Arvada Press 012623

Our in-depth look at the housing crisis

Parks crew uncovers 50-year-old tennis practice wall

City, historical society considering possibility of restoring wall

BY RYLEE DUNN RDUNN@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

A parks maintenance crew in Arvada stumbled upon a historical artifact recently when they uncovered a 50-year-old tennis practice wall at Alice Sweet omas Park while performing regular maintenance. Arvada’s Director of Vibrant Communities and Neighborhoods Enessa Janes said her department was considering the possibility of restoring the wall.

Janes said the wall was discovered during renovation of the tennis courts at Alice Sweet omas Park. A team was removing damaged siding and exposed the wood paneling underneath it, revealing the old practice wall.

Racial Inequities: Black Coloradans often face barriers in homeownership

the applicants visited properties, landlords denied their applications. is happened over and over again.

BY NINA JOSS AND HALEY LENA NJOSS@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM; HLENA@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

A few years ago, Aurora Warms the Night, an Aurora-based nonpro t serving people who need housing, ran into a challenge when assisting its Black clients in applying for apartments. When

So the team decided to take a di erent approach, sending in White volunteers to check out the apartments rst.

“I would send one of our employees or people that were White to look at the apartment — to get the pricing, get everything, to make sure everything was available,” said Brian Arnold, who was executive director of the group at

the time ve years ago. “After that, we did the application online and sent it in without them being able to see the person.”

Once the application got approved, the team at Aurora Warms the Night would let the real estate agents see the client was Black. Arnold said this process worked almost every time and became the organization’s own way of making a dent in the discrimination that people of color may face, but nd

“I’m not familiar with the historical signi cance,” Janes said. “ e tennis courts were built in 1974; we have parks maintenance workers who’ve been here for three decades — this was a surprise. My hunch is it’s been covered up for a long time.

“It’s very cool and retro-looking,” Janes continued. “ e unique look of the wall has generated interest into the city’s plan.”

Janes said that plan is still up in the air. e wall is assembled using a tongue and groove method, which generally requires a more unique skill set to restore. Janes added that some of the wood has rotten and would have to be replaced. e wall was likely used to practice tennis individually.

“Right now, we’re exploring and gathering information to determine how much it would cost to restore

Arvada crime briefs:

Man found dead at bus stop near 58th and Kipling in Arvada

Victim believed to be unhoused person; Arvada Police investigating death as homicide

BY RYLEE DUNN RDUNN@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

A man was found dead at the RTD bus stop near 58th Avenue and Kipling Parkway early in the morning of Jan. 17, according to Arvada Police Department Public Information O cer Dave Snelling. e

victim is believed to be an unhoused individual, and APD is investigating the death as a homicide.

At around 8 a.m. on Jan. 17, APD received a request for a welfare check on a person with a blanket at the bus stop in front of the McDonald’s located at 9825 West 58th Avenue. e caller reported that the person was laying on the ground with their feet close to the road.

O cers responded shortly after the call and discovered a deceased male laying near the bus stop bench. Snelling said that no other identifying information about the victim was available at this time but added that APD may put out a request for

community support with the case at a later time.

Other news

At about 5:10 p.m. on the evening of Jan. 16, Arvada police got calls reporting gunshots in the area of Grandview Avenue and Estes Street. Around that same time, a call came in saying a man had been shot in the foot.

e man was found at 57th Avenue and Yarrow Street with a super cial gunshot wound in the food. e man said he was walking and didn’t see anyone ring a gun at him.

Snelling said APD believes the

man was hit by a stray bullet from a nearby altercation.

“At this point, we feel that there was an altercation between a white (KIA) sedan and a white SUV,” Snelling said. “We believe that one of the rounds traveled a great distance east and landed in a guy’s foot. It would not be uncommon for the bullet to travel a fair distance.”

Snelling said that no other injuries from the altercation have been reported, but the department put a request out to be noti ed by local hospitals. e man who was shot in the foot was treated by responding paramedics and released with super cial injuries.

Colorado’s high school graduation rate jumped in 2022

But so did the dropout rate

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-over-year 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.

“I’m so excited that last year more kids than ever graduated from Colorado public schools, with increased graduation expectations and despite the challenges of the pandemic,” Colorado Education Commissioner Katy Anthes said in a statement.

is is the rst year Colorado expanded ways that students can earn enough credits to graduate. Individual school districts can use a “menu” provided by the state that allows students to demonstrate their readiness for their next step, including through standard-

ized assessments like the SAT and ACT, an extensive capstone project or completion of courses that earn them college credit while they’re still in high school.

Additionally, the state’s graduation rates for students who earned a diploma over six and seven years also increased, according to the media release.

Students of color also made notable strides in graduating. e 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’ graduation rate was 75.1%, 0.9 percentage points higher than the previous year. Still, achievement and opportunity gaps persist between students of color and their white peers, whose 2022 graduation rate was 87.3%.

is story is from e Colorado 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

the wood to a lasting condition,” Janes said. “ e original plan was to remove the siding and put up new siding, but when we discovered the wood, we wanted to see how much it’d cost to x it.”

Janes said that, unlike neighboring cities, Arvada doesn’t have designated funding for parks, historic preservation and trails, so when surprise projects like this come up, the department has to weigh it with other priorities.

“Parks compete against streets and utilities for resources,” Janes said. “It’s not as easy as just xing it as it might be in other communities who do have that funding.”

For their part, Arvada Historical Society President Karen Miller said the organization would take a look at the wall and see if they could pitch in to help.

“We would at least want to look at it and see if we can round up some people that maybe could help restore it,” Miller said.

As Usual, This Year’s CES Show Featured Some Exciting New Home Technologies

Formerly called the Consumer Electronics Show, CES 2023 made headlines in January for its focus on electric vehicles and EV technology, but it also featured several homerelated technologies and products which made headlines at Realtor Magazine. Here are the magazine’s Top 10 innovations:

First was LG’s ArtCool Gallery, a wall A/C unit disguised as a framed photograph or artwork provided by the user. In 2022, I showed a Willow Springs listing which had this kind of wall unit in various rooms of that one-story home. Here’s a picture from that listing. The picture next to the window is the unit.

es a shower’s water stream with scents and oils. Kohler will initially offer six different scent pods, including lavender, chamomile and eucalyptus. The unit will cost $119, and a 6-pack of singleuse pods will cost $21.

If you’re looking for an interesting alternative to stainless steel, you might be interested in LG’s new MoodUp Refrigerator, which can display 190,000 different color combinations on the LED screens on its front doors. Meanwhile, Samsung is bringing to market this spring its “Bespoke” refrigerator which has no handles. The two doors open by touching them.

For $6,500, you can replace your home’s front door with Masonite’s “MPwr Smart Door,” which incorporates a downlight and two side lights which turn on when you approach it and both a smart lock and Ring video doorbell. It is connected to your home’s electricity, but includes a battery backup so you can still get in if there’s a power failure.

your driveway, walkways and sidewalk? Well, your ship has come in! It’s the Yarbo 3-in-1 Intelligent Yard Robot, which has attachments for those two

tasks and many more, which you can read about at www.Yarbo.com

Completing Realtor Magazine’s Top 10 products for CES were touchless window shades from Eve which respond to voice commands; a 2-wheeled family robot from Enabot; and the M3 OLED Smart TV from LG, which is totally wireless except for the power cord.

I have put a link to the Realtor Magazine article, which has links to all 10 products, at www.GoldenREblog.com

Canadian Company Develops Recycled Rubber Roofing

The picture at right is of Euroshield® roofing made from recycled tires. It is manufactured by G.E.M., a company in Calgary, Alberta.

made to look like slate tiles, shown here, or wood shakes.

Curiously the listing agent didn’t state on the MLS that this was a heat pump. I don’t think the units in that listing were from LG, since the LG website shows availability and price of theirs as “TBD.” Such units are clearly driven by a heat pump, but nowhere on LG’s website could you find the words “heat pump,” instead referring to outdoor “dual inverter units.” I find this peculiar since heat pumps are suddenly the rage. The website also did not mention the substantial tax credits or rebates now available for heat pump installations.

Second was Kohler’s “Sprig Shower” device, coming this spring, which infus-

For $11-17,000, you can replace your staid old bathtub with Kohler’s Stillness Infinity Experience, which brings a “Zen-like, multi-sensory experience,” combining water, lighting, mist, essential oils and soothing sounds. Water cascades over the top into a wooden moat, from which it is filtered and pumped back into the tub. I’ll pass on this one!

Is pushing buttons or using a key too much effort for you?

For $189.99, you can buy Lockly’s “Flex Touch” fingerprint deadbolt, shown here.

Do you have a Roomba robotic vacuum and wish there was a robot that could mow your lawn and clear snow from

Henry Kamphuis founded the company in 1999 to solve the problem of old tires clogging up landfills and dumpsites. Several years later, after much research and trial-and-error, he came up with a green roofing system that is 95% made from the rubber in old tires. It takes over 400 such tires to provide the rubber for a typical roof.

The roofing tiles are connected by a tongue-and-groove design and can be

The roofing is sold and installed in the Denver metro area by Johnson Construction Company LLC, which you can reach at 303-719-7663, or via their website, which is www.RoofsByJohnson.com. A sales rep told me the cost is more than double, but the roof comes with a 50-year warranty against damage from up to 2” hail with no pro-rating and no deductible. The company replaced the roofs in Golden’s Amberwick subdivision after a 2017 hail storm. The roofs came through two subsequent hail storms without any visible damage.

Real Estate Market Is Showing Signs of Revival

Here at Golden Real Estate, we have some anecdotal evidence of a resurgence in the real estate market, which was moribund in December.

On Saturday, Jan. 7th, I held a 2-hour open house at my listing on Bates Avenue. My previous open house at that listing had drawn not a single visitor, so I was quite surprised to have 10 sets of visitors that day. All of them were actual buyers, not lookie-loos.

I had four prospective buyers from those open houses and on Monday that home went under contract.

This rare ranch-style home with a southwestern feel at 634 Entrada Drive is on a mini cul-de-sac, giving it an oversized backyard with a water feature (stream & pond) that you can enjoy from the newly rebuilt wood deck off the living room and primary suite. A 10'x13' office is used by the seller as a 3rd bedroom minus only a closet. An open floor plan links the spacious living room to the kitchen over a breakfast bar. The living room has a gas fireplace. There’s attractive use of glass brick in the dining room and kitchen and also in the garage. New carpet has been installed, making this home move-in ready. The walk-out basement is unfinished but with a half bath installed. Interior photos and a narrated video tour are at SouthGoldenHome.com Broker associate Jim Swanson, 303-929-2727, is holding it open Saturday 11 to 1.

I immediately decided to hold it open the following day, Jan. 8th, and once again it was my most visited open house in recent memory.

A second example of this resurgence came when broker associate David Dlugasch listed a 1960 brick ranch with walkout basement in south Golden/Pleasantview. (It was featured in our January 5th column/ad.) The listing drew 22 agent showings on the first three days, and it went under contract on Sunday at full price — $798,000, which I frankly thought was a reach.

Although anecdotal, these experiences give me hope for 2023’s real estate market.

Jim Smith

Broker/Owner, 303-525-1851

Jim@GoldenRealEstate.com

1214 Washington Ave., Golden 80401

Broker Associates:

JIM SWANSON, 303-929-2727

CHUCK BROWN, 303-885-7855

DAVID DLUGASCH, 303-908-4835

TY SCRABLE, 720-281-6783

GREG KRAFT, 720-353-1922

The tennis practice wall, circa 1972, found at Alice Sweet Thomas Park during rennovations.

COURTESY PHOTO

Je co Board of Education to decide on use of shuttered school buildings

BY ANDREW FRAIELI AFRAIELI@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Sixteen elementary schools will be closing after this school year due to a vote by the Je erson County Board of Education in November. With their closing, the future use of the school buildings is called into question.

Included in that November vote was a resolution from the Board

to create a community-involved process for giving recommendations on decisions involving the use of these buildings, according to Chief of Strategy and Communications for the District Lisa Relou. Part of that process is creating an advisory committee that includes District sta as well as additional speci c ad hoc members based on the location of the building being considered, Relou said in a Board study session earlier this month.

According to Relou, there will be a “step-by-step process including value assessment, engagement with local municipalities and special districts, proposal collection, legal review and community engagement, all in an e ort to make the best determination possible as to the future

of the property.”

e Board is the only body capable of declaring a building to be surplus, and therefore able to be sold by the District. Usage proposals from outside organizations are expected, and the committee — which will be decided upon by Feb. 1 — will draft a rubric to guide decisionmaking on these proposals by Feb. 21.

“This first process, we have this property, we’ve talked with the city, and now we’re going to have a public information session,” Relou said. “We might have an open house where it’s open most of the day where people can come in and see the property, and then we host a meeting where we give more information. And when we really

open this, we’re going to collect the intent to propose — just getting a sense of what people might want to do in these buildings.”

The next step after creating a rubric for these proposals will be March 1, when the Board studies the first round of properties that might be considered as surplus. Next would be March 9, when the Board votes on that round of properties.

“We’re in the process of scheduling, reaching out to all our option schools to see what their needs are or desires might be, so that we are certain that we wouldn’t push things through the surplus process without first understanding if those particular things are of interest to our internal folks,” Relou said.

Colorado’s first case of rabies this year found in Je erson County

BY ANDREW FRAIELI AFRAIELI@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

is year’s rst rabid animal for the entire state was found in Je erson County, in Morrison near West Belleview and Quincy Avenues. Je co Public Health announced that a skunk tested positive for rabies from

an interaction at a private home on Jan. 2.

“While rabies cases are most frequently seen in warmer months, historically, Colorado does see some cases all year long,” Rachel Reichardt, environmental health specialist, said in a statement. “Last year in Je erson County, there were 15 animals that

tested positive for rabies, including eight skunks and seven bats.”

Rabies is transferred through the saliva of infected animals — most often bats and skunks in Colorado — if it comes in contact with a person or animal’s eyes, nose, mouth or open wounds. e virus itself a ects the nervous system and is considered fatal if not treated immediately, according to JCPH.

As precautions, the JCPH suggests vaccinating pets and livestock against the virus, avoiding contact with wild animals — especially any acting unusually, teaching children to stay away from wild animals, strays or

dead animals and if a person is bitten, to wash with soap and water and immediately seek medical attention.

Man with di erent baseball caps suspected in string of bank robberies

black eyeglasses with a thick frame, according to the alert.

BY NINA JOSS NJOSS@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Several metro Denver law enforcement agencies are seeking help identifying a suspect who they believe robbed four banks earlier this month.

e morning of Jan. 9, a suspect robbed the Chase Bank at 7605 W. 88th Ave. in Westminster. e following morning, the same person is suspected of robbing three more banks, including the First Bank at 8901 E. Hampden Ave. in Denver and US Bank at 8441 W. Bowles Ave. and First Bank at 6701 S. Wadsworth Blvd. in unincorporated Je erson County.

An FBI crime alert  described the suspect as a white male in his 20s between 5-foot-6 and 5-foot-10 tall. He has a slender build, dark hair, brown eyes, “stubble” facial hair and

e suspect approached the teller, made a verbal demand for money, threatened the teller and then ed the bank, the alert said.

e suspect did not display a weapon, according to a Facebook post from the Je erson County Sheri ’s O ce.

Images of the suspect show him wearing di erent baseball caps and jackets or hoodies during robberies.

e FBI’s Rocky Mountain Safe Streets Task Force and Metro Denver Crime Stoppers are working with local police agencies on the case. e FBI is involved because the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which insures deposits, is considered a victim, said FBI Denver spokesperson Vikki Migoya.

Anyone with information on the suspect is encouraged to call Metro Denver Crime Stoppers at (720) 913-7867, 24-hour anonymous tip line. Callers could earn up to $2,000 for information that helps solve the crimes.

The future use of the 16 elementary school buildings being closed is still to be decided

In Colorado, the most common animals to be found with rabies are skunks and bats.

PHOTO COURTESY OF PIXABAY

Not the ‘June Incident,’ but the death of Christian Glass

Simon and Sally Glass remember their son who died following an event involving a former Clear Creek deputy

BY OLIVIA JEWELL LOVE OLOVE@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

At 16, his car was his rst real taste of freedom. At the age of 22, Christian Glass died in an event involving a former Clear Creek deputy on June 10, 2022 in the same Honda Pilot he drove on his 16th birthday. e car that once symbolized freedom and joy to Glass became a place in his nal moments of life where he was trapped and terri ed at the

hands of the o cers.

His parents, Sally and Simon Glass, remember when their son rst began driving.

“He absolutely loved it,” Sally said.

“I still remember thinking, ‘Gosh, why? It’s not that big a deal, we drive you everywhere anyway,’” Simon said. “But the di erence is that he could stop o and go somewhere, or change his mind or whatever I suppose, and go to the mountains. He loved driving in the mountains.”

It is memories like these that both comfort and pain the Glass family. Sally said she and Simon never had any conversations about the police with Christian because they didn’t think they needed to.

“And you know what, we never did.

Christian (left) with parents Simon and Sally.

PROVIDED BY THE GLASS FAMILY

A Chocolate A air returning for 23rd year

Fundraiser for Ralston House features sweet sampling in Olde Town

BY RYLEE DUNN RDUNN@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Arvada’s set to get a little bit sweeter in February, as the 23rd Annual Chocolate A air will take place in Olde Town on Feb. 4 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Attendees can purchase tasting tickets online at ralstonhouse. org — all proceeds from the event will bene t the local child advocacy nonpro t. e event will see local retailers — including Enstrom Candies, Scrumptious, Rheinlander’s, Bread Winners Café and more — o ering samples of chocolate confections ranging from baked goods to tru es to ice cream to to ee.

Each $1 ticket is good for one business’ sample. e event will also feature a Chocolate Bake O cookie and brownie baking

will be hung all around Olde Town from Feb. 4 to Feb. 14. e hearts are $25 and can be purchased on the Ralston House website.

Historic Olde Town Arvada (HOTA) has traditionally put on the event in conjunction with Ralston House. HOTA President Karen Miller said the event was started by a merchant in the 1990s.

“A Chocolate A air was started by a merchant sometime in the ‘90s, back when Olde Town was pretty quiet and the merchants were dreaming up ideas of how to get people down here,” Miller said. “ e merchant asked another to bake cookies or brownies at their store and put out a box for donations; they gave it to juvenile diabetes research.”

Miller said that the event’s attendance took a dip during COVID but has ramped up since. About a dozen Olde Town retailers will participate this year.

A crowded scene at Rheinlander Bakery as visitors wait in line to get their samples.

PHOTO BY RYLEE DUNN

Local mom Caitlyn Hankins dedicated her lamp post heart to her children last year. COURTESY PHOTO

Soap-making and blacksmithing and calligraphy — oh my!

ing the class for the last three years and has been making soap herself for the last 10.

“It just kind of became an addiction at some point,” she said.

BY ANDREW FRAIELI AFRAIELI@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Blacksmithing, soap-making and calligraphy: 20th-century heritage crafts that have been brought into the 21st century at Heritage Lakewood.

“Our focus, as a site, and by proxy, the programs, is the 20th century,” said Stephen Luebke.

As the museum programs specialist, or just the educator, as he calls himself, Luebke hunts for class ideas and develops and runs them. According to Luebke, the classes have been running for years, ebbing and owing in funding, but always trying to appeal to many.

A couple of di erent classes run every month at Belmar Park, what the city calls a “20th-century history park and museum.” Most recently was soap-making.

“ e point of cold-press is to look pretty. You have to be patient, but it’s pretty,” Katrina Hoing, the teacher for the soap-making class, said in her January class. As she elaborated throughout, the technique she teaches is cold-press, which allows colorful patterns to be made in the soap bars.

Hoing, a paralegal, has been teach-

For the class, she worked with four students making two ve-pound batches of scented cherry that would be ready for Valentine’s Day. A mix of coconut, olive oil and almond oil was combined with water and lye and mixed to make something of a pudding consistency.

A small amount was separated and dyed red before pouring the now red and original, yellow-tinged, amount into a mold. Using a bamboo stick, students created swirls and patterns in the mixture.

Because of the cold-press technique, the molds have to sit for 24 hours before Hoing cuts them into bars. After that, she leaves them to sit for another four weeks to allow the chemical reaction of lye turning the oils into soap to nish.

“You can’t wash your hands with olive oil and have clean hands,” Hoing joked.

According to Luebke, most of the classes at the moment have existed for years, with people being hired as others leave — Hoing being one of those people. She stumbled into teaching the course, but the course had already existed before her. People have approached Luebke to make a class though, like the blacksmith.

“Our blacksmithing program is a direct result of him,” said Luebke.

e next blacksmithing class is in March.

“If someone approaches us with an idea, we’ll kind of mull it over, do some research,” he continued. “I try to see if it’s possible, run the numbers, see if there’s a market for it, whether that market is saturated — just in the area.”

Blacksmithing, he added, t well into the program’s 20th-century craft focus, and was certainly not competing with any other programs nearby.

For other classes, Luebke has hunted down teachers, like the upcoming youth skateboard deck design class in February. is class, he explained, will be taught by a local gra ti artist that works with the city in other projects.

Luebke also highlighted how he aims for a variation of people in classes. e blacksmithing class, for example, has had students from 16 all the way to 80, he said.

e full class list can be found on Heritage Lakewood’s website.

Katrina Hoing (middle) teaches soap-making at Heritage Lakewood Belmar Park, helping students like Leanne Marquez (left) and Karen Co ey (right) mold and design their cold-press soap creations.

PHOTO BY ANDREW FRAIELI

Crafters can enjoy various classes at Heritage Lakewood

And obviously, obviously, we should have, because we didn’t know … there was something to be scared of or that because they could be dangerous,” Sally said.

“We kind of hung our heads in shame”

A typical summer for the Glass family while Christian was growing up involved lots of summer sports and art camps, visits to family in England and evenings at home with friends and family.

“ e boys would just play soccer, they play basketball or they play frisbee or they play chase. And so that was, often I would have to say, the summer evenings,” Sally said.

Sally remembers Christian playing tennis at a competitive level, so much so that he even blew out his

knee at a young age. Simon recalls Christian riding his bike up and down a big hill in their neighborhood to visit friends.

“He really really loved his sports,” Sally said.

Summers will perhaps never be the same for the family, after former Clear Creek Sheri ’s Deputy Andrew Buen was accused of shooting Glass ve times in June 2022 after he phoned for help with his crashed vehicle in the small town of Silver Plume.

When his parents rst heard the news of their son’s death, they were led to believe he was the cause of the incident, provoking o cers and inciting violence. e two were not only overcome with grief but guilt, too.

“We kind of hung our heads in shame,” Sally remembered.

Quickly, the parents felt they were missing parts of the story.

“I started thinking about it. And I

was like, but, he’s never hurt anyone,” Sally said.

e family’s lawyers reviewed the bodycam footage and told the parents they believed Christian was not to blame for the incident, con rming the family’s suspicions.

e bodycam footage was released in September, and a vigil was held for Christian days later in Idaho Springs to call for action against police violence in Clear Creek County.

“No one said sorry”

e Clear Creek Sheri ’s O ce dubbing Christian’s death as “the June Incident” in a press release from Oct. 5 has been a painful and erasive gesture indicating failure of the system, according to the Glass family.

“ e day that Christian Glass was killed, murdered, that’s ‘the June incident.’ at’s what happened. And so that’s really important to name it, you know, and to say his name, and

to remember him as a life lost,” Sally said.

Sally hailing from England and Simon from New Zealand gave them both di erent impressions of the police before coming to the United States. After this incident, they both said it would take a complete overhaul to restore a semblance of trust in law enforcement.

“I never thought the U.S. police were very nice anyway, but I didn’t realize they were totally untrustworthy,” Sally said. “So I think that on top of being deeply unpleasant and aggressive, I wouldn’t trust them and all Christian’s friends just said, never call the police.”

Despite the international attention Christian’s murder has garnered, Simon and Sally say they still have yet to receive a real apology from o cers involved. Most of what they’ve heard has been statements

JUMBO MONEY MARKET

Polis calls for more property tax relief

Asks for $200M

BY JESSE PAUL THE COLORADO SUN

Gov. Jared Polis wants state lawmakers to deliver an additional $200 million in property tax relief over the next two years, bringing the total respite o ered by the legislature over that period to $900 million, as Democrats and Republicans debate a long-term solution to rising tax bills resulting from skyrocketing property values across Colorado.

If the legislature, which begins its 2023 lawmaking term Monday, approves the expanded relief, it will mark the third time in as many years state lawmakers slap a Band-Aid on the problem that is Colorado’s property tax situation, which has big rami cations for schools and local government entities funded by property tax revenue.

A long-term solution palatable to many people and groups involved in the discussions, however, remains elusive, which is why Polis and the General Assembly keep o ering temporary xes.

Polis made the additional relief request in his supplemental budget request last week. He didn’t say how the relief should be o ered, however, explaining that he will mostly leave that to the legislature.

If the legislature approves Polis’ request — and that’s a big “if” — it will be the second time in two years

state lawmakers will have limited the increase in Coloradans’ property tax bills for 2023 and 2024 in anticipation of a jump in property tax assessments. e General Assembly in 2022 cut $700 million from Coloradans’ expected property tax bills for those years.

“Assessments had a greater increase than any of us thought — 26.5%,” Polis said last week during a news conference. “We’re happy with the relief we provided. Assessments came in higher, so it warrants additional relief.”

e governor wants the legislature

to use $200 million of its discretionary general fund money to back ll tax revenue lost to school districts and other local government entities. State lawmakers may be reticent to hand over the cash, however, given the in ationary budget crunch they face this year.

Senate President Steve Fenberg, D-Boulder, told e Colorado Sun he thinks lawmakers “are open to doing general fund investments” to blunt the impact of rising assess-

“I think it will happen, though, simultaneously with a longer-term (property tax) solution rather than having to do this every year,” Fenberg said. “I think the bigger question is what ways can we solve the structural problem and get property taxes on the more sustainable path for residences as well as for commercial properties.”

Fenberg was referencing a replacement for the Gallagher Amendment, which Colorado voters stripped from the state constitution in 2020. Gallagher prevented residential property tax bills from quickly rising by shifting the tax burden to commercial property owners through assessment rates, which help determine how much property owners pay in taxes. But Gallagher collided with another constitutional amendment, the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, in a way that hamstrung the government entities that rely on property

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Gov. Polis addresses the crowd at the ground breaking.

PHOTO BY OLIVIA JEWELL LOVE

TAX

tax revenue.

“In my opinion, and I’ve been watching this from the outside for the last number of years, when the good voters of the state of Colorado decided to repeal the Gallagher Amendment there were a couple of things they didn’t realize,” said incoming state Rep. Lisa Frizell, a Castle Rock Republican and a former Douglas County assessor. “One was that they laid the establishment of assessment rates solely (at the feet of) the legislature, which was a bit concerning.”

Frizell said the legislature keeps kicking the property tax problem down the road, but she admits it’s di cult to come up with a permanent x.

“I don’t have a slam-dunk solution,” she said, adding that she expects home values to increase at a much larger clip than the 26.5% rate cited by Polis.

Polis agrees that a long-term replacement to Gallagher is needed. But neither he nor Democrats in the legislature have publicly o ered any concrete solutions, and both chafed last year at ideas o ered by conservatives, including permanent rate reductions and caps on property tax increases.

“We need some mechanism to prevent runaway property tax rates and also to address some of the injustices that Gallagher created, namely a commercial property rate that is several times higher than

many other states,” Polis said. “What are we looking for? Some reductions in commercial property taxes — bene ting our small businesses, making our state more competitive, creating jobs — and then a mechanism to protect homeowners from being priced out of their homes.”

e legislature can — and may — punt on a long-term replacement for Gallagher until the 2024 lawmaking term since the relief it has passed lasts through next year.

Last year’s property tax ght was feisty and it ended with something akin to a hostage exchange in the basement of the Colorado Capitol as interest groups backed o their plans to ask voters to make broad changes to the property tax system. ere was also a property tax debate at the Capitol in 2021.

Michael Fields, a conservative scal activist with the political nonpro t Advance Colorado Action, has been a key player in state property tax discussions. He said he’s waiting to see what the legislature comes up with this year before deciding whether to try to shape policy through a ballot measure. (A 2021 property tax ballot measure led by Fields that would have cut assessment rates for some types of property failed.)

Scott Wasserman, who leads the Bell Policy Center, a liberal scal policy nonpro t, is another key player in the property tax policy debate. He said he is working on proposals.  “ is is just not a sustainable way to solve the problem,” he said of the year-after-year relief measures debated in the legislature. “It’s $200 million this year. How much is it go-

ing to be next year?”

Frizell is planning to introduce a bill this year that would prevent home values from being changed by county assessors in 2023, as planned, to prevent a big jump in Coloradans’ property tax bills. Instead, she proposes the state legislature increase home values last determined in 2021 by 5%, giving lawmakers time to come up with a long-term property tax solution before 2025, when home values are set to be evaluated by assessors once again.

“I don’t think throwing money at it is always the solution,” Frizell said.  Additionally, Republicans plan to ask the legislature this year to approve the creation of a property tax task force to come up with a longterm x.

Here’s what the legislature did in 2022 through the passage of Senate Bill 238 to reduce Coloradans’ rising property tax tab: e residential assessment rate used to calculate how much a residential homeowner owes in property taxes in 2023 is reduced to 6.765% from 7.15%. Additionally, the rst $15,000 in actual value of a residential property is waived as long as doing so doesn’t cause the assessed property value to fall below $1,000.

For commercial properties, the assessment rate in 2023 is reduced to 27.9% from 29%. Additionally, the rst $30,000 in actual value of a commercial property is waived as long as doing so doesn’t cause the assessed property value to fall below $1,000.

Assessment rates are important because they are used to calculate how much someone owes in taxes. e rate is multiplied by a home’s market value, which is determined by a county assessor. What a property owner pays is then determined by the mill levy rate. A mill is a $1

payment on every $1,000 of assessed value. e 2023 reduction will mean that a residential property owner who owns a home worth $300,000 with a mill levy of 100 will pay about $1,900 versus $2,145. ( e state has a good explainer on this here.)

In 2024, the rates will go up slightly. For single-family residential property owners, the assessment rate will be approximately 6.95%, down from 7.15%. For multifamily residential property, the rate will be 6.8%.

(Why approximately, you ask? e single-family residential property assessment rate will be set in 2024 at a level to be determined by the state property tax administrator to ensure that the state hits its $700 million property tax relief target for the 2023 and 2024 property tax years.)

For those who own commercial property used for agriculture and/ or to produce renewable energy, the 2024 assessment rate will be 26.4%, down from 29%.

e 2024 rates match a reduction approved for the 2021 and 2022 tax years under a measure passed by the legislature in 2021.

Finally, the legislature extended a change allowing senior citizens to defer all of the increases in their property taxes until they sell their homes while allowing everyone else to defer any increases over 4%.

It’s likely that if more property tax relief is approved by the legislature in 2023, as Polis hopes, it will simply be made by expanding the breaks o ered by Senate Bill 238.

is story is from e Colorado 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.

Denver bought one-way bus tickets for 1,900 migrants

Where they went

BY JENNIFER BROWN AND JOHN INGOLD THE COLORADO SUN

Denver spent nearly a half-million dollars last month buying one-way Greyhound bus tickets to other cities for 1,900 migrants who arrived here after crossing the U.S. southern border, according to data released Jan. 20 to e Sun by city o cials.

e most popular destinations were New York and Illinois, but also Florida, Georgia and Texas.

e spending does not include tickets purchased by the city so far in January, or spending by the state, which paid for chartered buses for four or ve days this month to send groups of migrants to other destinations, mainly New York City and Chicago.

Denver sent 399 migrants to Chicago and 345 to New York City in December. e city also sent 122 to Atlanta, 95 each to Miami and Orlando, and 68 to Dallas. In all for the month, the city spent $492,000 on bus tickets.

State o cials have not yet responded to requests from e Sun for an

accounting of the number of people taken to other cities on chartered buses.

Sending migrants to other destinations has been controversial. e mayors of New York City and Chicago last week sent a letter to Colorado Gov. Jared Polis saying they “respectfully demand that you cease and desist sending migrants” to their cities. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and New York City Mayor Eric Adams said they had received hundreds of migrants from Colorado since December.

Polis said Colorado was stepping in to help people, mainly from politically unstable Venezuela, reach their nal destinations, where he said they had family or friends. He estimated 70% of migrants who arrived in Colorado during the past month were trying to get somewhere else. But he called o the chartered bus operations after talking to Lightfoot and Adams last week.

Denver o cials, meanwhile, reiterated Jan. 20 that none of the migrants was asked to leave the city, which has been housing hundreds of

Thu 2/02

Sat 2/04

Keith Hicks @ 10:30am Ophelia’s Electric Soapboax, Denver

Jesh Yancey & The High Hopes

@ 6pm New Terrain Brewing Company, 16401 Table Mountain Pkwy, Golden

Johnathan Blake: Kenny Barron Trio feat. Kiyoshi Kitagawa & JB @ 7:30pm Newman Center for the Perform‐ing Arts, 2344 E Iliff Ave, Denver

Float Like A Buffalo @ 7:30pm Cervantes' Masterpiece Ballroom & Other Side, 2637 Welton St, Denver

YULTRON

@ 9pm

The Church, 1160 Lin‐coln St, Denver

8th

Sun 2/05

VOICES

Dismantling the walls to wildlife in Colorado

Al though never a big-game hunter, I have killed three deer in Colorado and likely gave a bull elk a terrific headache. That’s not to mention my carnage among rabbits and other smaller critters.

Cars were my weapon, not guns.

Driving at dusk or into the darkened night will inevitably produce close brushes with wildlife, large and small, on many roads and highways. Even daylight has its dangers.

Colorado is now redefining that risky, ragged edge between wildlife habitat and the high-speed travel that we take for granted. State legislators delivered a message last year when appropriating $5 million for wildlife connectivity involving highways in high-priority areas.

In late December, state agencies identified seven locations where that money will be spent. They range from Interstate 25 south of Colorado Springs to Highway 13 north of Craig near where it enters Wyoming. New fencing and radar technology will be installed. Highway 550 north of Ridgway will get an underpass.

The pot wasn’t deep enough to produce overpasses such as two that cross Highway 9 between Silverthorne and Kremmling or one between Pagosa Springs and Durango. But $750,000 as allocated to design work for crossings of I-25 near Raton Pass with a like amount for design of an I-70 crossing near Vail Pass.

In this and other ways, Colorado

BIG PIVOTS

can better vie for a slice of the $350 million allocated by Congress in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act for improved wildlife connectivity.

This is on top of the overpass of I-25 planned for the segment between Castle Rock and Monument to complement the four underpasses installed in the widening project of recent years.

We are pivoting in how we regard roads and wildlife habitat.We have long been driven to protect human lives and our property by reducing collisions. Our perspectives have broadened. Human safety still matters, but so do the lives of critters. When we built our interstate highway system between 1956 and, with the completion of I-70 through Glenwood Canyon, 1992, we gave little regard to wildlife. There were exceptions, such as the narrow underpass for deer in West Vail installed in 1969.

Biologists in the 1990s began emphasizing highways as home wreckers. Expanding road networks, they said, was creating islands of wildlife habitat. Fragmented habitat leads to reduced gene pools and, at the extreme, the threat of extinction of species in some areas, called extirpation.

I-70 became the marquee for this. Wildlife biologists began calling

it the“Berlin Wall to Wildlife.” The aptness of that phrase was vividly illustrated in 1999 when a transplanted lynx released just months before tried to cross I-70 near Vail Pass. It was smacked dead.

With that graphic image in mind, wildlife biologists held an international competition in 2011 involving I-70. The goal, at least partially realized, was to discover less costly materials and designs.

Colorado’s pace has quickened since a 2014 study documenting the decline of Western Slope mule deer populations. In 2019 an incoming Gov. Polis issued an executive order to state agencies directing them to work together to solve road ecology problems.

Two wildlife overpasses along with underpasses and fencing north of Silverthorne completed in 2017 have been valuable examples. Studies showed a 90% reduction in collisions.

“An 80 to 90% reduction right off the bat is pretty typical for these structures,” says Tony Cady, a planning and environmental manager for the Colorado Department of Transportation.

State agencies, working with non-profit groups and others, have crunched the data to delineate the state’s 5% highest priority road segments. These data may give Colorado a leg up on access to federal funds.

The two studies found 48 highpriority segments on the Western Slope and 90 east of the Continental Divide, including the Great

Plains, reports Michelle Cowardin, a wildlife biologist for Colorado Parks and Wildlife. The Craig and Meeker areas have lots of high priority roads, but so is much of I-76 between Fort Morgan to Julesburg has many high-priority segments.

Some jurisdictions are diving deeper. Eagle County has completed a study of wildlife connectivity, and in the Aspen area, a non-profit called Safe Passages has secured funding to begin identifying highest-priority locations in the Roaring Fork and Crystal River valleys.

These new studies attest to a shift in public attitudes. Rob Ament of Montana State University’s Western Transportation Institute says wildlife connectivity is becoming institutionalized in how we think about transportation corridors. Instead of an extravagance, he says, crossings are becoming a cost of doing business.

This is happening internationally, too. “My world is just exploding,” he said while reciting crossings for elephants in Bangladesh, tigers in Thailand and work for other species in Argentina, Nepal, and Mongolia.

If in some ways a long time in coming, we are rede ning the relationship between highways and wildlife.

Check out other work by Allen Best about climate change, the energy transition and other topics at BigPivots.com.

Help wanted: referees to get back in the game

Visiting any business involves walking by a “Help Wanted” sign. Sports o ciating is facing the same human capital shortage across the United States. While sports o cials don’t wear Help Wanted signs at games, maybe we should. Nonetheless, we need sports o cials to o ciate games and keep our young people involved in high school athletics.

Without sports o cials, Friday night high school football and varsity basketball or soccer games could be in danger of slipping away.

Many things in our world are

LINDA

MICHAEL

RYLEE

GUEST COLUMN Kevin Aten, Ed.D

changing too fast. We need to keep educational-based athletics one thing the students, families and communities can depend on happening. Because of o ciating shortages, we are seeing what was a community xture of high school football, Friday Night Lights, become ursday Night Lights and Saturday Afternoon Sunlight to get the games covered by referees. Moreover, myself and other referees work high school games in New Mexico, Colorado and Utah to ensure the

MINDY NELON

students-athletes can play. e fraternity of sports o cials travel to games not because we get paid big money – we don’t – but because we aspire to facilitate an elusive perfect game. As a football o cial colleague states, sports ofcials pursue perfection and excellence – life lessons that we can bring to our careers and our families.

Great o cials share a commitment to the students-athletes, coaches and families. Furthermore, we serve a game that has likely been in our blood for years.

We work every contest to ensure

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students-athletes realize lifelong learning and lessons that grow from grit, hope and tenacity. We also teach that fumbles and fouls in life happen, and we can succeed despite these momentary interruptions and obstacles. At all levels, o cials are arbiters of fair play and role models for hard work.

When my fellow o cials and I nish a game, we often speak of the important lessons experienced by our young people who are building character and workplace skills. We

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Y/OUR Denver Photography highlights city in flux

Even though many of us see the Denver skyline daily, there are all kinds of new perspectives and little touches that we may never notice. But the Y/OUR Denver 2022 photography exhibit, the fth annual collaboration between Denver Architecture Foundation and Colorado Photographic Arts Center, aims to provide viewers the chance to get a new look on architecture and design around the state.

e digital exhibition is online through Feb. 28, and features the winning photographs from the Doors Open Denver photography competition, which o ered artists a larger group of subjects than ever before.

“ is year, we opened up the photo contest and exhibition to images of Colorado architecture, not just Denver architecture,” wrote Pauline Marie Herrera, president and CEO of the Denver Architecture Foundation, in an email interview. “I’ve enjoyed seeing the striking photos of architectural sites from around our state.”

According to provided information, participating photographers of all skill levels were invited to nd and photograph their favorite architectural spaces in Denver and throughout the state. All forms of architectural imagery were eligible: black and white, color, exterior, interior and detail images.

“It’s interesting to see the types of architecture that makes up the di erent neighborhoods and houses and just how varied our architecture is,” said Samantha Johnston, executive director and curator of CPAC and juror for the competition. “It’s so exciting for me to see how photographers capture spaces we think about all the time.”

Of the 233 entries, Johnston selected 30 nalist images, including the following for four winners:

Best in Show: “Justice Center Dome” by Ernie Leyba

Best Exterior: “Breaking a Bridge” by Mark Stein

Best Interior: “Williams Tower” by Lauren Sherman-Boemker

Best Detail: “Camou age” by Carol Mikesh

“I hope people who see the exhibit come away with an appreciation of Denver’s (and Colorado’s) architecture and a desire to explore it,” Herrera wrote. “I also hope they understand what it means to our quality of life and its importance to our future.”

Since she has served as juror for the last ve years, Johnston has learned that seeing the many wonderful

COMING ATTRACTIONS

photographs people submit can make any day out in Denver a kind of adventure — one that more people can participate in.

“When you walk around the city, you can look up and say, ‘Oh, that’s where they took that shot,’” she said. “It gives people an appreciation for things they maybe haven’t seen and an appreciation for the city changing.”

See the photographs in the exhibition at https://denverarchitecture.org.

The hills are alive at PACE with ‘Sound of Music’

Even if you don’t like musicals, there are some that have just been so thoroughly embraced by the culture that you can’t get away from them.

“ e Sound of Music” might be at the very top of that list - it’s immortal. For longtime fans and newbies, the Parker Arts, Culture, and Events (PACE) Center has brought the story of Maria Augusta Trapp and the von Trapp family to the stage this winter.

e musical runs at PACE, 20000 Pikes Peak Ave., through Feb. 4. e nal collaboration between Rogers and Hammerstein, come see classics like “My Favorite ings” and “Sixteen Going on Seventeen.” For information and tickets, visit parkerarts.org/event/ the-sound-of-music/.

LSO hosts annual family concert

“Babar the Elephant” is one of the stories that really connected with me when I was growing up. Originally by Jean de Brunho , the popular 1938 children’s book is based on a story that his wife Cecille told to their children.

French composer Francis Poulenc wrote a musical composition that follows Babar as he moves to the city and all the adventures he has in his new home.

For the Lakewood Symphony Orchestra’s annual family concert, the group will perform Poulenc’s music at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 4, at the Lakewood Cultural Center, 470 S. Allison Parkway. As is tradition, conductor Matthew Switzer will begin by teaching the children a bit about the world of music.

Get tickets for this great concert at www.lakewoodsymphony.org.

Clarke’s Concert of the Week — Sun June at Why Bonnie at the Hi-Dive

You gotta love some indie rock this time of year - albums that are drenched in guitar reverb and swirling vocals can just wrap you up during the cold winter months. Two wonderful examples of what the genre can be are both from Austin, Texas: Sun June and Why Bonnie. Sun June’s 2021 album, “Somewhere,” and Why Bonnie’s 2022 release, “90 In November,” both were among my favorite releases of their respective

years and really hit their target vibes. Both bands will be stopping by the Hi-Dive, 7 S. Broadway in Denver, along with Porlolo at 9 p.m. Jan. 28. e Hi-Dive is a great venue for this kind of music, so take the opportunity to send o January and get tickets at https:// hi-dive.com/.

Clarke Reader’s column on culture appears on a weekly basis. He can be reached at Clarke.Reader@hotmail. com.

OBITUARIES

June

1930 - January 9, 2023

Wallace Lee “Wally” White was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. He grew up as one of three sons, graduated from Warren High School, then attended Butler University in Indiana for two years. In 1950, Wally was drafted into the Army and deployed to Seoul, Korea. He was honorably discharged when the tour was complete. In 1957, Wally graduated from Capital University in Columbus, Ohio with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and a minor in Psychology; he was soon employed by Omar Bakery as Personnel Manager. In 1959, Wally was transferred to Omaha, Nebraska, continuing as Personnel Manager, for Continental Baking Company (CBC). In 1962, he was again transferred, this time to Denver, Colorado where he chose to live the remainder of his life. Wally retired from CBC after 35 years as Human Resources Manager, a role he used as an opportunity to help others transform their lives.

Music was integral to Wally’s life. He played trombone in High School, the Army Band, and in the marching band at Capital University where he met his wife Sylvia Ann Meyer as they played trombone together in the marching band. After college, he played trombone in the Denver Concert Band, and passed along his love of the instrument and

passion for youths by teaching many young people to play. Singing also brought joy to Wally who sang tenor in the Colorado Chorale for 22 years, in a Men’s Quartet, and in the Chancel Choir of his church. He also enjoyed touring on his bike, and woodworking. Wally leaves behind a legacy of deep faith in our loving God that grounded the provision of a stable home where all of his family’s needs were met. His survivors include his beloved wife, Sylvia, of 64 years, daughters Karen White and Kathryn (Patrick) Dorbin, grandsons Eric (Lauren) Dorbin, Benjamin Dorbin, and Daniel (Joanna) Dorbin; his brothers John White (DeLand, Florida) and Joseph White (Indianapolis, Indiana). Wally’s parents, Joseph Lee Nelson White and Helen Shilling White, predeceased him. Wally died comfortably in the compassionate care of Lutheran Hospice’s Collier Inpatient Center sta . Wally’s Celebration of Life will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday, January 24, 2023 at King of Glory Lutheran Church, 10001 W 58th Avenue, Arvada, Colorado, 80002.

Donations may be made to King of Glory Lutheran Church in Arvada, CO, and/or to Lutheran Hospice at the Collier Inpatient Center.

omas T. Uchida, 94, of Bellefonte, formerly of Westminster, Colorado, passed away on Tuesday, December 20, 2022, at Centre Care. Born on July 31, 1928, in Seattle, Washington, he was the son of the late Toshikiyo and Sada (Iwanaga) Uchida. On March 19, 1953, he married his beloved wife, Mary (Okagawa) Uchida, who preceded him in death in 1991, after sharing over 38 years of marriage together.

He proudly served his country in the United States Army during the Korean Con ict from 1953 until he was honorably discharged in 1955 to complete the rest of his commitment in the Army Reserves. During his time in the service, he was awarded the National Defense Service Medal and the United Nations Service Medal. He then went to work as a Passenger Service Agent for UAL until his retirement in 1982.

Gri s, Hazel and Louis Nemkov, Peyton, Jameson, Janiah, Taleigh, and Odin Tyner.

In addition to his wife, Mary, and parents, he was predeceased by a sister, Miyoko Kodama.

omas worked at several golf shops over the years after his retirement. He loved to play golf and looked forward to playing at Belles Springs Golf Course with his son-inlaw’s father, the late Dick Knupp, Sr., and good friends, Chuck Brown, Bob Royer, Pete Mason, and Bob Schae er.

An inurnment service will be held on ursday, February 2, 2023, at 11:00 A.M., at Olinger Highland Morturary and Cemetery, ornton, Colorado.

12735 W 58th Ave · 80002 · 303-420-1232

Daily Masses: 8:30am, Mon-Sat

Confessions: 8am Tue-Fri; 7:30am & 4:00pm Sat

Saturday Vigil Mass: 5:00pm

Sunday Masses: 7:30, 9:00, 11:30am, 5:30pm

He is survived by his children, Susan Knupp (Richard) of Bellefonte, Julie Gri s (Richard) of Cimarron, Colorado, and Donna Irvin (Brian) of Arvada, Colorado; seven grandchildren: Lindsay Knupp, Maya Knupp, David Gri s, Sara Nemkov, Amy Gri s, Jason Tyner, and Michael Tyner, and nine great grandchildren: James and Ellie

In lieu of owers, memorial contributions in memory of omas may be made to any of the following organizations that were very near and dear to him and his family: Alzheimer’s Research and Prevention Foundation at www.alzheimersprevention. org, American Brain Foundation at www. americanbrainfoundation.org, or to DAV (Disabled American Veterans) at www.dav. org Online condolences may be made to the family at www.wetzlerfuneralhome.com.

WHITE

Wallace Lee White

17,

UCHIDA

Thomas T. Uchida

July 31, 1928 - December 20, 2022

Clarke Reader

The Long Way Home

The changing American dream and the obstacles some people face

BY MICHAEL DE YOANNA COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA

e rst week of Colorado Community Media’s Long Way Home series focused on what many experts say is a housing crisis across the metro area. In short, housing is increasingly una ordable and inaccessible for Coloradans. Week two of our four-week series turns to how those issues look through the lens of race and younger residents, some whose experience of the American dream is changing..

Reporters Nina Joss and Haley Lena delve into the realities faced by would-be Black homeowners and others who nd skin color can be a factor in achieving their long-term dreams. .

Joss and Lena break down how the system can sometimes work against Black applicants. ey also uncover possible solutions, including an initiative from Realtors to provide training that averts subtle biases in the buying process.

Meanwhile, reporter Ellis Arnold asks a di cult question about metro area suburbs: why are they so White? ere’s no single answer, but some neighborhood covenants from a few decades ago

INEQUITIES

di cult to prove.

Because many of the individuals served by the group were facing homelessness and unemployment, Arnold acknowledged that these factors could have played a role in their initial application rejections. However, when they conducted the blind application process with the same nancial information, the applications were approved. For Arnold, this con rmed race was a barrier.

“ e racism is just so out there,” he said. “It was easy to realize it.”

Arnold’s group did not le any complaints because their main priority was getting their clients housed, and they found a way to do that. Colorado Community Media reached out to Aurora Warms the Night to see if this is still a strategy but did not get a response.

But once a Black client successfully got on a lease, Arnold said even more challenges ensued if they were looking to someday own a home.

“How do we get them from renting into homeownership?” he said. “ ose barriers seem to be some of the biggest.”

For decades, homeownership rates for Black people have lagged far behind those for White people. Census data released last month shows just how wide that gap is. More than seven in 10 White Coloradans and a little more than half of Latino residents own their homes, according to the 2021 ve-year American Community Survey. Only 42% of Black Coloradans own their homes.

Although Latino homebuyers in Colorado face many of the same barriers as Black homebuyers, their rates of homeownership have grown in recent years. For Black Coloradans, on the other hand, the

prove, in writing, that race was sometimes a factor in creating our communities.

Accessibility to housing isn’t only an issue of race. It’s an issue of income, as well. Many Coloradans simply can’t a ord to apply for a home, and some of them are rede ning their idea of the American dream as a result. Reporter Christy Steadman digs into this issue. When affordability, accessibility and fairness play a role, families are shifting away from the old dream in which people started a family and bought a home.

When rising home prices and in ation makes that next to impossible for many Coloradans, the American dream may shift from the idea that owning a home is the true measure of success. Still, across generations, many hold out hopes for homeownership.

Statistics, data and experts may have great information on how the market works, but it’s the people living through the crisis who matter the most.

To read all the parts of our Long Way Home series, visit https://coloradocommunitymedia. com/longwayhome/index.html.

numbers have remained stubbornly low. ese trends hold across the metro area, with Adams, Je erson, Arapahoe and Douglas counties all showing higher rates of homeownership in White communities than in those of color.

e reasons for this gap are myriad, but over time, Black Coloradans have generally had less opportunity to build home equity and wealth to pass from one generation to the next. ese barriers mean many metro Denver communities lack racial and ethnic diversity. rough training and other measures, many are now trying to reverse this situation and improve access to housing for all.

A denied opportunity to build generational wealth

In 2021, eo E.J. Wilson and his wife started looking to buy a home in Aurora. Wilson is a Black college lecturer and non ction television host.

Like many Coloradans regardless of color, Wilson and his wife did not have enough money for a down payment in today’s expensive housing market, even though they both make a good living. In Arapahoe County, the median sale price of a singlefamily home increased by $180,000 over the past ve years, according to the Colorado Association of Realtors. In other metro Denver areas, the numbers have skyrocketed even more drastically.

While many White Americans may have bene ted from the e orts of their ancestors, particularly through inheritances, Wilson says many Black people, including him, were denied that possibility. In his eyes, that’s part of why homeownership has been so elusive.

“In what some of my elders have called the ‘illusion of inclusion,’ income is used as a metric to say that things are getting better for Black people,” Wilson said.

But, he pointed out, income is di erent from wealth. For generations, “White America was building wealth, assets and the skill set and personnel to

Contributors to theproject include:

manage that wealth,” he said.

Wilson’s older family members, on the other hand, were not o ered the same opportunities, he said.

Wilson’s grandfather was in the Army Air Forces during World War II, a Tuskegee airman, one of a pioneering group of Black military aviators. When he returned to New York City after the war, he did not receive federally backed home loans like his White counterparts did.

“ ey basically shoveled these White vets from World War II into programs that gave them college money and programs that gave them homes in the suburbs,” Wilson said. “Imagine if my grandpa would have got the property that he would have got had he been White in New York City. How much

Theo E.J. Wilson holds a hat from the collection his grandfather, who was a Tuskegee airman in World War II, gave him.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THEO E.J. WILSON

A New Vision

American dream changing for some Coloradans

BY CHRISTY STEADMAN CSTEADMAN@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Amber Carlson is a Colorado native. She loves the Denver area for all its amenities — from outdoor recreation to the arts-and-culture scene. But with so many other people moving to the region because they also love those things, Carlson would consider moving away.

“I don’t blame people for wanting to live here,” she said. “It’s got a lot going on.”

Carlson doesn’t want to uproot from Colorado, but if she did, it would be because of the region’s skyrocketing cost of living.

“It’s di cult when you’ve lived here your whole life and it has become hard to stay,” she said.

Carlson is in her 30s. She went to Denver’s George Washington High School and is currently in graduate school at the University of ColoradoBoulder. She lives with her partner in a house in Wheat Ridge that he owns, a situation she feels fortunate to have. Otherwise, Carlson said, she is not sure if she would be able to a ord a rental on her own.

Her experience leaves her with questions about the idea of the American dream — owning a home. It is, for many, a dream of a single-

family home on a private plot of land in the suburbs, maybe with a picket fence and tire swing hanging from a lofty tree.

But younger people are changing their perceptions about what the American dream should be. Driving that change is the increasingly una ordable nature of housing,

One of the reasons that University of Denver student Caitlyn Aldersea doesn’t envision herself ever becoming a homeowner is because she wants to be able to travel. Here, she is pictured during her Spring 2022 travels to Budapest, Hungary. She has also spent time studying abroad in Amman, Jordan, and the UK.

according to a few surveys, including one by Bankrate last year. It found that two-thirds of respondents cite a ordability as a major hurdle to homeownership. eir pinch points included everything from salaries that didn’t keep up to a lack of ability to save for down payments to high mortgage rates.

A Look at the Suburbs

Map experts dig for roots

of racial separation in metro Denver

BY ELLIS ARNOLD EARNOLD@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

In 1967, Black Americans were mired in “the long, hot summer.” Frustrations over poverty, unemployment, discrimination and myriad other issues spilled into the streets, leading to clashes with police and arrests in many places, including Denver. e widespread tensions over race left President Lyndon B. Johnson searching for answers.

So, he issued an executive order for a report that would detail what caused the chaos. He wanted it to answer a crucial question: How can the country prevent more unrest in the future?

When the report arrived seven months later, it laid out hundreds of pages of analysis and recommendations for improving race relations in America.

But its message was best summed up in a sentence:

“To continue present policies is to make permanent the division of our country into two societies: one, largely Negro and poor, located in

A part of a map that shows housing areas where racially restrictive covenants were located in Je erson County. This part of the map includes part of Lakewood, Wheat Ridge and Golden. Red areas had the covenants, green areas did not and yellow areas were unclear. See the full map at tinyurl.com/Je coRacialCovenants.

‘The American dream has decreased in relevance’

James Truslow Adams, a writer and historian, is credited with coining the term “the American dream” in 1931 — early in the Great Depression — in his book, “ e Epic of America.”

“ e American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement,” Adams wrote. “It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”

Carlson re ects on all of that. She said that people began to conceptualize how to get their American dream — go to college, get a good job and buy a home — in the postWorld War II era.

“ ere was this idea that you could have all of this,” Carlson said.

More Americans these days, she said, are de ning success on their own terms. More folks might see homeownership as a relic, even something that holds them back in life, rather than necessary for all of their needs and desires.

“Buying a home is probably

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the central cities: the other, predominantly White and a uent, located in the suburbs and in outlying areas.”

In other words, the issue of where people can live was at the heart of the report. It all ties into the American dream, the idea of a family owning a home, building wealth as that home increases in value over time and being able to live in whatever neighborhood a family can a ord without fear of discrimination.

Yet more than half a century later, that divide between Black and White residents continues to complicate the dream in many parts of America, including the suburban towns and cities that surround Denver.  e divide is less stark and less known than it was in 1967, but its legacy is still alive in the metro area, where the Black population tends to live in Denver or Aurora, numbering in the tens of thousands in each city.

Elsewhere, Black residents number in the hundreds or just a few thousand while White residents make up strong majorities. White residents are 78% of the population in Arvada and 1% are Black. White residents are 80% of the population in Littleton and 2% are Black. White residents are 82% of the population in Castle Rock and less than 1% are Black.

Amber Carlson, a graduate student at the University of Colorado-Boulder, is pictured in front of her partner’s home in Wheat Ridge. Because her partner owns the home, Carlson is able to a ord rent in the metro area as she completes her studies.

COURTESY PHOTOS

SUBURBS

munities look the way they do? e answer isn’t completely clear, but two map experts have delved into local property records, uncovering data that could help start to answer that question.

ey’re trying to discover what many have either forgotten or swept under the rug about parts of the metro area — or simply never knew.

ey’re digging in at the neighborhood level, looking for words in property documents — called “racially restrictive covenants” — that excluded people from housing by race. ey’re looking to discern the legacies that still echo in communities today.

Christopher iry, a map librarian at Colorado School of Mines in Golden, is one of the diggers. Discovering the covenants in Je erson County shocked him.

“ at blew me away that this rural county at the time would have them,” iry said. “As I tell people, ‘Yeah, the suburbs of Birmingham, Alabama, sure. But Je erson County? Come on.’”

‘Only persons of the Caucasian race’ iry, a longtime resident of Golden, took inspiration from the “Mapping Prejudice” project, an effort at the University of Minnesota to identify and map racial covenants.

He jumped into his work after the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police o cer. e mapping is a tedious task of sifting through mostly mundane, uncontroversial rules, like how many feet a house must sit away from the road or bans on billboards in front of homes.

iry has examined about 1,000 Je erson County documents and found nearly 200 had some kind of race-based stipulation. He looked at documents from the 1860s to 1950, though most of them were from the 1910s to 1950.

Speci cally, he has pored over “plats,” or plans for new neighborhoods. e plat for one neighborhood — Cole Village, located along Colfax Avenue near Kipling Street in what’s now Lakewood — had this to say:

“Only persons of the Caucasian race shall use or occupy any building or any lot. is covenant shall not prevent use or occupancy by domestic servants of a di erent race.”

e document was registered with the county in 1945. at type of racebased language is now unenforceable but remains on o cial plats, property deeds and other documents, according to iry.

It wasn’t just developers who pushed such language, iry said.

Local elected and appointed ofcials of the government of Je erson County signed the documents, iry added.

He singled out some other ex-

parkways, dated 1944.

• “Stipulate that no lot at any time shall be occupied or owned by any person or persons not of the Caucasian races. However, this provision shall not prohibit the employment of persons of other races by the occupants,” says the plan for Green Acres along 6th Avenue in what’s now Lakewood, dated 1939.

• “No (area) shall at any time be occupied or owned by any person or persons of other than the Caucasian race, however, this shall not prohibit the employment of persons of other races on the premises by the occupants,” says the plan for Happy Valley Acres in the Golden area at South Golden Road and Orion Street, dated 1939.

• “ e said (land) shall (be) used for no other purpose than for the building and maintaining thereon and the occupancy thereof of private residences by Caucasians, and the erection of necessary outbuildings,” says a planning document for part of the Indian Hills area, dated 1923.

iry has used his ndings to make a map of the parts of Je erson County where race-based rules were baked into the original plans of the housing developments.

Many are concentrated in what are now the Wheat Ridge and Lakewood areas, with a handful dotting the Golden and Arvada region. Others sit in the Evergreen and Indian Hills areas.

It’s not yet a complete picture.

iry is wary that he may have missed pieces. ough the map is a work in progress, it already has him wondering how the covenants still in uence lives today.

Beyond that, what can be done to right past wrongs.

His work has made one measurable impact. It has inspired the work of another mapper, Craig Haggit, a map librarian at Denver Public Library.

Haggit, who is looking into where racist restrictions lurked in the paperwork for housing in Denver, also wants to shed light on “the way forward” for communities.

“I feel like we can’t know where we’re going until we know where we’ve been and how we got there,” Haggit said. “Otherwise, you’re just (in) the dark.”

It could take years to look through all the documents. But so far, Haggit’s work has revealed racial restrictions in Denver that targeted people in “a mix” of ways.

“Sometimes, it’s excluding ‘Negro’ or ‘Asian’ or ‘Mongoloid’ or whatever terms they used. And sometimes it just says only White people” can live in a certain house, Haggit said.

His team at rst zeroed in on the 1930s because the Ku Klux Klan was so active in the 1920s in the metro area. Since he’s in the early stages of

red on color-coded federal maps in the 1930s, re ecting the practice of restricting access to home loans in certain areas, partly based on race. at disparity stood in the way of homeownership for majority-Black areas and other groups in urban cities.

ough he doesn’t know yet, Haggit expects that the neighborhoods that were not redlined — the ones deemed higher class — would have the restrictive deeds because they were trying to keep certain people out.

In Denver, redlining zeroed in on predominantly Black neighborhoods, but it also covered neighborhoods where other ethnic or religious groups were present, according to the Denver redline map as displayed by the “Mapping Inequality” project from the University of Richmond and other university teams.

Denver’s redlined areas at the time included some western parts of the city and areas that surrounded downtown. But the map also redlined a small part of Aurora along Colfax Avenue — and parts of west and central Englewood. (A sliver of Je erson County in the Edgewater area landed on the map too, though it was rated slightly higher in yellow.)

e map re ected the view that people of certain backgrounds negatively a ected the values of homes.

In Englewood, for example, an “encroachment of Negroes” in an area near what appear to be railroad tracks was listed under “detrimental in uences” in comments that accompany the map.

And for the Five Points area near downtown Denver, comments mention “Negroes, Mexicans and a transient class of workers.”

Just to the east, comments called the neighborhoods “a better Negro section of Denver” and “one of the best colored districts in the United States.”

“Were it not for the heavy colored population much of it could be rated” higher, the comments say, appearing to use the term “colored” to refer to residents who were not White.

E ects linger ‘to this day’ ough the picture isn’t entirely clear yet, what experts already know suggests that policies that deepened racial disparities in uenced the makeup of today’s suburbs.

One driver of suburban growth that was especially visible was the American GI Bill — or the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 — that provided World War II veterans funding for college tuition and lowinterest mortgages. But not everyone reaped the same rewards because of the covenants that the mappers at

along with unequal access to GI Bill

the suburbs turned out to be, said Christy Rogers, a teaching assistant professor in the program for environmental design at the University of Colorado Boulder.

“ at has consequences for intergenerational wealth,” Rogers said.

In other words, though the descendants of White military veterans saw their homes rise in value over the decades, essentially becoming investments, many Black families encountered barriers and that had a ripple e ect as they could not pass down as much wealth to their children and grandchildren.

Rogers, who is White, knows this rsthand.

“My dad got the GI Bill, and he went to college and bought a house,” Rogers said. “So, our family could draw on our home value to send me to college.”

It took decades for federal lawmakers to ban the practice of racially restrictive covenants. ey were banned in the months after the “long, hot summer” of 1967 — through the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which bars discrimination in the sale, rental and nancing of housing based on race, color, national origin, religion or sex. e act also prohibited redlining.

What’s left today is a puzzle in places like Je erson County, made even harder to discern after booming growth since the mid-1900s. It is di cult to tell how much past covenants shaped the suburbs, said iry, the Colorado School of Mines librarian.

“With that said, you cannot discard the fact that these covenants did exist,” iry said.

e prevailing attitudes of racism at the time still may have made Black families feel unwelcome in certain neighborhoods, iry said. ere is evidence that the researchers are onto something. In Minnesota, researchers looking into Minneapolis and its suburbs discovered a “bonus value” persists today among White homeowners who bene ted from restrictive covenants.

“We document that houses that were covenanted have on average 3.4% higher present-day house values compared to houses that were not covenanted,” according to a 2021 University of Minnesota study entitled, “Long Shadow of Racial Discrimination: Evidence from Housing Racial Covenants.” “We also nd that census blocks with a larger share of covenanted lots have smaller Black population and lower Black homeownership rates.”

e study also noted, “the racial makeup of neighborhoods determined in preceding decades persisted, where the region was highly segregated with White families

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An example of a racially restrictive covenant from the restrictions for an area called North Lakewood Heights, dated 1939, according to map librarian Christopher Thiry. It says: “No (land) shall at any time be occupied or owned by any person or persons of Mongolian or Negro races.” COURTESY OF CHRISTOPHER THIRY

SUBURBS

FROM

primarily residing in suburban areas and Black families within select neighborhoods (in) parts of Minneapolis.”

“ is segregation has continued for more than fty years, suggesting the highly long-lasting e ect that covenants had on the racial distribution of the region,” according to the study.

Rogers at CU added that moving to the suburbs could be more di cult for residents in redlined areas who may not have the money to move.

“Redlined areas to this day (sometimes) have lower appraisal values compared to a house across the street that’s not in a redlined area,” Rogers said.

The path forward

Many Denver-area suburbs have large White majorities today. About 20 cities, towns or rural counties have a larger proportion of White residents than the national rate and

INEQUITIES

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would that be worth today?”

Many Black veterans faced issues using the programs o ered by the GI Bill. ey often could not access banks for home loans, were excluded from certain neighborhoods and faced segregationist policies. Instead of a home in the suburbs, and despite his service to his country, Wilson’s grandfather wound up in low-income housing.

ere, he raised Wilson’s father, who was not able to attend college.

“ e only physical thing that I have from (my grandfather) besides his DNA is a collection of hats … that shouldn’t have been the case,” Wilson said. “I should have more from him than his name, his genes and some hats.”

In that era, federal authorities also made color-coded maps that re ected the practice of restricting access to home loans in certain areas, largely based on race. is practice is known as “redlining.” People of color were also excluded from obtaining housing through “racially restrictive covenants,” or text written into property records that was used to prevent people of certain races from purchasing certain homes.

Some exclusionary policies, which have been documented in the Denver area, left a toll that’s evident in communities of color today.

Family wealth is a good measure of that. In 2019, the median White family in the country had about $184,000 in wealth compared to just $38,000 and $23,000 for the median Hispanic and Black families, respectively. at’s according to data from the Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances. ese numbers speak to the notion of generational wealth. Generational wealth is anything of nancial value that is passed from one generation to another — including money, property, investments, valuable heirlooms or businesses.

“ ink about the wealth that was created during (the ‘40s and ‘50s) that White families have been able to leverage generation after generation, either

the Colorado rate — many by a large margin, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

In Cherry Hills Village, a wealthy suburb that borders Denver, the number of Black Americans amounts to 0% of the population. Just a few miles away, the population is 17% Black and 44% White in Aurora, one of Denver’s most diverse suburbs.

Aurora is an exception, not the rule. Many of Denver’s other older suburbs are much less diverse.

Several Adams County cities have large Latino populations, but even though they’re suburban, the cities still tend to have lower-income neighborhoods closer to Denver and more expensive housing farther north.

Still, the suburbs don’t entirely look like they used to, according to Yonah Freemark, senior research associate at the nonpro t Urban Institute, based in Washington, D.C.

“Overall, the suburban parts of the nation have transformed dramatically and have become more diverse over time,” Freemark said. at’s in terms of age, ethnicity

and race, and income, Freemark added.

In the future, some suburbs will likely undergo a “steady transformation” toward increased mobility, such as having more public transportation, Freemark said. Other changes could include more e orts to get people walking and biking, with the transition of suburban storefronts and strip malls into more walkable neighborhoods, he added. e path forward for the suburbs may involve a continued increase in diversity of residents, Freemark said. But that depends on whether states and the federal government will expand support and requirements related to a ordable housing, Freemark said.

“We’re going to need signi cant public investment and changes to public law to support those outcomes,” Freemark said. “Otherwise, little is going to change.” e a ordability issue transcends race, with many people simply priced out of the housing market and those who are in it struggling to a ord what they need for their families. In 2010, the median single-

family home price in metro Denver was about $200,000. It was roughly triple that as of 2022.

Coupled with a ordability is an availability issue that local rules play a role in exacerbating. Large-lot zoning — planning for houses to be built on large portions of land — is one major issue. In other words, there are too many large homes being built and too few starter homes, leaving prospective rst-time homebuyers with few options, perhaps even relegated forever to renting.

“If you have a very expensive largelot neighborhood, you don’t get young families,” Rogers said. “You don’t want your community to box out young families or new Americans. Or, you end up with, in a sense, a retirement community, and there’s nothing wrong with a retirement community, but you don’t want your entire community (to be that). You want kids to be in your schools.” e long-term trend of rising housing prices plays a role, too, as wages fail to keep pace with housing costs. at “has the potential to continue to widen inequality and even perhaps embed it,” Rogers said.

to send their kids to college, to be able to start a business, to writing a check for their loved ones to be able to have money for (a) down payment in order to buy their own home and continue that generational wealth transfer,” said Aisha Weeks, managing director at the Dear eld Fund for Black Wealth, a Denver area group that emphasizes homeownership. “ at wasn’t available in mass for Black and African American families.”

A family’s primary residence is typically their most valuable asset, according to the National Association of Realtors.

It’s not just the monetary value of a house and property that adds to wealth. ere are tax bene ts for homeowners and people can borrow against a home’s equity to start a business or to help with unexpected bills. Homeownership also provides stable housing, which has been shown to positively impact health and educational achievement. ese factors can, in turn, improve a person’s economic prosperity.

Trying to change the equation

e Dear eld Fund for Black Wealth

o ers down-payment assistance loans with no interest and no monthly payments up to $40,000 or 15% of the purchase price for Black homebuyers.

“We acknowledge that there’s a generational wealth gap, and so Dear eld Fund is walking alongside our clients and borrowers to say, ‘We will provide that down-payment assistance,’’’ Weeks said.

is program helped Wilson and his wife buy their home in Aurora.

In addition, the fund also o ers advice and education on how to build wealth.

“We know that there are so many pitfalls and just things that, as a community, we have not learned at the dinner table like our counterparts,” Weeks said. “ ere’s a lot of power in the knowledge information transfer that happens within other communities that we need to make sure that families are understanding.”

at issue of being at the proverbial dinner table comes up a lot for communities of color. Without an example to follow, some rst-time homebuyers don’t know where to begin. According to Alma Vigil, a local loan o cer assistant, families who do not own homes

often do not pass along information about how to own and maintain a home.

To address this challenge, the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority o ers homebuyer education programs to teach Coloradans nancial skills and the steps to homeownership. ese classes are o ered in English and Spanish in an e ort to remedy language barriers, which can add challenges for potential homebuyers who do not speak English.

“ ere’s very (few) Spanish speaking loan o cers,” said Vigil, who is Hispanic and speaks Spanish herself. “ ere are some that claim to speak Spanish, but they’re not very uent. So it becomes a huge problem, especially with lack of understanding.”

In order to close the gaps, some lenders across the metro Denver area provide services in Spanish. A list of Spanish-speaking lenders can be found on the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority’s website.

e issue isn’t just one faced by Hispanic and Latino communities. A report by the National Coalition for

Figure shows median family net worth by race. The “other” category contains Asian, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, American Indian or Alaska Native, and multi-race households.

CREDIT: FEDERAL RESERVE SURVEY OF CONSUMER FINANCES; 2019

Asian Paci c American Community Development found language barriers are also often a challenge for members of the Asian American community when pursuing homeownership. In addition to conversations with lenders, real estate paperwork and documents rarely come in languages other than English.

Debt-to-income ratio

Over the last couple of years, Brandon Stepter, a community consultant, has been working in Broomeld. In an e ort to bring more people of color into the community, Stepter looks at housing infrastructure, housing practices and community practices.

Stepter and his wife, Gabrielle, both of whom are Black, have been renting in Aurora but have recently been looking to purchase a home.

“We thought we would be pretty solid in that regard and we both make a decent amount of money,” Stepter said. “We thought we would be able to start looking, even in this market, to try and nd an equitable home that ts our budget.”

Stepter, who also works as a healthcare administrator, and his wife, who works for a technology company, said they are trying to gure out how to pay o their student debt so they can get a home loan within the next couple of years.

“I think right now what we’re seeing is a lot of younger African Americans who are in copious amounts of student debt and that has been preventing them from owning a home,” Stepter said.

Debt-to-income ratio is often a signi cant barrier for Black people who are looking to buy a home because that number is assessed when underwriters are deciding whether or not to give a mortgage, according to Jice Johnson, founder of the Black Business Initiative.

e Black Business Initiative is a Denver-based organization that focuses on economic equity in the Black community.

“In America, you are encouraged to graduate high school and go to college,” Johnson said. “Typically speaking, because you don’t have access, when you go to college you’re not going to pay for college outright. Instead, you’re going to get a student loan … So it increases the debt side of your ratio by a lot, oftentimes preventing you from purchasing a home.”

Black college graduates tend to owe thousands of dollars more in student debt, on average, than their White peers. According to a 2016 report from the Brookings Institution, the amount can exceed $7,000 at the

date of graduation.

Black and Hispanic workers also tend to be paid less than their White counterparts, according to many studies on the subject. In 2020, Black workers in Colorado earned 74% and Latino workers in Colorado earned 71% of the hourly earnings of White workers, according to numbers from the 2020 ve-year American Community Survey.

“So you go to school, you get the degree, which is what you’re supposed to do to get the high-paying job,” Johnson said. “Now you come out and you have debt and also your income isn’t as high as it should be. So, your entire debt-to-income ratio doesn’t allow for you to purchase a home.”

Discrimination

In a national statistical analysis of more than 2 million conventional mortgage applications for home purchases, a data-based news publication called e Markup found that lenders were 40% more likely to turn down Latino applicants for loans, 50% more likely to deny Asian/Paci c Islander applicants, 70% more likely to deny Native American applicants and 80% more likely to reject Black applicants compared with similar White applicants.

Even for families of color that may not struggle immediately with wealth and knowledge disparities, discrimination persists in the housing market. People of color are often treated di erently in appraisals, lending practices and neighborhood options.

Stories about what that looks like in the Denver area abound. Johnson of the Black Business Initiative lived in Westminster before moving to Aurora. When she was staging her home to sell, her real estate agent

gave her some advice.

“It was encouraged for me to make sure I had no family photos up,” she said.

Meanwhile, she visited homes for sale that had photos of White families.

Johnson said it was good business advice. Her Black Realtor, Delroy Gill, understood the landscape and was looking out for her.

“ at’s my Realtor trying to get me top dollar,” she said. “ e question is, why would (leaving) my photos prevent me from getting top dollar?”

Gill said the practice of taking down photos removes potential hurdles that could occur for his clients. For Black clients, race is sadly one of those hurdles that could a ect how appraisers, inspectors and potential homebuyers view the home, he said.

“We do know racism is a real thing,” he said. “And it exists in every facet of life. So therefore, when you are faced with the unknown, it’s better to make the adjustments based on how society is versus taking the risk of creating more damage on Black wealth by them receiving less funds for their homes.”

e advice Gill gave Johnson was not unique. Paige Omohundro, business development manager at the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority said her team heard similar stories in recent focus groups with real estate agents, nonpro ts, lenders, housing advocates and people trying to achieve homeownership in Black and African American communities. She said these stories were shared by members of Hispanic and Latino communities as well.

Gill said that because of his precautions, discrimination rarely impacts his clients’ sales. One time, however, the preparation was not enough.

A couple of years ago, Gill was working with an interracial couple to sell their home in Parker. When the appraiser arrived, the Black husband was leaving the property.

“I own investment properties in the area, so I know the area very well,” Gill said. “And I used to live in the neighborhood. So the value that we gave to the house was very appropriate — and the appraisal came in $100,000 less (than our value).”

According to Gill, the buyers, who were White, decided to pay the extra $100,000 out of pocket because they knew the original asking price was fair.

“ e agent and the buyers thought that the price was reasonable and that the appraiser made a big mistake,” Gill said. “We tried to dispute the appraisal and failed. He said he’s not going to change it.”

Gill said the homebuyers noted that the low appraisal was probably due to racial discrimination.

According to a 2021 study by Freddie Mac, a government-sponsored mortgage-buying company, this experience was not rare. Black and Latino mortgage applicants get lower appraisal values than the contract price more often than White applicants, according to the study.

e study found that, based on over 12 million appraisals from Jan. 1, 2016 to Dec. 31, 2020, 8.6% of Black applicants receive an appraisal value lower than contract price, compared to 6.5% of White applicants. In the study, Freddie Mac said it would be valuable to conduct further research to understand why this gap exists.

In a report by the National Fair Housing Alliance, however, personal stories like that of Gill’s clients

Part of the opening scenario of the Fairhaven simulation, where the user is in the shoes of a real estate agent whose client is experiencing discrimination. Given this situation, the user must choose their response.

CREDIT: FAIRHAVEN ONLINE SIMULATION

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make the case that the appraisal gap comes from racial or ethnic discrimination.

One of these stories, originally reported by the Washington Post, was about a mixed-race couple in Denver. An appraiser greeted by the White wife valued the house at $550,000, whereas one greeted by the Black husband valued it at $405,000.

e lower value appraisal report explicitly compared the home to others in a nearby predominantly Black neighborhood, even though that’s not where the house was located.

Since 1968, housing discrimination

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something that some people want,” Carlson said. “But I don’t think everybody wants or needs to buy a home.”

Others are holding onto the old idea. Bankrate found that homeownership remains a persistent part of the American dream. Homeownership is the “most-mentioned milestone” for Americans 26 and older, but younger Americans see it as less important. Gen Z, aged 18-25, doesn’t rank it as the top accomplishment like older Americans tend to.

Gen Z member Caitlyn Aldersea, a student at the University of Denver, is representative of the changing attitude.

based on race has been illegal under the Fair Housing Act. Nine years before that federal law was signed, Colorado was the rst state to pass its own fair housing laws, according to the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority.

Although it is illegal, discrimination in housing based on race or color still happens, according to the Department of Justice. e department has led cases related to lending discrimination, including a 2012 Wells Fargo case in which the bank was forced to pay a settlement for its pattern of discrimination against quali ed Black and African American and Hispanic and Latino borrowers.

ere are e orts to change the process. According to the Urban In-

She remembers as a young child how the Great Recession that began in 2007 a ected her family.

“ e American dream today is much di erent than how my parents thought of it,” Aldersea said. “Today, it’s more based on what can be accomplished. It’s not shooting for the stars anymore.”

Aldersea’s personal de nition of the American dream includes a ful lling career, opportunities to be part of a community that one is able to give back to and the freedom to pursue personal interests. She believes housing should be attainable for everyone, but doesn’t think it de nes success or happiness.

Aldersea doesn’t envision ever becoming a homeowner. One reason is that she wants to be able to relocate as she pursues her career goals. An-

stitute, a nonpro t research organization, 89% of all property appraisers and assessors are White while only 2 percent are Black and 5 percent are Hispanic. Addressing the lack of diversity in the profession could improve outcomes for Black and Hispanic communities, the organization said.

e Appraiser Diversity Initiative, a program led by mortgage-buying companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and civil rights organization the National Urban League, is teaching new potential appraisers with a diversity of identities in an e ort to close this gap.

Approaching inclusion in real estate from a wider perspective, a program through the Urban Land Institute Colorado works to train

other is that she wants to travel and pay o student loans.

“I don’t think my wage or salary will ever help me a ord a house or mortgage,” Aldersea said. “A house would not be the only thing I’d have to focus on nancially.”

Time will tell whether homeownership will eventually become more important to younger Americans. According to Bankrate, the pull to own a home remains strong. Fifty-nine percent of Gen Z members want to own a home as a life goal, second only to having a successful career (60%).

For other generations, homeownership remains the top life goal and the likelihood of that increases with age. Eighty-seven percent of older adults, aged 68 and up, cite homeownership as integral to the American dream.

women and people of color in development. is program, called the Real Estate Diversity Initiative, aims to create urban landscapes that serve diverse communities.

“I think trust in community-building is key,” Executive Director Rodney Milton said. “When developers build projects, they need community support because they’re shaping the community. And who better to be equipped to strengthen a community, to build it out, to revitalize it, then the folks who are from that community?”

Welcome to Fairhaven

SEE

INEQUITIES, P22

Ace (247917) is a 1-year, 3-month-old male Siberian husky working through an inclination to chase his tail, and his adoption includes family counseling to help him overcome this. A feline-free household with children aged 10 or older is required. Ace’s adoption fee is covered by the

FoothillsAnimalShelter.org info@fas4pets.org

people each night in three emergency shelters set up to handle the in ux of newcomers, many of whom have arrived without warm clothing and wearing sandals. Since Dec. 9, more than 4,100 migrants from Central and South America have arrived in Denver.

“I want to ensure that it’s doubly clear that each of these passengers have asked for assistance to get transportation to these destinations and we facilitated their trips by purchasing tickets,” said Mikayla Ortega, a spokeswoman for Denver’s O ce of

HELP WANTED

FROM PAGE 14

take pride in knowing we o ered young people wholesome, educational-based athletics with memories that last a lifetime.

Sport o cials serve alongside a group of fellow o cials who read, study, watch and work out to be ready for the next challenging game assignment. We want to be ready for your son or daughter’s next big moment on

INEQUITIES

FROM PAGE 21

Rights Commission Annual report found that 14% of complaints were claims about housing issues.

Chantal Sundberg, a Black Realtor who works in the metro Denver area, said she has not witnessed or experienced discrimination in her work with her clients, most of whom are Black.

“Everyone is treated equal, whether it’s borrowing or buying homes,” she said.

Sundberg witnessed the 1994 Rwandan genocide, when hundreds of thousands of members of a minority ethnic group called the Tutsi were murdered by members of the Hutu ethnic majority. In her eyes, although it might be important to talk about topics of racial discrimination, focusing on them too much can have unintended consequences.

Emergency Management, which is operating the emergency shelters.

Denver’s one-way ticket purchases and the Democratic governor’s short-lived chartered busing operation thrust the state into a national controversy that began last spring, when other governors began sending migrants around the country.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, sent thousands of migrants to Chicago, Washington, D.C., and New York during the spring and summer. And on Christmas Eve, two buses dropped o about 100 people outside the home of Vice President Kamala Harris in Washington. e White House blamed the Texas governor, who said he was fed up with federal immigration policy. In September,

the eld or the pitch, too. is basketball season marks my 38th year as a three-sports o cial, a combination of basketball, football and soccer. I have been fortunate to work multiple state championships. O ciating has opened numerous doors, personally and professionally. My other referee colleagues and I fear, with this acute shortage, we are on the verge of closing doors for our young people and our communities.

Let’s keep Friday Night Lights on Friday. Let’s ensure our communities and our children have competitive

“When we emphasize them so much, it creates more division rather than unity,” she said.

Still, discrimination is an ongoing concern for the National Association of Realtors and Brokers. Sundberg said Realtors are trained to address discrimination issues.

And to Gill, the Realtor who helped Johnson sell her home, the association’s training is not enough to help all real estate agents.

“Race is a part of it, but it’s not the in-depth, you know, ‘how to understand if you’re being a racist or not,’” he said.

To address such concerns, the association released an immersive online simulation in 2020 that aims to train agents to recognize and avoid acting on their own biases.

e program is part of the association’s Fair Housing Act Plan, which leaders created to emphasize accountability and culture change. e training is meant to make housing more

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, also a Republican, spent state funds to round up about 50 migrants in Texas and y them to the island of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, calling it a relocation program.

Colorado o cials have said they do not believe the migrants were sent here by any other state, but that they organized their trips based on information from nonpro ts and fellow travelers. Word spread quickly that Denver, a so-called sanctuary city because local law enforcement does not cooperate with immigration o cials seeking to deport people for not having required documentation, had warm shelter beds and food.

e migrant arrivals dropped o this week, down to about 50 people

games and learn lifelong lessons. After all, without o cials, we are just runninga recess scrimmage!

Becoming a sport o cial is easy and virtually free. Once you call a game or two, it gets in your blood. e smiles and the hard work of the young people will touch your heart. Your friendship, and the service with coaches and fellow o cials will also last a lifetime.

e Colorado High School Activities Association just launched a new #YouLookGoodinStripes campaign to recruit new o cials and the association will pay registration for the rst

accessible and a ordable to people of color.

A White Colorado Community Media reporter went through the online simulation, which takes place in a ctional town called Fairhaven. e simulation puts a person in the shoes of potential homebuyers who are experiencing discrimination.

One scenario is based on a federal court case, Clinton-Brown v. Hardick. In 2020, Todd Brown and Ebony Clinton-Brown led a suit against Helene L. and John Hardick alleging violations of the Fair Housing Act and Rhode Island law.

e case claims the Hardicks noticed Clinton-Brown’s rst name and asked their real estate agent if Ebony was Black. When they learned she was, the Hardicks refused to sell their property and the agent withdrew the listing upon the Hardicks’ request, ceasing communication.

roughout the simulation, agents attempt to theoretically sell four homes within six months while coming across day-to-day happenings including the views of colleagues and encounter issues like language barriers. e simulator provides for moments of re ection in the sales process. At the end of the training, agents are given feedback.

According to Alexia Smokler of the National Association of Realtors, the organization decided to pursue the simulator after a Newsday investigation revealed alleged housing discrimination on Long Island, New York.

per day rather than more than 100 per day a couple of weeks ago. Denver planned to begin dismantling the shelters, consisting of cots and mats in the city’s recreation centers, and asked more community groups to step up to house migrants.

About 500 people were sleeping in the city’s three shelters each night this week, and about 550 at other shelters in the community.

is story is from e Colorado 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.

year. e link can be found onCHSAANow.com by clicking on the “O cials” tab at the top right of the page and following the “Sign-up” link.

K. Kevin Aten, Ed.D., is a Durango native and president of the Durango and Cortez Football O cials Association. Aten also assigns soccer o cials in Southwest Colorado. He can be reached atkkkevinaten@gmail.com.

NOTE: is guest column was previously published in the e Journal and e Durango Herald on Dec. 14, 2022.

“We wanted to show how discrimination plays out in real life scenarios and so we drew on real fair housing cases and frequently asked questions from our members to create these simulated scenarios so they could see how discrimination looks,” Smokler said.

Scenarios in the simulation are based on true stories. ey include testimonials to show discrimination from the perspective of race, disability and LGBTQ+ identities.

“We’ve had people tell us watching these videos — they’re very emotional videos — that they are in tears, that they’re angry, that they’re going to stand up for their clients and also we’ve had folks say ‘I wasn’t aware of these sorts of things are going on’ and ‘this has really opened my eyes,’” Smokler said.

Brian Arnold, who used to work with clients at Aurora Warms the Night, said training like Fairhaven could help combat discrimination. But he noted that since the Fairhaven simulation is not a mandatory step in real estate agent licensing, it is challenging to ensure people who need the training actually do it.

“For your … real estate agents that are doing well, that are maybe using discriminatory practices, how are you going to get those people to use it?” Arnold said. “Unless it’s a mandatory (program) ... then it’s just a nice program that’s out there that could help.”

Alameda wrestling program gaining positive momentum

BY DENNIS PLEUSS JEFFCO PUBLIC SCHOOLS

GOLDEN — Alameda’s boys wrestling team picked up its sixth dual victory in the Class 4A Je co League on Jan. 19.

e Pirates took a 47-27 win over Golden in the Demons’ gym. Alameda and Golden split the eight matches that were wrestled, but three of the four victories by the Pirates were pins and the fourth was a technical fall in the second period.

“ e boys are working hard. e coaches are working hard,” Alameda coach Frank Trujillo said as the Pirates improved to 6-0 in league duals. “I’m so proud of what we are doing because that hard work is starting to show with the wins were are putting up.”

Alameda took advantage of four forfeit victories while only forfeiting one weight class at 113 pounds. Junior William Manzanares (126 pounds), freshman AJ Torrez (132), sophomore Sean Johnson and junior Mushtaq Shokori (157) grabbed individual wins against the Demons.

Torrez took one of the fastest wins of the night pinning Golden junior Max Trujillo in 27 seconds. e win put the Pirates up 18-12 in the team points. Alameda would never trail from there on out.

“ is year with more wrestlers we are more structured as a team,” Johnson said. “We come out here with intentions to win. We just want to win. at is our main

motivation.”

Johnson had a rst-period pin of Golden sophomore Riley Kopser. Johnson then led the Pirates with some post-match acrobatic ips after the Pirates shook hands with the Demons.

“He makes me pull my hair out. at is why I have no hair,” Coach Trujillo joked about Johnson. “Sean is a phenomenal athlete. He is very young. He is doing the right things as an athlete and as a student. He is just a great kid.”

Another great kid who joined Golden’s wrestling program this season is sophomore Noah Limback. e Golden football and lacrosse player — who also played baseball before high school — has become the solid heavyweight for the Demons.

Limback has the quickest pin of the night with a victory in 24 seconds over Alameda sophomore Zeke Torrez in the nal match of the dual.

“I started wrestling because I thought it would be a fun sport,” said Limback, who was an all-conference defensive lineman this past football season. “With football it would help me with conditioning, be able to do better hand movements and improve my football skills. Also, I just love all my teammates.”

Golden coach Dave Sauer said it didn’t take long for Limback to pick up the sport.

“He (Limback) is a bright spot for sure,” Sauer said of

the Demons’ heavyweight. “We are really excited and we’ve convinced him that this is good for him. He is a great football player and it didn’t take him long to gure out wrestling was good for him.”

Limback, senior Dustin Hendrix (120), sophomore Aidan Kimble (138) and junior Jamie Milton (165) all won their matches for the Demons against Alameda.

“I just want to do the best that I can with my ability,” Limback said. “How much e ort I put in will determine how good I do.”

Sauer has put a lot of effort as the Demons’ head wrestling coach for over two decades. He announced earlier this year that his 22nd year will be his last. Golden has one more home dual against Denver West

on Tuesday, Jan. 31. e Demons will also host the 4A Je co League Tournament on Friday, Feb. 3.

“I have a great coaching sta so that has helped me relax and enjoy it,” Sauer said of his nal year at the helm. “I’m sure most of these coaches and kids are really getting tired of hearing my stories. I tell stories every day. I had one of my rst state placers here tonight. at’s kind of cool.”

Alameda is hoping it’s just beginning to start a new legacy with its wrestling program.

“One main thing we want to change the way our school is with our sports,” Johnson said. “We don’t have such a good reputation with sports at our school. With wrestling our main thing is to help change that at Alameda.”

e Pirates have the league championships coming up followed by a 3A regional tournament where the top 4 wrestlers in each weight class qualify for the state tournament  Feb. 16-18 down at Ball Arena in Denver.

“With this young group just getting them that experience,” Coach Trujillo said of league, regionals and state tournament ahead. “None of them have ever been there (state). at is going to be one of our tasks to coach them in the right way and make them understand what we are there to do and what to take away from it.”

Dennis Pleuss is the sports information director for Je co Public Schools. For more Je co coverage, go to CHSAANow.com.

Columbine gives No. 1 Valor a scare

BY DENNIS PLEUSS JEFFCO PUBLIC SCHOOLS

LITTLETON — Valor Christian’s girls basketball team continued its remarkable conference winning streak Jan. 17, but it wasn’t easy.

Columbine senior Araya Ogden scored a driving layup with 3:25 left in the fourth quarter to cut Valor’s lead to 57-55. However, the Eagles — No. 1 in the CHSAANow.com Class 6A rankings — went on an 11-0 run in the nal minutes to snag a 68-55 road victory.

“It was a really good reminder for us that there are things that we need to go back and continue to work on,” Valor coach Jessika Caldwell said. “Give credit to Columbine. ey had a great

game plan and they nished everything around the basket and we did not.”

It was Valor’s 34th straight conference win since the Eagles (13-1, 3-0 in 6A Jeffco) moved up to the largest classi cation to start the 2018-19 season.

Valor hasn’t lost a league game since a 4A Je co League loss to Evergreen back on Feb. 13, 2018. Since that loss not only has the Eagles been perfect in conference play, but they won the 5A state title in 2021 and were the state runner-up last season.

“It means a lot,” Valor senior and Macey Huard said of the undefeated streak and four straight Je co League titles since the Eagles moved up to the largest classi cation. “We don’t feel the

pressure of it, but we put a lot of work in to prepare for each game. To go out and have a close game is a little stressful.”

Huard — University of Montana commit —  nished with a game-high 29 points. Her biggest basket came late in the four quarter. A 3-pointer in front of the Eagles’ bench pushed Valor’s lead to 63-55 with 1:35 to play.

“Quinn (VanSickle) is a great passer. When she drove I knew she was going to kick it back out to me,” Huard said of the huge 3-pointer in the nal minutes. “I knew we needed that one.”

Huard nished the game with a steal and layup just before the buzzer to win

Alameda junior Mushtaq Shokori works on top against Golden senior Luke Henderson in the 157-pound match Jan. 19 at Golden High School. Shokori won by technical fall in the second period to help the Pirates to a 47-27 team victory.

PHOTO BY DENNIS PLEUSS/JEFFCO PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Valor Christian senior Macey Huard, right, drives on Columbine senior Dakota Archuleta during the first half Jan. 17 at Columbine High School. The Rebels gave the No. 1-ranked Eagles a tough game, but Valor eventually took a 68-55 victory to win its 34th straight league win.

PHOTO BY DENNIS PLEUSS/JEFFCO PUBLIC SCHOOLS

BASKETBALL

FROM PAGE 24

another Je co League game. VanSickle nished with 13 points and sophomore Rylie Beers had a nice game o the bench for the Eagles with 9 points.

“We just had to bring grit into that last quarter,” Huard said. “We were all tired. We just had to bring all the competitiveness we had left in us and toughness to make it through.”

Columbine (6-10, 1-2) never led in the game, but they hung tough against a Valor squad who hasn’t lost to an in-state program this season.

“Our whole focus coming into this game was us,” Columbine coach Greg Bolding Jr. said. “We knew we had a big task ahead, but we didn’t focus on them. We wanted to clean up the mistakes we’ve been making.” e Rebels handled Valor’s fullcourt pressure for most of the game. Columbine junior Emily Allison led the way with 24 points, including buzzer beater to end the rst half.

“She (Allison) has been our rock for our team,” Bolding said. “She has kind of carried our team on and o the court. Her leadership has been unbelievable.”

Ogden — the pitcher on Columbine’s softball state championship team this past Fall — scored 10 points as the Rebels gave the No. 1 ranked team in the state a good

early league test.

“I don’t think this is a moral victory. It’s an opportunity for us to say we are better than our record it,” Bolding said. “We have a big task ahead of us on Friday. Hopefully we can build o of this game and have some success against Chat eld.”

Chat eld handed Columbine a 5348 loss to end the week.

Valor took sole possession of rst place in 6A Je co on Jan. 20. e Eagles defeated No. 8 Ralston Valley 54-30 on the road. e Mustangs (10-4, 2-1) are actually lead by the coach that handed Caldwell her last league loss nearly ve years ago.

Amy Bahl is in her rst year at Ralston Valley, back in the prep ranks after taking some time away from high school coaching.

“I’m so glad she is back coaching again,” Caldwell said of Bahl. “It’s so fun to have another female presence and another mom. We share a lot of similarities having three kids and both of us having played (college) at a high level.”

Caldwell and Bahl also share having won state multiple state championships as coaches. Caldwell has three with Valor winning 4A titles in 2015 and 2016 to go along with Valor’s 5A title in 2021. Bahl won her back-to-back 4A titles with Evergreen in 2017 and 2018.

Dennis Pleuss is the sports information director for Je co Public Schools. For more Je co coverage, go to CHSAANow.com.

CROWSS UP DRO ELZZ

Columbine junior Emily Allison (33) had a teamhigh 24 points for the Rebels in a 68-55 loss to Valor Christian on Jan. 17 at Columbine High School.

PHOTO BY DENNIS PLEUSS/JEFFCO PUBLIC SCHOOLS

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Expanded preschool program received 12,000 applications

BY ERICA BREUNLIN THE COLORADO SUN

Close to 12,000 applicants signed up for the state’s expanded preschool program Tuesday, the rst day parents could enroll their child ahead of the program’s start this fall.

e number of applications is a promising sign for the new program and is prompting state o cials to rethink the number of children who will enroll.

“We’re pleasantly surprised,” said Lisa Roy, executive director of the Colorado Department of Early Childhood. “It exceeded our expectations for the rst day. We think it’s an excellent indicator of family interest” in the state’s expanded preschool program, known as “universal preschool.”

e department originally projected about 30,000 kids would opt into the state program during its rst year, about half the number of kids who will be eligible, Chalkbeat Colorado rst reported. State o cials largely based that estimate on enrollment numbers across the country and from the Denver preschool program, Roy said.

“Colorado is giving us an indicator that our initial projections are lower than what the uptake will be,” she said. “And that’s exciting. We have the funding. We need to make

sure that … by the fall we have the seats available, and based on the provider uptake, we look like we’re in really great shape.”

So far, 1,477 child care providers have submitted forms to o er services through the preschool program, with another nearly 1,000 forms that providers have started but not yet submitted, according to the department. Based on the number of providers who plan to participate in the program, 60,000 slots are available for kids, nearly double the department’s initial expectation, said Melissa Mares, director of early childhood initiatives for the Colorado Children’s Campaign.

e rst round of applications for families closes Feb. 14, but the expanded preschool program is not rst come, rst served. Instead, the department will evaluate all families’ applications at the same time and use an analytics system that will consider a variety of factors when matching families to preschool settings — including home-based, center-based and school-based programs. ose factors include transportation, whether families want a full day of preschool and whether a program is listed as a family’s rst choice. When applying, parents and caregivers can select up to ve preschool programs, ranking their preferred programs starting with their top choice.

e application is available in

English, Spanish and Arabic and takes no more than 15 minutes to complete, Mares said, adding that the state has created the application by asking, “how can we best take (the) burden o of families?”

All 4-year-olds in the state will be eligible for at least 15 hours of free preschool per week — close to a half day of care. Additionally, some 3-year-olds will qualify for 10 hours of free preschool per week, including those with a disability, from low-income families, facing housing insecurity, learning English or living in foster care.

e state’s newly expanded preschool program was made possible by Colorado taxpayers in 2020, when voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition EE, which raised taxes on cigarettes and other products containing nicotine partly to fund more preschool for Colorado kids.

Providing free hours of preschool to families has been a major goal of Gov. Jared Polis, who has championed early childhood education since he rst ran for governor. Polis touted the launch of the application window for expanded preschool during his State of the State address Tuesday.

e program “will save families at least $6,000 a year and give every child the best possible start in life,” Polis said during his speech.

Department of Early Childhood spokesperson Hope Shuler noted

that preschool applications swelled during and after Polis’ address. e department’s website encountered few technology challenges amid the urry of applications, running slowly the rst 15 minutes of the day but then resolved and managed the intake of applications, she said.

e department will likely launch a second round of applications for families and possibly a third, depending on the ow of applications.

If the majority of eligible children have applied by the end of the rst or second round, Roy said, “we’ll adapt as needed.”

Meanwhile, the department is also focused on establishing academic standards, assessments and curriculum support for all types of preschool providers, she noted, while also approving curriculum that some providers already use.

“We have a lot to do before fall,” Roy said, “but we plan on having many of the important areas that were identi ed by the statute in place before the summer comes.”

is story is from e Colorado 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.

from press releases expressing regret about the incident, but never taking responsibility.

“So they could, for example, come out and make a more, you know, say sorry, this is a real and full apology for what happened, which is a terrible abdication of their duty and a crime with law enforcement, people are committing crime and then covering it up,” Simon said.

“No one said sorry,” Sally said, tearfully.

On Oct. 26 2022, the Fifth Judicial District Court announced the case would be presented to a Grand Jury.

During that time of year, Simon and Sally remember trick-or-treating with Christian and his sisters.

“ ey would take up pillowcases, and the pillowcases would be full. And actually what they used to love doing, because he liked kind of sorting and stu – I think that was his logical brain – they loved trading,” Sally remembered.

On Nov. 23 2022, the Grand Jury brought down indictments against Buen and Gould, who were both subsequently let go from the Sheri ’s department.

In Novembers past, the Glass family had tried their hand at the American holiday of anksgiving, mainly just feasting on turkey as a family. Simon and Sally remember Christian and a girlfriend cooking dinner for them one year, but this year there was hardly an appetite with news of an impending court date.

On Dec. 4 2022, the former deputies appeared in court as defendants for the rst time. Both were out on bond, and the hearing was to approve travel over the holidays for the defen-

dants to see their family.

e Glass family explained to the judge that they too would love to spend time with their family over Christmas, but said the actions of the defendants made that impossible. e judge granted the defendants travel.

One Christmas years ago, Christian had to work on Christmas day at Starbucks. His family decided to come surprise him at work, and had Christmas dinner at the co ee shop.

“We actually went down on Christmas,” Sally said. “Because we wanted to be with him.”

Simon remembers the family ordering all sorts of seasonal drinks and treats while Christian worked behind the counter. Christian’s sel ess spirit shined through even at his barista job, his parents said, as he worried about creating too much work for his coworkers.

“He felt bad for the people he was working with because we all came in and ordered all these drinks and stu ,” Sally said.

e family now clings to memories like these, as they will be unable to make new ones with their son.

On Jan. 4, 2023, the Douglas County Sheri ’s Department released an investigation into the body camera footage of Christian’s murder. e department found Buen’s actions to be unjusti ed.

Seeing another agency call out the actions of the o cers involved in Christian’s murder was important to the parents.

“So it’s the rst time that another agency has come out and said this is wrong. And … it’d be nice if the Clear Creek county department came out and said…” Simon trailed o .

Jan. 30, 2023 will be the next time the Glass family sees the former deputies in court. e hearing will be held at the Clear Creek County Courthouse at 11 a.m. and is open to the public.

(Planned Development), and Amending the Official Zoning Maps of the City of Arvada, Colorado, Parcel of Land West of Urban Street and South of West 58th Avenue.

CB23-004, An Ordinance Rezoning Certain Land Within the City of Arvada, Ralston Gardens, from RN-7.5 (Residential Neighborhood 7,500) to MX-N (Mixed-Use Neighborhood), and Amending the Official Zoning Maps of the City of Arvada, Colorado, Parcel of Land Located at the Southeast Corner

of Ralston Road and Garrison Street, Formerly Known as 5790 Garrison Street.

Legal Notice No. 415570

First Publication: January 26, 2023 Last Publication: January 26, 2023

Publisher: Jeffco Transcript

PUBLIC NOTICE

The following ordinance was adopted by the City Council of the City of Arvada on second reading following the public hearing held on January 23, 2023:

Ordinance #4834 An Ordinance Amending Section 30-4 of the Arvada City Code Pertaining to Council Districts.

Legal Notice No. 415571

First Publication: January 26, 2023

Last Publication: January 26, 2023

Publisher: Jeffco Transcript

Legal Notice No. 415569

First Publication: January 26, 2023

Last Publication: January 26, 2023

“Because we wanted to be with him”

A painting Christian created for his mother, Sally.