KALAVITY

sequestering e ects of a limited lawn area and many trees, right here in the city, rather than irrigating remote pastures for cattle or washing down meat-processing plants, further polluting even more of our open waters.

I can enjoy birds, squirrels and urban wildlife in the park or in my yard while eating a protein-packed veggie burger with a low water and carbon footprint rather than staying inside to turn on the air conditioning and eating a beef hamburger! By the way, most air conditioning is fueled

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Colorado Community Media welcomes letters to the editor. Please note the following rules: respect and achievement for Brent. When people in the eld of public administration accept employment as city manager it is done without any expectation that they will be recognized and honored in such a public way.

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I know personally that neither Brent nor myself had the expectation that we would be honored with a park or ball elds named in our honor. While some people may not believe it, when you choose public administration as a career it is more than the salary which motivates you. With most city manager-types, there a “calling” to want to improve the community he or she commits to serve. Borrowing from the Rotary International service organization, it is truly a case of “Service above Self.” Congratulations Brent on this honor!!

Northglenn faces escalating environmental costs on civic center site e previous environmental site assessment detected contaminated soils requiring remediation. An estimated cost of $1 million had previously been reported. by electricity that is generated from fossil fuels. Fracking to extract natural gas, etc requires large amounts of water. So, we are really not “saving water” by getting rid of lawn and shade trees that can shade and cool our environment by up to 20 degrees and exchanging them for the need of even more air conditioning in our homes, anyway!

If escalating construction materials costs were not enough to cope with, the city now nds itself faced with increased costs to mitigate environmental issues at their civic center site.

Karen Kalavity, of Westminster, graduated from the College of Agriculture at CSU with a bachelor’s degree in Landscape Horticulture in 1980. Professionally, she has designed/prepared site plans and landscape plans for many large-scale commercial and residential developments within Colorado and other regions.

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• Keep it polite: No name calling or “mudslinging.” e level of remediation was predicated on residential development going on a portion of the prescribed site.

More recently, a more detailed assessment was prepared with lead and arsenic being the predominantly detected contaminants. A revised remediation cost of $5.4 million was determined without any in ation included.

City sta then consulted with Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment seeking ways to reduce the cost while retaining the level of remediation. is produced a plan that cut the cost in half to $2.6 million.

Additionally, the demolition cost to remove the old recreation center building is rising. Originally, the cost estimate was $450,000. Now, due to in ation, the cost has jumped. e new estimate by the same contractor is $650,000.

Finally, site contamination at the old recreation center building has signi cantly risen in cost. Originally, the abatement of contamination was $150,000. After further testing and bidding for remediation services, bids came in between $1.0 million to $2.0 million.

Solving the cost escalation problem

To the credit of the city sta , the civic center plan for a new city hall and working with a master developer to do private development on the freed up land is still viable. anks to the merit of pursuing two separate Brown elds federal grants and achieving an additional $506,000 tax credit via the Brownseld Tax Credit legislation, it would appear the viability of the project can go forward if city council concurs with sta ’s approach. e only down side would be extending the time line on getting the outside grants and getting the environmental work completed. Sta outlined how the city could potentially receive federal grants of $1-2 million in two separate submittals to EPA with the work being nished by the end of 2025. en construction of the new city hall could commence. is whole set of nancial setbacks and the sta ’s “can do” attitude reminds me of the classic saying of “when given lemons; make lemonade.” Assuming city council gives the green light on the whole approach, let’s have a glass of lemonade and get moving!

Bill Christopher is a former Westminster city manager and RTD board member. His opinions are not necessarily those of Colorado Community Media. You can contact him at bcjayhawk68@gmail.com.

BY MCKENNA HARFORD MHARFORD@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Af ter more than 20 years of collecting pinball machines, Dan Nikolich’s basement had run out of space to store them all. So Nikolich opened the Colorado Pinball Pub in Littleton to share his collection.

“Pinball is a unique thing because it doesn’t matter what your background or walk of life is, pinball will draw you in,” he said. “It’s a great equalizer because it only takes one ball.”

While the concept of offering drinks and games at one location is nothing new, the Denver area is host to a number of unique takes on the Dave and Buster’s business model.

Colorado Pinball Pub is one of the newer additions to the barcade scene, having opened in 2020. The pub offers 22 pinball machines, plus a few classic arcade games like PacMan and Centipede, for unlimited play for $15 per hour.

Nikolich’s love for games started young, when he was growing up in Las Vegas and working for the MGM Arcade, so he was happy to see the recent rise in pinball’s popularity.

“Pinball is having a great resurgence right now. The last few years it’s been really hot,” he said. “We have parents who will bring their kids who have never played pinball and, at night, we get a lot of adults and date nights, stuff like that. All people seem to like pinball.”

Like the pub’s patrons, the pinball machines available range in age and theme, with Nikolich’s oldest machine being from 1981. The walls of the pub also pay homage to the history of the game, including its prohibition from 1940s to the 1970s, with pictures and news clippings.

In addition to pinball, the pub features over 150 kinds of whiskey, craft cocktails and Colorado brewed beer.

Nikolich said the goal is to have something for everyone and to make it approachable, whether that’s pinball or whiskey.

“We want you to come and learn about it and not be intimidated to ask if you don’t know something, we want to teach you, so that you can enjoy something new,” he said.

On the opposite side of the metro area, another