Sentinel Lakewood
Jefferson County, Colorado • Volume 89, Issue 46
June 27, 2013
A Colorado Community Media Publication
ourlakewoodnews.com And the winners are ...
For the praCtiCe
Look inside to find out who made Colorado Community Media’s list.
Bear Creek Lake Park in running for grant Program requires votes of residents By Clarke Reader
creader@ourcoloradonews.com
Lakewood Police, West Metro Fire and Rescue, RTD and St. Anthony’s Hospital took part in an annual emergency-operations-training field exercise June 19. In the exercise an armed suspect exposed victims to a toxic material, and hazmat services had to clean off all the victims before being taken to St. Anthony’s. Photo by Clarke Reader
public shares visions for downtown Next step to create document on proposed changes By Clarke Reader
creader@ourcoloradonews.com The plan for redefining downtown Lakewood is coming together, and the city hosted the last open house June 18 about the project. The city’s Downtown Lakewood Connectivity and Urban Design Plan aims to not only better provide connectivity in the area, but also implement design standards to make it feel like a more unified downtown. “We’ve established these goals for downtown like creating better connectivity and making sure people can find their way around downtown, now we’re synthesizing everything together,” said Mark Kopatz, of Stanley Consultants, which has been helping the city with urban design elements. “We’ve gotten some really great comments
An exterior view of the Lakewood Civic Center through an outdoor sculpture. File Photo on how to streamline things and create a cohesive look.” The area designated as downtown Lake-
wood encompasses the Belmar shopping Downtown continues on Page 19
Lakewood’s Bear Creek Lake Park could receive up to $100,000 in grants from Coca Cola’s “Take it to the Park” program, but needs help from residents to win. Residents can vote daily at www. coke.com/parks for Bear Creek Lake Park (BCLP) until July 15. According to Maria Ashley, public affairs and communications manager with Coke, the “Take it to the Park” program is part of the fourth annual America is your Park campaign, which emphasizes becoming active and healthy. Allison Scheck, marketing and community relations administrator with the city of Lakewood, said the city found out about the competition through a parks and recreation publication. Since BCLP is the city’s highest attended park — with about 415,000 visits a year — she said it seemed like the natural choice to enter into the running. “We wanted to do an awareness campaign to really get the word out to the community about this,” she said. “Not only does first place win $100,000, second place wins $50,000 and third place wins $25,000.” In addition to being able to vote on the Coke website, people can vote by checking in at the park on Foursquare, and by logging at least 20 minutes of physical activity at the park on MapMyFitness. According to Ashley, more than 16,000 parks from around the country participated in the grant program last year.
Jefferson County commissioners oppose pot businesses Commercial operations barred until 2015 By Glenn Wallace
gwallace@ourcoloradonews.com Though Colorado counties will be able to regulate and tax marijuana-related businesses beginning this fall, Jefferson County will not be among them. The Jefferson County commissioners voted 3-0 to ban those types of businesses newly allowed under voter-approved Amendment 64. Under the new law, beginning Oct. 1, cities and counties can start accepting permit applications for marijuana businesses, including cultivation facilities, testing fa-
cilities, product manufacturing facilities and retail stores. Commissioners Faye Griffin, Casey Tighe and Donald Rosier all voted to approve the county ban, which calls for all such businesses to not be allowed within unincorporated Jeffco until Feb. 1, 2015. “Waiting until 2015 would allow us to see how this is going in other municipalities,” Assistant County Attorney Eric Butler said. Butler said the state still had many portions of the Amendment 64 recreational marijuana law to work out, and a November election to determine how the product will be taxed. He added that since Jeffco did not allow medicinal marijuana, the county did not even have that framework to build from.
Jeffco District Attorney Pete Weir called the ban “a thoughtful and prudent approach” to help protect children. Public comment on the proposed ban was mixed, with a few members of the audience asking for the ban to be made permanent. Even proponents of recreational marijuana like Colorado NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) board member Shawn Hauser seemed to accept that at least a temporary moratorium to sort out business taxes and regulations was appropriate. “Opting into (Amendment 64) is for the best for public safety,” Hauser said, suggesting that the ban’s length be shortened. Colorado Tobacco and Education and Prevention Alliance Executive Director Bob Doyle said he group would like to see the
ban made permanent, to avoid marijuana becoming mass merchandized. “It’s not impacting home use and home growing, but it does prohibit retail marijuana,” Doyle said. Not allowing marijuana businesses will also mean not receiving marijuana tax revenues. Butler told the commissioners that by instituting the ban, Jeffco would also not be eligible for marijuana impact funds through the state.
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