Commerce City hires new police chief

Commerce City native Guadnola gets job

Police Department and most recently as a division chief for the Wheat Ridge Police Department. Guadnola led the city’s support services division, overseeing investigations, records, training and accreditation and crime analysis.

of the department values of Trust, Respect, Excellence, Leadership, and Restraint. I can’t wait to get to work.”

Commerce City picked former resident and Wheat Ridge Police o cer Darrel Guadnola as the city’s next chief of police.

Guadnola is scheduled to take over leadership of the Commerce City Police Department on March 6, replacing current interim Chief Richard W. Myers.

A long line of cars outside the city of Brighton’s rapid testing site at Riverdale Regional Park. The site has had to close early many days in recent weeks due to high demand. Adams County’s 14-day test positivity rate was 15.9 percent, as of Nov. 17, according to Tri-County Health Department. Brighton and Commerce City’s test positivity rates were both higher than 13 percent. Forty- ve people in Brighton and 29 in Commerce City have died from COVID-19 related health issues. To limit the spread of COVID-19, at least 15 counties moved to tighter restrictions that prohibits indoor and personal gatherings.

A lifelong Coloradan who spent part of his childhood in Commerce City, Guadnola has worked in law enforcement for 27 years, rst as an o cer in Brighton.

He later joined Greenwood Village

“I am humbled and grateful for the opportunity to serve this community as chief of police,” said Guadnola in written statement from the city. “As a former and future resident of Commerce City, I look forward to strengthening relationships between the community and the police department to address public safety needs as the city continues to grow. I am committed to serving in a manner re ective a new level of rules that prohibits indoor dining and personal gatherings — a change that applies to the majority of the Denver metro area and many counties in other regions.

Guadnola has also served as an investigations commander who routinely oversaw investigations into o cer involved shootings. He also helped develop the department’s naloxone program and a full-service computer forensic investigations lab. Other assignments in his Colorado law enforcement career include detective sergeant, eld training o cer sergeant, crisis negotiations team sergeant, investigator, rearms instructor, and negotiator.

“ is position garnered a highly quali ed and competitive candidate pool, and we were committed to a e state’s COVID-19 dial, which has been in e ect since September, is the set of di erent levels of restrictions that each

SEE CHIEF, P3 county is required to follow based on the severity of a county’s local virus spread. e dial grew out of the state’s safer-athome order — the policy that came a er the statewide stay-at-home order this spring and allowed numerous types of businesses to reopen. e state recently switched to color identi ers — levels blue, yellow and orange rather than numbered levels — to avoid confusion. Until Nov. 17, level red meant a stay-at-home order. Now, level red — “severe risk” — is the second-

“Among other things, the governor has asked us to identify ways to support customers in the most dire circumstances, improve access to and the capacity of the bill assistance program, nd ways to incentivize utilities to reduce customer costs, analyze approaches for limiting bill spikes, and to expand public engagement on these issues before the end PUC,” he said.

Blank said he didn’t know how the PUC would take action on this directive right now, but they would continue addressing a ordability in the coming weeks.

One way the PUC can make progress is driving down base rates, Commissioner Megan Gilman said. Under the current rules, a utility seeking to add new infrastructure, such as transmission lines or a power plant, must rst convince PUC regulators that it is necessary. If PUC agrees, it issues a certi cate of public convenience

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