Parker chronicle 0809

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Chronicle Parker

Parker 8-9-2013

Douglas County, Colorado • Volume 11, Issue 41

August 9, 2013

A Colorado Community Media Publication

ourparkernews.com

Classes poised to begin Superintendent touts additions, innovations coming during school year By Jane Reuter

jreuter@ourcoloradonews.com

Carl DeBard, owner of Big Plan Creative, applies the finishing touches to a painted Solheim Cup sign at the Warhorse Inn in downtown Parker. The local company was hired by the Town of Parker to decorate the windows of businesses the week before Solheim. For more about the Solheim Cup, see page 26. Photos by Chris Michlewicz

Downtown Parker set for Solheim Flags, shuttles are among means to welcome visitors By Chris Michlewicz

cmichlewicz@ourcoloradonews.com The anticipated arrival of 120,000 visitors has downtown Parker businesses going all out for the occasion. Thousands of international visitors and American golf fans will descend on the town for the Solheim Cup, a U.S.vs.-Europe women’s golf tournament at the Colorado Golf Club Aug. 13-18. Businesses began hanging decorations and placing flags along Mainstreet the week of Aug. 5, and Big Plan Creative, a company hired by the Town of Parker, painted festive Solheim Cup signs on shop windows Aug. 6-7 to welcome the out-of-towners. Solheim continues on Page 25

Vines Wine Bar is among the downtown businesses that decorated in preparation for the Solheim Cup, a women’s golf tournament that is expected to bring more than 100,000 to Parker.

Security for middle and elementary schools, redesigned classrooms and almost 7,000 new computers are among the changes Douglas County School District students will notice when they return to school. They’ll also experience some intangible changes in the form of updated teaching methods, revamped lesson plans and, in a handful of schools, the introduction of themed education models. Most of the county’s schools open for the 2013-14 academic year Aug. 12, though a handful started classes Aug. 5. “There are a lot of really exciting things coming this year,” Superintendent Elizabeth Fagen said. “This has been the busiest summer I can remember in education.” The most visible change will be at the district’s middle and elementary schools, where armed, plainclothes law-enforcement officers will patrol buildings through a district partnership forged in early summer. A school resource officer also will split time between Sky View Academy and the STEM high schools. The officers already are fixtures at the district’s other nine high schools. “The marshal program obviously is a huge thing for parents to really have that sense of another layer of safety for our middle and elementary school students,” Fagen said. “It’s also part of our commitment to partnering with folks in the community, using that commonsense approach to improving and innovating.” Three years of curriculum changes designed to provide a 21st-century education now are hitting the ground, School continues on Page 25

Program aids small businesses Pilot plan assisting eight companies with rent By Chris Michlewicz

cmichlewicz@ourcoloradonews.com One year ago, Jay Moore was splitting his work weeks between a cramped home office and carefully selected mountaintops. Moore, a renowned landscape artist from Parker, still spends days at a time in picturesque locales, but has traded his home office for a professional art studio and gallery in the Victorian Peaks building on Pikes Peak Drive.

Printed on recycled newsprint. Please recycle this copy.

Jay Moore Studio is one of the eight businesses benefiting from the Business in Transition Program, a pilot program launched by the Parker Authority for Reinvestment in July 2012. It’s designed to help small businesses expand, while filling vacant retail spaces within the Parker Central Urban Renewal District, which was established in 2009. The BIT Program — as it’s known around town — subsidizes rent expenses for businesses that might not otherwise have the financial means to move into a storefront. In the first year, 75 percent of the rent is paid, up to $3,000. It drops to 50 percent in the second year, and 25 percent in the third year. The program has proven popular. Within its first year, the $300,000 in funding has already been spoken for. The program was to be funded by a loan from the Town of Parker, but instead used money rolled over Pilot continues on Page 25

Parker artist Jay Moore talks about one of his latest paintings at his studio on Pikes Peak Court in downtown Parker. The studio is among the eight businesses that are benefiting from the town’s Business in Transition program. Photo by Chris Michlewicz


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