

The city of Greeley released initial design plans Friday afternoon for its new two-story downtown fire station. That’s the latest piece to materialize in city leaders’ plan to revitalize the area.

The new Fire Station No. 1 will sit on the » What’s southeast corner of the next? old Safeway lot, 1122 The Greeley 11th Ave. This project is part of City Council will the City Center project, see a presentation about the which aims to consolidate city offices into one new downtown fire station and campus. Various departits initial dements are relocating, signs during the but because the fire sta- work session at tion will be a standalone 5 p.m. Tuesday building, it gets its new night at the digs first.

Greeley-Evans The building will School District house Greeley Fire De- 6 headquarters, partment’s administra- 1025 9th Ave. tive space, 10 dormitory bedrooms, a fitness area, a four-truck bay and a community conference room.

“I am really excited about it,” said Fire Chief Dale Lyman. “The old station was designed and built in the ’60s, so they weren’t doing a lot of the things in the fire station we’re doing now.”

For example, there were no female firefighters back then. They didn’t go on as many medical calls or respond to biohazardous situations. The new facility addresses all of those changes with space and storage room.

It wasn’t just a contractor and city officials working on the floor plan.

“We had representation of each rank on the committee to work on the design,” Lyman said.

FOR THE TRIBUNE/Devi Chung

MIGUEL PERALTA, 24, AND Mary Peralta,15, take a moment of silence at their mother’s grave site Friday at

Linn Grove Cemetery, 1700 Cedar Ave. in Greeley. With support from the community, Miguel and Mary were able to fully fund their mother’s burial. “My mom sent her last blessing to us,” said Mary. Below, the children sit with the marker at their mother’s grave. They are in the process of trying to find a monument for his mother’s grave.

ONE LAST BLESSING

I

BY JOE MOYLAN | JMOYLAN@GREELEYTRIBUNE.COM

t was a Thursday when Brighton residents Mary and Miguel Peralta drove to Adamson Chapels in Greeley to discuss their mother’s funeral.

Greeley native Stella Peralta died two days earlier — May 10 — in hospice in Windsor. A single mother, Stella left little savings to her two children. Although it was supposed to be a time focused on mourning her passing, Miguel, 24, and Mary, 15, were overwhelmed with not only the responsibility of planning their mother’s service, but also figuring out how to pay for it.

» AccentCare Hospice Foundation AccentCare Inc., based in Dallas, operates a variety of health care facilities in Colorado, Texas, California, Tennessee and Georgia, including skilled home health care operations in Windsor and Denver, as well as a hospice center also located in Windsor.

The company also operates a nonprofit organization called AccentCare Hospice Foundation, which provides grants to assist worthy families with end of life costs.

Dena Schwartz, president of AccentCare Hospice Foundation, said the nonprofit awards about six grants each month.

The Hospice Foundation conducts annual fundraisers, but also receives funding from private donations.

Donations can be sent to the Accent Care Hospice Foundation, 17855 N. Dallas Parkway, Suite 200, Dallas, TX 75287, or by going to JustGive.org.

Search AccentCare Hospice Foundation.

Then the phone rang. A nonprofit organization had stepped up and offered to cover Stella’s burial costs.

“My mother raised us to go to church and to be religious,” Mary said. “I think this was her last blessing for us — to find someone Joe to help us MOYLAN out.”

The Tribune Stella Peralta died from complications caused by hepatitis C and diabetes.

Hepatitis C is often associated with drug abuse, as the disease is often transmitted through the sharing of dirty needles, but Stella’s brother, Gilbert Peralta of

Windsor, said that wasn’t the case. Stella was in a car wreck when she was young and contracted the disease through a blood transfusion back before hospitals tested for those things.

Hepatitis C attacks the

liver, and Stella’s was almost completely nonfunctional during the last three months of her life, Gilbert said.

«

CONTINUED A1: Burial

«

CONTINUED A1: Fire Station

Man found guilty after shooting at Evans police officer

By James Redmond jredmond@greeleytribune.com

A Weld District Court jury has found a man guilty of attempted first-degree murder of a peace officer in addition to a list of other crimes stemming from a Jan. 30 incident in Evans in which he shot at a police officer.

After six hours of deliberation May 13, the jury found Hugo Garza, 31, guilty of attempted first-degree murder of a peace officer, attempted first-degree murder, menacing, attempted manslaughter — all felonies — and misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct, prohibited use of a weapon and

« WHAT’S INSIDE MR.

CLEAN Roosevelt’s Bejarano claims 4A high jump state title. Sports, Page B1

reckless endangerment. A sentencing hearing is set next month, at which time he faces more than 100 years in prison.

Garza previously pleaded guilty to possession of a weapon by a previous offender in the case, according to a news release from the Weld District Attorney’s Office issued Friday.

“This guy took a shot at one of my officers, and I hope that he receives a maximum sentence as a warning to others trying to harm a police officer is going to result in a severe penalty,” said Evans Police Chief Rick Brandt. “I’m fairly pleased he was found guilty, he’s facing a long prison sentence for

attempted murder of a police officer. … It’s an opportunity for the courts to send a message that people trying to hurt or kill police officers are going to pay a heavy penalty for that.”

The charges date to the morning of Jan. 30, 2015, in Evans when a dispute between Garza and a woman friend escalated.

Evans police received a call about a man and a woman arguing about 10:30 a.m. in a black Ford pickup. While officers were en

«

CONTINUED A1: Shooting

Continued

Man who helped detectives connect dots in drugrunning feud appears in court. A2

20 years

Centennial BOCES breaks partnership with Aims. A4

» What’s next Hugo Garza, 31, will be sentenced at 3 p.m.

June 16 in Division 11 on charges of attempted first-degree murder of a peace officer, attempted first-degree murder, menacing and attemptGarza ed manslaughter — all felonies. He faces a possible maximum sentence of up to 108 years in prison.

« WHAT’S NEWS « INSIDE A5: C1-C12: B7: C8: B8: A7: A6: B1-B4: C9:

« WEATHER

Mostly sunny, with Business ortheast wind at Classifieds Comics 48 Games Nation & World Obituaries Opinion Sports TV grid

Mostly sunny High 84 Low 48 B8: Weather

44 pages, 4 sections

A8 »

SATURDAY, MAY 21, 2016 » THE TRIBUNE

Officials put $8.6M cap on new fire station « FIRE STATION From A1

It was tough with the tight timeline. They also had to whittle down their requests.

“We decided what we wanted, and what would be nice to have, and we got down to what we really needed,” he said.

Officials put an $8.6 million cap on the new station, and they’re meeting that goal, according to city documents.

Designers plan to use red brick and dark metal on the exterior.

“These architects have been in sync with us from the very beginning,” said Assistant City Manager Becky Safarik.

Officials want the building to have a distinct look that says the building holds Greeley city government.

It will have a lot in common

» Greeley courts to move The Greeley Municipal Court will move to the new modular office space at 1122 11th Ave. on Monday. Free off-street parking is available immediately adjacent to the new facility.

Hours at the new location will remain the same. » Monday-Thursday: 7:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. » Fridays: 7:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.

with the Ice Haus, 900 8th Ave., such as the red brick masonry and a few arched details, Safarik said.

They aim to use the same mold on the City Center.

“Not grandiose, but dignified,” she said.

FOR THE TRIBUNE/City of Greeley

AN ARTIST’S DEPICTION OF the new Greeley fire sta-

tion. This project is part of the City Center project, which aims to consolidate city offices into one campus.

The fire station might also include a hose-drying tower, if there’s room in the budget once the designs are finalized. These towers cut down on energy use — limiting the electricity needed to dry the hoses — and on wear and tear, city documents said.

Officials hope to wrap up the design process and start the bids during the summer. If all goes according to plan, the station could open next summer, Safarik said.

This is all part of the City Center plan, which officials

hope will consolidate city offices all into one campus. They’ve been in talks about it for a few years, but when developers agreed to build the hotel at 919 7th St., where the Lincoln Annex was, the project busted into a sprint.

The fire station was in that annex, as were the city council chambers, the Greeley Municipal Court, the city’s information technology departments and its local public access television station.

All agencies have moved into temporary homes to wait for the City Center’s construction.

All of the offices will be in the City Center’s first phase on the block northeast of 11th Street and 11th Avenue, except the fire station.

The project is expected to cost a total of $25 million.

Death thrust kids into adulthood Garza’s shots narrowly « BURIAL From A1 Stella’s death thrust Miguel and Mary into adulthood a little sooner than what might normally be expected. Miguel is a student at Front Range Community College in Brighton and Mary is a freshman at Brighton High School.

But Gilbert, who has always served as a father figure to Miguel and Mary, said the children haven’t faced their first set of challenges on their own. As often is the case when there is a death, family and friends rallied to help Stella’s children.

“When she passed, friends and family seemed to come out of the woodwork,” Gilbert said. “Stella was all about taking care of her kids. Now it’s time for us to take care of them.”

Miguel said there was a good crowd of family and friends who appeared to help him and his sister when they needed them, much more than he ever would have

expected. While Gilbert helped guide the children through the funeral planning process, a cousin in Brighton set up a Go Fund Me crowdfunding campaign to help pay for the burial costs. Mary credited that outpouring of support to her mother’s generous spirit.

“My mom was an outspoken and loving person who always focused on helping others,” Mary said. “I think so many people reached out because she made such an impact on the people around her.”

To date, that effort has raised $2,400 of its $5,000 goal and Miguel and Mary plan to keep it active to purchase a gravestone.

In addition to leaning on the support of family and friends, Mary and Miguel also benefited from the kindness of strangers.

“We were scrambling to figure out a way we were going to help the kids pay for the burial costs,” Gilbert said. “Then Tina swooped in. She really was a godsend.”

Tina was one of Stella’s caregivers while she was in hospice at

AccentCare Inc. in Windsor. Based in Dallas with health care facilities in Colorado, Texas, California, Georgia and Tennessee, AccentCare also has a nonprofit organization called the AccentCare Hospice Foundation, which provides grants to help worthy families offset the financial burden associated with end of life costs.

Unbeknownst to Miguel, Mary and their cousin, AccentCare employees in Windsor contacted the Hospice Foundation and shared the Peraltas’ story. The foundation received a grant request on May 11 — the day after Stella died — including a quote from the funeral home, said Dena Schwartz, president of the AccentCare Hospice Foundation. The burial costs were paid the next day.

“Miguel was taking care of his mom in her final days, and he’s stepping up to be a parent to his little sister — not everybody does that,” Schwartz said. “He’s doing the right things and we thought that deserved our help.”

missed three victims « SHOOTING From A1

route, Garza grabbed a handgun from the backseat of his Ford and fired a shot into the roof.

The woman was able to escape the vehicle and run away, but Garza fired directly at her while she ran and fired more in the area of a man who had approached to help the woman.

Several minutes later Garza fired at least one additional round at police — including Evans Police Sgt. Pete Bratton — as two Evans officers arrived at the scene.

Garza’s shots narrowly missed each of the three victims, according to the release.

The officers ordered the man to drop his weapon and throw up his hands. Garza complied, throwing his semi-automatic handgun onto the street and

putting his hands out of the window from the rear seat of the pickup. Evans police officers did not return fire in the incident.

Although Garza surrendered without a fight, the Weld County SWAT team responded to assist officers when it was determined Garza couldn’t get out of the vehicle on his own — either because he was injured or stuck inside. The incident drew the participation of at least 20 marked and unmarked units from the Evans, LaSalle, Milliken and Firestone police departments, in addition to SWAT. SWAT team members approached Garza under the cover of an armored vehicle. He was removed from the pickup and arrested.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Wrenn and Deputy District Attorney Tate Costin prosecuted the case.

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Our medical professionals work as a team with our patients and family members to create individualized treatment plans so our patients can maximize their recovery and independence.

We are passionate about patient care and consider it a privilege to provide a higher standard of service.

GoWest

«

GREELEYTRIBUNE.COM: Find the latest breaking news on our website, updated throughout the day.

A2 »

THURSDAY, JULY 21, 2016 » THE TRIBUNE

« FACTUAL ERRORS

City Center Phase 1 could get new occupant

The Tribune’s policy is to correct promptly any factual errors. To report any problems with stories, call the city desk at (970) 392-4435 or email rbangert@greeleytribune.com.

Greeley Water and Sewer Department may join plan

« IN BRIEF

csweeney@greeleytribune.com

« Tire-filled Fort

Collins ranch to get $500K for cleanup project FORT COLLINS

Larimer County officials are moving forward with plans to clean up a ranch property where hundreds of thousands of tires have been strewn in piles since the 1970s.

The Coloradoan reports the county recently received a nearly $500,000 state grant for the cleanup of the Roberts Ranch, a 17,000acre conservation easement.

The tires were first dumped there in the 1970s with the idea of having them serve as protection against erosion from irrigation runoff. But Sallie Ross with The Nature Conservancy says the tires do the exact opposite by preventing the growth of native plants.

Ranch manager Zach Thode says the estimated 200,000 to 300,000 tires have become a habitat for mosquitoes. There’s also concerns about wildfire risk.

A $100,000 state grant a couple years ago removed about 22,000 tires.

» What’s next?

The Greeley City Council will discuss its plan to pay for the first phase of the City Center during a hearing at 6:30 p.m. Aug. 16 in the Greeley-Evans School District 6 headquarters, 1025 9th Ave.

By Catherine Sweeney

The Greeley Water and Sewer Department might be moving out sooner than they thought.

City planners are working on preliminary designs for the new city hall complex, called the City Center. The new building at the corner of 11th Avenue and 11th Street would consolidate city offices into one building instead of having them sprawl through downtown.

The idea has been on the table for years, but a developer group’s decision to build a hotel and conference center at 919 7th St., where the Lincoln Annex housed a handful of city departments, kick-started the process. It gave officials a reason to knock the annex down, clearing out the offices inside.

All of the displaced departments — now spread into temporary spaces — are slated to move into the City Center’s first phase. The water and sewer department might join them.

“We are trying to get as many people … into the first phase as we can,” said City Manager Roy Otto.

The department is a good candidate to add; they bring cash.

The water and sewer department doesn’t operate on sales taxes or property taxes, which means it doesn’t use the city’s money. It runs on an enterprise fund, which is mostly paid for by water rates.

The department pays the city rent for its office space at 1100 10th St. Instead, Greeley would use the money for city services on the City Center’s debt payments.

“At the end of the day, it looks like the same thing as rent,” said Water and Sewer Director Burt Knight. “It’s no-impact and would probably be a benefit for us.”

In the new building, the department would

have access to more board rooms and office space, as well as more room for residents who stop in.

In total, planners expect to see the City Center span six floors. At first, planners envisioned the first phase would be a two-story building, and the second phase would be an addition that climbs four stories. If water and sewer move in during the first phase, builders will probably install two three-story buildings, which would save about half a million dollars, Assistant City Manager Becky Safarik said.

The first phase is expected to cost about $25 million.

To pay for the construction, officials plan to borrow money using what’s called certificates of participation.

It’s a little different than bond debt. COPs have higher interest rates, and they don’t require voter approval.

The city council will introduce the debt plan during its meeting Aug. 2, and there will be a hearing Aug. 16.

That will pay for the first phase of the project, which planners expect will cost about $25 million. Officials are contemplating asking voters to authorize a bond for the second half of the project.

Associated Press

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ALYSON MCCLARAN/amcclaran@greeleytribune.com

GENEVIEVE, MARY ELLEN AND Cody LeBlanc are three of eight generations who have lived in Fort Lupton since the family

« CONTACTUS

homesteaded in the 1880s. The family posed recently in front of Martha Sue’s Cooking, 737 Denver Ave., in Fort Lupton, where Genevieve is a barista.

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By Samantha Fox

sfox@greeleytribune.com

Summer fair season means something different for every family and kid participating.

For the Cooksey family, fair season is a time to travel. For the Lauridson family, it’s a time for play. Fair time is tradition for the LeBlanc family, and for the Halleys, it’s a time to make and see friends. But for all four families, fair season is the time for friends, new and old.

“Everybody that shows — even if you don’t know them — are family,” said Jordan Halley, 8 of Kersey.

The idea of family surrounds the show, even if it’s not the main event. The same families attend the county and state fair each year.

With some 4-H parents staying in the same county in which they grew up, the Weld County Fair is a time to see friends from the past. It’s also a chance to have their kids meet.

Fair time brings families, friends together

“You compete against the same families that you knew when you were a kid,” Alan Halley said. “To have them there and see the success of their kids is fun.”

Jeff and Amy Cooksey of Roggen met at the Colorado State Fair, and there wasn’t a doubt their children Sarah, 21, and Molly, 18, would show, too. Molly can show cattle in 4-H through next year, and Sarah finished her show days a few years back. The girls showed their cattle a number of times to get the animals

prepared for the county and state fairs. That meant travel time.

The journey, as they say, is only half the fun. Molly said it’s the time spent with family at the fairs she enjoys most. That’s a sentiment Justin Lauridson agrees with.

“You have so many friends, but honestly they’re all family,” he said. “Every time we go to a show, you have the same people.”

The familiarity is what makes fairs fun for Lauridson’s daughters, Sydnee, 8, and Macey, 13, of Brighton. The sisters use their fair time to look at the booths, and Macey and her friends made the fairgrounds their playground with water fights.

The LeBlancs are a family that stays in familiar territory. Cody, 18, lives in Fort Lupton, the same place his ancestors homesteaded in the 1800s.

His interest in showing rab-

bits, however, came by chance.

His mom, Mary Ellen, showed goats, also by chance. But he got his first rabbit at the age of 6 when his mom was offered one.

“He was hooked,” Mary Ellen said.

The hook is what brought Cody into the 4-H world, like his mom and grandma before him.

But for all four families, the fair is a place where the parents’ childhood is passed on to their kids.

“We have a lot of fun with our friends and stuff between shows,” Alan Halley said. “It’s what’s enjoyable about 4-H. It’s not just our family. It’s other families.”

— Samantha Fox is a reporter and designer for The Fence Post. “Road to the county fair” is a weekly column series that includes six Weld County 4-H participants as they prepare and compete at the 2016 Weld County Fair. Reach Samantha at sfox@ greeleytribune or connect with her at @FoxonaFarm on Twitter.

GreeleyTribune Published Monday-Sunday mornings The Greeley Tribune 501 8th Ave., Greeley CO (970) 352-0211, www.greeleytribune.com Bryce Jacobson Publisher, (970) 392-4406 bjacobson@greeleytribune.com

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AUGUST 10, 2016

Serving Greeley, Evans and neighboring communities

GREELEY, COLORADO $1.25 VOL. 145 NO. 272

DOWNTOWN GREELEY

Court on the move again

« WHEN OPPORTUNITY knocks, brewer hops at the chance

Modular buildings have continuing issues

By Catherine Sweeney csweeney@greeleytribune.com JOSHUA POLSON/jpolson@greeleytribune.com

ERIC REINSVOLD SMILES AS he leans in to check out a small cluster of hops flowers at his

home in west Greeley. Reisvold began growing hops to provide shade and cover for his home but now after teaming up with Wiley Root Brewing Co. owner Kyle Carbaugh, he’ll have his hops featured in a single batch fresh hop brew.

IN FOR A POUND Buddy’s backyard hobby inspires Wiley Roots owner to try new brew

BY BRIDGETT WEAVER | BWEAVER@GREELEYTRIBUNE.COM

W

«

hen Kyle Carbaugh got a call from Eric Reinsvold on Sunday asking if he wanted a pound of fresh hops, he said yes.

Carbaugh, owner of Wiley Roots, 625 3rd St. in Greeley, wouldn’t always take someone’s backyard hops for a commercial brew, but he knew Reinsvold as a home brewer and as an old friend.

On Monday morning Carbaugh started brewing an American Pale Ale fresh hop, or wet hop, beer with the product of Reinsvold’s backyard hobby. The ale will be ready in a few weeks.

Carbaugh hasn’t tried a fresh hop brew since his days as a hobbyist, but now that he’s trying to make a living at it he can make good use of a pound of fresh hops.

“The primary advantage is that since there’s no processing or anything like that, you end up getting a much brighter flavor out of the hops,” he said. “You end up getting a little bit more earthiness, and a little bit more bright crispiness.”

Fresh hops come straight off the bine, or the vine that hops grown on, and go into the beer.

They’re added at the end of the brewing process, unlike traditional hops, which boil in during the process.

“In the typical manufacturing process for commercial use hops, those hops are kilned (or heated)

CONTINUED A10: Court

Rain barrels become legal today

» Wiley Roots

Raised in Weld

to about 8-10 percent moisture content,” Carbaugh explained.

They normally come to brewers in pellets. “Wet hops, when they come off the bine, they’re usually 75-80 percent moisture content.”

About 3 p.m. on Monday, the beer was nearly ready for the fermenting process, which will take two to three weeks.

“We’ll check it after that two-

Greeley officials have moved the municipal court back into City Hall because of ongoing complications with rented modular buildings.

This is the second time court employees have moved into the round building at 1000 10th St. instead of the temporary structure.

Greeley agreed to pay the rental company, Williams Scotsman, more than $20,000 per month for the buildings at 1122 11th St., and the court was slated to move in May 2.

The court had to move out of the Lincoln Annex, 919 7th St., because the building will be razed to make way for a hotel and conference center. Until a new city hall complex is built, a handful of offices will be in temporary homes. Officials planned for the May move to be seamless — from the annex to the modular buildings.

It wasn’t.

Find Wiley Roots Brewing Company at 625 3rd St., or online at www.wileyroots. com. The brewery also can be reached at (970) 5157315.

By Samantha Fox sfox@greeleytribune.com

It’s too late to gather the moisture the northern Colorado area saw the past few weeks, but beginning today it will be legal to collect rainwater at residences without a permit.

Gov. John Hickenlooper signed House Bill 1005 in May, and now it’s up to residents to buy and install rain barrels, as long as limitations are followed.

Most single-family homes and townhomes can use rain barrels to collect water, but homeowners can’t have more than two 55-gallon barrels.

Those who live in residences with homeowners associations shouldn’t buy and install rain barrels right away, though. Like the

week period to see if it needs any more time,” Carbaugh said. “If it doesn’t need any more time, we’ll transfer it to serving kegs and carbonate it.”

That’s when his customers will get a taste of it.

He made only a small batch — about 20 gallons, or 160 pints — which will go on tap as soon as it’s ready.

«

CONTINUED A10: Hops

«

CONTINUED A5: Rain barrels

« WHAT’S INSIDE UP AND DOWN While ground breaks on a new

Evans treatment plant, a Greeley fire station comes down. A2.

« WHAT’S NEWS Mostly sunny, with light chance of

« WEATHER

Sunny, slight chance of rain High 93 Low 61

61

B10: Weather

Peaches for Hospice Deadline to order is Aug. 10 Order by phone at 970.352.8487 $40 full box $25 half box

A4: B4-B9: A7: B9: A9:

Business Classifieds Comics Games Obituaries

A8: Opinion B1-B10: Sports B5: TV grid

20 pages, 2 sections

Back by popular demand, our peach sale is returning this year thanks to our partnership with a local peach distributor in Palisade, CO.

A10 »

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 10, 2016 » THE TRIBUNE

Local brewer likes to focus on local ingredients « HOPS From A1

started growing his own hops, he’s had a whole new appreciation for what’s inside his pint glass.

He’s been a home brewer for more than a decade, so he’s long known what a big effort goes into even hobby brewing, but he admits he was once disconnected from the agricultural side of brewing.

“I think we kind of get removed from our ingredients as consumers — whether it’s cellophane-wrapped beef or cans of beer — we don’t know what goes into it,” he said.

But when Reinsvold started to grow the hops in 2007, that changed a little bit.

“I think even if you’re not a home brewer, it’s cool to grow your own hops just to kind of appreciate these things that go into your

He said he likes to take advantage of opportunities like this one because as a local brewer he likes to use local ingredients. It takes us back to our agriculture roots, he said.

“I think it’s the connection to local agriculture — whether it be hobbyists doing it as a garden hobby or whether it be full-on commercial hop growers,” he said. “Being able to use Colorado-based ingredients any time that we can, it’s sweet.”

Hops aren’t commonly grown in Colorado. In fact, the U.S. Department of Agriculture doesn’t even record hops acres planted in Colorado because there are so few.

Reinsvold said since he

« TRIBUTES Wilda Ruth Wailes Neubauer Nelson

June 10, 1929-July 5, 2016

Age: 87 Residence: Green Valley, Ariz.

Wilda Ruth Wailes Neubauer Nelson died July 5, 2016, in Green Valley, Ariz.

She was born on June 10, 1929, in Milliken to Leroy and Dimple Allison Wailes.

W i l d a Nelson married Richard Neubauer on Dec. 27, 1946, and he preceded her in death in July 1989.

She married Kenneth Nelson on April 13, 1991, and he preceded her in death in May 2005.

Wilda is survived by

| CONT. FROM A9 her daughter, Billie (Walt) Harsch; son, Ken (Mary) Neubauer; grandsons, Christopher (Becky) and Michael (Nancy) Williams; sister, Dixie (Neil) Halker; brother, David Wailes; four great-grandchildren; stepchildren, step-grandchildren and step-great-grandchildren; and many nieces and nephews.

She was preceded in death by her parents; husbands; brothers, Bill, Frank and Warren; and sisters, Wilma and Patti.

A memorial service will be held at 3:30 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 14, 2016, at the Milliken Presbyterian Church.

Memorial donations may be made to the Milliken Presbyterian Church, 201 Olive Ave., Milliken, Colo.

80543. More information is available at www.adairfuneralhomes.com.

beer,” he said. “They’re these really odd-looking things that can grow feet in days.

You can appreciate the love and effort that goes in to getting this one small aspect of a beer.”

Reinsvold said it’s been an experience learning how to grow hops in Colorado. Traditionally, hops are grown in the Pacific Northwest, which is cool and rainy, with mild wind. That’s pretty much the opposite of Colorado.

He said there is no real secret to his success in growing hops. He waters them and keeps an eye on how they grow, but he equates it

to a weed. Other local hops farmers would probably disagree because it’s a tough crop to grow in Colorado’s weather.

Reinsvold thinks there’s research being done to support growing hops in a Colorado climate.

“Why are we trying to grow hops that were developed at Oregon State, when we should be trying to grow hops grown at Colorado State University?” he said. “That’s where we’ll see the jump — when you can find kind of region-specific hops.”

For now, he said using

» Colorado Beer Facts Craft beer is a huge contribution to Colorado’s economy, attracting thousands of out-of-state visitors per year. In 2014, the industry was estimated to have had a $2.7 billion impact. Colorado ranks third in the U.S. in both number of breweries at 284 craft breweries and in breweries per capita, at 7.3. Colorado also ranks third in the nation for craft production, with 1,775,831 barrels of craft beer produced per year. New breweries open each year, with an increase of more than 150 between 2011 and 2015.

the far and few between local hops helps to bring that local flavor to the beer.

“It’s kind of that seasonality — those unique, oneoffs. If you’re trying to re-

produce a recipe, it’s not for that,” Reinsvold said. “If you can have (the hops) capturing a little bit of regionality in a bottle, that’s kind of a cool idea.”

Plumbing, heating among issues that prompt court to move again « COURT From A1

» Where to go

Among other complications, officials said, the buildings’ electrical wiring wasn’t up to code, posing safety risks to those inside. Instead of using the buildings, officials moved the court into City Hall.

After a few weeks and some improvements, leaders decided to move the court into the modular buildings while the company put on finishing touches.

“As soon as we began operating, we had some hiccups,” said Assistant City Manager Becky Safarik.

Officials were reluctant to go into detail about their complaints because of ongoing negotiations with the company, but they did say neither the plumbing nor the heating capabilities were up to par.

The court system couldn’t work around builders who were repairing the modulars, officials realized.

The court moved back into city hall in early August.

The Greeley Municipal Court will operate in the basement of City Hall, 1000 10th St. The court will be open from 7:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday.

On Fridays, it will close at 12:30 p.m.

“It’s cozy, but it’s working,” Safarik said.

The ongoing negotiations with officials from Williams Scotsman include whether rent will be pro-rated, said Assistant City Manager Victoria Runkle, who heads up the finance department.

Officials gave the company a list of improvements that they will require before moving employees back into the modular buildings, she said.

Williams Scotsman is a national company with more than 100 locations nationwide, including one in Henderson.

Local company representatives didn’t immediately return phone

calls seeking comment.

This isn’t the company’s first deal in Greeley.

Greeley-Evans School District 6 has used the company on multiple occasions, said district spokeswoman Theresa Meyers.

Two summers ago, the district used some of the company’s modular units while Greeley West High School was undergoing asbestos removal.

District officials didn’t have any complaints, she said.

While the High Plains Library District was looking for temporary homes — before settling on the Goodwill location at 1012 11th St — its officials considered using Williams Scotsman units.

The company has a good reputation in the area, officials said, so they’re confident the company will make up for the issues. They said the experience has been disappointing so far, but that they’ve been communicative during the negotiations.

“Are they aware of it? Absolutely,” Runkle said.

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GreeleyTribune WEDNESDAY

AUGUST 17, 2016

Serving Greeley, Evans and neighboring communities

GREELEY, COLORADO $1.25 VOL. 145 NO. 279

CITY CENTER

FOR SALE

Council approves Phase I Unanimous nod given to $30M payment plan

By Catherine Sweeney csweeney@greeleytribune.com

The Greeley City Council unanimously signed off Tuesday night on a $30-million payment plan for the first half of a new city hall complex.

The City Center Phase I will hold all the municipal offices displaced by the incoming downtown hotel and conference center.

It will sit at the southwest corner of 11th Street and 11th Avenue.

Officials acknowledged the endeavor has caused residents some discomfort.

“I have received many, many inquiries about this particular project,” said Councilman Randy Sleight.

He said most of the concern was over the funding.

During the meeting, officials

«

CONTINUED A10: Phase I ALYSON MCCLARAN/amcclaran@greeleytribune.com

BROCK BUXMAN, OF BUXMAN Dairy and Farms, works with Jose Rodriguez who is loading bales of hay onto the flatbed of the truck Tuesday afternoon in Greeley. The hay was baled last night and will be taken to the commodity shed to be stocked until it’s used for feed.

Sinking prices leave ag producers struggling to make ends meet

BY NIKKI WORK | NWORK@GREELEYTRIBUNE.COM

T

here’s nothing quite like being a farmer, Mike Schuppe said over the buzz of machinery as he worked the hay fields at his farm northeast of Sterling. There’s nothing like the hard work it takes to put up a good crop. But even the best crop — and the most optimistic farmer — can be crushed by a bad market.

In the 30 years Schuppe has farmed, he’s never seen demand as low as it is for this year’s hay crop.

Schuppe said hay prices are the worst he’s seen in nearly a decade. For a producer that puts up 1,000 acres of alfalfa and 1,000 acres of grass hay, that means he could see half the income he typically does.

There are a few things causing it, he said, but it all comes back to the same thing.

“Everything is in a downward trend right now. You don’t have a chance of making it on any (commodity),” Schuppe said.

That means there’s more feed — corn, wheat and hay — coming onto the market and less interest from dairies and feedlots in buying it in bulk.

Both milk and beef prices are low. Milk plunged to $14.80 per 100 pounds, a huge drop from its $25 high in September 2014, according to the National Agriculture Statistics Service. Beef also is down, with feeder cattle prices down about $100 from where they were this time last year.

For farmers such as

Schuppe, who markets his alfalfa and grass hay to dairies, feedlots and niches such as dairy goat farms, these conditions turn a big harvest into a big headache.

Hay prices in northeastern Colorado are $8 per bale for supreme quality alfalfa and $6 per bale for premium grass hay as of Aug. 7, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Colorado Department of Ag Market News Service.

Other qualities of hay were not reported.

Schuppe is in the middle of his third cutting of alfalfa and his second cutting of grass hay.

He’s putting up big yields and good quality, and while in the past this would have meant his bigger customers would buy in bulk — sometimes up

« WHAT’S INSIDE CAMP NEWS Broncos trying to solidify defensive line. Sports Page B1

to a year’s worth of hay at once — now many are also hurting from low commodity prices and buying a month or two’s worth of hay at a time.

Now he’s trying to figure out how best to store large quantities of hay and protect them from the weather, since wet hay turns into moldy hay.

Keenesburg’s Marc Arnusch tries to produce dairy-quality alfalfa, which is typically high quality, since it makes up the core of dairies’ feed programs.

This season, unpredictable rain has kept much of his crop from meeting that standard.

When his alfalfa doesn’t hit that bar, he has to market it

58

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal

appeals court on Tuesday banned the Justice Department from prosecuting medical marijuana cases if no state laws were broken.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ordered the federal agency to show that 10 pending cases in California and Washington state violated medical marijuana laws in those states before continuing with prosecutions.

Marijuana remains illegal under federal law, but Congress has barred the Justice Department from spending money to prevent states from regulating the use or

«

« WEATHER

Mostly sunny High 90 Low 58 B10: Weather

By Paul Elias and Gene Johnson Associated Press

«

CONTINUED A10: Prices

CONTINUED A10: Marijuana

« WHAT’S NEWS Mostly sunny, with a slight chance of

Court bans prosecution for medical marijuana if state allows it

A4: B4-B9: A7: B5: A9:

Business Classifieds Comics Games Obituaries

A8: Opinion B1-B10: Sports B6: TV grid

20 pages, 2 sections

A10 »

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17, 2016 » THE TRIBUNE

Officials reallocating money from old bond payments « PHASE I From A1

ALYSON MCCLARAN/amcclaran@greeleytribune.com

RANCH HAND, JOSE RODRIGUEZ, uses the loader to move bales of hay onto the flatbed of the truck Tuesday afternoon in Greeley.

Impressive crops pave way for plummeting prices « PRICES From A1 to other end users, such as feedlots or the grinder alfalfa market, which don’t pay as well.

Arnusch, like many others, is worried about what 2017 will bring.

“Our belt can’t really go any tighter than it already is,” Arnusch said.

These low prices are especially discouraging for some, such as Jim and Jeri Wall of Sleepy Teepee Ranch in Longmont, who are enjoying record-breaking years. The Walls have only done the first cutting so far and have put up about 15,000 bales of hay, the largest harvest they’ve ever seen. They’ve only been able to sell around 4,000 bales so far.

Jim said the exceptional harvest isn’t just happening at Sleepy Teepee — it’s happening at farms all around them, so many of their customers, who would come to them after they ran out of hay to feed their horses,

» Crop progress and condition as of Aug. 7 Alfalfa progress Second cutting 91 percent complete Third cutting 20 percent complete Pasture and range conditions Very poor 3 percent Poor 6 percent Fair 25 percent Good 56 percent Excellent 10 percent - U.S. Department of Agriculture, Colorado Department of Ag Market News Service

have more than they ever had.

“You’re glad that you have a lot, but at the same time everybody does, so the market is stagnant here,” Jeri said. “Everybody’s barns are full.”

The Walls grow primarily for the horse market. Their mix of grasses and alfalfa is popular among many of their long-term clients and Jeri’s horses. They also use the hay for the miniature donkeys and other livestock around Sleepy Teepee

Ranch.

Jim jokes that his poor cattle only ever get to eat the hay he messes up on — the stuff that gets too much moisture or gets some weeds mixed in — because he’s always had to sell all of the good hay they produce.

This year, there’s too much to get rid of. While the enormous stacks of hay that spill out of their barns won’t bring the Walls relief this year, Jim smiled when he said at least his cows will reap the benefit.

YOUR WORLD A daily recap of events from around the world.

« In flooded

Louisiana, a cleanup and a search for bodies

BATON ROUGE, LA.

Authorities went door to door and car to car to check for bodies Tuesday, and homeowners began the heartbreaking task of gathering up soaked family photos and mucking out houses dank with bayou mud, as the floodwaters started to recede across parts of southern Louisiana.

Even as the water fell in some areas, it was rising in other places downstream, where people furiously filled sandbags and fled to shelters.

Officials painted a stark picture of the crisis so far: at least 40,000 homes damaged and 11 people killed in some of the worst flooding in Louisiana history, touched off by as much as 2 feet of rain in 48 hours. Over 30,000 people have been rescued since Friday, with more being brought to safety by the hour.

There were scattered reports of looting, and Gov. John Bel Edwards said parishes with widespread

damage would be placed under curfew beginning Tuesday night.

The smell of muddy water hung heavy in the air as people donned surgical masks and began the back-breaking job of ripping out soggy carpet, drywall and insulation. They cleaned out spiders and cockroaches that had bubbled up through the sewer grates.

«

More than 82,000 people flee Southern California wildfire LOS ANGELES

A wildfire broke out Tuesday and spread at a staggering pace in every direction through droughtparched canyons east of Los Angeles, growing to 14 square miles in a matter of hours and prompting evacuation orders for more than 82,000 of people in mountain communities.

A miles-long line of flames snaked along ridges, racing through chaparral that was dry as tinder after years of drought and days of

dry summer heat in the 90s.

Flames reached up to 80 feet in the air with tornado-like whirls coming off the main blaze reaching 100 feet, officials said.

The growth was explosive, San Bernardino County fire spokesman Eric Sherwin said.

The fire was roaring through the San Bernardino Mountains, heading generally north but also east and west above the Cajon Pass, and forced the shutdown of a section of Interstate 15, the main highway between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, leaving commuters stranded for hours.

— Wire reports

wanted to make two things clear: This is not new debt, and the agreement won’t raise taxes.

“There is some concern (we’re using this) to go around TABOR … and the vote of the people,” said Mayor Pro-Tem John Gates.

TABOR, or the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, requires Colorado’s government agencies to take any debt issues to the people for a popular vote. Greeley isn’t doing that with the City Center Phase I funding.

Officials will use certificates of participation to pay for the project. This method doesn’t require the city to guarantee payments. The trustee — in this case, Zion’s Bank — will own the building and the land until the city pays it off. Officials can pull out of the deal at any point, halting payments.

“In debt, future councils cannot vote to get out of it,” said Assistant City Manager Victoria Runkle, who heads the finance department. “The trustee is taking all the risk. We’re not. We can walk away from this at any given moment.”

The payments, which will last from 2019-36, will range from $1.6 million to $2.1 million annually.

Instead of raising taxes, officials will reallocate money from an old bond payment schedule. That bond will be paid off, and the city will use the revenue stream to make City Center payments.

In the past, officials said that going to a popular vote would slow the project down too much, and it would be expensive.

Using certificates of participation, officials plan to sign an agreement with the bank before September. If they had to go to a popular vote, they’d have to wait until

» Other projects using certificates of participation This won’t be the first time Greeley officials have used this method. In 1997, officials used them to pay for the Highland Hills Golf Course. In 2000, officials used them to pay for the events center at Island Grove Regional Park.

November for voters to approve the plan, if they approved it at all.

Dragging the project out would increase costs for the temporary locations the city is paying for to house services that are waiting for the City Center’s first phase. These include the modular buildings housing the municipal court.

Also, putting something on the ballot could cost $40,000.

Over the life of the debt, certificates of participation would cost Greeley about $800,000 more in interest than would bonds.

During the public hearing, Greeley resident David Muñoz, criticized the lack of transparency throughout the process.

“Let everybody understand what’s going on,” he said. “Why (have) just six of you decide?”

Mayor Tom Norton was absent.

Muñoz said the explanation during the meeting was helpful, but not everyone can come to city council meetings, and many don’t want to.

He advocated for putting more information online. So did a few of the city council members. Officials decided they needed to add some information to the city’s website.

Justice Department may push forward after decision « MARIJUANA From A1

sale of medical pot.

Federal prosecutors argued unsuccessfully that Congress meant only to bar the department from taking legal action against states and that it could still prosecute individuals who violate federal marijuana laws. The court rejected that, saying that medical marijuana-based prosecutions prevent the states from giving full effect to their own measures.

“If DOJ wishes to continue these prosecutions, Appellants are entitled to evidentiary hearings to determine whether their conduct was completely authorized by state law, by which we mean that they strictly complied with all relevant conditions imposed by state law on the use, distribution, possession, and cultivation of medical marijuana,” Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain wrote for the panel.

Federal prosecutors could ask the 9th Circuit to reconsider the case or petition the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the issue. Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr said officials are still reviewing the decision.

Marijuana activists and lawyers representing medical pot suppliers say the ruling is a significant addition to the growing support for broad legalization of the drug.

Marijuana is legal for medicinal or recreational use in 25 states and the District of Columbia. In addition, ten states have marijuana legalizations measures on the November ballot.

“This is the beginning of the end of federal prosecutions of state medical mari-

juana dispensary operators, growers and patients,” said Marc Zilversmit, an attorney representing five people who operate four marijuana stores in Los Angeles and nine indoor growing sites in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Still, Zilversmit and other medical marijuana supporters said the Obama administration and federal authorities are still fighting the drug’s legalization.

On Thursday, the Obama administration announced that marijuana will remain on the list of most dangerous drugs, but said it will allow more research into its medical uses.

The Drug Enforcement Administration said the agency’s decision came after a lengthy review and consultation with the Health and Human Services Department, which said marijuana “has a high potential for abuse” and “no accepted medical use.”

The decision means that pot will remain illegal for any purpose under federal law.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat who helped draft the language barring the Justice Department and its 93 U.S attorneys across the country from spending money on medical marijuana prosecutions said the “DOJ has been a little slow to pick up on” lawmakers’ desire that prosecutors go after organized drug rings and leave alone medicinal pot sellers and users..

“Congress is increasingly united in the recognition that we should not interfere with what states are doing with medical marijuana,” Blumenauer said. “Unfortunately we’ve got the DEA and 93 U.S. attorneys who have people that are still frying little fish.”

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GreeleyTribune TUESDAY

NOVEMBER 1, 2016

Serving Greeley, Evans and neighboring communities

GREELEY, COLORADO $1.25 VOL. 145 NO. 355

« JANITOR FORMS art club at Early College Academy

ELECTION

Koppes defends mail-in ballots Clerk and recorder assures voters of system’s security after Trump’s comments

By James Redmond jredmond@greeleytribune.com

PHOTOS BY ALYSON MCCLARAN/amcclaran@greeleytribune.com

ANTHONY MARTINEZ, A JANITOR at the Early College Academy in Greeley, stands in front of a mural

students in his art club have been working on for several weeks. Martinez started the club after showing the school’s principal some of his own work.

TOUCH OF COLOR A nthony Martinez didn’t dream about spending his days in a school. Especially not as a janitor.

He doesn’t mind admitting that.

Now his Dan dreams may ENGLAND fit in the The Tribune hallways of the Early College Academy in Greeley.

«

CONTINUED A6: Ballots

HPLD learns of round building improvements

When he got the job as a janitor, his dream was to be a full-time artist. He was coming off a divorce and moved to Greeley because he

«

CONTINUED A6: Art Club

Weld County’s Clerk and Recorder said Monday she disagrees with recent statements by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump questioning the legitimacy of Colorado’s mail-ballot election.

“I actually take it as an opportunity to have a discussion about all the processes that we do have in place here in Colorado,” said Weld County Clerk and Recorder Carly Koppes.

“It really gives us the chance to show that we have a lot of integrity and a lot of security and processes and checks and balances within our own system that we’ve had in place for a long time.”

Trump asked the crowd at his rally Sunday in Greeley if they thought their ballots were going to be properly counted.

“No,” came the shouted response from the audience in the Bank of Colorado Arena at Butler-Hancock Athletic Center on the University of Northern Colorado.

That sentiment mimicked comments he

BLAINE LAME, 14, HELPS paint the new mural last week with other art club stu-

dents at Early College Academy. The club just started this school year and will be doing various projects throughout the year.

Library’s potential future home needs just around $5 million of renovations

By Catherine Sweeney csweeney@greeleytribune.com

MISSING 13-MONTH-OLD BOY

Officials continue planning landfill search Man has changed story multiple times

By Catherine Sweeney csweeney@greeleytribune.com

Laramie County sheriff ’s officials are setting up a search at a landfill near Ault for a missing 13-month-old boy’s body, but they aren’t sure whether it’s there.

The sheriff ’s office has gotten three different stories from a man who has been arrested in connection with the

« WHAT’S INSIDE PHILLIPS

RETURNS But the Broncos offense still ailing.

Sports, Page A7

missing boy, said Capt. Linda Gesell.

The boy’s mother is in a relationship with Logan Hunter Rogers, 23. He was arrested on suspicion of manslaughter and reckless child endangering, according to a news release from the Laramie County Sheriff ’s Department. He confirmed the boy had died.

Rogers Rogers has been in custody since, and he has changed his story twice since his first interview, Gesell said.

Initially, he told law enforcement he

and the mother had given the boy to a man named “Santiago,” whose last name and address were unknown, so the man could take the boy fishing. This story was included in a news release sent out Thursday.

Officials searched for and found Santiago, Gessel said. They found him and interviewed him. He had nothing to do with the child.

Rogers later admitted that he was present when the baby died, Gesell

If the High Plains Library District takes over Greeley’s city hall building, it will dish out millions for improvements, costs its executive director says are “in the ballpark” of expectations.

The district’s Lincoln Park branch was a player in the downtown game of musical chairs earlier this year, landing in a temporary location to make room for a new hotel and convention center. Officials have been eying Greeley’s round building at 1000 10th Ave. for years,

«

CONTINUED A6: HPLD

» What’s next?

The High Plains Library District will hold a regular work session at 4 p.m. Nov. 14 at the district headquarters, 2650 29th St.

«

CONTINUED A3: Landfill

Trick or treat

Eager kids get their share of candy at St. Michaels’ Halloween event. Go West, Page A2

Clinton’s emails FBI review involves thousands of newly discovered messages.

Politics, Page A5

« WHAT’S NEWS « INSIDE

A3: A11-A15: A10: A15: A6: A5: A4: A5: A7-A8: A12:

« WEATHER

BusinessMostly sunny, with Mostly sunny outheast wind at Classifieds Comics 39 High 65 Low 39 Games A16: Weather Nation & World Obituaries 16 pages, 1 section Opinion Politics Sports TV grid

A6 »

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2016 » THE TRIBUNE

YOUR WORLD A daily recap of events from around the world.

«

IRAQI SPECIAL FORCES POISED ON EASTERN EDGE OF MOSUL BAZWAYA, IRAQ

Iraqi special forces stood poised to enter Mosul in an offensive to drive out Islamic State militants after sweeping into the last village on the city’s eastern edge Monday while fending off suicide car bombs without losing a soldier.

Armored vehicles, including Abrams tanks, drew fire from mortars and small arms as they moved on the village of Bazwaya in an assault that began at dawn, while artillery and airstrikes hit IS positions.

By evening, the fighting had stopped and units took up positions less than a mile from Mosul’s eastern border and about 5 miles from the center, two weeks into the offensive to retake Iraq’s second-largest city.

Experiments found testes of infected mice shrank about 90 percent by weight, while their output of useful sperm fell by three-quarters on average, and often more.

Now it’s time to find out if Zika causes similar damage in men, experts said.

«

« PIPELINE

NEW YORK

CANNON BALL, N.D.

ZIKA RAVAGES TESTES OF MICE; STUDY RAISES CONCERN ABOUT THREAT TO MEN Zika virus ravages the testes of male mice, sharply reducing sperm counts and fertility, says a study that raises a new specter about its threat to people.

PROTESTERS INCREASINGLY DIVIDED OVER TACTICS

Protesters at the demonstration against the Dakota Access pipeline are increasingly divided over how to stop the project, with militant younger activists

ASSOCIATED PRESS

DAKOTA ACCESS PIPELINE PROTESTERS sit in a prayer circle Thursday at the Front Line

Camp as a line of law enforcement officers make their way across the camp to remove the protesters. seeking more aggressive tactics and an older crowd arguing for peaceful pro-

test centered on prayer.

The differences came to a head last week after law

enforcement officers in riot gear forced hundreds of protesters off an encampment on private property.

In response, some demonstrators torched three vehicles on a bridge, creating a blockade that effectively cut off easy access to the pipeline construction zone and made it far harder for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and nearby residents to get to Bismarck for errands and medical appointments.

Many other protesters insist their cause cannot resort to law breaking, and they support the threat of eviction that the main camp has issued against instigators.

Wire reports

Club is biggest in the school Ballot count

tops 35,000

« ART CLUB From A1 had some friends who lived here. He moved from Austin, Texas, a loud, energetic city full of art and music, and so it took a while to adjust to Greeley’s calm personality. He even had trouble sleeping because there were no horns honking or the twangs of a distant guitar.

He found a job with a construction company that did concrete and soil inspections. The work dried up and he was laid off. He needed a job, so he applied to be a janitor for Greeley-Evans School District 6. It wasn’t a dream job. He didn’t know anything about kids, and being a janitor isn’t always fun. But he worked hard, and he moved up to work nights at the administration building. Now, after another promotion, he’s the building manager at Early College Academy.

As it turns out, Martinez, who goes

by Anthony Ocean as an artist, liked the job better than he thought he would. He is 33 but wears tattoos and a long, hipster beard and a friendly, wide smile, the kind most teens flash when they aren’t trying to be cool. He has action figures in his office. He fits in with the kids better than he thought he would. He’d probably laugh a year ago if his boss suggested he start an art club. That was before he started trading Star Wars jokes with the kids.

On a rare break from his job the academy, he flipped through photos of his work for Gordon Boschman, the principal of the school, and Boschman suggested the art club. The high school tries to have clubs for its students as a way for them to connect, since it’s a not a traditional high school with sports and activities. Martinez, just a couple days before, was thinking about asking Boschman if he could start one.

“Sometimes all you need is a small push,” Martinez said.

He did a GoFundMe campaign and raised $500 for an art budget, and it didn’t go as far as he had hoped, but he did get some colored pencils and

« BALLOTS From A1

ALYSON MCCLARAN/amcclaran@greeleytribune.com

ISAAC COLES, 15, MIXES PAINT last week for the mural the art club students have been working on for several weeks at Early College Academy in Greeley. other materials. At the art club’s first meeting, after school, 17 showed up.

Now he has around 25 students. It’s the biggest club in the school. Some are asking if they can meeting during lunch. Martinez, so far, has refused.

He needs to eat, too.

Some of the students are talented, focused artists, like Martinez, but others had no idea what they were doing.

When the beginners asked for help, Martinez brought one of his action figures from his office and told them to copy it.

“Keeping them focused is a bit tough,” Martinez said and laughed, “but I really enjoy it. I’m full of ideas.”

Those include a couple of murals around the school. They’re working on their first now: a tiger bursting out of the wall, as the school’s mascot is a tiger. Another mural, in the cafeteria, will have a farm-to-table theme.

Life is better now. He met a woman, Liz Benfield, and they got married a month after they met each other. He still works as an artist. He has several drawings to illustrate the different beers brewed by WeldWerks Brewing

in downtown Greeley hanging in the building. His payment was the use of the building for their delayed wedding party. They have talked about having kids, and Martinez admits he wants them, though the overwhelming responsibility of having them scares him.

He’s not sure he would have considered kids before, but that was before he formed an art club with them and realized how cool they can be. Though he doesn’t want to pal around with them too much — he still has to be the teacher — he enjoys them.

Mostly, he just loves teaching them his craft, and that’s where the dream comes in. He’s considering getting a degree, something that would allow him to stay at the Early College Academy as a teacher.

— Staff writer Dan England is The Tribune’s Features Editor. His column runs on Tuesday. If you have an idea for a column, call (970) 392-4418 or e-mail dengland@greeleytribune. com. Follow him on Twitter @DanEngland.

Building’s electrical system important « HPLD From A1 and they’re still planning to make it home for the Lincoln Park branch.

They commissioned a structural assessment last year, and they got the preliminary results back this month, said Executive Director Janine Reid.

Officials gave an architect a Reid program statement that laid out how they would like to use the building. The firm then studied the building’s features to see how much work the district would need to put in to make the site work.

There were quite a few necessary improvements, and they would cost millions of dollars. That’s not shocking, Reid said. The district has been saving money to prepare.

“That was in the ballpark of the $5 million we’ve been carrying over year to year,” Reid said.

The firm recommended the district hire a mechan-

ical systems engineer to analyze the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system. It also recommended getting asbestos and lead removed, the parking lot replaced and having the electrical system checked out.

“We have very high needs in the electrical system,” Reid said.

The district provides a host of computers and computer-based services for patrons to use, such as laptop rental and 3D printing.

“It’s not just the equipment the library provides, it’s also the equipment the patrons bring in,” Reid said.

Library officials allow patrons to charge their own devices, such as laptops and smartphones.

When the district was seeking a new Greeley location about 15 years ago, they had to rule out the round building. The book displays were too heavy, and the building’s main floor couldn’t bear the load.

“It’s not as much of a problem as it might have been in the past,” Reid said.

“We are displaying our books in a very different way these days.”

The first floor would host

fewer shelves and more soft seating, computer space and a few shelves showing books. The round building has a sturdier lower floor.

“The downstairs is phenomenal with the concrete,” she said. “The bulk of our book collection could be on site, but not necessarily the first floor.”

Although district officials have a good idea of what work is necessary, they won’t tackle it any time soon.

The city of Greeley’s employees can’t vacate the round building until the second phase of the City Center project is finished.

The City Center, a new consolidated city hall complex, is one of the main components of downtown’s musical chairs game.

Some investors and city officials worked out a deal that allowed the city to lease the Lincoln Annex block, 919 7th St., to the investors so they could build a DoubleTree hotel and conference center. The arrangement called for officials to raze the annex, where the library and a handful of city offices were housed.

The district and city

moved their offices to temporary locations. The downtown library’s shortterm home is 1012 11th St. The displaced city offices will move into the City Center’s first phase, which includes one building on the consolidated campus block, the southwest corner of 11th Street and 11th Avenue, and a fire station across the street. This portion will cost about $30 million, and officials have already authorized a loan that will cover the costs. It’s expected to be in early summer 2018, said Assistant City Manager Becky Safarik.

The second phase is expected to hold the rest of the city’s offices, including the offices inside the round building now. Officials aren’t sure where they’ll get funding for the second phase, but they’re considering asking for it in the form of a bond, which will require a public vote.

Meanwhile, the library is playing the waiting game.

“It still looks like a real viable option for us,” Reid said. “(But) we don’t want to be in temporary location any longer than we have to.”

made Saturday at a Jefferson County rally.

“I have real problems with ballots being sent,” the Republican presidential nominee told a crowd in Jefferson County that numbered in the thousands, according to the Denver Post. “Like people say, ‘Oh here’s a ballot. Here’s another ballot, throw it away. Oh, here’s one I like. We’ll keep that one.’ I have real problems.”

Nov. 8 will be Colorado’s first mail-in presidential election. The first statewide mail-in election was in 2014.

Koppes said she has faith in the system, and other officials, such as Republican Secretary of State Wayne Williams, have voiced their support of Colorado’s system, as well.

She’s even welcomed the opportunity to educate Colorado residents about the election process.

“I’m really enjoying actually being able to kind of show off a little bit,” Koppes said. “It’s actually opening that door to allow us to show our strength and be able to really build that confidence in our elections. I’ve been giving tours to different people and I’ve had multiple conversations with people about exactly what we do here in the office and by the end of it they’re going, ‘Wow, this is a great process that you guys have; there are a lot of checks and balances.’ ” Trump also has instructed voters who voted by mail to go into a voter service and polling center, invalidate their mail ballot and vote in person. Koppes said voters will not be able to vote in person if their votes have already been cast and received by the Weld County Elections Department.

BALLOT NUMBERS

With slightly more than a week until Election Day, Weld County ballots continue to pour in, with the latest count reporting 35,282 turned in as of Monday.

The Colorado Secretary of State’s office released the new numbers Monday morning showing registered Republicans still leading the ballot-turn-in numbers followed by unaffiliated voters then registered Democrats.

A breakdown of ballots returned by party registration for Weld shows: » American Constitution Party — 138 (22 percent of total registered active voters). » Democratic Party — 10,027 (26.9 percent of total registered active voters). » Green Party — 64 (17.16 percent of total registered active voters). » Libertarian Party — 263 (15.25 percent of total registered active voters). » Republican Party — 15,502 (25.49 percent of total registered active voters). » Unaffiliated — 9,284 (15.77 percent of total registered active voters). » Unity Party — 4 (10 percent of total registered active voters).

Across the whole state, 866,668 voters had turned in their ballots by Monday morning, according to the Colorado Secretary of State.

For more information on how and where to vote in Weld County, go to www.weldvotes.com.

» Voting Today is the last day Weld County voters can mail their ballots and still have them arrive in time to be counted for the election.

If voters don’t put their ballot in the mail today, they need to drop it off at one of the 24-hour dropoff boxes or at one of the voter service and polling centers open around the county, said Weld County Clerk and Recorder Carly Koppes.

For a complete list of locations and times, go to www.weldvotes.com.

» Voter accessibility All voter service and polling centers locations in Weld County allow voters to vote independently on an Accu Vote TSx machine.

These machines have the ability to adjust to different levels, have the capability for an audio ballot and to change the contrast from normal to high on the screen, along with changing the text size, stated a news release from the Weld County Clerk and Recorder’s Office.

A simulation of the Accu Vote TSx machine can be found online at www.weldvotes.com.

Along with the TSx machines, a voter has the right to bring anyone to assist them in the voting process. An election judge also may assist voters.

A chosen assistant will need to fill out a form stating the voter has chosen them and they will not in any way attempt to change the process, according to the release.

» For more To learn more about this year’s election, go to www.greeleytribune.com/elections.