PARKER’S FAVORITE WEEKEND!

FUN THINGS TO DO:

• Enjoy your Favorite Festival Food

• Shopping Marketplace

• Music on Four Stages

• Culinary Demonstrations

• Street Performers

• Carnival Rides for the Whole Family

• Free Kids Crafts

• Artisan Demonstrations: Pottery, Painting, Weaving, Decorative Furniture, and Lacemaking

• Silent Disco – Dance, Dance, Dance!

• Get Dizzy in a Water Bubble

• Bungy Jumping

• Jump and Slide on the In atables

• Nurf Terf Battles (Nurf version of Paintball)

• All Aboard! Ride the Sunshine Express Train on Mainstreet

Groove Mazda MAIN STAGE – Live Music ALL Day HEADLINERS:

Friday, June 9 presented by 8:15 pm: Still They Ride (Journey Tribute Band)

Saturday, June 10 presented by 8:30 pm: Chris Daniels and The Kings

Sunday, June 11 presented by 5:15 pm: That Eighties Band

CARNIVAL RIDES & GAMES: presented by

BUY DISCOUNTED UNLIMITED CARNIVAL RIDE WRISTBANDS ONLINE

Thursday Friends & Family Special

4 wristbands for $99

Only available for use on Thursday, June 8

Sold online through 12 noon Wed. May 31

Single-Day Unlimited Carnival Rides

$35 each

Good any one day during the festival

Sold online through 12 noon Wed. June 7

4-Day MEGA Unlimited Carnival Rides

$89 each

Good all 4 days of the festival

PURCHASE DURING THE FESTIVAL

Single-Day Unlimited Carnival Rides

$40 each

TICKETS FOR INDIVIDUAL RIDES

Food, Beverage & Ride Tickets may be purchased at Festival Ticket Booths. parkerdaysfestival.com

All council members were present at the meeting except for Patrick Driscoll. At the end of the discussion, council directed sta to draft a resolution opposing the bill as introduced. Council will vote on the resolution at an upcoming meeting.

Concerns and opposition

For several members of council and city sta , the largest concern of the bill is that it will take away local control of land use decisions.

“As a city I think we need to take a hard no,” District 2 Councilmember Jerry Valdes said. “I think (the bill) just needs to die right now. ere’s too many issues with it. For one… it’s a shift of power from citizens. All of a sudden, bureaucrats are going to tell us how we need to zone our city.”

City Attorney Reid Betzing also said he was strongly against the bill because it’s “an a ront to home rule.”

“ is is a breathtaking usurpation of home rule local land use control,” he said. “Whether it’s warranted for whatever reasons, OK, but from just a legal perspective, I would never be in support of this. Just fundamentally, regardless of what they want to do.”

City Manager Jim Becklenberg added several other concerns to the list. He said the bill lacks an a ordable housing strategy and is not equitable because it does not include unincorporated areas.

In addition, he said city sta is concerned that transit-oriented development, albeit a good idea, will be unsuccessful unless transit services increase.

“We’re concerned that that’s not some- thing that will be delivered upon,” he said.

More importantly, he said the city worries about the ripple e ect the legislation could create on the 2,300 units of housing that Littleton is already planning to develop.

“We’ve made the progress that we’ve made toward middle housing and are poised for more this summer,” he said. “We’re concerned, really, about the impact that the legislation, if passed, would have just on those development plans.”

At the least, Becklenberg said, the developers would have to redraw their plans. At most, the legislation could have a larger, more chilling impact on Littleton’s current progress towards building units, he said.

Mayor Kyle Schlachter noted that the city just spent years revamping the city code, which is work that would mostly be wasted if the bill passes.

“Rather than moving forward and having sta look at actual site plans and building plans, we’ll have to spend more time to revamp everything again here,” he said.

In spite of these concerns, Schlachter and other opponents of the bill said they like ideas behind the bill, just not the method for achieving the goals.

“I support a lot of the policies in it,” Schlachter said. “I think we should be able to enact some of them here in Littleton, but not have the state force them on us.”

Considerations and strengths

Another frustration Valdes had regarding the bill was that it blames the housing crisis on municipalities, he said.

“We’ve screwed up,” he said. “ at’s what it tells us. If you read that thing, it says that in there twenty-some times.”

“Maybe that’s the hard reality we need to face,” District 3 Councilmember Stephen Barr responded, o ering the rst expression of possible support for the bill during the meeting.

Valdes said he disagreed and that the state has helped create the problem, speci cally by passing construction defect legislation that created a hesitancy for developers to build middle housing.

Later, Councilmember At Large Pam Grove said she did not see how new development would be a ordable housing.

“It’s not necessarily, but it’s a prerequisite for it,” Barr responded. “You can’t have a ordable housing without housing supply. We are not building housing, like we’re just barely starting to get on track to building housing, but… the problem is outpacing the scale of what we can do individually.”

Contrary to the clear opposition from some of his colleagues, Barr said he would like to take a neutral position on the bill.

“It, in and of itself, does not solve the problem,” he said. “I am not under any illusions that it does, nor am I under any illusions that it’s perfect or equitable… but to my personal views, the principles in this bill are things that we should be striving for. We don’t like the mechanism by which it is done. And I think it’s okay to give up a little, a little power in order to have that collective responsibility be shared.”

District 4 Councilmember Kelly Milliman said she was also not a clear “no” against the bill.

“We keep saying that they’re taking over home rule,” she said.

“Don’t you think that the governor might be saying, instead of taking it away, I’m going to take the brunt of the anger that’s going to come from the NIMBYs, or the ones that use whatever language they want to use to ght development?”

“I know this is a big change,” she continued. “But this is a regional problem. It’s regional. We’re not going to solve it here in the city of Littleton. Englewood’s not going to solve it. We have to come together regionally.”

Because of the strengths and concerns she saw in the bill, Milliman asked if there was a way to stall on taking a position to wait and see the amendments.

Based on Littleton’s correspondence with the governor’s o ce, roughly 30 amendments to the bill have been proposed. Some of these draft amendments would aim to strengthen a ordability and antidisplacement of individuals in currently a ordable housing, provide additional exibility in housing options and strengthen stakeholder input, according to a city memo.

Mayor Pro Tem Gretchen Rydin said she would like to advocate for the amendments that align with their speci c concerns.

“For the record, I don’t want to be a hard ‘no’ either,” she said. “Affordability and anti displacement, I think that is really important and making sure that those amendments capture that. And I would much rather much see us use our soapbox to advocate for that in the bill than to say, ‘We’re out this sucks.’”

In response to the suggestion to wait, Schlachter said there wasn’t enough time with the legislative session ending in just over three weeks.

“We don’t have time to wait to see what those amendments are,” he said. “And so I think there’s support to draft a resolution in opposition of the introduced bill.” where they want to live among properties in the private market. e second waitlist is for onebedroom apartments at Sierra Vista Apartments, located at 8851 East Florida Avenue, just east of Parker Road. e apartment complex is newly renovated and incomerestricted, with tenants receiving project-based rental assistance through SMHO. e waitlist for Sierra Vista will be open for two weeks, from 8 a.m. on April 14 until 5 p.m. on April 27. e waitlist for two-bedroom apartments at Sierra Vista is not set to open this month.

If the bill changes drastically with amendments after the city takes a position, Schachter said the city could take a new position.

SMHO’s waitlist for housing choice vouchers will be open for one day only, from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. on Wednesday, April 19. If the waitlist lls up before 8 p.m., the list will close early.

Applicants may apply to one or both waitlists, SMHO spokesperson Kimberly DeCero wrote in an email to Colorado Community Media. Applications will not be accepted after the waitlists close.

How to sign up

People interested in signing up for a waitlist must submit an online pre-application at https:// onlineportal.smho.co. No paper pre-applications will be available or accepted.

Pre-applications will ask applicants for general information including name, phone number, email address and Social Security number,

DeCero wrote in an email. SMHO encourages people who need access to a computer or internet to complete this task at their local libraries.

Placement on a waitlist will be based on the date and time the pre-application is submitted. SMHO is an equal opportunity housing establishment, so the best thing a person can do to get on a waitlist is to be diligent and apply when the list opens, DeCero said.

“ ere’s no preference, there’s no opportunity to jump ahead, there’s none of that,” she said. “It’s equal opportunity all the way. Everybody has the same chances.”

After a pre-application is submitted, applicants can check their status and update their information as needed at https://onlineportal. smho.co. Applicants must ensure the contact information on their pre-application is always current.

Once a person is on a waitlist, they will be contacted if an apartment or voucher becomes available for them. It often takes years to get o a waitlist for a housing choice voucher, SMHO executive director Corey several districts becoming bigger and then ultimately consolidating together.” e agency’s original service plan dates back to 1967, when the organization was known as Parker Fire Protection District. e old agency served about 2,000 residents over 105 square miles in portions of Arapahoe and Douglas counties.

If a person is chosen from the waitlist, they will go through the application process to be approved for a voucher, either housing choice or project-based, depending on which waitlist they are chosen from.

“ is is a pre-application to get them in a position to be able to apply when the time and opening comes for them,” DeCero said.

Only one pre-application may be submitted per family. If multiple pre-applications are submitted per family, they will be rejected.

Applicants who would like to request a reasonable accommodation should call Helen Hoy at 303-7949608. A reasonable accommodation is a change, exception, or adjustment to a rule, policy, practice, or service that may be necessary for a person with disabilities to have an equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Applicants with questions about the process can call SMHO at 303794-9608 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Mondays through ursdays.

Now, South Metro Fire Rescue covers 560,000 people over 285 square miles, stretching over much of the south metro area after many re protection agencies combined over the years to form today’s agency.

It now covers many cities and towns, including Bow Mar, Castle Pines, Centennial, Cherry Hills Village, Columbine Valley, Fox eld, Greenwood Village, Littleton, Lone Tree and Parker, along with nearby unincorporated portions of Arapahoe, Je erson, and Douglas counties. ere’s historical value in neatly summarizing how the districts changed and then came together, Dell’Orfano said. For curious members of the public, the updated document also can provide other information clearly.

(“Unincorporated” means an area doesn’t sit within a city or town.)

“A service plan is required for all special (government) districts, and you would hope that the document is pretty transparent when it comes to the services provided, how it’s being nanced, how it’s being governed and what’s the impact to people,” Dell’Orfano said.

He added that the updated plan “is more comprehensive and understandable than the previous one, which was just several county and court documents that we pieced together.”

When a person has to “do a research project” to gure out what the plan is, that’s not helpful, he added. e amendment is “just recognizing that we might be o ering the same services, but over the past 55 years, the volume, the expertise, the types of incidents have all evolved,” Dell’Orfano, who serves as the agency’s chief government a airs ofcer, has said.

Amid recent public scrutiny of “special districts, mainly metro districts, I feel like this helps us keep up with current expectations,” Dell’Orfano said.

(Metro districts are a type of government entity that carries out some government functions, such as the Highlands Ranch Metro District that oversees some services in that community.)

It also aims to take a new “snapshot” at the features of the re district, such as the hazards, the number of cities and the population, he said.

Since the agency’s start decades ago, its original service plan was amended a couple times to account for the ability to take on debt and to make sure all its services were re ected, Dell’Orfano said. ose amendments occurred in 1983 and 1996. e amendment won’t change the way the agency spends money, and it won’t change South Metro Fire’s hiring ability or the pay that employees receive, Dell’Orfano said.

“As of right now, we don’t have debt, and we haven’t used debt to fund major capital projects for several years,” Dell’Orfano said in February.

“Capital” costs include paying for re trucks, re stations and ambulances, for example.

South Metro Fire’s property tax rate — the mill levy that property owners in the re agency’s service area pay — would not increase as a result of the amended plan.

Leaders in Douglas, Arapahoe and Je erson counties held public meetings on the proposed change in late February. e three boards of county commissioners all approved the plan unanimously, Dell’Orfano said.