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Bracing for a strike Teachers will soon vote on whether to strike, pending negotiations BY KAILYN LAMB KLAMB@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
hasn’t gotten old. “It was like, `Wow, you make a living doing this,’ ” Davis said, laughing. “It beats working for a living.” Running a record store in the heart of Capitol Hill hasn’t always been easy. A car drove through their front window one year. There have been break-ins. And, as the internet changed the way people bought music, there were days when the duo worried they would have to close their doors. But in the end, Davis and Stidman agreed, it’s all been worth it.
The clock is ticking. After more than a year of salary negotiations, teachers say they are getting ready for their last resort: voting for a strike. For the last 18 months, members of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association have been meeting with Denver Public Schools officials, trying to work out a system that pays teachers better. The DCTA is the union representing teachers in Denver. The average salary for DPS teachers during the 2017-18 school year was $50,757 according to the Colorado Department of Education. It is the largest school district in the state. Jefferson County Public Schools, the second largest district, had an average salary of $57,154 for the 2017-18 school year. Cherry Creek School District, the state’s fourth largest district, had an average salary of $71,711. Teachers across the state have been fighting for better pay. Henry Roman, president of the association and an elementary school teacher, said a possible strike in Denver has been a long time coming. After the first several months of negotiations, DPS brought forth a proposal, but it didn’t meet any of the needs discussed in meetings, Roman said. “After meeting for three consecutive months of a meeting of the minds, once we saw the product, meaning their proposal, we realized that they were not listening to any of the things
SEE WAX TRAX, P2
SEE STRIKE, P5
Dave Stidman, left, and Duane Davis stand behind the counter at Wax Trax in Capitol Hill. Stidman said that their love of music has kept them like “perpetual teenagers.” KAILYN LAMB
‘It beats working for a living’ After 40 years in Capitol Hill, Wax Trax still thrives BY KAILYN LAMB KLAMB@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
Dave Stidman leans back in an old office chair in the basement of Wax Trax Records, the music store he’s been running for 40 years with Duane Davis. The basement is littered with stacks of old vinyl and copies of “Wasted Paper,” a local “fanzine” Wax Trax produced as a way to get the word out about new music in the 1980s. On the cement walls is 40-year-old graffiti from the record store’s origi-
nal owners, who had one last party on East 13th Avenue before packing up and heading to Chicago to run the recording label Wax Trax! Records in 1978. Stidman and Davis are reminiscing over their four decades in the business: the changes in the music industry, what artists did well and the early days when Stidman lived in the back of the shop at 638 E. 13th Ave. But most of all, they talk about the tunes that have carried them through the years. The pair’s mutual love and knowledge of music was part of what kept the store going, Davis believes. And talking about music every day still
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Colorado’s population grew by 79,662 residents from 2017 to 2018, eighth most in the nation. Source: U.S Census Bureau
VOICES: PAGE 6 | LIFE: PAGE 8 | CALENDAR: PAGE 7 | SPORTS: PAGE 10 VOLUME 92 | ISSUE 9