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September 24, 2020
ARAPAHOE COUNTY, COLORADO
A publication of
SouthPlatteIndependent.net
VOLUME 75 | ISSUE 49
INSIDE: VOICES: PAGE 12 | LIFE: PAGE 14 | SPORTS: PAGE 21
GOING GAGA OVER GAME Boy Scout’s project helps students enjoy sport P7
Party officials: Elections are safe Party chairs say voters can cast ballots with confidence BY DAVID GILBERT DGILBERT@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
the streets. Poetry she and her sister wrote. Drawings done by her mom, who died in 2014. Butterfield was one of numerous residents of a sprawling homeless camp in Denver that stretched along East South Platte River Drive between Dartmouth and Harvard avenues. Composed of dozens of tents, RVs and campers, the camp was sandwiched into a narrow stretch of grass between the South Platte River and the barbed wire-topped fence of a sewage treatment plant. On the morning of Sept. 15, Englewood and Denver police blocked off the street at both ends of the camp, making way for an armada of trucks, trailers and garbage trucks.
Arapahoe County’s Republican and Democratic party chairs both expressed confidence in the county’s election security process, and said voters can trust their ballots will be counted. Both Dorothy Gotlieb, who chairs the Arapahoe County Republican Party, and Kristin Mallory, the chair of the Arapahoe County Democratic Party, said they stay in close contact with county elections director Peg Perl and are confident the election will be handled fairly. Gotlieb said voters can safely vote by mail, by dropping off their ballots in drop boxes, or voting in-person. “We have ballot boxes with 24-hour security, and bipartisan election judges and ballot picker-uppers,” Gotlieb said. “Every question I’ve asked has been responded to in a positive way.” Colorado’s mail voting system, which has been in place since 2013, is a national model, she said. “Elections officials from around the country to ask us how we do it in Colorado,” Gotlieb said.
SEE HOMELESS, P6
SEE ELECTIONS, P10
Homeless sweep starts process over again After homeless camp removal, the unhoused are left scared, lonely BY DAVID GILBERT DGILBERT@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
Misty Butterfield said she couldn’t find her backpack after a sweep of a homeless camp beside the South Platte River. She was one of many residents of the camp who said they feared their belongings were thrown out. PHOTO BY DAVID GILBERT
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Misty Butterfield couldn’t find her backpack. “It’s green,” Butterfield said, her voice shaking, as she scanned the landscape beside the South Platte River, where her camp sat just hours before. “Everything I had was in it. Clothes, a bag of rice — but also a lot of sentimental things.” Things like family photos, from before Butterfield wound up living on
QUITE THE SITES
The metro area offers interesting, sometimes overlooked, attractions P14