NO HOLIDAY FOR CROOKS River Point steps up security
NEWS | PG 6
A GRAND PRESENTATION
WORKING ON CHRISTMAS
Debutante Ball tops off social season
Jewish community gives back
FLEURISH | PG 10-11
LOCAL | PG 14
VOLUME 35 • NUMBER 6 • DECEMBER 29, 2016
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2016, we hardly knew ye! Mayor Cathy Noon gives Centennial a Lyft.
Former U.S. Sen. Bill Armstrong was remembered as towering figure of the Reagan era. He died July 5 at age 79.
Nicolle Davies makes the cover of January’s Library Journal.
Herb Orvis joins the College Football Hall of Fame. Racers negotiate the first turn of the Littleton Twilight Criterium in August.
File photos
Time flies when you’re making history 2016 was more than a presidential election year in Arapahoe County. In addition to the surprise upset by Donald Trump—preceded by a three-way GOP protest in Greenwood Village—the year saw re-evaluation of the “purple” 6th Congressional District when Rep. Mike Coffman held onto his seat, again—this time, safely—despite a challenge from a high-profile Colorado Democrat. Like its predecessor, 2016 was another year of healing, as the powers that be continued to grapple with “what ifs,” in the years-on aftermath of a tragic school shooting. While two local school districts unsuccessfully battled charter schools, the public learned a thing or two about history and civil rights in movies
with strong local “characters.” Meanwhile, 15-year-old Centennial continued its role as a 21st century city with unequivocal jumps into a high-tech city-run business, a forward-thinking transportation solution and the building of a national reputation that belies Centennial’s relative youth. Two cities lost managers— one by resignation, the other by firing—while controversial issues of urban renewal and highdensity development played out in the regional backdrop. Here is a month-by-month retrospective on the year in Arapahoe County: January • Nicolle Davies, thenexecutive director of Arapahoe Library District, is named Librarian of the Year by Library Journal, the first in Colorado to earn the designation. “Nicolle brings both a strength of leadership and a refreshing spirit that is exciting for libraries and transformative for her commu-
nity,” the magazine wrote. In July, Davies accepts a similar position with the Charleston, S.C. library system. • Attorney Cole Wist gets the nod from a Republican vacancy committee to serve as a state representative for Centennial’s House District 37 after another vacancy committee taps Rep. Jack Tate to fill a vacant state Senate seat. • The National Football Foundation announces that onetime south Aurora resident Herb Orvis would be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. The retired University of Colorado Buff later played for the Detroit Lions and the Baltimore Colts. • A report from the University of Colorado’s Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence documents significant faults in Littleton Public Schools’ response to the 2013 murder of student Claire Davis at Arapahoe High School. “There were many missed opportunities to share information
about and intervene with [the shooter] …” The school district announces a series of policy changes in relation to these and other expert recommendations. February • State Rep. Daniel Kagan, DCherry Hills Village, introduces legislation to protect whistleblowers in school districts and other local governments. “The Claire Davis situation is yet another example of violations of public policy going on and people being intimidated from coming forward,” Kagan said. • A court upholds a decision by Arapahoe County Assessor Corbin Sakdol that the City of Aurora cannot delay taxincrement financing to property owners by as much as three years in a newly-designated urban-renewal area. Sakdol had been sued by the city. Later, a judge affirms another unpopular Sakdol decision about an urbanrenewal site in Littleton. Continued on page 3