Northglenn Thornton
Sentinel
November 1, 2012
50 cents
A Colorado Community Media Publication
ournorthglennnews.com, ourthorntonnews.com
Adams County, Colorado • Volume 49, Issue 12
MAD GOOD TIME
Cities mixed on vow
General manager says he’ll find $300 million to finish FasTracks projects By Darin Moriki
dmoriki@ourcoloradonews.com
Northglenn High School junior Alia Mendoza, dressed as the Mad Hatter, hands out candy Saturday during Safe Street Halloween at the school. Photo by Andy Carpenean
Northglenn and Thornton officials said they have mixed feelings about a commitment by the RTD general manager to find $300 million for multiple unfinished FasTracks projects. Regional Transportation Director General Manager Phil Washington made the vow during the RTD board’s Oct. 23 meeting and also hinted at a series of proposed cuts to other programs to come up with the funding. Washington said he will provide a list of cuts for the board to consider and a final decision on these cuts may be made as early as December. Thornton Mayor Heidi Williams said she is wary of the announcement and is concerned it could be yet another unfulfilled promise. “Quite frankly, it is going to be really difficult for RTD to come up with $300 million over the next several years particularly if that savings has to come about through service level adjustments,” Williams said in an e-mail. “Clearly the devil is going to be in the details about where the savings will come from, and that will tell us who will be impacted or could suffer for it — $300 million is not a small sum of money.” Brook Svoboda, Northglenn’s planning and development director, said it is premature to determine how RTD’s plans may materialize over the next two months. More recently, he said RTD officials have been working on concrete plans to build up to the proposed 72nd Avenue station so they can apply for federal assistance. “I think there’s more information that needs to come out so we can take a closer look at it, but on the whole, I think the bigger issue here is that RTD is becoming more actively engaged with the north corridor communities and trying to solve and fund these projects,” Svoboda said. “It seems as if the tone has changed and there seems to be a more concerted effort now to try and solve this financial problem.”
Sheriff aims to expand crime lab Proposal could alleviate future costs, case turnaround time By Darin Moriki dmoriki@ourcoloradonews.com Adams County Sheriff Doug Darr is looking to expand his crime lab to improve case turnover rates and help alleviate future costs of crime analysis.
Darr said during an Oct. 17 presentation to the county commissioners the four additional labs, including individual rooms for tool marks and ballistics investigations and two more for DNA extraction and amplification, would help allay future costs amid looming state budget crunches. He proposed two budget figures — to build out the crime lab and create four individual labs is estimated that would cost the
county about $130,000 and a figure that includes the build out plus DNA equipment for two of the labs, supplies and two new specialists at about $750,000. Darr said one of the two options will be his second highest priority line item in his department’s 2013 budget. Sgt. Shane Heiter, a crime lab supervisor, said the crime lab currently sends tool marks and ballistics evidence to the Colorado Bureau Investigation for
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testing — a process that usually takes up to six months to a year before results are returned. The state agency rarely charged the county for its services, but Darr said that may be changing. “The state doesn’t have any money, and it has been getting tighter over the years, and the question is, ‘How long can we continue to send our items for testing down there without being charged,’” Darr said. “I can tell you a few years ago that I would as the CBI director that question and he would say, ‘Oh, don’t worry about it,’ but that hasn’t been the answer in recent days. The answer more recently has been, ‘I don’t think there will be any charges, but we have to wait and see what the annual budget looks like,’ so it tells us that there are issues.” Heiter said the need is be-
coming increasingly important as the crime lab struggles to shuffle multiple cases between three main rooms serving as a drug laboratory, fingerprint lab and photography room. “This will save the citizens, insurance companies and the sheriff’s department money, because we’re going to be able to put these people away,” Heiter said. “The payback is really for the citizens, because they would be paying for a service and we can give them that service and save them money in the long run.” Darr said both Denver and Jefferson counties are making plans to begin constructing their own crime labs, but noted that his office has an unusual advantage, since it already has the infrastructure in place to expand.