LOCAL

Summers events at the Library

BY BELEN WARD BWARD@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

It was a Bubble Dance Party at the Fort Lupton Library on July 19. Over 150 families came to the event to cool down and have suds of fun.

“It’s great to see our families come together again at the library to play and connect. The library is so important in our community and today’s turnout is evidence that our programs make a difference in their lives,” said Kate Davis, Youth and Family Services Librarian.

This year the library is back hosting events for families and its readers bringing performer Ann Lincoln and her Foam Range program. She entertains at libraries across Colorado.

Ann Lincoln with her “Foam on the Range” machine. She entertains and performs at libraries across Colorado.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF FORT LUPTON LIBRARY

Children having fun as Ann Lincoln blast suds of fun.

TAP DANCE

in a nine-week tap and swing class with En Face Studios from Frederick. Seven stars represented clubhouses across Weld County to raise funds for the youth. The contest is for six weeks for fans to donate $1 to vote for the favorite star. The star with the most votes wins the competition.

“I wanted to be involved and I love dancing. I never knew this would happen. I’m kind of sad it’s over because I would love to keep doing it,” said Rickman.

Joanna Senior owns En Face Studios with her daughter Camile. They’ve taught dance for eight years. They teach ages three years old to adults with ballet, tap, jazz, contemporary, hip hop, and preschool classes. Senior, also dancer, has a passion to teach kids, as well.

“I love kids and I love to dance. The two together is just everything for me,” said Senior. “I wanted to provide a safe place for the kids and a home away from home. It’s somewhere where they could pursue their dreams, goals and their passion.”

Senior said Rickman was a great student.

“From the very beginning, when I talked to her on the phone, I knew I was going to fall in love with her because she had the most amazing energy,” said Senior.

Senior said Melissa told her she just want to go for it and knock the audience’s socks off.

“’I want to have fun and I’m committed to this’ she said,” Senior claims. “So she just jumped right in and has been incredible.”

Nick Kenny, executive director of Greeley Philharmonic Orchestra, and professional dancer Brynlee Richardson with A Dance Place representing the Greeley clubhouse teen center dancing a hip hop ensemble. They won for outstanding performance.

Old-Fashioned Summer Picnic

SATURDAY, AUG. 14 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Adams County Museum 9601 Henderson Road Brighton, CO 80601

Featuring the Vintage Motorcycle Club (dozens of bikes from the early 1900s to 1990s), a stilt walker, free ice cream (while supplies last), black smith demonstrations and games! Entry into the museum buildings for free!

National site experts visit and discuss how county ranks

BY SCOTT TAYLOR STAYLOR@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Site development expert Jeannette Goldsmith told a crowd of local offi cials and business owners that she gets the sense that Adams County is

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150 Main Street, Suite 1 Fort Lupton, CO 80621 303-857-3983 South Carolina-based site selection consultant Jeannette Goldsmith discusses workforce diversity July 22 at Commerce City’s Dicks Sporting Goods Park while co-panelists Andrew Shapiro, left, and Jerry Szaton listen. The event was part of breakfast presented by the Adams County Regional Economic Partnership and brought the three site selection experts to visit Adams County businesses and developments July 19-22 to

discuss how it stacks up to other regions of the country. PHOTOS BY SCOTT TAYLOR

trying to fi gure itself out, based on two days of tours and visits to local businesses and projects.

Goldsmith, vice president of South Carolina-based site development search fi rm Strategic Development Group, said she’s been reminded of two counties in Tennessee — Sumner and Rutherford counties — while touring Adams County.

Both counties are east of Nashville, Rutherford County to the southeast of Nashville and Sumner to the northeast.

“Both are places that are trying to fi gure out where they fi t in as a part of the Nashville metro area,” Goldsmith said. “I get the same sense about Adams County, trying to fi gure out where you fi t in Metro Denver.”

Rutherford County is home to the largest state university in Tennessee, as well as Nissan’s North American manufacturing facility.

“They are really taking a tack to fi gure out what makes them unique and how they can add value,” she said..”Sumner is struggling a little bit to fi gure out their place in the region. Those two places have been in the back of my mind for the last 24-to-36 hours.”

Goldsmith was one of three national site selection experts brought to the area by the Adams County Regional Economic Partnership to visit local developments and then give their opinions on how Adams County is doing — and what it can do better.

This is the fourth time the partnership has hosted the summit in fi ve years, with the event returning for 2021 after taking a break in 2020.

The Partnership brought in three site selection experts from around the country July 19 through 22.

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They included Goldsmith, Andy Shapiro, managing director of San Francisco’s Biggins Lacy Shapiro & Company LLC and Jerry Szatan of Chicago-based Szatan and Associates. All three are considered experts in helping large businesses fi nd the best cities and communities around the country to expand their operations or to relocate.

The group spent July 20 and 21 visiting a number of potential business magnets, ranging from Denver International Airport to the Colorado Air and Space Port and from Fitzsimmons Innovation Community to the Stanley Marketplaces. Their day culminated in a farm-totable dinner and reception hosted by Adams County at Riverdale Regional Park and the July 22 breakfast.

Commerce City hosted the breakfast discussion at Dicks Sporting Goods Park, for county, municipal and economic development offi cials and business owners from around the region.

For Szatan, it was his second Adams County Site Selectors Summit. He visited the area in 2017 and said it was good to come back and see what had changed, especially RTD’s N-Line rail that connects Northglenn, Thornton and Commerce City to downtown Denver. That project was in the works the last time he came but opened last summer.

“The advantage for Adams County being linked to Denver is that if you have people that want to operate there, you have an alternative to driving,” Szatan said..”It’s a huge plus to have that network and the opening of the North line is one of those things that’s different today than when I was here four years ago.”

The panel discussion was moderated by local attorney Carolynne White of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, who specializes in local development and urban renewal projects. After introductions, she asked the panel if the historical trends towards more offi ce space centralized in big cities would continue in the wake of COVID-19, pandemic quarantines and the realization that working remotely is possible.

SEE SUMMIT, P5

It’s about that time for Fort Lupton to celebrate its heritage.

Trapper Days returns Friday and Saturday, Sept. 10 and 11. The city’s website says Trapper Days celebrates the area’s pioneers (past and present and future).

This year’s event features a golf tournament, a “shuttle shuffl e” with tours of the library, the historic Fort Lupton Museum and a walking history tour of Hillside Cemetery, a pancake breakfast, vendors, raffl es, food trucks, a parade (http://fortluptonchamber.org/trapper-days), a car and bike show, tractor displays, a 5k run/walk, two live stages worth of bands, including a performance by the Soul Food Band, and Ducks Along the Rockies (https://www. fortluptonco.gov/DocumentCenter/ View/10224/Duck-Race-Poster-2021).

The newest event is a tomato festival.

Vendor opportunities are available; visit https://www.fortluptonco.gov/FormCenter/Events-13/ Event-Vendor-Application-NonFood-Booth-91. To volunteer, visit https://www.fortluptonco.gov/ FormCenter/Events-13/VolunteerApplication-87.

Visit https://www.fortluptonco. gov/172/Events-Programs and click on “Trapper Days.”

Mountain man Frank Trailblazer Lilly he calls himself, serving up ice cream with Mason Thompson and Ann Pepmeyer at the Trapper Days event in 2019. BELEN WARD

New Director for Fort Lupton library

Longmont native Samblanet promoted to director job

BY BELEN WARD BWARD@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Thomas Samblanet was promoted to Director for the Fort Lupton Public and School Library taking the place of Sarah Frank, according to a press release by the library. “I am excited to lead the Fort Lupton Public and School Library in the next chapter of its storied history,” said Samblanet. Libraries are the lifeblood of a vibrant and thriving city. I look forward to collaborating with the community to continue this important work.

Samblanet grew up in Longmont and went to school at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts earning a BFA in Graphic Design. He lived back east in South Carolina and the Boston area for years and worked as a Bookmobile Supervisor in Framingham, MA.

Samblanet is completing his Masters of Library and Information Science from San Jose University this fall. Samblanet passion for library outreach spent years developing innovative and creative adult programs.

Samblanet

to Director for the Fort Lupton Public and School Library taking the place of Sarah Frank, according to a press release by the library.

SUMMIT

Szatan said he thinks the need for offi ces will stabilize as the need for both centralized offi ce workers and remote workers builds. He cautioned patience, saying we don’t know exactly how that will work out.

“I think this hybrid model is here to stay, with a balance between traditional in-offi ce work and at home,” he said..”But what that is going to look like depends. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that a company in a hybrid situation still wants everyone to come to the offi ce on Tuesdays. Well, then you still need to have an offi ce big enough for everyone. In that sense, the demand for offi ce space won’t change. But we’ll have to see.”

San Francisco-based Shapiro said the trend toward businesses moving to smaller communities began before COVID, so he expects that to continue. Business functions that might have been centered in large ”Tier 1 cities” like New York City or Chicago began migrating to smaller Tier 2 cities like Denver years ago.

“This has been going on for 20 years ago,” he said. ”COVID has accelerated a movement out of Tier 1 markets to Tier 2 cities and even to Tier 3 markets, smaller university towns and smaller state capitals that are amenity-rich but don’t have some of the big city problems. That will help them attract and retain talent.”

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Some districts have already said they won’t mandate face coverings in the fall

BY ERICA MELTZER CHALKBEAT COLORADO

Colorado students, teachers, and school staff who are vaccinated won’t have to wear masks at school and won’t have to quarantine after COVID exposure, state health offi cials said in new guidance released for the 2021-22 school year.

Masks are recommended — but not required — for people who are not vaccinated, which currently includes all children under 12. School districts could choose to set stricter policies.

The recommendation matches school guidance released earlier this month by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Masking is an especially critical strategy when a community is at higher risk of transmission,” state health offi cials wrote. “Schools should create an accepting environment for parents and students who choose to use masks even when they are not required.”

Some Colorado school districts have already announced they won’t require masks next year, while in others, offi cials said they were weighing their options and waiting for state guidance. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that everyone continue to wear masks in school settings to create more layers of protection.

Particularly signifi cant for school operations, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment no longer recommends that people who are exposed to COVID in a routine classroom setting quarantine at all — provided they weren’t engaged in a higher risk activity like singing or contact sports and that their community has high vaccination rates and low community transmission.

For much of last school year, classroom quarantines frequently disrupted in-person learning, leading some superintendents to call for the state to end the practice. In describing the shift, state public health offi cials said it’s important to keep children safe and healthy, but children’s well-being extends beyond the risk of COVID.

“We want to make sure that schools remain a safe place, and this plan outlines ways to reduce potential transmission of COVID-19 in the school setting, while facilitating inperson learning,” CDPHE executive director Jill Hunsaker Ryan said in a press release announcing the new guidance.

The state guidance, released July 20, calls for different approaches in communities with high vaccination rates and low community transmission and those with low vaccination rates and high community transmission. COVID and vaccination rates vary signifi cantly around the state. Mesa County, in particular, with vaccination rates around 42%, has become a hotspot for the Delta variant, and cases have strained hospital capacity there.

But the guidance is just that — recommendations — and school districts and local public health agencies have the authority to set policy.

“This guidance strongly recommends local leaders and school leaders take a layered approach to prevention,” health offi cials wrote, including ventilation, staying home when sick, and frequent hand-washing. “Communities with higher rates of transmission and low vaccination rates should continue to take heightened COVID-19 precautions. Local public health still has the authority to enforce local public health orders, which may include quarantine requirements.”

The state no longer recommends quarantining of close contacts in school settings, even for unvaccinated students, in counties where at least 70% of eligible people have received at least one dose of the vaccine and case rates are not above 35 per 100,000 people in a seven-day period — or in school buildings with similarly high vaccination rates and a weekly testing regime.

However, in counties and schools with lower vaccination rates, higher case rates, and no plan for frequent testing, state health offi cials continue to recommend quarantine for close contacts. The guidance also recommends that people exposed outside a school setting continue to quarantine. Large outbreaks or the emergence of new variants could also lead to quarantine requirements.

The guidance cites contact sports, indoor sports, band and choir as activities that are higher risk and require special precautions, such as routine testing and quarantine after exposure.

“During the spring 2021 semester, outbreaks of COVID 19 often originated with these groups of students and then spread to the larger school community, disrupting learning,” the guidance states.

State health offi cials continue to stress the importance of vaccination. Rates vary widely around the state, and fewer than half of eligible students ages 12 to 18 are currently vaccinated, with just a few weeks to go before school starts.

State Epidemiologist Rachel Herlihy pointed to the steep decline in hospitalizations and deaths in counties with high vaccination rates. At the same time, she noted that schools serve a large unvaccinated population and will for many months to come. It’s not clear when vaccines for younger children will be approved by federal regulators.

“Our unvaccinated Coloradans remain vulnerable to the new variants, especially the Delta variant, which appears to be more likely to make young people ill than previous variants,” she said in a statement. “Because many students have yet to be vaccinated and students under 12 are not yet eligible for the vaccine, we must continue to remain vigilant, take important mitigation steps that can reduce transmission of COVID-19, and address outbreaks in a safe and thoughtful manner.”

To read the full guidance, go to tinyurl.com/COSchoolGuidance.

This story is from Chalkbeat Colorado, a nonprofi t news site covering educational change in public schools. Used by permission. For more, and to support Chalkbeat, visit co.chalkbeat. org.

REDISTRICTING

hinder their community’s ability to vote together on issues of shared interest.

Arvada Mayor Marc Williams spoke fi rst, voicing his desire to keep Jefferson County cities in the same congressional district.

“Arvada’s community of interest lies primarily with Golden, Wheat Ridge, Lakewood, Edgewater and Westminster,” said Williams, “in other words, the Jefferson County cities. These are all Jeffco cities who will be getting a letter from the Jeffco mayors indicating a very unifi ed voice that we think that we should all be in one congressional district.

“And that’s because we work well together,” Williams continued. “We’ve worked together on the homelessness issue; we’ve done a great Navigator program that we’ve put together in Jefferson County to address that issue. We’re working on attainable housing. We also have common transportation issues… that commonality of interest is not something I want to lose.”

Under the preliminary map proposal, Arvada would break from current CD7 and Jefferson County counterparts Lakewood, Wheat Ridge, Golden and Edgewater, among others.

Ken Fellman, who served as mayor of Arvada from 1999 to 2007, wrote into the commission voicing his desire to keep Jefferson County communities of interest in the same congressional district.

“The 7th Congressional District today,” said Fellman, “includes centers of aerospace, technology, environmental leadership and manufacturing in the communities that surround us from Westminster to Golden to Lakewood. Many Arvada businesses support these industries and even more Arvada residents work in these neighboring communities. Keeping these communities of interest together in one House district is critically important to all of us living here.”

Red Rocks Community College President Michele Haney advocated for her own community of interest; the College’s two campuses, which would be split into separate congressional districts under the preliminary map proposal.

“If you look at the preliminary maps,” said Haney, “they divide our campuses in two; Arvada in one district, Lakewood in another ... I would ask you to consider keeping the community of interest together, and keeping the Arvada and Lakewood campuses in one (district).”

The meeting also saw many residents of Lakewood voicing their concern about the city’s grouping in the revamped CD7, which it would now share primarily with Douglas County cities Highlands Ranch, Castle Rock and Parker.

“I reside in Lakewood,” said Sandie Weathers in an oral testimony. “Although most of the bonds I have made are in Lakewood, many of them have been made with folks in Wheat Ridge and Arvada. It is to my chagrin to hear that Republican commissioners are trying to group Lakewood in a district in Douglas County. Lakewood shares nothing with Douglas county. The only purpose would be to try to turn a traditional blue district red. This is quite obvious. I ask for fairness and transparency.”

“Lakewood is connected by a community of interest, geography, and history to other municipalities in Jefferson County,” said Tami Tanoue in an oral testimony, “such as Arvada and Wheat Ridge. We are part of the service area of Denver Water and, along with many other Jeffco municipalities, are served by distributor agreements with Denver Water. There are numerous intergovernmental agreements in place, and Lakewood’s concerns and priorities are not congruent with those of Douglas County.”

The Commission will continue to hold community meetings through the end of Aug., with upcoming meetings slated for Denver on July 27, Aurora on July 28, Centennial on Aug. 3 and Golden on Aug. 4, among others. A full schedule of the Commission’s meetings can be found at redistricting.colorado.gov/ meetings.

The fi rst elections under the new districts will be in 2022.

Masked children listen as Gov. Jared Polis visits a second grade class in Aurora.

COURTESY OF CHERRY CREEK SCHOOL DISTRICT

Colorado Congressional Districts

Old District 7 boundary

New District 7

New District 8

Graphic by Kayla Cornett Source: Colorado Independent Redistricting Commission

GRAPHIC BY KAYLA CORNETT