“The Little Newspaper with the Big Influence” Volume 31 • Number 16 • March 14, 2013
www.villagerpublishing.com
Since 1982 303-773-8313 • Published every Thursday
What’s Inside
Retired Gen. Jim Hall of Centennial displays some of his original World War II bomber jackets. Hall was an Army flight engineer before beginning his decades of parachuting adventures.
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Arapahoe girls’ basketball team road to Final Four
Photo by Peter Jones
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Fine Arts Luncheon and Debutante Fashion Show
Center Park nominated for People’s Choice Award
Life & skydiving
FAR LEFT: Jim Hall, probably second from left, joins other Air Force parachutists in a training exercise.
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At 86, Centennial’s Gen. Jim Hall is jumping for joy
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Don’t Miss:
to select a new • Commissioners clerk and recorder next week
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By Peter Jones im Hall fell in love with parachuting – but before that, he fell on his butt. “It was my first jump. I damned near killed myself,” he said. “I wasn’t trained at all. We jumped into Old Mexico looking for gold. I got down and I landed very hard.” The 20-something college student was lucky enough to limp away from the hard landing with little more than a few bumps and bruises, but he learned a lesson about respecting the power of attitude and the skill of jumping at 18,000 feet. Some 3,000 jumps later, Hall is still an avid – but more skillful – skydiver. The 86-year-old took his most recent plunge from a perfectly operational airplane about 10 months ago. He will do it again soon – his breathing machine notwithstanding –whether his doctor likes it or not. “It’s all downhill,” he said. “What the hell’s so difficult about it?” Hall’s parachute has taken him in more directions than down. In addition to dropping into Mexico for a 21st century gold rush, the lifelong adventurer has literally fallen into military hotspots, flown combat tours over Japan, volunteered as a catapulted guinea pig and briefly fell in with Cuban revolutionaries. He even dropped into Hollywood as a stuntman and adventure writer. Any regrets? “No,” he says without missing a beat. Hall told his own true-life action story in Parachuting for Gold in Old Mexico, a 2010 memoir that could easily warrant its own big-screen action pic. The Centennial resident and retired 86-year-old Air Force general will be feted March 24 at Glenmoor Country Club in Cherry Hills Village. Proceeds will benefit a trust for Hall’s son, Jim “Eagle,” a Special Olympics’ athlete.
Page 6 Chamber to host health care symposium Page 7 Cherry Hills Village Council considers church expansion project Page 8
Index
Page 5..............................................Opinion Page 8.........................................Classifieds Page 10..............................................Sports Pages 11-19....................................Fleurish Pages 21-26......................................Legals Page 27.............................................School
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Partners Dave Burt and Jim Hall coordinated jumps for Hollywood productions in the 1950s and ’60s. Photos courtesy of Jim Hall
Littleton passes moratorium on pot businesses Cities continue to grapple with new reality of legal marijuana
By Peter Jones Littleton has joined the majority of south metro cities that have imposed a moratorium on marijuanarelated businesses in the wake of last year’s voter-approved passage of Amendment 64. On March 5, the City Council voted 6-1 to prohibit such establishments from operating within Littleton’s boundaries until at least Oct. 1. That is the date when the state must start processing applications for the retail outlets and production facilities that will be permitted under Colorado’s newest constitutional amendment. The October date follows a July 1 deadline, by which state regulators are supposed to have introduced regulations to implement the production and sale of marijuana. According to Littleton Mayor
Debbie Brinkman, City Council’s decision to enact a temporary moratorium should not necessarily be considered an indication of how the city will approach its permanent policy once state regulators finish their work. “The vote for the moratorium was a vote for smart planning,” she said. “It’s a balancing act between what can we do now without spinning our wheels once the state comes out with their stuff. We don’t want to have to backtrack and start over.” District 2 Councilman Jerry Valdes cast the sole vote against the moratorium, citing the fact that Amendment 64’s legalization of marijuana was approved by 51.5 percent of Littleton voters. Others, such as District 1’s Jim Taylor who generally agreed with Valdes
in principle, voted in favor of the moratorium to give the council time to craft thoughtful policy before the new industry has a chance to set up shop. Littleton is the latest city within Arapahoe County to address the ramifications of Amendment 64, which last year enshrined the recreational use marijuana in the state Constitution. The state initiative approved by 54 percent of Colorado voters allows limited possession and use of the plant by adults 21 and older. Previously, marijuana users in Colorado were required to have a state-issued medical-marijuana card and the approval of a licensed physician, per a previous constitutional amendment passed by voters in 2000. The eventual proliferation of medical-marijuana dispensaries
prompted many Colorado municipalities to ban or heavily regulate the prolific new industry.
No green in Greenwood
Although all of Littleton’s neighbors have either taken or are considering action to at least temporarily forestall a new wave of recreational marijuana businesses in their borders, there has been broad disparity in actions taken by the various cities. While Littleton and Englewood have enacted temporary moratoriums on such operations, Cherry Hills Village and Greenwood Village have already made their bans permanent. The latter has enacted some of the most stringent marijuana regulations in the state. In what is considered a test case that will likely be settled by the courts, Greenwood City Council banned possession of marijuana on all city property, which by the council’s definition included all public Continued page 4