February 5, 2015 VOLU M E 31 | I SS UE 32 | 5 0 ¢
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Limited space fuels community concern As enrollment numbers rise, schools face over-capacity By Crystal Anderson
Ordinance establishes cap on number of businesses
canderson@colorado communitymedia.com With enrollment numbers on the rise, members of northwest Arvada are wondering where their kids are going to go to school next year. “We are starting to feel this influx that’s affecting our classes in different ways,” said Darcie Bolton Weiser, a parent of two children at Meiklejohn Elementary School. “I feel very lucky my kids’ class sizes are small right now, but who knows what’s going to happen with the numbers of kids we’re projected to get in.” Due to new housing developments cropping up across the district, several schools are seeing a rapid influx in enrollment. Current projections show the area may have a need for an additional 5,000 seats, something the area doesn’t have. For Arvada’s West Woods and Meiklejohn Elementary, this increase in students is causing schools to be near or over capacity.
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WHEAT RIDGE TRANSCRIPT (ISSN 1089-9197)
OFFICE: 722 Washington Ave, Unit 210 Golden, CO 80401 PHONE: 303-566-4100 A legal newspaper of general circulation in Jefferson County, Colorado, the Wheat Ridge Transcript is published weekly on Thursday by Mile High Newspapers, 722 Washington Ave, Unit 210, Golden, CO 80401. PERIODICALS POSTAGE PAID AT GOLDEN, COLORADO and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address change to: Wheat Ridge Transcript 722 Washington Ave., Unit 210 Golden, CO 80401 DEADLINES: Display: Fri. 11 a.m. Legal: Fri. 11 a.m. | Classified: Mon. 5 p.m. GE T SOCIAL WITH US
P L EA SE R ECYC L E T H I S C OPY
Pot rules finalized By Hugh Johnson
With five mobile classrooms in located to the west of the school, classes of 35-36 sixth graders fit snuggly, four to a table, inside each temporary building. Photo by Crystal Anderson. “I think the difference in Jefferson County is the district is so large, but you see these pockets of growth, and others where you see are at 60-70 percent capacity — but they’re nowhere where we need them to be,” said Jeffco Board of Education member, Jill Fellman. “If we can pick them up and move them we would, but we can’t.” The hardest hit area, which includes the Candelas, Five Parks, West Woods, Leyden Rock housing developments, extends north along Indiana Street from 70th Avenue to about 90th Street and serves approximately 1,500 students, a number that both schools are having to work creatively to manage. For West Woods, with 670 students currently enrolled, finding space in an already crowded building is a tricky task. According to Facilities Manager, Jason Walling, the school is seeing an influx of first, fifth and sixth graders, with more than 100 students per grade level. Divided into three classrooms of 2836 students, this increase leaves a lack of space for instruments, backpacks and coats, and small groups inside the classroom. “We’re having to utilize our two atrium spaces a lot more than has ever been done,” he said. “When you get up to the bigger kids, with numbers higher
than 22, in terms of facilities, they aren’t these little kids anymore, they’re bigger, so it feels like there’s less space and it feels like your shuffling around (the room).” Walking the halls of West Woods, the sense of overcrowding is visible. Half-day classrooms at West Woods are being utilized for enrichment programming, teacher pods are being used to hold storage, backpacks and coats lay piled up next to instruments sitting outside the classroom. “Looking forward into the future we’re trying to make sure we have desks, tables and chairs to accommodate everybody, but fitting that furniture in the space, as you can see, well, that’s the trick,” said Walling. For parents like Kelly Price, who lives in Leyden Rock, the overcrowding both schools are seeing was something she didn’t want her children to deal with, opting to drive them across town to attend the less crowded, Hackberry Hill Elementary School. “The overcrowding was a major factor in our decision to choice enroll our middle child at Hackberry Hill instead of West Woods. Our oldest will begin middle school next year and we are planning to choice enroll her at North Arvada rather than Drake for similar reasons,”
Price said. “We have no children at West Woods at this time, instead choosing a lengthy daily commute to a different school.” Currently, Walling along with West Woods Principal Jason Smith are working with the district to figure out how to accommodate an anticipated 50-150 additional students for the 2015-2016 school year. At the time of publication, they were going to hire six additional teachers and possibly add one new temporary mobile classroom. For Meiklejohn, the district has removed two of the school’s a.m. and p.m. preschool classes to free up classroom space, moving them to Van Arsdale Elementary School. “I think the urgent need is actually a couple years down the road,” said Jeffco Superintendent Dan McMinimee. “We feel like we have taken some steps for next year at at least two of the impacted schools right now that are going to make a difference for kids next year.” As of Feb. 5 the board of education will have a fourth public discussion around the district’s facilities, how to pay for additional construction, and potential construction alternatives. “This facilities thing is like a big domino game,” Fellman said. “We’ve got to figure out what piece gets this moving forward.”
Avenue’s width and worth are still open to debate By Hugh Johnson Breckenridge Brewery founder Richard Squire spoke at the Jan. 26 city council meeting, inquiring about the future of 38th Avenue after the failure of last year’s ballot initiative. Wheat Ridge voters rejected ballot initiative 2B, which would have changed the street width designations for 38th Avenue. Wheat Ridge residents voted 57.3 percent against the initiative which would have made the width of 38th Avenue 47 feet wide from Upham Street to High Court, 41 feet from High Court to 230 feet east of High Court and 35 feet from there to Marshall Street. Many, including District two councilman Zachary Urban, have argued that the reason for
the vote is because people are against the narrowing of 38th Avenue. A road diet —or lane reduction — transformed 38th from a major thoroughfare to more of a destination street, but has increased traffic congestion in the process, according to some. Not much news has come from council on the future of the project in aftermath of the ballot initiatives defeat. Back in November, council said it would look at other options for 38th that encapsulate the vision of the city staff and the city’s residents. Squire wanted an update, he said. AHe had plans to bring a Breckenridge Brewery to Wheat Ridge but decided against it, saying the road diet threatens to curb the volume of customers the restaurant could receive.
It would take $3 or $4 million to build the restaurant, but the business would have to bring in $400,000 monthly to make it a worthwhile investment, he said. That’s a goal Squire doesn’t think Wheat Ridge can attain with 38th the way it is. “You need to do $400,000 a month in a restaurant to really cash it in and make somebody say, ‘Hey, I want to go there and build this place,’ ” he said. “To do that kind of business you have trucks and cars and people and stuff like that. And you simply cannot do with that street pinched off, it’s just impossible.” Other restaurant owners who possess the means to make such an investment would also shy away from 38th for similar reasons, Squire said.
City council passed one of two ordinances concerning the regulation of marijuana businesses in the city at the Jan. 26 meeting. Council approved an ordinance capping the number of marijuana storefronts at five and marijuana infused product manufacturers at three. The numbers represent the current number of marijuana establishments in Wheat Ridge right now and no new establishments can come into the city unless a current one vacates. However, council killed an ordinance that would allow marijuana businesses to co-locate medicinal and retail marijuana in a single establishment. The approval of the first ordinance effectively lifts the moratorium on licenses for marijuana businesses that was first enacted in August. The new ordinance is the culmination of a near seven-month debate of how to regulate marijuana in the city, after a proposed development at 38th and Miller threatened to be too close to schools and the recreation center for some community member’s liking. During that time period, some residents questioned the need for marijuana at all, arguing the potential risks the substance could impose of the future of Wheat Ridge. District One Councilman Jerry DiTullio said that essentially the ship had already sailed on marijuana in Wheat Ridge and that these ordinances were more about regulation. ”This happened three years ago,” DiTullio said of allowing marijuana business into the city. “Medical and retail sales were allowed in the city of Wheat Ridge by previous councils and so there’s been a lot of changes and moratoriums and more changes and more moratoriums over the last two or three years.” Previous councils had made bad decision that the city would later regret, said Barbara St. John said. “In the past, I have attended council meetings where they have deplored the fact that previous councils, many years ago, made very unwise decisions, and we are reaping the results of those bad decisions in zoning etc.,” St. John said. “We need to stop these bad things from happening now.” Also on hand was the owner of the property on 38th and Miller. Babak Behzadzadeh, an Englewood resident, said before he purchased the property for an estimated $600,000 he was told it was in the correct zone for a marijuana business. He said city staff told him if he removed the gas station on the property, his application for a marijuana license would go through as an administrative decision, which he was told would exclude a public process. However, now Behzadzadeh faces new regulations that prohibit him from placing the business there. He and his attorney estimate that he will lose $200,000 on the investment. As for the ordinance on co-location, Councilman DiTullio made a motion to indefinitely postpone the bill, effectively killing it. Council voted unanimously on the first ordinance and voted to kill the ordinance allowing for co-location by a vote of five to three, with councilmen George Pond, Tim Fitzgerald and Williams Starker voting against.