All the News About Denver’s Best Residential Community Since 1961 Volume 53, Issue No. 12
A Greater Park Hill Community, Inc. Publication
December 2014
Interstate 70 Widening Opposition Grows Denver Auditor Contends Process is ‘Rigged’; 900 Comments Logged By Cara DeGette Editor
The Dorroh Family, in front of their movie set home on Forest Parkway – which now features a new 30-foot spruce tree planted by the moviemakers. Craig and Cynthia, with their daughters Zoë, 6, and Joy, 7. Photo courtesy the Dorrohs
Lights, Camera, Action, Christmastime!
Hollywood Comes To Park Hill
By Cara DeGette Editor
This is how it came to be that the Dorroh family home came to be the site picked for the Hollywood movie, Christmastime. “So we fix and flip homes for a living, and we do a lot of remodels,” said Cynthia Dorroh. “Occasionally we get calls from location scouts who want to use one of our properties [to film] commercials.”
This year, one conversation led to another, and then another. A scout was looking for a nice two-story brick home and was having trouble finding something suitable in Boulder, the setting for a movie about a couple whose lives intersect with an angel. In the end, the scouts picked the Dorrohs’ house, on the corner of Forest Parkway and 19th Avenue. In October – well before the Halloween candy was handed out and as the leaves were
still in their full fall foliage – the house was decked out for Christmastime. Giant candy canes went up, a 30-foot spruce tree was planted in the front yard and draped with holiday lights, and fake snow covered the green lawn. During the filming, the moviemakers offered to put the family up at the Marriott. But in the end, the Dorrohs – Cynthia and Craig, with their two daughters Joy, 7 and continued on page 6
Sides Sizzling Over Fair Value of Solar Energy PUC Grapples To Determine Fair Value
As rooftop solar panels become more practical and economical, three organizations are struggling to determine the fair value of electricity produced by those panels. In most cases, residential solar panels produce more power than needed. Excess electricity is routed back into the main network, known as the grid. Since Colorado voters were the first in the country to approve a Renewable Energy Standard Act (RESA) in 2004, utility customers can be paid for the power they produce with home solar systems. The credit to customers is a principle called “net metering.” The Sierra Club is resisting a proposal
by Xcel Energy to significantly reduce the credit solar producers. The Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has called for an independent review of net metering. is a battle dave FelICe over“This the right of individuals to produce their own electricity,” says James Liudl of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Sierra Club. “Xcel proposes cutting net metering credit in half, while using ratepayer money to support those payments, and asking the PUC to redefine what the utility pays a supplier.” In a statement, Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy claims there is a “hidden subsidy” in rooftop solar. According to the utility, “net metering shifts the costs to maintain the
CITy MaTTers
continued on page 7 Colorado Books: Cowboys, Jazz Greats and Hot Springs Bliss
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Education Quality Not As Simple As Green, Yellow, Red, Orange
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InsIde ThIs Issue
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december 2014
grid away from solar panel owners to nonsolar customers, even though solar panel owners still regularly use the grid.” Terry Bote of the PUC says the commission has no position yet, and is in the “information gathering” stage of establishing rules on net metering. The commission set up a series of workshops involving solar industry and utility representatives. After a third meeting on Dec. 1 to find out how other states deal with net metering, commissioners will see how they want to proceed. Bote says net metering could either go through rulemaking or litigated procedures. The commission is still accepting written comment from the general public.
A groundswell of opposition has emerged against a plan to widen Interstate 70 northwest of Park Hill. In October, the Greater Park Hill News presented opposing viewpoints to the $1.8 billion plan. The Colorado Department of Transportation and the City of County of Denver are advocating widening the interstate to 10 lanes, lowering the highway to below grade, and capping part of it with a landscaped cover. Critics are decrying that recommendation, saying it would negatively impact vulnerable neighborhoods, including Elyria/ Swansea and Globeville, and wreak environmental havoc. Many would prefer I-70 be rerouted away from those neighborhoods, which were split when the highway was first built in the 1970s. Supporters of the widening plan contend the cost of rerouting would be prohibitive. On Nov. 6, Denver Auditor Dennis Gallagher dispatched a letter to CDOT Executive Director Don Hunt. In the letter, Gallagher criticized the fact that CDOT has already held a meeting soliciting companies to submit their qualifications for the project – before it’s been approved and before the environmental impact statement has been completed for the project. “This meeting sends the very clear message that the decision has indeed been made and the process is rigged,” Gallagher wrote. Gallagher reminded Hunt that the state had promised discussions would be “open, honest and transparent.” “I hope the shadowy process is not like Ugo Betti’s ‘chaos stamped with a seal becomes rightful order,’” Gallagher wrote. A CDOT spokeswoman has denied any impropriety, noting that hearings on proposed financing of the project must be conducted as the environmental impact study is being done. Meanwhile, CDOT has received more than 900 comments about the plan over a 45-day period that ended on Oct. 31. They can be read at http://www.i-70east.com. On Sept. 30, more than a dozen Colorado faith leaders sent a strong letter of opposition to the widening plan, calling it “unjust and immoral.” That letter can be read in full on Page 5. Also on topic in this issue on Page 5 is a letter from Park Hill resident Dennis Royer, former longtime Denver City Traffic Engineer. The Point/Counterpoint that appeared on Page 1 of the October GPHN can be read online at greaterparkhillnews.org.
Park Hill Roots: Bring The Outside In From The Cold
continued on page 5
nexT GPhC MeeTInG Thursday, January 8 at 6:30 p.m. 2823 Fairfax St., Denver
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