Clear Creek Courant 011923

Our in-depth look at the housing crisis

Vehicle rolls over, causes structure damage near Safeway in Idaho Springs

BY OLIVIA JEWELL LOVE OLOVE@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

A vehicle rollover crash occurred at the southwest portion of Colorado Boulevard and 24th Avenue near the Safeway grocery store in Idaho Springs.

According to an Idaho Springs Police Department press release, Idaho Springs Police O cers and Clear Creek EMS responded to the call of a vehicle rollover at 12:41 p.m. on Jan. 10 and found the driver unconscious in the vehicle. ere were no passengers.

EMS performed life saving measures on the 44-year-old driver, and he was transported to St. Anthony’s Hospital in Lakewood. e patient was last known to be in critical condition.

BY TAYLER SHAW AND LUKE ZARZECKI COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA

A home means everything to Shelley Gilson, a 50-year-old single mother of three girls who works as a guest service agent at an airline.  “It’s one word: priceless,” she

said.

e rising cost of housing in the Denver area has made it di cult for her to a ord a home. She spent years bounding around working for low pay, including to several a ordable housing communities across the state.

Eventually, more than a decade ago, she found a home at Orchard Crossing Apartments in Westminster. It is an a ordable housing community that includes Section 8 housing, the federal government program that provides vouchers to low-income families, the disabled and elderly.

Investigation of the crash revealed the driver was traveling westbound on Colorado Blvd and crossed into oncoming tra c, driving onto the sidewalk for nearly an entire block.  e vehicle hit a building at 2401 Colorado Blvd, causing structural damage, and ipped after hitting landscaping rocks.

e cause of the crash remains under investigation by ISPD. No other vehicles were involved.

Chifu’s Cantina opens in Georgetown

Skalski is the owner of Guanella Pass Brewery next door, and Chifu’s Cantina is his newest business venture. Skalski wants to take a backseat in this venture though, focusing the restaurant on “Chifu” himself.

BY OLIVIA JEWELL LOVE OLOVE@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

A new Mexican restaurant opened in Georgetown, and the chefs are sure the authentic menu will blow you away.

Chifu’s Cantina opened its doors for the rst time on Jan. 7 and saw a great crowd on opening day, according to Steve Skalski.

Roberto Lopez or “Chifu” was well-known in Boulder for his authentic Mexican cuisine. When one of the brewmasters from Guanella saw him in Georgetown after he left Colorado to run a food truck on the coast, they knew they needed to lock him down.

“We did it kind of on a whim because of Taylor’s (brewer’s) relationship with Chifu,” Skalski said.

Opening a restaurant just made

space next to the brewery.

Chifu and Zahira Romero, better known as Chef Z, are the heart and soul of the restaurant. ey have a combined 35 years in the industry and know how to serve food that keeps people coming back.

“Our goal is to be known all over the area,” Chef Z said. “We want to be the one spot everyone wants to go.”

e pair are both chefs, with Chifu mostly occupying front of house and Chef Z running the kitchen.

e menu o ers a variety of authentic Mexican food, with everything homemade. So far, the enchi-

proved to be popular menu items.  No matter where he’s serving food, Chifu said one thing is always true: “Everybody loves my food.”  e pair are in the process of moving up to Georgetown, to make this new restaurant truly locally operated.

“I want people to know this is a family-friendly environment and considered a family-owned business,” Chef Z said.

e restaurant is open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday and is located at 505 Rose St. in Georgetown.

Ifyouarehurtfromabadcarcrash, it’slife-changing.Medicalbillsand insurancecompaniesmakeitworse. It’sfreetotalkwithagoodlawyer aboutgettingsomehelp.

Chifu (right) with bartender Eddie Fuentes serving up food.

Chef Z working her magic in the kitchen.

PHOTOS PROVIDED BY STEVE SKALSKI

El Rancho reopens after getting its liquor license

BY DEB HURLEY BROBST DBROBST@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

El Rancho restaurant has opened. e restaurant, which had a soft opening Jan. 11, got its liquor license from Je erson County on Jan. 13 and opened that day, according to Olivia Mo ett, a spokeswoman for Bonanno Concepts, which is operating the restaurant.

Denver restaurateurs Frank and Jacqueline Bonanno, who own seven restaurants in the Denver area, will operate the historic restaurant to be called El Rancho Colorado that closed abruptly last summer.

e dinner menu includes a bit of everything: comfort food, wild game, steaks, sandwiches, a touch of Mexican and things chef Frank Bonanno is having fun playing with, Mo ett explained. ere’s also a big salad bar.

It is open for dinner Wednesdays through Sundays, with live music on Friday and Saturday nights. Breakfast, brunch and lunch will be added, and the brewery should be operating soon.

“We will work our way to a sevenday schedule but with no real timeline,” Mo ett said. “We will have to see how sta ng goes.”

Mo ett promises that El Rancho looks much like patrons remember with a few updates such as reupholstered chairs and more art.

“We’re put tiny new touches on it,”

she said. “We’re proud of how it’s come together.”

El Rancho is celebrating its 75th year, and it’s exciting to be part of the next era of history, Mo ett said, noting, “We want to do it right.”

History

e El Rancho restaurant opened in a log cabin in 1947. In 1953, a banquet room and gift shop were added, plus it became designated as a post o ce. When Interstate 70 was being built in the mid-1960s, the owners convinced the Colorado highway department to name the exit “El Rancho.”

According to Golden History Park and Museum, El Rancho is said to have the most photographed view of the Continental Divide in America.

El Rancho has had several owners over the last few decades, and the owners who bought the property in 2015 abruptly closed the restaurant this past summer after a nasty battle over the restaurant’s management.

In November, Jack and Sherry Buchanan of Evergreen with Northstar Ventures and Travis McAfoos bought the El Rancho property for $2.7 million, and they signed a lease and operating agreement with Bonanno Concepts.

Northstar Ventures will not be involved in the restaurant’s operation. Instead, it will focus on working to develop the parcel across the street from El Rancho.

Cars filled the parking lot on Jan. 11 at El Rancho Colorado as the new operators, Bonanno Concepts, held a soft opening.

PHOTOS BY DEB HURLEY BROBST

Bartenders wait behind the bar to create beverages for guests.

The Long Way Home Examining the impacts of the housing crisis

People across the metro area are struggling to a ord a place to live. Minimum wage earners might spend upwards of 60% of their paychecks on rent. Many millennials, now entering their 40s, have accumulated less wealth than prior generations and are struggling to nd a rst home they can a ord. At the same time, those who might sell, baby boomers, are prone to hold onto their homes, unable to downsize in the supercharged market. ese and other factors, including homelessness, a history of racial disparities where 71% of white Coloradans own homes but only 42% of Black Coloradans do, and a slow down in building that began more than a decade ago during the Great Recession, add up to constitute what some experts call a crisis in housing a ordability and availability.

Over the last six months, two dozen journalists, editors and sta at Colorado Community Media worked to answer questions on why this is happening, how

we got here and what the solutions are. e work to nd the answers carried our journalists along the Front Range to talk to mayors, housing authorities, experts and, most importantly, lower- and middle-class families experiencing the crisis rst hand.

Our reporters and editors also held focus groups, talking directly to prospective homebuyers, like the single mom worried that another rent increase could land her in her car and the real estate agent who understood the problems but worried about a lack of solutions.

Over the next four weeks, Colorado Community Media provides an in-depth look at how the current crisis impacts our communities. In Week 1, e Long Way Home breaks down how we got here. On Week 4, we look at how local, state and federal governments are investing millions of dollars into a range of possible solutions – from helping the homeless to a ordable housing programs.

“I wanted my kids to have a stable education and stable housing,” she said.

From work to school to neighborhood events, the program has created a way for Gilson’s family to be a part of a community. With housing and communities come resources, though not all are created equal. Gilson explained that in her prior communities — predominantly lower socioeconomic status and people of color — it resulted in a lack of resources, such as academic and mental health.

at’s why she moved to Westminster, where she has lived for 12 years.

It’s not just low-income residents who struggle to a ord housing. Across the metro area and along the Front Range, rising in ation and mortgage rates, a long-term building slowdown and increasingly crowded cities and towns have combined to create what some observers and experts say is a housing crisis.

More and more people throughout the metro area are nding the cost of renting or buying a home eating up signi cant portions of their budgets.

“ at’s the No. 1 reason that people move, is they can’t keep up

with their rent (and) utilities payments,” said Heidi Aggeler, managing director and co-founder of Root Policy Research, a Denver-based community planning and housing research rm.

ere’s a term for it: “cost-burdened,” which describes households paying more than 30% of their income on housing. A little more than 700,000 households in Colorado are cost-burdened, most of which are renters, according to a November 2021 report from Root Policy Research.

enough resources to adequately address that.”

People who make $25,000 or less a year have long faced a housing crisis on some level, Aggeler said. But now, the number of people who make more money and are feeling the pinch of high housing costs is growing.

It has become increasingly common for middle-income households with incomes of roughly $35,000-$75,000 to experience cost burden, according to Root Policy Research.

The perfect storm: Many factors lead to today’s housing crisis

BY DEB HURLEY BROBST DBROBST@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Kim Howard of Evergreen has been in her 2,600-square-foot home for 40 years. Now alone, the 70-yearold is looking to downsize and move closer to Denver, but she can’t nd a smaller home with the same or lower mortgage payments.

She feels guilty staying because she knows the house is a perfect size for a young family, but she’s staying because she can’t a ord to move.

Rising interest rates in the last year aren’t helping, since that increases monthly payments on any home she could buy.

“I’m going to wait it out … because it has to make economic sense,” Howard said. “I can’t a ord to move, and that puts a damper on those who want to move in. We need more a ordable housing for retired and rst-time buyers instead of large, expensive homes that we can’t a ord.

“I feel kind of guilty. (Young families) are desperately looking to start their lives, and we senior citizens can’t a ord to move. Unless someone provides for those rst-time home buyers and for seniors who want to downsize, it’s not going to happen.”

Howard’s story is typical of the

issues faced by many in the metro area when it comes to housing. While it seems like the crisis came on suddenly, it cannot be attributed to one moment or incident. Instead, think of it like the spokes on a

Mount Evans means recovery

Each

builders and labor, the dichotomy of home ownership between baby boomers and millennials, and more recently the pandemic, the consequences of the Marshall Fire and the popularity of short-term rentals.

Couple all that with population increasing in metro Denver, and it’s a recipe for disaster for many: higher home prices, increasing number of unhoused, lack of places to both buy or rent, frustrated home buyers and more.

A perfect storm has combined to create what many experts say constitutes a housing crisis throughout the Denver area and into the foothills — from Brighton to Empire and everywhere in between. It’s been brewing since the Great Recession more than a decade ago that created a harsh economic downturn, pushing skilled workers who built homes out of their careers.

It’s been exacerbated by a rising younger population and part-time residents who converted residences in some of the state’s most attractive settings into vacation homes, the skyrocketing costs of homes and increases in interest rates.

“ ere’s no incentive in the traditional market structure that we

Shelley Gilson smiles at the playground at Orchard Crossing in Westminster on Sept. 27, 2022.

PHOTO BY ANDREW FRAIELI

bicycle wheel, with the center being the current housing situation.

spoke contributes to rising costs and shrinking availability, starting with the Great Recession that began in 2007, the loss of

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Another maxim holds that we’re blessed or stuck with the family we were born into; friends, on the other hand, are matters of choice. But are they? Do we consciously and deliberately choose our friends, especially those we grow close to, or are friendships the result of inexplicable or ine able forces?

Have you ever said that so-and-so is like a brother or sister to me? If so, was that so-and-so already a member of your family—cousin, nephew,

LOCAL

Friends and family

JERRY FABYANIC

ere are many ways we do that every day. It involves things like teaching them to eat well and look both ways before crossing the street. What if we think a bit further into the future and look at the state of the planet they will be inheriting from us? If you are concerned about the climate crisis and the future we are leaving our children and grandchildren, and recent polls show that most people are, then here are some

Columnist

close friend once quipped that family is the reason we have friends. On the surface, the line comes across as a dig at family with its sometimes fractious relationships and challenging dynamics. But there is another layer, a more positive one, that can be gleaned from the axiom. Friends ful ll a relational need that cannot be addressed within the family. For no matter how much someone says their mom, brother, or cousin is their best friend, their family history is intricately and indelibly woven into the fabric of their “friendship.” And as such, it will always play an unconscious role in the relationship.or niece—or were they outside of it? If you have a like-abrother or like-asister, what made them so? Can you zero in on, pinpoint, or delineate the speci c events, interactions, et alia that led up to that relationship developing in a deeply personal manner? Or was it that you realized at some point that you and they shared a special bond that didn’t need to or couldn’t be explained? It just was.

As is my wont, I took my friend’s maxim and ipped it: Friends are the reason we have family. at thought prompted me to consider those who as an only child or orphan don’t have blood siblings. en there are those who have siblings but are not relationally close with them. I have friends for whom those scenarios are true. Some consider their friends to be their family. We often call such relationships virtual family, but I wonder why we feel compelled to include the qualifying descrip-

tor virtual since it serves only to minimize their relationship(s) and relegate it/them to a second-place status. After all,they might consider their friends to be their true family. Which means there are families, and then there are families.

Plain and simple, friend and family relationships are complicated, which paradoxically makes them neither plain nor simple. In psychology, an applicable term is antinomy: a paradox in which opposing truths are equally true and valid. It’s a world that I love living in. It’s one of complexity and ambiguity, which I traverse with kindred “out-there” spirits in the pursuit of something we cannot exactly put our ngers on. ey’re my philosophical family not to be confused with my literal family or my non-virtual, mix-of-friends family. Yep, it’s complicated.

Since I’ve been blessed to be one of 13 siblings and have oodles of friendships made over the course of my lifetime, when I think of those I feel close to, I imagine them in two broad groupings. I picture each group as a colored sphere — sage green is my choice — with the shades of the color increasingly

getting lighter as I move from the center outward. At the center of my birth family circle, I place those I feel closest to, and at the perimeter, those not so much. At the core of my friends circle is my non-virtual virtual family, and on the outer reaches are those I call transactional or super cial friends, the ones who get in contact only when they need or want something.

So yes, the family-friend matrix is complicated. But it is that complicatedness that makes friendships ful lling and vital for healthy aging. Unlike a complication which can disrupt unity and smooth functioning, relationship complicatedness suggests intricacy, complexity.

Consider creating your own matrix. While doing so, identify traits, attributes and other aspects that were and remain integral. A vital one for me is trust because trust is like glass and reputation in Ben Franklin’s aphorism: once broken, never well mended. You will, of course, identify your own.

Jerry Fabyanic is the author of “Sisyphus Wins” and “Food for ought: Essays on Mind and Spirit.” He lives in Georgetown.

For this year, a resolution for our kids’ future

s we all are taking down the tree, putting away the menorah and otherwise wrapping up from the holidays, we turn our attention to the new year. We think about what we’d like it to look like and things we would like to accomplish before next year at this same time. While some make resolutions, others aren’t as formal in their goal setting. New Year’s resolutions are often about selfimprovement like exercising more, or about increasing happiness with a new job or a new home. For parents, it often involves the whole family and is often designed toward our ultimate goal for our kids – that they grow up happy and healthy. It’s what every parent wants when it comes to their kids.SARA KUNTZLER

resolutions that can help you do your part.

These are things everyone can do this coming year to ensure our kids grow up in a healthy environment: Carpool: there are likely other families close by that have kids at the same school. Carpooling saves on ll-ups for the car and as a bonus it saves time too. Exploring other ways to get to school like biking or walking is great exercise. It also lets kids get some of the wiggles out so they can settle in and focus in class better.

Ditch the disposable school lunch packaging: ere are so many great options these days like beeswax wraps and reusable silicone bags.

Hand-me-down and consignment clothes: they save resources and money. It’s something to think about for adults as well. Fast fashion has people treating their wardrobe as if it’s disposable, which uses a tremendous amount of resources.

Gifts: the same applies to all the stu we buy including gifts. ink about low impact gifts for your kids and the gifts you need for all those birthday parties. Experiences are a fun way to give a memorable day without the plastic stu that most moms will say they have enough of.  Meatless Monday: Eating meat has a huge impact on our planet. e greenhouse gas emissions of the meat industry are about equal to that of the entire transportation sector — all the emissions from driving and ying. Lower your impact by removing meat from your diet one day a week. If you’ve already successfully done that, bump up to two or three days a week.

Get involved: Join an organization that helps you understand how to best use your limited time to make an impact on the decisions that are being made that will a ect the air your child breathes, their health and their future. at is our number one goal at Mountain Mamas. We monitor the decisions that our elected o cials are making so that you don’t have to. When there’s an important decision that will impact our kids’ future, we let you know. We also let you know how to make your opinion

heard and above all make it easy for you.

Research your family’s carbon footprint to get personalized advice on ways to reduce it: Several organizations o er carbon calculators.

Can one person solve these problems on their own? Not likely, but if everyone does their part, we get a lot closer. And importantly, if we all join together to tell our elected ofcials that we want them to address the climate crisis, then signi cant changes can be made. Use your new year’s resolution this year to make big changes for the future generations that are counting on us.

Join the discussion, get involved and take action.

Sara Kuntzler lives in Arvada with her husband and two young children.

She is the Colorado Program Manager for Mountain Mamas, a nonpro t organization working towards a clean, livable planet for future generations. You can learn more about Mountain Mamas and get involved at www.mtnmamas.org or on Facebook/Instagram @CoMtnMamas.

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BY OLIVIA JEWELL LOVE OLOVE@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Chances are if you’re on social media, you’ve heard of “Dry January,” the trend of giving up alcohol for the rst month of the year. According to some Colorado residents, the challenge isn’t new, but it is worth a try.

Kara Rowland, a 39-year-old Denver resident, is on her third year of the challenge. She has family at home in D.C. taking on the challenge with her, but as far as her local Colorado group goes, she’s doing it alone.

“Out here it really is a solo e ort,” Rowland said. “You can’t go a block here, especially in downtown Denver, without hitting a brewery.”

It’s not just the city that experiences the alcohol-heavy social culture. Steve Indrehus is the director of brewing operations at Tommyknocker Brewery in Idaho Springs. He said alcohol was a big part of older generations, like his.

Others continue to sound o on social media, explaining their reasons for going sober all year long, and saying the social landscape in society doesn’t exactly make it easy.

Indrehus thinks now however, he’s starting to see a shift.

“ e younger generations aren’t leaning on alcohol as hard for social interaction,” he said.

“Dry January” is a phenomenon Indrehus has seen grow over the years, even beyond the month.

“ e non-alcoholic category is entering our culture and becoming a stable part of our culture,” he said.

Tommyknockers has ventured into the category, o ering a NA version of its most popular beer, the Blood Orange IPA.

Indrehus himself is participating in

“Dry January,” explaining that he can already see a di erence in his focus and sleep. He said he also likes the aspect of leaving his comfort zone.

“I like uncomfortable, challenging things,” he said.

Indrehus said there are some misconceptions about NA beer, mainly in that people expect it to be cheaper. He explained that it’s actually the opposite.

“Most people would think NA beer would be less expensive because it doesn’t have alcohol, but it’s actually more expensive,” he said.

Essentially, brewers like the team at Tommyknockers have to go through the process of making beer but then take the alcohol out, which takes more time, labor and money.

Rowland, a self-proclaimed craft beer enthusiast, has been exploring NA options during the month.

“I went to dinner with a friend last Saturday and the restaurant had some NA options,” she said. “ ere’s some, if I gave it to you, you would not know it’s a NA beer.”

Besides taking the month to get perspective of her drinking habits, Rowland said she’s also seen positive e ects on her body.

“I think having zero alcohol improves your sleep,” she said.

She also noticed a renewed glow in her complexion.

“Maybe it’s a placebo e ect, but I look in the mirror and I swear my skin looks a little better,” she said.

Dr. Manan Shah, ENT and Chief Medical O cer at Wyndly, said the improvements in sleep are just one real side e ect of “Dry January.” He explained that better sleep is one of the biggest bene ts he sees from giving up alcohol.

“Alcohol a ects your sleep, even if you only have one or two drinks, your sleep will markedly improve if you drop alcohol,” he said.

Shah added that dropping the drink can also help decrease your risk of cancer, improve sex drive, help weight loss and support a healthy immune system.

geler thinks housing challenges will continue.

ere are also too few options for would-be buyers. Many nd the cost of single-family homes beyond their reach but have few options a step below that, such as condos.

“If you believe that Colorado will be a place that employers will continue to want to move to, then I think … the outlook may not be good unless we accelerate production and density and fund housing at the level that is needed,” Aggeler said.

The cost of housing

Practically every community in the metro area is facing its own housing a ordability and availability issues. South of Denver, in Lone Tree, Mayor Jackie Millet said there is a “housing crisis.”

“I think it varies in severity throughout our state, but I do think it is a problem that is a ecting all of Colorado,” she said. “ ere’s so much supply pressure on our market right now that we have, then, created this crisis.”

Not everyone is describing it as a crisis, but those who use that word point to the numbers across the metro area, as the costs of singlefamily homes and townhomes have skyrocketed.

Northwest of Denver, in Arvada, the median sale price of a singlefamily home was $667,000 as of late 2022, according to the Colorado Association of Realtors. at’s up by 71% from 2017, when the price was around $390,000.

e story is similar in Brighton, northeast of Denver, where the median sale price increased by approximately $225,000 over that period.

Littleton, south of Denver, saw an increase of approximately $300,000 in the price of single-family homes from 2017 to 2022.

Lone Tree saw an increase of $473,750.

“What we have seen is our housing prices doubling and our wages have not been keeping up,” Millet said.

From 2000 to 2019, median rents rose at a faster rate than median renter household incomes did “in every Colorado county and city with 50,000+ residents,” according to Root Policy Research.

Many residents want a home of their own, Millet said.

“ at was our ultimate goal, and that is also the way most of us accumulated wealth,” she said.

When the cost of buying or renting is too high, however, people cannot establish these roots, she added.

Supply versus demand

One of the main causes of the rise in cost-burdened households and lack of a ordable housing is that production has failed to keep up with demand.

ere was a 40% decrease in the number of homes built between 2010 and 2020 in Colorado, according to the 2022 “A ordable Housing Transformational Task Force Report.”

Susan Daggett, executive director of the Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute, said the crash of 2007 a ected housing supply. People left the construction industry and many companies went bankrupt.

“ e housing market bottomed out,

people left the construction industry, a lot of people went bankrupt,” she said.

At the same time that housing development slowed, Colorado’s population grew.

“In the meantime, the population has grown tremendously and the supply just hasn’t been able to catch up with that demand,” Daggett said.

In 2010, Colorado had a population of 5,029,196, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. By 2022, the population was estimated at 5,839,926 — a roughly 16% increase.

As of June 2021, Colorado’s for-sale housing inventory was 13% of what is needed for a functioning sales market, according to Root Policy Research’s report. A functioning sales market means there are enough units so that people can move easily, such as being able to upsize or downsize, Aggeler said.

To return the housing market to a functioning level, Colorado would need an average of 44,250 units built each year until 2030, according to the report, published in November 2021. is would be 1.6 times the state’s current production levels.

Ted Leighty — the CEO of the Colorado Association of Home Builders, an a liate organization of the National Association of Home Builders — said, overall, depending on who is talking, Colorado is somewhere between 175,000 to 200,000 units short of demand.

“ at’s really challenging to come back from, especially, you know, the pace by which we were able to produce new housing in Colorado,” Leighty said.

He hates to use the word “crisis” when discussing housing in Colorado, describing it instead as a major challenge.

Leighty explained the challenge comes down to the ve L’s — lumber and other building materials, labor,

land, loans and access to capital, and local government. All have played roles in slowing down housing construction, especially since the Great Recession, leading to higher demand and decreased a ordability.

“ ese are always our main cost drivers for residential construction,” Leighty said. “All ve of those right now, and have been, unfortunately, for the last several years, been huge challenges for us.”

He said high lumber costs and some supply chain issues have improved marginally recently, but they still pose problems for developers.

Also, there is a labor shortage.

“We’ve seen a little bit of uptick in (the) labor participation rate for construction, but not nearly enough,” Leighty said. “We’ve got an aging skilled labor demographic, and we haven’t done a great job replacing that labor with younger, skilled laborers.”

In addition to training the laborers of the next generation, Leighty said a “sound immigration policy” could help bring more workers to projects.

“ ere’s a pretty big de cit, and we need to do all we can, policy standpoint and otherwise, to increase labor,” Leighty said.

During the pandemic, there was a perception the housing market was hot, Leighty said.

“It was the most challenging hot market ever on record — to source materials, to source labor, to get projects through the pipeline was immeasurable in how di cult it was,” Leighty said.

The market cools

But there are signs the hot market is cooling.

Lending issues have recently risen to the top of many homebuyers’ concerns. Leighty cites concerns for in ation, economic uncertainty and rising interest mortgage rates.

Imagine a $500,000 home that roughly a year ago a person could buy at a 3% rate, Leighty said. eir monthly payment might be around $2,600.

By July 2022, as rates rose to roughly 5%, the payment for the same house would rise to $3,500. at’s an increase of more than 34%.

“So, how do you get back down to that $2,600, you know, something that’s more achievable for the average home buyer?” Leighty asked rhetorically.

In December, rates on a 30-year xed mortgage were more than 6.5%, according to Bankrate.

Higher mortgage rates caused a spike in cancellation rates for homesale contracts last summer, reaching above 40% — causing further disruptions, Leighty said.

“By the time the home was ready, or maybe even wasn’t ready yet, they knew what their debt-to-income ratio was going to be and that it had increased immensely, and they could no longer a ord it, so they canceled,” he said.

By comparison, the cancellation rate was 13% in July 2021 and 18% in 2019.

Due to these high cancellation rates, it is likely there will be fewer homes on the market in the next few quarters, Leighty said, further exacerbating housing issues.

Yet Matthew Leprino, a spokesperson for the Colorado Association of Realtors, explained there’s an upshot for some potential homebuyers. ere are more homes available now than in years past as the market reacts to the changing economy.

“ e story that I’ve been telling a lot of clients lately is, ‘Yeah, you can pay a higher interest rate now than you were a year ago, but you’re paying $100,000 less for the house,’” he said.

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ere are more properties available now than any time since October of 2019, he said.

“It’s a better time to buy now than in the last three years,” Leprino said.

A balanced market’s months’ supply of inventory stands at about four months. For the metro area, October 2022 was the rst time that number hit two months or above since October 2019.

e metro Denver area hasn’t reached a balanced market for housing since at least 2014, when the Colorado Association of Realtors started tracking that data — and Leprino suspects it’s been much longer than that.

“Number one, houses are a lot more expensive than they used to be,” Leprino said. “Number two, there’s not enough of them.”

The role of local governments and zoning

Local governments have played a huge role in the lack of housing supply and lack of a ordability in Colorado, Leighty said.

He notes they play a role through their regulations, land use zoning and entitlement process and their fees.

Zoning can be a signi cant factor in the housing issues people see today, Aggeler of Root Policy Research said. It refers to when a city or county divides its land into di erent sections and designates an intended use for each, such as industrial or residential development.

“Really, the problem, it’s very simple: ere’s a scarcity of housing for people of all income levels,” said Pat Cronenberger, vice chairperson for South Metro Housing Options, the City of Littleton’s public housing authority. “Colorado is a popular place. People want to be here, and we have restrictive zoning laws that really don’t make it easy to build housing.”

“And that’s all contributed to high rents and big, skyrocketing home prices,” she said.

One of the more controversial zoning issues across the metro area is how dense a city can build.

“People are very afraid of adding units, very afraid of density — and I think probably overly so,” Aggeler said. “We should be zoning artfully, in a way that preserves what we love about communities but also provides opportunity for other people to live there.”

Leighty said some local elected ofcials have expressed concerns that if they approve denser housing units, they could be recalled “because

CRISIS

have around housing to build for those who are struggling economically,” said Phyllis Resnick, executive director and lead economist for the Colorado Futures Center, an independent, nonpartisan, academic nonpro t. “We think (the housing market) is feeling unhealthy for folks because housing that is a ordable to lower-middle to low-income households is still very di cult to nd and isn’t probably being built at the rate

A vast view of homes from Blu s Regional Park and Trail in Lone Tree on Oct. 21, 2022.

there’s so many people that believe we have — we’re growing too fast.”

“But the numbers belie all of that,” he said. “Our net migration is still positive.”

Net migration refers to the di erence between the number of immigrants and the number of emigrants throughout the year.

“That’s how you’re going to attack this issue, right, is allowing greater density — taking down the land costs a little bit by being able to do more with less as far as more construction on less land,” Leighty said. “Zoning plays a huge role in our ability to bring new product on the market.”

A lot of communities in Colorado are mostly single-family homes, resulting in lower density and forcing developments to sprawl out.

With the dominance of singlefamily homes, many communities in Colorado face a “missing middle,” meaning there are not a lot of diverse housing options such as townhomes, cottage courts, accessory dwelling units and duplexes.

Part of the reason for that is because of a policy change, Leighty said.

“We made it really, really easy to

it’s needed.”

Great Recession

e metro area’s housing challenges start with the Great Recession that began in late 2007, part of a national trend where the housing market crashed. Before the recession, rising home prices, loose lending practices and low interest rates were the norm. When the economy soured, many homeowners could not keep up with their payments, prompting a rash of foreclosures.

According to real estate data company RealtyTrac, 6.3 million homes went through foreclosure in

sue for what they call ‘construction defects’ on multifamily for-sale condominiums,” he said.

Multifamily for-sale condominiums went from roughly 20% of the market to about 2% of the market when going into the recession, Leighty said. By 2017, it rose to about 12% of the market, but then the pandemic hit.

“If you kept that 20% pace of condominiums, you wouldn’t be in the same situation you are now. You wouldn’t necessarily be in market equilibrium, right? But you wouldn’t be … 200,000 units shy either,” Leighty said.

Condominiums are a really important product, he said, as they provide places for young professionals and families to achieve homeownership and for empty nesters to downsize.

“That product has been absolutely missed in this marketplace and it has certainly contributed to our inability to keep up with demand,” Leighty said.

Lone Tree Mayor Jackie Millet said in 2004, she served on the city’s planning commission and approximately 20% of the new buildings were condos.

“To my recollection, in Lone

the United States from January 2006 to April 2016, more than double the norm of around 250,000 foreclosures per year. According to the Colorado Department of Local A airs, from 2006 to 2016, Colorado saw 299,775 foreclosures.

With foreclosures came a glut of available homes that ooded the market, according to real estate agent Gaye Ribble with e Ribble Group, a real estate rm that o ers home-buying services across the metro area. In the Denver metro area at the peak of the recession, 45,000 homes were on the market, Ribble said, when a balanced market

Tree, we haven’t seen one in probably 15 years. And the ones that are being built in the metro region are either — they’re very, very expensive,” she said. “That was our supply of entry-level housing, and it is no longer being produced.”

Millet thinks the constructiondefects law played a significant role in the supply of the entry-level housing market. She also knows of residents who wish to remain in the community and want to downsize, but cannot find any affordable options.

Typically, Millet believes the markets should resolve the issues themselves.

“But in my opinion, the markets have been corrupted by a number of things,” Millet said. “And so I do feel at this point, we must do something other than just complain about it, because we’ve seen it increase as a priority issue for our residents and our businesses.”

is roughly 10,000 to 12,000 homes.

“As a result, builders were reluctant to get back in and buy land, buy materials, pay wages and build — all the capital expenses they incur before selling a single home,” said Tupper Briggs with Madison & Co. Properties, a real estate agent for more than four decades. “ ey did not add to the supply of housing for years.”

SEE CRISIS, P13

PHOTO BY TAYLER SHAW

FROM PAGE 6

Loss of tradespeople

e Colorado Futures Center bears out what Ribble noticed. A 2018 study by Resnick and Jennifer Newcomer, research director, examined the factors contributing to the growing cost of housing in Colorado. Much of it could be traced to the Great Recession.

e decrease in units built after the recession was linked, in part, to limited amounts of developable land, rising material costs and little incentive to build entry-level housing, according to the study. A bigger issue turned out to be the closure of several local construction companies and the related issue of a shortage of labor in specialty trades.

“Labor was short, it was a mixed story on materials, and there were some regulatory barriers, but I think we came away thinking that part of the biggest problem was we lost a lot of people in the development and building ecosystem,” Resnick said.

According to a 2014 report published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Housing: Before, During and After the Great Recession,” construction industries experienced signi cant job losses during the recession.

From 2003 to 2013, for example, the residential construction industry experienced a 26.8% decrease in employment, which the report said was “precipitated by the recent recession.” e report also showed from 2003 to 2013, the number of businesses in the residential construction industry decreased by 10.8%.

Lone Tree Mayor Jackie Millet said she thinks the recession absolutely impacted the growth of housing.

“ e bottom fell out of the market, the tradespeople — we lost people in the trades, we didn’t have people coming into the trades, and we lost that time,” Millet said. “And it’s, you know, cyclical, so we have been playing catch-up ever since then.”

Ted Leighty, the CEO of the Colorado Association of Home Builders, said the Great Recession made a lot of people more cautious, including banks, lenders and builders.

ere were fewer land developers coming out of the recession, he said, so more builders have had to become their own land developers.

“ eir access to capital and their cost of capital has increased greatly since the recession,” Leighty said.

Ribble added: “Not only every year are we lagging (in home construction), but we were never able to make up for six years with no new construction. During that time, population continued to increase.”

Population growth, interest rates

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the seven-county metro area has seen a substantial rise in population in roughly the past decade. Douglas, Arapahoe and Adams counties each grew by more than 80,000 people, with Je erson County gaining more than 45,000 people.

When the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates to move the United States out of the Great Recession,

many more people who wanted to buy a home could. Rates remained low as the economy rebounded.

at increased demand across the housing market. As demand rose, prices across the metro area began to skyrocket, creating a crunch. Fewer homes were available and many people were simply priced out of the market.

Real estate agents interviewed by Colorado Community Media agree that the Federal Reserve should have increased the ultra-low interest rates to keep the market more balanced.

Baby boomers, millennials and shortterm rentals

Adding to the housing challenges is stagnation. Baby boomers, those nearing retirement age and older, aren’t leaving their homes. Meanwhile millennials, some now new to Colorado and in their 40s, are looking to get into their rst home and sometimes even a second home such as a short-term rental that can be used for both vacation and added income..

Boomers, many of whom are empty nesters, aren’t downsizing for many reasons. While some simply don’t want to move, others want to downsize but can’t nd a good deal on a home in the community they want.

According to Jackie White, a real estate agent in the Conifer and Evergreen area for nine years, if a baby boomer sells a home for $1.5 million, that person isn’t going to nd a home about half the size for $750,000.

“ at doesn’t feel good to them,” White said. “Add to that, because of low inventory of homes, kids can’t a ord to buy homes in the communities they grew up in, so there are fewer multigenerational families in one community. Kids can’t easily check in on their parents.”

Many millennials can’t a ord homes that are for sale. at eventually will change as baby boomers are forced to sell as they age, White said.

As Ribble noted: “In 18 years, this issue will resolve itself because baby boomers won’t be in their homes any longer.”

But at that point, some millennials will be in their 60s. For that generation, the dream of home ownership is still alive for many, Briggs said.

“ e millennial demographic is larger and more powerful than the baby boomers,” Briggs said. “ ey are the bulge in the snake, and we baby boomers are sitting on our homes, getting old and not moving.”

Short-term rental ownership is becoming more popular, especially among millennials.

“Close to 50% of buyers (in Clear Creek County) ask if it can be a short-term rental,” said Josh Spinner, longtime Clear Creek County real estate agent.

More recent issues e COVID-19 pandemic brought a new trend. Many people were able to work from home and some decided to move out of urban areas to more scenic, less populated towns, real estate agents said.

“Whoever would have thought home prices would have gone up during COVID?” Spinner asked rhetorically. “Who could have predicted that? In addition to arti cially low interest rates, we had a lot of

arti cial stimulus money. It de es logic that prices would go up in a pandemic.”

e Colorado Futures Center study agreed.

“ e disruption of COVID and the almost complete lack of (market) churn really distorted supply with respect to what was available for sale,” Resnick said. “We believe, and we’re still working through all of this, that was a somewhat signi cant contributor in the run-up in prices.”

Briggs said the transition to people working remotely wasn’t an easy one.

“ e seeds of remote work were there before COVID,” he said. “People started looking at their living arrangements and decided they wanted an o ce in their homes.

ey discovered if they work remotely, they could work where they wanted. ey decided to get out of the city and into the suburbs or bedroom communities.

“ ey no longer were commuteoriented in making (home-buying) decisions. Instead, they were quality-of-life focused because they were able to do that. at created a surge in people moving from one place to another.”

e COVID-19 pandemic didn’t help, Millet in Lone Tree said, as well as the subsequent supply-chain issues.

“ e demand has continued to increase that whole time, and supply has been falling further and further behind,” Millet said. “When you don’t have enough supply, price goes up — and that’s the space that we’re sitting in.”

en toward the end of the pandemic, the Marshall Fire in Boulder County took place, burning 1,100 homes. at added to the situation — many families looking for temporary or permanent housing, further depleting the number of homes on the market.

Building homes

City and county planners say they are seeing more builders wanting to build residential developments recently, but they are facing several issues.

“ ere’s a housing shortage because we can’t get homes built fast enough,” said Chris O’Keefe, Je erson County planning director. “In Je erson County, we have a lot of land but not a lot of land that is shovel ready.”

He noted that it doesn’t help when members of the community don’t want new high-density residential development near them.

“Recently we’ve seen some areas where … developers have wanted to rezone for higher density,” O’Keefe said. “ e community sometimes is not supportive of higher density.”

In Clear Creek County, little developable land is available, and most of the building permits are for singlefamily homes.

“Over the last 20 years, buildingpermit applications that we are seeing for single-family homes indicate that homes are getting larger and more expensive,” said Fred Rollenhagen, community development director for Clear Creek County. “We are not seeing as many smaller or middle-class type homes like what we saw 20 years ago.”

Lakewood, for example, also doesn’t have large parcels available for residential development except

in the Rooney Valley along C-470, where a residential development is under construction with plans for 1,200 homes when complete.

“As a rst-tier suburb of Denver, our vacant land is minimal,” said Paul Rice, manager of planning and development assistance for the City of Lakewood. “Other than the Rooney Valley, there are not a lot of development opportunities that are easy.

“A developer has to work to make a project successful. Lakewood is not an easy place to develop. Most everything is redevelopment. Developing land is a matter of aggregating property to create property that can be redeveloped.”

What’s to come

A 2022 analysis from Newcomer and Resnick on housing a ordability in Colorado found that the share of housing a ordable to people making the median Colorado income dropped 25% between 2015 and 2020. e same research found that statewide housing prices would need to fall by 32% to return to the a ordability levels the state saw in 2015.

“Market correction alone will not restore relative a ordability without considerable market pain,” the 2022 analysis concluded.

Newcomer said it wouldn’t be easy for the housing market to become more balanced.

“We do need to nd ways to build, essentially, a parallel market that’s incentivized di erently,” Newcomer said. “ e normal constructs of housing development in the full market don’t incentivize doing anything di erently. We have, especially with this disruption because of the pandemic and supply chain issues, these elevated costs from material goods to labor and so on. It’s going to be really hard for those to come back down in the overall market environment now.”

When projecting what housing production may look like in 2023, Leighty said a lot of it depends on mortgage rates.

“Will we see a recession? What will we see that necessarily starts to bring down the federal funds rate and then, you know, brings down the mortgage rates?” Leighty asked, highlighting the uncertainty of the future.

e Colorado and U.S. economies are projected to avoid a recession in 2023, but the “path for continued expansion is narrow” and “a wide array of unforeseen shocks could push the economy into a downturn,” according to the Colorado Legislative Council Sta ’s December 2022 Economic and Revenue Forecast.

Leighty thinks 2023 may start slowly for home builders.

“Builders, they’ll move cautiously on land acquisition until there’s probably more clarity, especially in (interest) rates,” he said.

Real estate agent Briggs thinks the relationship between home buyers and sellers is changing.

“Although we’ll probably see more price negotiation in speci c transactions, housing values will not decline overall, and there certainly won’t be a crash,” Briggs said. “But the days of multiple o ers and overasking selling prices are numbered. We can also expect it to take longer to sell as buyers sharpen their pencils when considering an o er.”

Low Rate of Pay:

How minimum wages are failing to keep pace with housing costs

BY ANDREW FRAIELI AFRAIELI@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

In recent years, minimum wages have slowly increased, with Denver reaching $17.29 an hour, and the suburbs surrounding the city being lower, based on the state of Colorado’s minimum of $13.65 an hour.

While workers have welcomed the increases, apartment rental prices have outpaced those gains for workers, with almost 60% of a minimum wage worker’s paycheck expected to go to a landlord.

at’s the highest proportion in a decade, and a calculation that doesn’t include other expenses, such as utilities.

“We’ve seen over the years that the minimum wage actually erodes over time, and periodically has to be readjusted,” said economist Markus Schneider.

Schneider, chair of the Economics Department at the University of Denver, said these cost-of-living adjustments to the minimum wage do help workers — both Denver and the state make adjustments to their minimum wages — but despite increases, the adjustments don’t completely stave o the consequences of rising in ation and skyrocketing housing costs on low-income workers.

Even after a decade, workers are still forced to dedicate too much of their salaries to housing, and it’s only worsened.

A “living wage” is what is needed to keep up with the costs of living, the “very ne line between thenancial independence of the working poor and the need to seek out public assistance or su er consistent and severe housing and food insecurity,” according to MIT’s Living Wage calculator. MIT describes it “as a minimum subsistence wage.”

For the metro area, that living wage is $19.62, well above the state minimum wage and even Denver’s. e cost-of-living adjustment that both minimum wage rates are tied to is called the Consumer Price Index — a “positive step in the right direction,” according to Schneider.

“At the same time, the minimum wage is below a living wage,” Schneider said. “It’s, at best, going to keep it in proportion.”

at means the disparities won’t grow as badly as they could, but will still not keep up with a living wage.

In 2010, the state minimum wage was $7.24 an hour. Rent for a studio in the metro area was $638, according to U.S. Housing and Urban Development fair market rent data.

at came out to half of a worker’s wages, which the National Low Income Housing Coalition — a nonpro t that aims to end the a ordable housing crisis through policy and data research — deems una ordable, as is anything upwards of 30% of wages spent on rent and utilities. e coalition considers paying upwards of 30% as placing workers at risk for homelessness.

By 2023, the situation had only grown worse for minimum-wage

workers. While their wages rose to $13.65 an hour, metro-area studio apartment rents hit $1,390, meaning workers have to pay almost 60% of their wages to keep a roof over their head.

Part of the gap between the index increases and rent is inequality, Schneider said.

CPI is calculated by looking at how much change there is in the average price of household items, food, energy, rent, electronics and more, weighted by how big that category is in the household budget. is calculation is for the entire metro area, though. With di erent parts having di erent wages and costs of rent, the CPI can become skewed for some.

“ e CPI for Colorado is going to be very responsive to what’s happening in Denver just because that’s the big population center,” Schneider said. “We know that Denver has actually had a hotter housing mar-

ket, and housing is a big component of what that living wage means.”

However, higher minimum wages do not cause rents to increase, in his view.

“ ere’s really not much evidence for it — in the ranges that we’re talking about raising minimum wages,” he said. “If we raised it by a factor of two, or even of ve, then yes, that’s probably a big thing. But we’re talking about just getting closer to a living wage — I’m very skeptical that it’s a big e ect.”

“Certainly not a big impact on the price aspect, because even when people get up to that living wage, it’s really only going to impact relatively cheap housing, and relatively bottom end of the rent market — you’ll see some of those rents go up a little bit. But the average rent in Denver isn’t going to budge much.”

is leads to CPI not adjusting enough for the lowest wage earners in the metro area, and not keeping

up with their rising rents. As Schneider said, the adjustments are better than nothing, but still do not set minimum-wage workers to earn a living wage — a goal that, since more than a decade ago, has only become further away.

“When people make more money, particularly at the bottom end, when we’re talking about pushing poverty line or at least well below the living wage, they’re likely to move to a nicer neighborhood or closer to a nicer school, which means the rents in the places that they were living won’t be a ected that much,” Schneider said.

According to MIT, a “livable wage” for Colorado is about $19.16 an hour, and the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood metro area “livable wage” is even higher at $19.62 per hour. Current minimum wage in the state is far less at $13.65 an hour, with Denver’s being $17.29 per hour. Both the state and Denver may be increasing minimum wage year over year to follow in ation or cost of living, but they may never actually reach a “livable wage” when they are already so far behind.

Colorado state’s minimum wage, and Denver’s own minimum wage, rise incrementally based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI). is is functionally a measurement of the cost of living, measured by the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics. It includes food, housing costs, transport, medical care and recreation among others, all broken down to smaller parts like gas, and electric bills. MIT’s “living wage” considers many of the same categories, but is stricter.

“ e living wage is the minimum income standard that, if met, draws a very ne line between the nancial independence of the working poor and the need to seek out public assistance or su er consistent and severe housing and food insecurity,” according to MIT’s Living Wage calculator. “In light of this fact, the living wage is perhaps better de ned as a minimum subsistence wage for persons living in the United States.”

eir calculator uses Fair Market Rents (FMRs) — which “represents the cost to rent a moderately-priced dwelling unit in the local housing market” — along with local utility prices, to determine housing costs.

According to e National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), a nonpro t that aims to end the a ordable housing crisis through policy and data research, anything upwards of “the generally accepted standard of spending no more than 30% of gross income on rent and utilities,” is considered una ordable housing, though. is brings needed wages, according to NLIHC, even higher than MIT’s livable wage that already lies on the razor’s edge of nancial independence and public assistance.

Other major costs in MIT’s calculation are food and transportation,

With voter approval, the state will embark on how to have more a ordable housing statewide. SHUTTERSTOCK IMAGE

With a look at the ins and outs of inflations, the Colorado Sun’s Tamara Chuang breaks down Colorado’s Q3 growth. SHUTTERSTOCK

which take up another $9,160 per year — $4,153 and $5,007 respectively. Housing, food and transport together take up 75% of their salary — which leaves some room for the $4,814 cost for “clothing, personal care items, and housekeeping supplies,” and $2,768 for medical care, but none for the $7,929 in annual taxes.

MIT speci es that the calculation “accounts only for the basic needs of

a family. It does not account for what many consider the basic necessities enjoyed by many Americans,” such as dining out and other forms of entertainment, but it also “... does not provide a nancial means for planning for the future through savings and investment or for the purchase of capital assets.”

And this is all for single adults without children. A single adult with one child brings the livable wage from $20.61 an hour to $39.96.

NLIHC’s “Out of Reach” reports use “housing wage” as the wage a full-time worker must make to a ord FMRs without spending over 30% on

rent. For a studio apartment in Denver with an FMR in 2022 of $1,236 per month, the “housing wage” would be $23.77 an hour before taxes — 1.5times what a minimumwage worker currently makes. is is even higher than MIT’s $20.61 an hour “livable wage” for a studio apartment and even includes utilities, as MIT’s wage is only enough to be on the brink of nancial ruin.

Based on NLIHC’s metric, no housing in Denver is actually “affordable” to a minimum-wage worker. It may never reach this point either.

Denver’s 2020 minimum-wage

ordinance began with increasing minimum wage to $12.85 per hour in January 2020, then $14.77 in January 2021, then $15.87 in January 2022, and $17.29 this year.

From now onward, it’s tied to CPI. According to the ordinance, “the Denver minimum wage rate shall increase by an amount corresponding to the prior year’s increase, if any, in the Consumer Price Index …” But this wage is already below the “living wage” determined by MIT, so staying on par with the CPI will only ever keep the minimum wage stable, not increase its value.

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Colorado’s high school graduation rate jumped in 2022

BY ERICA BREUNLIN THE COLORADO SUN

Colorado’s four-year high school graduation rate for the class of 2022 ticked up to 82.3%, jumping 0.6 percentage points from the previous year, according to data released by the Colorado Department of Education.

e increase marks a turnaround from 2021, when the state’s high school graduate rate dropped for the rst time in more than a decade, dipping from 81.9% for the graduating class of 2020 to 81.7%.

However, the state’s dropout rate also increased 0.4 percentage points from 2021 to 2.2% — the rst time the dropout rate went up since 2015, according to a news release from the state education department. Across the state, 10,524 students in grades 7-12 dropped out during the last school year while nearly half of all 178 school districts saw a year-overyear increase to their dropout rates. e most recent boost in the state’s graduation rate adds to a trend of improvements since 2010, when Colorado changed how data is reported. e four-year graduation rate has increased by 9.9 percentage points in that time period, according to the release.

Last year, 56,284 students completed high school in four years — an increase of 442 students from 2021, according to the Department of Education.

ual school districts can use a “menu” provided by the state that allows students to demonstrate their readiness for their next step, including through standardized assessments like the SAT and ACT, an extensive capstone

four-year graduation rate for students of color in 2022 was 76.8% — 0.7 percentage points more than the previous year. Black students saw an increase of 1.4 percentage points from 2021, with a graduation rate of

77.4% while Hispanic students’ gradage points higher than the previous tunity gaps persist between students of color and their white peers, whose

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.

Kile Studer celebrated his graduation with family and coworkers at the McDonald’s where he works on Sept. 20. COURTESY OF JENNY STEVENSON

Enrollment for Universal Preschool opened Jan.

BY THERESA HO ROCKY MOUNTAIN PBS

e Polis Administration has announced that enrollment for the Universal Preschool (UPK) Colorado program will open on Jan. 17 for families to register their kids for preschool this fall.

“We are bringing high-quality preschool to Colorado kids, saving families thousands of dollars, and making sure Colorado students get a strong start in school,” Gov. Jared Polis said.

e program will provide 15 hours of free, voluntary preschool per week for Colorado 4-year-olds starting in 2023. ree-year-old children with qualifying factors are eligible for 10 hours of preschool programming.

Starting Jan. 17, families of children in the year before they are eligible for kindergarten, and qualifying 3-year-olds, can visit the Colorado Department of Early Childhood’s

UPK Colorado site and login to begin the enrollment process, which will be open on a rolling basis. Children will begin being matched to providers in mid-February.

According to a press release, over 850 providers have signed up to participate in the state-funded, voluntary delivery preschool program to every Colorado child in the year before they are eligible to enter kindergarten.

“It’s incredible to see hundreds of school districts and preschools registering to be a part of Colorado’s e ort to prepare our kids for the future,” said Lisa Roy, the executive director ofColorado’s Department of Early Childhood. “ e enthusiasm is palpable with over 29,000 openings already available for kids in Universal Preschool Colorado.”

Roy expects the number of seats to grow before the state opens up registration to families on Jan. 17.

All providers that are licensed to support preschool-aged children are

Used by permission. For more, and to

is story is from Rocky Mountain PBS, a nonpro t public broadcaster

Preschoolers at King Murphy enjoy the new classrooms.

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CROWSSUPDRO

8.

according to the movies? 9. ADVERTISING: Which product used a manicurist named Madge in its advertisements?

10. MEDICAL: What is a common name for the condition called septicemia?

Answers

Crossword Solution Solution

1. e Mississippi. 2. “Westworld.” 3. Twister. 4. Lyndon Johnson. 5. 1955. 6. “Family Feud.” 7. A peahen. 8. Seven. 9. Palmolive dishwashing liquid. 10. Blood poisoning. (c) 2023 King Features Synd., Inc.

NOW HERE’S A TIP

* Make ice cubes out of punch when you are entertaining. I like to make di erent combinations, which can be adapted for adult and child parties. One that I like very much is to make ice cubes from red fruit punch and then oat them in lemonade. As the cubes melt, the mixture turns pinky-orange. -- I.F. in Missouri

* Bring egg whites to room temperature before whipping. You will get better volume, and they will be more stable.

* Ever make a delicious dinner that involves some stinky ingredients? is happens when I make broccoli cauliower casserole, or pork and sauerkraut. No worries; you don’t have to smell that smell all day. Just simmer a pan of vinegar on the stove while making foods that are odorous. e vinegar smell goes away quickly, taking with it any other odors. All that’s left is the smell of yummy. -- M.N. in South Carolina

* Wash bath towels in cold water. It preserves color and still

cleans them well. Add a clean, dry bath towel to smaller dryer loads to speed up drying time.

* Turn down the maximum temperature on your family’s water heater. You will do two things: One is to avoid accidental scalding, which is especially important if you have young children or seniors in your house. e other is to lower your electric bill, because the water heater will not have to work as hard to keep that big tank of water so hot. -- T.D. in New Mexico

* Keep a few bandanas handy in cold weather. ey can be used as a mouth/face cover to keep your nose from freezing. ey are easy to store in a pocket, and easy to put on and remove.

Send your tips to Now Here’s a Tip, 628 Virginia Drive, Orlando, FL 32803.

(c) 2023 King Features Synd., Inc.

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Starting salary based on experience & qualifications. Call 303-660-8810.

Help Wanted

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Elk Meadow Animal Hospital is actively seeking a receptionist. We are looking for someone who is a team player and has excellent communication skills. Come join our pack! Contact info: 303-674-7400 elkmeaodwvet@gmail.com

Help Wanted

Clear Creek County is hiring with new higher pay rates! Apply at: 403 Argentine Street in Georgetown.

Miscellaneous

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BVSD is committed to hiring diverse candidates who bring unique perspectives, backgrounds and skill sets that will strengthen our mission of delivering high-quality education to all students. We are committed to culturally responsive practices that challenge inequity and bias. School leadership and sta will be on hand to interview candidates in person at the event and virtually, and we will be making tentative employment o ers for the Fall 2023 school year. #WeAreBVSD

Legals

Public Trustees

COMBINED NOTICE - PUBLICATION

CRS §38-38-103 FORECLOSURE SALE NO. 2022-011

To Whom It May Concern: This Notice is given with regard to the following described Deed of Trust:

On November 7, 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 Clear Creek records.

Original Grantor(s)

CHRISTOPHER D. SLAVENS

Original Beneficiary(ies)

MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION SYSTEMS, INC. ACTING SOLELY AS NOMINEE FOR QUICKEN LOANS INC.

Current Holder of Evidence of Debt ROCKET MORTGAGE, LLC F/K/A QUICKEN LOANS, LLC F/K/A QUICKEN LOANS INC. Date of Deed of Trust November 04, 2013

County of Recording Clear Creek Recording Date of Deed of Trust November 13, 2013

Recording Information (Reception No. and/or Book/Page No.) 270679 Book: 878 Page: 690-706

Original Principal Amount $208,725.00

Outstanding Principal Balance $176,131.77

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 of the terms thereof

THE LIEN FORECLOSED MAY NOT BE A FIRST LIEN.

LAND SITUATED IN THE COUNTY OF CLEAR CREEK IN THE STATE OF CO

PARCEL A:

A TRACT OF LAND BEING COMPRISED OF GOVERNMENT LOTS33 AND 34 IN SECTION 19, TOWNSHIP 3 SOUTH, RANGE 73 WEST OF THE 6TH PRINCIPAL MERIDIAN, COUNTY OF CLEAR CREEK, STATE OF COLORADO, MORE PARTICULARLY DESCRIBED AS FOLLOWS:

BEGINNING AT A POINT AT THE INTERSECTION OF LINE1-10 OF THE HAPPY THOUGHT PLACER, M.S. NO. 17070 AND THE EASTWEST CENTERLINE OF SECTION 19, FROM WHICH CORNER NO. 1 OF SAID PLACER BEARS NORTH 00 DEGREES 01 MINUTES 23 SECONDS EAST, A DISTANCE OF266.27 FEET; THENCE SOUTH 89 DEGREES 59 MINUTES 46 SECONDS WEST, A DISTANCE OF 435.34 FEET TO THE WEST QUARTER CORNER OF SAID SECTION19; THENCE SOUTH 00 DEGREES 18 MINUTES 03 SECONDS EAST, ALONG THE WEST LINE OF SAID SECTION19, A DISTANCE OF1320.29 FEET TO THE SOUTHWEST CORNER OF SAID GOVERNMENT LOT 34; THENCE NORTH 89 DEGREES 59 MINUTES 21 SECONDS EAST, A DISTANCE OF 1119.40 FEET TO LINE 1-2 OF THE INDEPENDENCE LODE, M.S. NO. 19301; THENCE NORTH 58 DEGREES 45 MINUTES 49 SECONDS WEST, A DISTANCE OF134.24 FEET TO CORNER NO. 1 OF SAID INDEPENDENCE LODE; THENCE NORTH 31 DEGREES 23 MINUTES 24 SECONDS EAST, A DISTANCE OF150.74 FEET TO CORNER NO. 4 OF SAID INDEPENDENCE LODE; THENCE SOUTH 58 DEGREES 44 MINUTES 50 SECONDS EAST, A DISTANCE OF224.81 FEET TO THE INTERSECTION OF LINE1-2 OF THE DUCK LODE, M.S. NO. 17060; THENCE NORTH 43 DEGREES 58 MINUTES 22 SECONDS EAST, A DISTANCE OF556.21 FEET TO CORNER NO. 8 OF SAID HAPPY THOUGHT PLACER; THENCE NORTH 54 DEGREES 00 MINUTES 45 SECONDS WEST, A DISTANCE OF912.38 FEET TO CORNER NO. 9 OF SAID HAPPY THOUGHT PLACER; THENCE SOUTH 72 DEGREES 37 MINUTES 18 SECONDS WEST, A DISTANCE OF518.71 FEET TO CORNER NO. 10 OF SAID HAPPY THOUGHT PLACER; THENCE NORTH 00 DEGREES 1 MINUTES 23 SECONDS EAST, A DISTANCE OF456.96 FEET TO THE POINT OF BEGINNING.

PARCEL B: THOSE EASEMENT RIGHTS CREATED BY INSTRUMENT RECORDED MAY17, 1996 IN BOOK 537 AT PAGE138.

Also known by street and number as: 394 PICTURE MOUNTAIN WAY, DUMONT, CO 80436.

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 11:00 A.M. on Thursday, 03/09/2023, at The Clear Creek County Public Trustee’s Office, 405 Argentine Street, Georgetown, Colorado, 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.

Legal Notice No. CCC488

First Publication1/12/2023

Last Publication2/9/2023

Name of PublicationThe Clear Creek Courant

NOTICE OF RIGHTS

YOU MAY HAVE AN INTEREST IN THE REAL PROPERTY BEING FORECLOSED, OR HAVE CERTAIN RIGHTS OR SUFFER CERTAIN LIABILITIES PURSUANT TO COLORADO STATUTES AS A RESULT OF SAID FORECLOSURE.

YOU MAY HAVE THE RIGHT TO REDEEM SAID REAL PROPERTY OR YOU MAY HAVE THE RIGHT TO CURE A DEFAULT UNDER THE DEED OF TRUST BEING FORECLOSED. A COPY OF SAID STATUTES, AS SUCH STATUTES ARE PRESENTLY CONSTITUTED, WHICH MAY AFFECT YOUR RIGHTS SHALL BE SENT WITH ALL MAILED COPIES OF THIS NOTICE. HOWEVER, YOUR RIGHTS MAY BE DETERMINED BY PREVIOUS STATUTES.

● A NOTICEOFINTENT TO CUREFILED PURSUANT TO SECTION 38-38-104 SHALL BE FILED WITH THE PUBLIC TRUSTEE AT LEAST FIFTEEN (15) CALENDAR DAYS PRIOR TO THE FIRST SCHEDULED SALE DATE OR ANY DATE TO WHICH THE SALE IS CONTINUED;

● ANOTICEOFINTENT TO REDEEMFILED PURSUANT TO SECTION 38-38-302 SHALL BE FILED WITH THE PUBLIC TRUSTEE NO LATER THAN EIGHT (8) BUSINESS DAYS AFTER THE SALE;

● IF THESALEDATEISCONTINUED TO A LATER DATE, THE DEADLINE TO FILE A NOTICE OF INTENT TO CURE BY THOSE PARTIES ENTITLED TO CURE MAY ALSO BE EXTENDED;

● IF THEBORROWERBELIEVESTHAT A LENDER OR SERVICER HAS VIOLATED THE REQUIREMENTS FOR A SINGLE POINT OF CONTACT IN SECTION 38-38-103.1 OR THE PROHIBITION ON DUAL TRACKING IN SECTION 38-38-103.2, THE BORROWER MAY FILE A COMPLAINT WITH THE COLORADO ATTORNEY GENERAL, THE FEDERAL CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU (CFPB), OR BOTH. THE FILING OF A COMPLAINT WILL NOT STOP THE FORECLOSURE PROCESS.

Colorado Attorney General 1300 Broadway, 10th Floor Denver, Colorado 80203 (800) 222-4444 www.coloradoattorneygeneral.gov

Federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau P.O. Box 4503 Iowa City, Iowa 52244 (855) 411-2372 www.consumerfinance.gov

$135,950.00

Outstanding Principal Balance $97,422.62

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.

THE NORTH 34 FEET OF LOTS 1 AND 2, THE NORTH 40 FEET OF LOT 3, BLOCK 38, CITY OF IDAHO SPRINGS, COUNTY OF CLEAR CREEK, STATE OF COLORADO.

**The legal description was corrected by an AffidavitofCorrectionrecorded08/16/2022at ReceptionNo.306844intherecordsofthe Clear Creek county clerk and recorder, State ofColorado

Also known by street and number as: 319 13th Ave, Idaho Springs, CO 80452.

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

If applicable, a description of any changes to the deed of trust described in the notice of election and demand pursuant to affidavit as allowed by statutes:

**The legal description was corrected by an Affidavit of Correction recorded 8/16/2022 at Reception No. 306844 in the records of the Clear Creek county clerk and recorder, State of Colorado.

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 11:00 A.M. on Thursday, 03/09/2023, at The Clear Creek County Public Trustee’s Office, 405 Argentine Street, Georgetown, Colorado, 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.

Legal Notice No. CCC489 First Publication1/12/2023 Last Publication2/9/2023 Name of PublicationThe Clear Creek Courant

NOTICE OF RIGHTS

YOU MAY HAVE AN INTEREST IN THE REAL PROPERTY BEING FORECLOSED, OR HAVE CERTAIN RIGHTS OR SUFFER CERTAIN LIABILITIES PURSUANT TO COLORADO STATUTES AS A RESULT OF SAID FORECLOSURE. YOU MAY HAVE THE RIGHT TO REDEEM SAID REAL PROPERTY OR YOU MAY HAVE THE RIGHT TO CURE A DEFAULT UNDER THE DEED OF TRUST BEING FORECLOSED. A COPY OF SAID STATUTES, AS SUCH STATUTES ARE PRESENTLY CONSTITUTED, WHICH MAY AFFECT YOUR RIGHTS SHALL BE SENT WITH ALL MAILED COPIES OF THIS NOTICE. HOWEVER, YOUR RIGHTS MAY BE DETERMINED BY PREVIOUS STATUTES.

● A NOTICEOFINTENT TO CUREFILED PURSUANT TO SECTION 38-38-104 SHALL BE FILED WITH THE PUBLIC TRUSTEE AT LEAST FIFTEEN (15) CALENDAR DAYS PRIOR TO THE FIRST SCHEDULED SALE DATE OR ANY DATE TO WHICH THE SALE IS CONTINUED;

● ANOTICEOFINTENT TO REDEEMFILED PURSUANT TO SECTION 38-38-302 SHALL BE FILED WITH THE PUBLIC TRUSTEE NO LATER THAN EIGHT (8) BUSINESS DAYS AFTER THE SALE;

● IF THESALEDATEISCONTINUED TO A LATER DATE, THE DEADLINE TO FILE A NOTICE OF INTENT TO CURE BY THOSE PARTIES ENTITLED TO CURE MAY ALSO BE EXTENDED;

Clear Creek, State of Colorado

Lee By: Carol Lee, Public Trustee

The name, address, business telephone number and bar registration number of the attorney(s) representing the legal holder of the indebtedness is: Amanda Ferguson #44893 Halliday, Watkins & Mann, P.C. 355 Union Blvd., Suite 250, Lakewood, CO 80228 (303) 274-0155

Attorney File # CO11881

The Attorney above is acting as a debt collector and is attempting to collect a debt. Any information provided may be used for that purpose.

City and County

Public Notice

CLEAR CREEK COUNTY NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN of a public hearing before the Board of County Commissioners for Clear Creek County, Colorado, at 10:00 a.m. on the7thdayofFebruary,2023, at 405 Argentine Street, Georgetown, Colorado, 80444, for the purpose of considering the adoption of Ordinance No. 16, An Ordinance Ordinance Providing for the Banning of Open Fires by the Board of County Commissioners, County of Clear Creek, Colorado

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, this hearing will be held both in person and via Zoom teleconference. Please use the link or phone numbers below to participate via Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/167562115

Or Telephone: Dial (for higher quality, dial a number based on your current location): US: 669 900 6833 or 346 248 7799 or 301 715 8592 or 312 626 6799 or 929 205 6099 or 253 215 8782

Webinar ID: 167 562 115

Or iPhone one-tap : US: 669-900-6833,,167562115# or 346-248-7799,,167562115#

We are also streaming live via: https://www.facebook.com/Clear-Creek-CountyColorado-130701711250/

This notice is given and published by the order of the Board of County Commissioners of Clear Creek County.

Dated this 10th day of January, 2023.

Randall Wheelock, Chairman Board of County Commissioners Clear Creek County ORDINANCE NO. 16

AN ORDINANCE PROVIDING FOR THE BANNING OF OPEN FIRES BY THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS, COUNTY OF CLEAR CREEK, COLORADO

WHEREAS, the Board of County Commissioners of Clear Creek, State of Colorado (hereinafter referred to as “The Board”), desires to regulate intentional outdoor fires in Clear Creek County; and WHEREAS, pursuant to C.R.S. § 30-15-401(1) (n.5), the Board is authorized to ban open fires to a degree that is necessary to reduce the danger of wildfires within those portions of the unincorporated areas of the county where the danger of forest or grass fires is found to be high; and

WHEREAS, pursuant to C.R.S. § 30-15-402, the Board has the authority to impose penalties in violation of an ordinance adopted pursuant to C.R.S. § 30-15-401(1)(n.5); and

WHEREAS, the Board is responsible for determining the level of open fire ban that is necessary to prevent wildfires as required by law; and

WHEREAS, the Board adopted Resolution R-0183 authorizing the Clear Creek County Sheriff to declare and revoke fire bans; and

Section

1. Legislative Declaration.

The Board of County Commissioners of Clear Creek County, State of Colorado, hereby declares that open fires can be dangerous under certain conditions and are a matter of local and public concern and that in order to protect the public health, safety, welfare and natural resources of Clear Creek County it is necessary to control open fires in unincorporated areas.

Section2.Definitions.

A.(1) ”Open Fire” means any fire outdoors for any purpose, including, but not limited to, bonfires, campfires, charcoal or wood barbeques; lighting off fireworks of any kind, trash or rubbish burning, smoking and lawn, weed, ditch or crop burning.

(2) ”Open Fire” does not mean propane or natural gas barbeque or liquid fuel stove if it is attended at all times and is in a fully enclosed, covered barbeque grill or is contained within a liquid fuel stove.

Section 3. Procedures.

A. On its own motion, the Board may open a hearing on the issue of a fire ban in the unincorporated areas of Clear Creek County;

B. The Clear Creek County Sheriff is empowered to invoke or lift a fire ban for unincorporated areas of Clear Creek County. The Clear Creek County Sheriff shall consult with appropriate authorities, including, but not limited to, local fire districts, the Board, State Forester, and the U.S. Forest Service, in making the decision to invoke or lift a fire ban.

C. If the period of time that a fire ban shall be in effect was not specified in the declaration of the fire ban, the Board shall thereafter from time-totime review the continuing need for such a ban, based on consultation with the County Sheriff and appropriate agencies, to determine when the fire ban shall expire.

D. Pursuant hereto, the Board or County Sheriff shall limit Open Fires in any manner and to any extent deemed necessary or appropriate to reduce the danger of wildfire.

E. All bans shall describe the manner and extent of such a ban, provided that if there is no limitation included in the ban, the ban will be deemed to be a ban of all Open Fires, applicable everywhere in unincorporated Clear Creek County.

Section 4. Open Fires Prohibited in Unincorporated Areas.

If the Board or the County Sheriff determines that an Open Fire Ban shall be in effect in Clear Creek County, no person shall build, maintain, attend or use an Open Fire as prohibited by that particular fire ban on any private or public land in unincorporated Clear Creek County.

Section 5. Exemptions

The following persons and acts shall be exempt from any fire ban:

A. Persons with a valid written permit from the Clear Creek County Sheriff based on his consideration of the risks, time and location of the fire, fire hazard mitigation to be used, and safety measures to be taken during the event.

B. Any federal, state, or local officer or member of an organized rescue or firefighting force in the performance of an official duty.

C. Burning of irrigation ditches located within and completely surrounded by irrigated farmlands, where such burning is necessary for crop survival, and a specific written permit has been granted by the Clear Creek County Sheriff.

D. A federal agency or the Clear Creek County Sheriff.

Section 6. Posting.

If a Fire Ban is invoked or lifted pursuant to this Ordinance, notice of a fire ban, or lifting thereof, will be posted at the following locations:

Original Grantor(s) Elaine C. Grace

County of Clear Creek records.

Original Beneficiary(ies)

Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc., as Beneficiary, as nominee for Countrywide Home Loans, Inc., its successors and assigns Current Holder of Evidence of Debt Nationstar Mortgage LLC Date of Deed of Trust June 26, 2006

County of Recording Clear Creek

Recording Date of Deed of Trust July 13, 2006

Recording Information (Reception No. and/or Book/Page No.) 239443 Book: 756 Page: 445** Original Principal Amount

● IF THEBORROWERBELIEVESTHAT A LENDER OR SERVICER HAS VIOLATED THE REQUIREMENTS FOR A SINGLE POINT OF CONTACT IN SECTION 38-38-103.1 OR THE PROHIBITION ON DUAL TRACKING IN SECTION 38-38-103.2, THE BORROWER MAY FILE A COMPLAINT WITH THE COLORADO ATTORNEY GENERAL, THE FEDERAL CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU (CFPB), OR BOTH. THE FILING OF A COMPLAINT WILL NOT STOP THE FORECLOSURE PROCESS.

Colorado Attorney General 1300 Broadway, 10th Floor Denver, Colorado 80203 (800) 222-4444

www.coloradoattorneygeneral.gov DATE:11/08/2022

Federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau P.O. Box 4503 Iowa City, Iowa 52244 (855) 411-2372 www.consumerfinance.gov

Carol Lee, Public Trustee in and for the County of

WHEREAS, the Board desires to appoint the County Sheriff as the person with primary responsibility for determining when and to what extent a fire ban is appropriate, based on consultation with appropriate agencies in the community; and

WHEREAS, The Board exercised its authority on this subject by enacting/adopting Ordinance No. 8 on June 25, 2002; and

WHEREAS, thereafter, the General Assembly of the state of Colorado enacted laws affecting the manner of enforcement, and the penalties for violations, of county ordinances and regulations, specifically SB21-271 and HB22-1229; and

WHEREAS, the County Attorney recommends that Ordinance No. 8 be amended to comply with this legislation, by amending the enforcement provisions; specifically by rescinding Ordinance No. 8 and re-enacting it, as amended, as Ordinance No. 16, both actions to be effective simultaneously;

WHEREAS, it is in the interest of public health,

A. Outside of the Commissioners’ Hearing room at the Clear Creek County Courthouse; and B.In the lobby of the Courthouse; and

C.At the entrance to the Sheriff’s Department; and

D. Along roads and other places as the County Sheriff may determine to be appropriate.

In addition to the posting, local newspapers, local radio, local cable access channels and community agencies (including, but not limited to, CDOT, Colorado State Forester, Clear Creek County Fire Authority, local fire protection districts, U.S. Forest Service) shall be informed when a fire ban is invoked or lifted.

Section 7. Penalties.

A. Any person who violates any provision of this Ordinance commits a civil infraction and shall be punished by a fine of not less than fifty dollars ($50.00) and not more than one thousand dollars ($1,000.00) for each separate violation; provided that the fine for the second or subsequent offense

Carol

safety and welfare that open fires be regulated by the Board or the Board’s designee.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT ORDAINED BY THE BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF THE COUNTY OF CLEAR CREEK, COLORADO AS FOLLOWS: