December 24, 2015
THIS WEEK IN
VOLUM E 127 | IS S U E 22 | 75¢
SPORTS
LOCAL
Meet the All-South Metro Football team A publication of
A R A P A H O E C O U N T Y, C O L O R A D O
page 15
LittletonIndependent.net
GOING UP
Trailmark to get fire station Lockheed Martin deal means wish will finally become reality By Jennifer Smith jsmith@coloradocommunitymedia.com
Which is not to say that city crews weren’t doing their best to minimize the chaos. “I would say that our snow-removal crews were prepared and responsive,” said Kelli Narde, Littleton’s director of communications. “They started at midnight and worked around the clock. Any time you have 10 inches of snow on a
It took a bit of rocket science, but one of the city’s most contentious dilemmas has finally been solved. Littleton City Council on Dec. 15 approved a deal with Lockheed Martin aerospace company that will result in a new fire station in the Trailmark neighborhood, a little island of the city just north of Chatfield Reservoir. “We like to talk about this as a time when all the stars kind of aligned,” said Littleton Fire Rescue Chief Chris Armstrong. Residents of Trailmark have been clamoring for better fire-department response times since the neighborhood was annexed into the city in 1991, and even louder since a fire destroyed a condominium building there in 2003. “For years, the Trailmark community has faced a dark truth — that their lives and their property are at increased risk,” said Scott Walker, just one of many of the Trailmark residents who attended the meeting to urge council to approve the deal. Because calls to the neighborhood are rare — an average of three a month in 2014 — nobody could come up with a cost-efficient way to fix the problem. In 2013, the city began contracting with West Metro Fire Rescue to serve Trailmark, at a cost of $312,000 a year, or about $8,667 per call. “When I came here and found out we were providing service to this part of our community through another fire department, it bothered me as a fire chief,” said Armstrong, who took over LFR in January 2014. But an opportunity presented itself this year when Lockheed Martin’s Waterton Canyon facility, just south of Trailmark at the end of Wadsworth Boulevard, asked the city to take over its emergency services. “What we’re looking for is that winwin,” said Joe Rice, Lockheed’s director of government relations. “We’ll get slightly better service for slightly less cost, but the City of Littleton can maximize their dollars and close that gap.” A new Littleton Fire Station 19, expected to cost about $2.6 million to build, would serve Lockheed, Trailmark and western portions of the Littleton Fire Protection District, which encompasses Chatfield State Park and extends all the way to Lockheed. The westernmost station now is just southwest of C-470 and Santa Fe Drive, and the average response time to Trailmark is nearly 13 minutes; it’s just eight and a half for the rest of the city. Armstrong noted that the last new station was built in 1998. Service calls have
Snow continues on Page 12
Trailmark continues on Page 12
Joey Kleeman (22) drives in to take a shot for Arapahoe during the Dec. 16 game against Heritage. The Warriors pushed the tempo in the second half and won the game 64-46. For more on the game, turn to Page 17. Photo by Tom Munds
First major snow breaks daily record Littleton Public Schools kids get rare weather day By Jennifer Smith jsmith@coloradocommunitymedia.com Students in Littleton Public Schools encountered something they’re not used to on Dec. 15 — a much-appreciated snow day. “Thank you!” wrote parent Lori Winslow-Horton on a Facebook post representative of the many thanks that appeared that day on the LPS page. “I am pleasantly surprised and much appreciative!” The district’s former superintendent, famously known as Scott “No Snow Day” Murphy, called the last snow day on April 9, 2013. Superintendent Brian Ewert, who took over last summer, seems content to not carry on that particular legacy. “The storm had not been expected to shift so dramatically, so we watched it very closely,” he said. They watched as snowfall reached as much as a foot deep in some places, with blasting wind and temperatures never reaching above 26 degrees Fahrenheit. Ultimately, the storm lasted nearly 24 hours and broke the record for Dec. 15, which had been set in 1897 at a mere 3 inches. LPS crews began clearing the district’s 20 parking lots about 2:30 a.m.
Snow piled up in the Littleton Public Schools administration building’s parking lot, just one of 20 the district has to plow. Photo by Jennifer Smith “The snow was falling so hard it was impossible to keep up,” said Ewert. “Also, LPS transportation personnel who were out driving our roads in the early morning hours reported that road conditions were getting worse as the morning wore on, and there were concerns that our buses would have a lot of difficulty. The decision to cancel school was all about keeping students, employees and families safe.”
LITTLETON INDEPENDENT (ISSN 1058-7837) (USPS 315-780) OFFICE: 2550 S. Main St., Littleton, CO 80120 | PHONE: 303-566-4100 A legal newspaper of general circulation in Littleton, Colorado, the Littleton Independent is published weekly on Thursday by Colorado Community Media, 2550 S. Main St., Littleton, CO 80120. PERIODICALS POSTAGE PAID AT LITTLETON, COLORADO and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address change to: 9137 S. Ridgeline Blvd., Suite 210, Highlands Ranch, CO 80129 DEADLINES: Display: Thurs. 5 p.m. | Classifieds: Tue. 8 a.m. | Obits: Tue. 11 a.m. | Legals: Thurs. 11 a.m.