All the News About Denver’s Best Residential Community Since 1960 • Volume 58, Issue No. 11 • November 2019
Inside This Issue PAGE 2
SOS Denver Highlights New Law Protecting Conservation Easements In Latest Salvo Over Park Hill Golf Course By Cara DeGette GPHN Editor
New Video Highlights School Inequities in Park Hill
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Line In The Sand
Turkey On The Loose
Wild Turkeys were once hunted out of large parts of their range. But they have been reintroduced and sightings are no longer as rare as they were just a few years ago. A female turkey wandering around Park Hill this spring created a huge stir on social media. For weeks she was the source of much merriment, with multiple people weighing in daily with updates and GPS coordinates: “Monaco and MLK around 9 a.m. this morning!” “29th-ish and Bellaire!” “She was at 17th and Holly a few weeks ago.” “This turkey just won’t stop!” A turkey-naming competition soon followed, with Park Hill resident Katherine Smith Kuhn taking home a trophy for her award-winning entry: Stuffany. Stuffany was last seen high-tailing it toward Stapleton, where it was rumored she took a part-time job leading Cory Gardner’s reelection campaign. To which someone quipped, “That seems a fitting job for a turkey.” To which Daniel Weinshenker rejoined, “This is a perfect example of why I love Park Hill.” Park Hill is not alone in the wild turkey revival. Gertrude, who wanders around Bluff Lake Wildlife Reserve, is a regular crowd-pleaser. Last month Park Hill photographer Mark Silverstein spotted a rafter (also called a flock, a gang, a posse and a raffle) of no fewer than 15 wild turkeys along the South Platte bike trail. One of them is pictured above. How many more wild turkeys you can spot wandering around inside this issue? Photo by Mark Silverstein
Wellington Webb, former Colorado Gov. and First Lady Dick and Dottie Lamm, former Denver Auditor Dennis Gallagher, and former state senator and mayoral candidate Penfield Tate III. Melissa Daruna, executive director of Keep It Colorado, spoke, as did Woody Garnsey, a retired attorney from Park Hill who has been a main organizer for SOS Denver. continued on page 6
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On Oct. 22, the group Save Open Space Denver (SOS Denver) held a press conference in an open field at 40th and Colorado Boulevard, just north of the now-closed golf course. The purpose was to explain the implications of the revised statute for the property, which Westside Development Partners purchased 11 days after the new law went into effect. The media event drew several dozen supporters, including former Denver Mayor
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Former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, at the mic during an October Save Open Space Denver press conference. Former state Sen. Penfield Tate III is to the right of Webb; former Colorado Gov. and First Lady Dick and Dottie Lamm are at far right. Photo by Cara DeGette
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In the latest twist to an ongoing tug-ofwar over the former Park Hill Golf Course, the group fighting to keep the 155 acres as open space stepped forward in late October to highlight a new state law they say makes the land off-limits to development. Specifically, the law governing conservation easements, signed by Gov. Jared Polis on June 30, now makes it more difficult to simply terminate land protection easements – including the easement currently in place on the golf course land. Previously, city officials, developers and open space advocates have all said terminating the existing conservation easement on the golf course property could be done with a simple majority vote of the Denver city council. Now, anyone who wants to terminate an easement must take their case to a judge, and convince that judge that it has become “impossible” to fulfill the easement’s purposes. The law applies not just to the golf course, but all conservation easements in Colorado. Open space advocates say they believe the change in law thwarts what many thought was a tacit backroom “wink and nod” agreement between the city and developers, who thought all they needed was a majority council vote.
Nearly 1 in 5 Colorado Newspapers Have Closed Since 2004. What Does This Do To Democracy?
First Family of 4th Of July Wins Babbs Award
Views Of The Neighborhood From 7,000 Feet Cute And Ferocious: The Debut Of Bugland
Upcoming GPHC Meetings Thursday, Nov. 7 at 2823 Fairfax St. at 6:30 p.m. All are welcome to attend. There is no monthly meeting in December. The January meeting is Thursday, Jan. 2.
park hill character
Guy Wroble with his rented Cessna 172 at Rocky Mountain airport after a tour of Park Hill by air on Oct. 16. Aerial shots from the day are on pages 16-17.
Life At 35,000 Feet Pilot Guy Wroble’s View From The Office Story and photos by Reid Neureiter For the GPHN
United Airlines pilot Guy Wroble has flown commercial airliners for more than 30 years. Those days are coming to a close as Wroble approaches the FAA’s mandatory retirement age of 65. Wroble was born in Grand Junction, grew up in Oregon and attended Notre Dame University. He spent six years in the Air Force, flying both supersonic RF-4 Phantom jets as a tactical reconnaissance pilot and the T-37 trainer as a flight instructor. After the Air Force, single and wanting, he says, in some small way to help make the world a better place, Wroble joined the
Peace Corps, where he taught math and science in Swaziland, Africa from 1984 to 1986. He obtained a Master’s degree in politics from the University of Bristol in the U.K., and then started flying for Pan Am in 1989. He met his wife Susan during the Pan Am stint, at a holiday party in Washington, D.C. Wroble joined United Airlines in 1991, and he and his family moved to a house on Grape Street in Park Hill the following year. That’s when he began working as an instructor at the nearby United Airlines training center on Quebec Street next to the then-Stapleton Airport. At dawn on Oct. 16, Wroble took the continued on page 16