Arvada Press 1224

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December 24, 2020

JEFFERSON COUNTY, COLORADO

A publication of

INSIDE: VOICES: PAGE 10 | LIFE: PAGE 12 | CALENDAR: PAGE 16 | SPORTS: PAGE 17

‘The magic of the holiday season’ Apex Park and Recreation keeps the Christmas spirit alive with Santa Letters box

BY MICHAEL HICKS MHICKS@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Each day, 4-year-old Cooper Wright eagerly waited for his letter to arrive.

You know, the one from Santa Claus.

“He doesn’t understand the process.

He thinks it’s instantaneously,” said his mother, Kendra Wright. “I repeatedly have to tell him that it has to go up to the North Pole to Santa and then he’ll send it back to Arvada. We talk about that with the Christmas letter, Christmas cards. He’s learning the concept.

It’s been fun to watch.”

Just as much fun as it was for Cooper and his older sister, Charlotte, 8, to write their letters this year and, with mom in tow, walk over to the Apex Center and mail it off via the Santa Letters box sitting in the lobby of the recreation facility.

“They were so excited to mail (their letters) over to Santa,” Wright said.

VOLUME 16 | ISSUE 30

Water infrastructure plan looks at reinvesting, expanding facilities Population growth and water supply are discussed during a City Council work session

BY MICHAEL HICKS MHICKS@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

tend to exacerbate what they’re going through.”

She said there has been evidence of increased isolated substance use among adolescents and that gaps (in performance) that exist within historically underrepresented populations have widened since the beginning of the pandemic.

Other data Leach cited showed decreases in utilization of services like immunizations, health screenings, dental visits, and mental health services between the pre-pandemic levels in January, and those in May. At the same time, mental healthrelated ER visits for adolescents have increased.

She said parents have reported more frequent occurrences of sleep disorders and maladaptive behaviors since the pandemic began.

Leach wrapped up by addressing issues surrounding increased parental stress that is negatively impacting children and setting the record straight on false reports of increased suicide levels, saying there’s been no evidence of that.

Next, Julie Wilken, Jeffco Schools’ Director of Health Services, summarized the current status of the Jeffco Covid Dial and what it meant in regard to reopening schools. She showed the correlation between increased Covid positivity rates in the community, and in the schools, that led to the recent return to remote learning. Wilken also presented detailed graphs and charts highlighting the rapid increase in numbers of Covid-positive

The City of Arvada is facing a critical 2021 in terms of water.

The city hopes to replace aging infrastructure, rebuild filter beds, reinvest in current facilities and increasing water treatment capacity to serve rising demand, while maintaining low utility rates.

Prioritizing each project’s importance and when to work on them was discussed on Dec. 14 during a City Council work session as part of an update on the city’s Water Infrastructure Master Plan.

City Manager Mark Deven said that the city’s utility team’s forward-thinking in the past 10 years was crucial in securing Arvada’s water supply and planned buildout. But now is the time to start thinking about the next 10 to 20 years as the city’s population grows and its water supply will be in high demand.

“We do this work so that everyone in Arvada businesses and residents can count on being able to turn the tap on in their kitchen or wherever they are and they know that the water is safe to drink,” Director of Utilities Sharon Israel said. “That’s the most important function that we have. That’s about public health. That’s about meeting the community’s expectations.”

The city experienced higher-than-expected peak water usage demand during the summer, Israel said.

In 2020, the average daily water usage was 18.5 million gallons — 3 million more gallons than a year ago and nearly 2 million more than its previous high of 16.6 million in recent years, said City Engineer Jacqueline Rhoades. That pushed the daily treatment capacity to 78%.

Israel said that prior to COVID-19, the city would see two water peaks daily — one in the morning and another in the evening. But with more people working from home, the city didn’t see peaks in water usage as much as consistent usage throughout the day. Israel noted that overall water demand was associated with changing usage from people being home all day, challenging the water systems.

“Everybody was running the sprinkler at the same time,” Israel said.

But more than just meeting supply and demand, Arvada’s water treatment plants are in need of updating. Both the Ralston Water

SEE BOARD, P2

SEE WATER, P3

SIx-year-old Gus Ellis prepares to put his letter in the mailbox on Dec. 16 to be sent off to Santa Claus at the Apex Center.

SEE SANTA, P5

PHOTO BY MICHAEL HICKS

School Board special session round-up

BY BOB WOOLEY BWOOLEY@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

A plan to get some kids back in the classroom by late January was unveiled in a special session of the Jeffco School Board, Wednesday, Dec 16, 2020.

Interim Superintendent Kristopher Schuh started the presentation with two words. Gratitude, referring to the gratitude he felt for the hundreds of student families and stakeholders he met with during the creation of the Restart Plan.

He thanked them for their candor, criticism, comments, questions, time and feedback. The second word was collaboration, referencing the collaborative nature of the process that was assisted by other superintendents across the Front Range and public health officials.

Dr. Susan Leach, Chief Student Success Officer at Jeffco Public Schools, discussed several benefits of in-person learning including its capacity to better meet the academic, social and emotional needs of students.

“The statistics related to youth health and mental health since the onset of the pandemic are just staggering,” she said. “As you can imagine, we’re seeing increased mental health issues in both children and adults, and this children and adults with pre-existing mental health conditions tend to have their symptoms exacerbated when we see exposure to the additional stressors or those feelings of not having control over your circumstances, really

2 Arvada Press

December 24, 2020D

Metro-area school districts hope for January return

BY ELLIS ARNOLD EARNOLD@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Testing for quarantined students, some preemptive testing in schools and modified quarantine requirements are expected to be the ticket to more consistent in-person classes for several school districts across the Denver metro area, the districts’ leaders said in a Dec. 15 news conference.

But even with the expanded leeway to hold traditional classes, superintendents emphasized that if levels of COVID-19 spread remain at their currently high levels, schools may find it impossible to keep enough teachers out of quarantine to consistently keep classes in schools.

Chris Gdowski, head of Adams 12 Five Star Schools, expressed hope about the expanded testing capabilities that Gov. Jared Polis discussed at an earlier news conference the same day, along with nodding to new, less stringent quarantine guidance.

But “the most important part is to bring down this community transmission,” Gdowski said on the Dec. 15 online news conference. He added: “Without that, if we remain at 1,100 cases per 100,000 (per two weeks) in Adams County,” plans for in-person learning fall apart.

When COVID-19 becomes widespread enough — at the levels seen in the metro area in the past few months — staffing and numbers of substitute teachers begin to become the weak link in keeping schools running in-person, the superintendents said.

BOARD FROM PAGE 1

students during the month of November that made it impossible to continue in-person learning for the remainder of the calendar year.

Tom McDermott, the District’s Chief Strategy Officer, continued the presentation, noting that the implementation of the plan was contingent on the county remaining at level red, or below.

Reopening timeline

Jan. 6, 2021, continue in-person learning for students with significant disabilities, some Career and

Although schools generally haven’t been shown to be “superspreader environments,” keeping students in school becomes difficult at or above roughly 500-700 new cases per 100,000 people in a county in a two-week time frame, said Littleton Public Schools Superintendent Brian Ewert, referencing data from the Metro Denver Partnership for Health.

That’s an organization led by the six public health agencies serving the seven-county metro area.

Like a “house of cards,” in-person school planning “literally begins to collapse” at that point due to widespread quarantines, Ewert said.

Virtually all students in Denver and surrounding suburbs moved to remote, or online, classes this fall as coronavirus spread mounted.

Superintendents frustrated with the torrent of quarantines in the fall semester heard encouraging news with the recent guidance from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: It provides options for reducing time in quarantine to seven days with a negative test at day five or later, or reducing quarantine to 10 days with no test for those who remain asymptomatic and “are aware of the need for daily symptom monitoring through the full 14 days of the standard quarantine approach,” a report by the Metro Denver Partnership for Health says.

That’s expected to allow students and staff to come back to school much quicker if they get tested.

The shortened quarantines may come with slightly higher risk of spreading COVID-19, though. See the

introduction and the first chart on the CDC’s website at tinyurl.com/ NewQuarantineGuidance for more details.

In early October amid backlash from some metro school superintendents, the state public-health department released relaxed guidelines outlining that in some cases, entire classes or larger groups of students no longer need to quarantine in response to a positive COVID-19 case.

But in schools in counties operating with higher levels of coronavirus spread, classes or cohorts of students still were urged to be quarantined.

Under a recent update to the guidance in November, as long as districts adhere to strict protocols, broad quarantines are no longer necessary regardless of the level of virus spread in a county. School districts can now generally use “targeted contact identification,” which entails quarantining those within 6 feet of a person with COVID-19 or symptoms of the disease for 15 minutes or more when both parties are masked. It also requires quarantines when someone was within 12 feet of the individual for 15 minutes or greater when either party was unmasked and indoors.

Those time criteria are cumulative, meaning two 10-minute exposures in a day is equivalent to one 20-minute exposure, according to the guidance.

Mike Johnston, a leader with an initiative called COVIDCheck Colorado that provides access to COVID-19 testing, said COVIDCheck will be partnering with all the dis-

tricts on the news conference call for testing people in quarantine. Districts also might have access, to some extent, for preemptive testing for students who aren’t in quarantine.

The districts partnering with COVIDCheck include Cherry Creek School District, Denver Public Schools, Jefferson County Public Schools, Aurora Public Schools, Adams 12 Five Star Schools, Littleton Public Schools and Douglas County School District, although it was unclear if other districts not on the call would also be part of the partnership.

Polis at his Dec. 15 news conference said data continues to suggest that schools generally aren’t a driver of COVID-19 spread in surrounding communities.

“There’s really not been a lot of difference in transmission between communities that have been fully back at school and those that haven’t, which gives us further confidence that schools are not a factor in significant community transmission,” Polis said. “Many districts in Colorado have been fully back, others partially back, others not back — really no real difference in transmission levels in those communities.”

Even with the reassuring news, Cherry Creek Superintendent Scott Siegfried emphasized that the broader community’s efforts to reduce coronavirus spread are key to ensuring in-person class comes back consistently.

“We have three weeks to collectively ensure that students can return to classrooms,” Siegfried said.

Technical Education (CTE) programs, and Preschool.

Grades K-5: Jan. 6 - Jan. 15 Remote learning continues. Return to in-person after a 14-day incubation period following the New Year.

Jan. 19 In-person learning begins.

Grades 6-12: Jan. 6 - Jan 29 Remote learning continues.

Feb 1 Hybrid learning considered

would also have to see K-5 Schools being operationally stable, without widespread school closures due to quarantines, and that the county overall case counts continue to decline.

Jefferson County demonstrates a plateau in case incident rates, followed by a decline.

The next steps include schools organizing in implementing the plan with central staff colleagues, communicating the plan to the public and continuing to advocate for supports from the state to maintain in-person options for students.

Other topics covered in the special session included an update on Jeffco’s Superintendent search and the timeline, methods

and marketing plan they intend to use. The search will begin mid-January with surveys, community engagement activities and advertisements. The schedule shows the Board conducting initial interviews for the position in early March, 2021 and making a final decision on a candidate, with a public announcement of their choice by early May, 2021.

The first agenda item of the special session was a discussion of the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CARF) for Fiscal Year 2020.

A basic summary showed the District’s liabilities were greater than their assets by about $1.4 million, largely because of pension obligations.

Conditions for Hybrid for Grades 6-12

A return to a Hybrid learning model for grades 6-12 is supported by public health officials when the county reaches Level Orange on the Covid Status Dial or with improving metrics in Level Red. The district

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Arvada Press 3

0December 24, 2020

WATER FROM PAGE 1

Treatment Plant and Arvada Water Treatment Plant are facing a number of needs, with each facility looking at six immediate needs to be addressed in the next three years, and another 21 combined to combat demand and failing infrastructure in the years to follow.

To meet such treatment needs, an expansion would be necessary at one or both of the facilities. Currently, the two plants have a capacity of 52 million gallons of water per day (MGD). Improvements would necessitate the capacity to be increased to 64 MGD within the next 10 years.

But Chad Seidel for Corona Environmental Consulting noted that while the Ralston plant currently has a treatment capacity of 36 MGD, the current infrastructure and hydraulic constraints would limit improve-

ments to a maximum of 40 MGD. Meanwhile, the Arvada plant, which currently sits at 16 MGD, could expand upwards to 28 MGD due to it having more space available.

Expectations are that the city will see a 30% population growth in the next 20 years, forcing additional water treatment capacity to meet the coming need.

“There are things some that need to be fixed with the existing infrastructure. There are some that need to be met to increase the treatment capacity and how that is phased will help achieve those goals with some different outcomes,” said Seidel, who has been working alongside the utility team. “Do you have to fix some things today that will be replaced in the short term thereafter or can we optimize around that to achieve everything with one process?”

Councilmember John Marriott pondered how much money is on hand to fund these projects and how much is still needed.

“That is exactly the philosophical approach that we want to take as we are going forward with the financial plan to implement,” said Israel, who noted that the Infrastructure Work System had $100 million currently in reserves to fund a portion of these projects. “Of the total $236 million (needed, a portion of that) would come from tap fees or some kind of developer contribution.”

That said, Israel doesn’t foresee a rate increase for residents to fund these projects, as city growth and further demand will increase city water demand associated with new planned developments.

The city had $448,000 set aside to cover an expected Denver water rate increase in 2020. When that didn’t happen, those funds were reallocated to the capital improvement fund to help support some of the projects, Israel said. Arvada’s water supply comes from a variety of sources, including Clear Creek, South Boulder Creek, and the Fraser River. as well

as through a contract with Denver Water.

“All of these projects are ones that we decided couldn’t wait any longer,” she said.

If that money hadn’t been reallocated, Israel said that the Infrastructure Work System would have had to borrow more funds from its reserves for the Gross Reservoir.

And spending money, be it on water system expansion such as the Arvada plant ($90 million for either a new facility or replacement), work on the Highway 93 water tank or the Canyon Pines pump station and distribution lines — all considered necessary — are investments Israel prioritized as critical moving forward. But she’s cognizant that the city’s utility department will be looking at the long term as it approaches a 2040 buildout date.

“We do not want to spend money on anything that is going to need to be redone in a couple of years,” Israel said.

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Higher Loan Limits and Lower Rates Improve Affordability for Homebuyers

Both the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) and the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), which regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, have been in the headlines in the past couple weeks with their respective announcements that they will be raising mortgage loan limits for 2021. I exchanged emails with Jaxzann Riggs, owner of The Mortgage Network in Denver, to learn more about loan limits and what their implications are for potential purchasers.

Here’s what I learned from her. Although loan limits have been around for many years for both conventional loans (loans that conform to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s loan standards) and FHA loans (loans insured against default by the Federal government), the Housing and Economic Recovery Act (HERA) of 2008 has largely shaped how we know them today. The 2008 act established a base loan limit of $417,000 for conventional loans and, due to the declining price trend in the real estate market at the

time, also included a mandate that this baseline limit would not increase until prices rose to previous levels. In 2016, FHFA increased loan limits for the first time in ten years, and they have increased every year since. HERA also mandated that FHA set loan limits at 115% of area median house prices, with a floor and ceiling on both limits.

January 1, 2020 will see conventional loan limits for singlefamily properties increase from $510,400 to $548,250 as a baseline. High-cost areas (which always included places like Aspen and Boulder, but now also includes the metro area) have a maximum loan limit that is a multiple of the area’s median home value, up to 150% of the baseline. Denver, Jefferson, Adams, Arapahoe, Broomfield, and Douglas counties will all be seeing an increase from $575,000 to $596,850.

Boulder county increases to $654,350.

The increase in these limits means that more borrowers will be able to qualify for a conventional loan versus having to obtain a high-balance or jumbo loan,

Narrated Video Tours Still Rare in Real Estate The term “virtual tour” was introduced to the real estate industry a couple decades ago, but only because photography vendors were able to convince listing agents to hire them and competed to offer the coolest technology.

Early vendors wowed us with 360degree still photos of each room, although that is now out of style.

The latest “shiny object” is a product

by Matterport. I remember getting a demo of it 5 or 6 years ago at a trade show in San Francisco. They call their product an interactive virtual reality (VR) tour of still photos in which you can use your mouse or finger to rotate each photo manually left to right or up and down.

Gray circles indicate new photo points.

You click or touch them and you are taken to that place where you can, again, rotate horizontally or vertically. Thus, you can, at your own pace, navigate around the entire listing choosing which room you want to enter and leave.

Still, it’s only a collection of still photos with no narration. Personally I find it kind of dizzying and nowhere near as useful as being walked through the home by a listing agent with a video camera who explains the obvious and not-so-

obvious features of the home.

I have been selling real estate now for 19 years and seen maybe a dozen different variations of the “virtual tour” concept, but almost all of them are nothing more than still photos presented in different, often interactive ways. None have the advantage of a simple video walkthrough of a home by the listing agent.

That’s what we do at Golden Real Estate, and have been doing since 2007. Click on any or our listings at GRElistings.com to see what an effective narrated video tour looks like.

What amazes me is how few agents do what we do. Surprisingly, only half of 50 currently active listing in Arvada and Lakewood have any “virtual tour” on the MLS, but more surprisingly only one of them had a narrated video tour. The rest were not videos at all but slide shows, most of them with music, but 10 silent.

Two had actual videos but they were aerial videos only. Eleven of them had the interactive Matterport slideshows described above.

The one narrated tour was quite good in the detail which the agent shared, but the female agent chose to be in half the scenes. I prefer being behind the camera.

which typically comes with a higher interest rate.

It’s important to remember that purchase price does not necessarily correlate with loan limits. If a borrower plans, for example, to purchase a property for $750,000 but puts a significant amount of money down, thus bringing their loan amount under the conforming limit, they can still qualify for a conventional loan.

The FHA’s loan limit increases are tied closely to those conventional loan limit increases. The FHA has increased its nationwide limit to $548,250. In the Denver metro area (except Boulder) the loan limit has increased to $596,850, up from $575,000 in 2020.

Although loan limits are most frequently mentioned in terms of singlefamily homes or one-unit properties, both conventional and FHA loans also impose limits on duplexes, triplexes and

fourplexes. These increase at the same time and at the same frequency as singleunit loan limits. In the case of the FHA, which also insures Home Equity Conversion Mortgages — also known as HECMs or Reverse mortgages — there will be a January 1, 2021, loan limit increase to $822,375. Unlike traditional loan limits, this increase applies across the board, regardless of what market the home is located in.

Next year is sure to be a year of changes, and mortgage loan limits are no exception. The increase in limits for both FHA and conventional loans matched with historically low rates and 3-3.5% down payment options just might be the ticket to purchasing your dream home.

Regardless of what loan type you are seeking, I recommend giving Jaxzann Riggs with The Mortgage Network a call at (303) 990-2992.

Back in April 2019, I offered to set up Free Neighborhood Alerts for any reader who wanted to keep track of real estate activity in his or her subdivision or larger area. The response was overwhelming. I myself received over 40 requests.

I’m not complaining. My broker associates and I are pleased to make this service available to everyone who wants it, and we’ve become pretty efficient at creating these free alerts.

The MLS system allows members to set up an unlimited number of email alerts, so feel free to ask for your own neighborhood alert. All our broker associates are able to create these highly personalized reports. Just give us your address and the boundaries of the area you wish to monitor. The initial alert will tell you all the active, under contract, sold, withdrawn and expired listings in that area, going back 90 or 180 days or longer.

Future alerts will come to you within 15 minutes of a new or changed listing

being entered on the MLS. You will literally be up-to-the-minute in your knowledge of real estate activity in your neighborhood!

I’m happy to handle every request I get from readers, but if you know one of our broker associates, feel free to direct your request to him or her. They are listed below and are more than happy to provide this free service. Send your requests by email only, please.

In addition to setting up the neighborhood alert for you, we can also send you valuation reports on your home using two different software packages — Realtor Property Resource (RPR), which is only available from members of the Realtor association, and Realist — that you will find are much more accurate than the Zillow “Zestimates,” which home owners are used to seeing.

I also like to provide a spreadsheet of active, under contract and sold listings that are comparable to your own home, which serves as a double-check on those two valuations.

Readers Appreciate Our Free Neighborhood Alerts

Jim Smith

See All Our Listings, Active & Under Contract, at www.GREListings.com

Broker/Owner, 303-525-1851 Jim@GoldenRealEstate.com www.JimSmithColumns.com Broker Associates: JIM SWANSON, brokerswanson@aol.com CHUCK BROWN, chuck@goldenrealestate.com DAVID DLUGASCH, david@goldenrealestate.com CAROL MILAN, carol@goldenrealestate.com TY SCRABLE, tyler.scrable@gmail.com

4 Arvada Press

December 24, 2020D

New technology is a game changer in detecting lymphedema

BY BOB WOOLEY BWOOLEY@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

New diagnostic technology is helping medical professionals screen patients for the early signs of lymphedema. Allowing therapists to catch this frightening condition early can make a huge difference in the patient’s outcome.

Lymphedema causes fluid retention, swelling, and extreme pain in some cases. It affects up to 30% of patients treated for breast cancer, melanoma and pelvic area cancers. According to research by the National Cancer Institute, anywhere from 5% to 53% of women who have removal, or biopsy, of lymph nodes associated with breast cancer treatment can develop lymphedema.

Kay Karford was one of those women. She played tennis, practiced yoga and had always been active, so occasional aches and pains weren’t out of the ordinary when they came up. But in 2019 she started having pain under her arm and went to her doctor just to check things out. A dose of antibiotics seemed to do the trick, but when the pain returned she got checked again — tests, biopsies, the works.

The diagnosis that came back this time was a jaw-dropper. Stage four cancer. Hearing a doctor say the words would be a nightmare for almost anyone. They had discovered a tumor in her breast and suspicious lymph nodes under her arm.

A bit of good news came when her diagnosis was changed to stage 3B

A technician uses SOZO with a patient.

(meaning the cancer has spread into the surrounding tissue, including some lymph tissue but not to the brain, bones, lungs or liver yet). But surgery, chemotherapy, radiation treatments and anti-estrogen drugs soon followed. Karford’s treatments were successful in controlling the progression of her cancer, but for her, like many women, the breast cancer, treatment wasn’t the end of the story, or the pain. Soon after she finished radiation treatments she developed lymphedema.

“It wakes you up at night and you

COURTESY OF IMPEDIMED

can’t do normal activities,” Karford said. “It can feel like there’s a football under my arm that won’t go away. It’s very painful.”

Historically, what’s made the condition even more insidious is that by the time medical professionals were able to diagnose it, it was often too advanced to get the most benefit from treatment. If caught in its earliest stages, lymphedema can sometimes be reversed. If not, it can be more difficult to effectively treat.

Stephanie Bowman is an Occupational Therapist that works

with the oncology community and lymphedema patients. She’s been treating Karford, employing a technology called SOZO that’s been rolled out in several treatment facilities across the metro area.

SOZO does a few different things, but its ability to detect changes in a patient’s fluid levels is why Bowman believes it’s making older testing methods obsolete.Ideally, when a cancer patient is diagnosed, they could have the SOZO measurement done prior to surgery or radiation.

It’s a simple, 30-second procedure that helps to establish a baseline reading of the patient’s fluid levels.

The patient is then measured by the SOZO again after surgery or radiation. If a change in fluid level suggests the beginning stages of lymphedema, treatment can begin immediately, giving therapists the best chance of success in reversing the condition.

According to Bowman, because of the recurring nature of lymphedema, the SOZO procedure can still benefit patients even if they don’t get their first reading until after cancer surgery or radiation.

That’s what happened with Karford.

Her initial bout of lymphedema came up before she was referred to Bowman’s clinic. Now, her fluid levels are measured by the machine monthly to detect differences that could indicate her lymphedema is returning. Bowman said it can still be effective for women to establish a baseline measurement even years after a breast cancer incident.

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Arvada Press 5

0December 24, 2020

SANTA FROM PAGE 1

This has been an annual ritual for the family as well as for the Apex Park and Recreation District, which has been handling Santa Letters for as long as Katie Groke, the marketing and communications director for Apex, can remember.

“We’re working hard to spread Christmas and holiday cheer to our community,” Grok said. “This is one of the traditional ways that Apex has always spread joy, tried to spread joy in the community. It’s a tradition that kids have done for years and their parents did when they were kids.”

Apex Park and Recreation couldn’t have most of its holiday events this year, but the Santa Letters mailbox was one way — a safe way — to keep a holiday tradition alive, Groke said. Children had two weeks from Dec. 2-16 where they could bring in letters that would be mailed to Santa. Each child who brought in a letter with a return mailing address would get it answered courtesy of help from Arvada’s active adult community, otherwise known as “Elder Elves.”

Groke said that Apex usually receives about 200 letters, but she was expecting

Three-year-old Graham Berg colors on a letter that he would later put in the Santa Letters mail PHOTOS BY MICHAEL HICKS box at the Apex Center to be shipped off to Santa Claus.

a little more than 100 this year, including ones from her own children — 8-yearold Chloe and 6-year-old brother Gus. Chloe asked for clothes for her Barbie doll collection, while Gus, an avid gamer, was clamoring for the new PlayStation 5.

“My dad really wants a PS5,” Gus admitted, though he wants them to play games together.

Two things Gus specifical-

ly asked Santa not to bring — underwear and socks. You know, the practical needs that no kid cares much for.

Christmas this year will be quite a bit different with the COVID-19 pandemic still wreaking havoc. Families won’t get together as much as they have in the past. Yet, still, the Apex Center was striving to keep the spirit alive.

“With everything that’s

The Letters to Santa mail box is filled with letters on Dec. 16, the last day Apex was receiving letters before sending them off to be mailed back to the children who provided a return address.

going on this year, we’re trying to make everything as special as possible and keep them as happy as possible,” Wright said.

While her son may be too young to understand the swiftness of mailing a letter to the North Pole, her daughter, while not as caught up in the delivery process, still embraces the holiday season with open arms.

“She 100% loves the spirit

of Santa and Christmas.

There’s no doubt in her mind. It just lights up her eyes,” Wright said. “To get any mail from Santa is very important. It makes her so happy. I know that she saves all of them.”

Wright has Apex Park and Recreation District to thank for that opportunity.

“They were still able to keep the magic of the holiday season going.”

C Mo #1 olora rtg Rev do ag ers ’s eB e rok er

The Fixed-Income Fight

by Sam Stroup

H

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6 Arvada Press

December 24, 2020D

For family, mental health difficulties aren’t just about 2020 Year of powerlessness adds to longstanding problems that must be navigated

BY TINA GRIEGO COLORADO NEWS COLLABORATIVE

They love each other. That should go without saying. They have, in fact, gone through hell and back for one another — and that was before 2020 rolled out its string of gut-twisting, sleepdepriving upheavals.

Still, Janay Barfoot will be the first to say that hers is a difficult family and this year has tested them all.

Difficult as in a 20-year-old who has autism as well as a heart condition and bipolar disorder. He has been hospitalized on and off over the last eight years because he’s been a danger to himself and others. This 6’5”, 250-pound child of hers, who still wants to cuddle, whose goofy smile blazes with innocence, now spends too many of his days playing video games in his basement room. His voice ricochets through the house, and all Barfoot can think is that she wants a better life for him than this.

Difficult as in a 14-year-old who started her freshman year online and who aches for connection, but who keeps her computer camera off when she can during online classes. She is smart and cracks up the family with her quick wit, but fears that the curious eyes of her classmates also may be judging eyes and she is certain she does not measure up.

Depression stalks her.

Difficult as in Barfoot having decided to stay home after the pandemic struck because she has an autoimmune disorder and felt unsafe in the surgery center where she worked intake and billing. Quitting that job means her husband’s job at the water company is their sole income.

One income means less income and more stress.

Their Lakewood home feels as though it is shrinking around her.

“Everything seems to be a battle,” she says.

Barfoot, who is 53, also grapples with depression. She regularly sees a therapist through the Jefferson Center for Mental Health. “(My therapist) has always told me to think about it as being on an airplane,” she says. “They tell you to put on your oxygen mask

Janay Barfoot, 53, of Lakewood, talks with her 20 year-old son and 14 year-old daughter at their home recently. Barfoot decided to stay home after the pandemic set in because she has an autoimmune disorder and felt unsafe in the surgery center where she worked intake and billing, and to help her two struggling children cope with multiple issues and online school struggles despite PHOTO BY MARC PISCOTTY battling depression herself.

ABOUT THE SERIES

CALL FOR HELP

This story is part of a statewide reporting project from the Colorado News Collaborative called On Edge. The intent is to foster conversation about mental health in a state where stigma runs high. This project is supported in part by the Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Reporting and a grant honoring the memory of the late Benjamin von Sternenfels Rosenthal.

Whatever you are going through, crisis counselors and professionally trained peer specialists are available to help.

Call the Colorado Crisis Service hotline at 1-844-493-TALK (8255). There is no wrong reason to reach out.

first.”

You would have thought, Barfoot says, that a life punctuated by the stress of coping with the intertwining of mental illness and physical disability would have prepared her for 2020. But, no, this year’s added layer of uncertainty has proven unrelenting in its ability to make her feel powerless. “I feel like I have no control over anything,” she says.

Frustrating whiplash

School is online, then hybrid, then online. Her son’s job training is meeting today, no, tomorrow. Her daughter’s Westernaires horse club meetings are in person, then remote — too few

and far between for a child who finds comfort in the company of animals. Moods in the house lurch from zero to 60. Her son is pacing again, up the stairs, down the stairs. The continuity he requires no longer exists. Her daughter wants help, but doesn’t want help. Dishes wait in the sink, laundry in a pile.

It is a whiplash existence.

Barfoot finds respite in walks with her sister along the nearby foothills or visits with their parents, who live nearby. She finds solidarity in the online groups for parents with kids who have special needs. She will steal away to her room to read when she can.

But she is not a woman who sugarcoats. Not the thousands of dollars in medical debt. Not the stress of her children’s needs.

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Not the tension so much constant pressure inevitably creates between her and her husband of 23 years. Her candor for this story has a purpose: It is too easy for people to skim the surface of mental illness, she says, too easy for people to speak of anxiety and depression as if 2020 has given rise to something new when, as she sees it, all it has done is crack open a window too long sealed shut.

“It’s not just 2020,” she says, emphatic. “I think our world is spinning out of control right now, but everyone goes through their own internal struggles and yet are afraid to talk about them.

Right now, it’s OK to talk, but prior to COVID, I think it was ‘fake it ’til you make it,’ and that is such a big thing that I really hate because it puts up this front, keeping people’s feelings still so suppressed. ‘Fake it ’til you make it’ says if you have these feelings, hide them, we don’t want to know about them. We don’t want to see them. We just want you to say what we want to hear.”

SEE HEALTH, P7

Arvada Press 7

0December 24, 2020

A psychiatrist absorbs her patients’ pain Doctor sees widespread mental health crises due to pandemic grinding on

BY SUSAN GREENE COLORADO NEWS COLLABORATIVE

Dr. Patricia Westmoreland washes her hands 20 to 30 times each day she does rounds at the Medical Center of Aurora. That, she says, “doesn’t count sanitizing them who-knows-how-many times more” as an extra step to protect her patients. Nor does it count scrubbing herself down in a hot shower when she goes home, before hugging her kids.

“In prior years, I would have considered the rituals I now do phobic or obsessive. I would have said that’s crazy,” the psychiatrist says. “But now we’re living in this constant anxiety and hypervigilance where everything you do is dictated by fear of getting or spreading an illness you can’t see.

“So who knows, really, what’s crazy anymore?”

Westmoreland mainly treats patients in the Medical Center’s 20-bed women’s unit. Some here were hospitalized after months of putting in 70 hours a week schooling their children, caring for parents and grandparents, and grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning in addition to their regular, paid jobs. Some lost those jobs, and, with them, their homes and even custody of their kids. Some had been drinking or otherwise self-medicating more than usual, or fighting with their partners, who beat them up. Some have recovered from COVID, but not from complications such as PTSD or delirium related to it.

Some are grieving loved ones who didn’t recover. Some are new moms, terrified of the world into which they have brought babies.

Some have been cutting themselves, gesturing or attempting suicide, or in other ways giving up.

“I cannot tell you how many admissions I’ve had that, if I had to put a stamp on them, would say `Due to COVID. Due to COVID. Due to COVID,’” she says.

“It’s come to feel like quicksand out there. There’s more than your average amount of suffering going around. You see the pain, the loss, the incredible loss in the community that you can’t remedy with medication. You can’t bring back somebody’s hope when they’ve lost everything.”

Westmoreland studied medicine in her native South Africa, works

HEALTH FROM PAGE 6

She does not doubt that more people are struggling this year with anxiety or depression. But she greets the rising conversation around mental health with something approximating a suspicious embrace.

Dr. Patricia Westmoreland at the HealthONE Behavioral Health & Wellness Center Women’s Unit at The Medical Center of Aurora.

She said, “Psychiatrists are not generally on the front lines of the COVID virus itself, but we are certainly treating the effects of it.”

PHOTO BY MARC PISCOTTY

as the residency training director for Health One’s psychiatry program and has served as president of the Colorado Psychiatric Society. Yet, nothing in 20 years of practice prepared her for trying to treat patients through face shields and N95 masks. Those barriers, she says, can make people feel more isolated in their illnesses — especially those with psychoses who are apt to misinterpret facial cues. Masks also make it hard for her to read patients. She can see their eyes, but not always what the rest of their faces are saying.

A downcast mouth, a wry smile, or a tense jaw line can be key for a psychiatrist.

“We need to be astute to the most subtle expressions,” she says. “With masks ... it’s basically like walking through the night blind.”

Nothing in her training, she adds, prepared her for what to say to a patient whose life has been upended by a virus she believes could have been curbed by more aggressive public health policies.

“How do you tell someone that the ways the government failed them have been colossal and, well, we’re sort of the laughingstock of

the Western world?”

Nor, she notes, was she trained to keep her own head above water when she, too, is living through what she calls “a global crisis and angst, this continuous trauma on a massive scale.” As she sees it, psychiatry is about “absorbing people’s angst, their trauma, their fears.”

“Psychiatrists are not generally on the front lines of the COVID virus itself, but we are certainly treating the effects of it. And this has just been so horrible, I feel like I absorb so much. There’s only so much the human psyche can take.”

And so Westmoreland, proud owner of a T-shirt reading “COVID doesn’t care if you don’t believe in science,” freaked out at a cousin’s Facebook friend for posting that wearing masks lowers people’s oxygen intake. Recently, she excoriated five 12-yearold boys for knocking on her door, close together and maskless, to ask if her son could hang out.

She let them have it, and then let their parents have it.

And then she posted on her neighborhood blog telling anybody who’d listen, she

recounts, that she and her fellow “health professionals are working hard to deal with how COVID is impacting society and it’s demeaning, devaluing and heartbreaking that people can’t be bothered to put a mask on or keep their kids from roaming the neighborhood.” Underscore.

Exclamation mark.

“I just have no words to describe my outrage,” she admits.

Nor does she have clear lines, as she once did, discerning her own cleanliness from compulsion or professionalism from phobia.

It doesn’t take a medical degree to see that Westmoreland keeps scrubbing her hands because they are what, at a time when so much feels out of control, she feels some control over.

“The lack of control, the pain and grief, the ever-present fear that everyone, from my patients to my loved ones to myself, is living with” — those things, she well knows, don’t wash off so easily.

Yes, let’s talk, she says, but let’s be real when we do. What her family has gone through over the years has required hundreds of hours of therapy. It has required specialists. It has required nearly a year of intervention from Social Services. It has required child psychiatrists who are in short supply. It has required never-ending vigilance over how the schools respond to her chil-

dren’s needs.

Next year may bring the end of social distancing and quarantines. It may bring less unemployment and recovering businesses.

It may bring less political and social division. But what it cannot bring, she insists, is a return to `fake it ‘til you make it.’ Or to tolerating discrimination against those with serious mental illness or to a status quo in which

mental illness is considered less urgent than physical illness.

A window has been cracked.

It’s time, Barfoot says, to open it wider.

This story is brought to you by COLab, the Colorado News Collaborative. If you’re struggling, help is available on Colorado’s crisis hotline. Call 1-844-493-TALK(8255)

This story is brought to you by COLab, the Colorado News Collaborative. If you’re struggling, help is available on Colorado’s crisis hotline. Call 1-844-493TALK(8255)

8 Arvada Press

December 24, 2020D

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0December 24, 2020

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10 Arvada Press

December 24, 2020D

LOCAL

VOICES

Looking near and near for the best things in life QUIET DESPERATION

Craig Marshall Smith

A

nnually I submit a list of things that make (my) life worth living and it’s usually a snap to write. After all, why wouldn’t life be worth

living?

Then 2020 showed up. It walked in the door wearing muddy boots and talked with its mouth full. Just about everything we did without thinking twice was inverted, reversed, changed, canceled, restricted, even haircuts.

If you are reading this, you’ve made it this far. Close to 300,000 did not. The number of pandemic-related cases is in the millions.

In the past, I tried to go beyond obvious examples: my dog, films, music, friendship.

When I began scribbling down nominees for this year’s list, I thought about digging

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deeper.

But why?

Nothing in 2020 was more important or meaningful to me than Harry, whose complete obliviousness to current events was the finest antidote on the market.

Harry doesn’t know that 2020 has been any different than 2019, 2018, or 2017, the year he was born.

He doesn’t know and he doesn’t care.

If you have a 3-year-old son or daughter it’s likely they’re out of the loop too. But one of these days, you will have some explaining to do.

I will never have to explain anything to Harry. But if I did, what would I tell him?

It’s been inexplicable.

This year has brought out the very best in people — and the worst. For every affir-

mative story about man and womankind, there’s an equal and opposite.

I’m one of the lucky ones. A friend said, “You’ve been social distancing your whole life,” and she’s right.

A pandemic doesn’t impact a retired recluse the same way it does an employed extrovert.

But I haven’t taken any chances. No restaurants, no gatherings, games, concerts, parties, picnics.

Harry and I have two or three walks a day.

And two or three films. I keep a long cue: mostly ones that were made before movies became soused with special effects and gore.

A friend half my age sends me a “Song of SEE SMITH, P11

A special 2020 letter for Santa

O

f course, we’ve all heard of Christmas Lists — many of us used to make them, and collect them from our HITTING children. And we’ve all heard HOME of the so-called “Grown-up Christmas List,” made famous in song.

Well, I think we need a special “2020 Christmas List.”

Dear Santa— Michael Alcorn Hello. How are you? I hope everything is well up at the North Pole. How is Rudolph? How many times this year did someone mistake his red nose for a symptom of COVID? Anyway, I’ve been a very good boy this year. No, really. If you think about it, exactly what kind of trouble could I have gotten into? Everything was closed.

No, I don’t think you should ask my wife for a second opinion.

I’m sorry to do this, but this year we have to do things a little differently. Before you head out on Christmas Eve, please make sure all your elves have been tested within five days for COVID. I mean, think about it: one of those pointy-eared little toymakers, who, let’s face it, are well within the target demo of this disease, being more than 1,700 years old… One of those little guys wanders around the Pole asymptomatically for the

last couple weeks, and you are set up to be the ultimate superspreader.

And another thing, it is with great regret that I have to inform you that there will be no homemade cookies waiting for you this year. I’d hate for this virus to defy every minute bit of data that we have, and somehow live on a surface for a few hours and get you sick. So this year, I’m just going to leave out a package of Grandmother’s Chocolate Chip Cookies and bottle of milk. And, just in case, I’ll leave the spray disinfectant right by the table for your use.

Okay. Down to business.

First off, would you please save the restaurant down around the corner? The owners used to go to the same church as us, and it’s a great little restaurant. But it can’t survive a few more months of no in-person dining.

For that matter, could you please save all the other little hole-in-the-wall family-owned restaurants that we enjoy so much? The Chili’s and IHOPs of the world can survive this, but the world needs these smaller places.

Secondly, can you please get the Colorado Rockies new ownership and a new G.M.? Just because.

Third, can you tell the rest of the middle east to follow the leads of Bahrain, et al., and work towards normalizing relations with Israel? No matter where you fall on the politics of it, is there any question that peace in the middle east is in the interest of every human on the planet?

Can you please work to infuse the science we listen to with a healthy dose of logic? I know that sounds strange, but bear with me. The science tells your doctor to tell you not to drink alcohol; logically, most adults will still imbibe at least some, so the doctor has to make logical allowances to complement the science.

The “science” might actually say that the virus can tell the difference between you walking to your table in the restaurant and you actually sitting at your table in the restaurant, but logic clearly says that’s ridiculous.

And that is just one obvious example of the folly that is our response to COVID. So, y’know, if you can, drop some logic under the politicians’ trees.

And finally, most importantly, can you please say something to the little 8-year old up the street?

His world isn’t great, and being away from his friends and his teachers is really awful for him. I’m afraid he might never recover from this year. Just reassure him that the people who care about him are still out here, and we can’t wait to see his smile again, out from behind his mask.

Soon.

Merry Christmas. Stay safe.

Michael Alcorn is a teacher and writer who lives in Arvada with his wife and three children. His new novel, “Charon’s Blade,” is available at Amazon.com, on Kindle, or through MichaelJAlcorn.com.” His opinions are not necessarily those of Colorado Community Media.

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Arvada Press 11

0December 24, 2020

I

Managing what could be a perfect holiday storm

n a typical year, the holidays are a fun, but often stressful time with lots to plan and do. With this year’s COVID-19 pandemic in full swing, this holiday season could be uniquely challenging as many families face having to modify or miss out on cherished holiday traditions.

Many have already managed big changes in their daily routines.

Those changes will impact how we celebrate. Even more, many holiday events may just not happen at a time when we are already missing family and friends, which can feel like a bit of a “perfect storm.”

Missing out on connecting in-person with the people we care about at the holidays can cause sadness and disappointment, in addition to the stress and anxiety many are already feeling. This stress and anxiety can negatively impact mental and physical health. But there are things we can do to cope and boost our mental and emotional well-being during the holidays, including; • Talking with others and making time to connect virtually. It can be helpful to share your worries and feelings with others.

• Schedule time for activities you enjoy and take time to relax.

• Take breaks from listening to the news, watching TV or checking social media to keep your mind clear of potentially upsetting news.

• Try stretching and other mindful activities, such as meditation or deep breathing.

• Continue to stay healthy by eating balanced meals and getting plenty of good rest.

If stress and worry continue and you are experiencing changes in appetite, difficulty sleeping, difficulty concentrating or increased use of substances, such as alcohol, tobacco or other drugs, you may want to reach out to your doctor to talk about finding appropriate support.

It may be especially challenging for older adults who are strug-

SMITH FROM PAGE 10

the Day,” and it’s generally a song by someone I’ve never heard of.

Invariably she introduces me to a performer or a band I can appreciate without wincing. Have you heard of Phoebe Bridges?

We both like Nina Simone. Django Reinhardt. And Bob Dylan, who just sold his entire songwriting catalog to Universal Music. For an estimated $300 million.

As for friendship this year? It’s been emails, by the hundreds, and daily from some of my best friends.

Artist Mark Friday and I exchange complete drivel: wordplay, puns and jokes.

We created lists of our favorite humorists: on film, television, record, in print.

Bob and Ray, Groucho Marx, W. C. Fields, Steve Martin, Steven Wright,

gling with loneliness and isolation because they have been avoiding crowded places for months for fear of getting severely sick from COVID-19.

Check in on older adults by: • Being creative about social distancing during visGUEST its, such as sitting on the porch or in COLUMN the yard and visiting from across the lawn or driveway.

• Sending regular postcards or letters and rediscover the joy of good old snail mail.

• Asking about their health and Dr. Todd Wisser wellness routines such as regular exercise, a healthy diet, quality sleep and receiving recommended health screenings and management of health conditions.

• Trying senior-friendly tech products such as smart devices designed to address the needs of seniors. There are simplified phone and tablet options with large text and buttons, as well as added security features to keep scammers and spammers at bay.

• Consider setting up a plan with the person’s other family members and friends so there is a schedule to help safely stay in regular touch using technology to bridge the distance.

If you or someone you know have thoughts about suicide, seek help right away. To talk with a trained counselor, you may call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline any time at 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-2738255).

If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, call 911 — or go to the closest emergency room.

Dr. Todd Wisser is an internal medicine physician with New West Physicians in Evergreen.

Dorothy Parker, Nichols and May, Dick Van Dyke, Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Oscar Levant, Soupy Sales, Fran Lebowitz, Leslie Nielsen, Bill Murray, Rudy Giuliani.

He’s a Three Stooges man. I’m not.

Some days, one of us will initiate a random topic, like a vegetable. What evolves is drivel, sophomoric, anecdotal, epigrammatic, ironic, satirical, hyperbolic, irreverent or droll.

Our correspondences have been tonic. Restoratives.

When I see I have an email from him, I know what I’m in for: a smile.

However, we’re both conscientious enough to know that a lot of what is going on in the world and United States can’t be compromised with a quip.

What makes life worth living?

Life.

Craig Marshall Smith is an artist, educator and Highlands Ranch resident. He can be reached at craigmarshallsmith@comcast.net.

OBITUARIES THORNBURG

Rosemary Thornburg

Rosemary Isabel Thornburg was born on September 8, 1935 to Vaughn Odessa Thornburg and Virginia Mary Strebig Thornbug in Garrett, Indiana. She is survived by her two brothers Peter Odessa Thornburg, William Henry Anthony Thornburg, seven nieces and nephews, and her lifelong friend, Donna Fain. Rosemary’s life was dedicated to the service of others as a nurse. She worked at Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Fort Wayne, Indiana and later moved to Colorado MEDINA

where she worked throughout the Denver area including Rocky Mountain Hospital and St. Anthony’s Hospital. She loved her poodles and creating beautiful handwork pieces. In retirement she spent her time with family and friends and donating to a wide variety of charitable organizations. Rosemary died on December 9, 2020. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in her memory to the Foothills Animal Shelter in Golden, Colorado https:// foothillsanimalshelter.org/.

Damian Medina 1969-2020

Damian Medina, 49, of Arvada, Colorado, passed away on January 19, 2020.

He had succumbed to his battle with cancer. Damian was born in San Antonio, Texas on March 1, 1969 to Paul and Lorraine Medina.

He graduated from Arvada West High School in 1987 and continued on to Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado.

Damian was married to Erin Medina for 22 years and they had two children together. Damian enjoyed spending as

much time with his two girls, camping, biking, running marathons and traveling.

In his life time, Damian successfully completed 2 Iron Man events including several long distance marathons.

Damian is survived by his wife Erin, his two daughters, as well as his mother and father and two brothers. The family is anticipating a funeral memorial service in Arvada, Colorado, once the Covid Pandemic has passed. Thank you for your prayers and patience.

JELEN

John Jelen Sr. 1934 - 2020

John Jelen Sr., 86, of Arvada, CO passed away on December 11, 2020 at his home surrounded by family. Born on July 31, 1934 in Slovenia he was the son of Franz and Elizabeth Jelen. John married Irene (Lenz) on January 10, 1959 in Berlin, Germany and together they shared 46 years of marriage until her passing in 2005.

John was a Sergeant Major in the United States Army, serving 27 years.

He served as an Armor Crewman, in Special Forces with one year in Vietnam with the 5th SF group, as a 1SG in a paratrooper company and as a battalion and post sergeant major.

He will be remembered as a loving husband, father and grandfather and great grandfather. He will also be remembered for his service to his country and as an arborist who planted many trees and shrubs in Denver and the surrounding areas.

John is survived by his sons, John BLIETZ

Jelen Jr. and Ricky Jelen and his wife, Latta, grandchildren: Megan (husband Shaun), Christopher, Carson and Cassidy and greatgrandchildren: Jude, Sonya, Mia, Zeke and sisters Elizabeth Paulino and Vida Smith.

In addition to his parents and his wife, he is preceded in death by his brothers Franz Jr., Joseph, Stanley, Ferdinand and Michael.

A Funeral Mass will be held on Tuesday, December 22, 2020 at 11:00 am. Visitation will start at 9:30 am with a Rosary at 10:30 am all at St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church, 12735 W. 58th Ave. Arvada, CO 80002. Due to current cemetery limitations, burial with full military honors at Fort Logan National Cemetery will be private. Live streaming will be available for the Funeral Mass with this link: obituaries@ coloradocommunitymedia.com

Donald Blietz

Donald Blietz, 81, passed away at Arbor View Senior Living in Arvada, CO on Monday 11/30/2020. Donald was a beloved brother, husband, father, grandfather, pastor, counselor, mentor, teacher, and friend. Donald was a passionate follower of Jesus Christ and he faithfully served in his church at Faith Bible Chapel for almost 50 years. He is survived by his wife Jill (Jessie) Blietz, his daughter Naomi Ingalls, her husband Chris Ingalls, his two grandchildren Michaelah Ingalls and Colton Ingalls, his sister Gail Brookhart, his brother Norman Blietz,

and sister Carol Weedman along with multiple nieces and nephews and grandnieces and grandnephews He is preceded in death by his parents, William and Margaret Blietz, his brother David Blietz, his son Daniel Blietz, and his son Troy Blietz. A celebration of life service will be held at 3:00 pm, Monday, December 28, 2020 at Faith Bible Chapel in the Family Worship Center, 6250 Wright Street Arvada, CO 80004.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Faith Christian Academy (www,gofaitheagles.com/support).

Funeral Homes Visit: www.memoriams.com

12 Arvada Press

December 24, 2020D

Fighting the good fight on Jeffco’s Mean Streets A nonprofit struggles to help the homeless, but the issues are stacking up

BY BOB WOOLEY BWOOLEY@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

He used to be a cowboy.

In a different life.

In a much different place.

Cowboying is good work for someone who’s not a people person, he said, for the kind of person who prefers the company of horses and a good dog. But cowboying was a choice, like creating neon signs, running a successful company or sitting on the board of three corporations. He’s been there and done that, and they were good choices, all. But this work, he said, is a calling from God. James Fry doesn’t look like many preachers. He’s a big guy, with a greying beard and black boots.

He looks, well, like a cowboy. But holding court in the inner-sanctum of Mean Street Ministries, a sub-leased portion of a run-down church building on Ammons Street in Lakewood, it’s difficult to imagine him doing anything else. Mean Street provides the homeless, and those in need, with food, fellowship, fresh clothing and a place to escape the cold during winter mornings. There’s a cafe in the gym, and they’re fixing up some broken-down showers.

He wears a cross around his neck, and on a tour of the cluttered facility, he’s all business. Why shouldn’t he be? The topic on his mind, that he spends much of his day working on, is solving homelessness in Lakewood. And on that topic, he’s got serious issues.

Winter

It’s getting cold at night. It’s freezing and there’s snow covering the ground. In times of severe weather, Mean Street hands out vouchers for motels. The kind of places one sees along Colfax Avenue and wonders who stays there.

Fry understands the need for emergency cold-weather shelter for people with nowhere else to go, but doesn’t love the program. He thinks it’s a good way for the city to avoid scraping up frozen bodies off the streets the morning after a storm, or when the temperature plummets. But in his opinion it’s a disassociated answer to the problem. It offers none of the services many of his patrons need. And it makes homelessness, for some, too easy.

“It should be uncomfortable. I think homelessness needs to be inconvenient. You’re not going to reach anyone unless you make it inconvenient. The severe weather network used to be a group of churches that let people in to sleep on the floor, use the bathroom, get cleaned up, but drinking wasn’t tolerated. It was a good solution for our [homeless] singles,” he says.

“We had a very successful family shelter going here for 4 years. We were packed, working at capacity, every night. We helped get people from here, into apartments.”

James Fry, founder of Mean Street Ministries.

Maryilynne, a volunteer at the Mean Street Cafe.

But the plug was pulled on that program. Fry says the Lakewood city manager shut them down over code violations. Mean Street is located in an outdated concrete building with no fire sprinkler systems. Once shut down, Jeffco cut their funding, he said. And by the time they worked it out, the landlord got cold feet about the program. Lakewood has no homeless shelters. Jeffco has no homeless shelters.

Danger

With the voucher program, the intolerance for drinking and drug use that existed in the church network doesn’t apply. No one’s watching what goes on in the motels. In Fry’s opinion that makes it less safe. But it’s not just substance abuse he’s concerned with.

“They house registered sex offenders in those motels,” he says.

A quick search on the Colorado Bureau of Investigation web site confirms his claims. In fact, there are currently 28 registered sex offenders living in low-entry motels along Colfax Avenue between Sheridan and Kipling alone, with multiple others in Colfax adjacent motels along the same stretch. Fry

PHOTOS BY BOB WOOLEY

Mean Street Ministries in Lakewood.

thinks a system that houses vulnerable families and people who may be suffering from various substance abuse issues and untreated mental illnesses, in the same building with convicted sex offenders, is immoral. He said government entities should be helping the people, who help the people, not imposing regulations that make the job of offering assistance more difficult.

The wrong kind of growth

The other thing making life on the street more dangerous for Jeffco’s homeless is the shifting demographic, according to Fry. “We have a very steady crowd here. They’re much more like hermits. They don’t want to be seen.

A lot of veterans — people with PTSD. They just want to be left alone and to hide. So they come out for food and shelter when necessary…and that’s it,” Fry said. “But the drug posses, they’re dangerous.”

He said there are meth-fueled homeless groups pushing into Jeffco from Denver. He describes them as younger and much more violent, making things more dangerous for Jeffco’s traditional homeless, especially the women he

works with, many of whom have mental health issues that make it difficult for them to scream for help or fight back. He believes that as this violent group has pushed the limits in Denver, law enforcement has pushed back harder, and the more violent homeless have moved further west. There are lone-wolves out there, he says, but the theory of safety in numbers leads to homeless camps and tent cities — communal living in creek beds and under bridges.

“It’s a sub-society, and that becomes your world, so therefore you don’t know how to get out of it,” he said. “Some of the forts that they build are quite defensible. They can tap into the electrical — I go down there and they’ve got stereos, heaters, stacks of wheelchairs to up their earnings panhandling.

You see it in the lower levels of the New York subways. It’s the same thing here. And it’s tribal. There’s someone keeping the [panhandling] money. Somebody giving the orders. In Denver you have to pay to get a popular corner [to panhandle on]. If you don’t believe me, go get a sign and stand on a corner SEE MINISTRIES, P18

Arvada Press 13

0December 24, 2020

WINDOW WONDERLAND

Natalie Smith poses in front of an image she painted on the windows of a garage door at the Golden Rock Shop. The image is intended to be a destination for selfies.

PHOTOS BY PAUL ALBANI-BURGIO

Natalie Smith paints windows into the season

BY PAUL ALBANI-BURGIO PALBANIBURGIO@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

During a year where many holiday traditions have had to be altered or even canceled altogether, one seasonal pleasure that feels all the more special for remaining mostly unchanged is a walk down through downtown Golden.

While it’s true the blocks might be a little quieter than in the past and a face mask is a must this time around, the streets still possess that familiar seasonal shine thanks to the thousands of twinkling lights, Santa and his reindeer above the welcome arch and the windows filled with snowmen, elves and other colorful Christmas characters.

The latter became a tradition three years ago — although they might feel like they’ve been around much longer — when Natalie Smith moved to the Denver area from Utah and brought her family’s window painting tradition with her.

“My mom actually taught me how to window paint when I was in high school and it was something her grandma had taught her,” she said.

“My grandma would go out window painting all over Las Vegas and taught her and then she taught me.”

For Smith, one of the aspects of

ST. JOAN OF ARC C AT H O L I C C H U R C H

Proclaiming Christ from the Mountains to the Plains www.StJoanArvada.org 12735 W 58th Ave · 80002 · 303-420-1232 Daily Masses: 8:30am, Mon-Sat Confessions: 8am Tue-Fri; 7:30am & 4:00pm Sat Saturday Vigil Mass: 5:00pm Sunday Masses: 7:30, 9:00, 11:30am, 5:30pm

ABOUT THE ARTIST

PAINTED WINDOW LOCATIONS

Natalie’s website is natalieswindows. com. To get in touch with her about a painting job, email natalieswindowart@ gmail.com or call 435-862-3445.

More of Natalie’s windows can be viewed on her Instagram page at www. instagram.com/natalieswindows/

• • • • •

window painting that makes it special is that it is intended to be less permanent than other kinds of art.

As a result, windows can be changed to match the seasons and holidays making it perfect for shop owners looking to add some holiday flair to their holiday windows around Christmas.

Smith has become a fixture around downtown Golden during the holiday season over the past three years and this year and this year has painted window displays at Golden Goods, D’Deli, Red Wagon Gift and Garden Shop and Gold Mine Cupcakes.

She also recently finished a larger window painting on the panes that make up the garage door of the Golden Rock Shop. That one, which depicts two large wings, is intended to be a personal piece that will be a destination for strollers looking for an Instagram-worthy selfie. But it is the holiday pieces that business owners seem to want the most, she said.

Smith said she first realized the power of her holiday windows when

A window painting of a snowman holding a cupcake at Gold Mine Cupcakes.

Golden Goods D’Deli Red Wagon Gift and Garden Shop Gold Mine Cupcake Golden Rock Shop

an old customer in Utah said her windows made him feel like he did when “he was a kid and he knew Santa was going to come down the chimney and I believe in the Christmas spirit.”

“As we were talking about it, I got chills and realized that was part of my window painting motto,” she said. “I’m playing the role of Mrs. Clause and coming to town and putting Christmas gifts on people’s windows and bringing Christmas spirit to all who believe.”

This year, Smith also added some western flair to the windows at Golden Goods, where this year’s Santa is painted wearing a cowboy hat and boots and riding a hobby horse.

It was the sense of history and tradition, which Smith said evokes a feel of a classic Christmas, that first drew her to paint in towns with historic main streets upon moving to Colorado. In Golden, she was particularly drawn to the town’s history, which could be experienced through visiting institutions like the Old Capitol Grill.

“That was something that drew

To advertise your place of worship in this section, call Erin at 303-566-4074 or email eaddenbrooke@ ColoradoCommunityMedia.com

ALLINARVADA.COM

A festive window painting of Santa at Golden Goods.

Natalie Smith applies paint to the windows that make up the Golden Rock Shop on 12th Street in downtown Golden.

me to Golden is I saw there was hidden relics from over 100 years ago,” she said. “It’s kind of similar with window painting. It’s a dying art but I am carrying on that legacy.”

14 Arvada Press

December 24, 2020D

LOCAL

LIFE

How to elevate your baking

game

Making bread at a mile high can be tricky, but with experience comes wisdom

BY DAVID GILBERT DGILBERT@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

N

othing brightens a home quite like the warmth and smell of baking bread, but life at a mile high means baking the perfect loaf can get a bit tricky.

“High-altitude baking is definitely a skill that takes time to develop,” said Chelly Klann, the founder of the Good Food Project, Project Bake and Edible Revolution — a trio of Denverarea nonprofits dedicated to teaching kids and adults the finer points of cooking and baking.

But before understanding how to bake at high elevation, Klann said bakers should understand bread in general.

“Bread is a whole zen experience,” she said. “You can’t rush it. Cooking is an art — you just throw stuff in a pan and taste it as you go — but baking is both an art and a science.”

Bread is also “the purest food,” Klann said, built on just flour, salt, water and yeast.

Home baking exploded this spring during the early days of COVID-19 shutdowns, with flour and yeast flying off shelves as fast as toilet paper.

Klann said she thinks that had to do with a renewed focus on personal skills when people are cooped up.

“Bread is aspirational,” she said.

“Lots of people say someday they’d like to learn French, or play the piano, or learn to bake. Suddenly people had time for things. Everything takes longer this year, and bread fits right in with that.”

But many home bakers in Colorado soon discovered the trouble that comes with high elevation.

“Dough rises quickly here, but it deflates quickly too,” Klann said.

Loaves and wishes

She offered a few pointers: First, high-elevation dough needs more moisture.

“It’s better to have sticky hands than dry dough,” she said. “If your rolls turn out like hockey pucks, it’s because there’s not enough water in

At Trompeau Bakery in Englewood, head bread baker Rande Smith, second from left, said good ingredients make for good bread, PHOTOS BY DAVID GILBERT but so does practice.

them.”

Next, increase the temperature in the oven, by as much as 25 degrees over what standardized bread recipes call for. That may also bring down baking time by several minutes.

Also, Klann said many home bakers simply don’t knead the dough enough.

“People ask if you can overknead bread, but you’ll get bored long before that happens,” she said.

Perfecting sourdough — bread made with fermented flour using naturally-occurring yeast — is worthy of an entire article, or even a book of its own, Klann said.

“It took me the better part of a year to get good at it, and I turned out some bad sourdough in that time,” she said. “It’s a pretty steep learning curve.”

Klann said a home baker’s best bet to get good at bread is the same as the way to Carnegie Hall: practice, practice, practice.

“Find a recipe that came out OK one time, and make it over and over until you’re good at it,” she said. “If something goes wrong, you’ll figure it out quicker.”

Bread baking is also influenced

by ambient conditions, she said, including outside weather, humidity, temperature and other factors.

“This might sound weird, but try keeping a bread journal,” Klann said.

“Is it 100 degrees in your kitchen? Is it raining? Is it cold out? You think you’ll remember, but you never do, which is where writing it down comes in. Don’t fret — you’ll get there.”

Fine ingredients

For those looking to step up their bread baking game, ingredients can make a big difference, said Beth Ginsberg, the owner of Englewood’s Trompeau Bakery, which specializes in classic French breads and pastries.

“Grocery store flour can be weeks old, and it can sit in your cabinet a lot longer than that,” Ginsberg said.

“Here at the bakery, we’re using fresh, high-gluten flours, which also have a much higher moisture content that dissipates the older it gets. We’re also using live yeast, not the dried stuff, which is a lot more finicky but produces some really wonderful bread.”

SEE BREAD, P15

Trompeau Bakery head bread baker Rande Smith dumps flour into a mixer.

Smith said while high elevation can make baking in Denver challenging, so can low humidity.

Arts remain unbound during COVID pandemic

COMING ATTRACTIONS

Clarke Reader

W

ith so many stuck inside for the bulk of this year, there’s a common outlet creatives all over are turning to — podcasting. Doug Kacena, artist and owner of Denver’s K Contemporary art gallery, launched his Art Bound podcast in October to highlight artists in the area and provide listeners a window into the personal challenges creation poses.

The show is releasing its final episode of 2020 on Dec. 30, entitled “The Value of Art” with neo-expressionist Hunt Slonem.

In preparation for the wrap-up of its first season, I spoke to Kacena about the podcast,

staying creative during the pandemic, and demystifying the art world.

Interview edited for brevity and clarity.

Tell me about how the Art Bound got started:

I was approached by Golden Peak Media about starting a new podcast for their company. We started developing the ideas of what it could be, and we decided it wouldn’t be a podcast where artists talk about their resumes or how they mix their favorite shade of blue. We wanted to demystify what it’s like to be in the art world - things you normally don’t hear from artists and people in the industry.

What have you discussed with some of your guests on the show?

Our first episode was about fear, and how fear of failure plays a role in a role in their arts practice. How do people deal with imposter syndrome and any other challenge that happens? We’ve had some really dynamic conversations about the turningpoints in careers, the role of digital media and more.

The magic is the format — just me and two guests. We want it to feel like we’re having drinks and just talking.

SEE READER, P15

Arvada Press 15

0December 24, 2020

BREAD FROM PAGE 14

Trompeau sells smaller amounts of high-end flour and yeast to home bakers wanting to give the good stuff a try, she said.

Rande Smith, Trompeau’s head bread baker, said he hasn’t adjusted any of the bakery’s recipes to adjust for high elevation, but that’s because he works dough by feel.

“Every batch of flour is a little different,” Smith said as he dumped a sack of flour into a jumbo mixer.

“It comes from wheat, which of

READER FROM PAGE 14

Who have been guests on the show?

Some of artists guests have been uber contemporary, some have been more from the traditional side. We’ve also had arts professors on the show as well.

Most of them don’t usually have this kind of platform, and we’re interested in topics they often don’t talk about publicly — hopefully someone hears the discussions and can relate to it.

How does Art Bound connect to your work at K Contemporary?

The podcast is an interesting extension of what we do at the gallery. This year has been one where we’re looking at how we do businesses, including doing more public pop-ups and engagements outside of the gallery.

course is a plant — wheat from different places, from different years will all have slight variations. Some absorbs more water, for instance, or responds to yeast differently.”

Smith said even without fancy ingredients, home bakers can improve their bread by avoiding common mistakes like letting the dough get too warm.

“People wake up their yeast with warm water, but you really don’t want the dough that warm,” he said.

“Even a stand mixer like a Kitchenaid can warm it up too much.”

Good dough shouldn’t register higher than 75 degrees, he said, and many good recipes call for letting We want to help artists make a living and put them on a larger stage - this is a natural extension of that.

Being an artist is a lifestyle choice — it’s not a traditional career or job.

There are lots of misconceptions about the art world - some people are intimidated just about walking through the door of a gallery. I love having the opportunity to shed some light on it.

For more information on K Contemporary, visit https://kcontemporaryart.com. Visit www.artistsnetwork. com/art-bound-podcast/ for more information and where to download the podcast.

Peanuts gang welcome a new year

It’s probably because I grew up with the Peanuts gang, but I can’t imagine a better energy to bring into a new year than Charlie Brown’s unflagging optimism, Snoopy’s insatiable joie de vive and Lucy’s relentless determination.

dough rise overnight in the refrigerator.

Baking through time

The intricacies of high-elevation baking go back to Colorado’s settler period, said Andrea Wilhelm, a historical interpreter at the Littleton Museum, which features a working pioneer-style homestead.

Many pioneer diaries and letter mention making alterations for elevation, Wilhelm said.

“Early cooks were intuitive cooks,” Wilhelm said. “There wasn’t so much science behind it as trial and error. Cooks were constantly asking themselves if the batter and With that in mind, the Schulz Museum is inviting families to celebrate New Year’s Eve from noon to 1 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 31. The event will feature Peanuts-themed New Year’s crafts, special appearances by Snoopy and Woodstock, and a countdown to the Museum’s annual up-down balloon drop — all via Zoom.

To secure a spot, visit Schulzmuseum.org/.

Clarke’s Concert of the Week - The Avett Brothers’ New Year’s Eve Show

Performing New Year’s Eve shows is a tradition for The Avett Brothers - it’ll be the 17th year they’ve preformed on the occasion. Music as dynamic, joyful and moving as the Avett’s will be a great soundtrack as we welcome what will hopefully be a better year.

The livestreamed show will feature the full band and special guests like Willie Nelson and Brandi Carlile.

It begins at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Dec.

looked and felt consistent with past experiences.”

Colorado was settled decades after places like California, Utah and other high-elevation locales, Wilhelm said, so settlers were already aware that baking would be trickier here.

Early recipes were also more “robust,” Wilhelm said, and were more forgiving of errors. Over time, though, “recipes became more delicate with refined flours and sugars, so the room for error increased.”

But just like in the early days, “so much of it is about experience,” said Smith, the head baker at Trompeau.

“Don’t give up.”

31. Get tickets at https://nugs.tv/.

Streaming style - Mike Birbiglia’s New Year’s Eve comedy For my money, comedian Mike Birbiglia is one of the best in the game right now. During the pandemic he’s been developing a virtual show, and he’ll be doing two New Year’s Eve performances - one at 2:30 and the other at 4:30 p.m. In addition to countdowns for international audience members, the material with be completely different from the Christmas, Thanksgiving and the October shows he’s been writing.

Birbiglia’s shows are not only always wildly funny, but deeply insightful and profoundly moving. Search “Mike Birbiglia” on www.eventbrite. com to pick your performance time and get a spot.

Clarke Reader’s column on culture apears on a weekly basis. He can be reached at Clarke.Reader@hotmail. com.

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December 24, 2020D

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December 24, 2020

Arvada Press 17

LOCAL

SPORTS

For some, the more sports the merrier With many turning to specialization, multi-sport athletes are becoming less common

BY JIM BENTON JBENTON@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Multi-sport competitors used to be prominent in Colorado high school athletics, but their ranks have been decreasing in recent years.

More young athletes are specializing in one sport, often because of the pressure to earn a scholarship in their chosen athletic endeavor.

But there are still some athletes who believe in the benefits of playing different sports in different seasons.

Connor Mantelli — a kicker and basketball player at Douglas County High who was a standout performer at the 2020 Kicking World National Showcase in Austin, Texas — says specialized athletes miss out on the experience of being on different teams in different sports.

“I definitely stay in shape year around and the skills are always in use with me,” said Mantelli. “The biggest disadvantage of not being a multi-sport athletes is you don’t get the experience of other sports.

Doing a sport year around, you don’t get a break.”

Those who participate in multiple sports develop different muscle groups and different skills, while overuse injuries are reduced and concerns about burnout are lessened, many coaches and athletes say.

Athletes who compete in multiple sports are needed to keep programs in operation at the state’s smaller schools. For instance, athletic director Mike Hawkes of Single A Shining Mountain Waldorf in Boulder says the school has four athletes who have a chance to participate in the four sports (cross country, girls volleyball, basketball, and track and field) offered at the school.

In the south metro area, even some of the largest high schools have multi-sport athletes.

Julian Hammond was the quarterback on this season’s state championship football team at Cherry Creek, and he is also an outstanding basketball player who has agreed to play next season at the University of Colorado.

Hammond was one of six Bruins’

Dakota Ridge senior quarterback Ben Gultig (2), had a stellar season on the football field, but also played in 21 varsity basketball PHOTO BY DENNIS PLEUSS/JEFFCO PUBLIC SCHOOLS games as a junior.

basketball players who were on the football squad.

“Getting in basketball shape isn’t a problem,” said Hammond.

“It’s just different running up and down the court over and over again, where football is a five-second play. Football wears more on your body than basketball, where you have to be in a lot better running shape.”

Arapahoe’s Hussein Safieddine, a football player, wrestler and member of the track team, agrees with Mantelli.

“Some of the advantages of being a multi-sport athlete include you get the experience of different coaching,” said Safieddine. “My wrestling coach and football coach are really different people. I learn like two different sets of lessons from them.”

Katie Edwards is on the track and field team, was the leading hitter on the Arapahoe softball team last fall and was the leading scorer on the girls basketball team last season with a 12.2 scoring average.

She says time management is a key to being a multi-sport athlete.

“You are doing so many sports you have to watch how to manage your time really well ,” she said.

“There are relationships you build being in different sports.

You meet tons of different types of people. Sports are so different that

Arapahoe’s Katie Edwards is on the softball, basketball and track and field teams.

PHOTO BY JIM BENTON

I think they help you rather than focusing on one the whole year.”

Jim Keller, president of the Colorado Athletic Trainers Association and owner of Next Level Sports Performance, said too often parents pick a sport for a youth to specialize in.

“There’s just a select few chil-

Cherry Creek quarterback Julian Hammond plays football and basketball for PHOTO BY JIM BENTON the Bruins.

dren that can take (sport specialization) early and make it happen,” Keller, of Golden, said. “But I think the majority take it early and get burned out or get hurt. It’s too much year round. It’s too much time on the field, it’s too many camps, it’s too many scholarships and a lot of pressure.”

2A Patriot League West Football All-Conference Selections Here are the Jefferson County athletes who earned all-conference honors this season.

D’Evelyn

Jacob Rose LB Sr. Kase Sundarapura WR Sr.

Shane Bishop QB Sr. Jude McIntyre RB Sr. Mohale Mitchell WR Jr. Alameda

Joey Trujillo OL/DL Jr. Dom Martinez RB/LB Sr.

Arvada

Sebastian Owens OL/DL S Honorable Mention

Jackson Weingardt So. (D’Ev), Gabe Jackson So. (D’Ev),

Ethan Bushlack So. (D’Ev), Gunnar Weingardt Jr (D’Ev) Christian Montanez Jr. (Alam), Oscar Montes Fr. (Alam), Cody Nelson Jr. (Arva), Jacob Peralta Jr. (Arva).

18 Arvada Press

December 24, 2020D

C R O S SWO R D P U Z Z L E

Eric Nelson checks in homeless visitors at Mean Street Ministries.

MINISTRIES FROM PAGE 12

and see how long it takes you to get bumped.”

Lakewood PD, Public Information Office,r John Romero said he spoke to sergeants on the Department’s Commuity Action Team and was told they hadn’t noticed a uptick in violence from Denver homeless moving into Jeffco, but they don’t track those specific statistics. Fry ackowledged the difficulty in trackng those instances, but opined that it’s rare for homeless victims of violence and crime to seek help from the police.

Keeping the faith

“We’re truly walking among the dregs of society. This is the broken.” Fry says.

He’s worried about the growing need for food, services and shelter. He’s worried that the eviction moratorium is about to expire and increase demand for his help.

He’s worried that he typically has

PHOTO BY BOB WOOLEY

35 severe weather vouchers and 85 people who need one. In the 20 years he’s been doing this, Fry has seen a lot, but says his faith isn’t shaken. He talks about the power of forgiveness, especially forgiving ones self, to help turn lives around. He believes the darkness he’s surrounded by doesn’t test his faith, but rather, confirms it. He describes random acts of kindness he’s witnessed, as everyday miracles. And says, without a hint of irony, he’s awash in God’s grace, while telling stories of being threatened when trying to minister to the homeless under a bridge.

“When you get out of your comfort zone, it reveals character,” he says. “True heroics come when nobody’s looking. When it’s gonna cost you, to do something good.

That’s heroics.”

For now, the old cowboy is doing his part, trying to meet the needs of his people. In his estimation, 3590 people come in every day to find food, warmth, a helping hand and, hopefully soon, a hot shower…

“God and some industrious plumbers, willing.”

Answers

THANKS for

PLAYING!

© 2016 King Features Synd., Inc.

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Arvada Press 23

0December 24, 2020

Christmas lights offer free smiles and holiday wonder

BY BOB WOOLEY BWOOLEY@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

A

lot of things have changed in 2020, but the timeless tradition of driving through neighborhoods to see Christmas lights endures. It’s the epitome of socially distanced family entertainment and Griswold jokes aside, the effort and dedication, not to mention countless hours that go into creating these sparkling spectacles deserves a round of applause.

David Martin is the architect of the display at 831 S. Kline Way in Lakewood. He and a friend spent 60 hours creating this year’s extravaganza.

“Ever since I was a little kid I’ve always wanted a house with a lot of lights on it. We’ve been doing it for three years now. Every year it keeps growing and growing,” he said. “Last year was 25,000 lights which was the biggest to that point, but this year with Brandon’s help, we got it up to 50,983 lights and next year it’ll be even bigger.”

As people got out of their cars to take pictures of his work, someone thanked Martin for putting a lot of smiles on a lot of faces.

“That’s why we do it,” he said.

The Martin house at 831 S. Kline Way in Lakewood.

The Martin family and lighting partner Brandon.

PHOTOS BY BOB WOOLEY

An Arvada house lit up for the season.

www.ColoradoCommunityMedia.com/Notices

PUBLIC NOTICES

Public Notices call Sheree 303.566.4088 Legals City and County PUBLIC NOTICE A public hearing will be held virtually before the Arvada Planning Commission on January 19, 2021, at 6:15 p.m., when and where you may speak on the matter to consider a Conditional Use Application for Clear Creek Commons, approximately located at the southeast corner of West 52nd Avenue and Marshall Street. Members of the public may join virtually via phone by emailing jsuk@arvada.org for the phone number, the email must mention this meeting date. To submit a request for public comment, you must go to arvada.org/PlnCommission and complete the public comment form by 5 p.m. on 1/19/2021.

Additional information can be obtained from https:// www.arvadapermits.org/etrakit3/search/project. aspx?activityno=DA2020-0077.

CITY OF ARVADA PLANNING COMMISSION /s/ Patricia Connell, Secretary Legal Notice No. 409776 First Publication: December 24, 2020 Last Publication: December 24, 2020 Publisher: Jeffco Transcript

PUBLIC NOTICE NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING This notice is to inform you of an upcoming opportunity to participate in a public hearing.

CASE NAME: Olde Town Residences Conditional Use Permit CASE NUMBER: DA2020-0096 HEARING BODY: Arvada City Council HEARING DATE AND TIME: January 4, 2021 at 6:15 PM PROPERTY LOCATION: Northwest corner of W. 56th Avenue and Wadsworth ByPass APPLICATION SUMMARY: Request for a conditional use permit to construct a residential apartment complex CITY OF ARVADA STAFF CONTACT: Cheryl Drake PHONE NUMBER: 720-898-7435 EMAIL ADDRESS: cheryl@arvada.org A public hearing will be held by the Arvada City Council on January 4, 2021 at 6:15 pm, when and where you may speak on the matter. At this time, the City of Arvada City Council is utilizing a hybrid meeting format which allows citizens to participate in a meeting through a variety of methods. A hybrid meeting means that some members of Council, city staff, and citizens will participate virtually via our web platform or by phone and some will do so in person at Arvada City Hall. Public health

legals@coloradocommunitymedia.com

conditions and restrictions may require changes to this hybrid meeting format. If you would like to make a public comment at the public hearing for this matter you may: • Provide comments via the phone or webinar. To participate by web or phone, contact City Clerk Kristen Rush at kristen@arvada. org by no later than 5 p.m. on the Monday the meeting takes place. Upon receiving the request, Ms. Rush will provide registration instructions and the rules and the procedures for participating by web or phone. Participants’ public comments will be limited to 3 minutes. • Provide in-person comments. If possible based on public health conditions and restrictions on the date of the hearing, comments may be made in person at the City Council meeting in Arvada City Hall’s Council Chambers - 8101 Ralston Rd. Any citizen entering City Hall will be required to wear a mask. Due to social distancing best practices, only citizens who choose to come to City Hall to provide public comment will be allowed into the meeting. There will not be an area within City Hall to watch the meeting unless you are there to speak. Due to limited capacity, members of the public may be asked to leave the building once they have completed their public comment. Participants’ public comments will be limited to 3 minutes. Due to rapidly evolving public health conditions and restrictions, the city cannot guarantee the availability of in-person participation on the date of the hearing. Please check the City’s website (https://arvada.org/city-hall/city-council/citycouncil-packets) or call City Clerk Kristen Rush at 303-915-5246 on the day of the hearing to confirm whether this method of participation will be permitted based on the current state of public

health restrictions. • Submit comments for the record. Emails with comments need to be sent to City Clerk Kristen Rush at kristen@arvada.org no later than 5 p.m. on the Monday the meeting takes place. Ms. Rush will pass along the comments to all members of City Council and the Mayor. These comments will become part of the permanent record. • City Clerk Kristen Rush can be contacted with questions at 303-915-5246.

Additional information regarding the development can be obtained at https://www.arvadapermits.org/etrakit3/search/ project.aspx?activityno=DA2020-0096.

Legal Notice No. 409777 First Publication: December 24, 2020 Last Publication: December 24, 2020 Publisher: Jeffco Transcript

Bids and Settlements

Item Description: Contractor Construction: Taylor Kohrs

Any person, co-partnership, entity, association, or corporation who has an unpaid claim against the Contractor for or on account of the furnishing of labor, materials, team hire, sustenance, provisions, provender or other supplies used or consumed by such Contractor or any of his subcontractors in or about the performance of such work, may, at any time up to and including the time of such final settlement on said date, file a verified statement of the amount due and unpaid on account of such claim with Englewood Schools (Attention: Mary Cooper) at 4101 S Bannock St, Englewood, CO 80110. Failure on the part of the claimant to file such statement prior to such final settlement will relieve the District from any and all liability for such claimant’s claim.

ARAPAHOE COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT NO 1

Public Notice

By: Mary Cooper

NOTICE OF FINAL SETTLEMENT Notice is hereby given pursuant to Section 38-26-107, Colorado Revised Statutes, that on August 21, 2019 a final settlement will be made by the Arapahoe County School District No. 1 (Englewood Schools) on account of a contract between the Contractor and the District for the following project:

Legal Notice No. 409742 First Publication: December 17, 2020 Second Publication: December 24, 2020 Third Publication: December 31, 2020 Publisher: Arvada Press

###

School: Englewood High School (TEC)

Arvada Legals 12.24.20 * 1

24 Arvada Press

December 24, 2020

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