Northglenn Thornton Sentinel 031022

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Week of March 10, 2022

ADAMS COUNTY, COLORADO

A publication of

Northglenn-ThorntonSentinel.com

VOLUME 58 | ISSUE 31

Westminster votes to help fund RMMA noise consultants BY LUKE ZARZECKI LZARZECKI@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Westminster will help a regional effort to quiet Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport — to the tune of $7,810. Westminster City Council voted unanimously Feb. 28 to provide the Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport Community Noise Roundtable $7,810 to hire two consultants who will study noise concerns coming from the airport. “This will bring forward a study that would look at how to mitigate noise for the community,” said City Councilor Lindsey Emmons, council’s alternate voting member for the roundtable. Emmons said that one of the consultants will facilitate meetings during noise roundtable meetings. “It’s very awkward, when you get in those contentious discussions, to not have a neutral party help facilitate past those discussions,” Emmons said. Another will provide aviation consulting services, according to the meeting’s agenda. Mayor Pro Tem David DeMott said Jefferson County Commissioner Tracy Kraft-Tharp, a voting member on the community noise roundtable, called him to answer any questions he had regarding the agenda item. “This specific study is actually

going to get experts who will work with the actual pilots that pilot out of the airport so they can understand the egress and degress and actually think of what ways we actually impact this,” DeMott said. Other municipalities will vote on approving the funds as well, according to the meeting’s agenda. Those members are Arvada, Boulder County, the city and county of Broomfield, Jefferson County, the city of Louisville, the Town of Superior, and the city of Lafayette. Julie Story, a spokesperson for the airport, emphasized that addressing noise issues is a regional effort, not just a single county or city. Large Increases The move comes as airport noise complaints have risen by almost 492% in the past 10 years. According to Paul Anslow, the director of the Airport, noise complaints in 2011 were 481 and had grown to 2,845 in 2021. In 2011, the number of distinct households complaining was 84, making the average complaint per household 5.7. By 2021, the number of distinct households was 402, averaging 7.1 complaints per household. Airport operations also have increased by almost 69%, from 119,353 in 2011 and 201,426 in 2021, according to Story. That number includes aircraft taking off and landing.

Airplanes at the Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport.

At the same time, the surrounding communities — Arvada, Broomfield, Louisville, Superior and Westminster — have increased their populations by about 13%. The total number of residents of all communities increased from 299,295 in 2010 to 338,806 in 2019. From 1990 to 2019, there has been an overall 68% increase in population, according to Story. Paired with these increases came community investments. DeMott noted at the city council meeting the

PHOTO BY LUKE ZARZECKI

commerce the airport brings. According to Story, Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport provides more than 3,000 jobs totaling $190 million in annual pay, more than $700 million in annual business revenues to the region and approximately $27 billion in indirect annual economic value, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation’s 2020 Aeronautics Economic Impact Study. SEE AIRPORT, P4

Election workers could get new protections against threats, doxxing Colorado House Bill 1273 would make it a crime to threaten an election worker BY JESSE PAUL THE COLORADO SUN

Threatening a Colorado election worker in an attempt to keep them

from doing their job or in response to them performing their official duties would be a crime under a bill introduced by Democrats in the state legislature.

House Bill 1273 would also prohibit people from publicly posting the personal information — such as their address, telephone number or photo — of an election official or their immediate family if doing so poses an imminent and serious safety threat. “The reality is we do have to have this conversation, given what’s been happening in the country over the last couple of years,” said Senate

President Steve Fenberg, a Boulder Democrat and prime sponsor of the bill. “I think it’s important to be extra clear that we do have additional protections for people who work to make sure our democracy functions.” The bill comes amid a yearslong effort by the legislature to create SEE ELECTIONS, P6

INSIDE: VOICES: PAGE 12 | LIFE: PAGE 14 | CALENDAR: PAGE 17 | SPORTS: PAGE 20

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