Centennial Citizen 021623

Residents frustrated over lack of action

Airport, FAA disagree on data

BY TAYLER SHAW TSHAW@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

As representatives of the Centennial Airport and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) continue to disagree about why more aircraft are ying over nearby neighborhoods, residents are frustrated by a lack of progress.

“I’m begging you for solutions,” said Audra Dubler, a Greenwood Village resident, during the Feb. 9 Arapahoe County Public Airport Authority Board of Commissioners meeting. “I think there’s a huge amount of frustration and confusion. I have no rights. Everyone’s telling me, ‘No, the FAA,’ or it’s you, or who is it? Everyone keeps passing the buck.”

Dubler is a leader of Quiet Skies Over Arapahoe County, a group of

concerns at Centennial Airport.

For months, they have been attending meetings to raise concerns about increased air tra c, noise and lead pollution impacting residents, speci cally those living north of Arapahoe Road.

At the Feb. 1 Centennial Airport Community Noise Roundtable meeting, roughly 150 people attended either in person or virtually.

“ e residents are mad. I’m mad. Because it’s maddening to have as

Plant shop takes root in Centennial

BY RACHEL LORENZ SPECIAL TO COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA

To look at Jessica Austin’s shop, you’d never know she has a passion for death. e 900-square-foot space in Centennial feels too bright and fresh.

“People are very surprised when I tell them I used to roll bodies into bags,” the 35-year-old entrepreneur told Colorado Community Media.

A year ago, Austin moved her home-based business, Mrs. Fancy Plants, into the Heritage Place Shopping Center on East Arapahoe Road. ere, among white walls, a breezy botanical mural and lots of greenery, the lifelong Coloradan sells house plants and custom oral arrangements, holds workshops, and rents out her space for photo shoots and private events.

“I’m proud of how far my brand has grown,” Austin said. “I literally am grassroots … jumping the hurdles of entrepreneurship.”

In 2020, Austin started growing houseplants from cuttings in her son’s bathroom to sell on Etsy. She expanded her edgling business to a shed in her backyard which allowed her to o er plant shopping

your house for hours on end,” said Greenwood Village Councilmember Donna Johnston. “ e residents are not going to stop until there’s a resolution because their homes, their sanctuary, their lives are being a ected.”

e increase in noise and air tra c began approximately eight months ago, Dubler said. “We’re not antiairport. We’re not anti-pilot. We just want our homes back that we had eight months ago,” she said.

City sues alleged sex club

Claim focuses on location that could violate code

BY TAYLER SHAW TSHAW@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

e City of Centennial has led a lawsuit against the owners of e O ce, a business it alleges is an adult swingers’ club, for operating a sexually-oriented business where it is not permitted in the city.

A tenant of the building at 6886 S. Yosemite St., e O ce described itself as a private club, according to the city’s civil complaint, which is a legal document that initiates a lawsuit.

However, the city alleges e Ofce is actually operating a sexuallyoriented business that, for a fee, o ers people a space to engage in sexual activities, according to the court document.

e city claims the spaces in e O ce were constructed for the purpose of members engaging in

BLACK HISTORY IN PRINT

Paging

Jessica Austin holds a jade pathos inside her backyard plant shed. PHOTO COURTESY OF MRS. FANCY PLANTS

FAA denies making changes post mid-air collision

While residents have reported an increase in the frequency of ights, speci cally ight school training aircraft, going over their homes, the Centennial Airport and FAA do not agree on the cause.

During the January roundtable meeting, a few people said tra c patterns had changed due to two planes colliding in midair over the Cherry Creek State Park area in May 2021, leading to more aircraft tra c above neighborhoods.

However, Michael Valencia, general manager of the FAA Denver District, disagreed that there has been a pattern change.

Valencia attended the Feb. 1 meeting in person and was joined virtually by three other FAA representatives. To help clarify what the FAA did after the mid-air collision, the administration gave a presentation.

In its assessment of the mid-air collision, the FAA “determined that we saw some drift,” Valencia said.

“When we looked at this event and how we operate as a whole here in Centennial, and other airports, we determined that we really need to tighten up our ship,” he said.

According to the presentation, air tra c controllers at Centennial Airport “received speci c refresher training on the requirement of positive control and the managing of base turns to mitigate potential con icts with aircraft landing the parallel runway and prevent the reoccurrence of

another mid-air collision.”

Valencia explained that in the case of the mid-air collision, if the controller had directed one of the pilots to extend the tra c pattern, the collision likely would not have occured.

“I directed them (the controllers) that if you’re in that situation, then you’re going to take control and you’re going to prevent a collision. And you’re going to extend that downwind and manage those turns to make sure that we are preventing those,” Valencia said.

FAA representatives said this is not a change.

“We made no changes to the procedures in how we operate tra c beyond servicing the demand that is coming in. I want to make sure that I stress that,” said Justin Biassou, an FAA community engagement o cer. “ ere was no procedural change, there was nothing that was written.”   A few members of the roundtable disagreed with the claim that no change was made.

“It’s a matter of semantics, again. e training that the air tra c controllers got caused a di erence in their approach to dealing with planes.

And that di erence in the approach to their dealing with planes has caused the increased noise over the communities,” said Alison Biggs, a Douglas County representative on the roundtable.

Castle Pines Councilmember Chris Eubanks, also a member of the roundtable, added, “When something is done one way and then an event happens and then it’s done di erently, I don’t know how else you can classify that as other than a change.”

FAA looks at data

According to the FAA’s analysis, the primary factor for the increase in the “visual ight rules (VFR) pattern footprint” at Centennial Airport is increased aircraft volume in the tra c pattern.

“We think the causal factor is basically the amount of aircraft that are in the pattern these days,” said Joseph Bert, manager of the FAA’s operations support group.

According to the presentation, as more aircraft are added to the tra c pattern, the pattern elongates due to saturation and having to maintain a safe amount of distance between the aircraft.

When it comes to tracking ight activity, there are two di erent types of counting — ight tracks versus operations.

For example, if an aircraft does six touch-and-go landings, which is when a plane lands and takes o again without coming to a full stop, it will count as one ight track. However, that same scenario would count as 12 operations, because each touch-and-go landing will count as an arrival and departure, Bert explained.

e FAA said Centennial Airport’s ight tracks were up 23.7% from 2019 to 2022. Speci cally over Greenwood Village, the number of ight tracks was up 74.9% from 2019 to 2022, according to the FAA’s data.

e FAA noted there is not a direct correlation between the reported overall track increase and the track increase over Greenwood Village.

“ is is due to the daisy chain e ect. Once a tipping point is reached where the pattern elongates to Greenwood Village, it is not just that single extra aircraft in the pattern that will over y the area. Every aircraft in the pattern will, in turn, follow that same elongated ground track,” according to the presentation.

“ e substantial growth at APA (Centennial Airport) has resulted in the signi cant increase of the number of VFR (tracks) over Greenwood Village,” Bert said. “I’m not saying it’s solely the amount of aircraft. ere are other situations and examples that would cause this, but the majority of it, we think, is the amount of aircraft in the pattern itself.”

Airport disagrees with FAA’s conclusion

In a Feb. 6 interview with Colorado Community Media, Centen-

nial Airport Executive Director and CEO Mike Fronapfel said the airport believes the change that caused more aircraft to y over neighborhoods happened well before eight months ago.

e airport thinks that after the mid-air collision occurred, the FAA local control tower changed the way it managed the aircraft in the pattern, resulting in the pattern getting extended more frequently over the community, he said.

“We stand by that, still. We disagree with the FAA’s analysis, or initial analysis, of that,” Fronapfel said.

He thinks the FAA is concerned about changing procedures or changing the tra c pattern because doing so could trigger an environmental process requirement.

“And so, by saying they changed the way they manage the aircraft, not speci cally the pattern, I think that they’re trying to get away from getting caught for not doing an environmental (process), essentially,” Fronapfel said. “I would agree with them, maybe speci cally, they didn’t change the pattern, but … when they changed the managing of the tra c, that resulted in the pattern changing.

“And their contention is that it wasn’t them, it was the number of aircraft that are in the pattern at any given time,” Fronapfel said. “Well, the numbers we have, that were provided by the FAA’s own tower personnel, prove that wrong.”

During the Feb. 1 meeting, Fronapfel said the airport’s ight operations in 2022 were less than in 2019.

“Looking at our overall operations for 2019, we had 355,784 operations, and that’s based on (the) tower counts. In 2022, that dropped to 302,660,” Fronapfel said. “If we look at just the local tra c — which, in our view … the majority of the local trafc is pattern tra c — in 2019, it was 167,818. And then in 2022, it dropped down to 132,026.”

Local tra c refers to when the aircraft stays within the airspace during their ight, he explained, and most of the local tra c is training aircrafts.

“We do agree that there’s more aircraft over the community now than there used to be. Where we disagree is about why that is occurring,” Fronapfel said. “We disagree that there are more aircraft utilizing the pattern now than there was in 2019. We actually think it’s just the opposite.”

Responding to Fronapfel, Bert noted the di erence between ight tracks and ight operations.

“When you say you dispute our data, you’re really comparing apples and oranges,” Bert said. “What we’re trying to tell you is our data is showing that it is because we have more aircraft in the pattern overall, period.”  Fronapfel said there are a lot of di erent ways the data can be split and the airport will be doing more analysis.

“I’m hopeful that we’re gonna be able to come back to the next meeting and have a uni ed analysis of what’s occurred,” he said.

Regarding the timeline of when a change occurred, Fronapfel said he can’t explain why some community members noticed a change eight months ago.

“I’m hoping to be able to explain more of that once we dive into the data a little bit more,” he said. “ ere’s all kinds of variables that could be at play.”

Representatives of the Centennial Airport Community Noise Roundtable listen to Centennial City Councilmember Candace Moon during the Jan. 4 meeting. PHOTO BY TAYLER SHAW

The role of flight schools

Part of the equation in addressing resident concerns is the ight schools, Fronapfel said.

“You need both the FAA and the pilots to, you know, concur and agree and make an e ort to keep that pattern south of Arapahoe Road,” he said. “And from what I’ve heard … they want to be good neighbors as much as they can.”

ere are four major ight schools — Flights Inc, ATP Flight School, Independence Aviation and Aspen Flying Club — and a few di erent ight clubs that utilize Centennial Airport, Fronapfel said.

“What we’ve heard from the ight schools is there’s a really strong demand for pilots right now,” he said. “So, the training activity has increased.”

e airport recently had a meeting with some of the ight schools, which Fronapfel said was productive. Part of the conversation was how training aircraft y in the tra c pattern when they are not being directed by the FAA’s control tower.

ere are some scenarios where the pilots are given speci c instructions by the FAA to extend the tra c pattern, Fronapfel said. However, there are other times where it is the pilot and instructor who determine whether to extend the pattern.

“When they have the option and when they have control over whether they extend or not, we want them to follow the noise abatement guidelines whenever possible. And so, they were receptive to that,” Fronapfel said. “It’s not the last meeting we’ll have with them. I think we need to continue that conversation.”

Anonymous letter from flight instructor Fronapfel shared with Colorado Community Media a copy of an anonymous open letter from someone who claims to be a ight instructor at Centennial Airport.

“I write this anonymously because it is clear the public has picked on ight schools and pilots as the one to blame for the recent noise issues since the Key Lime mid-air and now the issues with leaded fuel,” the letter states. “I would like to answer some of the public’s questions from my point

of view. You will nd that we agree with you on virtually all counts.”

In the letter, the anonymous source said leaded fuel needs to go away entirely, and they rarely think there is a need for any training aircraft to y over the communities north of Arapahoe Road.

“Virtually all tra c being routed that direction is doing so at the command of the tower, who is operating under the direction of the FAA. We don’t like ying this way … as it puts us over residential areas and increases our time in the pattern,” the letter states.

ey said the ight school they work with will commit to voluntary additions to the current voluntary noise abatement procedure.

ese additions include: restricting northbound touch-and-go landings to occur between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m.; staying south of Arapahoe Road after departure when the control tower and safety of ight allows; and working with the other ight schools towards reforming the practice areas to accommodate the new and existing residential developments.

“Ultimately the responsibility of returning pattern operations to its previous standard rests solely with the FAA. e failures of one private pilot does not represent the capabilities of the hundreds of commercial pilots that operate at this eld every day,” the letter states, referring to the mid-air collision.

“ e non-standard tra c environment has increased both pilot and controller work-load, reducing safety for us in the air, and the people below us.”

Can a capacity limit be placed on the tra c pattern?

One idea that was raised during the roundtable meeting was limiting the amount of aircraft permitted in the tra c pattern at a time.

A few representatives of the roundtable inquired whether the FAA would restrict the number of aircraft in the pattern.

“We have strict constraints that are given to us by Congress, and our mandate is to ensure safe operations within the pattern in the local area,” Biassou said. “We know that the airport receives AIP (Airport Improvement Program) grants funding from the federal government. And so to

SEE AIRPORT, P22

by appointment to people in the area. Eventually, a move to a commercial space felt right.

In addition to shelves and shelves of plants, Austin lls her boutique with touches of home. A plush couch. A clawfoot bathtub. A white wicker chair. It helps her customers think about how to style their own houses with plants.

“It kind of gives people an idea of ‘OK, I can see this in my living room,’” she said.

While Austin enjoys the plant world, her rst love is all things morbid. As a grade schooler, she was a fan of the TV show “Forensic Files.” She was nicknamed Wednesday, a reference to the death-obsessed daughter from the ctional Addams Family. At Metropolitan State University, she earned a bachelor’s degree in forensic anthropology and criminology and landed an internship as a death investigator with the medical examiner’s o ce in Denver, she said. But ultimately she stepped back from forensic work.

“I’ve kind of come full circle. Now I keep plants alive,” said Austin of her shift from working with the dead to caring for living, leafy things.

While being her own boss means she can’t count on someone else for health insurance, a 401(k) program or overtime pay, Austin appreciates the exibility that comes with working for herself. It’s a big world with lots to see and do, Austin said, and right now she’s enjoying the challenges of small business ownership.

“I have my moments where I wonder what the hell was I thinking, but every entrepreneur does,” Austin said. “If not, I don’t know if you’re doing it right.”

For example, now that it’s in a retail space, Mrs. Fancy Plants’ overhead is higher. It was a bit of a shock the rst time the business hit a seasonal slump but its rent and utilities didn’t abate, Austin said. She supplements retail sales with classes on building terrariums, arranging owers and caring for houseplants. She also makes the space available to photographers for photoshoots.

“You pivot and you improvise,” Austin said. “It’s part of being an entrepreneur. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

Key benefits include:

Thursday, 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. on Friday, 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. on Saturday and 10 a.m.

Jessica Austin started her plant business during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.

Before opening her store in Centennial, Jessica Austin sold plants through Etsy and from a shed in her backyard.

“Planting with a Twist,” an activity where attendees paint a terracotta pot and choose a plant to put in it, is one of several events Jessica Austin hosts at Mrs. Fancy Plants.

In addition to selling house plants and custom floral arrangements, Mrs. Fancy Plants hosts workshops and classes.

Mrs. Fancy Plants opened in Centennial’s Heritage Place Shopping Center in February 2022. PHOTOS COURTESY OF MRS. FANCY PLANTS

Suspect accused of stealing catalytic converters

Thefts

BY TAYLER SHAW TSHAW@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

A man suspected of stealing catalytic converters last October in Centennial has been arrested, the Arapahoe County Sheri ’s O ce said in a Feb. 7 news release.  ree catalytic converters were stolen Oct. 7 from Toyota Tacoma trucks at EcoShield Pest Solutions, located at 7275 S. Revere Parkway in Centennial, the sheri ’s o ce said in the release.

After an initial investigation, Arapahoe County Sheri ’s O ce

investigators found the stolen parts at a local scrap yard in Denver, but the suspect was still at large, according to the sheri ’s o ce.

On Nov. 30, investigators sought an arrest warrant for Jeremiah Jansen, 47, on three felony charges: identity theft, criminal mischief and theft.

Douglas County Sheri ’s O ce deputies arrested Jansen Jan. 3 on an unrelated charge of motor vehicle theft, according to the release.

As of Feb. 7, Jansen was in custody at the Douglas County Detention Facility. He was being held in lieu of $10,000 bond on the Arapahoe County charges, and he also faces additional criminal charges in Douglas County, per the release.

“ e investigator assigned to this case did an excellent job not only

tracking down the stolen catalytic converters, which is extremely tough to do, but also remaining diligent in identifying and tracking down the suspect,” Arapahoe County Sheri ’s O ce Sgt. Matt Davis said in the release.

Arrests are rarely made in catalytic converter theft cases, and stolen catalytic converters are typically not recovered, the sheri ’s o ce said in the release.

“Catalytic converters are stolen primarily for their valuable metals,” the sheri ’s o ce said in the release.

“ ieves steal them from unattended vehicles and since they’re not easily traceable, there’s a lucrative market for the stolen parts.”

According to the National Insurance Crime Bureau, catalytic

converter thefts increased 1,215% between 2019 and 2022.

One method of preventing such thefts is catalytic converter etching, in which an identi cation label is placed on the catalytic converter.

e Englewood Police Department will host catalytic converter anti-theft events Feb. 24 and Feb. 25 in which people can sign up to get a free, do-it-yourself etching kit. ose interested in learning more about the events can visit: lockdownyourcar.org/events.

Additional measures residents can take to protect against thefts involving vehicles include locking their car, parking in secure areas and removing any valuables from their car, according to the Colorado Auto eft Prevention Authority.

It’s not good for our water... either.

Whenever you are outside and you notice a piece of trash, please stop and dispose of it properly. What isn’t collected today is picked up in the next rainstorm and sent directly to the nearest creek. From the moment this small piece of trash enters our waterways, it is responsible for a tremendous amount of damage.

Local stormwater agencies are teaming together to bring you this message. We take this so seriously that we posted this ad rather than send you more garbage in the mail.

One thing is clear: our creeks, rivers and lakes depend on you. THIS STORMWATER MESSAGE

•

dramatically increase

Pay raises approved for Cherry Creek teachers

Will start at $57K

BY TAYLER SHAW TSHAW@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

In an e ort to attract and retain more teachers, the Cherry Creek School District announced it will raise teacher salaries.

Starting in the 2023-2024 school year, the salary for new teachers at Cherry Creek Schools will start at $57,000, according to a Feb. 8 news release.

Teachers “across the spectrum of classroom experience” will also get salary increases, and additional compensation will be available for teachers and certied sta who further their education, according to the release.

is new salary schedule was part of a compensation package approved Feb. 6 by members of the Cherry Creek Education Association, an organization that represents the teachers, education professionals, counselors, nurses and mental health professionals in Cherry Creek Public Schools.

“Our teachers are so passionate about what they do. Every day they are com-

mitted to helping students discover a love of learning and a pathway of purpose.

is new salary schedule honors and values the hard work of teachers in classrooms across the district,”

Kasey Ellis, president of the Cherry Creek Education Association, said in the release.

School district leaders collaborated with leaders of the education association to reach a fair compensation package, according to the release.

“ is salary update is designed to provide competitive compensation for all of our teachers and certi ed sta , and is aligned to our core values as a district,”

Superintendent Christopher Smith said in the release.

“ is week’s announcement is part of our ongoing e orts to ensure that all of our sta earn fair and competitive wages for the work they do in service of students.”

e Cherry Creek School District said it hopes the salary increase will attract new teachers to work for the district, which is hiring for many positions across schools and departments, according to the release.

As reported in e Colorado Sun, every Colorado

school district began 2023 understa ed.

Cherry Creek had about 124 open positions at the beginning of the 2021-22 school year that were not lled by normal hiring processes, according to the Colorado Department of Education.

Cherry Creek Schools is actively seeking to hire

more teachers of color to be more re ective of student demographics, per the release. According to the district’s website, Cherry Creek has about 53,000 students, of which 20.9% are Hispanic, 11.8% are Black, 9% are Asian and 7.8% are two or more races.

As part of its e orts to recruit more sta , the school

district is hosting a job fair for teachers and certi ed sta from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 25. ose interested in learning more about the job fair can visit: bit.ly/ccsdfairs.

Residents who want to nd job openings at the Cherry Creek School District can nd more information at: bit.ly/ccsdjob.

Arts events start year going strong

Rebekah Durham is the Arapahoe Philharmonic’s new concertmaster as the orchestra continues its 70year history with conductor Devin Patrick Hughes. In addition to classical music, she performs indie rock and bluegrass in the area. e rst concert, “Rhythm and Blue,” will be at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 18 at Lone Tree Arts Center., 10075 Commons St., Lone Tree. Box o ce: 303-7811892, arapahoe-phil.org.

Douglas County Libraries

Douglas County Libraries presents area authors and more ... CJ Box, best-selling Western author, will appear at 7 p.m. March 1 at Lone Tree Library with KOA Colorado talk host Ross Kaminsky to talk about his new Joe Pickett novel, “Storm Watch.” Sandra Dallas will appear at 6 p.m. April 22 to talk about her new novel, “Where Coyotes Howl.” Books will be sold at these events. Parker Library will host its Local Authors Showcase on March 11 at 1 p.m., where a panel will talk about their new books and then sell them. Also, Douglas County Libraries will host a traveling photography show — “ e Sammy Project Photography Show” — giving personal stories of people dealing with mental health issues, at Castle Rock Library, through Feb. 28 and at Highlands Ranch in March; Parker in April and Lone Tree in May. See dcl.org.

Arapahoe Libraries

Arapahoe Libraries present graphic novelist R. Alan Brooks, who will spend an evening via Zoom with adults and teens on Feb. 23 from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. His graphic hovels include “ e Burning Metronome and Anguish Garden” and he writes the weekly comic “What’d I Miss” for the Colorado Sun. Register and get Zoom information at 303-5427279.

Lakewood Cultural Center

e Takacs Quartet will appear at

7:30 p.m. March 4 at Lakewood Cultural Center, 470 S. Allison Pkwy., Lakewood, with music by Haydn, Britten, Schubert. Tickets start at $25, 303-987-7845, lakewood.org/ LCCPresents.

Big dogs

e Dumb Friends League says adoption fees for big dogs (40 pounds and over) will be reduced by 40% through February. Both the Denver and Castle Rock DFL Centers have more large dogs than they can easily manage this winter.

Cly ord Still Museum

e Cly ord Still Museum in Denver will exhibit “AWful Bigness,” a collection of the artist’s biggest paintings, beginning this week, through Sept. 10. 2023. e museum is at 1250 Bannock St., Denver. 720354-4875, cly ordstillmuseum.org.

Kirkland Museum

”Vance Kirkland’s Cosmos” is open at the Kirkland Museum, 1201 Bannock St., Denver, with a changed display of Kirkland’s art selected by curator Hugh Grant and deputy curator Christopher Herron. 303-832-8576, kirklandmuseum.org.

Soprano performance

Soprano Michelle DeYoung will perform at 7:30 p.m. March 30 at the Newman Center, 2344 E. Ili Ave., Denver. Tickets start at $34. 303871-7720, newmancenterpresents. com. She appears regularly with national and international symphony orchestras and opera companies.

Bird count

e Great Backyard Bird Count, conducted nationally by the Audubon Society, is this week. Take 30 minutes to count birds at your back yard feeder and report to the national organization. e local Audubon Center is looking for new members, including members of the Young Birders Club. See their website at denveraudubon.org for information — and pay a visit if you are not yet acquainted. Potential Master Birders Program members, who train for a year, will begin in July 2023. Check the website for young birder’s outings, Nature walks for adults and more...Urban Interns train March to May. 303-979-2473.

Rebekah Durham is concertmaster with the Arapahoe Philharmonic, which will hold its “Rhythm and Blue” concert Feb. 18 at Lone Tree Arts Center. WALNUT STREET GROUP LLC

SONYA’S SAMPLER

Sterling Ranch advances internet speed

8 gigs coming

BY HALEY LENA HLENA@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

After nearly eight years of investing in ber technologies, Sterling Ranch is expanding a partnership with Lumen Technologies as they plan to be the rst community to roll out up to 8-gig internet.

President of Sterling Ranch Development Company Brock Smethills said in 2014, the community elected to do a ber to the home community when it was not commonplace. Since then, millions of dollars has been invested into Sterling Ranch’s ber network.

“We see that as really an amenity,” said Smethills. “Just like homeowners expect pools and schools - we believe that they have come to expect really good broadband service and that’s something we hope to deliver on now, and continue to deliver in the future.”

In the existing relationship with Lumen, the base service was one gig service to each residential unit for $89 a month. According to Smethills, the dollar amount was reduced to $75 a month and

will be e ective this year.

“So the standard service will still be one gig, or $75 a month and customers will be able to opt into if they want three gig or eight gig service for a premium,” said Smethills.

e new technology,

XGS-PON, is expected to be available across all of Sterling Ranch by the end of 2024. According to the press release, the technology will enable internet speeds of up to 8 gigabits per second. at is 40 times faster than the average advertised download

speed.

“It’s the next generation of residential ber telecommunication services that CentryLink is rolling out,” said Smethills.

While most internet networks start with ber to hubs in neighborhoods

like Highlands Ranch and Roxborough, they need to be converted to coaxial cable for the nal distance to each home.

According to Smethills, the last mile of coaxial cable has been a limiting factor in internet speeds.

“Now we have glass from a point of presence all the way to a residential unit,” said Smethills. “ at gets rid of that bottleneck of that piece of coaxial copper that has physical constraints and how fast you can literally send electrons back and forth on copper.”  e technology is being made available by Lumen Technologies through its premier ber internet service, Quantum Fiber.

By investing in this technology early on, Smethills said that the community was well prepared for COVID-19 as they had work from home capability before it was necessary. is new technology will allow residents to have stronger internet connection and better manage their home utilities.

“ ere’s something to be said about having good broadband that enables our residents to fully utilize technology to help their lives,” said Smethills.

SHUTTERSTOCK

Coloradans are being told to delay filing taxes due to issues with TABOR refunds.

SHUTTERSTOCK

IRS to Coloradans: Don’t file your taxes yet

BY SARAH MULHOLLAND COLORADO PUBLIC RADIO

Coloradans may owe federal taxes on last year’s TABOR refunds.

e IRS says the state’s residents should hold o on ling their tax returns until the agency gures out how it’s going to handle the issue.

e IRS issued the directive to residents of several states that received refunds or special payments in 2022.

Coloradans shouldn’t have to pay any taxes on TABOR refunds, according to the state’s revenue department. TABOR, which stands for the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, goes back to 1992 in Colorado. e law requires the state to return excess state revenues to taxpayers.

“We have done so on various occasions and through various statutory methods,” Dan Carr, a spokesperson for Colorado’s revenue department, said in an emailed statement. “We have provided this information to the Internal Revenue Service in

LAWSUIT

sexual activities. It alleges that items provided in the spaces include condoms, massage tables, beds, bondage devices and even a chair that has a sex toy on it. e word “sex” is also allegedly written on a ceiling, the city claimed.

Sexually-oriented businesses are permitted in some areas of Centennial, but not where e O ce is located, according to the lawsuit.

As a result, the alleged use of the property violates the city’s land development code, which prohib-

response to the questions they’ve raised to many states. We will continue to monitor the IRS process and be clear on our position that these refunds are not taxable.”

Colorado’s excess tax revenues totaled about $3 billion last year. at resulted in sizable refund checks of $750 for individuals and $1,500 for joint lers. Normally those refunds would have been paid this spring, but Gov. Polis and the legislature moved up the timeline to last summer.

Last year, 19 states o ered special tax refunds and payments, according to the Associated Press. Many were meant to provide relief from in ation. Colorado’s TABOR refunds, though not prompted by in ation, were issued at the same time as the other states’ checks.

is story is from CPR News, a nonpro t news source. Used by permission. For more, and to support Colorado Public Radio, visit cpr.org.

its sexually-oriented businesses in any location except for properties located between Interstate 25 on the west; Havana Street on the east; Costilla Avenue on the south; and Arapahoe Road on the north, per the lawsuit.

According to the lawsuit, e Ofce began to operate around August 2022. e city delivered a cease and desist order to e O ce on Aug. 5, 2022, which the city claimed it has not received a response to.

e city led its complaint with the Arapahoe County District Court on Feb. 6, naming the defendants as e O ce and Price Holdings LLC, which the city claims owns the property at 6886 S. Yosemite St.

TURN TO THE COLORADO SUN FOR NEWS ACROSS THE STATE

The Colorado Sun is a journalist-owned, award-winning news outlet that strives to cover all of Colorado so that our state — our community — can better understand itself.

In this way, The Sun contributes to a more vibrant, informed and whole Colorado.

The Sun, launched in 2018, is committed to fact-based, in-depth and nonpartisan journalism. It covers everything

from politics and culture to the outdoor industry and education.

Now, The Colorado Sun co-owns this and other Colorado Community Media newspapers as a partner in the Colorado News Conservancy. The Sun is CCM’s partner for statewide news.

For Colorado Sun stories, opinions and more, and to support The Sun’s misssion as a member or subscriber, visit coloradosun.com.

Video footage shows police collide with motorcycle in shooting incident

Department says details still being reviewed

BY NINA JOSS NJOSS@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Recently released security camera footage contradicts the Littleton Police Department’s original press release regarding the fatal shooting of Stephen Poolson Jr.

On Feb. 2 at around 3:22 a.m., the Littleton police released a press release stating an individual “was driving a motorcycle and crashed” before he ran and produced a handgun. An o cer then shot the man, who was later pronounced deceased after being transported to a hospital, according to the department.

Video footage released by the Littleton Police Department contradicts the claim that the motorcycle driver “crashed.” Instead, it shows a patrol car driving directly into the motorcycle as the driver appeared to be taking o .

“It is always our goal to nd the most accurate information possible, and sometimes that information takes time,” Littleton Police Department spokesperson Sheera Poelman wrote in an email to members of the media on Feb. 8. “Based on this video it has come to light that the motorcycle did not in fact crash, but yes, in fact, was contacted by a patrol vehicle.”

When a member of the Littleton

police department.

Poelman said the Littleton Police Department is not privy to what information is happening in the external investigation and does not have the authority to release information from it.

Reporting sta at 9 News obtained cell phone video of the security footage on Feb. 8 and contacted the Littleton Police Department. e external investigation team and the department then decided to release

obtained from o cials, including herself, who visited the scene the morning of the incident and saw the motorcycle which appeared to them to have crashed.

“ e information contained in that release, including that the motorcycle had crashed, was very preliminary information, obtained in the early hours of the scene, and was the most accurate information that LPD had at the time,” a Feb. 8 statement from the department

interviewed, Poelman said. Policy requires the involved o cer to be physically separated from investigators in order to avoid potential bias in these incidents, she said.

A statement from the police department said they plan to release body camera footage and any additional video/audio/or pertinent information that will convey as much information as possible to the public upon completion of the investigation.

O cials at the scene where a Littleton Police o cer shot a man who had allegedly been on a stolen motorcycle.

COURTESY OF LITTLETON POLICE DEPARTMENT

Thu 2/23

Art: Hands-On Introduction to DSLR Photography (16+yrs)

@ 2am Feb 23rd - Mar 22nd

PACE Center, 20000 Pikes Peak Avenue, Parker

Sun 2/26

Tue 2/28

Stephen Pearcy

@ 8pm

Wild Goose Saloon, 11160 S Pikes Peak Dr, Parker

Fri 2/24

CW & Twenty Hands High @ 8pm

The Englewood Tavern, 4386 S Broadway, Englewood

Phat Daddy @ 8pm

Q's Pub and Grill, 10133 W Chat�eld Ave, Littleton

Koyo @ 8pm Gothic Theatre, 3263 S Broadway, Engle‐wood

Friday Movie - The Good House @ 9pm Heather Gardens Clubhouse, 2888 S. Heather Gardens Way, Aurora

Binomio De Oro De America en Concierto @ 10pm / $50-$80

Stampede, 2430 South Havana, Aurora

Fleming Mansion Walkthrough (for permit holders only) @ 10pm

Fleming Mansion, 1510 S. Grant St., Den‐ver. 720-913-0654

Sat 2/25

Highlands Ranch 5k/10k @ 9:30am / $33-$48

9651 S Quebec St, Highlands Her‐itage Regional Park, Highlands Ranch

American Authors @ 8pm

Gothic Theatre, 3263 S Broadway, Englewood

Wed 3/01

Theater: Parker on Broadway (1015yrs) @ 12:30am

Mar 1st - May 9th

PACE Center, 20000 Pikes Peak Ave., Parker

Kids’ Zone: Dino Stomp (3-6 yrs) W/S23 @ 5pm

Mar 1st - Mar 29th

Parker Recreation Center, 17301 E Lincoln Ave., Parker

Declutter Your Home @ 6pm

Mar 1st - Mar 29th

Dan Bremnes: Marriage Date Night @ 6:30pm

Authentic Life Church, 6500 W Coal Mine Ave, Littleton

Bayside "Just Like Home" Tour (with I Am The Avalanche + Koyo)

@ 7pm Gothic Theatre, 3263 S Broadway, Englewood

Trouble Bound: AMERICANA CIRCUS @ 7pm

Moe's Original BBQ, 3295 S Broadway, Englewood

JD Eicher @ 7pm

Twenty Mile House Concerts, 11875 Cattle Lane, Parker

Banda Los Recoditos @ 9pm / $50

Stampede, 2430 South Havana, Aurora

Baking Soda Volcano @ 11am

Sinners & Saints, 221 Perry St, Castle Rock

Heather Gardens Clubhouse, 2888 S. Heather Gardens Way, Aurora

Mad Caddies @ 8pm Gothic Theatre, 3263 South Broadway, En‐glewood

DJ Rockstar Aaron: Forbidden Bingo at 'Bout Time Pub & Grub @ 8pm

Bout Time Pub & Grub, 3580 S Platte River Dr A, Sheridan

Thu 3/02

Denver Concert Band: A European Sojourn @ 2pm / $22

Lone Tree Arts Center, 10075

Commons Street, Lone Tree. Info@ DenverConcertBand.org, 720-5091000

Mon 2/27

Modern Swing Mondays @ 6pm / $10 Stampede, 2430 South Havana, Aurora

Volleyball: Youth - Ages 10 to 12Spring 2023 @ 11pm

Feb 27th - May 6th Parker Fieldhouse, 18700 E Plaza Dr, Parker

Shallow Side @ 8pm

Wild Goose Saloon, Parker

HE$H @ 9pm The

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Going to 5

Recently, State Rep. Bob Marshall did exactly what he said he was going to do when he ran for o ce — he introduced a bill that would require large counties to expand from three- to ve-member boards of commissioners. If the bill is approved, that would mean Douglas County will go from three to ve commissioners.

Arapahoe County already has ve commissioners, which means they would not be impacted by the bill. However, Arapahoe County operates without a lot of incommission ghting, has good discussion and debate and is a great example of why a ve-member board can be a lot more functional.

When it comes to party lines, I would like a better balance of Republicans and Democrats on the Arapahoe board, given there is currently only one Republican, but that’s not a huge complaint.

In Douglas County, the current commissioners are great evidence of why a three-member boards is not good in representing a county with 360,000 people and growing. e argument against the bill is that it “creates more government,” not less. I get not wanting more government, but is having two more commissioners added to a currently dysfunctional board a bad thing?

I have never been a fan of the all-yes boards. I like my elected boards to have a balance of voices and opinions. If all members of a council, commission or school board have the same thoughts, beliefs and ideals — you will get a lot of rubber-stamp voting without thoughtful discussion and debate.

Local city and town councils, with fewer residents than all of Douglas County, currently have more elected o cials looking out for their best interests.

In Douglas County, residents currently have George Teal and Abe Laydon deciding where and how money is spent. ey are making decisions on zoning, land use and water. If Commissioner Lora omas does have an opposing view or opinion — it doesn’t seem to matter as the two men on the board have clearly formed an alliance. is alliance means if one supports a project — the other will get in line to do the same. ese are schoolyard games that should never been the norm on a local, elected board. is alliance has cost taxpayers plenty of money in approving investigations against omas that have yielded nothing more than tens of thousands of dollars in wasted taxpayer dollars.

At the very least, two more commissioners being asked to approve another frivolous investigation might ask questions and vote against it.

With two more commissioners, decisions might still end the same way, but I bet there is more discussion, fewer alliances and probably a healthier representation of what residents in Douglas County deserve.

What I love about Rep. Marshall introducing the bill, House Bill 23-1180, is that he can’t be bullied. He is at the state level and the two-member majority can’t just quash it. Do I think the bill will pass? It’s early and hard to say. e argument of having more government oversight could win out in halting it in its tracks. However, I do hope our elected o cials at the state level give it true thought and consideration.

If it is passed in the 2023 session, counties that would be a ected by the bill are Je erson, Larimer, Douglas, Boulder, Pueblo and Mesa, all of which are counties with three commissioners.

elma Grimes is the south metro editor for Colorado Community Media.

LINDA SHAPLEY Publisher lshapley@coloradocommunitymedia.com

MICHAEL DE YOANNA Editor-in-Chief michael@coloradocommunitymedia.com

THELMA GRIMES South Metro Editor tgrimes@coloradocommunitymedia.com

TAYLER SHAW Community Editor tshaw@coloradocommunitymedia.com

As a partner and potential sales channel to the enterprise selling team, they were faced with a decision to make about an interaction they had with a new account executive they had just started working with. ere was a lack of follow-up on the account executive’s part and the partner was torn between letting the young account executive’s boss know, or not.

Ultimately, he decided to call their boss because they wanted to provide a coaching opportunity for the young new hire. e leader was grateful and said, “ ank you as I cannot x something that I do not know is broken, and I cannot manage what I do not know.”

ere is so much sensitivity around what we can say and what we cannot or should not say. We fear that it may not be our place to say anything at all, after all we may become the one where others choose to point the nger of blame. We would rather keep our mouth shut and let the next person who receives bad service or experiences a problem be the one to share their concerns. Maybe they are braver than we are in those moments.

e question becomes this, wouldn’t we want to know if something that we, or someone in our family, circle of friends, or company was doing something, or had done something, that wasn’t right and could potentially be harmful to others or to our family or business? Most of us would answer the same way, of course we would. In the case above, the leader did use it as a coaching moment and the young account executive embraced the feedback and became determined to make a change in his response times and doing what they said they would do

ERIN ADDENBROOKE Marketing Consultant eaddenbrooke@coloradocommunitymedia.com

AUDREY BROOKS Business Manager abrooks@coloradocommunitymedia.com

ERIN FRANKS Production Manager efranks@coloradocommunitymedia.com

LINDSAY NICOLETTI Operations/ Circulation Manager lnicoletti@coloradocommunitymedia.com

when they said they would do it.

Another friend I know stopped going to the same co ee shop they had been stopping by every morning for years. When I asked them why, they said that the shop had started serving co ee that wasn’t as hot as it should be. I asked them if they let the manager know. ey shook their head and said, “No.” is was a simple or minor issue that, if the manager had known or been told, could have been easily resolved.

We know parents who have approached the o cials of the school where their child was being bullied. e o cials were given the opportunity to x what was broken. ey now knew what they had to manage, yet they refused to take action. e nal outcome was that the child was transferred to another school and thankfully, was met with a new set of friends who they became very close with, enjoying a wonderful and safe high school experience.

It’s no di erent at home or in any relationship. If we do not know what is broken, we cannot manage or x what we do not know. We have to provide others a safe environment to share what they see as a problem or an area that can be improved, and then be vulnerable enough to acknowledge that it can be better and then take the steps necessary to x the problem.

Two of the most important ingredients to any

SEE NORTON, P13

Columnist opinions are not necessarily those of the Citizen. We welcome letters to the editor. Please include your full name, address and the best number to reach you by telephone. Email letters to letters@coloradocommunitymedia.com

Thelma Grimes

We cannot manage what we do not know

The excitement of the new year has yielded busy calendars for many of us, particularly those of us in Arapahoe county government. Despite the freezing temperatures, 2023 is o to a fast start with exciting opportunities and some di cult challenges.

Already this year, two new commissioners, Leslie Summey and Jessica Campbell-Swanson, have been sworn in, county meetings have started, our budget process is underway, and we recently hosted our rst telephone town hall of the year.

I’m a hometown girl. I grew up here, met my husband and raised a family here and also started a business here. So as a resident, mom and chair of the Board, it’s important to me that we act now to maintain the things we love about the county so that they can be enjoyed for generations to come.

ere’s a lot to love about Arapahoe County, too.

From the farming and ranching

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Unhappy about story is letter will be worth writing if it can convert just one of your liberal journalists away from their woke ideology as expressed in your second of a four-part series, e Long Way Home by Nina Joss and Haley Lena Jan. 26, reporting on the housing crisis. e article is the epitome of woke ideology because of the accusations made from beginning to end that essentially accuse the U.S. for systemic injustice in housing.

Instead of any consideration of our American ideals around equal opportunity this article focuses on a socialist Utopian ideal with many examples of unequal outcomes. Not surprisingly this very lengthy article ends advocating mandatory liberal training to combat discrimination for real estate licenses.

First, don’t ask about the facts in this article, ask why the Colorado Community Media (CCM) is editorializing about identity politics and race baiting. No mention is made of the problem put on hardships cases which are the outcome of living in a free society, also known as an imperfect world, which is the history of our country. e Long Way Home series is being published in all the 24 metro Denver newspapers, and for a good reason none of the testimonials in this week’s article relate to any of our Douglas County jurisdictions.

Nobody will disagree that it’s easy to nd biased journalists these days, they’re everywhere, so the fault of

NORTON

successful relationship, husband-wife, parent-child, teacher-student, employer-employee, company-customer, or any other relationship are communication and trust. And when we can honestly and openly share with others what needs to change or be managed better, most times we will be seen as being helpful as again, none of us can x or manage what we do not know is broken or a problem in the rst place. How about you? Do you feel safe and comfortable sharing with your

GUEST COLUMN

Know Arapahoe

community of Byers to Colorado’s secondlargest city, Aurora, to the western suburbs, our county o ers a unique diversity of landscapes, industries, recreation opportunities and people. at diversity is one of the many reasons so many people have chosen to call Arapahoe County “home.”

In fact, Arapahoe County is expected to add another 200,000 people by 2030 and grow from 600,000 to 800,000 residents. Our appeal to our new neighbors is both understandable and challenging. Meeting the needs of this growing county with the economy’s ups and downs can be daunting. It becomes even more formidable as we realize

biased reporting lies with the editors and a biased sta . e paper identi es 25 people contributing to this series. I can’t help but wonder where people like these journalists come from. For me, I don’t personally know anyone whose as severely handicapped with racial prejudice about identity politics as the publishers of this article.

Smith Young Parker

Housing and diversity

Kudos to Colorado Community Media for a piece of ne local journalism with “ e Long Way Home” series examining Colorado’s housing crisis. e January 26 articles detailing racial inequities in Denver’s suburban communities like the Littleton area, where I live, provide important insight — and highlight the need for all of us to redouble e orts for social change.

As the series illustrates, Littleton and surrounding towns didn’t become lily-white by accident. Government policies assured racial and economic segregation via redlining, racially restrictive covenants, and large-lot zoning. Today, Denver metro is highly racially segregated, ranks 13th among the most highly economically segregated urban areas, and 40th among U.S. large metro areas for upward mobility of below-median-income families.

Today’s a ordable housing emergency is compounded for our Black,

boss, partner, co-worker or the manager of a store where you frequently shop what is broken or needs to be managed better or di erently? Or would you rather someone else take that responsibility? I would love to hear your story at gotonorton@gmail. com, and when we can be open to managing and xing what we know to be broken, it really will be a better than good life.

Michael Norton is an author, a personal and professional coach, consultant, trainer, encourager and motivator of individuals and businesses, working with organizations and associations across multiple industries.

the magnitude of the issues we must address: housing a ordability, mental health, criminal justice, homelessness, crumbling infrastructure and roads. ese are big, complex issues that we simply cannot ignore. How do we meet the challenge? It starts with listening to you and identifying our shared  priorities. A sincere thank you to the residents who took time out to join our most recent telephone town hall and o er your opinions. When asked, 37% of you named crime as the most important issue facing the county followed by homelessness and a ordable housing (26%), roads (15%) and mental health (10%). ese are our priorities too.

ese priorities come at a cost. And despite our long tradition of doing more with less, our shared priorities require additional resources. For decades, we have pursued e ciencies, innovations, cost-savings, and continuous improvements when managing resources. is practice has earned

Latinx, and Native American neighbors who face historical barriers designed to exclude them from generational wealth-building as well

us a track record that includes awards, consistently high bond ratings and balanced budgets.

e question now is how we secure the resources we need to achieve our goals. e Board is taking a serious look at how best to modernize and stabilize our revenue stream, to help meet the priorities that will ensure Arapahoe County continues to be the number one place to live, work and raise a family.

In the coming weeks and months, we look forward to engaging with you as we navigate a path forward. I hope you’ll join us and learn more about your county government, voice your opinion and ask questions on our next telephone town hall event. Please look for future telephone town hall events on the county website or follow us on social media.

as present-day ingrained prejudices. is is not a healthy situation for our

Commissioner Carrie Warren-Gully is Chair of the Arapahoe County Board of County Commissioners.

Commissioner Carrie Warren-Gully

SEE LETTERS, P18

BY CORINNE WESTEMAN CWESTEMAN@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

While working out at a gym in Golden recently, someone approached Ty Scrable and asked if he was associated with Colorado School of Mines. Scrable had to explain that, no, he’s just a Golden resident.

Unfortunately, Scrable said, this isn’t the rst time it’s happened.

“I get that a lot,” he said. “People think I’m a student, professor or tourist because I’m Black.”

Systemic racism stubbornly remains in Golden. But, as Scrable said, it has morphed from Ku Klux Klan demonstrations in the 1920s and racist housing policies in the 1940s to something less overt but still widespread and endlessly frustrating.

Because White people make up the overwhelming majority in the city and, thus, are seen as the norm, Scrable said, “many people don’t view me as part of my own community.”

In the wake of Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the summer of 2020, many cities and newspapers across the United States have started reckoning with their pasts, examining how they’ve contributed to systemic racism, learning what they can do to be more inclusive and fair. e Golden community has started the process, and now it’s the Golden Transcript’s turn.

e newspaper, which now is part of Colorado Community Media, isn’t immune to biased coverage. is report is the product of its journalists attempting to examine the paper’s coverage of the Black community since the Civil Rights era and own up to its mistakes.

Since 1866, the Golden Transcript — known as the Colorado Transcript for its rst 103 years — has been a record keeper for Je erson County. While its stories are extensive and valuable, the paper contains original and reprinted content that was harmful to the Black community and other marginalized groups.

Just one example is its coverage of the Black Panther Party, a group that gained national attention in the late 1960s for its response to policing in Black communities across the country.

Between 1969-1971, the newspaper published approximately 170 articles that referenced the Black Panther Party. Nearly all of these articles

BEYOND THE GOLDEN TRANSCRIPT: Our efforts to reconcile racial mistrust begins with this story

In our newspaper this week, you’ll see an article about the Golden Transcript. It’s one of two dozen newspapers owned by Colorado Community Media, which also owns this paper. The article tackles the issue of systemic racism in the Transcript’s pages.

The idea for the project started in 2020, when the Colorado News Collaborative, Colorado Media Project and Free Press convened the Black Voices Working Group, which was made up of Black leaders, community members and journalists. The group addressed media coverage and focused on how to improve trust in mainstream media among the Black community. Acknowledging past harm was the No. 1 recommendation made by the group.

A few months later, I attended a Denver Press Club event where Jameka Lewis, a senior librarian at the BlairCaldwell African American Research Library, illustrated biases in mainstream local media coverage of the Black Panther Party in the 1960s and ’70s while exhibiting rare prints of the Black Panther Press. Many of Lewis’ examples came from the Transcript. Most articles were wire stories from

other cities, but editors still chose to run them, affecting perceptions of the party in Golden.

We pursued and were awarded a grant from the nonpartisan Colorado Media Project to explore, uncover and analyze this issue in the form of the special report that is in this edition of your newspaper.

Our newsroom, which is predominantly White, also participated in the Maynard Institute’s diversity, equity and inclusion Fault Lines training along the way. West metro editor Kristen Fiore was a speaker at the Advancing Equity in Local News convening with journalists from publications like the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Washington Post to talk about this project.

We believe this story is important beyond Golden — and we hope to spark conversations in our communities across the Denver area about race and inclusion and how our news coverage impacts those issues.

Linda Carpio Shapley is publisher of Colorado Community Media, which runs two dozen weekly and monthly publications in eight counties. She can be reached at lshapley@coloradocommunitymedia.com

Linda Shapley

presented the group in a negative light, with words such as “fugitive,” “thugs” and “militants.” And, the Transcript appeared to rarely cover the Black community in the city and wider region. Because of this, their voices are missing in archives, now online as an important chronicling of Colorado’s history.

By not including these voices in an accurate light, and by publishing stories that reinforced harmful stereotypes and/or recorded Black people’s traumatic experiences in an apathetic or ippant way, the Golden Transcript’s coverage contributed to systemic racism, according to researchers and Black community leaders.

Jameka Lewis, senior librarian at the Denver Public Library’s Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library and a freelance researcher on this report, said Transcript readers may have had their beliefs about the Black Panther Party, and the Black community in general, shaped by the Transcript’s negative portrayals.

“ ere is harm when it comes to media and the Black community in Denver and Colorado,” Lewis said. “If we want to repair the harms, we have to acknowledge that (they are) factual.”

Alfonzo Porter, editor-in-chief at Denver Urban Spectrum and a journalism professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver, said mass media has been at the epicenter of “propagating negative images and re ections of the AfricanAmerican community.”

“It really stems out of our country’s background, and we’re still dealing with those biases,” he said.

While almost all of the Transcript’s stories about the Black Panther Party were from wire services like United Press International, Porter said the Transcript and other newspapers are accountable for reprinting those stories.

“It’s exactly like original reporting, because … the editorial sta sat in a room, looked at this piece, determined that it was appropriate and ran with it in the paper,” he said.

The Black Panther Party

e Black Panther Party for Self Defense started in 1966 in Oakland, California. Founders Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale started the organization as a response to police brutality there and in other Black communities, according to Lewis’ research.

e party had a 10-point program that included demands for Black liberation and societal

THE COVERAGE

How national, Denver-area papers covered the party Sisters Ida Daniel, Pat Rogers and JoEllen Greenwood grew up in Denver and graduated from East High School in the ’60s and early ’70s. ey recalled reading e Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News and watching the nightly news on TV. ey also listened to the city’s Black radio station, KDKO, and read Black-oriented magazines like Ebony and Jet.

Overall, the three didn’t recall a lot of news stories about Black people in the mainstream press, unless it was negative. e news covered Black people who were arrested for murder, robbery, rioting and other crimes. Rogers summarized the coverage as: “Be afraid of Black people.” at kind of coverage played out with the Black Panthers. In 2016, e New York Times analyzed stories about the Panthers, noting “journalists were at once fascinated and frightened by them” and their activities in the 1960s and ‘70s.  Coverage about the Denver Panthers in Black newspapers in the area at the time was scant. Of those Lewis researched, the Black-owned publication e Denver Blade published the most articles on the group’s activities, both locally and nationally, in 1969.

Its coverage appears to be fairly balanced, Lewis said.

One Blade article discussed the Panthers’ orga-

improvement. Eventually, the Black Panthers led more than 35 community programs across the country, like the Free Breakfast for School Children Program — also known as e Free People’s Food Program, which helped feed Black children from economically disadvantaged families.

In Denver, a chapter gained recognition in 1967. Led by Lauren Watson, the chapter’s history was largely erased or ignored, Lewis said, adding that the Denver Panthers were instrumental in the ght for civil rights in Colorado.

It’s important to note that many Black community members both then and now have mixed feelings about the Panthers and their work, Lewis stressed.

Longtime Denver residents she interviewed formed their opinions largely based on what they read about the Black Panthers in newspapers and saw on TV. Yet that coverage contrasts with what many in the community saw the Denver Black Panthers doing. ey were involved in school board and City Council meetings, provided free meals for children, and worked to

nizing a meeting to discuss policing and police presence at Cole Jr. High School in Denver’s diverse Whittier neighborhood. It chronicled the Black community’s e orts to address a racial gap between teachers and Black students. One possible solution, and likely at the suggestion of the Denver Black Panthers, was to establish Cole as a Freedom School, a concept that focused on Black pride and Black liberation in academics.

In contrast, the Denver Post also covered the meeting but didn’t mention the Panthers’ involvement in organizing the event or the Freedom School proposal. In a review of Post archives, the story focused on arrests. e Denver Blade coverage did not mention any Black Panther arrests.

“Oftentimes, it was up to Black news media to cover this group in a more comprehensive way, which I believe e Denver Blade did,” Lewis said. “It covered all aspects of the local and national Panthers, and o ered readers a more balanced view of the members of this group.”

e Denver Blade stopped operating in 1970.

How Golden’s newspapers covered the Panthers

e Transcript published approximately 170 articles that used the terms “Black Panther” or “Black Panthers” between 1969-1971. Almost all of these were reprinted stories from wire services, which seldom described anything positive about the party or its members.

improve the welfare of their neighborhoods and its residents.

“Many Black people believed what the media said about the Panthers,” said Terry Nelson, a lifelong member of the Denver community. “ … It depended on the source. We recognized that the newspapers weren’t telling the truth about the members. … We knew that the Denver members were active in schools, speaking with teachers and parents. We never saw that in the major newspapers.”

Tracie Keesee, a former Denver police captain and co-founder of the Center for Policing Equity, described how during this tumultuous period, the press played into the hands of government o cials.

Newsrooms considered police as trustworthy and well-respected sources, so it was easy for them to hand reporters a story and have it taken at face value, Keesee said.

Keesee added: “We see it now, right? at divisiveness in the media, the stories that are being told — or not being told.”

e only article referencing the party’s free breakfast program was published April 30, 1970, about Baltimore police rounding up Black Panthers suspected of killing a patrolman. After searching party headquarters, police searched a school where it conducted its breakfast program, among other locations.

In contrast, the Colorado School of Mines student paper, e Oredigger, published at least two stories about the Black Panther Party. Both were straightforward accounts of Lauren Watson, the head of the Denver chapter, visiting Golden.

Ultimately, while coverage of the Black Panthers varied by publication, the Golden Transcript failed to cover the party’s community initiatives or involvement. It did, however, print dozens of wire stories about the party’s supposed criminal activity and police raids associated with the group.

e coverage used negative language to describe the Panthers, their neighborhoods and any activities they were involved in. Because of this, Golden-area residents absorbed and believed what they heard and saw in the news coverage, Lewis stated.

e role of the press in forwarding racial inequality really shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, Keesee said, especially to communities of color.

“It’s not just that person that wrote the story,

Jameka Lewis is a senior librarian at the Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library and a researcher on this project. COURTESY PHOTO

FOR THE RECORD

that person had an editor, right?

ere wasn’t anything in that editor’s mind that said, ‘Yeah…this seems a little biased. Did you even go into the community, or did you just take that o the wire and repeat it?’”

ere’s no excuse for sloppy journalism, as it is harmful and contributes directly to a larger narrative, Keesee said.

“When you talk about media coverage, there were only three channels on the television, back then; there was no social media,” she said, adding, “the newspapers were cranking out those stories overnight and you were waiting for your morning paper. Nobody was up waiting for breaking news. So, the news that was coming out, it was more focused and easier to control.”

And when news was breaking, “it

THE COMMUNITY

Golden in the 1960s and ’70s

Built on lands traditionally inhabited by the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Ute and other tribes, Golden City was founded in 1859. According to Allan Tellis, a doctoral student of political science at the University of Colorado-Boulder and freelance researcher on this report, Golden has never had a signi cant Black population.

Census data from 1960 shows that the Golden division of Je erson County had 28 Black residents. By 1970, that number had increased to 86. Overall, those numbers represent 0.15% and 0.27% of the total population, respectively, according to Tellis.

As of 2020, Golden had 388 Black residents, representing 1.9% of the city’s population.

Longtime Golden residents recalled how many of the city’s Black residents in the late 1960s and early ’70s were associated with Colorado School of Mines as students, professors or their family members. As far as discussions about the Black Panther Party speci cally or race relations in general, longtime White residents said the topic didn’t come up much because there wasn’t a large Black population in the area.

Rick Gardner, a resident who has studied Golden’s history extensively, said the community had “other preoccupations at the time,” such as labor clashes at the Coors brewery and the Vietnam War.

John Akal, a longtime Goldenite and current columnist for the Transcript, described how he spent his summers in Chicago, where it was “a whole di erent situation.” Because of the 1968 Chicago riots, which were sparked by the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Akal remembered a lot of racial tension in the city at the time.

But that was Chicago.

Golden was di erent, but not necessarily better.

The KKK in Golden Overt discrimination in Golden against Black people and other

was breaking only one way, and those narratives were pretty narrow,” she added.

The newsroom

During this timeframe, the Transcript was a daily paper with a small sta of six and a wire service that provided regional and national news.

Neil Paulson, who was managing editor from 1970-75, said the paper relied on United Press International reports to cover many issues, including the Black Panthers.

“It was a terrible service, especially for a small paper,” he said. “It cost us a little more, but eventually we went to e Associated Press.”

e only dictate from the paper’s owners, e Kansas City Star and the Great (Kansas) Tribune, was to run a local story on the front page, Paulson said. National and regional stories ran inside.

Paulson noted that Golden’s population at the time, as it is today, was

communities peaked with the Ku Klux Klan, which had a strong presence in the city and throughout Colorado, particularly in the 1920s.

e Klan began in Denver in 1921 and eventually “all but took possession of the state of Colorado,” according to a report in the Steamboat Pilot. Klan members throughout Denver gathered on Golden’s South Table Mountain for cross-burnings and other rituals. According to Golden History, the mountain could attract up to 10,000 members.

Overall, the Klan helped prevent or deter unknown numbers of Black people from carving out lives in the area. History Colorado recently released ledgers of KKK membership that show seven members of the terrorist organization resided in the Golden area, Tellis added.

Racist housing policies, practices

While the Klan’s activities are certainly one reason Golden has a small Black population, it’s not the only reason. Discriminatory housing practices also contributed.

Don Cameron, a former Jefferson County teacher and current Golden city councilor, has researched zoning history and discriminatory housing policies and practices, including some accounts recorded in the Transcript.

While many Black residents in Denver were constricted by redlining, their counterparts in Golden faced other challenges.

“Starting in the ’20s and into the ’40s, it was common for people to say that they would only sell their individual property to those of the Caucasian race, or non-Negro race individuals,” Cameron stated in a self-published article about Golden’s zoning history.

“ e courts backed up this right because they were protecting the homeowners’ use of their land and had no civic duty to prevent this discrimination,” the article continues. “Blacks were excluded from being shown properties in these restrictive neighborhoods, and if they tried to purchase them, (they) might have it taken away soon

predominantly White.

He knew two Black Goldenites during his years as editor. One was Monroe Jordan, an assistant chef at downtown Golden’s historic Holland House, who later worked at the nearby Ace-Hi Tavern.

When Jordan died, Paulson ran a story on the front page that brie y memorialized him but mostly discussed an attempt to nd his relatives, as no one had come forward to claim Jordan’s body nearly two weeks after his death.

Readers didn’t react positively to the front-page piece.

“I got a couple of nasty phone calls, but no one admitted to their bias,” Paulson said. “ ey refused to apologize, of course. ey said I shouldn’t have put that on the front page. In typical Golden fashion, there was nothing speci c, other than to say, ‘You shouldn’t have done that.’ e thought of another race didn’t exist.”

For the Transcript’s newsroom, Paulson said there was no “codi ed

policy on racism” during his time there.

“We condemned it, but we made little e ort to actively attack it,” he said. “( e) Black Panthers seem remote from Golden, where there were few Black families.”

One place where Paulson thought racism showed up was on the editorial page. e paper had four syndicated columnists every day who lived outside the community. ey were selected by the publisher because “they were cheap and not already being published by the two Denver dailies,” he stated.

Paulson said he had no doubt the paper could be accused of racism for its coverage in those days.

“But I’d like to think it was by omission rather than intent,” he said. “We rarely spoke of racism and did little to come out against its pernicious e ects. I don’t remember anyone on the sta making racist remarks, and I think I would have remembered that.”

after.”

Perhaps the most evident example of this was in 1942, when Logus Butler and Susie A. Allison paid $1,500 for 30 acres near present-day Boyd Street in north Golden. ey planned to build on it, but they were forced to sell a few months later after Golden residents drove them out.

“A large number of citizens appeared before the City Council

Wednesday evening,” the Transcript reported Oct. 22, 1942, “and stated that a group of colored people had taken possession of the land recently purchased by them east of the Clark’s Garden addition, within the city limits of Golden, and were apparently staking out some building sites.”

After Butler and Allison were

A photo circa late 1960s or early 1970s shows the Seymour family gathered for a portrait in their family home in Denver. In this photo, the siblings — Ida Daniel, Pat Rogers, JoEllen Greenwood and Winfred Semour Jr. — were teens. COURTESY PHOTO

FOR THE RECORD

forced to sell the land, plots on the same land were listed for sale two

THE IMPACT

In the community

While growing up in Denver in the ’60s and ’70s, Daniel and her sisters used their education and life experiences to help them decipher which news stories were biased and which were reputable. ey also relied on family and friends’ advice.

“I don’t think news at the time covered Blacks in the world that they lived in,” Daniel said. “To me, the general stories about how Blacks lived, what they did, what their concerns were and some of their needs, were not covered.”

The sisters felt this trend in coverage didn’t change until the ’80s, when news about Black people and Black communities became more prominent.

As an example, Daniel described how The Denver Post did a feature article on her late husband, Wiley Y. Daniel, who was a prominent attorney and

THE FUTURE

For Goldenites

In more recent years, especially in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the Black Lives Matter rallies in the summer of 2020, the Golden community has started examining the long reach of systemic racism in and around the city. e City of Golden started work on its Racial Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan, and groups like Golden United and Golden Anti-Racism Collective formed.

While these are good rst steps, real change has to start with people’s attitudes, GAC members Scrable and Michele Minihane said.

Although many Goldenites are open-minded and inclusive, Minihane personally believed there are still some residents who “do not value an integrated community and don’t feel like it’s important to make people of color feel welcome.”

She added: “I don’t get the sense that (attitudes) have changed a lot in 40 or 50 years.”

Scrable agreed that tangible changes, whether in attitudes or policies, have been slow. He said it’s going to take time and everyone working together to make Golden a more welcoming and inclusive place.

e two described how the Golden Anti-Racism Collective has become a place where people can share their experiences, examine systemic racism’s impact on the community, and nd ways to improve Golden for current and future generations.

As of last month, GAC has about

years later. Ownership was restricted to “members of the Caucasian race.”

ese accounts are just glimpses of Golden’s treatment of people of color, but Tellis emphasized how they demonstrate “institutionalized

the state’s first Black U.S. district court judge. She also recalled how

e Post’s society section ran pictures of positive stories happening in the Black community.

“I do think it began to change in the ’80s,” Daniel continued. “ ere were positive stories (but) … the stereotypes were still going on.”

Diversity in the newsroom also seemed to improve during this timeframe, the sisters said. They recalled Reynelda Muse, the first Black person to anchor a newscast in Colorado, and Bertha Lynn, who started in Denver television in 1976.

While a lot has changed in how traditional outlets cover Black people and Black communities, the sisters believe there’s still plenty of bias. Rogers admitted that she avoids local news because there are still more negative stories about Black people than positive ones.

“I think there absolutely still is biased coverage,” she said. “I don’t want, every day, to hear

400 members on an email list and a few dozen who come to its regular meetings. ere are several subgroups within the Golden Anti-Racism Collective that tackle di erent topics such as policy and policing, education, and books and media.

While the bulk of the members are White, any Goldenites of color are welcome to join and participate as they’re able, the members said.

e group has established a unique partnership with the Golden Police Department, as some of its members sit on the department’s community engagement group, GAC member Sandra Knecht explained. GAC and other community members have given feedback on various department policies, particularly around use of force.

GAC members also try to comment on City Council discussions and participate in other local matters, including education, youth outreach and a ordable housing. In doing so, the group has developed partnerships with Shelton Elementary, the Golden Library, Colorado School of Mines student groups, Golden United and other groups that share GAC’s goals.

Similar to GAC, Golden United formed after the 2016 election as “there was a fair amount of division, nationally and locally,” Ronnie Rosenbaum said. e group sought to bring people together and encourage respect for those who have di erent ideas and opinions.

Rosenbaum, who’s vice president on Golden United’s board of directors, described the partnership between Golden United and

anti-Black behaviors and norms” in the area. So, he said, it’s no surprise that the Black Panther Party, an organization that “unapologetically called for Black liberation and the dismantling of White supremacist power structures, would catch the

about, ‘there’s another Black person who got in trouble.’”

In the country

Going back through American history, the Urban Spectrum’s Porter described other incidents where media outlets didn’t give Black people the bene t of the doubt. He listed the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and the Emmett Till lynching as examples of the media portraying those involved as “guilty until proven innocent,” adding how the trend has persisted into today’s coverage of police shootings and similar incidents.

“And it seems as though that mentality continues to manifest in those organizations in their treatment of our community,” he said. “And so, it’s always the bad news. ere’s really never any positive re ections.”

Regarding news coverage of the Black Panther Party, the journalism professor described it as a peaceful organization that was responding to violence “against

GAC, saying the two groups and others joined forces for a rally in summer 2020 and pushed City Council to approve the “Golden Stands with Black Lives” banner on Washington Avenue.

Minihane stressed how the GAC believes systemic racism impacts all Golden residents, regardless of race, and recommended locals read “ e Sum of Us” by Heather McGhee to learn more about that impact.

For the City of Golden

In summer 2020, the Golden City Council produced a series of resolutions meant to address its history of racial exclusion and racist domination of non-White groups, Tellis stated.

ese resolutions included:  Resolution 2736 – Declaring Racism a Public Health Crisis

Resolution 2747 - Declaring Support for Black Lives and Racial Equity rough a Public Display, and

Resolution 2748 - Declaring A Commitment to Anti-Racism Actions

Resolution 2736 states, “the Golden City Council recognizes that racial inequities have become institutionalized in the policies and practices of many agencies, governmental and otherwise. Council recognizes the need to examine seemingly neutral policies and practices to determine whether they are contributing to inequity and, where needed, change or eliminate the policy or practice as cities have a long history of decision and policy making that have resulted in classist and racist outcomes.”

ire of local reporting.”

Tellis added: “Golden has displayed a deep commitment to the marginalization of Black people. To re ect on this legacy is pivotal if we desire to not replicate the racial strife and injustice of our past.”

African-American people in an attempt to say, ‘We will protect our community.’”

“ e idea was that Black folks with guns clearly scared the hell out of people,” Porter continued. “Because obviously, if you’ve got a gun, then you’re going to be violent. And it’s only that mentality because of our profession (as journalists). Our profession has continued to promote that re ection — still does, to this day.”

As for Golden and the Transcript’s coverage of the Black community, Porter believed it likely made Black residents feel unsafe and unwelcome, saying, “ ey know that any coverage of them will not be balanced and fair.”

Fairness and racial equity are concepts Golden, Denver, the United States and journalism as a profession need to work on, he stated.

“I don’t see our profession doing enough work in that area,” Porter said. “I hear the talk. But I’m not seeing anything to back it up.”

Building on that, the city hired a consultant in June 2021 to develop a Racial Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan based on community input. After developing it for more than a year, the plan outlined four goals:

Create a culture of inclusion and belonging throughout the community of Golden; Increase access to services and resources for diverse community members;

Foster an organizational culture and environment within the City of Golden that’s committed to racial equity, diversity and inclusion; and Expand economic opportunities for diverse businesses.

Along with the REDI Action Plan, the consultants also recommended dozens of strategies toward these goals and an implementation plan.

For instance, public documents and other information should be available to those who don’t speak English or have di erent abilities. City boards and commissions should have a more inclusive recruiting process to ensure diversity among their members.

e city also should host training about Golden’s history, structural racism and implicit bias.

e City Council adopted the REDI Action Plan in December 2022 and called on the community to ensure Golden achieves the four goals in a timely, e ective way.

e plan was developed with race as the leading element because of how widespread and

damaging racial inequalities are in the United States, according to city consultants. However, the REDI Action Plan is overall intersectional, examining how to make Golden a better place for people of all ages, abilities, gender identities, sexual orientations, socioeconomic backgrounds, religions and other demographics.

O cials said the next step is to assemble an implementation team of community members and city sta ers to make recommendations to City Council on how to achieve goals. Golden expects to assemble the team this spring.

In a Feb. 10 email, Mayor Laura Weinberg highlighted city o cials and community members’ ongoing work to “live up to our value as a welcoming and inclusive city.”

“I applaud the Golden Transcript’s work to identify its role in racial inequities in the past and its role in systemic racism,” she stated. “ e City of Golden has undertaken similar work … (and) I look forward to this year’s actions to take the information from our new REDI plan and put community-driven solutions into practice.”

For the Golden Transcript

While the Transcript’s ownership and newsroom has changed greatly since the late 1960s and early ’70s, it’s not immune from the biases and attitudes that riddled its past coverage and contributed to systemic racism in and around Golden.

Scrable said reading the Transcript’s past coverage of the Black community can be “demoralizing,” but even recent stories have failed to represent Black voices.

He pointed to an Aug. 31, 2020 Transcript story about City Council’s decision to display a “Golden Stands With Black Lives” banner over Washington Avenue. e story said the banner would be displayed for 60 days, “an amount of time intended to symbolize how long it took for slave ships to cross the Atlantic.”

Scrable and his GAC co-chairs did advocate for 60 days, but they never assigned any symbolism or signicance to the number.

“It might’ve been said (in the meet-

LETTERS

community or our nation.

Visionary racial justice leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. fought to pass the federal Fair Housing Act (FHA), enacted 55 years ago this April. Thanks to the FHA, local groups like the Denver Metro Fair Housing Center (funded by the U.S.

ing), but it wasn’t us,” Scrable said of GAC. “It was a misquote.”

After the Aug. 31, 2020 story, Scrable received about 20 phone calls from people upset about the supposed symbolism. He felt the Transcript hadn’t done enough research and ultimately misrepresented the facts, and that insensitivity created a very frustrating experience.

He wanted the Transcript to ensure there are positive stories about people from historically marginalized groups, and do better educating Goldenites about their neighbors’ achievements and experiences.

Scrable added: “I’m looking to the Transcript to paint a positive picture for all people of color … and representing ‘all’ versus ‘a few.’” e Colorado Community Media newsroom acknowledges it has work to do, and this February 2023 report is only the rst step in what the team hopes will open a wider conversation about systemic racism and media coverage for years to come. Work-

Department of Housing and Urban Development — HUD, help persons facing discrimination to file complaints with Colorado’s Civil Rights Division or in federal court. And the framers of the federal law had the wisdom to include a provision for “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” which requires local governments to take steps to reverse historic segregation via a renewing five-year action plan they submit to HUD.

ing on this report brought CCM sta members face-to-face with outdated practices and implicit biases.

Going forward, CCM’s goal is to include more voices of color in the newsroom and on the pages of its two dozen publications, Publisher Linda Shapley said. CCM wants to ensure all local voices are heard and included, while also re ecting on racial equity, diversity and inclusion. CCM will strive to consider the lenses through which the sta decides to cover stories in the rst place. Appreciating di erences in CCM’s coverage areas, like history and culture, will guide the newsroom in its e orts.

Other newspapers such as e New York Times, the Washington Post, e Kansas City Star, Philadelphia Inquirer and more have done similar analyses of their past coverage, and the Transcript encourages other newspapers in the region and across the country to do so as well, Shapley said, adding that it wouldn’t have been possible without a Colorado

Still, many folks in white skin identity today do not realize the extensive benefits of living, working, and learning in diverse communities for all racial and ethnic groups. Major employers are realizing the benefits, but the embrace of diversity lags in our suburbs.

As we work together locally to cope with the affordable housing crisis, we need to use all the tools provided by federal and state law to increase local diversity. Let’s

Media Project grant.

For all journalists, Porter stressed the importance of continuing to diversify newsrooms and ensuring fair, balanced and objective coverage and “stop convicting people without evidence.”

He called on more publications to review their past coverage and acknowledge its harmful impacts, saying it’s important to shine a light on the truth, to be honest and to be transparent.

“If we’re ever going to get past this, it’s going to take some truth-telling,” he said. “It will be hard. It will be di cult. But it really is one of the last vestiges to make this country what it said it was in the beginning — freedom and liberty for all. Which has not been the case for us.”

move toward a Denver metropolitan area where every individual, group, and community enjoys equal housing opportunity and access in a bias-free and open housing market, where integrated neighborhoods are the norm, and the private and public sector guarantee civil rights.

Jameka Lewis, Allan Tellis, Kristen Fiore, Rylee Dunn, Christy Steadman, Steve Smith and Deborah Grigsby contributed to this report. Greg Moore contributed as an editor.

A banner reading “Golden Stands with Black Lives” hangs from the iconic “Welcome to Golden” sign over Washington Avenue in September 2020. After declaring racism as a public health crisis in 2020, among other e orts, Golden recently adopted a Racial Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan. COURTESY OF THE CITY OF GOLDEN

John Paul Marosy, outreach and education coordinator, Denver Metro Fair Housing Center Jefferson County

Dems aim to ax social studies from standardized tests

BY ERICA BREUNLIN THE COLORADO SUN

Elementary and middle schoolers in Colorado could stop taking state standardized assessments in social studies starting next year under a bill introduced recently by a group of Democrats in the state legislature, who want to spare Colorado teachers and students the time and stress of testing and save the state more than $1 million each year.

Scrapping social studies would be the latest change to standardized state tests, which have ignited ery debates among parents, educators and lawmakers, especially in recent years as state testing was paused in 2020 during the pandemic and modi ed the following year.

e change would also hit a subject that has sparked its own controversies across the state and country, with some parents and critics questioning the ways social studies teachers talk to students about history and the groups of people whose history is covered in class.

In November, the Colorado State Board of Education voted along party lines, 4 to 3, to adopt more inclusive standards for social studies and bring back references to marginalized groups, including Native Hawaiians and Paci c Islanders, Colorado Public Radio reported. e vote came after both public support and opposition, including a failed attempt to instead use the conservative American Birthright social studies standards.

In proposing to do away with social studies tests on state assessments, Sen. Janice Marchman, a Loveland Democrat, aims to ease testing burdens on kids and educators and save the state money for what she sees as more pressing education needs — including paying teachers more and keeping class sizes low.

“It’s hard to do that when we have so many commitments to pay for things like tests,” said Marchman, a prime sponsor of Senate Bill 61. “In my mind, this was low-hanging fruit.”

e state pays Pearson, a global company that provides textbooks, assessments and other education materials, more than $1 million per year for social studies state tests alone, according to Marchman.

Social studies is the only subject that the state mandates students be tested on. e federal government requires students to be assessed on the other subjects that are part of the Colorado Measures of Academic Success — English language arts, mathematics and science.

e state originally required that all students take a state exam in social studies in elementary, middle and high school, according to Jeremy Meyer, spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Education. In 2015, lawmakers passed legislation scaling back social studies testing on state standardized exams, changing the state’s approach to testing so that only a sample of schools would test students in elementary, middle and high school in social studies. e state used a staggered schedule, dividing schools into three groups with each group facilitating social studies state testing once every three years. A 2020 bill passed into law further reduced testing by eliminating social studies state exams for high schoolers altogether.

Students in fourth and seventh grades still technically are required to take state assessments in social studies when their school is up for testing every three years, but the state has halted social studies testing since 2019, in part because testing was paused in 2020 during the pandemic and modied in 2021. e state has continued to suspend testing in social studies in light of social studies standards having to be updated, which was completed with the State Board of Education’s vote in November. All state academic standards are evaluated on a six-year cycle.

Meyer noted that should the state stop testing elementary and middle school students if Senate Bill 61 passes, there would be no impact on school accountability as the exam results are not incorporated into Colorado’s school accountability system.

Marchman, whose career has included working as a middle school gifted and talented teacher and remediating small groups of middle schoolers who need extra help in math, sees an opportunity to lighten students’ testing load and even free them up from a day of exams. Schools often try to spread out testing to help students feel less pressure on state assessments, she said, noting that often means schools devote an additional day to social studies exams for fourth and seventh graders.

Mark Sass, who taught high school social studies for 26 years, most recently at Legacy High School in Broomeld, supports the end of state social studies testing so long as lawmakers are thoughtful about how they spend the savings. He’d like to see at least part of the money directed to CDE to help them nd ways to increase participation on state assessments in other subjects, especially science, which has a low participation rate.

“We have to prioritize resources right now,” said Sass, who is executive director of Teach Plus Colorado, which helps teachers inform education policies. “And participation rates with math, English and science as well as social studies were down, and so … if we take this o the table and this then allows districts and schools to be able to increase participation rates in the other exams, then I would say, let’s prioritize that, let’s do that and let’s get rid of the social studies exam.”

But one question hovers top of mind for him.

“How does the state ensure or monitor that districts indeed are using standards that meet or exceed those standards that were set by the state?” Sass asked.

Marchman is con dent that district assessments can e ectively measure how well students are meeting state standards in social studies. District assessments will have to be tweaked after updates to the state’s social studies standards, and Marchman believes districts can show through their own assessments that they are meeting the revised state standards.

She added that educators have more control over district-level assessments and can better use the results to inform their instruction. Whereas teachers don’t receive CMAS results until the summer after students are tested in the spring, district assessments are graded much quicker. Teachers can use the results to adjust their instruction throughout the school year as they see

immediately what concepts students grasp and areas where they lag behind, Marchman said.

Teachers, not outside testing organizations, should take the lead in determining what each student should know by grade level, she said.

“Who better to do that than the teachers who are held accountable to the standards of that grade level?” Marchman asked.

But Sass said that should social studies state tests be pulled, it will be up to each district to decide how they want to test their students. Some districts may not prioritize testing in social studies since it would not be a priority for the state, he said.

State Rep. Meghan Lukens, a Democrat from Steamboat Springs who is co-sponsoring the bill, said tests are an important part of measuring student learning but is adamant that students can bene t long term from other ways of engaging with class material through debates, simulations, mock trials and civic-based projects.

“Social studies is essential to the success of our democracy, and we will still be teaching social studies,” said Lukens, who previously taught social studies for eight years, last at Steamboat Springs High School. “Students will still be learning social studies, and just because students aren’t being tested by a state-mandated assessment doesn’t mean that there won’t be engagement in social studies. In fact, there’s a lot of evidence that there are more e ective and authentic ways to maximize student engagement in every subject.”

Other lawmakers, however, worry that doing away with social studies state tests will lead Colorado classrooms astray.

“Certainly we’d be moving in the wrong direction,” said Minority Leader Sen. Paul Lundeen, a Monument Republican. “I care deeply about democracy. I care deeply about understanding social studies because that helps us understand who we are as a state and as a country and as a people.”

Lundeen noted that this year’s state education budget will total about $15 billion, and that the amount the state would save by axing social studies state exams would be “minuscule” in comparison. ose funds are “well spent,” he said.

Testing is also a critical part of helping students know that they’re actually learning what they set out to, Lundeen said, adding that social studies is one of the “core elements” of education that warrants assessments.

“Testing on social studies demonstrates our commitment to civil society, to understanding civics, to understanding the Constitution, to understanding the rights we have as people,” Lundeen said, “and to turn our back on that is an error.”

is story is from e Colorado Sun, a journalist-owned news outlet based in Denver and covering the state. For more, and to support e Colorado Sun, visit coloradosun.com. e Colorado Sun is a partner in the Colorado News Conservancy, owner of Colorado Community Media.

A BEAUTIFUL DISPLAY OF IRISH DANCE FOR ALL AGES!

Creek is 5A state swim champ

Bruins take title for third year in a row

BY JIM BENTON SPECIAL TO COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA

Cherry Creek’s Lawson Ficken won two events, Charlotte Wilson captured a third individual title and the Bruins’ three relay teams were also rst.

at all added up to Cherry Creek winning its third straight Class 5A state swimming championship on Feb. 10 at the Veterans Memorial Aquatic Center in ornton.

It was the 29th overall state title for the Bruins since the sport was rst sanctioned in 1972.

“It’s always fun to win,” said Cherry Creek coach Karin Olmstead Dinsdale. “ is is an amazing group of kids. We have seven that have carried on the last four years and they have become part of my family and in many ways they are a special group.

“ e leadership we have on this team has been really good. When these seniors lost four years ago and were runners-up, they came back with vengeance and said never again. ey love to win and I love that.

ey’ve got that taste of winning.

Cherry Creek’s dominance can put a lot of pressure on Bruins swimmers to keep being one of the top state contending teams each season, but it seems like nobody feels any undue pressure.

“Pressure is a privilege,” added Dinsdale, who is a former Cherry Creek swimmer.

“I agree pressure is a privilege and I’m really lucky to be in a scenario to feel that. I put it on myself because I don’t want to let my team down but it’s fun. It’s de nitely scary. I was really nervous and I just tried to channel mine into being excited.”

Cherry Creek amassed 448 points in the title victory while Regis Jesuit was the runner-up with 367.5 points.

Two-time Class 4A state champion Heritage, which this season moved up to 5A, was third with 321 points. e Eagles’ Mary Macauley, a two-time state champ last season, added the Class 5A 200 IM individual championship with a winning time of 2:00.67.

Ficken, a senior who will continue her education and swimming at Auburn next season, won the 50 freestyle in 22.64 and the 100 freestyle with a time of 48.77.

“It feels so good,” she said. “I’m just so lucky to swim with these girls and I’m just so honored to be able to pick it up and compete.”

Wilson, a junior, captured the 100 backstroke in 52.95.

Both Ficken and Wilson were on the 200 freestyle relay team along with Alexis Greenhawt and Ana Loveridge that set a state record in the preliminaries and then broke it in the nals.

e Creek foursome turned in a 1:30.81 clocking in the nals which was 11 hundredths of a second o the national record.

In the 200 medley relay, Wilson, Katie Cohen, Maren McDonald and Alana Maxey won in 1:47.81 while Creek’s 400 relay team of Greenhawt, Ficken, Loveridge and Teagan Steinmetz won with a time of 3:23.66.

Cherry Creek’s girls swimming team won its third straight state championship and 29th overall on Feb. 10.

PHOTOS BY JIM BENTON

Cherry Creek’s girls swimming team celebrates winning the 5A state swimming championship in Thornton.

Falcons girls getting tougher

BY JIM BENTON SPECIAL TO COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA

Hard work is starting to pay dividends for Highlands Ranch basketball player Ezra Simonich.

Simonich, a 5-foot-10 sophomore, scored 23 points on Feb. 7 in a Continental League showdown against Regis Jesuit which matched two top ten teams in the CHSAANow state rankings.

“I’ve been working real hard to get my shot going and I felt like the habit paid off,” said Simonich.

She made five 3-point baskets to lead the way for the fifth-ranked Falcons, who used a strong second and third periods in which they outscored the Raiders 38-19 to pull away from the Raiders, who came into the game ranked sixth.

“We passed really well and we came out a lot faster and harder than we have this season,” added Simonich. “That’s why we got up and then we were able to keep that throughout the game. We’ve grown a lot. We all know where each other is at and we’re really playing well as a team.”

“The kids played great as a team,” said Falcons coach Caryn Jarocki. “They actually executed the game plan better than we have in the past. They are learning to take what we learn in practice and executing that in the game.”

Highlands Ranch’s varsity roster is young with five freshman, three sophomores and two seniors.

“We are a very young team and they are growing by leaps and bounds,” Jarocki said. “They are getting tougher every day. They have been thrusted into roles that they shouldn’t have to play but they are. They are young and they are doing it. I’m proud of them.

“Now the sky is the limit. I think they are feeling the fever of it. They are gaining confidence every day.”

The Falcons’ two seniors, Maddie Groth and Bailey Williamson, had 12 and 10 points respectively against Regis.

In the game against Legend on Feb. 7, the Falcons rolled to a 50-39 victory.

Highlands Ranch faced piggyback league first place games against both Regis and Legend and won both contests.

With two games remaining in the regular season, the Falcons are 8-0 in the league and 18-3 overall. Legend is 7-1 and 14-7 while ThunderRidge is 7-2 in the league and Regis 6-2.

Jarocki swelled her Colorado all-best winning mark to 716-186 in 34 years of coaching, including the first 11 seasons at Colorado Academy. She has helped Highlands Ranch win seven state championships.

Isabella Shumpert (22) of Highlands Ranch gets a rebound slapped away by a Regis Jesuit player during the Feb. 7 game in which the Falcons won, 65-43.

Tori Baker (1) of Highlands Ranch drives around Lexi Meyer of Regis Jesuit during the Feb. 7 game. The Falcons won, 65-43, to remain unbeaten in the league. PHOTOS BY JIM BENTON

Highlands Ranch hoops team is young but playing hard

that end, that would also make it difcult for the airport to restrict those.”

Fronapfel said that because the airport has accepted federal funds, it is limited in what it can do, adding that the airport doesn’t have jurisdiction over the airspace as the FAA does. He noted that the federal grant dollars are paid for by the users of the airport, not the taxpayers in the jurisdictions.

When asked if it is possible to establish a capacity limit of how many aircraft are allowed within the tra c pattern at a time, Fronapfel said he is not sure.

“I don’t believe it is. I don’t believe we can arti cially dictate what that limit is. However, that being said, we are getting legal advice on that,” he said.

Fronapfel and members of the Arapahoe County Public Airport Authority Board of Commissioners met with an aviation attorney in private before the Feb. 9 board meeting to get legal advice and understand what their legal parameters are.

Afterwards, during the board meeting, Arapahoe County Commissioner Jessica Campbell-Swanson said she had a lot more hope going into that meeting than she did coming out.

“I am crestfallen and frustrated about our own ability,” Campbell-Swanson said. “We were very disappointed in what we heard, in what the … airport’s capabilities and authority is.”

Fronapfel said the legal expert will attend the next roundtable meeting, scheduled for March 1, to give the same presentation that was given to the board and to answer questions from the public.

Airport’s next steps

Any solution has to involve the FAA

being at the table, Fronapfel said Feb. 6.

“I’m hoping that as we get more evidence that shows that it was the management of the tra c versus the amount of tra c in the pattern, that that’ll help our argument with the FAA to revisit that again,” he said. “I think there are de nitely avenues to a solution, we just haven’t reached the nal solution yet.”

During the Feb. 9 meeting, Fronapfel shared ve measures the airport wants to pursue:

1. Communicate with the FAA to nd solutions to minimize the extension of the tra c pattern. 2. Communicate with the ight schools so they can reduce the number of times the pattern gets extended when they are not actively being given FAA instructions.

3. Work with legal counsel to understand the airport’s ability to reduce the community’s exposure to aircraft noise and lead emissions.  4. Meet with ight schools, xed-base operators and their fuel suppliers to expedite having an FAA-approved unleaded alternative fuel available.  5. Provide the airport board with recommendations “and possibly a draft resolution” at the March meeting that outlines nancial initiatives the airport can provide to accelerate the transition to unleaded fuel.

Dubler of Quiet Skies Over Arapahoe County gave members of the board a document with proposed solutions, such as issuing landing fees for aircrafts and fees for leaded fuels.

It was decided some members of the board and members of Quiet Skies Over Arapahoe County would meet together in a smaller working group to further discuss the potential solutions.  “ is group is committed to working with the neighborhood and with you all. We are as frustrated as you are,” said ad Bagnato, chair of the board of commissioners. “We are, again, as committed as you are to try to nd a solution.”

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Bennet pushes Apple, Google to drop TikTok

BY CAITLYN KIM COLORADO PUBLIC RADIO

Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet shares the same national security concerns as many other lawmakers over the popular, Chinese-owned social media app TikTok.

And he wants to see something done quickly.

Bennet has written to the heads of Apple and Google asking them “to remove TikTok from your respective app stores immediately.”

e Democrat, who sits on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, points out in his letter to Apple’s Tim Cook and Alphabet’s (Google’s parent company) Sundar Pichai, that the app “collects vast and sophisticated data from users,

including faceprints and voice prints.”

“TikTok poses a unique concern because Chinese law obligates ByteDance, its Beijing-based parent company, to ‘support, assist and cooperate with state intelligence work.’”

Bennet is worried that the Chinese Communist Party “could weaponize TikTok against the United States.”

TikTok has more than 100 million users in the United States, according to Bennet’s letter.

It’s these same privacy and national security concerns that led Colorado GOP Rep. Ken Buck and Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley to introduce a bill last week to ban TikTok in the United States.

“ ey are gathering

Public Notices

Legals

Public Trustees

NOTICE OF UNCLAIMED OVERBID FUNDS CRS 38-38-111(2.5b)(3a,b,d)(5)

PUBLIC TRUSTEE SALE NO. 0320-2022

To: Obligor/Grantor(s) on the evidence of debt and/or Deed of Trust or other person entitled.

You are advised that there are overbid funds due you. This Notice is given with regard to the following described Deed of Trust:

Name of Obligor/Grantor(s) on the evidence of debt and/or Deed of Trust

Dylan Dick

Address of Obligor/Grantor(s) on the evidence of debt and/or Deed of Trust

15700 E Jamison Dr Unit 1-305, Centennial, CO 80112

Recording Date of Deed of Trust October 22, 2020

Recording Information E0144226 Book: N/A Page:

Legal Description of Property

See Attached Legal Description Street Address of Property 15700 E Jamison Dr Unit 1-305, Centennial, CO 80112

NOTICE OF UNCLAIMED OVERBID FUNDS

I sold at public auction, at 10:00 A.M. on 10/26/22, at The East Hearing Room, County Administration Building, 5334 South Prince Street, Littleton, Colorado, 80120, to the highest and best bidder for cash, the real property described above. An overbid was realized from the sale and the funds must be claimed by the Obligor/Grantor(s) on the evidence of debt and/or Deed of Trust or other persons entitled thereto within six months from the date of sale.

THE STATE OF COLORADO REQUIRES US

TO NOTIFY YOU THAT YOUR PROPERTY MAY BE TRANSFERRED TO THE CUSTODY OF THE STATE TREASURER IF YOU DO NOT CONTACT US BEFORE 4/26/2023 as part of the "Revised Uniform Unclaimed Property Act", pursuant to Colorado law.

First Publication: 1/26/23

Last Publication: 2/23/23

Name of Publication: Littleton Independent

Date: 12/29/22

Michael Westerberg, Public Trustee in and for the County of Arapahoe, State of Colorado

By: Michael Westerberg, Public Trustee

©Public Trustees' Association of Colorado Revised 9/2012

Legal Notice NO. 0320-2022

First Publication: 1/26/23

Last Publication: 2/23/23

Name of Publication: Littleton Independent

COMBINED NOTICE - PUBLICATION CRS §38-38-103

FORECLOSURE SALE NO. 0590-2022

To Whom It May Concern: This Notice is given with regard to the following described Deed of Trust: On November 22, 2022, the undersigned Public Trustee caused the Notice of Election and Demand relating to the Deed of Trust described below to be recorded in the County of Arapahoe records. Original Grantor(s) Randall M. Johnson

information on Americans that they will use in a cyber war against America,” Buck told CPR News, noting a user might not think much of giving the company their birth date. But add that to their bank information and other personal information, and the result could be used against them. “And if we don’t seek to protect Americans that don’t understand and don’t understand what the Chinese Communist Party is doing, we’re making a big mistake.” Buck said he’s asking for the platform to be purchased by a U.S. company if it wants to keep operating in the United States.

e two GOP lawmakers got a bill passed last Congress banning TikTok on

LLC,

Legal Notice NO. 0590-2022

First Publication: 1/26/2023

government devices, but it took over a year and half to make it through the process to the president’s desk.

Going straight to the companies might limit access sooner than a bill through Congress, if they’re interested in complying.

Lawmakers will get a chance to ask TikTok’s chief

Shellpoint Mortgage Servicing

Pursuant to CRS §38-38-101(4)(i), you are hereby notified that the covenants of the deed of trust have been violated as follows: Failure to pay principal and interest when due together with all other payments provided for in the evidence of debt secured by the Deed of Trust and other violations thereof

THE LIEN FORECLOSED MAY NOT BE A FIRST LIEN.

LOT 1, BLOCK 8, SOUTHCREEK SUBDIVISION, FILING NO. 1, COUNTY OF ARAPAHOE, STATE OF COLORADO

Also known by street and number as: 15902 E Nichols Ave, Englewood, CO 80112.

THE PROPERTY DESCRIBED HEREIN IS ALL OF THE PROPERTY CURRENTLY ENCUMBERED BY THE LIEN OF THE DEED OF TRUST.

NOTICE OF SALE

The current holder of the Evidence of Debt secured by the Deed of Trust, described herein, has filed Notice of Election and Demand for sale as provided by law and in said Deed of Trust.

THEREFORE, Notice Is Hereby Given that I will at public auction, at 10:00 A.M. on Wednesday, 03/22/2023, at The East Hearing Room, County Administration Building, 5334 South Prince Street, Littleton, Colorado, 80120, sell to the highest and best bidder for cash, the said real property and all interest of the said Grantor(s), Grantor(s)' heirs and assigns therein, for the purpose of paying the indebtedness provided in said Evidence of Debt secured by the Deed of Trust, plus attorneys' fees, the expenses of sale and other items allowed by law, and will issue to the purchaser a Certificate of Purchase, all as provided by law.

First Publication: 1/26/2023

Last Publication: 2/23/2023

Name of Publication: Littleton Independent

IF THE SALE DATE IS CONTINUED TO A LATER DATE, THE DEADLINE TO FILE A

NOTICE OF INTENT TO CURE BY THOSE PARTIES ENTITLED TO CURE MAY ALSO BE EXTENDED;

DATE: 11/22/2022

Susan Sandstrom, Public Trustee in and for the County of Arapahoe, State of Colorado

By: Susan Sandstrom, Public Trustee

The name, address, business telephone number and bar registration number of the attorney(s) representing the legal holder of the indebtedness is:

Erin Croke #46557

Steven Bellanti #48306

Holly Shilliday #24423

Ilene Dell'Acqua #31755

McCarthy & Holthus LLP 7700 E Arapahoe Road, Suite 230, Centennial, CO 80112 (877) 369-6122

Attorney File # CO-22-947588-LL

The

©Public

executive questions next month, when he’s scheduled to testify in front of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

is story is from CPR News, a nonpro t news source. Used by permission. For more, and to support Colorado Public Radio, visit cpr.org.

Last Publication: 2/23/2023

Name of Publication: Littleton Independent City and County

Public Notice

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY

FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY

Proposed Flood Hazard Determinations for Arapahoe County, Colorado and Incorporated Areas

The Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency has issued a preliminary Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM), and where applicable, Flood Insurance Study (FIS) report, reflecting proposed flood hazard determinations within Arapahoe County, Colorado and Incorporated Areas. These flood hazard determinations may include the addition or modification of Base Flood Elevations, base flood depths, Special Flood Hazard Area boundaries or zone designations, or the regulatory floodway. Technical information or comments are solicited on the proposed flood hazard determinations shown on the preliminary FIRM and/or FIS report for Arapahoe County, Colorado and Incorporated Areas. These flood hazard determinations are the basis for the floodplain management measures that your community is required to either adopt or show evidence of being already in effect in order to qualify or remain qualified for participation in the National Flood Insurance Program. However, before these determinations are effective for floodplain management purposes, you will be provided an opportunity to appeal the proposed information.

For information on the statutory 90-day period provided for appeals, as well as a complete listing of the communities affected and the locations where copies of the FIRM are available for review, please visit FEMA’s website at https://www. floodmaps.fema.gov/fhm/BFE_Status/bfe_main. asp or call the FEMA Mapping and Insurance eXchange (FMIX) toll free at 1-877-FEMA MAP (1-877-336-2627).

Legal Notice No. 531023-60023

First Publication: February 9, 2023

Last Publication: February 16, 2023

Publisher: Englewood Herald Littleton Independent and the Centennial Citizen

Public Notice

CITY OF CENTENNIAL

NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the City Council of the City of Centennial, Colorado will conduct a public hearing on Tuesday, March 7, 2023 at 7:00 p.m. regarding ORDINANCE 2023-O-02, AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF CENTENNIAL, COLORADO

AMENDING SECTIONS OF ARTICLE 3, TITLED MUNICIPAL COURT, OF CHAPTER 2 OF THE CENTENNIAL MUNICIPAL CODE. The public hearing will be held at the Centennial Civic Center, 13133 E. Arapahoe Road, Council Chambers, Centennial, Colorado 80112. Copies of Ordinance No. 2023-O-02 are available for inspection by the public on the City’s website: www.centennialco. gov. Interested parties may file written comments with the City Clerk, at: councilcomments@centennialco.gov or by mailing them to City Clerk, 13133 E. Arapahoe Rd, Centennial, CO 80112 any time prior to March 7, 2023. Any written comments received will be provided to City Council prior to the Public Hearing and made part of the record.

/s/Barbara Setterlind, MMC, City Clerk

Legal Notice No. 531049-60049

Public Notice

ARAPAHOE COUNTY NOTICE OF FINAL SETTLEMENT

To whom it may concern: This notice is given with regard to items in the custody of the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office that have been released for public auction. The Sheriff’s Office will release numerous items including but not limited to, bicycles, jewelry, audio/ visual equipment, automotive parts, tools, sports equipment (such as camping, rafting, skiing gear, etc.), household goods and other items of personal property to a private auction company identified as Roller Auction. These items will be released for on-line bidding on the last Tuesday of each month and the auction is open to the public.

If any citizen believes they have property in the possession of the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office that can be identified, and for which they can show proof of ownership associated with a written report that has been filed with the Sheriff’s Office prior to this announcement, can contact the evidence section of the Sheriff’s Office.

Joan Lopez, Clerk to the Board

Legal Notice No. Arap 1154

First Publication: February 16, 2023

Last Publication: February 16, 2023

Publisher: Englewood Herald Littleton Independent and the Centennial Citizen

PUBLIC NOTICE

CITY OF CENTENNIAL

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that on Tuesday, February 14, 2023, the Centennial City Council passed on first reading:

ORDINANCE NO. 2023-O-02

AN ORDINANCE OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF CENTENNIAL, COLORADO

AMENDING SECTIONS OF ARTICLE 3, TITLED

MUNICIPAL COURT, OF CHAPTER 2 OF THE CENTENNIAL MUNICIPAL CODE

The full text of the ordinance is available for public inspection in the office of the City Clerk. The ordinance may be obtained by contacting the City Clerk, 303-754-3324. The full text of the ordinance is also available on the City’s web site, www.centennialcolorado.com.

By:Barbara Setterlind, MMC, City Clerk

Legal Notice No. 531050-60050

First Publication: February 16, 2023

Last Publication: February 16, 2023

Publisher: Littleton Independent and the Centennial Citizen

Metropolitan Districts

Public Notice

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS

§§ 1-13.5-501; 1-13.5-303, C.R.S.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN, and, particularly, to the eligible electors of the Southglenn Metropolitan District No. 2, City of Centennial, Arapahoe County, Colorado (the “District”).

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that an election will be held on May 2, 2023, between the hours of 7:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. At that time, two (2) directors will be elected to serve until May 2025 and three (3) directors will be elected to serve until May 2027. Eligible electors of the District interested in serving on the board of directors may obtain a Self-Nomination and Acceptance Form from the Designated Election Official (“DEO”) at 2154 E. Commons Ave., Suite 2000, Centennial, CO 80122 or via telephone at 303-858-1800, between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. Self-Nomination and Acceptance

Forms are also available online at https://whitebearankele.com/.

The deadline to submit a Self-Nomination and Acceptance Form is the close of business (5:00 p.m.) on Friday, February 24, 2023. If the DEO determines a Self-Nomination and Acceptance Form is not sufficient, the form may be amended prior to 5:00 p.m. on February 24, 2023. Earlier submittal is encouraged as the deadline will not permit curing of an insufficient form after this date and time. An Affidavit of Intent to be a Write-In Candidate must be submitted to the office of the DEO by the close of business (5:00 p.m.) on Monday, February 27, 2023.

NOTICE IS FURTHER GIVEN that information on obtaining an absentee ballot may be obtained from the DEO, and applications for an absentee ballot must be filed with the DEO no later than the close of business (5:00 p.m.) on April 25, 2023.

SOUTHGLENN METROPOLITAN DISTRICT NO. 2

By: Designated Election Official Legal Notice No. 531048-60048

First Publication: February 16, 2023

Last Publication: February 16, 2023

Publisher: Littleton Independent and the Centennial Citizen

Bids and Settlements

Public Notice ARAPAHOE COUNTY NOTICE OF FINAL SETTLEMENT ARAPAHOE COUNTY 17-Mile House Utility Improvements Project No. C21-21

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the Board of County Commissioners of Arapahoe County, Colorado shall make final settlement with Dream Builders, Inc. for its work completed for Arapahoe County on the project identified as 17-Mile House Utility Improvements Project. The work generally consisted of installation of a domestic water into the home, connection of a sanitary sewer to the existing leech field, and installation of an irrigation system.

Any person, co-partnership, association of persons, company or corporation that has furnished labor, materials, team hire, sustenance, provisions, provender or other supplies used or consumed or any of its subcontractors or that has supplied rental machinery, tools, or equipment to the extent used by Dream Builders, Inc. or any of its subcontractors in or about the performance of the work done within unincorporated Arapahoe County, whose claim has not been paid by Concrete Express, Inc. or any of its subcontractors may file a claim with the Board of County Commissioners of Arapahoe County, 5334 S. Prince St., Littleton, CO 80120, at any time up to and including February 27, 2023.

This Notice is published in accordance with §3826-107, C.R.S., and all claims, if any, shall be filed in accordance with this statutory section. Failure on the part of any claimant to file such verified statement and/or claim prior to the aforementioned date for filing claims shall release Arapahoe County, its officers, agents and employees from any or all liability, claims, and suits for payment to Dream Builders, Inc.

Joan Lopez, Clerk to the Board

Legal Notice No. Arap 1149

First Publication: February 9, 2023

Last Publication: February 16, 2023

Publisher: Littleton Independent ###

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