Riverdale park getting amphitheater Legislature asks voters to approve 10year property tax relief plan

BY JESSE PAUL AND ELLIOTT WENZLER THE COLORADO SUN

Colorado voters will decide in November whether to approve a 10-year plan to rein in skyrocketing property taxes, as well as whether the state should distribute about $2 billion in Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights refunds checks next year in equal amounts rather than linking their size to people’s income level, with more money being sent to higher earners.

BY SCOTT TAYLOR STAYLOR@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Adams County’s new Veteran’s Memorial will get a companion amphitheater across Mann-Nieholt Lake next year, county commissioners agreed May 9.

“When people are taking pictures and their event is backed up to the lake, they’ll have that battleship and that memorial in the background and that alone will justify this,”

Commissioner Chaz Tedesco said.

“Anybody that uses that facility will see it, and it can become an iconic place. People will see it in everyone’s background and they’ll want to see it and come there.”

Work on the county’s new Veteran’s Memorial, a replica battleship being built along the southern shore of Mann-Nieholt Lake in the Riverdale Park complex, is due to wrap up in the next couple of weeks. e memorial opens by Memorial Day, May 29, according to Cyndi Stringham, Adams County’s manager of planning, design and construction. When nished, the memorial will be a life-sized model of the USS e questions were placed on the November ballot on May 8 by Democrats in the Colorado legislature as the General Assembly wrapped up its 120-day lawmaking term. e legislature worked until about 10 p.m., just before its 11:59 p.m. deadline, to complete its work, when the Capitol carriage turns back into a pumpkin. e last few hours of the session were chaotic, with Republicans walking out of the House chamber in protest, Democrats in the House lambasting each other and the Senate limiting debate to stop a GOP libuster. e property tax plan, pushed for by Gov. Jared Polis, will appear on the ballot as Proposition HH and

Colorado battleship, with the bow jutting into the lake and the current trail passing through the site. It will be surrounded by trails, memorial plaques and places to sit. It is the latest addition to the expansion of Riverdale Regional Park, which now includes the Adams County Fairgrounds, Waymire Dome and the recently opened Riverdale Animal Shelter.

Stringham and Parks and Open Space Director Byron Fanning presented two options for locating the amphitheater — alongside the memorial itself or across the water on Mann-Nieholt Lake’s northern shore.

SEE RELIEF, P15