Washington Park Profile 0319

A PUBLICATION OF

MARCH 2019

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Digital igital and print community newspaper founded in 1978.

HEART OF A SOLDIER Local veteran hopes book will heal wounds

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COOKIE MANIA Teamwork helps Girl Scouts achieve goals

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OPERATION ZOO New hospital gives families a peek at animal care

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LOVE IS IN THE AIR Day of marriages leads to ‘full heart’

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2 Washington Park Profile

March 2019

Handyman charged with arson in Santa Fe explosion Denver Fire arrested the apartment building’s former handyman

During its investigation, the fire department found gasoline containers, lighters and a box of matches inside the unit at 368 N. Santa Fe Drive. Natural gas lines to the water heater, furnace and stove had been disconnected with their valves fully open, which allowed gas to seep into the unit, the release said.

During interviews with tenants after the incident, DFD investigators determined that

Perkins had been fired by the building owner before the explosion. He allegedly would climb on the roof to look at tenants through skylights, the release said. He lived in a shed near the southeast corner of the property and knew the schedules of the tenants living in the building.

The day before the explosion, the owner of the building erected a fence around the building to keep Perkins off the property, the release said.

The explosion knocked Perkins through the front wall to the outside of the building and under a pile of rubble. Witnesses saw him get up and walk in the direction of his residence.

Perkins said he was in the basement of the unit at the time of the explosion, the release said.

Because he knew which tenants were in the building at the time, Denver Fire said in the release it believes Perkins caused the explosion with the intent to harm others.

Denver Fire “believes that Todd Perkins entered the basement of this apartment unit on Aug. 14, 2018, without permission, with the intent to cause an explosion,” the release said.

“Mr. Perkins knew that an explosion event of this magnitude would result in devastating loss of life and property.”

For more information on the initial explosion, go to http://washparkprofile.com/stories/

“bursting at the seams.”

Denver Public Schools records show the school building has a capacity of about 1,000 students.

The two schools, Merrill and Creativity Challenge Community (C3), have 883 students total, which means the building is below capacity.

By Staff Report Denver fire officials have arrested the former handyman of a building destroyed in August by a fire and charged him with first-degree arson and first-degree attempted murder in connection with the incident.

Todd Perkins, 56, of Denver was arrested Feb. 11, according to a Denver Fire Department news release.

The preliminary hearing for Perkins is set on March 13 at 9:30 a.m. He is being held at the Downtown Detention Center with bond set at $500,000.

Perkins On Aug. 14, an explosion rocked Santa Fe Drive near East Fourth Avenue. Part of a seven-unit apartment building on the west side of Santa Fe Drive had collapsed, shooting wood and debris around neighboring blocks.

A view of the explosion on Santa Fe Drive in August last year. The Denver Fire Department announced last month that they had made an arrest in the case. COURTESY OF DENVER FIRE DEPARTMENT The explosion and subsequent fire started at 368 N. Santa Fe Drive, which is one of the units inside the building, according to the release. Each unit in the building had its own address.

After the explosion, two people, including Perkins, were sent to Denver Health to be treated for injuries. Six others were treated by paramedics on the scene, the release said.

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March 2019

Business Matters

By Kailyn Lamb | klamb@coloradocommunitymedia.com Business Matters is a monthly column on the changing landscape of business and development in north Denver. If there are any inquiries on new developments in your area, or if you are a local business wishing to highlight an upcoming milestone, email Kailyn Lamb at klamb@coloradocommunitymedia.com.

DEVELOPMENTS 301 S. Harrison St. A new senior living facility is planned for 301 S. Harrison St. Denver property records show the land was purchased late last year by Solterra Senior Living. The property is located near South Colorado Boulevard and East Alameda Avenue. The plan for the new facility was first reported by BusinessDen. The building will have 136 units over seven floors.

Solterra is based in Arizona and has several senior living facilities there. Its website also lists a senior living facility in Castle Rock.

BUSINESS OPENINGS Memphis Cue Bar A new pool hall is set to open this month at 333 Broadway. Memphis Cue Bar will offer pool leagues on both 7- and 9-foot tables. The business is hoping to attract more competitive pool players.

The Broadway space was formerly Studio Lites, a wig and costuming store that catered to the drag and burlesque communities with a large inventory of sizes and styles. The store was in the space for 20 years and closed at the end of 2016. It reopened in a smaller location at 25 W. Third Ave. Fitwall A climbing-style gym is opening a second location near Washington Park. Fitwall first opened in the Lower Highlands in 2016. The new gym will open this spring on the ground floor of the Wrigley on Penn development project. The building is at 421 E. Bayaud Ave. For more information on the development project, go to https://www.wrigleyonpenn.com.

Fitwall is a California-based gym with franchise locations throughout the country. The gyms use wall-mounted equipment. Both Denver locations have memberships from $79-$159 per month.

AJ’s Pit Bar-B-Q Located at 2180 S. Delaware St. in the Overland neighborhood, AJ’s Pit Bar-B-Q is bringing Texas-style smoked meats to Denver. Originally, the company started its restaurants in Chicago in 2010 at the BBQ Supply Co. But once owners Jared and Amanda Leonard expanded to Denver, they knew a rebrand was in order.

“The name BBQ Supply is mistaken too often for a store, not a restaurant, and we don’t do classes here (yet) or have the retail store — so we’re looking for a new brand as we launch our first full-service restaurant here in Denver,” the pair wrote on their website for AJ’s.

The restaurant first opened in January. After the name change, the business also expanded its menu and hours. AJ’s is open seven days a week until the restaurant sells out of food. The company hopes to offer barbecue classes in the future.

Cochino Taco The Englewood taco restaurant is opening a second location at 176 S. Broadway this spring. Cochino, which means pig in Spanish, first opened at 3495 S. Downing St. in 2016. The restaurant offers a variety of tacos, as well as a poblano queso burger.

The restaurant is taking over a former bar space. Gary Lee’s Motor Club and Grub closed on South Broadway in November.

CLOSINGS Fermaentra The University of Denver area brewery, which opened in 2014, closed its doors at the end of February. In a Facebook post about the closure, the owners cited overhead and rising costs as the reason.

“We have strived to create well-made beer, provide a venue to the community that they can be proud of, and employ a team of dedicated people who make make no compromises in how they work,” the post read. “We’re proud to say we have accomplished those things.”

The owners also hinted in the post that a new brewery would be taking over the space, located at 1715 E. Evans Ave. Pura Vida The fitness club closed at the end of February in the Cherry Creek area. Pura Vida’s owner made the announcement to staff in a letter and originally hoped to close the gym on April 15. But in the weeks following the announcement, the business lost revenue and revised the closing date to Feb. 28.

“This decline in revenue along with the continued expenses has compelled me to accept the reality of the glaring financial impact by needing to adjust the closing date to February 28, 2019,” Founder J. Madden wrote in a letter to club members on the website. “Accepting this reality is extremely difficult and uncomfortable, but a necessity.”

Madden also wrote that he is opening a new venture, Pura Vida Studio. He wrote that he is concentrating on negotiating lease terms, as well as hoping to secure funding for the new studio.

The Englewood Cochino Tacos opened in 2016. The restaurant is opening a second location in Denver on South Broadway.

KAILYN LAMB

TREASURES FROM AROUND THE GLOBE

Jonathan Adler Jonathan Adler, a high-end furniture store in Cherry Creek North, closed its doors at the end of January. It was the company’s only store in Colorado and was located at 158 Fillmore St. Larkburger The burger chain announced the closure of four of its Colorado restaurants, including its Washington Park, Downtown and University Hills locations. In a post about the closures on its website, the company said it is hoping to rebrand its eight remaining locations as the Lark Spot.

Lark Spot will offer community events and classes, as well as sandwiches on the menu. The location will also have bars.

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March 2019

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In yoga nidra people lay on their backs and are guided through a meditation that helps people relax. Katrina Gustafson said nidra is a good entry point for people who have never tried yoga before.

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Yoga studios throughout Denver are seeing an increase in yoga nidra classes, in which participants flow through poses, breathing and flexibility — all laying down on the floor.

Katrina Gustafson, owner of Karma Yoga Center on 1705 S. Pearl St., said the awareness around yoga nidra has grown over the last several years. The classes involve a guided meditation as people lay on their backs on the floor. The meditation is meant to guide people into a rested state, through the different “layers of being,” Gustafson said.

The class helps people relax and connect with their bodies.

“It’s really effective. It speaks its own praises,” Gustafson said. “As (meditation) takes you through, each one of those layers kind of melts down.”

Alyssa Gunn, a teacher at Kindness Collective, which has studios all over Denver, said practicing nidra has helped her control emotions better.

“It’s the basis of all yoga,” said Gunn, who has been teaching the class for eight years. “It’s always bringing you back to center.”

Gunn believes more people may be taking the class because they are realizing the benefits of relaxation. People are feeling burned

out and depleted, and a yoga nidra session can help combat that, she added.

“People need to learn to sit still and be with themselves,” Gunn said. “It’s a recognition that life doesn’t always need to be so dramatic.”

Gustafson agreed, saying that yoga nidra helps bring people into a relaxed state similar to sleeping.

When Gunn first started teaching the class, she said there were few yoga studios that offered nidra. Now, people can find classes at various studios almost every day of the week.

Gustafson added that yoga nidra can be a good option for someone who wants to do yoga, but has a difficult time moving.

For people who don’t want to try the class in the studio, Gustafson said several yoga nidra podcasts and recordings have similar guided meditation.

Some studios, like Karma Yoga Center, offer hybrid classes for people who have never taken the class before. These classes start with yoga postures and stretching before moving into nidra for the later half. The hybrid class is also a good starting point for people unsure about the benefits of yoga.

It’s “particularly useful for people who are skeptics,” Gustafson said. “It’s really good for the people who maybe have a hard time buying in.”

Washington Park Profile 5

March 2019

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March 2019

DeGette speaks on homelessness, opioid crisis Congresswoman hopes to bring more science into government

By Kailyn Lamb klamb@coloradocommunitymedia.com

At the start of a new Congress, Colorado Community Media caught up with U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colorado), who represents the 1st Congressional District, to talk about some of her plans for the coming year.

The district comprises Denver, Englewood, Cherry Hills Village, Glendale and Sheridan.

DeGette is chair of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee under the Energy and Commerce Committee. She has been part of the Committee on Energy and Commerce since she was first DeGette elected to Congress in 1997.

She plans to bring more science-based evidence to hearings and investigations of these committees. “I don’t think that you can legislate unless you have a strong scientific foundation,” she said.

On Feb. 7, Oversight and Investigations held its first hearing on the separations of children from their parents at the border. DeGette said hearings will also be held on climate change, drug pricing and family planning.

During the government shutdown from Dec. 22, 2018 to Jan. 25, 2019, DeGette held outreach events with Coloradans who had been

furloughed. In addition to stress on families and frustration at not being paid, DeGette said many people talked about their concerns fort the future of government programs and staffing.

Can you talk about some of the long-term impacts of the government shutdown on your constituents?

Long term, if you keep doing this, it’s going to have a corrosive effect on our economy, but also it’s going to, I think, deter people from going into government service. People have to think really hard about whether they’re going to make these family sacrifices.

I think that if this continues, it’s not only going to erode our economy but it’s going to erode our ability to get highly skilled professionals to come into these jobs.

What is Congress looking at with the opioid crisis, and how will it impact municipalities like Denver and Englewood?

The Oversight sub-committee last year did a really robust series of hearings on the opioid crisis. We got a really good handle on, number one, the extent of the crisis and, number two, what you need to do to prevent the crisis and to treat people.

Unfortunately, it’s not an easy solution and it’s going to be very costly. So at the end of the year we passed a whole basket of bills. I think I had three bills in this basket — it was like 42 bills — but they really nibbled around the edge of this: adjusting some policies here and there, doing some studies.

I think what we need to do is we need to have a czar within HHS (Health and Human Services), just like we did with AIDS. We had

an AIDS czar within HHS to coordinate all of this, and we need to have adequate funding. So, for example, this office ... would help coordinate state programs or responsible prescribing.

In Colorado now, we actually do have a system. We were one of the worst states, and then some years ago we set up a system, a computer system and an education system for doctors to help with responsible prescribing. Also, our hospital association and our hospitals are starting to work on alternatives to opioids for pain management. We actually went from the back of the pack to the front of the pack. But we need to be able to do that nationally — not all states are doing that.

The second thing that you have to do is you have to help state and local governments be able to develop addiction treatment that’s science-based and can really help people get away from opioid addictions. Medically-assisted treatment is wildly expensive and most state and local governments don’t have that money.

So you’re going to have to commit some real money.

My 21st Century Cures Bill that I did a few years ago, we had $2 billion in that bill for grants to the states for opioid prevention and treatment. Colorado got quite a bit. But that needs to be continued and amped up.

What are your thoughts on the safe injection site in Denver?

I’ve been talking to medical professionals about this, and to public health professionals, and I’m trying to get some data. We have had the needle-exchange sites, and I’ve visited the one over on Colfax across from the State Capitol. But there are not a lot of safe injection sites. Vancouver is the main one.

What is being done at the federal level to address homelessness?

There are a number of roles. One of them is to try and break down barriers. For example, at Denver Health, what they have realized is if they take some of their Medicaid dollars and some of their other federal dollars and they use it in part for the wrap-around program — like housing for homeless individuals and for drug counseling and for job training and so on — that helps reduce the cost of medical care because people have a place to live and so they’re less sick and so on. That’s something that people don’t naturally think of in a federal role.

Then the second place we can really help at a federal level is with our funding. I think that you’ll see in the Democratic budgets that come out of the House over the next few years real emphasis on funding that will help develop housing for homeless folks.

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Washington Park Profile 7

March 2019

Skip the will power — it’s Girl Scout Cookie time

By Christy Steadman csteadman@coloradocommunitymedia.com

From saving for an island vacation to purchasing new uniforms, Girl Scouts have big plans for their cookie sales money.

“Girl Scouts is all about being girl-led,” said Darby Petitt, a troop leader for nine years who has two daughters in Girl Scouts. “It’s always fun to see how and what they choose their Girl Scout experience to look like.”

The Girl Scout Cookies Program helps girls develop five lifelong skills — goal-setting, decision-making, money management, people skills and business ethics.

“Girl Scout Cookie time is all about teaching girls lifelong business skills,” said Stephanie Foote, president and CEO of Girl Scouts of Colorado, in a press release. “The proceeds from these girl-led businesses go to fund all the adventures you get to have as a Girl Scout.”

Denver resident Bianca Morris, 9, has been a Girl Scout for two years and is selling cookies for the second time.

“Everyone loves cookies,” she said. “They’re delicious.”

But you can only get them at one time during the year, Morris added. She said she is most looking forward to booth sales because she enjoys talking with the people who are out shopping.

Morris has a goal to sell 1,000 packages of cookies. She and the other 10 girls in her troop are going to spend some their cookie money to purchase supplies for the troop, save some of it for a future trip and donate some of it to local schools that have a population of children who are disabled.

WANT COOKIES? HERE’S HOW TO GET THEM! Girl Scouts across Colorado started selling cookies on Feb. 3. The last day to grab a box will be March 10.

Girl Scouts will be going door-to-door, but consumers can also purchase cookies from booths set up in front of major retail and grocery stores. The Cookie Locator online or mobile app can help people find local booth sales locations. Sales can also be done online through the Digital Cookie, but to purchase cookies online you need an invite to shop on a Girl Scout’s personal Digital Cookie website.

This year’s selection of cookies is Thin Mints, Samoas, Tagalongs, Trefoils, Do-Si-Dos, Savannah Smiles and a limited quantity of S’mores and Toffee-tastics.

All Girl Scout cookies contain zero grams of trans fat per serving, Thin Mints are vegan, Do-Si-Dos and Trefoils have no hydrogeReagan Petitt, 13, who lives in Highlands Ranch, has been a Girl Scout for nine years.

She enjoys cookie sales because she gets to meet new people, but also because it teaches her self-confidence, to accept the answer no when people don’t want to buy cookies and to set goals for herself.

She and her sister Camryn, 10, who has been a Girl Scout for six years, each have a goal to sell 350 packages. The two expect that they’ll do some door-to-door sales together and booth sales with their individual troops.

“I like talking to people, and I like trying to

nated oils and Toffee-tastics are gluten-free.

More information about Girl Scout Cookie ingredients can be found at www.littlebrownie.com.

S’mores and Toffee-tastic sell for $5 a package and all other varieties cost $4 a package.

Consumers can also purchase a package of cookies to donate to the individual Girl Scouts troops’ hometown hero. Each Girl Scout troop chooses a hometown hero — any local nonprofit organization or uniformed personnel — to honor by donating packages of Girl Scout cookies. The troops choose their hometown hero prior to the beginning of cookie sales, so to participate, remember to ask about the Hometown Heroes/Gift of Caring program.

For more information on Girl Scout Cookie sales, visit www.girlscoutsofcolorado.org. get people to buy the cookies,” Camryn Petitt said. “And I like planning what to do with the money.”

For the past few years, 15-year-old Makayla Kinard of Arvada has come close to meeting her goal of 2,000 boxes.

“This year,” she said, “I’m going to hit that goal.”

Kinard has been a Girl Scout for nine years and will use this year’s cookie money to attend Girl Scout Camp, as well as use a portion of it to fund her Gold Award project — she hopes to host her inaugural golf tournament, which

Bianca Morris, 9, is selling Girl Scout Cookies for the second time this year.

She has been a Girl Scout for two years.

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become an annual event, this summer to benefit people who have Type 1 diabetes.

Rhianna Dains, 14, of Westminster has been a Girl Scout for 10 years, and she and her troop of eight will be using their cookie sales money to pay for a troop trip to the Bahamas to scuba-dive.

It started last year when the girls in the troop decided they wanted to get scuba-certified, Dains said. They did that, she said, and now they’re saving for the diving trip in the Bahamas in 2020.

Cookie sales “is a fun experience for the whole troop because it’s something we can all get involved with,” Dains said. “We’re a team, and our troop can accomplish it together.”

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8 Washington Park Profile

March 2019

A journey toward

healing

Ted Engelmann sits at his house in the Washington Park neighborhood. Engelmann served in the Vietman War in 1968.

PHOTOS BY KAILYN LAMB

Wash Park veteran documents quest for peace after facing war

By Kailyn Lamb klamb@coloradocommunitymedia.com

I

As part of his “One Soldiers Heart” project, Ted Engelmann went to Iraq to take photos of soldiers there. One of the soldiers carried his father’s lighter from the Vietman War.

n the living room of his house off Emerson Street, Ted Englemann has two plastic filing bins on top of a short bookshelf. Each is filled with meticulously labeled manila files and handwritten notes.

The bins are labeled “OSH 1” and “OSH 2.” And they represent decades of work, a project Engelmann calls “One Soldier’s Heart,” a book he hopes will give other veterans the chance to heal.

Engelmann, a longtime Denver resident and retired teacher, has spent the last several decades documenting and researching war for the book. At age 72 he said that the words have changed, such as the terms for what we now call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but the “emotional wounds of war are pretty much the same.”

“By offering the experiences of other veterans and cultures in our war, and saying the two personal conditions I’ve come to know: the Vietnamese don’t hold American veterans responsible to the (damage) we did during the war,” he said.”I’ve been treated better in Vietnam than in my own country. Maybe those two items will help make a difference for veterans for their

own path to recovery.”

In March 1968, when he was 21, Engelmann arrived in Vietnam as an Air Force sergeant. His father, who had fought in World War II and was in the Army Reserve during the Korean War, was also a photographer, which meant the younger Engelmann’s world revolved around photography growing up. So bringing a small camera to his base in Vietnam was second nature.

His camera shot half-frames on 35 mm film. This meant that on a roll of film with 36 images, Engelmann was getting 72 pictures. “By the time you got done it was ancient history of what you had started on,” he said of the time it took to take that many pictures. He took about 400 images in the year he was in Vietnam.

He’s not a great photographer, Engelmann said, he has found mistakes in composition or lighting in many of his images. But for him, it was never about taking the perfect picture. It was about documenting the events around him.

“I use the camera, I think, more to tell a story,” he said. “It wasn’t that I was really a professional photojournalist … I just used the camera mainly as a tool.”

SEE VIETNAM, P9

Washington Park Profile 9

March 2019

VIETNAM FROM PAGE 8

Returning to Vietnam Engelmann returned to Vietnam in 1989. He revisited the location of his base. He had brought along pictures he had taken of the base as he knew it then — images of battles and violence.

But when he came back to the area, he found something quite different. The area had become prosperous again.

Before the Vietnam war, the area where Engelmann was stationed was a rubber factory run by French scientists.

After the war, the scientists returned and created an arboretum for their research, Engelmann said.

“When I was there I was thinking, `Oh I remember when I was there this thing had rockets and mortars going off ’ — and the noise and the craziness that was going on in the war, what we were doing and how we lived,” he said.

“Now it is serene.”

He decided to give copies of the images he had taken in wartime to the scientists at the factory. As he returned the images, he felt a weight lift off, as if by leaving the photos behind he also had left some of his negatives feelings behind. Although he was photographing the same locations, the area was now peaceful, and maybe he could be, too.

“At that point I realized I never had to come back to photograph the war ever again,” he said.

In the years after returning from his

12 months in Vietnam, Engelmann spent his time documenting events for veterans coming home from the war. He traveled to major cities taking photos of welcome-home parades for soldiers in Chicago, Washington, D.C., Sydney. He would also go on to teach middle school science.

After he began returning to Vietnam to document the growth of the country, Engelmann decided to point his lens toward other wars. He bought his first camera in 2008 when he was embedded as a freelance photographer in Iraq.

He hoped that by going back into a war situation similar to what he faced in Vietnam, he would be better able to understand why so many soldiers were dying by suicide after returning from the wars in the Middle East.

An emotional journey He hoped that understanding would give him the tools to help veterans on their emotional journey in his book. “One Soldier’s Heart” will have photography and research into wars throughout the history of the United States. Working on the book has been a journey of personal recovery for Englemann.

“Since trauma is cumulative, if not cared for soon, I was angry at the war. I haven’t found a way to recover through ‘normal’ channels, i.e., classic therapy,” Englemann said. “The path to recovery has been long and winding process.

Another part of the puzzle, this work is probably what has kept me alive.”

In his own research, Engelmann said he found that in articles before the Vietnam War, country name was

While serving in the Vietnam War, Ted Engelmann began taking photographs of the area. He returned to the country in 1989 and took photographs of the country’s progress as a way to help himself move on from the war. KAILYN LAMB spelled as two words: Viet Nam. Both the Vietnamese government and United Nations currently spell the name of the country with two words. Going back to the two-word spelling of the country may be something that could help veterans separate themselves from the war, Engelmann said. There’s the war in which they participated, a single word, and then there’s the country that has its own culture and people.

“If we could use new terms, I think it could help us to come up with a new thinking. Viet Nam: it’s a country, not a war,” he said.

But everyone’s journey to recovery is different. The research into “One Soldier’s Heart” and the photographs he

has taken over the years are Engelmann’s way of hoping he can help one more soldier find peace.

This March, Engelmann will take his final trip to Vietnam as part of the “One Soldier’s Heart” project. He hopes to find the families he first photographed 30 years ago, along with their children.

Once he returns he will wrap up writing sections of what he hopes will become a published book. It will be the end of an era for Engelmann.

“This March, end of March, there will be closure, because I don’t have to back to Vietnam with a camera ever again,” he said. “It’s time for me to let go of Vietnam. It’s grown up, I’ve watched it do that.”

Over the years, Ted Engelmann took photos of the United States Embassy in Vietnam until it was demolished in 1998. The top photos are from 1989 and 1995.

The bottom two photos are from 1997 and 1999.

COURTESY OF TED ENGELMANN

10 Washington Park Profile

March 2019

GRANDOOZY PUMPS THE BRAKES

By Kailyn Lamb

Jennifer Matamoros holds Brady Ferguson on her shoulders during Phoenix’s performance at Grandoozy. The first Grandoozy festival was in in the Overland Park Golf Course last September.

klamb@coloradocommunitymedia.com

Grandoozy, the new music festival that organizers had hoped would become a Denver institution, is taking a break in 2019 after one year.

The festival ran over three days last September, drawing in an estimated 55,000 attendees, according to Superfly, the company that organized Grandoozy. The festival was held at the Overland Park Golf Course in south Denver, 1801 S. Huron St. Superfly is the New York-based company behind Bonnaroo in Tennessee and Outside Lands in San Francisco, two festivals that have been around for 16 and 10 years, respectively.

David Erlich, a Denver-based organizer for the festival, told the Washington Park Profile in September that Superfly is “not looking to do something for a couple years — they’re looking to build an institution.”

Erlich and the communications staff at Superfly did not respond to a request for comment on Grandoozy’s hiatus.

Community to decide what to do with money from festival

FILE PHOTO

The company addressed that break on its website and social media pages.

“We feel a special connection to Denver and its people and intend to use this hiatus as an opportunity to create a festival that is even more unique, sustainable and integrated into the region’s local and creative community,” the post says. “We’re proud of the world-class festival we delivered for a world-class city and are truly humbled by the praise and support Grandoozy received in its inaugural year.”

Although the festival is not returning this year, community

members got together last month to discuss how to use funds from September’s shows. According to the city’s contract with Grandoozy, Denver received a portion of ticket sales for various projects, said Jill Thiare, a communications specialist with the Office of Special Events.

In total, the city received $840,000. About $252,000 of that, or 30 percent, will be used to reimburse city offices for festival expenses. The remaining $588,000 is going into improvements for city parks and golf courses.

Thiare added that city officials

are excited for the festival’s return in 2020.

Seperate from the city amount, the community also will receive $58,000 for local projects, Thiare said.

Councilmember Jolon Clark, who respresents District 7 and the Overland Park Golf Course, was scheduled to hold a meeting on Feb. 28, after the Profile’s press deadline, for community members to discuss ideas for the funds. Clark said ahead of the meeting that what happens with those funds is entirely up to the community. (Look for an update on the meeting on the Profile’s Facebook page: https://www. facebook.com/washparkprofile) Overland Park resident Helene Orr said she hopes the money can go toward city projects that are lacking funds.

Entities like the Colorado Department of Transportation and Denver Parks and Recreation have a limited amount of money to dedicate to projects, Orr said. The community has tried to get projects off the ground in the past but has faced funding roadblocks. One idea was to protect existing trees in the Overland Park Golf Course from a

sidewalk construction project. Orr also said the new community funds could help address sound barriers in the area or cars speeding on South Huron Street.

“Other possible projects might be dealing with the unsafe Evans overpass and getting some sort of fencing or barrier between pedestrians/ cyclists and the motorists flying by,” Orr said. “Other overpasses have this, but CDOT insists they don’t have the money.”

Orr added that Superfly had also committed to a community fund for local nonprofits. Superfly announced last month that it would be donating an additional $58,000 to nonprofits through the Grandoozy Works Fund. Community members, such as Orr, recommened nonprofits. Grandoozy officials worked the Rose Community Foundation, which hosted the fund. The Levitt Pavilion concert venue in Ruby Hill, which neighbors Overland Park, received $25,000. The Greenway Foundation received $5,000. All together, Youth on Record, Denver Urban Garden, Downtown Aurora Visual Arts, and We Don’t Waste received a total of $28,000.

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Washington Park Profile 11

March 2019

in oc m

g

! n o so

Mexican artist Jorge Marín’s “Luz de Denver” is now permanently on display at Riverfront Park.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE RIVERFRONT PARK COMMUNITY FOUNDATION

New sculpture from Mexican artist lights up park Staff Report Mexico-based artist Jorge Marín returned to Denver earlier this year to unveil a new sculpture at Riverfront Park near downtown.

“Luz de Denver” will be in the park permanently, according to a news release from the Riverfront Park Community Foundation at 1610 Little Raven St. Between 2016 and 2017, Marín had a temporary outdoor installation at Commons Park, 2101 15th St., along the South Platte River in north Denver. The exhibit featured nine sculptures. Eight of the pieces were part

of Marín’s “Eight Cities, Eight Cultures” project. “Luz de Denver” is a permanent version of “Wings of Mexico,” one of the eight sculptures in the series.

“Jorge Marín’s `Wings of México’ quickly became a very popular destination in Commons Park,” said Amy Cara, board member of the Riverfront Park Community Foundation, in the release. “Because of the temporary sculpture’s unique ability to engage and enliven the community, the Foundation board decided to commission `Luz de Denver,’ a permanent celebration of the vitality of our neighborhood and our city.”

DU students to build home powered by renewable energy Staff Report A team of 20 University of Denver students will be participating in the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2020 Solar Decathlon Build Challenge, the university announced in a news release.

In a series of 10 events, the event challenges students from across the U.S. and Europe to build and design a home in their community that is powered by renewable energy.

“We are excited to participate in Solar Decathlon 2020 and are proud to have a motivated team of 20 students working to plan, design and build a renewable home in the DU neighborhood,” said Eric Holt, assistant professor in the Burn’s School of Real Estate and Construction Management and the team’s faculty liaison, in the release. “This competition provides a great opportunity for our

students to apply what they’ve learned in the classroom and be among the most innovative builders in the industry.”

Over the next 18 months, students will work on a Race Street property owned by the university. The property was built in the 1950s and is located on a floodplain. The final design of the home will be judged in Washington, D.C., next summer.

Du participated in the last Solar Decathlon in 2017, partnering with a team of students from the University of California at Berkeley.

The team’s home had nearly net-zero energy efficiency, according to the release, and placed third in the competition. The home was later donated to Habitat to Humanity to be sold to a low-income family.

For more information on the 2017 home, go to https://www.du.edu/news/solar-decathlonhome-ready-competition.

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12 Washington Park Profile

LOCAL

March 2019

VOICES

‘Refilling your cup’ can help keep stress at bay FROM THE EDITOR

Kailyn Lamb

I

love my job as an editor. But there are days when I feel buried in emails, torn between multiple projects as I navigate the logistics of putting out two monthly papers.

Stress is a part of everyone’s life, no ifs, ands or buts about it. What’s important is to make sure you’re giving time back to yourself — or as Katherine Frank with the Healthy Living Team at the Mental Health Center of Denver puts it: “You’re refilling your cup.”

Self-care is an important component of mental health that often stems from other branches of health, Franks said.

“It’s not just about the mind,” she said, “it’s also about typical health.”

Getting enough sleep and eating a healthy diet are a big part of self-care. But emotional and spiritual care also are important parts of keeping up with your own mental health. A key element to remember, Franks said, is that self-care means different things to different people.

“Everyone has their own basis for self-care,” she said.

Activities such as yoga and meditation, for instance,

may work for some but not for others.

One of Frank’s routines is taking a bus to a new part of Denver to explore a different section of the city. For me, reading a book that’s so interesting I can read for hours without realizing the passage of time is when I feel most at peace.

So, how do you find the activity that works for you?

Many people go home and watch TV or play on their phones, thinking that’s a self-care activity, Frank said.

And while it can act as a needed “brain break,” she said, it’s not necessarily a way to give back to yourself. The cup, instead of being refilled, stays at the same level.

One way to start looking for a self-care activity that works for you is to hop on Google. An article Frank said can be helpful is from Develop Good Habits called “275 self-care ideas (and activities) for coping with life”( https://www.developgoodhabits.com/selfcare-ideas/). The list offers a mixture of paid and free activities. Frank said this can be helpful for creating a self-care routine because some things are not affordable to do every day.

“Getting a massage isn’t something that you can ide-

ally do every day,” she said.

There are small activities people can do within their workday for mental health as well. Most people in American society spend more than 40 hours a week working, Frank said. Taking a break from your desk, especially during lunch, can be important, she said.

People can also do stretches during the day to help activate muscles, making your body tired, which can help you sleep better.

For daily self-care activities, Frank said it’s important to carve out at least 10 or 15 minutes each day.

For me, I’ve been trying to put my phone down and turn off screens an hour before I go to bed. I’ve been spending that time catching up on my favorite food magazines or reading a book. Creating that routine has helped give my brain a break, making it easier to settle into bed. Before I had this routine, it was pretty common for me to lay in bed thinking about the day, or what articles I needed to get done.

Putting in the time is really the key, Frank said, asking “are you doing things that you love to do, or are you making excuses for not having time?”

‘We are doing a terrible job of borrowing this planet’

R

ecently, some of the City Council members took a tour of three facilities that Denver citizens need every day but rarely think about: We visited the landfill, the recycling center and the compost facility, where we haul all of Denver’s waste.

It wasn’t my first trip to a landfill or a recycling center. I had toured these facilities in Fort Collins as part of my undergraduate Natural Resources degree program. It was eye-opening then, and it was eye-opening this time around as well.

If you were to break down all of the waste that a typical Denver household creates and sort it into our three bins to haul to these three facilities, half of it would be compostable, one quarter would be recyclable, and the only option for the last quarter would be to go to the landfill.

Despite the fact that 75 percent of our waste stream could be recycled or composted, only 22 percent of it is.

We send 78 percent of it to the landfill. That fact, juxtaposed with what I saw at the landfill, is not only sad, it is unacceptable.

It isn’t just that we are nowhere near where we could be if everything was

DIANA HELPER Editor’s Note: Because of personal reasons, Diana Helper was unable to write a column for the March issue. Look for a new column next month.

A publication of

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sorted perfectly, and it isn’t just that we are way behind our peer cities across the country. We are way behind our neighbors along the Front Range.

Loveland is diverting 61 percent of its waste, BoulCouncilmember der 52 percent and Louisville Jolon Clark 44 percent. At 22 percent, we come in at the bottom of the heap.

It is hard for many people who I talk to this about to imagine that is possible because we see so many purple bins sitting in the alley, and so many of us pride ourselves on living in a green city that cares about and for the environment. Despite that healthy self-image we have for our city, the numbers prove otherwise.

There aren’t a lot of easy answers to how we solve this or how we get much better than we are today, but there are answers. It can be done. It is solvable.

GUEST COLUMN

SEE CLARK, P40

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Columnist opinions are not necessarily those of the Profile.

Washington Park Profile 13

March 2019

Defining great schools and teachers

J

ust before the December holiday break I received in the mail a glossy, 100-page magazine from Denver Public Schools.

It was the 2019-20 school year “Great Schools Enrollment Guide” for middle and high schools. If you’re a DPS parent, you probably got one too, or the elementary-school version.

It’s intended to provide families with a one-stop shopping catalog for public schools in Denver, be they district-run, innovation or charter schools.

Intrigued by the title, I started flipping through the colorful pages, filled with shots of a photogenic, rainbow coalition collection of students.

What I saw in the charts and descriptions was evidence of some great schools, to be sure, but also schools that by any measure fall short of that lofty accolade.

As I looked over the guide, it occurred to me that in the field of education, we tend to toss around grand phrases like “great schools” without pausing to ponder or explain what they mean. I decided to embark on a quick exercise: How would I define a great school in straightforward, jargon-free language?

I found the exercise to be simultaneously challenging and revealing. One challenge was coming up with a definition that avoided the political minefields that in these polarized days mar public discourse on almost any topic, education included. To be useful, a definition can’t be perceived as “anti-teacher” or “pro-teacher,” too “reformy” or not sufficiently focused on holding

everyone accountable for failures.

I started by defining what we might all agree a great school should produce: engaged citizens who understand how the world works, are deeply committed to making it a better place and have the tools to act on that commitment.

To make this happen, for low-income kids in Nate Easley particular, might seem like an act of magic or alchemy, but in fact it’s dependent on basic human connection. In a school, nothing matters more than the connections forged between students and teachers. And for those connections to conduct deep meaning the way copper wire conducts electricity requires great teachers.

As basic as this sounds, can we all agree that great schools require great teachers?

Here we are again, needing to define greatness.

Fortunately, most of us have had some great teachers during our years in school, so we have points of reference. (We’ve probably had great teachers in other contexts as well — coaches, mentors, bosses, colleagues. But that’s a topic for another day.)

When I think back on my education experi-

GUEST COLUMN

ence, and the great teachers who propelled me through the years, it’s not difficult to list the attributes and qualities that made some teachers great.

My great teachers: • Always believed I could learn and instilled that belief in me.

• Inspired me to engage deeply in learning, regardless of the topic of study.

• Challenged me to do my best and gave me confidence that I could succeed.

• Could always be honest with me because they made it clear that they knew me and cared about me. Their honesty was always considerate and constructive.

• Guided me to consider issues from multiple perspectives.

• Inspired all kids in a classroom to respect one another and to behave in a way that was conducive to a learning environment for all.

• Were masters of the craft of teaching and the topics and subjects they taught.

• Made even the most challenging content comprehensible and “breathable.”

• Made everyone around them better — not just students, but peers and supervisors as well.

• Made it safe to fail and exhilarating to succeed.

Admittedly, that’s quite a list, and it’s a tall order to expect teachers to hit each and every bullet point. The greatest teachers might hit them all, but not everyone can be the greatest. The best,

however, can inspire the rest toward greatness.

So if a great school requires at least some great teachers, then it also must have a great school leader, someone who attracts and retains those teachers. That means a leader who clears the decks of all the junk that impedes teachers from teaching — the busy work, the bureaucracy, the pressures unrelated to inspiring students to be their best selves.

It also means distributing leadership and accountability among the staff and working to bring out the best in those educators who don’t quite rise to that level.

Finally, a great school leader must also inspire families and the broader community to support the school in meaningful ways, which includes advocating for the school when various bureaucracies, as well-intentioned as they might be, create impediments.

In no way am I suggesting that any of this is easy. There are many obstacles that keep schools from being great, that discourage even the most gifted teachers and leaders, that get in the way of progress and success.

Nate Easley is chief executive officer of RootED, a nonprofit created to accelerate the availability of world-class public education in Denver in the Central Business District. He served on the Denver Public Schools board from 2009-13 and was board president from 2009-11. He can be reached at neasley@rooteddenver.org.

Pushing for a much-needed park in University Hills GUEST COLUMN

Councilmember Kendra Black

R

eaders may be surprised to learn that in 1945 Denver was experiencing a housing crisis. With the end of World War II, millions of soldiers were looking to settle down and start their lives.

With both Lowry and Buckley Fields nearby, many soldiers “landed” in Denver and the city’s population increased 146 percent from 1940-1965.

In the 1950s, 2,200 new affordable homes were built in the University Hills neighborhood, located east of Colorado Boulevard between Evans and Hampden avenues. Land was set aside south of Yale Avenue for Bradley Elementary School, Eisenhower Park and the Ross Library. North of Yale, the new neighborhood included Denver’s first regional shopping center, as well as the Christian Reformed Church and its affiliates: Bethesda Sanatorium (treating tuberculosis and, later, mental illness and now housing Denver Academy), a care home for seniors (now Clermont Park) and, later, the Van Dellen Denver Christian School.

For decades, University Hills didn’t see much change,

until 2006 when the Southeast Light Rail line opened with two stations in the neighborhood — the Yale Station and the Colorado Station. With Denver’s current population boom and subsequent housing crisis, proximity to these stations has spurred new development, much of it high-density housing.

Today, the northern part of the neighborhood looks and feels very different. There are hundreds of new apartments and townhomes under construction north of Yale, likely more than doubling the population. Unfortunately, residents north of Yale do not have access to the amenities that are south of Yale, including a park, the High Line Canal, a school or a library. Families must go quite a distance to access these amenities, and they must cross Yale Avenue or Colorado Boulevard, both very busy.

Neighborhood leaders have asked city leaders for a park north of Yale for many years while they have watched as every available piece of property has been snatched up by developers. Today, they are stepping

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up their campaign for a park. They’ve gotten around 100 letters of support, raised some money, and have prepared their plea to the city. Together, we will be making their case to the mayor and parks director Happy Haynes, both of whom recognize the need.

A national parks advocacy group, The Trust for Public Lands, is also advocating for the park as part of its national effort for every neighborhood to be within a 10-minute walk to a park. Today, residents who live north of Yale cannot walk to a park safely or within 10 minutes. With hard work and some good luck, hopefully the city will be able to use funds that community members have raised as well as funds from the recentlypassed parks tax to bring this neighborhood a park that they very much need.

Kendra Black represents Denver City Council District 4 of southeast Denver. The district includes neighborhoods such as Wellshire, University Hills and Hampden. She can be reached at kendra.black@denvergov.org.

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14 Washington Park Profile

March 2019

This Hot Wings Tartarian Maple is a mature size of 15 to 18 feet tall and wide.

COURTESY OF DENVER BOTANIC GARDENS

Basic principles help guide good garden design

L

andscape design is an art unlike any other, as it is an ever-changing canvas that is both a functional space and an expression of artistic design. We must consider the ecology and environment as well as more utilitarian aspects such as budget and traffic patterns. Most importantly, the gardens we create provide an inspirational reprieve from the artificial environments where we live and work.

A fundamental principle used by all disciplines of design is “form follows function.”

This simply means that good design is driven by the function of the space. A perfect example of the disregard for this concept is a path that goes nowhere.

To avoid this kind of mistake, you must first take inventory of the space. What plants and features (patios, walkways, turf areas) exist and are in good shape? Second, assess the function of the space as it is currently: Do the current pathways adequately address the traffic patterns? What is the goal of the project (space to entertain, BBQ area, cutting garden, etc.)? What

needs are not being met?

With project goals in mind, you can begin to identify where the trees and shrubs are needed. Screening views, the need for shade and accent or showcase plants will largely determine where you place trees and shrubs. Be sure to consider the location of existing electrical wires and nearby structures. When estimating spacing, take into consideration the mature size of the plant (or at least two-thirds mature size) and plan accordingly. Once you decide placement of the trees and shrubs, visualize the bed lines and fill in spaces with colorful perennials and annuals.

Choosing the right plants is critical in the success of your garden. You may want to plant a tree but what type of tree will do best? Understanding the growing conditions (full sun, shade, dry soil, direction the bed faces, etc.).

You don’t want to use plants with thorns or prickly leaves next to the children’s play area.

A useful resource for plants that thrive in

GUEST COLUMN Annie Barrow

our region is the Plant Select program. Plant Select is a program through Colorado State University and Denver Botanic Gardens in collaboration with the Colorado green industry to identify tough plants that thrive in our region. The website (https://plantselect.org) has many wonderful plants with descriptions and growing needs, all of which are relatively easy to grow and tough enough to withstand the Colorado weather. Do thorough research and visit Denver Botanic Gardens to identify the plants you like best and note the growing conditions (sun, shade, etc.).

Trees and shrubs provide the backbone of the garden in winter so be sure to include them in your design. There are many with colorful stems and beautiful bark that add winter interest. Grasses can provide excellent movement and structure in the winter landscape.

Some perennials have fall color or seed heads that persist in winter and can be left up in the winter. When possible, wait to cut back perennials until spring. Be aware that winter can take a toll on grasses and seed heads, therefore

you may prefer to cut back after a heavy snow.

Use repeating elements in the design to create cohesion and unity.

For example, if you love chocolate flower (Berlandiera lyrata), use it more than once in your design. Planting in groupings is typically more visually impactful than using single plants. Avoid contrived elements such as plantings in a ring around a tree or water features with stones arranged around the edge to cover up lining, which appears as anything but natural. Using an informal arrangement allows for mistakes to be less obvious and curved beds can create interest.

Garden design can be a process of trial and error. Take the time to think through your design but don’t be afraid to try things out and see what happens. The more you plant, the more you learn and grow!

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Washington Park Profile 15

March 2019

a r t a n i S Love and

r i a e in th

City of Denver performs 87 weddings on Valentine’s Day in ongoing tradition

By Kailyn Lamb | klamb@coloradocommunitymedia.com

R

osemary Perepeliatnikov and new husband Alexi wanted to avoid the pressures of a big wedding.

They just wanted something “sweet and simple.”

And tying the knot on Valentine’s Day seemed

ideal.

So the couple showed up Feb. 14 to the Denver Clerk and Recorder’s Office, where staff for the past 12 years has offered a special service on Valentine’s to those in love: a wedding license for $30 and a marriage cermony by an officiant or judge.

“Today is represented as the day of love,” Rosemary said. “So, why not?”

This year, the city tied the knot for 87 couples in a small room at the Webb Municipal Building at 201 W. Colfax Ave., where staff city staff had plastered romantic backdrops on the wall, hung inflatable blue planes from the ceiling and posed cutouts of Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley along the walls.

“It’s just a joyous time in our office,” said Debra Johnson, the city’s clerk and recorder. Johnson has been part of the event for eight years, and 2019 will be her last in office.

Alton Dillard, communications manager for the Clerk and Recorder, left, and City Councilmember Paul D. Lopez pose for a photo at the Webb Municipal Building during Valentine’s Day wedding celebrations. Dillard and Lopez talked with couples during wedding ceremonies and worked with staff to make the day memorable.

Lulani Loverios falls asleep on her father’s shoulder while waiting for her parents to get married on Valentine’s Day. Jose Rioz, her father, and mom Lorena Sigala got married at the Webb Municipal Building in Denver.PHOTOS BY KAILYN LAMB Office staff, such as Sarah Hermer, create a theme each year for decorations. This year’s centered on travel tied to Sinatra’s “Come Fly With Me.” Each year has memorable couples who have gone through different “trials and tribulations” that brought them together, such as the couple who met when they were homeless, Hermer recalled. After finding a permanent home, they came in to get married. The whole room was in tears during the ceremony.

Communications manager Alton Dillard said the event is about providing something for people outside of typical government service: Staff want to make the day memorable.

Spending time with other people celebrating the day of love is part of what made the event special for some couples.

Jean and Constantino Evaristo opted for the city wedding because it was a cheaper option. The couple wanted to save their money for a post-wedding celebration. Jean heard about the Valentine’s event last year and knew that was how she wanted to get married.

“I thought that was the coolest part of it,” she said, of sharing the day with other Colorado couples.

Luke Krajeik and Jamieric Factor arrived wearing matching plaid shirts. They planned to spend the evening of their wedding sharing dinner with just the two of them and their dog, Hazel.

Krajeik said he and Factor didn’t want a large ceremony — and wanted to keep the event between the two of them.

“Even if we are sharing it with a lot of people,” he said of the other couples there, “it feels like just the two of us.”

The day is also special for those leading the services.

Herb Galchinsky, also known as “Herbie the Love Judge,” was 73 and retired when he first started volunteering for the event in 2011. After a career in law and working as a judge, Galchinsky said he had seen some of the worst of humanity. Volunteering for the Valentine’s wedding event has been a sort of therapy for him, he said, a reminder that there are good people.

As someone who’s been married for 58 years himself, he noted that marriage takes compromise.

“You have to make an adjustment because everybody’s a little different,” he said.

Jessie Buchanan was another returning officiant. She did 12 weddings at last year’s Valentine’s event and was hoping to do more this year.

This was longtime wedding officiant Jane Gorman’s first time doing weddings for Denver. She and her husband, also a wedding officiant for her company, Jane’s Personalized Weddings, have been married for 30 years.

For Gorman, weddings are not only her livelihood.

She also truly believes, she said, in love and marriage for everyone.

The Valentine’s Day weddings left her “with a full heart” and a possible new tradition.

“I can’t think of a better way to spend my Valentine’s,” she said. “This is just a joyful day for everybody.”

Lorena Sigala signs a poster in the Webb Municipal Building after getting married on Valentine’s Day. She said she felt blessed to have her family there to celebrate with her.

16 Washington Park Profile

March 2019

SAFE SPACE PRODUCES ‘REALLY FANTASTIC ART’

Teens’ creativity soars in nonprofit’s art studio class

By Kailyn Lamb klamb@coloradocommunitymedia.com

A

Theo Zander paints a project during the Teen Studio class at the Art Students League of Denver. Zender has been attending the Teen Studio for the last 3 1/2 years and said part of the draw is the ability to experiment with new materials.

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fter setting up tables for class, teenagers come to collect paints, markers, paper or brushes for their individual projects. Often, they stop to chat with Karl Poulson, an art teacher who has been teaching the Teen Studio at the Art Students League of Denver since 2011.

The students are relaxed, and that’s how Poulson, 29, likes to run the class. Instead of lecturing on different art forms, he is here more as someone to talk to if students need advice or guidance. The informal environment encourages students to open up, not just with their art, Poulson said, but as individuals free to talk about whatever they want.

“You’re able to find new materials you’ve never used before, you’re able to try something that you can totally fail at because you’re safe to,” Poulson said. “That’s what I crave so much as a young artist myself. The ability to be good at failure is something that’s really powerful.”

The Art Students League of Denver, 200 Grant St., is a nonprofit that offers a wide range of art classes for children, teens and adults. But Fridays are reserved for teen classes, said Leticia Salinas, program director at the ASLD. Teens may feel nervous or intimidated in adult art classes, and often spend more time helping younger kids in classes geared toward youth. Giving teens their own set time creates a safe space for creation, Salinas said.

Teen Studio is offered on Friday nights from 6-9 p.m. for teens ages 14-17. In January, the ASLD received a $10,000 grant from the Harvey Family Foundation for the Teen Studio.

Before the grant, the nonprofit offered drop-in rates for the Friday class at $15. The Harvey Family grant enabled the ASLD to subsidize the cost, dropping the rate to $10. Scholarships are also available. The goal is to eventually make the class free for everyone, Salinas said.

The program has grown since Rachel Bayse, executive director of ASLD, first decided to offer Teen Studio. On peak days, 30 to 35 teens drop in for the program. Overall, the program serves about 900 teens from across the Front Range, Salinas said.

“It’s really thinking about how do we provide teens with quality art training, portfoliobuilding opportunities and really looking at what are those art classes that can go beyond what their school is offering,” Salinas said.

Theo Zender has been coming to the class for 3 1/2 years along with Tabitha Peña. The pair used to attend the same school, but after Zender transferred, going to the art class together allowed the friends to stay close.

For Zender, Poulson is part of what makes the class so special. “I wouldn’t be half the person I am without meeting Karl,” Zender said.

Both Zender and Peña agreed they look forward to the art class at the end of the week.

The class also allowed them to experiment with new materials they wouldn’t have at home, Zender said.

“It’s a very supportive community,” Zender said. “This was such a good place for me to find myself in that and find my artistic self.”

“Having other people to talk to with new opinions and new ideas is really nice,” Peña added.

Teen Studio lets participants use different media like paint. It first started in 2011 and gives teens the opportunity to work on their own projects.

Tabitha Peña said she likes hearing people’s opinions when talking about art at the Teen Studio on Friday nights at the Art Students League of Denver. She added that she looks forward to it every week.

Poulson is a professional artist who works under the name Karl Orion. He grew up in Denver and attended classes at the ASLD starting at the age of 9. He then attended Denver School of the Arts and the Art Institute of Chicago. As a working artist, Poulson hopes that students can use him as a resource in their own creative ventures. But he said he also learns from the teens.

Hearing students talk about topics as wideranging as global politics, sexual orientation and technology, Poulson said his students are in the know of what’s going on in society.

“Some of the smartest people I’ve ever met are in this class,” he said. “Change is happening — I get to have a front row seat to it.”

A year and a half ago, Ashley “Z” Farrell began teaching the class along with Poulson.

Ferrell helps students with more sculptural projects and 3D art. Poulson said that Ferrell has helped expand the class into more mixed media.

For Ferrell, joining the class has meant helping students expand their knowledge of art outside the two-dimensional space. But after working with Poulson and the students, she said she also witnesses the students creating their own community and safe space. It’s one of her favorite parts of the class.

“I enjoy helping them be more emotionally stable as teens,” she said. “With the safe space comes really fantastic art.”

Washington Park Profile 17

March 2019

Denver teachers end strike following deal Adjustments to compensation system bring educators back to classrooms

Listen to what teachers, students and administrators had to say page 18.

By Melanie Asmar Chalkbeat.org

The Denver school district and teachers union have reached an agreement in their longsimmering dispute over teacher pay, ending a strike as it entered its fourth day. The tentative deal gives teachers significant raises and a more traditional pay system, while keeping incentives for teachers at high-poverty schools that the district believes are essential.

The tentative agreement was announced shortly after 6 a.m. on Feb. 14, after the two sides emerged from behind closed doors after some nine hours of huddling separately. They had begun the bargaining session at 10 a.m.

Feb. 13.

Union members voted to approve the deal on Feb. 25. The school board will also have to vote to approve the deal, but this brings a close to the first Denver teacher strike in 25 years.

“We didn’t want to have to go to the strike,” lead union negotiator Rob Gould said after the tentative agreement was signed, “but the ability to utilize our last tool in our tool belt to get the district to listen to our needs — we used it, and I think it’s a victory for our teachers but more importantly, for our students.”

The strike was a test for the union, which has become more assertive and gained members in recent years. Teachers on Feb. 13 had expressed an eagerness to return to their classrooms after three days of picketing, rallies, and advocacy. Denver Superintendent Susana Cordova said she believes the strike was critical for teachers “to make incredibly clear what was important to them” and express their values.

“Frankly, they’re values I share,” Cordova said. Her hope for the future, she added, is that teachers and district officials could talk through differences “along the way, as opposed to it feeling like it’s mounting and mounting and mounting.”

With the exception of preschool classrooms, the district kept schools open throughout the strike using a combination of paraprofessionals, substitute teachers, and redeployed central office staff. But about a quarter of students stayed home, and some of those who did go to school reported problems ranging from overly simplistic lessons to chaos. At several large high schools, students walked out in support of their teachers.

Agreement addresses concerns The district and the union were negotiating major changes to a once-groundbreaking merit pay system that had become complicated and unpopular. Educators complained their pay was too low and unpredictable, and this deal goes a long way toward addressing those concerns.

The agreement will inject an additional $23.1 million into teacher pay and give educators an 11.7 percent raise next year on average, according to Denver Public Schools Chief Financial Officer Mark Ferrandino.

The deal covers 5,353 teachers, nurses, counselors, and other educators in the district.

It will have ripple effects throughout the district, as part of the money to pay for the raises will come from cutting administrative costs, including 150 central office positions.

Those same administrative cuts will also pay

MORE INFORMATION

Newly announced DPS Superintendent Susana Cordova, left, and Ron Cabrera, the interim superintendent listen to teachers speak at a community meeting. The teacher’s union recently voted to approve a deal with DPS. FILE PHOTO for raises to paraprofessionals, bus drivers, cafeteria workers and others not covered by the teacher contract, the superintendent has said.

The agreed-upon salary schedule has seven “lanes” and 20 “steps.” Lanes represent a teacher’s educational attainment, such as whether they have a bachelor’s or master’s degree, and steps represents a teacher’s years of positive evaluations.

Teachers would get a base salary raise whenever they move a lane or gain a step.

That’s different from how the district’s pay system, called Pro-Comp, works now. For years, the schedule has been used only to set teachers’ salary when they are hired, with raises based on factors such as whether they complete certain training.

The starting base salary next year would be $45,800, a 7 percent increase from $42,789 this year. The maximum salary — for educators with 20 years of experience and a doctorate — would be $100,000. That doesn’t include the bonuses and incentives teachers can earn on top of that.

Incentives were sticking point The two sides agreed upon a $2,000 incentive for educators who work in high-poverty schools, a $2,000 incentive for educators who work in hard-to-fill positions, such as special education or secondary math, and a $3,000 retention bonus for educators who return year over year to 30 “highest-priority” schools.

That last bonus was a major sticking point in negotiations, which stretched over 15 months. The union originally proposed to eliminate it altogether and put the money into base pay for all teachers, but agreed on Feb. 13 to compromise and keep it.

“We are open to the incentive because we know it’s important to you,” Gould said on the evening of Feb. 13. “And we’re willing to entertain your ideas if we can get the base salary schedule that our teachers need.”

However, union negotiators made clear they don’t think the incentive is effective. The data doesn’t support it, they said, arguing that there are better ways to improve conditions in highpoverty schools: smaller class sizes, less punitive discipline policies, hiring more teachers of color, and an evaluation system that doesn’t penalize teachers for low student test scores.

“If we really care about these students in these schools, you’ll be looking at these things and you’ll be talking with educators,” said Greg Ahrnsbrak, a physical education teacher at Bruce Randolph School and a member of the union bargaining team. “We’re in the field.

The agreement between DPS and the teachers’ union can be found at https://denverteachers.org/wp-content/ uploads/DPS-DCTAAgreement.pdf

The two sides also agreed on an idea originally proposed by the district: allowing educators to get a raise for 10 years of continuous service with the district.

Arielle Sawyer, who teaches eighth-grade language arts at Bear Valley International School in southwest Denver, said that she was thinking about how to catch her students up on missed work even as she marched along South Broadway on the morning of Feb. 13 with hundreds of chanting, red-shirted colleagues.

We know.”

Nothing in this deal directly addresses those needs, though both sides hope that the new pay system improves teacher retention — to the ultimate benefit of students.

The district also made several big concessions on Feb. 13, including reducing the number of proposed steps on the salary schedule from 30 to 20. Each step represents a year in which an educator gets a positive evaluation.

Having fewer means educators can get bigger raises more quickly.

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18 Washington Park Profile

March 2019

‘When teachers thrive, kids Student, teachers and administrators reflect on the strike

win’

T H E ST U D E N TS

By Kailyn Lamb klamb@coloradocommunitymedia.com

T H E T E AC H E R S Justine Sawyer, left, and Liv Scaetta.

Grace Ramsey, left, and Margalit Goldberg.

KAILYN LAMB

KAILYN LAM

G

race Ramsey and Margalit Goldberg are 10th-grade students at South High School. The two attended rally events at Civic Center and picketed at the school in the mornings.

“All the teachers I’ve had at DPS have been amazing and they deserve more than what they’re getting,” Goldberg said. “It shows the district so much when the teachers, students

F

or teachers Justine Sawyer from South High School and Liv Saetta from Summit Academy in southwest Denver, it was about fighting the Pro-Comp system and where funds were going. “(I wanted) to expose the loaded central administration and mismanagement of the funds that already exist in our district. They are being severely misallocated,” Sawyer said. “I’m upset as a taxpayer as well. That money is not actually being used for direct instruction for kids.”

Saetta agreed, saying she didn’t realize how complicated the Pro-Comp system was until she tried to refinance her house last year.

“I had to give my pay stubs to my lender, who

and parents show up.”

Participating in the strike has been a learning experience, one that felt powerful, Ramsey said. “I’ve learned that unity helps make change and if you work together you can help make something different.”

SEE STUDENTS, P19

couldn’t make heads or tails of it,” she said. “I almost lost my house that I had for 18 years. I wasn’t able to get as much money because of my base (salary).”

Saetta’s parents helped her financially during the strike.

“It was very stressful leading up to it, not knowing is it tomorrow or is it next month?” she said. “In all honesty, if I didn’t have my parents, my 85-year-old father helping me out, I’m losing two weeks of groceries a day on strike. If you can’t afford to strike, you have to strike.”

SEE TEACHERS, P19

T H E A D M I N I ST R ATO R S

D

PS’s new superintendent, Susana Cordova, had just started her new role when teachers voted to strike. For her, she said, it was a balancing act of ensuring students were cared for while simultaneously participating in negotiations. It was important to find common ground during the negotiating process.

During the last strike in 1994, Cordova was a teacher on maternity leave.

Upon returning to work, she said she could still feel the tension with

some teachers. She hopes to use that experience in moving forward after this strike.

“I learned a lot from that experience. Going forward, I know that, as a school district, it will be extremely important for us to focus on the things that unite us and not the things that divide us,” she said. “That way, we can create the culture we believe will support our students the most.”

SEE ADMINISTRATORS, P19

DPS Superintendent Susana Cordova.

Debbie Hearty, chief of human resources

Washington Park Profile 19

March 2019

To learn about the agreement that ended the strike, go to page 17.

Students FROM PAGE 18

Savannah Arellano and Bella Stevens, 11th-grade students at Denver School for the Arts, said nearly all of their teachers participated in the strike — 52 out of 54. Their teachers often go the extra mile for them, Stevens said.

“They do so much for us, especially with our school, being there until 9 or 10 for rehearsal and stuff,” she said.

Arellano said that while the process of learning about the strike has been chaotic, she’s glad she was able to support her teachers.

“It’s really messy,” she said, “but that’s the point.”

Samanthan Agoos, a science teacher at East High School

Bella Stevens, left, and Savanna Arellano.

KAILYN LAMB

“I was happy to see that DCTA was able to communicate educators’ needs to the district and the district was responsive.”

Administrators FROM PAGE 18

Debbie Hearty, chief of human resources at DPS, said the strike showed a larger problem with underfunding for education in Colorado.

“Both teams actually agreed on so much—wanting DPS to be the best place for teachers to thrive because, when teachers thrive, kids win.

Both teams supported the creation of a fair and transparent compensation system where all teachers and Specialized Service Providers

Samanthan Agoos,

Teachers FROM PAGE 18

Samanthan Agoos, a science teacher at East High School, said that she and her husband saved money for a year in order to prepare for the pay losses during a potential strike. Having these conversations is important, she said, and she worked with her students before the strike to address their concerns. On the professional side, she said she was happy with how negotiations went.

saw an increase in salary while still honoring the Pro-Comp ballot language,” Hearty said. “The negotiations process revealed just how challenging it is to address years and years of state underfunding in education in one year.”

She hopes the district can use its passionate teachers and leaders to work together for the benefit of students.

“My hope is that we are able to leverage these gifts and generate a renewed sense of optimism and collaboration that results in classrooms and schools where all students thrive,” Hearty said.

Mark Farrandino, chief financial

“I thought that DCTA did an excellent job negotiating on behalf of teachers and representing our best interests. I was happy to see that DCTA was able to communicate educators’ needs to the district and the district was responsive,” Agoos said. “Now that the strike is resolved, I am hoping that educators will continue to be respected and valued in our communities. Ideally, community members will continue to recognize the crucial role teachers play in shaping the lives of children as well as influencing society.”

officder at DPS, said the strike was “as far from a normal week as I could imagine.”

“As a former state legislator, I have led and been part of many debates. This was one of the harder negotiations I have been through,” he said. “Both sides agreed on the need for a fair and transparent system with more funding. At the same time, the discussions were more around what that looks and feels like in practice. In addition, when we are one of the lowest-funded education systems in the country, it is hard to determine a baseline on compensation for our teachers and other educators.”

Mark Farrandino, chief financial officer

20 Washington Park Profile

March 2019

Yes, you can still call for time and temperature Internet age continues to feature some holdouts from old-school ways

By David Gilbert dgilbert@coloradocommunitymedia.com

W

hen was the last time you picked up the phone and called to hear the time and temperature?

If you’re a Denver-area old-timer, you might remember dialing 303-844-4444 to hear the phone company’s time-and-temp line (though you probably didn’t dial the area code back then).

The line is back in service these days, thanks to John Lochridge, a Texas telecom worker.

Since 2011, Lochridge has been steadily buying up and reinstating old time-andtemperature lines around the country. He’s up to several hundred numbers, spread among nearly every state. Lochridge’s Denver line gets about a thousand calls a month, he said.

“In a world where things are changing a lot, people like having things that stay the same,” Lochridge said by phone from his home in Dallas. “There’s a lot of nostalgia that comes with this. It’s something from childhood.”

Lochridge’s lines are just some of perhaps thousands of recorded information lines that once provided everything from movie times to prayers across the country. Though many have died out in the Internet Age, some survive.

Old folks might find it easier to get their info the old-fashioned way, Lochridge said, but some callers have a deeper connection.

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Time and temperature lines date back to the early 20th century and reflected increasing urbanization and industrialization, said Jim Hebbeln, a volunteer with the Telecommunication History Group.

DAVID GILBERT “One lady told me she used to call the timeand-temperature while her husband was away at war, to hear a human voice,” Lochridge said.

“Another told me she called while she was lonely in the hospital, just to hear someone over the phone.”

Weather or not Other local lines have lots of devoted users.

Elaine Huff is one of them. “I’m not real tech savvy, but I love keeping up with the weather,” Huff, 78, said.

She fell in love with the big thunderheads that rolled over her Nebraska farm as a girl, she said. Even today, from her Littleton condo, Huff picks up the phone — sometimes three times a day when the weather’s wild — and punches in 303-337-2500.

“Welcome to the Weatherline Forecast Service, brought to you by the Denver Post.”

Unchanged in format for decades, the Weatherline reads the time, temperature, and after an ad, a weather forecast updated several times a day by meteorologist Tim Root.

The line still gets 50,000-75,000 calls a month, said Brian Trujillo, the Denver Post’s circulation manager, who runs the line.

The service has credibility, said Root, chief meteorologist and owner of Florida-based

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Weather Watch Service, who records twicedaily forecasts for Denver and dozens of other lines around the country.

“I’m not some automated aggregator website,” Root said. “I’m a real meteorologist.

Callers trust a human interpretation — a human voice.”

Callback to another era Information lines have their origins in the early days of widespread telephone use, said Jim Hebbeln, a volunteer at the Telecommunications History Group, a Denver-based nonprofit that preserves the heritage of the American telecom industry.

Being able to accurately set clocks became more important as America grew more urban and industrial in the early 20th century, Hebbeln said, as people increasingly needed to catch trains and arrive at work at a set time.

“So many people would call just asking the time, that big cities would have one operator whose job was just to stare at a clock and read off the time all day,” Hebbeln said.

Automatic recordings came along in the late 1940s, Hebbeln said, where a machine would “read” recorded times and temperatures off a series of magnetic tapes on successive drums.

“Even nowadays, those recorded lines can be important, because they’re less susceptible to failure or sabotage” than electronic media, Hebbeln said.

It’s still storytime Some recorded lines are still on the grow.

Many libraries long ago ditched their dial-astory lines, where callers could hear a recording of a children’s story, but Denver Public Library’s has never been better, said Alberto Pellicer, who runs DPL’s Phone-A-Story at 720-865-8500.

Up from four options a couple years ago, the line currently offers nine options to callers, with stories, songs riddles and rhymes in English, Spanish, Vietnamese and Amharic — the primary language of the Denver area’s large Ethiopian population. The line is getting more than 2,000 calls a month, Pellicer said, up from about 300 a month a few years ago.

“You can be in line at the grocery store or driving to Kansas,” Pellicer said. “It makes me

The earliest time and temperature lines required an operator to stare at a clock and read off every minute of every day over a phone line.

COURTESY PHOTO

MAKE A CALL Some of the Denver area’s recorded lines: • Weatherline Forecast Service: 303-337-2500 • Time and temperature: 303-844-4444 • National Weather Service Dial-A-Forecast: 303-494-4221 x1 • Denver Public Library Phone-A-Story: 720865-8500 • Unity Spiritual Center Prayer Line: 303-7576761 Odds and ends: • Dial An Old-Time Radio Show: 972-889-2687 • Daily Word Bible Readings: 706-855-9673 • Jenny in North Carolina (recognize the number?): 919-867-5309 • Rickroll Hotline: 248-434-5508 proud that people want to encourage their kids to listen to stories and be involved with books and characters.”

Callers can leave a voicemail requesting stories, Pellicer said, and staff try to update the line at least once a week.

Teachers and home-school parents have told him they’ve devised activities around PhoneA-Story, like having kids call but hang up before the end of the story to write their own.

“We work to ensure the stories are good for building vocabulary, and we hope it encourages kids to come to their local library and pick out a book,” Pellicer said.

Unlike YouTube, Phone-A-Story is guaranteed to provide kids with thoughtful, enlightening content, Pellicer said.

Library staff are kicking around ideas to expand the line to more languages and options, Pellicer said.

“Callers enjoy it, and we enjoy producing it,” Pellicer said. “We hope to stick around for a long time.”

Washington Park Profile 21

March 2019

SHARE YOUR POETRY

GATHERINGS

LET YOU GO OUT WITH YOUR INNER SELF Metro area offers many venues for sharing poetry

Hannah Alexander, a student at Niwot High School, won the Poetry Out Loud contest, put on by Lighthouse Writers Workshop, in 2018. Lighthouse Writers Workshop is a nonprofit literary center that’s been in Denver since 1997, according to the organization.

Its mission is to support reading and writing in Denver and beyond through year-round workshops, readings, a summer literary festival, retreats and programming that runs in its Denver location and throughout the metro area, including schools.

COURTESY OF LIGHTHOUSE WRITERS WORKSHOP

Venues around the Denver metro area for sharing poetry with others include: • Weekly writing workshops at Lighthouse Writers Workshop, 1515 N. Race St., Denver. See www.lighthousewriters.org or call 303297-1185 for details and many more events.

• All OUT Open Mic Night, 7:30 p.m.

Tuesdays at Blush and Blu, 1526 E. Colfax Ave., Denver. A free, 18-and-older event at the LGBTQ bar. People from all backgrounds and skill levels are welcome to share poetry or other writing.

• Poetry Society of Colorado’s meetings at 10 a.m.

By Ellis Arnold earnold@coloradocommunitymedia.com

D

epression and struggling with her identity put a roadblock in Sophia Manion’s passion for poetry, but when she walked into Blush and Blu, an LGBTQ bar on Colfax Avenue, she found her voice again.

“I was inspired when I stumbled into this open mic and was instantly welcomed by

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this crowd,” said Manion, 30, who lives in Denver’s Park Hill neighborhood.

The bar is just one of the well-known spots in the Denver metro area’s poetry scene, where people of many backgrounds — and age groups — come together to hone their skills, wax reflective about the world, make connections and share their selves.

Along with displaying influence from smartphones and social media, poetry appears to be riding an upswing in popularity in

the third Saturday of each month, 909 N. Wadsworth Blvd., Lakewood. A workshop is offered at most meetings.

See www.poetrysocietyofcolorado.org for more details.

• Castle Rock Writers’ workshops on first Monday evenings of the month, Philip S. Miller Library, 100 S. Wilcox St., Castle Rock. The annual writers’ conference, with critiques, agent pitches and workshops for different types of writing, will be held Sept. 27-28.

Contact 303-521-8615 or AliceAD1951@icloud.com for more information.

the area, local aficionados say.

“Poetry is still important in our culture because it touches our hearts through the emotions behind the words,” said Alice Aldridge-Dennis, president of Castle Rock Writers, a regional group. “In a fast-paced world, getting in touch with our inner selves is vital to our well-being.”

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22 Washington Park Profile

March 2019 From left, Susan RoccoMcKeel, Curtis Pierce and Alice Aldridge-Dennis take part in the Poetry Track at the Castle Rock Writers Conference “Writing-inProgress” in 2017. The organization has its roots in Castle Rock, but it attracts writers from all over the Front Range, according to the group.

COURTESY OF CASTLE ROCK WRITERS

Poetry FROM PAGE 21

Text on tech Poetry imitates life in today’s techfueled era, as Curtis Pierce, vice president of the Poetry Society of Colorado, has observed. Texting, social media and cell phones appear more often lately as subject matter, Pierce said.

“For example, we had a contest a few months ago, and the theme was cell phones. And there was actually some great poetry about cell phones,” said Pierce, whose nonprofit group meets in Lakewood and has monthly workshops. “You seen the

movie ‘Her’? The idea of loving someone who doesn’t physically exist (came up).

“When you’re texting, you’re using short-form words ... those things are making way into writing maybe as something kind of clever.”

Manion, one of the hosts of the All OUT open mic at Blush and Blu, also sees poems that reference how people communicate via texting or social media, she said.

Aldridge-Dennis, whose group holds monthly workshops and meets at the Philip S. Miller Library in Castle Rock, said she’s noticed other modern influences on similar writing.

“I think rap music and performance arts reflect a new way of communicating through rhyme and rhythm on social

issues,” Aldridge-Dennis said. “The popularly of the musical ‘Hamilton’ attests to this. The story is about our country’s early days, but the messages are still relevant today.”

Not just teen angst Currents in the country’s political waters influence locals’ poetry, too, said Suzi Q. Smith, poet and community engagement coordinator at Lighthouse Writers Workshop.

“Most of the poets that I have been connected to locally have been politically vocal for years and continue to be so,” said Smith, whose Denver literary center holds workshops, a literary festival and programming, including in schools. “Our

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current political climate provides opportunity for these poets to share their work in forums that haven’t necessarily been as politically active as they are now.”

Manion’s seen political messages at Blush and Blu, the only open mic she knows of in the area with an LGBTQ focus.

“There’s a touch of the political because we’re gay,” said Manion, who identifies as transgender. But “the personal and the political are the same sometimes, like with (poems on) #MeToo,” the recent movement to discuss sexual harassment and assault.

The idea of poets as “the prophets of the time period” comes up in the writers’ world, Pierce said.

“There’s a lot of angst in the writing,” Pierce said. “People who wouldn’t normally write politically are writing politically or are just writing about what’s going on in the news.”

‘Ineffable’ asset In an era with so many media and sources of entertainment, members of the metro area’s writing scene say poetry remains relevant, even among young people.

“Mainly because it’s a steppingstone. For example, music,” Pierce said. “Often you’ll hear music and poetry are connected. So poetry is a way to get into music or other things.”

Pierce’s Poetry Society is involved in youth poetry, and he said young people tend to “graduate” to other art, like music or long-form writing, but sometimes come back to poetry.

“The popularity of poetry, it definitely is on the upswing,” said Pierce, who also volunteers for Castle Rock Writers.

Interest in poetry has increased, with people calling the group to ask where they can learn more about how to write and publish their poetry, Aldridge-Dennis said.

Andrea Dupree, program director at Lighthouse, said poetry still resonates today because of its ability to help people cope with and process their lives.

“Poetry is about transforming the things in the world that can feel chaotic and overwhelming — injustice, suffering, loss, and even joy and happiness — into something beautiful and meaningful and concrete,” Dupree said. It “adds to that ineffable warehouse of survival techniques we have in our hearts and minds. Ultimately, all art and writing are about connection. That’s something we can, all of us, use more of.”

Washington Park Profile 23

March 2019

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klamb@coloradocommunitymedia.com

T

he Cherry Creek Shopping Center will flip the switch this month on a new set of solar panels being installed on the roof.

Nick LeMasters, the general manager of the mall, said the amount of sun that Colorado gets, as well as changes to the industry, has made it cheaper to take the leap into using solar energy. He estimated about 40 percent of the energy used in common areas of the mall will come from the solar panels.

“We reached a point economically that solar began to make sense,” he said. “It’s very significant in the amount of cost savings.”

In addition to being a smart business decision, LeMasters said he felt it also was the right thing to do.

The solar panels are not all that’s new at the mall.

Pandora and Finish Line are renovating their stores, while Vans, the California-based shoe store, is moving to a different spot inside the mall, LeMasters said. Brooks Brothers also

The Cherry Creek Shopping Center has become popular with stores that got their start online, says Nick LeMasters, the general manager of the mall. Untuckit will be opening in the mall next door to Warby Parker, both are online-based stores.

KAILYN LAMB moved to a different space in the upper level.

Many of the chain brands in Cherry Creek do renovations to keep up to date with the look of their brand. LeMasters said the renovations are a partnership between the mall and the stores that lease the space.

“That’s really where our focus and our emphasis is,” he said. “We are thrilled at the number of stores that are coming with us this year — or will be with us this year.”

The AMC Theater in the mall is another example of a business renovating its space to keep up with the modern brand. The theater will have a bar as well as reclining seats once the renovations are finished. It will have the movie-going experience that people have come to expect, LeMasters said.

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Stores, such as menswear store Untuckit and Eyebobs, found their homes online and are now breaking into mall retail. Both stores are set to open soon in Cherry Creek. They join other online outlets that opened in the mall like glasses store Warby Parker and Fabletics, which sells women’s athletic wear.

“They represent the clicks-to-bricks idea,” LeMasters said. “These were pure internet plays that said `We want brick and mortar.’ ” LeMasters also hinted that the mall will be announcing several new tenants in the coming months, but declined to name the stores.

With luxury fashion store Hermes also starting its buildout in the mall this year, LeMasters said he’s excited for the rest of 2019.

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24 Washington Park Profile

March 2019

SUMMER CAMP 2019 Police Chief Paul Pazen presents a commemorative badge to the parents of Officer Celina Hollis. Hollis was the last Denver Police officer to be killed in the line of duty.

COURTESY PHOTO

Denver Police celebrate 160 years Staff Report On Feb. 1, the Denver Police Department celebrated 160 years by introducing a commemorative badge honoring the anniversary.

Police Chief Paul Pazen authorized officers to wear the badge, designed by Sgt. Christopher Hoag, throughout 2019. Officers can also buy the badge, according to a news release from the Denver Police Museum.

Unveiling the commemorative badge was the first in a line of events planned throughout 2019 celebrating the milestone, the release said.

On the morning of Feb. 1, the police department

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presented the anniversary badge to the parents of Celina Hollis, the last Denver officer killed in the line of duty.

Hollis was a seven-year veteran of DPD and worked in District 2. She was working in uniform, but off-duty, at the City Park Jazz Festival on the night of June 24, 2012, when she was shot while responding to a gang fight, according to the release. She died later that night at Denver Health Medical Center.

A gang member was arrested at the scene and convicted for murder after a trial, according to the release.

Hollis, 32, was survived by her daughter, Amyre, who was 12 years old at the time.

RTD partners with Uber for trip planning Denver riders can find transit routes, times in app Staff report A partnership announced Jan. 31 between the Regional Transportation District and the mobility platform Uber allows Denver riders to see and consider transit routes presented in the Uber app.

Establishing partnerships with providers such as Uber enables the transit agency to best meet the needs, demands and expectations of a growing population at a time when the industry is in a state of change, Dave Genova, RTD CEO and general manager, said in a news release.

“Our customers want their trips to be as seamless as possible, and a collaboration like this one allows them to plan for travel from end to end, including additional first-mile and last-mile options,” Genova said in the release. “RTD is pleased to work with Uber as we present riders with additional, complementary op-

tions to most efficiently reach their destination.”

To access transit information within the app, riders enter a destination and select the “transit” option to see available transit routes, real-time schedules, and walking directions to and from transit stations.

“This is Uber’s first in-app integration with public transit, and we’re excited it’s happening in Denver, thanks to our partnership with RTD,” David Reich, Uber’s head of transit, said in the release. “Uber shares many of the same goals as the cities we serve, and our team is committed to addressing the same challenges: reducing individual car ownership, expanding transportation access with more options and working with transit agencies to innovate.”

Trip planning is the first of two notable transit-related features being added to the Uber app. Soon, Denver riders will be able to purchase and use RTD tickets through the app.

RTD and Uber will share details about that feature as they are solidified.

Learn more at www.rtd-denver. com/uber.shtml.

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Washington Park Profile 25

March 2019

SUMMER CAMP 2019

State’s first autonomous shuttle launches in Denver Staff report

The state’s first autonomous vehicle shuttle can now connect RTD passengers from the 61st and Peña commuter rail station to the Panasonic and EasyMile offices and to the 61st and Peña Parkn-Ride lot via four stops.

The EasyMile 100 percent electric, autonomous shuttle made its debut Jan. 29 and will continue operating for four to six months.

Regional Transportation District’s General Manager and CEO Dave Genova and Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock joined representatives from EasyMile, Panasonic, Transdev, and L.C. Fulenwider Inc. for a ribbon cutting and ride aboard the self-driving unit.

“We’re excited to see how driverless technology will work in Denver and to embrace new, innovative and better mobility options to move more people and improve travel for residents and visitors alike,” Hancock said in a news release.

Transdev will operate the EasyMile autonomous shuttle for the RTD in a new route called r61AV, serving people who park and live near the 61st and Peña commuter rail station. The project’s main goal is to assess the viability of autonomous services in providing first and last mile connections to and from transit.

“RTD is pleased to participate in this groundbreaking partnership to explore how innovations in mobility are creating new and expanded

opportunities for public transportation,” Genova said in the release. “The 61AV partnership allows us to interface directly with an autonomous vehicle demonstration and assess how this technology can be applied in a transit setting to meet the future mobility needs of the people and communities we serve.”

The shuttle will run a predetermined route Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., making a complete loop every 15 minutes.

Although it will not have a driver, an ambassador will be on the shuttle to help answer questions and ensure safety for the passengers and operations. Transdev will provide the ambassador for the RTD service.

Partners in this AV demonstration project believe autonomous shuttle services will transform local communities and become an integral part of how communities are designed in the future.

The EasyMile shuttle will be programmed to make designated stops along predetermined routes. It runs an average speed of 12-15 mph and can carry up to 12 passengers.

The autonomous vehicle demonstration project is approved by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the newly-formed Colorado Autonomous Vehicle Task Force for six months of operations. Data collected on usage and operability will be shared between project partners to improve future deployments and bring autonomous services into wider usage.

I-70 project continues on schedule with March closures Staff Report Although February has been one of the Denver metro area’s coldest months in years – with temperatures averaging 28 degrees – crews continue to make progress on the Central 70 Project and remain on schedule. Over the next month, motorists can expect to see the following traffic impacts, including increased enforcement along the corridor: • Xcel utility relocation work on York Street will require a center lane closure on eastbound and westbound Iinterstate 70 from March 8-10, and a full closure of York Street between 44th and 48th avenues from March 6-15.

• Interestate 270 flyover bridge work will require a full closure of eastbound and westbound I-70 from I-270 to Colorado Boulevard

over the weekend of March 22.

• Minor traffic shifts on Colorado Boulevard near I-70 and overnight ramp closures in preparation for the permanent closure of the existing southbound Colorado Boulevard loop-ramp to eastbound I-70 on March 22.

Once the loop ramp is closed, motorists will turn left at a signalized intersection, south of the existing ramp, to access eastbound I-70.

• I-70 at Peoria Street bridge work requiring lane closures overnight from March 20-22 • Ongoing overnight I-70 ramp closures.

Please keep in mind these dates are weatherdependent and subject to change. Sign up for updates at https://www.codot.gov/projects/ i70east, to find out more information about these closures as they get closer.

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26 Washington Park Profile

March 2019

SUMMER CAMP 2019

Training your brain to stay fit Tests help pinpoint function, show how exercising brain is key to mental clarity

HOW TO IMPROVE BRAIN FUNCTION

Neil Wolkodoff of the Colorado Center for Health and Sports Science says that your brain is just like any other muscle in your body: it needs to be exercised. Since not everyone comes to the center for sports or coordination training, Wolkodoff had a few, simple recommendations that can help in every day life.

• Play Games. Chess and Sudoku are two great means of increasing those neural connections.

Card games are also helpful if they have a strategy, like poker.

By Kailyn Lamb klamb@coloradocommunitymedia.com

My eyes followed numbered circles on a computer screen, seeking out the right sequence.

Then I pushed lighted buttons as they flashed and wore special glasses to pick out circles either further away or closer to me.

The tests at the Colorado Center for Health and Sports Science (CCHSS) may feel like games at first, but the results are meant to help people get a better idea of how their brain is functioning, Director Neil Wolkodoff said.

The CCHSS is located inside the Next Level Strength gym at 2570 S. Colorado Blvd.

Wolkodoff ’s office is a long room filled with different equipment used for testing brain function.

The tests can help people track their brain function and determine whether it’s where it needs to be for their age. This can give older people a heads up for declines in brain function, which can be an early sign of dementia or Alzheimer’s Disease.

But the tests can help athletes, too, Wolkodoff

Kailyn Lamb, editor of the Profile, takes a depth perception test at the Colorado Center for Health and Sports Science.

NEIL WOLKODOFF

• Alphabet Soup. When stopped in a parking lot, see the license plate in front of you, close your eyes and then recall the license plate out loud. If time permits look again and recall the license plate, but backwards.

• Change of Hand. Do as many things as possible with the other • Word of the Day. Pick a word, hand compared to your normal and translate that word into a dominant hand. For example, unlock foreign language on your comand lock the front door with your puter. Repeat the word three non-dominant hand. When reaching times, then again at 20 minutes for a piece of silverware, reach and and 60 minutes. This helps grasp with the non-dominant hand.

said. In training, factors like depth perception and reaction time can affect performance.

Exercising your brain can be just as important as other muscles, he said. “When you think about the eyes and the brain and the sensory system, those are all things that have a certain trainability, just like your biceps.”

I was a teenager when my grandmother was first diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. I began researching the different ways doctors recommended holding brain decay at bay. Diet, exercise and even dental hygiene made the list. After speaking with Wolkodoff about the CCHSS, I

could see how these tests could benefit a family like mine where several members of the older generation had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. My dad, as well as his brothers and cousins, could get an inside view on their brain function early on — and maybe even do something about it.

I was excited — and very nervous — to take the test myself.

Wolkodoff asked me to wear tennis shoes as well as clothes I was comfortable moving in.

Most people should expect to spend about an hour in his office.

In the first test, Wolkodoff placed a cap full of sensors on my head. The sensors tracked the electric waves in my brain. Looking at a heat map after the tests, Wolkodoff asked if I had ever hit my head on the left side — I had.

When I was in third grade, I had fallen off a playground clibming set and suffered a minor concussion. Sure enough, right in the area where I hit my head was a blue patch on the map where my brain doesn’t function quite as strongly.

Several more tests looked at how I kept track of items in a group (great) and my depth perception (not so great). The visual sports skills test can help athletes determine what areas they need more training in, but the skills are applicable in every day life as well, Wolkodoff said.

“Because it’s a combination of different tests that you put together to get the profile for the person, you’re going to probably uncover something that they didn’t know about themselves,” he said. “One example could be `Gee, I didn’t

short-term memory become long-term memory.

• New Exercise. At the gym, watch someone lifting free weights. Take an exercise you normally do, such as military press on the machines, and do that with dumbbells instead. Try one new exercise per session, and always start with the lightest weight possible, and ask for help from staff if unsure of the movement.

know that my depth perception is poor, maybe that’s why I’m not driving well.’ ” Wolkodoff also offers speed tests for eye and foot coordination, which, blessedly, my two left feet did not take that day.

As I sat in Wolkodoff ’s office doing the tests I tried to suppress the anxiety that my brain could already be showing signs of decay. While there were certainly results I could work on, Wolkodoff said my brain function is where it should be. One of his recommendations for improving some of the visual tests was to wear glasses that filter out blue light since I use computer screens for much of my job.

After taking the tests, people can work on training their brains, improving mental clarity or different visual skills. Over time, people can come in and re-take the tests to track their improvement.

One of the areas in which people see most improvement, Wolkodoff said, is driving.

People who took the tests noticed cars slowing in front of them more quickly or had a better grasp on where cars were around them.

While the increase in people with dementia or Alzheimer’s may be on the rise in part because people are living longer, Wolkodoff said that it may also be because people aren’t getting as much mental stimulation: Continuing to challenge your brain helps keep it fit.

“Part of the reason people aren’t as good mentally or as good with their reaction time as they get older,” Wolkodoff said, “is they simply don’t challenge themselves in the kind of ways they used to.”

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Washington Park Profile 27

March 2019

DENVER ZOO BREAKS GROUND

ON NEW HOSPITAL

This rendering shows the viewing platform for guests of the Denver Zoo. People will be able to look into surgery rooms to get a behind-the-scenes look at how the zoo cares for its animals. COURTESY OF DENVER ZOO

Head veterinarian calls it ‘a privilege’ to work with animals

By Kailyn Lamb klamb@coloradocommunitymedia.com

B

eing a veterinarian at the Denver Zoo means working with hundreds of animals, from the largest cats and primates to the smallest frogs. In a world with so much diversity, staff relies on each other’s knowledge and, sometimes, learning from the animals themselves, said Scott Larsen, the zoo’s head veterinarian.

“It is a never-ending process of learning,” he said. “None of us knows everything about anything.”

In the coming year, the Denver Zoo is hoping to share a little bit of that knowledge with visitors.

Last month, the zoo tore down its old animal hospital to make room for a new, state-of-the-art facility. Named the Helen and Arthur E. Johnson Animal Hospital after a nonprofit foundation, the 22,000-square-foot building will have a diagnostics lab, quarantine space and a CT scanner.

The project was paid for in part by General Obligation Bond funds approved

by Denver voters in 2017. Denver Zoo received $20 million for master plan improvements from the bond.

“The community continues to support the zoo and all that it endeavors today, and we’re here because the people of Denver said yes to the largest general obligation bond issuance to date when they approved the Elevate Denver Bond,” said Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock at the Feb. 7 groundbreaking. “The residents spoke loud and clear and said yes, and also said culture matters to us here in Denver. The zoo matters to Denver.”

New hospital a boon for animals and visitors While the new building is under construction, the zoo will be caring for

its animals in a former welding space on site that they have renovated as hospital space, Larsen said. The space is only about 1,200-square-feet.

In the new building, guests will have space for animal demonstrations. From an elevated lobby, visitors can look down into surgery rooms and the laboratory.

The zoo is estimating the hospital will open in mid-2020.

The larger space will help the zoo care for the animals here in Denver, but Larsen said it also will help staff who work in the zoo’s conservation efforts in the wild.

“We try to take what we learn from our animals here and make improvements with how we work with those animals in the wild,” he said.

The same can be said for visitors. By teaching people how the zoo cares for its animals, Larsen said he is hoping that will translate into people caring about those same animals in the wild.

The hospital was first built in the 1960s, then renovated in the `80s, Larsen said.

The renovation offered visitors a behindthe-scenes look at the zoo’s newest animal additions, the babies born into the zoo’s care. One of the zoo’s most famous set of newborns, polar bear cubs Klondike and Snow, brought veterinary care front and center.

But over the past several decades, the zoo has changed a lot in how it cares for its animal collection, Larsen said.

Although some of the zoo’s babies stay in the hospital’s nursery section, staff were making more efforts to keep those animals in the care of their mothers, Larsen said.

“That part of what we do that is very, very different,” he said about the new system of staff “assit-rearing” of baby animals.

The veterinary staff has also grown over the years, Larsen said. The larger staff has allowed the zoo to perform surgeries on

the smallest of animals. But even still, the renovated space from the 1980s is falling behind new technology.

“We have made every effort to keep up with the pace of veterinary medical technology in our current facility, but now we need enhanced spaces, combined with state-of-the-industry tools, to ensure our animals’ well being for another 50 years,” said Bert Vescolani, president and CEO of the Denver Zoo, in a news release.

Caring for animals ‘a privilege’ Larsen agreed. The zoo is home to more than 3,500 animals, which Larsen has helped care for over the past seven years.

“We do so much more with our collection than we used to,” he said. “Really, we’re not able to continue to meet the needs of our collection at the level of care that we feel that we should provide.”

Larsen has seen some ups and downs in the time he has been at the Denver Zoo. In 2017, a tiger the zoo received

through a breeding program died of a rare and aggressive form of cancer. Although the zoo had to euthanize the animal, Larsen said he was proud of how quickly the veterinary team responded in caring for and diagnosing the large tiger.

Last fall, when Tonks the aye aye was born, staff noticed her mother was not showing maternal instincts. The U.S. has fewer than 30 aye ayes, a rare nocturnal Madagascan primate related to the lemurs. Larsen spent the night sleeping on his office floor, getting up every few hours, to feed the baby and try to keep it warm.

Staff members have thankfully been able to get the mother to take care of the baby, and they’ve been together ever since, said Larsen, who counts his contribution toward caring for the aye aye as a memorable one.

“It was one of my last experiences of the old hospital,” Larsen said. “It was not a burden — it was a privilege.”

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28 Washington Park Profile

March 2019

BUILDING COMMUNITY THROUGH ART

Jordan Casteel talks about her painting “Yvonne and James” at the Denver Art Museum.

Casteel was born and raised in Denver, and her new exhibition “Returning the Gaze” is showing until Aug. 18.

PHOTOS BY KAILYN LAMB

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Denver native created a family through her painting subjects

By Kailyn Lamb klamb@coloradocommunitymedia.com

Walking through the Denver Art Museum’s new exhibit, “Returning the Gaze,” viewers will catch snapshots of everyday life in Harlem, as well as the steady eyes of subjects that artist Jordan Casteel has brought to life on canvas.

But for Casteel, the paintings bring a deeper meaning — a community she has created for herself.

At 30 years old, Denver native Casteel is showing her first solo exhibition at the DAM. As a young girl, Casteel remembers coming to the museum, participating in programs where she would spend the night there, absorbing the art on its walls. Seeing her own work transition from craft projects on school trips at the DAM to large-scale paintings on the walls of the Hamilton Building does not yet feel real to Casteel.

“I’m waiting for someone to pinch me,” she said. “It hasn’t hit me yet.”

Casteel graduated from East High School in the City Park neighborhood. She received a Bachelor of Arts from the Agnes Scott College in Georgia. From there, she went on to teach special education at the Denver Center for International Studies at Montbello. Some of her earliest painting subjects were her students.

She received a master’s degree from Yale School of Art in 2014. While attending school there, she started working on a series of nudes of black men who were drama students on campus. It was in this series that Casteel decided she wanted her subjects to have a strong and steady gaze back onto the viewer. For her, the question was: “How do I maintain a sense of power and a sense of self for these subjects as they move into the world and I’m not able to be directly their voice?”

A steady gaze from subjects in paintings is not often seen in the art world,” said Rebecca R. Hart, the museum’s curator of modern and contemporary art. Casteel’s paintings showed “profound empathy for the inner lives of her sitters.”

“Traditionally, the power dynamic between the artist and the subject tilts in favor of the artist — it’s the artist’s gaze,” Hart said. “The sitters in Jordan Casteel’s work, however, return the artist’s gaze — and ours. They invite our respect through their eyes.”

Casteel’s subjects are also often shown in their own space as well, whether it’s their home, their family business or a favorite spot of Harlem streets.

Evolution of an artist After graduating from Yale, Casteel moved to Harlem in New York City. She returned to her roots, painting from photos of friends and family in Denver.

“I left grad school, and I moved to New York and I was like, `I don’t know what I’m doing here,’ ” she said. “So I went back to the source.”

Denver continues to influence her paintings.

In a new city, Casteel didn’t have family ties or friends at first. As she began to find subjects to paint, Harlem residents and business owners became like an extended family, she said.

Creating community is something she learned in Denver.

“It has given me the building blocks more than anything,” she said. “Those values around community started here.”

The more she painted in New York, the more people she met. Her network grew. And several subjects from her paintings came to the DAM for opening festivities. Casteel also shared stories on her subjects, such as the couple in “Yvonne and James,” who became

“Charles” is one of 30 paintings by Jordan Casteel in the Denver Art Museum exhibition “Returning the Gaze.” Casteel met Charles in Harlem, where he sells his own handmade furs.

IF YOU GO “Returning the Gaze” will be showing at the Denver Art Museum through Aug. 18. The exhibition is included in museum general admission. For more information, or to buy tickets, go to https://denverartmuseum.org/. like second parents.

“I’m not really interested in kind of appearing and then disappearing,” she said. “This is about real community-building for me.”

Road to the DAM The museum has been working with Casteel for the last 2 ½ years to put the exhibition together, Hart said.

Hart and DAM director Christoph Heinrich agreed Casteel has a way of bringing her subjects to life. Often, they are individuals that people don’t take a second glance at on the street. Casteel’s painting of “Charles,” for example, shows a man selling furs on a street corner in Harlem.

“When we are in the city we always see them, we run by, we always have our agenda in our head and maybe don’t even take notice of them,” Heinrich said. “Jordan, as an artist, has almost the privilege to stop in her tracks and to ask them and to start communicating with them.”

For Hart, the brightly colored paintings are Casteel’s way to “encourage people to slow down and look at the people that are around them.”

Celebrating businesses owned by black families, as well as the relationships black men have with each other, was a focus Casteel wanted to bring into the world of museums.

Traditionally, she said, museums don’t have a lot of representations of people of color.

“I wanted to represent that which was most familiar to me,” she said. “Knowing I had great potential to further the story, and to contribute to a future lineage, that was definitely a conscious decision.”

Washington Park Profile 29

March 2019

City venues break out photos for Month of Photography 15-year tradition spurs artists and galleries to try new things

IF YOU GO As part of Denver’s Month of Photography, Space Gallery and Walker Fine Art will show new photographic work to the public: • Space Gallery’s “Rear View Mirror” featuring Paul Brokering will open at 6 p.m. on March 29 at Space ANNEX, 95 S. Cherokee St. The show will run through May 4.

By Casey Van Divier caseyvandivier@yahoo.com

• Walker Fine Art’s “Elements” features the work of Russell Brown, Conor King, Bonny Lhotka, Kevin Hoth, Robert Buelteman and Jane Fulton Alt. The show opens at 5 p.m. on March 8 at the Walker Fine Art Gallery, 300 W. 11th Ave., and runs through April 20.

When Paul Brokering approached Denver’s Space Gallery years ago, he knew the gallery showed very little photography. But he had a plan to win over gallery owner Michael Burnett: showing him photographs of what Burnett calls “just concrete.”

“But I was like `Wow, these are beautiful,’ ” Burnett said with a laugh. “We didn’t show a lot of photography, but he still beat down our doors.

Eventually, I relented and showed his work.”

Since then, Space Gallery has featured Brokering’s photography on many occasions. His latest show, “Rear View Mirror” — named for his tendency to circle back and photograph the eyecatching scenes he drives past — will be held

by Space Gallery this March as part of Denver’s Month of Photography.

Held every other year, the Month of Photography, or MoP, invites venues all over the city to hold photography exhibits. The majority of the shows will be free and open to the public, said MoP founder Mark Sink.

“It’s art for art’s sake,” he said. “Signing up is free, listings are free. It’s an amazing resource for photographers.”

A month of firsts A local artist himself, Sink founded the event in 2004. Since then, he has worked to keep the event fun and easy for anyone who wants to participate.

“I have idea and planning meetings starting a year before in my backyard,” he said. “Galleries around Denver get very excited, and then the word travels for other galleries to jump aboard.”

Several local galleries have opted to make their MoP debut this year, including Station 16 Gallery, Modern Nomad and JuiceBox Gallery.

Meanwhile, for those who have previously participated, Denver’s MoP offers a chance to turn March into a month of firsts, creating a one-of-a-kind viewing experience for the Denver community.

For Burnett, MoP is an ideal opportunity to unveil Space Gallery’s second location, the Space ANNEX, at 95 S. Cherokee St. Brokering’s MoP display, which will run from March 29 to May 4, will be the first show in the new location.

“This is really the first time that people will see the new space finished, and we’re obviously super excited to show it off,” Burnett said.

More information at www.mopdenver.com. photographer Conor King. Though King has shown work and curated shows for prior MoPs, this will be his first with Walker Fine Art. King’s work highlights the element of water, representing the story of a rogue wave that shattered the lens of a lighthouse in Ireland. His display will use photography to depict the shattered lens and layer video footage of different waves, among other methods.

For gallery manager Libby Garon, Brown’s and King’s works represent the way MoP encourages the gallery to think outside its typical methods.

“We rarely do shows of just photography, so it gets us out of our usual themes,” she said. “It makes us think differently about our artists and the potential of our space.”

As part of the show at Walker Fine Art, Russell Brown simulates elemental experiences, such as falling rain, through the use of augmented reality.

COURTESY OF LIBBY GARON The show includes 13 typologies, grids of 25 images taken by Brokering, as well as 13 enlarged versions of images taken from the typologies. Each typology incorporates a different color, Burnett said, so that the work “portrays this rainbow as you look through the show.”

Though Brokering has experimented with typologies before, “Rear View Mirror” will be his first show displaying this technique.

“I think it’ll be a cheery kind of thing, almost like a puzzle. It’s a fascinating way to see things quickly,” Brokering said. “You can have 25 stories going on at one time but yet, because they’re all the same color, they become a different story.”

While the Space Gallery exhibit will focus on color, down at Walker Fine Art artists will show their work inspired by the elements. Several of the six featured photographers are showing with Walker for the first time, including guest artist Russell Brown, creative director of Adobe Systems.

Brown’s display, an augmented reality installation simulating the elements, will kick off the show at 300 W. 11th Ave. on March 8. The show will run through April 20.

“The show does well to bring together different arts and different practices, all under this umbrella of the elements,” said local

Becoming a part of the MoP Garon added that this year, Walker Fine Art will make it easy for viewers to develop their own photography skills with a workshop held by photographer Bonny Lhotka on March 16.

“If people are really loving the viewing part of art and need a more hands-on experience, that would be a great way to do it,” Garon said.

Meanwhile, the community can also get involved simply by attending nearby shows.

Those interested can visit www.mopdenver. com to find a calendar listing upcoming events and examples of the work each gallery will be displaying.

Having announced that 2019 will be his “last year at the MoP helm” — the 2019 show will be spearheaded at the Colorado Photographic Arts Center — Sink said he hoped his final MoP will “inspire, educate and bring the community together.”

“We’ve discovered some amazing work this year,” he said. “Community is a keyword. We’re bringing the world closer together through photography.”

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30 Washington Park Profile

Submit calendar listings on our website, coloradocommunitymedia.com, go to the Calendar tab and click “Submit an Event.”

Priority is given to non-profits, low- or no-cost events and locations within our distribution map.

Next Issue Deadline: Thursday, March 14

EVENTS Spark!

10 to 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, March 5 In partnership with the Colorado chapter of the SPARK! Alzheimer’s Association, Denver Botanic Gardens offers an opportunity for participants with mild memory loss to enjoy handson garden related projects. The SPARK program integrates the participants multiple senses to inspire creativity and engagement.

Free, registration required. One registration includes participant and their care provider.

720-865-3500 Denver Botanic Gardens 1007 York St. botanicgardens.org Women Powering Change 4 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 6 Women Powering Change hosts more than 1,000 community members, leaders, activists and philanthropists coming together with social change organizations that support women or are run by women.

EXDO Event Center 1399 35th St. WomenPoweringChange.org Growing with Gratitude 5 to 6:30 p.m. Thursday, March 7 This class is an exploration of Naikan, or “looking inside.” Explore practical ways to become more aware of blessings that often go unseen even when in plain view. Take home exercises to help open heart and mind to the peace available in our worlds. $18, $15 member 720-865-3500 Denver Botanic Gardens 1007 York St. botanicgardens.org XQ Super School Live 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 7 XQ and Pop-Up Magazine Productions present XQ SUPER SCHOOL LIVE, a new, one-of-a-kind, immersive storytelling tour. Expect a night of high school drama full of stories, selfie confessionals, viral gratitude, and multimedia adventures that celebrate the everyday heroes transforming America’s high schools.

Ogden Theatre 935 E. Colfax Ave. XQ.live Tree Diversity Conference 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday, March 8 To protect our urban forests, which

Things to Do are threatened by pests and pathogens, a greater variety of tree species is necessary. The sixth annual conference explores the relationships between landscape design, horticultural practices and the use of a greater variety of tree species. Speakers have experience in worldwide plant exploration, landscape design, promoting new plant materials, administration of some of our country’s most noted horticultural conferences and institutions and hands-on experience with plant testing and data collection. $80, $70 Gardens and Colorado Tree Coalition members, includes lunch 720-865-3500 Denver Botanic Gardens 1007 York St. botanicgardens.org Robert Anderson Gallery/ Month of Photography: Small Works 5 to 8 p.m. Friday, March 8 As part of the Month of Photography celebration in Denver, the Robert Anderson Gallery hosted a national/international competition for small photographic pieces.

Over 700 images were submitted for consideration by two jurors who narrowed the group down to 62 photos for display at the gallery from March 8 through April 27.

March 8 is the opening reception for the exhibition. Awards will be given out that evening for the top pieces and the jurors’ favorites.

This event is open to the public.

Robert Anderson Gallery 1278 Adams St. robertandersongallery.com Happy Hour Chamber Concerts: An Evening with Zachary Carrettín 6 to 7:15 p.m. Friday, March 8 Plan on enjoying a remarkable evening of beautiful music and new insights into the intricacies of early music performance.

Tickets: $15/$13 in advance; $17/$15 at the door.

Epiphany Lutheran Church 790 S. Corona St. happyhourconcerts.org/buy-tickets Family Overnight: Spring into Science 6 p.m Friday, March 8 to 10 a.m.

Saturday, March 9 Spend a memorable night experiencing the magic of springtime in Colorado with your whole family!

After dinner, take a dino egg hunt through the Museum, make your own plant to grow at home, watch a planetarium show, and experiment, explore, and engage in hands-on fun for everyone. Then sleep among the animals in our renowned wildlife diorama halls. Wake up to breakfast and an IMAX screening.

303-370-6000 Denver Museum of Nature & Science 2001 Colorado Blvd. dmns.org

Veterans Free Monthly Non-Narcotic Care Pop Up Clinic 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, March 9 Healing Warriors Program (HWP) offers free non-narcotic clinic therapy for pain and PTS on the 2nd Saturday of the month in Denver at VFW Post 1 for all service members and spouse/partner/parent. Therapies include Acupuncture, CranioSacral Therapy and Healing Touch Therapy. Please bring proof of military service, i.e.

DD214 or military ID. VFW Post 1, 841 Santa Fe Dr. healingwarriorsprogram.org Family Workshop: Leprechaun Gardens 10 to 11:30 a.m. and 1 to 2:30 p.m.

Saturday, March 9 and Sunday, March 17 Discover the legend of the leprechaun as you design and create a miniature garden to attract these mischievous garden friends. Each child will create a container garden to take home. Workshops offer families a hands-on opportunity to learn about the science and enchantment behind the plants in our everyday lives, create tasty treats from scratch and explore the natural world.

Classes are designed for families with children ages 5-10. All adults attending the workshop must register for the program. Non-participating siblings do not participate in the activities. $18, $15 member 720-865-3500 Denver Botanic Gardens 1007 York St. botanicgardens.org Hands-On History Family Fun Day 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, March 9 On the second Saturday of each month, families have the opportunity to explore and create their own history, art, and culture through hands-on, immersive activities like adobe brick making, building log cabins, live performances, and role playing in our exhibits.

303-HISTORY History Colorado 1200 Broadway Active Minds: The Future of Bees 1 to 2 p.m. Saturday, March 9 Found on every continent except Antarctica, bees are vital pollinators, making possible much of the food humans eat. In recent years, however, crucial bee species have experienced significant loss.

Since the 1990s, the bumblebee population has plunged almost 90 percent. Additionally, since 2006, a malady called Colony Collapse Disorder has afflicted honeybee populations. Join Active Minds as we dive into the world of bees and examine the factors that are affecting these important species.

303-370-6000 Central Library 10 W. 14th Ave. Pkwy. denverlibrary.org

Votes for Women Tea 12:30 to 2:30 p.m.

Saturdays, March 9 and March 23 The relationship between tea and the path to women’s suffrage was intertwined into many facets of the movement. The Center for Colorado Women’s History wants to honor these gatherings by hosting a Votes for Women Tea! After a tour of the restored home of the Byers and Evans families, we’ll convene in the tea room to enjoy a three-course tea with fresh fruit, scones, and muffins.

303- 620-4933 Center for Colorado Women’s History at Byers-Evans House 1310 Bannock St. historycolorado.org Breaking Down Cancer

by Building with Your Hands 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday, March 9 Using the Anatomy in Clay® Learning System, students will improve their health awareness by building relevant portions of human anatomy in clay on scale model skeletons.

All are welcome. Space is limited.

Registrations will be taken until one week before each session (March 2 for the March 9 workshop).

To register, contact Mary Bahus-Meyer at 800-950-5025 or MaryB@ anatomyinclay.com.

Anatomy in Clay Centers 2207 S. Delaware St. Skean Dubh Doors at 7 p.m., Show at 8 p.m.

Saturday, March 9 Skean Dubh is an acoustic Celtic band, in the Colorado Rocky Mountain region. Unforgettable vocals, Uilleann bag piping, and fiery fiddle.

Tickets: $10 – $12; All sales are final Swallow Hill Music - Tuft Theatre 71 E. Yale Ave. eventbrite.com/e/skean-dubhtickets-55289149334 Ireland Forever!

An Irish Tour of Denver Noon to 5 p.m. Sunday, March 10 Join Tom “Dr. Colorado” Noel and former Denver City Auditor Dennis Gallagher for an annual tour tradition! We’ll start with libations and a Celtic meal and enjoy a slideshow about Colorado’s Irish landmark people and buildings. Afterward, board our deluxe coach for a grand driving tour by such places as the Mullen family residences and associated landmarks, Mary Coyle Chase house, Campion mansion site, St. Patrick’s Church for a visit with the Sisters and their holy cookies, the beautiful Holy Ghost Church and much more! Denver Go Bragh! Includes one drink ticket, a light lunch, all guides and bus transportation.

303-HISTORY History Colorado 1200 Broadway historycolorado.org

March 2019

Stories on Stage presents “I Love a Mystery” 1:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Sunday, March 10 Celebrating their 18th Season, Stories on Stage presents renowned actors performing dynamic and entertaining short stories.

Single tickets are $15 - $28 303-494-0523 Su Teatro Cultural and Performing Arts Center 721 Santa Fe Dr. storiesonstage.org Sisters of Courage 1 to 2 p.m. Monday, March 11 Join Dave Lively as he follows one family through the turmoil of the last half of the 19th century. The Civil War, Westward Expansion, and the Panic of 1893 all take on new meaning with this story of their impact on the Harbison family.

Buffeted by the winds of national events, the family started their life all over as Annie and Kittie Harbison homesteaded in a peaceful mountain valley. Come and enjoy their story, leading up to the development (and underdevelopment) of Rocky Mountain National Park.

303- 620-4933 Center for Colorado Women’s History at Byers-Evans House 1310 Bannock St. historycolorado.org Guided Sitting Meditation: First Noble Truth 6 to 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 12 The First Noble Truth reminds us of the inevitability of life. Pain and suffering come from myriad sources: emotional, physical, spiritual.

Mindfulness offers an opportunity to lean into pain without resistance or expectation. $18, $15 member 720-865-3500 Denver Botanic Gardens 1007 York St. botanicgardens.org SEE THINGS TO DO, P31

Washington Park Profile 31

March 2019

Things to Do FROM PAGE 30

How to Speak so Men Will Listen 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday, March 14 Katherine McGraw Patterson, better known as KP, has been an entrepreneur, consultant, and business coach for women for almost 20 years. In this program, KP will help us understand the communication differences between men and women so that women aren’t left feeling unheard and undervalued in business settings.

The Commons on Champa 1245 Champa St., Room 2. abwa-denverdowntown.org Science Riot 7:30 to 9 p.m. Thursday, March 14 Cheer on local scientists turned comedians as they attempt standup for the first time and wax hilarious about the unique nuances of their work. This one-of-a-kind comedy night for science fans will get you laughing with (and at!) some of the biggest brains in town. Ages 18+. Cash bar. All sales are final unless the Museum cancels the event.

303-370-6000 Denver Museum of Nature & Science 2001 Colorado Blvd. dmns.org Gobs O’Phun XXV St. Pat’s Concet 8 p.m. Friday, March 15 Gobs O’Phun traditional Irish folk with special guest musicians: Chris Daniels (from the Kings), Rich Moore (from the Mollie O’Brien Band), Peggy Fasing (formerly with CO symphony), Harry Tuft (Legendary “Godfather of Folk”), plus more… All Ages.

General Admission Tickets: $12 In Advance Online / $15 At the Door.

Highlands United Methodist Church 3131 Osceola St. gobsophun.brownpapertickets.com

LEGO Building Workshop 9 to 10 a.m. Saturday, March 16 Build (and keep!) your own Colorado-style LEGO® set, then take a special guided museum tour based on your creation. The kit includes a colorful airshow jet plane toy plus a pilot minifigure. The set will take about 30 minutes to build and is best for ages 5-12.

Cost is $35 (members pay $30) and includes one adult and one child museum admission as well as the LEGOs and instructions in the kit.

303-HISTORY History Colorado 1200 Broadway Women’s History in the Classroom 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. Saturday, March 16 As K-12 social studies educators increasingly look to incorporate overlooked figures and stories into their curriculum, the Center for Colorado Women’s History can serve as a wonderful resource for telling the stories of women in our state. Join Kelly Rogers Denzler, a local secondary educator and Center for Colorado Women’s History fellow, to discover what resources exist at the center and how they may be easily incorporated into an existing history curriculum.

303-HISTORY History Colorado 1200 Broadway

Alebrijes: Fantastic Zoology of a Dream Alebrijes: Zoologia Fantastica de un Sueño 7 to 8 p.m. Saturday, March 16 Take an in-depth look at alebrijes, brightly colored Mexican folk art sculptures currently on display at the Museum. Artist and anthropologist Oscar Becerra of Mexico City will share the history and context of these fantastical creatures. El Alebrije: Una historia en común was brought to Denver in collaboration with the Museo de Arte Popular of Mexico City and the Mexican Cultural Center of Denver, with support from the Consulate General of Mexico.

303-370-6000 Denver Museum of Nature & Science 2001 Colorado Blvd. dmns.org Bumblebee Jamboree 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. Saturday, March 23 This unique musical experience is perfect for children ages 0-12 and their parents.

Children are invited to dress as a favorite pollinator such as a bee, butterfly or bird and dance and sing along with the musical guests.

The March concert features Eric West. $13 adult, $11 member adult, $8 child, $6 member child, free for children 2 and younger 720-865-3500 Denver Botanic Gardens 1007 York St. botanicgardens.org

NATHAN & THE ZYDECO CHA CHAS Sun 03.03 7pm $22 advance

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32 Washington Park Profile

March 2019

Things to Do FROM PAGE 31

Family Workshop: Plants in your Pizza 10 to 11:30 a.m. and 1 to 2:30 p.m.

Monday, March 25 You can put almost anything on a pizza! Learn about the plants that make this favorite Italian dish possible. Make a mini pizza to taste in class and plant a pizza herb garden to take home.

Family Workshops are a great way for families to spend time together while discovering the diversity and importance of plants. Workshops offer families a hands-on opportunity to learn about the science and enchantment behind the plants in our everyday lives, create tasty treats from scratch and explore the natural world.

Classes are designed for families with children ages 5-10. Preregistration is required and class size is limited. $17 non-member child; $15 member child; $12 non-member adult, $10 member adult 720-865-3500 Denver Botanic Gardens 1007 York St. botanicgardens.org Fijian Album: A Bailey Lecture Film Like No Other 7 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday, March 28 Former Museum director Alfred M. Bailey conducted fieldwork around the world during the mid-20th century. He shared his adventures during a popular film lecture series, making armchair travel possible long before the internet. Bailey’s “Fijian Album” film was made before the first commercial flight to Fiji occurred in 1951. Bailey’s notes and field journals were used to create a new script, read by Dave Baysinger, a friend of Bailey’s and the Museum’s videographer for more than 40 years.

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303-370-6000 Denver Museum of Nature & Science 2001 Colorado Blvd. dmns.org Comedy with Roger Mondays 10 p.m.

303-320-9200 Lion’s Lair, 2022 E. Colfax Ave. lionslairco.com/events

Why Not Wednesday Wednesdays 4 p.m.

We open wines that most stores wouldn’t dare to open. Whether it’s grand cru champagne, cult cabernet or an amazing bottle of Amarone. Find out what the wine of the week is on our website!

303-282-5103 Pearl Wine Company, 1886 S. Pearl St. pearlwinecompany.com

Baker Historic Neighborhood Association General Meeting 6:30 p.m., second Tuesday of the month.

As always, we will hear from our Community Resource Officer from Denver Police and learn about different items impacting Baker. Come a little early to socialize and meet some fellow Bakerties.

Hirschfeld Tower, 333 W. Ellsworth Ave. bakerneighborhood.org

Friends and Neighbors (FANS) of Washington Park 6 p.m., second Wednesday of each month Meetings typically include a brief overview of the latest park news and often feature a guest speaker. Check out the website for the topic of the month.

Washington Park Dos Chappell Bath House, 600 S. Marion Parkway fanswashingtonpark.org

East Evans Business Association Meeting Meets every 4th Tuesday This meeting provides a great opportunity for local businesses to meet, network and raise awareness of what’s happening on the East Evans corridor.

303-671-6639 Panorama Building, 2055 S. Oneida St. Chamberlin Observatory Public Night Tuesdays and Thursdays 8:30 p.m.

All public nights start with an informative, multi-media astronomy presentation.

Admission is $4 for adults, $3 for kids and is payable online via PayPal. Reservations are recommended, as nights sell out. Times vary by season.

Observatory Park 2930 E. Warren Ave.

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House District 2 Democratic Party Meeting Third Saturday of the month Monthly meeting covering business/topics at hand.

303-830-8242 Washington Street Community Center, 809 S. Washington St. www.denverdemocrats.org

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Denver GOP First Friday Breakfast First Friday of the month 7 a.m.

Great speakers and conservative camaraderie. This months speakers are Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams and Denver Clerk & Recorder.

Please RSVP and order breakfast to support Pete’s.

303-782-9555 Pete’s Greek Town Cafe 2910 E. Colfax Ave. www.denvergop.org

Month of Photography Show at Niza Knoll Gallery On display through March 22 “3631: A Solo Cycling Journey Across America” chronicles Randall Sampson’s trip to the lonely reaches of the northern United States and Ontario, Canada via photographs and written narrative.

Niza Knoll Gallery 915 Santa Fe Dr. nizaknollgallery.com Stampede Public Tours Occurs every day through May 19 In this daily 45-minute tour, see how animals have captivated artists throughout history in “Stampede: Animals in Art.” Discover and consider the role animals play through themes such as personal connections with animals, how animal materials have been used in art, how animals are used to tell stories or represent political ideas, and how artists use animals in imaginative ways. No reservations necessary. Meet on level 1 of the Hamilton Building. 720-865-5000 Denver Art Museum, 100 W. 14th Ave. Parkway denverartmuseum.org DaVinci X – The Machines & You Exhibition Hours: Monday Closed for Groups and Private Events, Tuesday through Saturday – 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Sunday – Noon till 5 p.m.

Guided Tour Times – (Subject to Docent

Availability) 1 p.m. Weekdays 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. Weekends The DaVinci Machines Exhibition displaying hand-crafted inventions built from Leonardo’s 500 year old designs brought to life.

DaVinci X Exhibition, Located on the 2nd Floor of the Denver Pavilions – Suite 268 Take Escalator to 2nd Floor Next to Henry’s Tavern at 16th and Welton Check Mall Directories As Well discoverdavinci.com Clyfford Still Museum Free Day Last Friday of every month In appreciation supporters of the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SFCD), and in the spirit of community engagement, the Museum offers free admission on the last Friday of every month.

720-354-4880 Clyfford Still Museum, 1250 Bannock St. clyffordstillmuseum.org

CLASSES, LECTURES, FORUMS Sunday Open Meditation 1st Sunday of the month.

Free to the public - all welcome. The Center is open to the public for “drop-in” meditation and contemplative practices, 10 a.m.-noon. Meditation instruction, 10:30 a.m., Padmasambhava Meditation Center, 1900 S. Cook St. padmasambhavameditationcenter.org English Learning Center Monday-Thursday from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. & Wednesday and Thursday 6:30 to 8 p.m.

The English Learning Center, located at the Evanston Center for Spiritual Wholeness & Healing at 2122 S. Lafayette St, offers affordable day and evening English classes.

If you are interested in teaching, assisting, or for more enrollment info. call 303-4200172, or contact Caryn Oppenheim, Exect.

Director at Caryn.elcdenver@gmail.com Tibetan Buddhist Meditation Sundays 9:30 a.m.

Learn both Tibetan and rhythmic English chants and brief silent meditations. Led by members of Yeshe Nyingpo Denver, a chapter of the Dudjom Tersar and aligned with the Dalai Lama.

303-294-9258 Mercury Cafe 2199 California St. mercurycafe.com Sunday Open House and Meditation Sundays 10 a.m.

A relaxed and informal Open House in the community room includes information about activities and meditation followed by a discussion and opportunity to meet others. Meditation instruction is available.

Shambhala Meditation Center of Denver, 2305 S. Syracuse Way, Ste. 214 denver.shambhala.org Meditation and Kirtan Sundays 4 p.m.

Leave your troubles behind and practice meditation and Kirtan every Sunday. Childcare provided. For more info call Ed. 720-810-9071 854 Pearl St., Denver SEE THINGS TO DO, P33

Washington Park Profile 33

March 2019

Things to Do FROM PAGE 32

Denver Laughter Club Meets every Monday except major holidays at St. Barnabas Church. 11:45 a.m.

All are welcome, free, no jokes just laughter for no reason, with Chi Kung warmups, pure joy!! Call Meredee for more info.

303-877-9086 St. Barnabas Episcopal Church 1280 Vine St. denverlaughs.com Learn to Code Meetup Mondays, 6 p.m.

An open house/study group for anyone, at any level, with any interest in computer programming. No prior knowledge/future commitment needed.

720-865-1706 ideaLAB Community Technology Center DPL Central Library 10 W. 14th Ave. Parkway meetup.com/learntocodedenver Belly Dancing Classes Classes held most Mondays, 7 p.m. beginners, 8 p.m. advanced.

Classes $10 drop-in — Cafe not open 303-294-9258 Mercury Cafe 2199 California St. mercurycafe.com Meditation at Noon Tuesdays, 12 p.m.

Take 30 minutes to connect to your heart, cultivate inner peace and happiness, and clarify your intention for the day, free.

303-813-9551 KMC Colorado Capitol Hill, 1081 Marion St. meditationincolorado.org Tech Help Appointments Tuesdays 1 p.m.

Get personalized technology assistance and instruction on your own device or a public computer. Call your library for available times and schedule your own appointment. Tuesdays, we have 1 p.m. or 2 p.m. appointments.

720-865-0135 Ross-Broadway Branch Library, 33 E. Bayaud Ave. www.denverlibrary.org Words of Wisdom Tuesdays 2 p.m.

One word can say it all. Join us as we explore a key word from each week’s parsha and discover inspiration and guidance for our life’s journey.

303-316-6412 The Jewish Experience Center, 399 S. Monaco Pkwy.

Argentine Tango, Practice and Lessons Every Tuesday 6:45 to 7:45 p.m.

Tango Colorado hosts these low cost Tango lessons, followed by a practice session where dancers can polish the steps they learned, interact with other students and advanced dancers and improve their skills.

303-710-2250 Denver Turnverein Event Center, 1570 Clarkson St. tangocolorado.org/lessons Tuesday Night Blues Tuesdays 7 p.m. intermediate, 8 p.m. advanced.

Classes $5, Dance 8:30 p.m., $8 ($10-12 with Live Band) 303-294-9258 Mercury Cafe, 2199 California St. mercurycafe.com

UNNA Monthly Meeting Second Tuesday of the month Evanston Center for Spiritual Wholeness and Healing, 2122 S. Lafayette St. unna.shutterfly.com West Coast Swing Classes Wednesdays, 7 p.m. beginner/intermediate, 8 p.m. advanced.

Classes $8 303-294-9258 Mercury Cafe, 2199 California St. mercurycafe.com Denver Socrates Cafe Wednesdays, 7 p.m.

Join a group that “seek truth by their own lights.”

No regular attendance or preparation required.

Speak your own mind, then take turns playing Socrates by asking questions.

303-861-1447 Trinity United Methodist Church, 1820 Broadway meetup.com/Denver-Socrates-Cafe Wednesday Nights Open Stage Wednesdays, 9 p.m.

Open Stage for musicians, comics & magicians.

Free, sign up with Host 303-294-9258 Mercury Cafe, 2199 California St. mercurycafe.com Thursday Evening Meditation Thursdays 7 p.m.

Free to the public - all are welcome. Dharma teachings on Buddhist principles by Tibetan meditation master Chhoje Rinpoche (live or video) followed by meditation instruction.

Padmasambhava Meditation Center, 1900 S. Cook St. padmasambhavameditationcenter.org Daybreak Toastmasters Fridays, 7 a.m.

Cat got your tongue? Public speaking and more.

Call Bob after 6 p.m. Now meeting on the second floor of the building.

720-308-9090 State of Colorado Centennial Building, 1313 Sherman St. daybreaktoastmasters.org Hard Times Meditation Fridays, 2:30 p.m.

Going through a tough time? Developing mindfulness can often help us find new resiliency. Join professional instructor Nancy Nielsen for a supportive mindfulness meditation class that’s free and open to all. 720-865-1111 Denver Public Library: Central branch, 10 W. 14th Ave. Parkway Happiness Hour Fridays 5:00 p.m.

A short talk and guided relaxing meditation to help increase a peaceful good heart. It is an ideal way to unwind after work and recharge for a great evening ahead. Free.

303-813-9551 KMC Colorado Downtown, 1336 Glenarm Place meditationincolorado.org

KIDSTUFF All Ages Open Lab Sundays 1:00 p.m.

Have a project you want to work on as a family?

Want to learn more about Photoshop, 3D printing or anything else in the lab? Come on in!

Family open lab is all ages, but no unaccompanied adults or kids under 10, please!

720-865-1706 ideaLAB in Community Technology Center of DPL Central library, 10 W. 14th Ave. Parkway

denverlibrary.org Tattered Tales Storytime Tuesdays 10:30 a.m.

Young children are invited for a half hour of stories and fun, with a different topic each week. Free.

303-322-1965, ext. 2731 Tattered Cover, 2526 E. Colfax Ave. tatteredcover.com Slime Club Tuesdays 4 p.m.

Join us to make slime, have snacks and help us rename this weekly event that will happen every Tuesday. Ideal for ages 8-12.

720-865-0940 Virginia Village Branch Library, 1500 S. Dahlia St. www.denverlibrary.org/events Toddler Storytime Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 10:30 a.m.

In the Berger Children’s Pavilion, Stories, songs, rhymes and fun for toddlers ages 18-36 months and their parents or caregivers. Craft activity immediately follows the program. Free.

720-865-1111 Denver Public Library: Central branch, 10 W. 14th Ave. Parkway denverlibrary.org

Art Works!

Wednesdays 10:30 a.m.

Preschool Art for ages 3 – 5.

We’ll read a book or two and little artists will make a simple craft or experiment with different materials in open-ended art 720-865-0955 Ross-University Hills Branch Library, 4310 E. Amherst Ave. www.denverlibrary.org/events SEE THINGS TO DO, P35

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34 Washington Park Profile

March 2019

www.ColoradoCommunityCareers.com

HOSPITALITY To Advertise call Ann-Marie 303.566.4070

Hospitality

ameyn@coloradocommunitymedia.com

A tried and true career field STAFF REPORT

It’s a common thing to ask yourself, “What do I want to do?” There are so many industries and choices out there, it may be hard to narrow down which career field is best for you. But, if you are looking for something that’s diverse in types of jobs, steady and always growing and will give you an opportunity to experience the world – think about a career in hospitality.

One of the biggest reasons to consider a career in hospitality is one of the most obvious reasons – It’s staying power. The original idea of hospitality was to create the feeling of a home away from home. You may be surrounded by strangers in a strange land, but you are made to feel welcome.

Let’s face it, as long as there is traveling, there is a need for hospitality.

In Denver, look at the history of the Brown Palace Hotel and Spa, located at 321 17th St. The Brown Palace Hotel and Spa has been synonymous with extraordinary service since its opening in 1892. Over the last 126 years, the Brown Palace has embraced the diverse workforce in the Denver area.

In December 2018, the Brown Palace had our most senior employee, Rose, retire after 59 years of service. She started at the hotel in October 1959 when she was 17 years old. Her mother worked at the Brown Palace as a housekeeper and ended up working at the hotel for 30 years. Her 2 brothers

also worked at the hotel in different departments from the linen room to maintenance to housekeeping houseman. When Rose started, both her and her sister were originally elevator attendants and made $1 an hour. While working as the elevator attendant, they had the opportunity to meet President Eisenhower, Jerry Lewis and Lucille Ball, just to name a few.

Fast forward to 2018, and the Brown Palace still embraces its rich history and maintains its original charm for both guests and employees. Currently, 15 percent of the hotel team has been working at the hotel for 15 or more years with the next most senior employee who started in May 1961.

The amenities mean opportunity in career – In hospitality, you aren’t just working a front desk. You are able to find diverse opportunities in the types of jobs you can seek. Whether it be in customer relations, cooking, cleaning, bars or in the Brown Palace’s case, working in the spa services boutique, the chance for growth is endless.

Exposed to the world – While being here at home in Denver, a career in the hospitality industry gives you the opportunity to explore the world.

People from all over the world check in to the Brown Palace Hotel, giving you the chance to experience different cultures.

To learn more about career opportunities at the Brown Palace Hotel and Spa, visit the website at https://www.brownpalace.com/

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Washington Park Profile 35

March 2019

Things to Do FROM PAGE 33

All Ages Storytime Wednesdays 10:30 a.m Stories, songs, rhymes and fun for children of all ages and their parents or caregivers.

720-865-0135 Ross-Broadway Branch Library, 33 E. Bayaud Ave. denverlibrary.org Girls Who Code Wednesdays 4 p.m.

An afterschool program for girls in middle and high school to learn computer science in a collaborative, engaging and intensive manner, working with women who work in technology fields. Learn Python, build websites, create games and more, free.

720-865-1706 ideaLAB in Community Technology Center of DPL Central library, 10 W. 14th Ave. Parkway http://denverlibrary.org/idealab Eazy Gaming Wednesdays 4 p.m.

Play great video games on a Wii, N64 and PS4.

Ideal for ages 6-18.

720-865-0160 Byers Branch Library, 675 Santa Fe Dr. www.denverlibrary.org/events Toddler Play & Explore Thursdays 11:30 a.m.

Enjoy unstructured play and social time for toddlers ages 18-36 months and their caregivers.

Enjoy books, music, and a variety of developmentally appropriate toys in our warm and inviting play space.

720-865-1111 Denver Public Library: Central branch, 10 W. 14th Ave. Parkway denverlibrary.org Drop-In Snack and Craft!

Thursdays 3 p.m.

Join us for a fun craft and yummy snack every Thursday! All ages.

No registration. While supplies last.

720-865-0220 Eugene Field Branch Library, 810 S. University Blvd. www.denverlibrary.org/ events Imagination Station Thursdays, 3 p.m.

Join us for a drop-in playtime on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 3-5:30 p.m. Children ages 6 months to 5 years are welcome. Caregivers must remain in the room with their children.

720-865-0220 Decker Branch Library, 1501 S. Logan St. www.denverlibrary.org LEGO Time Thursdays 4 p.m.

Kids, join us to hang out with other Lego® lovers for some free-building time. We supply the blocks; you supply the creativity. Ages 4 & up.

And, no...you don’t get to take the Legos® home, but you may return to build on another day!

720-865-0955 Ross-University Hills Branch Library, 4310 E. Amherst Ave. www.denverlibrary.org/events Code Club Saturdays 1 p.m.

Meet every Saturday to learn how to code! With a demonstration at 1 p.m. and then time to work on a project at 2 p.m., with new topics every month. Ages 10-19.

720-865-1706 ideaLAB in Community Technology Center of DPL Central library, 10 W. 14th Ave. Parkway teens.denverlibrary.org Teen Open Lab Interested in recording music or editing videos? Want to use the 3D printer or learn about Arduino?

Want to learn how to make a video games?

Ready to sew or paint a masterpiece?

Just want to hang out and play games? Drop-in, for teens 12-19, free.

720-865-1706 ideaLAB in Community Technology Center of DPL Central library, 10 W. 14th Ave. Parkway teens.denverlibrary.org

OUTREACH Nicotine Anonymous Sundays 12:30 p.m.

A fellowship of men and women helping each other to live our lives free of nicotine.

Our Savior’s Lutheran Church, 915 E. 9th Ave. http://nicotine-anonymous.

Nar-Anon Sundays 6:45 p.m.

A twelve step support group for families and friends of addicts to help themselves cope.

First Unitarian Church, 1400 Lafayette St. nar-anon.org Grant Street Reach Mondays 8 a.m.

Providing meals at no cost to its clients and it is sustained by committed and compassionate volunteers. 303-8391432 St. Paul Lutheran and Roman Catholic Community of Faith, 1600 Grant St. grantstreetreach.org Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous Mondays 7 p.m.

Through shared experience and mutual support, join a meeting to help each other to recover from the disease of food addiction.

303-775-8062 Trinity United Methodist Church, 1820 Broadway foodaddicts.org Home for the Heart AL-ANON Mondays - Group Al-Anon Adult Children of Alcoholics. Tuesday through Thursday - Group Al-Anon. Fridays - Group Al-Anon (Meditation the first 10 minutes).

Room 114, In lower level. Trinity United Methodist Church, 1820 Broadway al-anon-co.org Historic Preservation Committee Meeting Mondays 7 p.m.

This Historic Preservation Committee is responsible for numerous historic districts as well as individually designated homes and buildings.

Join us each month to learn what is happening in your neighborhood and to add to your voice.

Castle Marne, 1572 Race St. Moderation Management Tuesdays 6:30 p.m.

Weekly meetings for problem (vs. chronic) drinkers who want to reduce their intake of alcohol.

Email: denver@moderation.org.

First Unitarian Church, 1400 Lafayette St. moderation.org

Joy AL-ANON Tuesdays 8 p.m.

Al-Anon’s Purpose is to help friends and families of alcoholics recover from the effects of living with the problem drinking of a relative or friend.

In the Roberts Building, Room 103.

Saint John’s Cathedral, 1350 Washington St. al-anon-co.org LifeRing Secular Recovery Meeting Wednesdays 6 p.m.

A network of people who support one another in living free of alcohol and other non-medically indicated addictive drugs.

303-875-5088 First Unitarian Church, 1400 Lafayette St. liferingcolorado.org Marijuana Anonymous Wednesdays 6:30 p.m.

A fellowship of people who share experience, strength and hope with each other that we may solve our common problem and help others to recover from marijuana addiction.

Unity Church on the Hill, 1555 Race St. http://marijuana-anonymous.org FREE Support with Binge Eating Challenges Thursdays 6 p.m.

This support group is ideal for individuals at least 18 years old who are struggling with a binge type eating disorder. All groups are free of charge. We hold confidential groups facilitated by specialists to allow you to gain the support you need.

The Eating Disorder Foundation, 1901 E. 20th Ave. eatingdisorderfoundation.org

SENIORS

Free Senior Strength & Balance Class Mondays 10 a.m.

Hosted free of charge by Brookdale Parkplace Senior Independent Living community - enriching the lives of those we serve with compassion, respect, excellence and integrity.

720-485-4124 Brookdale Parkplace, 111 Emerson St. www.live2bhealthy.com Senior Lunch Tuesdays 12 p.m.

One of WSCC’s biggest and most exciting programs! Including a wonderful home cooked meal, complete with dessert and a fun activity!

303-733-4643 Washington Street Community Center, 809 S. Washington St. wscc-denver.org Lawn Bowling Tuesdays 6 p.m.

Free lessons every Tuesday. Come out and try a new sport, meet the club and make new friends.

All equipment provided, just wear flat sole shoes. The lawn is located on the East side at E. Mississippi Ave. and S. Franklin St. 201-669-6007 Washington Park, 1200 E. Virginia Ave. www.washingtonparklawnbowlingclub.com Free Senior Strength & Balance Class Fridays 10 a.m.

Hosted free of charge by Brookdale Parkplace Senior Independent Living community - enriching the lives of those we serve with compassion, respect, excellence and integrity.

720-485-4124 Brookdale Parkplace, 111 Emerson St. www.live2bhealthy.com

Washington Park’s Primary Care Clinic for over 30 years welcomes Dr. McBrearty to our practice.

Dr. McBrearty has been practicing Family Medicine in the Denver area since 2011.

He completed his residency at Swedish Family Medicine in 2014. Dr. McBrearty has lived in the Wash Park/University/Rosedale area for the past seven years and looks forward to serving the needs of the individuals in his community. He will provide compassionate, efficient, and up-to-date medical care to you and your family in a location just blocks from your home. This is a small clinic where you will be treated like friends and family, not just another “number”. Avoid the traffic… walk, bike or ride to our medical clinic and meet Dr. Sean McBrearty and his outstanding medical team! Join the practice now while he is still accepting new patients!

South Logan Family Medicine A Division of MedNOW Clinics, Inc.

895 S Logan St, Denver 80209

(303) 733-3764 MedNowClinics.com

Affiliate websites: StopAtTwo.com & ARCHDetox.com

MD - University of Alabama School of Medicine – 2011

36 Washington Park Profile

March 2019

By Jessica Gibbs jgibbs@coloradocommunitymedia.com

Trivia nights. Beer festivals. Running clubs.

Theme parks. Symphony concerts. Quidditch teams.

All are present-day examples of groups and activities inspired by the magical world of Harry Potter in which people can participate in the real world. The book and film series forged a lasting legacy — the last book was released in 2007 — and created a global community of people connected by their love of the story.

Local enthusiasts say it boils down to author J.K. Rowling’s use of a wide range of characters that the reader, or film viewer, can relate to.

Strong themes of working together, standing up for what’s right, living as an outcast and never giving up inspire people in the books and in daily life, they say.

The story of a young wizard caught in a battle of good versus evil spans seven books and later came to the screen in eight films (the final book was split into two movies).

In 2007, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” took the Guinness World Record top spot for fastest-selling book of fiction in a 24-hour period. In 2016, Harry Potter became the most liked fictional character on Facebook.

Aside from inspiring, the story also galvanizes people.

Take for example, Fanthropy Running Clubs.

The organization is a virtual running group managed by the nonprofit Random Tuesday. It includes a Denver-based chapter of the Harry Potter group called Potterheads. Random Tuesday began as a Harry Potter-based running group in 2014 but has expanded by offering groups for other “fandoms” like Doctor Who and Gilmore Girls.

Matthew, Kim and Ruby Reeder, wearing Harry Potter costumes, celebrate Harry Potter “We are currently recognized by Facebook as as a family in numerous ways, Kim says. Ruby’s nursery is Harry Potter themed and they the largest Harry Potter independent comattend Harry Potter themed events in the Denver metro area. COURTESY PHOTO munity,” said Keir Hansen, the organization’s communications director.

About 65,000 have participated in the group’s Facebook FATHER OF EIGHT discussions and events. They schedule race events online lady. Must love kids, be fit andand members complete them their own time from wherever they’re ready to jump in on and join the fun. based. Proceeds go to charity.

Military training would be helpful.

Hansen said the storyline and universe in Harry Potter revolve around creating a better world, and that appeals to people. There are also ADVENTUROUS CATofLOVER examples groups from different backgrounds adventurousjoining cat owner.

Please forces. But what isbe it about Harry Potter employed and willing to relocate. that motivates them to run for a cause?

Especially fond“Th ofeyblack andways white all found to betuxedo able to work toward their goal and to better the cats. All responses willcommon be answered. world,Purrr-fect ” Hansen said of the series’ characters.

Looking for that match.

“Our community does the same thing.”

The same lessons that drive people to do philanthropic runsLOVING, are ones that Kim Reeder, GRANOLA EATING, CAMP of Parker, passes on to students in her classes.

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GETTING TO KNOW HARRY POTTER Here are key characters and terms connected to the Harry Potter books and movies.

J.K. Rowling, author of the record-breaking novels.

Harry Potter, known as “The Boy Who Lived,” is Lord Voldemort’s rival and the main character.

Lord Voldemort, also known as “He-Who-MustNot-Be-Named,” is the most powerful dark wizard of all time.

Hermione Granger is one of Potter’s two closest friends and fellow member of house Gryffindor.

Ron Weasley is the second of Potter’s two closest friends and a Gryffindor member.

Albus Dumbledore is headmaster of the wizarding school Hogwarts and considered the most powerful wizard of his time.

James and Lily Potter, Harry Potter’s parents, were killed by Voldemort during Harry’s childhood.

Muggles are non-magical people.

Dementors are the guards of Azkaban, a prison for dangerous witches and wizards. Shaped like humans and dressed in cloaks, they feed on happiness and extract souls.

Butterbeer is a wizard drink.

Horcruxes are objects used to conceal parts of Voldemort’s soul.

The Deathly Hallows are three legendary objects — a wand, stone and cloak — that when combined make one a “master of death.”

Expecto Patronum is the only known defense against Dementors. It is a difficult, defensive spell.

Expelliarmus is a spell used to remove an object, including wands, from someone’s grasp. *Source: Pottermore.com

about perseverance and what’s right and never giving up, even when all of the obstacles are stacked against you,” she said.

Reeder, 35, began reading the books in high school and fell in love with the world’s aesthetic, she said. She found the books cleverly written, with enough detail that she could visualize the places, and she enjoyed the characters.

“They’re really human,” she said. “They’re flawed. They’re not perfect.”

Denver woman Alex Hatch, 30, said Harry Potter became her escape at age 11 when her parents were going through a divorce. She hasn’t connected to any other series like she has Harry Potter.

“I think there’s a lot of correlation with what happened in the books and what happened with today’s day and age,” she said. “In the books, good prevails, so that’s a message of hope for people.”

SEE POTTER, P37

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Members of the Front Range running club, a Denver chapter of the Potterhead Running Club, meet for a movie.

COURTESY PHOTO

Washington Park Profile 37

March 2019

Weed retailers getting prison time for violating law on sales limits

By Kathleen Foody Associated Press

The owners of a Denver marijuana business pleaded guilty in late January to drug and racketeering charges and will spend a year in prison in what city officials called the first local prosecution of a legal pot enterprise in the U.S. A yearlong investigation of Sweet Leaf’s sales practices centered on a practice known as “looping,” where a customer purchases the maximum amount of marijuana that Colorado law permits and repeatedly returns to the same retailer to purchase more on the same day. Prosecutors believe people using the strategy at Sweet Leaf locations purchased more than 2 tons of marijuana intended for sale on the black market.

The case is unique in that Denver authorities charged a pot business in one of 10 states plus Washington, D.C., that broadly allow marijuana use by adults and a commercial market to supply cannabis products. The majority of such businesses “are reputable and responsible and strive to obey our marijuana laws,” Denver District Attorney Beth McCann said in a statement.

“Sweet Leaf is an exception,” she said.

Under a plea agreement, Matthew Aiken, Christian Johnson and Anthony Sauro will serve one year in prison followed by a year of parole tied to the drug charge and a year of probation for the racketeering charge.

Aiken, 40, was sentenced immediately, and courtroom deputies placed him in handcuffs following the hearing. Johnson, 50, and Sauro, 33, will be sentenced in several weeks.

They and their attorneys left the courtroom without speaking to reporters.

Senior Deputy District Attorney Kenneth Boyd said investigators found evidence that Sweet Leaf’s owners knew about and encouraged the illegal sales. Employees would even contact buyers known as “loopers” to notify them of medical marijuana

deliveries to dispensaries, he said.

“Once the practice was authorized by ownership, it was pushed at the highest levels,” Boyd said. “It was sell, sell, sell. This was about greed and making money, and that came from the top.”

Denver police began investigating the chain of dispensaries in 2016 after a neighbor of one Sweet Leaf location complained about repeat customers visiting the dispensary day after day.

Investigators scrutinized Sweet Leaf’s sales practices by using data collected by state regulators and material collected during December 2017 raids of several company properties. Several months earlier, the company’s owners told Marijuana Business Magazine that they had 350 employees and $60 million in revenue.

Boyd said the 12 low-level employees arrested during the raids have since reached plea agreements contingent on community service. Two former managers received 30-day jail sentences in November as part of a plea agreement that required them to cooperate with investigators.

Boyd said Denver prosecutors still are pursuing cases against 10 people accused of using looping to buy excess marijuana at Sweet Leaf locations.

The investigation prompted Colorado regulators last year to clarify rules limiting how much marijuana an individual customer can buy in one day.

Attorneys for the company’s owners had argued that the rules only limited the amount of product a customer could buy during a single sales transaction. City and state regulators rejected that argument, and Denver revoked all 26 of the company’s cityissued licenses after the police investigation began.

Colorado regulators later reached a settlement requiring the owners to surrender all of their state-issued business licenses.

The deal also bans the owners from working in Colorado’s marijuana industry for 15 years.

POTTER FROM PAGE 36

Fans flock to the Colorado Symphony when it shows the Warner Bros. and CineConcerts Harry Potter Film Concert Series, which travels globally.

Spokesman Nick Dobref said by email it has been an audience favorite since it began in 2017.

The concerts allow audiences to “relive the magic of the film” on a 40-foot screen “while hearing the orchestra perform each unforgettable score.”

“Each installment has drawn huge crowds to Boettcher Concert Hall,” he said, “and it’s always a hot ticket with fans of all ages.”

Fanthropy isn’t the only competitive way Harry Potter enthusiasts are celebrating their fandom.

Alex Bihlmeyer, of Denver, leads the local Mile High Quidditch Club, part of the U.S. Quidditch league. They play the fictional game of quidditch made famous by Harry Potter that’s turned not-so-fictional.

During the game’s season, Bihlmeyer and the team of about 16 people practice for three hours every Sunday.

“I loved the books when I was growing up,” Bihlmeyer said.

He related to the plots involving Harry Potter growing up as an outcast but “finally reaching a good place with a good group of friends.” When Bihlmeyer moved to Colorado roughly two years, ago, quidditch helped him find community.

Reeder said she and her family celebrate in many ways. They read the books for her 2-year-old daughter.

They’ve seen the Colorado Symphony play the film concert series. They visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando, Florida. It’s all a fun family experience she’s glad to share with her daughter.

“Throughout history, throughout modern times, there’s a few select books and/or movies that really resonate with people,” Reeder said. “I think it’s kind of something that hadn’t been seen before.”

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Washington Park Profile 39

March 2019

Poll finds support for public lands protections Colorado voters back clean water, wildlife habitat

ABOUT THE POLL

By Shanna Fortier sfortier@coloradocommunitymedia.com

C

olorado residents continue to support efforts to keep public lands protected and accessible, according to the ninth annual Colorado College State of the Rockies Project Conservation in the West Poll, which was released Jan. 31 and presented at the Outdoor Retailer Snow Show in Denver.

The poll surveyed voters in Colorado and seven other Mountain West states — Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming — on policies impacting the use and protection of public lands.

The role of public lands and the outdoor way of life continued to be of deep importance to Colorado voters, with 73 percent of Coloradans viewing themselves as “outdoor recreation enthusiasts” and 69 percent labeling themselves as “conservationists.”

For 73 percent of respondents in Colorado, the ability to live near, recreate on and enjoy public lands like national forests, parks and trails is a factor in why they live in the West.

An overwhelming majority — 90 percent

Staff report Colorado U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet and U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse announced their Colorado Outdoor Recreation & Economy (CORE) Act Jan. 25, which would protects approximately 400,000 acres of public land in Colorado, establishing new wilderness areas and safeguarding existing outdoor recreation opportunities to boost the economy for future generations.

Colorado counties, in close coordination with businesses, recreation groups, sportsmen, and conservationists, helped write each element of the CORE Act over the last decade.

Of the land protected, about 73,000 acres are new wilderness areas, and nearly 80,000 acres are new recreation and conservation manage-

— believe the outdoor economy is important to Colorado’s future.

“Our state’s mountains, rivers and prairies are the foundation of the Colorado way of life,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said. “Protecting our public lands not only strengthens our local economies by promoting outdoor recreation and tourism, it ensures

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ment areas that preserve existing outdoor uses, such as hiking and mountain biking. The bill also includes a first-of-its-kind National Historic Landscape to honor Colorado’s military legacy and prohibits new oil and gas development in areas important to ranchers and sportsmen.

The CORE Act is designed to unite and improve four previously introduced bills: the Continental Divide Recreation, Wilderness, and Camp Hale Legacy Act; the San Juan Mountains Wilderness Act; the Thompson Divide Withdrawal and Protection Act; and the Curecanti National Recreation Area Boundary Establishment Act. To read about the four CORE Act elements in detail, visit www.bennet.senate.gov/COREAct.

that future generations will continue to have a vibrant place to live, work, start a business, raise a family and retire. This poll once again shows that Coloradans are adamant about protecting our natural spaces, reversing the harmful effects of climate change, and moving to a future of clean, affordable renewable energy.”

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The poll surveyed at least 400 registered voters in each of eight Western states for a total 3,204-person sample.

The survey was conducted between Jan. 2-9 and has a margin of error of ±2.65 percent nationwide and ±4.9 percent statewide. The full survey and individual state surveys are available on the State of the Rockies website, www.coloradocollege.edu/stateoftherockies/conservationinthewest/

Talking policies When asked about the Trump administration’s agenda for public lands, the majority of Coloradans viewed actions taken over the past two years with strong disapproval. The SEE LAND, P40

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March 2019

LAND FROM PAGE 39

highest disapproval came when asked about removing national monument protections from lands in the West that contain archaeological and Native American sites, but also have oil, gas and mineral deposits. In Colorado, 72 percent of those polled said this was a bad change.

Additionally, 63 percent said removing Clean Water Act protections from smaller streams and seasonal wetlands was also a negative change.

Corina McKendry, director of the State of the Rockies Project and an associate professor of political science at Colorado College, said that over the history of the Conservation in the West Poll, it has consistently seen bipartisan support for protecting public lands and outdoor spaces.

“That a leadership agenda out of step with those values is met with disapproval in Colorado is no surprise,” she said.

According to the poll, just 24 percent of Coloradans want Congress to ensure the production of more domestic energy by maximizing the amount of national public lands available for responsible oil and gas drilling and mining. That is compared to 65 percent who prefer Congress ensures the protection of clean water, air quality and wildlife habitat while providing opportunities to visit and recreate on national public lands.

In addition, 80 percent of Colorado respondents said they support Congress restoring the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which expired last September.

A hiker makes his way through a trail in the Arapahoe National Forest. According to the 2019 Conservation in the West Poll, 73 percent of Coloradans say the ability to live near, recreate on and enjoy public lands like national forests, parks or trails was a significant reason they live in the West.

SHANNA FORTIER Water, wildfires and wildlife Impacts of uncontrollable wildfires and water issues topped the list of voter con-

cerns this year. Those concerns are associated with the impacts of climate change, which 62 percent of those polled view as a very serious or extremely serious problem in the state.

This number has been steadily increasing each year of the poll’s history.

When asked about wildfires, 69 percent of those surveyed in Colorado believe they are more of a problem than 10 years ago, with changes in climate and drought being the top reasons given for the shift. Voters also have significant concerns about water levels in the West — 73 percent view water supplies as becoming less predictable every year.

Protecting and restoring the health of rivers, lakes and streams got the most support from those polled along with managing forests to help prevent catastrophic wildfires. Both issues were given 83 percent support for funding. Conserving sensitive areas which the state has identi-

fied as critical wildlife habitats were also high with 75 percent supporting funding.

And 73 percent of Coloradans said they would support a small increase in local taxes or fees to protect water, conserve wildlife habitat and ensure opportunities for outdoor recreation.

“The poll underscores that people living in the West are overwhelmingly outdoor recreationists,” said Amy Roberts, executive director of Outdoor Industry Association, a trade organization for the outdoor industry. “Whether they enjoy the outdoors through hiking, biking, fishing or camping … our outdoor recreation lifestyle translates to healthy communities and healthy economies across the West.

The poll also shows that most of us want our elected officials to support policies that protect and maintain access to our public lands and waters. We hope they now take an opportunity to build bipartisan support on these issues.”

CLARK

landfill forever. It doesn’t have to be that way, but you may need to see what I saw at the landfill to really believe that we need change now.

So I am inviting you to go on the tour I went on and see it for yourself. Maybe if enough people see, then we can be that small group of thoughtful committed citizens who can change the world.

If you want to come on the tour, shoot me an email at jolon.clark@denvergov.org and I will get you all of the details.

FROM PAGE 12

I have two favorite quotes from my years as an environmental educator. I always loved the old proverb that said that we do not inherit the earth from our parents, we borrow it from our children. And my favorite quote is Margaret Mead’s that says, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

We are doing a terrible job of borrowing this planet right now. We could be returning 75 percent of our waste to be used again, to be used for a future generation, and instead we are throwing 78 percent of it away into a

Denver Councilmember Jolon Clark represents District 7. The district covers Baker, Washington Park West, Overland and other southwest Denver neighborhoods. Clark was elected City Council president in July. You can reach him at Jolon.Clark@Denvergov.org.