A HOMETOWN HERO’S VIEW OF DISSING DEI
‘I thought there was progress in that area, but evidently there isn’t’
Ted Del Duca, President
Carolyn Renaud, Secretary
Luis Contreras, Treasurer Leaza Silver, Board Director
Mark Maryak, Board Director Jrace Walker, Board Director
Look at me now: Trump frames his disdain for Colorado Capitol portrait as ‘distortion’
Sorry to drag you through yet another “wait, what?” moment of our Aurora lives smothered in President Donald Trump, but this is just too Trump to hold back.
No, really. I know that every 15 minutes we all look at our doom scroll with the expectation of saying, “You’ve got to be kidding,” about something new President Nebbish Naranja horked out of his upper orifice.
While trying Sunday night to do what my family calls “real work,” which to them is anything that doesn’t involve reporting about Trump, my phone started lighting up from my fellow doomscrollers asking suddenly, “Why does Trump hate Aurora so much?”
Never a good sign.
I think wistfully back to the days of Trump’s first term when he spent most of his time hating on his hometown of New York, which spent so many years while he was president detailing why they loathed him all the way to South Florida.
DAVE PERRY Editor
Before you knew it, the courts took too long to finally convict Trump of at least one of the myriad jailable offenses he got busted for, and, so we were off to the presidential races.
One minute we were all yawning through yet another “Sleepy Joe Biden” monologue, and the next Trump was telling the nation that Aurora is overrun by Venezuelan immigrants and infamous Tren de Aragua prison gang members from that country.
Then Trump shows up right here in A-Town to double down on his crazy lies and propaganda.
“They’re eating the dogs,” in Ohio became the Aurora mantra about Venezuelan gangs “taking over the entire state.”
No one has ever seen anything like it, for sure.
Getting me back on track, a pal calls Sunday to explain that Trump hates his portrait at the Colorado Capitol and that’s why Aurora is screwed.
I said what I’ve said more times since Trump was re-elected than I’ve said my entire very long life.
“Huh?” Trump wrote on Truth Social that he’s “getting complaints” about his portrait that hangs in the Colorado Capitol, and he’s blaming Gov. Jared Polis, who invited millions of Venezuelan
gangsters into Aurora, which destroyed it.
“But Trump says he saved it,” my pal said. “See ya.”
It turns out, Trump just now discovered the 2018 Colorado “Pooty Portraitgate.”
Back then, we all had a good laugh when a painting of Russian President Vladimir Putin mysteriously appeared on an easel inside the Capitol near a place reserved for portraits of U.S. presidents. Trump’s own likeness had been missing from that revered spot since he’d been elected. But because nobody seemed to want to pony up the serious cash required to hire a portrait artist, and because it was Trump, nobody really cared.
The Pooty Portrait was a prank pulled off, seamlessly, by Ian Silvierri, a principal wag at ProgressNow Colorado, who sneaked it in and got a Democratic legislative helper in big trouble.
If you’re like most of us here in 2018, you’re shocked — shocked and dismayed — that a State Capitol Democratic aide would sink so low as to help prank a painting of Pooty into the Colorado Capitol just to stick a thumb in the misty eyes of those who support President Heel Spurs.
Or not. Mostly not.
After some serious gnashing of Republican molars, Trump fans agreed to raise a whopping 10-extra-large to have someone bring artistry to Trump’s face.
For ten grand, they got the same artist who painted President Obama for his place on the Colorado Capitol wall.
The work was, umm, pretty much what you’d expect. It totally looked like Trump in 2019, except for his skin looked kind of normal, not like that 1970s orange-American Motors Pacer thing he does to his face. And his face was kind of puffy like a Pacer. But mostly, artist Sarah Boardman managed to make him look almost human. Kind of wistful in a science-fiction dystopian disaster movie kind of way.
They hanged the thing, and we all moved on. Now we’re moving back.
Somehow, Dealin’ Don the White House Car Guy got a glimpse of the portrait and remarked that it looked nothing like the mug on all his presidential swag.
Trump said on Truth Social that it was “distorted.”
“Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves, but the one in Colorado, in the State Capitol, put up by the Governor, along with all other Presidents, was purposefully distorted to a level that even I, perhaps, have never seen before,” Trump wrote.
“Even I?” It’s hard to tell here if he’s admitting that nobody does distortion like Daddy Donny does distortion, or, perhaps, he has spent his entire life looking for distorted portraits and really knows his stuff.
Trump added that “Radical Left Governor, Jared Polis” is extremely weak on Crime in particular with respect to Tren de Aragua, which practically took over Aurora (Don’t worry, we saved it!).”
No one told President Tren Wreck that his Lost Aurora lies went off the rails weeks ago, and that Polis had absolutely nothing to do with making Trump’s face, shirt-pinched neck waddle, burnt-orange Scott Towel skin or Cowabunga comb-over creation.
Whatever it was, it immediately drew people Monday to the Capitol Wall O’ Presidents on Monday, where fans and foes ogled the strokes of genius.
“I think it looks like him. I guess he’s smoother than all the other ones,” Kaylee Williamson, an 18-year-old Trump supporter from Arkansas told an Associated Press reporter. “I think it’s fine.”
Polis spokesperson Shelby Wieman offered the most endearing comment to the AP in a statement. She said team Polis was “surprised to learn the President of the United States is an aficionado of our Colorado State Capitol and its artwork.”
This was our mile-high moment, folks.
“We appreciate the President and everyone’s interest in our Capitol building and are always looking for any opportunity to improve our visitor experience.”
A few hours later, Colorado legislative Republicans, who kind of own the painting and all of this, said they’ll take it down, raise another ten-large or so and find another painter.
How would you like that job? Who with any painting genes would sell out to paint that comb-over with a straight face? Maybe hold a contest at one of those places where you take a date, drink fruity beer and paint for a few hours. Of course the dating thing could be an obstacle. I doubt the neo-cons would get far on Tinder, Grindr or Hinge. I wonder if there’s something like that for far-right extremists. Bummr? Yawn?
Maybe just get some AI and spend the money on a nice frame.
Follow @EditorDavePerry on BlueSky, Threads, Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook or reach him at 303-750-7555 or dperry@SentinelColorado.com
Portraits of President Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama hang in the Capitol Rotunda in Denver on Monday, March 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Jesse Bedayn)
Aurora rebukes ICE claim that local police neglected call for help a er inmates escape
ICE CLAIMED PRISON OFFICIALS NOTIFIED POLICE
BY CASSANDRA BALLARD, Sentinel Staff Writer
One of two men who escaped last week from an Aurora immigration detention center was arrested March 21 after being found by a sheriff’s deputy about 12 miles away.
An Adam’s County Sheriff’s Office deputy approached Joel Gonzalez-Gonzalez, 32, around 4:30 a.m. because he was acting suspiciously, sheriff’s spokesperson Sgt. Adam Sherman said. When it was determined he was one of the two men who escaped March 18 night from the detention center in northwest Aurora, he was taken into temporary custody until U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrived, Sherman said.
The other person who escaped on that night remained at large.
They both apparently walked out of doors that opened during a power outage at the detention center at 3700 Oakland St., which is operated by The GEO Group under a contract with ICE.
ICE officials said they immediately asked local authorities for help finding the men. But Aurora police chief Todd Chamberlain said that they were not notified until over four hours after the men were gone. By that time, Chamberlain said it was too late for police to help.
Gonzalez-Gonzalez, who is from Mexico, had been held in the jail in Adams County from Feb. 9 through Feb. 12 in connection with local criminal charges, including second-degree motor vehicle theft, Sherman said.
Court documents in the criminal case were not immediately available. He is being represented in that case by a lawyer from the public defender’s office, which does not comment on its cases to the media.
ICE said it arrested Gonzalez-Gonzalez on Feb. 12, and he was taken to its detention center pending immigration proceedings. Gonzalez-Gonzalez has been in the United States since 2013 and violated the conditions of his admission, it said. It is not known whether Gonzalez-Gonzalez may have a lawyer representing him in his immigration case.
Chamberlain pushed back Thursday on an ICE narrative that prison officials notified local police “immediately” after two inmates escaped Tuesday night but wouldn’t help look for the missing immigrants.
“This is not anything like what has been portrayed,” Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain said at a March 20 press conference Thursday.
Police dispatch and other records reveal that it was hours after a power outage allowed two detainees to escape the north-Aurora immigration prison that ICE officials notified
“IMMEDIATELY” ABOUT ESCAPE, BUT RECORDS SHOW OTHERWISE.
dispatchers of the escape.
“The Aurora Police Department is ready and willing to help our federal partners, including those working at the ICE GEO facility,” Aurora police Chief Todd Chamberlain said in a statement March 20. “In order for us to effectively respond to and assist our federal partners with calls for service, we need to receive timely and accurate information. That, unfortunately, did not happen, as demonstrated by the facts of this incident.”
Aurora dispatch and police reports show that the power went out at the GEO ICE facility at 3130 Oakland St., at about 9:30 p.m. “causing the doors of at least one exit to become unlocked,” police said in a statement.
Aurora officer Ryan McCallian said in a report that he contacted GEO prison Assistant Facility Administrator Mohamed Bennani at about 5:30 a.m. Wednesday to get details on the escape of Gonzalez-Gonzalez, 32, and Jose Geilan Vido-Romero, 24.
Both men were being held on immigration retainers.
Bennani told police that the facility staff started an emergency count when the power went out and discovered at 12:35 a.m. Wednesday that both inmates were missing. But ICE officials did not make their first call to Aurora police until 2:30 a.m. March 19.
Since the escape happened approximately four hours before ICE called for police, Aurora’s watch commander determined the timeline of events did not meet the definition of a “hot” escape response, in accordance with a Memorandum of Understanding between ICE and APD, according to police spokesperson Joe Moylan.
By the time ICE contacted APD, the escape was considered “cold,” which means the event happened more than 15 minutes prior, and police were not immediately contacted. The call was then queued for follow-up.
Homeland Security officials have characterized the incident as a case of a local “sanctuary city” law enforcement working against efforts to detain and deport immigrants. Homeland Security Border Czar Tom Homan has accused local media, activists and Denver police of undermining ICE efforts to round-up immigrants during raids. Homan has blamed those entities for raids that net few arrests.
Chamberlain said Aurora police want to cooperated with ICE when it comes to securing community public safety, but he blamed the escapes on mistakes made by GEO jail officials, who waited hours to notify Aurora dispatchers.
“On an incident like this, had we been provided urgent and timely information, as opposed to four and a half to five hours
old, the circumstances and the outcome might have been very very different,” Chamberlain said.
McCallian responded to the GEO Corrections Detention Center at 5:13 a.m. Wednesday to take a report.
“The city of Aurora did not create this situation, but I want to assure our residents that an active investigation is underway to determine if these individuals have any connection with Aurora,” Chamberlain said in the statement. “If these two men are hiding out in our city, we will find them and return them to custody.”
Chamberlain noted, however, that as of about 5 p.m. March 20, federal warrants for the arrest of the two escapees were still incomplete, nearly 17 hours after their escape.
The state, meanwhile, issued a notice to law enforcement agencies to “be on the lookout” for the men but ICE did not ask for any other help, a spokesperson for Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, Ally Sullivan, said in a statement.
“We continue to urge ICE to be transparent with the state and the public about this incident as it develops, including whether any escapees are a danger to the public,” Sullivan said.
The Florida-based GEO Group said the power outage may have damaged portions of the facility’s security system, allowing the detainees to bypass security and scale a perimeter fence.
“We are working urgently to ensure that all necessary corrective actions are implemented to prevent such instances from reoccurring,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
TheAssociatedPresscontributedtothisstory.
Top: Police Chief Todd Chamberlain at a press conference at Aurora police headquarters March 20, 2025
AROUND AURORA
Hickenlooper collects stories at Aurora roundtable to persuade Republicans to halt cuts to VA, veterans Colorado veterans, Veteran Affairs employees and a Colorado senator say they are angry and fearful over the way the Trump Administration is handling massive federal government cuts and layoffs.
Painful “is the anxiety of coming into work every morning and wondering if you’re going to get that email saying that you’re fired,” Kevin Eherenman, Veterans Benefits Administration congressional liaison at the Denver VA regional office and a 12-year Navy vet, told participants at an Aurora roundtable discussion March 18. “The morale in our office is in the toilet.”
Democratic Sen. John Hickenlooper held the group discussion along with Aurora Mental Health and Recovery to talk with veterans and VA employees about the administration’s cuts and firings and how they affect veterans and military-connected families in Colorado.
Hickenlooper said it made him angry, which he says is rare for him, adding that he can count on one hand the times congress has made him angry.
“The talk about waste, fraud and abuse in the Veterans Administration drives me nuts,” Hickenlooper said. “Any time I hear people discrediting and tearing down the Veterans Administration in any way, it gets me in a place that I don’t usually go to.”
When the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, run by billionaire Elon Musk, cut employment for the Department of Veteran Affairs, including the Veteran Benefits Administration, it resulted in 6,000 layoffs and an additional 80,000 estimated layoffs for VA employees, most of whom were veterans.
“This is egregious,” Hickenlooper said.
Hickenlooper said he knows “for a fact” from the years he was Colorado governor that the VA never had enough funding, so the Trump cuts will hurt veterans significantly.
Hickenlooper said he enjoys “good” relationships with 20 to 25 Republican senators right now. He said he hopes to take the veterans’ stories from Aurora to share with those GOP senators and persuade them to make changes.
“The more stories I can give to them about what’s really happening, the better,” Hickenlooper said. “The sooner we’re going to turn this around and begin to recognize and deliver on some of that funding that you guys are all deserving of.”
Almost all of the people at the roundtable were veterans or a spouse of a veteran. Three veterans there spoke about how they served and worked for the VA and were recently laid off.
Christopher Jones, a VA attorney, was hired after working as a labor and employment lawyer in the Air Force for nearly 15 years. Jones said that firing and rehiring people without thought is a waste.
“Not only is it a waste of money and time and effort, but it breaks trust with employees and veterans,” Jones said. “When you do that, the best employees are going to leave, and that’s going to directly affect VA healthcare.”
Jones said he was one of the VA employees who was fired on Feb. 11. He was asked to return, but the stress took too large a toll on him and his family.
Brett Taylor is another veteran who worked for the VA and said he was on vacation in Florida shopping at a Lowes when he got the firing email Feb. 24, and he had no idea how to respond. Taylor worked to help homeless veterans into housing after recently leaving social work in the VA to have a job with more focus.
“I relocated here,” Taylor said. “Now I’m without a job.”
Taylor said that VA Secretary Doug Collins — the person Trump officials say is managing the cuts — is trying to take the VA back to 2019 budget numbers.
“I was a social worker with the VA in (Saint Petersburg) Florida, in 2019, so I knew at that time we were understaffed,” Taylor said. “When you’re understaffed, it doesn’t make people want to stay because the caseload gets higher. That was one of the main reasons why I came to Colorado.”
He said Colorado’s program is case-oriented, and he found it appealing because it allows him to focus on a certain group instead of being overloaded constantly. Taylor worked his way up in the VA from a housekeeper to a social worker, and from his experience, he said, “every position in the VA is essential.”
“I don’t think anybody should get fired, not the way they did it anyway,”
Taylor said. “I don’t see how any veteran in America will trust the VA right now because wait times are already super long, so now they’re going to get even longer.”
As a disabled combat vet, Taylor said he is concerned about vets who aren’t being cared for. Vets chose this agency because it was supposed to be something stable, and now they’ve been shown it’s not, he said.
Ryan Bevard is a veteran who worked with Taylor as a social work associate. He said he worked for Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center for eight years. He recently switched to becoming a social work associate for the VA and was just a month shy of finishing the beginning probationary period for the new job.
Probationary employment for the VA was the main reason for layoffs for people at the roundtable.
“That day, I was trying to go on apartment showings to get one veteran housed,” he said. “I stopped back and got a quick lunch, got the email forwarded on to the supervisors, and then I had to go to meet another veteran so he could hopefully get into his new apartment. It wasn’t until I came back after that reality sank in, and it has made me furious.”
He said what upset him most was that the social workers and other employees now have to pick up his caseloads.
“It’s affecting the veterans,” Bevard said. “They’re getting affected by not having the staff because they have to wait for people to actually fulfill the needs.”
Marsha Unruh, program director of Home Front Military, said she is already seeing the impact of layoffs. Community resource groups like hers will have to take on the extra responsibility, and she said they can’t handle that kind of capacity. She currently has an 87-year-old man who can’t be seen by the VA for healthcare for six months.
Joshua Medina, veterans service supervisor for Arapahoe Veterans Service Office, said he didn’t understand how it saves money when they need to fill 300,000 positions in the VA and will also need to replace the 80,000 they fired, especially when onboarding costs $200,000.
Carol Reszka, Aurora Mental Health and Recovery center program manager, said that not knowing what will happen tomorrow and the ups and downs are difficult for veterans with trauma.
“One of the things that is the worst thing for trauma is not being able to have any choice, not being able to have any agency over the decisions that you need to make for yourself and your family,” Reszka said.
The unpredictability can add a lot of stress to the family as well.
“It’s not just the firing; it’s also the hiring freezes, and so the family unit portion of that really comes down to the Child Development Centers,” said Rob Duvall, Regional Military Affairs for Buckley Base.
Duvall said some agencies have had to shutter their Child Development Care facilities, including at Peterson Space Force Base, which will have
to shut down childcare programs and reduce the capacity. Buckley Space Force Base is about to do the same, he said. If they can’t hire for those positions, spouses of military members won’t be able to afford to work because of the high cost of daycare.
Amy Demenge, state veteran service officer, said Colorado has 40,000 women veterans, and the fear is the government will take away their healthcare. She said women veteran’s health training was recently removed because of DEI restrictions imposed by the Trump administration.
Former state lawmaker Debbie Stafford, faith-based coordinator at Aurora Mental Health and Recovery, said that they recently lost grant funding that provided assistance to local refugees and immigrants.
“We work with many veterans who are also a part of that group, and they’ve come here with agreements from other countries, Afghanistan and other places,” Dazey said. “The pain is that somebody takes an ink pen and draws a line and then has no idea of the unintended consequences, especially those that have very restricted funding.”
Places that rely on grant funding rarely have other ways to backfill or find that funding.
“These organizations are making investments with philanthropic
dollars, with the anticipation of grant money, filling back those after sustainability, and when that grant funding goes away, these organizations are stuck with that bill, and it makes it harder to provide those resources,” Reagan said.
Joe Reagan, director of the Veterans Business Outreach Center at Mt. Carmel Veterans Service Center, said there are about 48,000 veteran-owned small businesses across the state of Colorado, which generate about $21 billion in revenue. Trump’s cut on the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, which is a tool for our communities to help invest in small businesses, will now affect small businesses, including veteran-owned ones.
“This goes well beyond just the VA aspect of this,” he said. “These are a lot of these pre-revenue businesses that are just getting their startup.”
Local small businesses are also affected by cuts in grants for using diversity, equity, and inclusion language in their programs.
“It’s difficult for us to provide those resources because we’re being constrained by executive orders that have nothing to do with the actual services being offered,” Reagan said.
— Cassandra Ballard, Sentinel Staff Writer
Aurora city officials see continued flat retail sales and tax revenues ‘concerning’
The latest retail sales and tax receipts reports for Aurora continue to paint a dismal economic picture as city officials develop a program to shore up retail sales, and city tax revenues.
“It is the first time since I’ve been here that we’ve rounded off like this and have been looking at flat numbers,” Robert Olivia, senior project manager of Aurora Planning and Development Services told members and staff of the city’s Planning and Economic Development Policy Committee last week. “And so it is concerning.”
Olivia presented a retail sales update for all the different categories in retail sales for the Committee on March 12.
For the last few months, city economic and retail officials have been pouring over data in an effort to determine why store and restaurant sales are flat or falling, and what the city can and should do about it.
The sales-tax drop has also prompted warnings from city officials to expect a budget deficit and required budget cuts, possibly significant. City ›› See METRO, 21
ARAPAHOE COUNTY
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MANY TUSKEGEE AIRMEN ARE GONE. THEY’RE MEMORIES ARE NOT.
By MEAD
With members of a trailblazing Black Air Force unit passing away at advanced ages, efforts to remain true to their memory carry on despite sometimes confusing orders from President Donald Trump as he purges federal diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
Col. James H. Harvey III, 101, is among the last few airmen and support crew who proved that a Black unit — the 332nd Fighter Group of the Tuskegee Airmen — could fight as well as any other in World War II and the years after.
He went on to become the first Black jet fighter pilot in Korean airspace during the Korean War, and a decorated one after 126 missions. He was one of four Tuskegee Airmen who won the first U.S. Air Force Gunnery Meet in 1949, a forerunner of today’s U.S. Navy “Top Gun” school.
“They said we didn’t have any ability to operate aircraft or operate heavy machinery. We were inferior to the white man. We were nothing,” Harvey said. “So we showed them.”
Shortly after Trump’s January inauguration, the Air Force removed new recruit training courses that included videos of the Tuskegee Airmen.
The removal drew bipartisan outrage and the White House’s ire over what Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth described as “malicious implementation” of Trump’s executive order.
The Air Force reversed course this week.
Announcing the reversal, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin said in a statement that the initial removal was because the service, like other agencies, had to move swiftly to comply with Trump’s executive order with “no equivocation, no slow-rolling, no foot-dragging.”
The videos were shown to troops as part of DEI courses taken during basic military training. Some photos of Tuskegee Airmen were also among tens of thousands of images in a Pentagon database flagged for removal.
“I thought there was progress in that area, but evidently there isn’t,” said Harvey, who blamed Trump for contributing to what he sees as worsening prejudice in the U.S.
“I’ll tell him to his face. No problem,” he said. “I’ll tell him, ‘You’re a racist,’ and see what he has to say about that. What can they do to me? Just kill me, that’s all.”
The Tuskegee Airmen unit was established in 1941 as the 99th Pursuit Squadron based at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. The 99th became the 332nd Fighter Group, which by war’s end destroyed or damaged more than 400 enemy aircraft in North Africa and Europe during the war and sank a German destroyer in action.
Of the 992 Tuskegee Airmen trained as pilots starting in 1942, 335 were deployed, 66 were killed in action and 32 who were shot down became war prisoners.
In 1949, two months after the airmen’s gunnery meet victory in the propeller-driven class, the U.S. Air Force integrated Black and white troops and the Tuskegee Airmen were absorbed into other units.
It took the Air Force almost half a century to recognize 332nd’s last achievement: Its success in aerial bombing and shooting proficiency in the gunnery meet at what is now Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.
For decades, the winners were listed as “unknown” and their trophy was missing.
“We won them all,” Harvey said. “We weren’t supposed to win anything because of the color of our skin.”
Harvey trained during World War II but was not deployed to combat before the war ended. In Korea, he flew the F-80 Shooting Star jet fighter and earned medals including the Distinguished Flying Cross.
He retired as a lieutenant colonel in 1965 and received an honorary promotion to colonel in 2023.
Trump in 2020 promoted another of the last surviving Tuskegee Air-
men, Charles McGee, to brigadier general. McGee died in 2022 at age 102.
Harvey still regards the Air Force Gunnery Meet as his biggest accomplishment, one the Air Force finally recognized in 1993.
Their missing trophy was found in a museum storeroom not long after.
“We were good, and they couldn’t take it away from us,” Harvey said. “We were good. And I’ll repeat it until I die.”
Aurora’s history with Tuskegee Airmen
Harvey isn’t the only Aurora link to the storied Tuskegee Airmen.
The proverbial trails blazed by Aurora’s John W. Mosley took on many forms: racially intolerant classrooms, football fields and the skies above war zones all became hallmarks of a life spent at the forefront of progress.
The Denver native was the first-ever Black player on what is now the Colorado State University football team, and he was one of the first Black men trained as a bomber pilot during the Second World War, serving with the famed Tuskegee Airmen before trading in his military service for a life of community leadership in Aurora.
Mosley died in 2015 at age 93. The Edna and John W Mosely P-8 School in Aurora is named in his honor and that of his wife, Edna, a former Aurora city council member.
Following congressional legislation passed in 2021, Aurora’s VA outpatient clinic on the Fitzsimons campus was dedicated to Tuskegee Airman and to Mosley.
Mosley was born June 21, 1921. In his teenage years, he attended Manual High School, where he was both a standout football player and as a student, becoming a National Merit Scholar.
But for all his high school accomplishments, college life was far from easy for Mosley. He enrolled at Colorado State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts (now Colorado State University) after graduating from Manual in 1939. As one of only nine Black students at the time, Mosley was barred from living in the campus residence halls and denied service at many Fort Collins restaurants.
Despite those obstacles, Mosley became the first Black player to join the college’s football team and earned all-conference honors as a wrestler for the Aggies. He also was elected class vice president in his junior and senior years at A&M, graduating in 1943.
With the Second World War well underway, Mosley took flying lessons with hopes of being drafted to joined the all-Black 99th Fighter Squadron, better known as the Tuskegee Airmen of Alabama. Instead, he was assigned to an artillery unit at Fort Sill, Okla., until a letter-writing campaign prompted his reassignment to Tuskegee, where he trained as a bomber pilot.
Mosley then traveled across the Atlantic to join the war effort, escorting other aircraft as they flew over enemy territory.
The Tuskegee Airmen flew 15,000 missions over North Africa and Europe during the Second World War. John also would serve as a pilot in the Berlin Airlift after the war, delivering loads of supplies to the Soviet-blockaded sectors of the city.
John later served — in a then-integrated Army Air Force — after being called up from his reserve unit during the Korean War and the Vietnam War.
After his service in Europe, Mosley received a master’s degree from the University of Denver and went to work as a youth coordinator in Kansas City, Mo., for the YMCA.
John and Edna, moved to Aurora in 1965 when he was transferred to Lowry Air Force Base. In those years, John worked at the regional office for the Department of Health and Human Services. Edna later became an Aurora city councilperson.
In later years, John and Edna worked to created a non-profit organization to provide scholarships to Black high school students to college.
One of the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen lives in Aurora and remembers struggle for recognition amid Trump’s DEI purge
GRUVER and THOMAS PEIPERT Associated Press 101-year-old
H. Harvey III, one of
last surviving Tuskegee Airmen, wears a jacket adorned with pins and patches at the Veterans Community Living Center in Aurora, Colo., Wednesday, March 12, 2025.
Photo/Thomas Peipert
Below top: Regis Jesuit sophomore Natalie Daum couldn’t extend the program’s run of winning Class 5A state championships in the 100 yard breaststroke, but she claimed third for one of two All-Aurora spots.
Below middle: Regis Jesuit junior Lexi Stramel, right, claimed third place in the 500 yard freestyle at the 5A state meet.
Below bottom: Rangeview senior Hailey McDonald, center, earned the 1-meter diving spot on the All-Aurora
Regis Jesuit lost a significant amount of points from last season’s near-miss run at the Class 5A girls swimming state championship.
The Raiders made up for it with improved depth in addition to the rise of some young swimmers, which landed the state runner-up trophy for a third consecutive season.
Regis Jesuit swimmers earned a large proportion of the spots on the 2025 AuroraSentinelAll-Aurora Girls Swim Team — as determined primarily by performance at the state meet — which is rounded out by individuals from Grandview and Rangeview.
the medal podium in third. Her finals time of 1:03.97 brought her in behind Boulder’s Hazel Huilman and Cherry Creek’s Sydney Fernstrom. Daum’s top time of the year in the event also came at The REX Invitational with a 1:03.31.
Terella earned the All-Aurora spots in the 100 yard butterfly and 100 backstroke, in which she came the closest to winning a state title for Regis Jesuit. Terella touched the wall in 56.45 seconds, which was only behind Elise Ramsden of Heritage (56.11), and represented a rise of three spots from her pre-meet seeding of fifth. Terella’s season-best time of 56.15 in the prelims of the 100 butterfly put her in the finals, where she clocked a 56.29 to place fifth.
Winter stars, Pt. 1
BY
Coach Nick Frasersmith’s Regis Jesuit team saw the state title slip away in the final event of the 2024 meet and then graduated a group of seniors that included two-time 100 yard breaststroke state champion in Charlotte Burnham as well as divers Maya Kriz and Sarah Mann, who finished second and third. Meanwhile, Cherry Creek got even stronger and cruised to its fifth consecutive state title. The Raiders cleared Fairview by a whopping 86 points for second place, despite not winning a single event.
Regis Jesuit junior Lexi Stramel ruled the Aurora area in distance freestyle events, as she finished third in both the 200 and 500 freestyles. Stramel made the biggest rise in the 500 freestyle, in which she was seeded No. 11 coming into state and went more than six seconds faster in the finals with a 5:06.11. She rose from the No. 8 seed in the 200 freestyle to third with a time of 1:53.01 that marked a two-second improvement.
For the full All-Aurora Girls Swim team, visit sentinelcolorado. com/preps
Regis Jesuit’s runner-up finish looked different due to the graduation from last season’s team. Without the points scored by the departed swimmers and divers, the Raiders needed contributions from many young swimmers and most definitely got them. Sophomores Natalie Daum and Ava Terella especially rose to the occasion and earned two All-Aurora first team spots apiece.
Daum went into the state meet as the No. 1 seed in both the 200 yard individual medley and 100 yard breaststroke and though a state title eluded her in both, she was the area’s best with third-place finishes in both. Daum touched the wall in 2:05.37 in the finals of the 200 yard IM in third behind Elliana Wiesen of Valor Christian and ThunderRidge’s Annabeth Town, who were there two seconds faster. Her fastest time of the year was 2:05.27 when she won the event at The REX Coaches Invitational.
Regis Jesuit’s streak of state titles in the 100 yard breaststroke came to an end at five — Sophia Bradac won the 2020 title, followed by wins in 2021 and 2022 by Emma Weber (who has gone on to swim in the Olympics) and the 2023 and 2024 titles of Burnham — but Daum finished just two spots down on
Daum and Terella also earned All-Aurora status with relays, as they both swam legs of the 200 yard medley and 400 yard freestyle relays. Joining the duo on the 200 medley relay (which placed third) were junior Jamie Young and sophomore Mia Staubli, while the 400 yard freestyle (rounded out by senior Elise Kittleson and freshman Elsa Osborne) placed fourth. Kittleson, Young, Osborne and sophomore Marz Nystrom combined on a fifth-place 200 yard freestyle team that edged Grandview by 0.15 of a second.
The only non-Regis Jesuit swimmer to earn an All-Aurora first team spot is Grandview sophomore Makenna Dyk, who earned the mantle of the area’s fastest sprinter. Dyk — the only returning point scorer in the swim events for coach James Boone’s Wolves — won the Centennial “A” League championship in the 50 yard freestyle and went into state as the No. 3 seed. In a final that included Pine Creek superstar Madison Mintenko, Dyk finished in a tie for fifth with a time of 23.89 seconds, which bettered her season best (from prelims) by 0.02 of a second.
The All-Aurora 1-meter diving spot goes to Rangeview senior Hailey McDonald, who was the lone area qualifier to make it all the way to the finals. McDonald (a Vista PEAK Prep student who competes for the Raiders’ co-op team) earned a season-high score of 411.65 points to place 13th, coincidentally the same place as her coach, Sarah Mortensen, who scored the last points for Rangeview at the state meet in 2019.
ALL-AURORA GIRLS SWIMMING
COURTNEY OAKES Sports Editor
Right: Grandview sophomore Makenna Dyk captured the 50 yard freestyle spot on the 2025 Aurora Sentinel All-Aurora Girls Swim Team.
Girls Swim Team with her 13th-place finish at the 5A state meet.
PHOTOS BY COURTNEY
OAKES/AURORA SENTINEL
MASTERS OF
2025 Aurora Sentinel All-Aurora boys and girls
BY COURTNEY OAKES Sports Editor
Alarge number of medals came back from Ball Arena around the necks of Aurora area boys and girls from the Class 5A state tournaments.
By the time three days of competition ended in mid-February, the area had crowned four champions, four runners-up and a total of 21 wrestlers had earned podium places as top-six finishers in their respective weights.
Here’s a look at the most outstanding performances at the state tournament and throughout the season at each weight:
STATE CHAMPIONS JR ORTEGA, IAN BACON
HEADLINE ALL-AURORA BOYS WRESTLING TEAM
One of the Aurora area’s best overall seasons for boys wrestling in quite some time is reflected by the composition of the 2025 AuroraSentinelAll-Aurora Boys Wrestling Team.
Two Class 5A state champions, five finalists and a total of 11 top-six placers — which represent four different area programs — fill the 14 first team spots as decided primarily by performance at the state tournament.
Grandview finished third in the 5A standings for the second straight season and coach Ryan Budd’s teams did so with help of the strength of three finalists in sophomore JR Ortega (113 pounds), junior Jonathan Montes Gonzales (150) and sophomore Leland Day (285).
Ortega emerged as the lone state champion in the group, as he emerged victorious with a 5-0 victory over Fruita Monument’s Kel Unrein that completed a 36-6 season. It marked his second place in as many seasons as he was third a year ago.
Montes Gonzales lost for the second straight season in the 150 pound final and though he was pinned last season, he went all the way to the last second this time with Arvada West’s Auston Eudaly. Eudaly had Montes Gonzales’ number this season, as he won for the third time when they met this season with a 6-5 decision that made him 35-7 for the season. Day (whose season included a championship at the Top of the Rockies) made his first state championship match and finished as the runner-up with a 4-0 loss to Fruita Monument’s Tatum Williams.
Grandview’s All-Aurora contingent also includes senior
and Oz Nowick (215) plus freshman Cade Hirstine (165), the only non-state qualifier on the All-Aurora team.
Herting — Aurora’s most prolific pinner and Grandview’s all-time leader in wins by fall — won his first state championship last season at 165 pounds and put himself on track to win the 175-pound crown this season. Pomona’s Emmitt Munson brought an end to his 14-match winning streak in the semifinals with an overtime decision, while Herting rebounded to win the third-place match to finish 44-5.
Also placing third for the Wolves was Lopez, who raised his level as he trained with Montes Gonzales and he ended up winning four of his five state matches, with the only loss coming by two points in the semifinals. He won by major decision in the third-place match to finish 38-7. Widrikis went 40-10 and finished in fifth place, while a sixth-place results went to Nowick. Streit did not place in his second trip to state as he went 1-2 to finish the season 34-11. The only weight to not feature an Aurora area state qualifier was at 165 pounds, where Hirstine performed the best with a 13-5 record. He won all four dual matches when he was in the lineup, earned his way to the final at the Centennial League Championships and finished 3-2 and in fifth place in the Region 3 tournament.
Vista PEAK Prep had a breakthrough from junior Ian Bacon, the program’s first state champion boys or girls, as he beat twin sister Amelia to the punch by just a few minutes. Bacon went from not placing at last season’s state tournament to the top step of the podium as he put it all together in the key stretch of the campaign. A win by fall over Cherokee Trail sophomore Cooper Mathews — who was aiming to become a two-time state champion — finished Bacon’s history-making season with a 43-7 record.
Cherokee Trail landed three spots on the All-Aurora team for seniors Chance Mathews (138) and Mateo Garreffa (190) as well as freshman Elijah Van Horn (106). Chance Mathews had placed twice in his career, but finally earned a chance to wrestle for a state championship (with a bonus that he got to share the Parade of Champions and finals spotlight with brother Cooper). The Air Force recruit could not complete his title quest, however, as he lost a 5-4 decision to Pomona’s Angel Serrano. Mathews finished with an area-best 51 wins. Garreffa earned his way into the semifinals for a second straight season, but again was stopped a win shy of wres-
Charlie Herting (175), junior Gunner Lopez (157), sophomores Graeson Streit (132), Braxston Widrikis (144)
ABOVE: Grandview sophomore JR Ortega captured the Class 5A boys wrestling state championship at 113 pounds. BELOW TOP: Grandview senior Charlie Herting placed third at 175 pounds a season after winning the 165-pound state title. BELOW MIDDLE: Cherokee Trail senior Mateo Garreffa, second from left, came in fourth at 190 pounds at the 5A boys state tournament. BELOW BOTTOM: Grandview junior Gunner Lopez finished 4-1 at the 5A boys state tournament and earned third place at 157 pounds. (Photos by Courtney Oakes/Aurora Sentinel)
OF THE MAT girls wrestling teams heavy on state standouts
tling for a state title. He lost by decision in the semifinals and then by decision in overtime in the third-place match to finish fourth and complete a 45-9 season. Van Horn got into the lineup when Cooper Mathews moved to 120 (which allowed sophomore Charlie Rider to move up to 113) and he capitalized by making his way to state, winning three matches and placing sixth.
Rounding out the All-Aurora team is Eaglecrest senior Alijah Gabaldon at 126 pounds. A state placer as a junior, Gabaldon was in and out of the lineup due to injury, but qualified again and finished 2-2 to cap a 20-7 campaign.
REMINGTON ZIMMERER, AMELIA BACON GIVE ALLAURORA GIRLS WRESTLING TEAM WINNING FLAVOR
For the first time, two Aurora area girls wrestlers earned state championships and that pair — Regis Jesuit sophomore Remington Zimmerer and Vista PEAK Prep junior Amelia Bacon — headline the 2025 Aurora Sentinel All-Aurora Girls Wrestling Team.
Vista PEAK Prep competed for the first time under the guidance of Ashley Jaramillo, who competed for the program before the sport became officially sanctioned. It was a very successful debut for Jaramillo, who had four All-Aurora performers that helped the Bison place an area-best seventh.
Leading the way was Bacon, who took the final step to program history as she surpassed herself last season as well as Leilani Caamal in 2022 when she won the title. Bacon completed a remarkable season with a championship to match her twin brother, Ian, as she held on for a 5-4 win over Castle View’s Zaret Silva Lopez. She suffered just one defeat.
The Bison’s All-Aurora group included two other placers in junior Parice Jones and sophomore Khloe Yizar, who finished fourth at 190 and 235 pounds, respectively. Jones won her first two state matches by fall to reach the semifinals, then rebounded from a loss and won in the consolation semifinals before she lost by fall in the third-place match to finish 23-9. Yizar got pinned by Overland’s Ruth Worknhe in the opening round, but returned the favor four rounds later with a win that put her in the third-place match, where she lost a gritty 1-0 decision to complete a 21-9 season. Vista PEAK Prep junior Hailey Brown was the only Aurora area wrestler to make state at 115 pounds and two losses gave her a 20-16 final record.
Regis Jesuit’s lone All-Aurora performer was Zimmerer, who followed up an oustanding freshman campaign with a special sophomore season that finished with a state title. Wrestling for a team coached by her father, Zach, Zimmerer represented the Raiders all the way through the tournament to a championship matchup against national ranked Amaya Hinojosa of Widefield. Zimmerer proved the aggressor in the match, got a lead and held on for a 6-4 defeat to become her program’s first all-time state winner to end a 38-3 season.
The area’s largest team — Eaglecrest, which also has wrestlers from other district schools — is again well represented on the All-Aurora first team with seven from coach Horacio Vialpando’s team, which placed 12th. Three Raptors earned their way onto the medal podium in seniors Bailee Mestas (130 pounds) and Natalie Replogle (145) plus freshman Maxime Lantz at 140 pounds.
Mestas qualified for state for the first time and she made some noise in her debut, as she earned wins in four of her six matches and claimed fourth place at 130 pounds. Mestas finished with a season record of 42-15. Lantz’s debut season turned out very well, as she won her first match by fall, rebounded from a quarterfinal defeat with three more wins by fall and lost a tight one-point decision in the thirdplace match. Lantz finished 34-16. Replogle had previous state experience, but earned her best result as a senior with a sixth-place finish at 145 pounds that included three wins in six matches and a 35-16 final record.
Eaglecrest’s other All-Aurora performers who did not place were juniors Sofie Ghasabyan (100) and Sydney Babi (110) along with senior Alaysia Ornelas (135) and freshman Tatum Debalak (115). Babi (42-11) was the lone wrestler in the group to win a match at state and she claimed two of them, but lost by decision in the third round of consolations to come up just shy of breaking into the placing round. Ghasabyan (30-18 for the season), Debelak (27-18) and Ornelas (24-19) all finished 0-2 with losses on both sides of the bracket.
Two other Aurora area programs are represented on the All-Aurora first team as Smoky Hill sophomore Hailey Torrez earned the 155-pound slot and Overland sophomore Jackelyn Torreblanca Oseguera made the lineup at 170. Both made their state debuts and both earned a victory in the first round of the consolation bracket, as Torrez (who 8-8 on the season) and Oseguera (12-12) won by fall.
LEFT: Vista PEAK Prep junior twins Ian, left, and Amelia Bacon won Class 5A boys and girls state championships this season on the same night at Ball Arena. ABOVE: Regis Jesuit’s Remington Zimmerer smiles as she stands atop the medal stand after winning the Class 5A girls wrestling state championship at 120 pounds.
TOP: Eaglecrest’s Bailee Mestas receives her medal after she placed fourth at 130 pounds at the 5A girls wrestling state tournament. BELOW CENTER: Vista PEAK Prep’s Khloe Yizar earned fourth place at 235 pounds . BELOW BOTTOM: in her first trip to the 5A girls wrestling state tournament, Eaglecrest’s Maxime Lantz, right, placed fourth at 140 pounds. (Photos by Courtney Oakes/Aurora Sentinel)
PREPS
WEEK PAST
The week past in Aurora prep sports
SATURDAY, MARCH 22: The Grandview baseball team earned a wind-blown 12-2 home win over Fort Collins that saw Ethan Wachsmann and Justin Dean combine to allow just six hits and one earned run. Jax Pfister drove in three runs on three hits, Kyler Vaughn homered and scored three times and Kayden Bohmeyer tripled in a pair for the Wolves. ...Ryan Luevanos struck out 12 and allowed on a single hit over seven innings as the Rangeview baseball team downed visiting Thornton 5-1. RJ Salas had an RBI for the Raiders, who won with just three hits. ...The Vista PEAK Prep baseball team split two games and finished second at the Fort Morgan Mustang Classic after an 8-2 loss to Northfield in the final game. Eric Houser picked up the win on the mound in a 12-2 victory over Valley and had two hits against Northfield, while Ace Kelly and Brody Brancato had two RBI apiece in the first game. ...The Grandview boys track team had three event champions — Zach Johnston in the 100 meters and Revano Plummer in the 400 meters plus the 4x100 meter relay — in a runner-up finish among 26 scoring teams at the Runners Roost Invitational in Fort Collins. Third-place Rangeview had two winners in Abdinasir Hassan (3,200 meters) and Yasin Sekue (high jump), while Regis Jesuit finished 12th. The Grandview and Rangeview girls finished eighth and ninth, while Regis Jesuit was 20th in the girls standings. ...Nurudeen Diallo (long jump), Jason Lamosi (triple jump) and Taylor Waters (pole vault) were event winner for the Cherokee Trail boys track team at the Broomfield Shootout, while Eaglecrest took the 4x100 meter relay. The Raptors also claimed the girls 4x100 meter relay and Cherokee Trail’s Kaeli Powe topped the triple jump. ...Despite seven goals from Madisyn Jokerst and four from Natalie Chilton, the Regis Jesuit girls lacrosse team couldn’t dig out of an early hole in a 16-14 home loss to St. Ignatius, an undefeated team from California. ...FRIDAY, MARCH 21: The Regis Jesuit baseball team played its long-awaited season opener and blanked Fort Collins 10-0 in an evening contest. Hudson Alpert (six strikeouts in three innings) and Luke Reasbeck combined on a two-hit shutout for the Raiders, whiel the pair also combined for five hits and 2 RBI apiece. Christian Lopez, Gavin Cronin and Nick Wiley had two hits apiece and Carter Rathbun knocked in a pair for Regis Jesuit. ...The Vista PEAK baseball team exploded in the fifth inning in an 18-0 win over Alameda at the Fort Morgan Mustang Classic. Eli Garcia allowed just two hits in five innings on the mound, while Domenic Montoya, Abel Salinas, Ezra Wise and Eric Houser drove in two runs apiece. ... Hudson Roth threw a complete game for the Smoky Hill baseball team in a 4-3 loss to Bloomfield (New Mexico) at the Farmington Invitational. Tate DeMara and Jovani Galvan had RBI for the Buffs. ...THURSDAY, MARCH 20: Behind a five-inning, 11-strikeout effort from starting pitcher Emmanuel De La Torre, the Rangeview baseball team won a 13-3 visit to Overland Derek Catalan, Sebastian Heredia-Ruiz and Ryan Luevanos had two RBI apiece for the Raiders, while Ruben Luna had two of the Trailblazers’ five hits and Uriel Hernandez drove in a run. ... Hazel Bonansinga’s two second-half goals — with assists to Zurisaddai Gonzalez Del Villar and Zuleyka Perez — lifted the Rangeview girls soccer team to a 2-0 win over visiting Gateway Keimora Prosser needed just three saves for the shutout for the Raiders. ...Yosseline Monsivais scored for the Aurora West College Prep Academy girls soccer team in a 1-1 tie with Lotus School For Excellence, which got its score from Samantha Guzman. ...The Overland girls soccer team earned a 3-2 road win at Thornton. ...The Regis Jesuit boys swim team played
host to Grandview for a local dual and earned a 132-44 victory in a meet that featured a combined 23 performances that qualified for the Class 5A state meet. Spencer Greene and Reid Magner won two events apiece for the Raiders, who also got winsn from Davis Brown, Colin Kohl, Nolan Kohl and Julian Kramer in addition to a relay sweep, while the Wolves’ win came in diving from Hunter Bull. ...The Vista PEAK Prep boys track team finished in fifth place among 29 scoring teams at the Denver South Raven Invitational. The Bison’s effort was led by a 100 meter dash victory for Isaiah Watson, who also combined with Leyton Youmans, Joshua Gallien and Tyrone Smiley to win the 4x100 meter relay. Nabria Minor, Anyelah Kelly, Amaya Rogers and Elazia Patton won the 4x200 meter relay for the Vista PEAK Prep girls, who outscored Overland by six points to take 11th in the girls standings. ...The Regis Jesuit boys lacrosse team dominated the final two quarters in a 9-4 win at Santa Fe Christian in Solana Beach, California. ...A well-rounded effort from Luis Rangel Cepeda (11 kills, nine digs and seven assists) helped the Hinkley boys volleyball team to a road sweep at Gateway WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19: The Cherokee Trail baseball team had a four-game winning streak snapped with an 8-7 loss to Sunnyslope (Arizona) to conclude a 3-1 showing at the Best of the West tournament. Brody Ceyrolles had two hits and scored three times, Landon Olds drove in two runs with two hits and Peyton Michlig had two extra-base hits for the Cougars. ...Led by a four-goal effort from Cooper Bernard, the Cherokee Trail boys lacrosse team won a 13-4 visit to La Jolla (California). Tanner Caliccia and Bruce Pfeiffer had three goals apiece, while Pfeiffer added for assists and Dempsey Gibbs had five for the Cougars. ...TUESDAY, MARCH 18: The Grandview baseball team opened the season with a 13-0 road win at Heritage that included four innings of shutout baseball thrown by Jax Pfister. Chase Chapman had four of the Wolves’ 16
hits and drove in three runs, while Ethan Wachsmann had three hits and three RBI among a slew of offensive highlights. Connor Brennan struck out eight hitters over five innings on the road for the Eaglecrest baseball team in a 9-3 win at Pueblo West. Cosme Vera doubled twice and drove in three runs, while Brennan matched Leo Jimenez with two RBI apiece for the Raptors. ...In Arizona at the Best of the West tournament, Carter Wilcox struck out 14 hitters in five innings of a 5-0 win for the Cherokee Trail baseball team over Saguaro. Landon Olds had three hits, while Brody Ceyrolles had two RBI for the Cougars. ... Danna Gutierrez and Sa’mya Shazier scored goals — both assisted by Kimberly Cordero Diaz — and Carla Silva
stopped all seven shots she faced in the goal for the Gateway girls soccer team in a 2-0 win over Westminster. ...The Aurora West College Prep Academy girls soccer team rolled past Sheridan 8-0 behind a four-goal day from Yosseline Silva Monsivais. ...The Cherokee Trail boys lacrosse team began a trip to California with a 10-7 win over Carlsbad. ...The Smoky Hill boys lacrosse team outscored Littleton 7-0 in the third quarter on its way to a 17-5 home win over Littleton. ...A 14-kill performance for Tristan Rowley paced the Vista PEAK Prep boys volleyball team to a 25-21, 25-16, 25-17 win over Westminster that also saw Ein Bamba dish out 25 assists. ...The Gateway and Hinkley boys volleyball teams each prevailed in five-set
matches, as the Olys downed Aurora West College Prep Academy 18-25, 2520, 25-18, 13-25, 18-16 and the Thunder edged KIPP Denver Collegiate 23-25, 2125, 25-20, 25-21, 16-14 ...The Rangeview boys volleyball team battled with undefeated Legacy in a 25-12, 25-12, 25-15 home defeat. ...The Aurora Central and Gateway girls tennis teams completed four matches in blustery conditions and both won twice. The Trojans’ wins came from Juliana Marquez at No. 2 singles and Miansa Kirachky at No. 2 singles, while the Olys’ two wins came at Nos. 1 and 2 doubles. ...Sophia Capua fired a 1-under-par 70 at Meadow Hills G.C. to win the individual title by seven strokes in the second City League tournament of the season.
TOP: Dirt flies in the air as senior Kyle Cacciavillani slides into third base on a triple during the Grandview baseball team’s 12-2 home win over Fort Collins March 22 ABOVE LEFT: Vista PEAK Prep junior Sophia Capua follows through on her tee shot on Hole No. 1 at Meadow Hills G.C. to open the City League girls golf tournament on March 18. Capua shot 1-under-par 70 to win the tournament. ABOVE RIGHT: Regis Jesuit senior Madisyn Jokerst (18) loads up a shot that results in her seventh goal during the Raiders’ 16-14 home loss to St. Ignatius March 22 at Lou Kellogg Stadium. (Photos by Courtney Oakes/Aurora Sentinel)
Ru stu at the state Capitol
MEET THE DOGS OF THE COLORADO CAPITOL. LIKE, LITERAL DOGS.
BY JESSE PAUL, Colorado Sun and CARLY ROSE AND ANDREA KRAMAR, Rocky Mountain PBS
DENVER | The Colorado State Capitol often feels like a dog-eat-dog pressure cooker. But it can also be a dog-meet-dog paradise.
In true Colorado fashion, some lawmakers and even Gov. Jared Polis frequently bring their dogs to work at the seat of power in Denver. While the State Capitol isn’t officially a pet-friendly workplace, there’s an unspoken allowance for the dogs belonging to lawmakers and staff -- so long as the four-legged friends don’t disrupt daily proceedings and keep to private offices.
The pups provide much-needed relief in times of tension in the legislature. Despite their occasional potty accidents and nipping, they’ve also inspired several bills.
For just about as long as Gov. Jared Polis has been in politics, Gia has been in his life. Polis and his husband, Marlon, adopted Gia in 2009 from the Humane Society in Englewood. She was little more than 8 weeks old and so small that she fit in a baseball cap. At about 2 pounds, she had been rescued from a hoarder’s home.
She was the perfect size for the couple, who wanted to be able to take their dog to and from Washington, where Polis was starting out as a U.S. representative.
“Marlon and I knew we wanted to adopt a dog,” Polis said. “I think we had been to one or two places looking. Then when I saw Gia, we were just like, “That’s the one.”
Nearly 16 years later, from Congress to the governor’s mansion, Gia and Polis are still inseparable. She attends news conferences and bill signings. Gia was there when President Joe Biden’s first national monument, the Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument, was being hashed out. (There’s a picture of that in the governor’s Capitol office.)
She’s even helped inspire legislation limiting the fees landlords can charge tenants for having a dog or cat, often known as pet rent.
“She was our first child before our two hu-
man kids,” Polis said in his office this month, where Gia was perched like a princess in an opulent chair opposite the governor’s desk. “She helps keep us in shape because we walk her every day -- like several miles. Marlon walks her several miles. I usually join them for an evening walk. She’s a bossy only-dog-of-thehouse kind of thing. She runs the place.”
Gia, who is an only pet, also has a ... spunkier side. She once nipped Republican state Sen. Ray Scott during a bill signing. Polis said Scott must have had something on his jeans.
“I don’t know what he had been getting around in, but some scent that was on the jeans definitely got her pretty excited,” the governor said. “She’s a terrier. She likes to go after squirrels and rats, and she gets super-excited when she smells something.”
The governor said Gia once lunged at a protester who approached him.
“She’s always pretty happy,” he said. “She’s in a good mood when she comes with me to work,” which is once or twice a week.
State Rep. Karen McCormick, a Longmont Democrat, is the only veterinarian in the Colorado legislature. When she’s not in committee or on the House floor, you can catch her hanging around the Capitol with her trusty companion Pippin, a 5-year-old golden retriever.
“He’s my 10th golden in my life since second grade,” she said. “I am very much his person. He is tuned in to my every move and mood. We just make a good partnership.”
Pippin has a job at the Capitol: keeping people happy. McCormick said it’s not unusual for someone she doesn’t know to drop by her office to love on Pippin -- and to get his love in return.
“He works hard all day and goes home exhausted,” she said. “He’s just giving out love all day.”
On a professional note, McCormick said exposing young dogs to many different environments pays off later in their lives. Pippin
has been a Capitol frequent flyer since she arrived in the building.
Sometimes late at night, when the Capitol is empty, McCormick will play fetch with Pippin in the long hallways.
McCormick didn’t come to the legislature to work on veterinary issues, but she has used her expertise to influence pet care policy. She was outspoken in her opposition to a ballot measure last year that created a new class of veterinary worker -- veterinary professional associates. The initiative passed and now she’s trying to make sure it’s implemented the right way.
“I want these folks to have job prospects,” she said, referring to veterinary professional associates. “There’s just so much uncertainty right now, and there’s so much hesitation in the veterinarian field of this that they’re hesitant to take on this new position. I think smoothing some of that out and making some of those expectations clear will be really helpful to those students when they graduate and also to potential employers to hire these folks.”
State Rep. Ryan Armagost has a professional connection to dogs. When he was a sheriff’s deputy in Larimer County, he was on the canine team as a trainer and decoy agitator. Agitators are the people who wear padded suits to get attacked during police canine training.
But don’t let his tough-guy résumé fool you. He has a very big soft spot for his four dogs, three of which he rotates through the Capitol.
“We don’t deserve dogs,” Armagost said, “I kind of set my limit at two dogs, and now I have four, so I’ll never do this again.”
Seated in his office decorated with mini Trump figurines and gun rights posters, Armagost was surrounded by his favorite cast of canine characters.
There’s George, the youngest of Armagost’s dogs at 4 years old. He’s a wooly Siberian husky and a foster fail -- meaning Armagost meant to foster him and then couldn’t live without him.
There’s Seamus, a rescue dog who is about 7. He’s a pit bull mix.
Then there’s Tyson, who is 8 years old and also a rescue dog. He’s a pit bull-American bulldog mix.
“They’re generally pretty laid-back dogs and pretty good at helping people keep a good mood, which is much needed around this place,” Armagost said in his office as the three dogs lounged around.
During tough moments at the Capitol, Armagost finds that returning to his office to have one of his dogs lay their head on his lap or give him puppy eyes can make a big difference.
“It’s definitely a way to decompress,” he said.
Armagost’s love for animals has prompted some of his legislation. This year, he’s a lead sponsor on a bipartisan bill to prohibit the sale of pets in public spaces, like a street, park or market.
“The problem is people are frequently parking their vehicle with a box full of puppies in parking lots and putting up a cardboard sign, “Puppies for sale,”” he said. “And this has contributed to the puppy mills situation.”
Armagost said he chooses which of his dogs to bring to the Capitol based on fan requests or how they seem to be doing at home. If one of the pups seems a little down, the Berthoud Republican takes them on a trip to the Capitol.
Armagost’s fourth dog is Buster, but he doesn’t get to come to the Capitol because he’s an anxious pup. Buster is a Great Dane-Italian mastiff mix.
The origin story of Sen. Faith Winter’s dog, Queso, explains his name.
Queso was found roaming East Colfax Avenue. Winter and her family adopted him when his previous owner couldn’t be located. But his
Pippin, a golden retriever owned by state Rep. Karen McCormick, stands outside a door at the Colorado State Capitol in 2025. Jesse Paul/The Colorado Sun
time on Denver’s streets took a toll. He smelled bad -- like stinky cheese, the senator’s daughter said -- and thus the name Queso, Spanish for “cheese,” was born.
That was 10 years ago, back when Winter was a state representative, and in the time since, Queso has become a fixture at the Capitol. He used to roam the halls with Gary, then-Sen. Kerry Donovan’s pup. The pair are best friends.
“He provides so much emotional support to both me and others,” said Winter, a Westminster Democrat, as Queso -- dressed in a tuxedo -- sat in her lap. “People will often text me so that they can come visit him if they’re having a bad day.”
During a tense negotiation about Title IX, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, lawmakers and lobbyists gathered in a conference room passed Queso around to ease the tension.
Queso has also been the source of some humor. One time, he peed in the Senate president’s office.
“Queso wasn’t a fan of President Fenberg,” Winter said, referencing former Senate President Steve Fenberg. “I don’t know why.”
The pup also has a serious side — as serious as the bow ties he sometimes wears. He helped out on the bill to constrain pet rent and was at the bill signing with Gia.
Rep. Dusty Johnson got Peaches six years ago when she was going through a round of chemotherapy to treat an aggressive tumor.
“I’m her support human, she’s my support dog, and we balance each other out,” said Johnson, who is now in remission. “People forget about animals -- that they are really good for mental support, but they need their own mental support because they take the tension on themself.”
That doesn’t mean Johnson doesn’t rely on Peaches for help. She calls the pup her secretary and her therapist. But Johnson hopes Peaches also helps break stigma around mental health.
“It’s OK not to be OK,” Johnson said while watching Peaches, who was dressed to the nines in a navy blue sweater and red collar with rhinestones. “And we need to end the stigma on that. She’s messaging that it’s OK. It’s not OK if you don’t ask for help.”
If Peaches could speak English, Johnson said the Lhasa apso-shih tzu mix would tell the world that Johnson has the attention span of a squirrel.
Peaches was on the campaign trail with Johnson. It wasn’t a question of whether Peaches would join her at the Capitol, too.
Johnson is in her first year as a lawmaker, and Peaches appears to be making herself at home at the Capitol complex. She gets human food scraps at lunch and lots of pets. She gets to run early morning laps around the legislative office building across from the Capitol.
Peaches even recently followed a colleague’s aide into the men’s bathroom.
“I’m like, “All right! That’s your dog for now!”” Johnson said.
Thisstorywasproducedaspart of the Colorado Capitol News Alliance and first appeared at coloradosun.com.
Prepare for a solid mix of laughter and heartfelt moments as Stories on Stage presents “Maybe I Should Stop Talking” for one matinee only.
scene & herd
’Grand Horizons’ at the Vintage Theatre
The Vintage Theatre is set to take audiences on an emotional rollercoaster with its upcoming production of Grand Horizons, a sharp and poignant play that explores love, identity, and the realities of long-term marriage. Written by acclaimed playwright Bess Wohl and directed by Bernie Cardell, the production boasts a compelling blend of humor and heartfelt drama.
Set in a retirement community, Grand Horizons begins with a bombshell: Nancy, after fifty years of marriage, announces she wants a divorce. The revelation throws her adult children into turmoil as they struggle to comprehend their parents as individuals with unfulfilled desires and personal needs. As the story unfolds, the audience is taken on a journey through the complexities of love, compromise, and self-discovery.
Since its Broadway debut, Grand Horizons has been praised for its witty dialogue and touching exploration of relationships.
IF YOU GO
When: March 21 - April 27. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, curtains vary.
Tickets: $20-$36
Details: vintagetheatre.org and 303-856-7830
Venue: Vintage Theatre, 1468 Dayton St.
Colorado Jazz Repertory Orchestra launches ‘Salon Series’ with jazz piano spotlight
Jazz enthusiasts and newcomers alike are in for a treat as the Colorado Jazz Repertory Orchestra debuts its new weekday salon series in partnership with the Aurora Fox Arts Center. The series, designed to celebrate music, culture, and community, kicks April with a deep dive into the evolution of jazz piano, featuring acclaimed pianist Eric Gunnison.
This intimate one-hour event will explore jazz piano from the 20th to 21st centuries.
Gunnison is a mainstay of Denver’s jazz scene and a globally recognized musician. He will share his expertise on the instrument’s journey from ragtime roots to contemporary interpretations.
Moderating the event is CJRO founder and executive Director Art Bouton, creating an interactive atmosphere where audience members are encouraged to engage with questions and discussion. Suited for children and adults.
IF YOU GO
When: 11 a.m. April 8
Tickets: $10-$20 and group rates are available.
Tickets: coloradojazz.org or 303739-1970.
Aurora Fox Arts Center: 9900 E. Colfax Ave. Entrance is on the east side of the building.
Humor and heartstrings offered in ‘Maybe I Should Stop Talking’ at Su Teatro
This live performance will bring to life three engaging and humorous stories that explore the delicate balance between connection and oversharing when it comes to recounting personal stories.
The performance features Geoffrey Kent, Jessica Robblee, and Kristina Fountaine. Kent, a nationally recognized actor and one of only 20 Fight Masters with the Society of American Fight Directors, brings his dynamic stage presence to the event. Robblee, the Producing Artistic Director of the Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company, is known for her diverse contributions to the Colorado theater scene. Fountaine, a Denver native and Henry Award nominee, has graced the stages of Curious Theatre, DCPA Theatre Company, and the Arvada Center.
Stories on Stage, now in its 24th season, is celebrated for its captivating performances of literature brought to life by skilled actors. The event includes a silent auction and a complimentary milk and cookies reception after the show.
IF YOU GO
When: 2 p.m. April 6
Where: Su Teatro Cultural and Performing Arts Center, 721 Santa Fe Drive
Tickets: $26
Details: www.storiesonstage.org and calling 303-494-0523
Aurora Fox — ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’
The Aurora Fox Arts Center brings the Tony Award-winning drama ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’ to the stage through April 13. Adapted by Simon Stephens from Mark Haddon’s best-selling novel, the show follows 15-year-old Christopher Boone, a brilliant but socially challenged teenager, as he investigates the mysterious death of his neighbor’s dog. What begins as a detective story quickly evolves into a deeply moving journey of self-discovery, perception, and resilience. Directed by Richard R. Cowden, the production features striking visual effects that immerse audiences in Christopher’s unique perspective. “This play is a deeply moving exploration of perception, trust, and resilience,” said Cowden. “It’s a story that resonates as both a mystery and a profound coming-of-age journey.” Recommended for teens and older, the production includes strong language, mature themes, and sensory-sensitive effects.
IF YOU GO
When: March 21 – April 13, with curtains on Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m.
Where: Aurora Fox Mainstage Theatre, 9900 E. Colfax Ave.
Tickets: $17-$42
Details: AuroraFoxArtsCenter. org and 303-739-1970.
What’s to come with space travel, an expert panel discussion
Join leading space industry experts at for an insightful panel discussion on the future of crewed space missions. Covering topics such as astronaut health, technological advancements, international collaboration, and commercial spaceflight, this event offers a deep dive into what lies ahead for human space exploration.
The panel features Alires Almon, an expert in behavioral health in space; Barry Hamilton, CEO of Red Canyon Engineering; Angie Wise, Chief Safety Officer at Sierra Space; and Carolyn Overmyer, Chief Engineer of the Orion Program at Lockheed Martin.
IF YOU GO
Tickets: $20-$25 and must be purchased in advance. Online sales
close at Noon March 28.
When: 6:30 p.m. -7:30 p.m.
Where: Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum, 7711 East Academy Blvd.
Details: wingsmuseum.org and 303-360-5360
The Life and Art of Tokio Ueyama
The Life and Art of Tokio Ueyama features more than 40 paintings loaned to the museum by the Japanese American National Museum and Ueyama’s family, whose combined efforts to preserve his work have allowed the story of this accomplished and cosmopolitan artist to be told at the Denver Art Museum for the first time.
Born in Japan, Tokio Ueyama moved to the United States in 1908 at age 18, where he made a home until his death in 1954. This exhibition tells the story of Ueyama’s life, including his early days as an art student in San Francisco, Southern California, and Philadelphia; his travels abroad in Europe and Mexico; his role as artist and community member in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles; and his unconstitutional incarceration during World War II at the Granada Relocation Center, now the Amache National Historic Site, in southeast Colorado.
IF YOU GO
Through June 1
Where: Denver Art Museum, 100 W 14th Ave Pkwy Tickets: Included in general admission, which is free for members and for all visitors 18 and under.
Details: www.denverartmuseum.org
Get the buzz on beginning beekeeping
The Denver Botanic Gardens is offering Beginning Beekeeping, a two-session course designed to introduce aspiring beekeepers to the fundamentals of the craft. Led by expert beekeeper Beth Conrey, this class will cover essential topics such as local beekeeping regulations, hive types, equipment sourcing, colony setup costs, and the time commitment required. Participants will also gain insight into bee biology and colony social structure, providing a strong foundation for responsible and successful beekeeping.
Conrey brings extensive experience as the owner of Bee Squared Apiaries, which manages 200 colonies across Colorado. She is a former president of the Northern Colorado Beekeepers Association, the Colorado State Beekeepers Association, and the Western Apicultural Society. Currently, she serves on the boards of the Pollinator Stewardship Council and the People and Pollinators Action Network, both dedicated to improving pollinator health through pesticide reduction and habitat conservation.
This hands-on class is perfect for those considering beekeeping as a hobby or looking to deepen their understanding of honey bees.
IF YOU GO
When: 6:30 p.m. March 25
Tickets: Registration is required, $75-$80
Details: www.botanicgardens.org/ programs/beginning-beekeeping and 720-865-3500
Where: 1007 York St.
DAVA’s Open Studio Invites Young Artists to Explore Creativity
Young artists and curious minds are invited to unleash their creativity at the Downtown Aurora Visual Arts Open Studio, a free program designed to inspire youth through hands-on artistic exploration.
The Open Studio offers a dynamic space for children ages 6-14 to experiment with a variety of art forms, including ceramics, drawing, painting, and sculpture.
More than just an art class, the
Open Studio integrates elements of science, health, and cultural learning, making it a well-rounded creative experience. By engaging in community arts projects and Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math activities, students develop problem-solving skills, social collaboration, and artistic confidence.
Parents only need to complete a one-time registration, after which students can drop in freely to participate. This initiative provides a supportive environment for young learners to express themselves while fostering essential skills for future success.
IF YOU GO When: 2:30 p.m. April 1
Where: DAVA Studio at 1405 Florence St.
Details: www.davarts.org or 303-367-5886.
Tickets: No charge
World Premiere of ‘Collecting Myself’
And Toto too Theatre Company celebrates 20 years of championing women’s voices with the world premiere of *Collecting Myself*, a one-woman musical by Denver playwright Paula Jayne Friedland. Featuring original songs and personal storytelling, the show explores the search for meaning and purpose with humor and heart. Through humor, vulnerability, and soulful melodies, Friedland unpacks the highs and lows of her search for direction, asking: “What does it really mean to find your purpose?” Funny and uplifting, Collecting Myself celebrates the courage to follow your passions and the beauty of finding your own way.
IF YOU GO:
Tickets: $27.38-$32.64 for general admission
When: 7:30 p.m. April 10-12, April 17-19
Where: The Roaming Gnome Theatre, 10522 E. 25th Ave.
Details: www.andtototoo.org
Ballet Ariel presents ‘A Night in Spain Featuring Carmen Suite and The Three Cornered Hat’
Ballet Ariel closes its season with A Night in Spain, a captivating double-bill featuring Carmen Suite and The Three Cornered Hat. Resident choreographer Gregory Gonzales re-imagines Carmen Suite, a tale of love and betrayal set to Bizet’s timeless music. Artistic Director Ilena Norton presents a fresh take on The Three Cornered Hat, a comedic ballet blending Spanish dance and classical ballet.
IF YOU GO
When: April 12 at Cleo Parker Robinson Theater, 119 Park Avenue West and April 26-27 at the Lakewood Cultural Center 480 S. Allison Parkway.
Tickets: $20-$35
Details: www.balletariel.org or call 303-945-438
’Something Rotten!’ in Northglenn at the Parsons Theatre
Northglenn Youth Theatre brings the Broadway hit ‘Something Rotten!’ to life in a laugh-out-loud musical comedy about two playwrights in the 1590s who set out to outshine Shakespeare — by creating the world’s first musical! Packed with witty wordplay, show-stopping numbers, and overthe-top characters, this production is perfect for theater lovers and comedy fans alike.
IF YOU GO
When: April 25–May 4. Curtains vary, 10 a.m., 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.
Tickets:$15–$17
Details: NorthglennARTS.org or 303-450-8888.
Where: Parsons Theatre, One East Memorial Parkway
METRO
budget officials are predicting an $11.5 million shortfall in the city’s 2026 estimated budget.
Simultaneously, Aurora officials are scrutinizing a host of capital improvement projects and the possibility of some kind of tax increase for construction projects, and maybe even to shore up operating budgets.
Aurora’s sales-tax revenue increased 3.4% from 2023 to 2024, a lower increase than previous years.
“In almost all of our numbers, there is a rounding off from 2023 to 2024,” Robert Olivia said. “You can see it kind of flattening, and you’re going to see this in almost all the numbers.”
Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky said the low numbers of retail stores in Aurora were very concerning to her.
The category for restaurants and bars increased in sales tax revenue annually, with a dip during 2020 and then picked up with an increase in 2021 from where 2019 left off. In 2024, the city had only a minor increase in restaurant and bar sales tax revenue of 1.4% compared to previous years, which usually shows closer to a 10% increase or more.
The category for discount stores in Aurora has decreased in sales for the past two years, with a decrease of 3.1% in 2023 and 1.5% in 2024.
“We did not expect the discount stores to see a drop last year, but that could be because folks like Walmart were starting to drop prices,” Olivia said.
Building materials also leveled off from the previous year’s sales at a minimal 2.8% increase. Auto dealer sales and parts had a very small sales increase of only 0.5% in 2024 when the increase in previous years was usually more than 10%.
In Colorado, city sales tax on vehicles is returned to the city of the purchaser, not dealer, indicating that Aurora residents were spending less on cars.
“This is a very strange story because we know the auto business, the car business, is in the tank right now, but the parts business is picking up the difference. But even the parts stores are in trouble now, too,” Olivia said.
Electronics sales had a significant increase of 4.4%. Electronics sales have been leveling out since there was a significant spike in 2021 after the pandemic.
“Another surprise,” Olivia said. “We didn’t see an electronic cycle like an iPhone cycle at the end of the year, and yet, they were up about 4.5%. We did not expect that. So that’s good news for the electronics folks.”
Grocery store sales had a 3.1% decline after typically having a high increase besides a flattening in 2022. Aurora does not tax grocery store food, so the category for grocery store sales tax revenue was from non-food products.
Telecommunications and cellular sales had a slight increase of .2%, but it was more consistent with previous years. The clothing and clothing accessories category had a minor increase of 5.2%.
Beer, wine and liquor sales, which includes grocery stores and liquor stores, has been flat since 2020 when it jumped for COVID-19.
“If we are going into a recession, liquor does well in a recession, so we would see an uptick if we end up in a recession,” Olivia said.
Department store sales had a 0.8% increase, which Olivia said was not surprising after COVID-19, and Olivia said he doesn’t expect them to come back. The category combining sporting goods, hobbies, books and music decreased by 5.9% after a spike from COVID. Furniture and home furnishings have declined since 2021, with a 6.5% decrease in 2024.
City staff said that an estimated 17% of retail sales are from online sales, according to market estimates, but it is hard to find an exact number.
Some “bright spots” Olivia mentioned were Burlington stores, which bought 44 Bed Bath and Beyond lo-
cations that can bring in double the profits that Bed Bath and Beyond was bringing in. The city is also hoping Ollie’s Bargains will break into Colorado since they are buying up a lot of the closed Big Lots locations.
There is also an International Council of Shopping Centers event coming up, which city staff attends annually to talk to larger companies and work to lure more businesses into the city.
Councilmember Françoise Bergan asked if there was more the committee and the city could do to talk to businesses, and she asked if retail and other companies knew Aurora existed.
“Yes, you’d be surprised how many people know Aurora exists,” Olivia said. “When we’re talking to them, they’re already aware of how large we are. They’re aware that all of their competitors are here. They’re aware of what their sales are. They are actually incredibly informed.”
— Cassandra Ballard, Sentinel Staff Writer
Colorado Supreme Court to hear arguments in Aurora City Council breach of open meetings law
The Colorado Supreme Court will hear oral arguments May 14 in a lawsuit filed by the Sentinel against the City of Aurora, which prevailed in claiming that the city violated state laws when lawmakers voted in a close meeting to end censure proceedings against Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky.
“We look forward to making our final arguments and being able to tell the community what compelled council members to violate open-meeting laws in this case,” said Sentinel Editor and Publisher Dave Perry.
The Supreme Court case comes after a Colorado Court of Appeals panel found in December 2023 that Aurora’s City Council broke the law in 2022 when it voted to end censure proceedings against Jurinsky.
The Sentinel had asked for was denied a recording of that meeting, which the panel unanimously ordered the city to release. Legal counsel in the case has been provided by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
The city has since asked the Colorado Supreme Court to hear the case, and the panel’s order has been stayed pending a reply from the higher court.
The original case stems from when then-Councilmember Juan Marcano initiated censure proceedings against Jurinsky in early 2022 after Jurinsky told a regional talk radio show host how she had encouraged then-police chief Vanessa Wilson to replace deputy chief, Darin Parker. Jurinsky also criticized Wilson’s leadership of the Aurora Police Department, referring to the chief as “trash.”
Marcano accused Jurinsky of violating a section of the City Charter that prohibits council members from meddling in the appointment of employees who fall under the authority of the city manager.
He also said Jurinsky’s statements about Wilson went against part of the council’s rules of order and procedure, which require members to “conduct themselves in a professional manner at all times” when interacting with city staffers.
A supermajority vote of the council to censure Jurinsky would have been the first step before Jurinsky could be punished for her statements. However — during a closed-door meeting on March 14, 2022 — a majority of the council voted to halt the censure process and pay fees for an attorney hired by Jurinsky.
Council rules stipulated at the time that, while an executive session could be called to receive legal advice regarding the process of disciplining an elected official, “no action or decision may occur in the executive session.”
Colorado’s Open Meetings Law also limits what city councils are allowed to do outside of the public eye
and generally prohibits groups from adopting “any proposed policy, position, resolution, rule, regulation or formal action” in secret. If a court finds that a group took such action anyway, recordings of that meeting must be made available for public inspection.
Because the council’s actions appeared to violate the state Open Meetings Law, and because the city also failed to announce the specific topic of the closed-door meeting ahead of time, which is required under state law, Sentinel Colorado requested the electronic recording of this private meeting from the city.
The city refused, with City Clerk Kadee Rodriguez writing that the recording was “privileged attorney / client communication and is exempt from disclosure.”
Arapahoe County District Court Judge Elizabeth Beebe Volz ruled last September that the city did not have to the release the recording, finding that Aurora failed to provide proper notice of the private meeting but that the council “cured” the Open Meetings Law violation by including information about what was discussed March 14 in its March 28 meeting agenda packet.
Volz also acknowledged that there was a “roll call” taken during the closed-door meeting to decide how to proceed but said this did not constitute “formal action” in the context of the Open Meetings Law.
A trio of appellate judges overturned Volz’s ruling, saying among other things that the district court made a “clear error” when it found that the council’s vote did not violate state law.
The opinion was written by Judge David Furman and joined by judges Terry Fox and Gilbert Román. In his opinion, Furman said Volz erred when she relied on a 2012 ruling by the Court of Appeals that said that a public body can validate a decision made inappropriately in secret through a subsequent public meeting.
Sentinel Colorado did not challenge the decision to end the censure process itself but rather the decision to deny the newspaper a recording of the illegal closed-door meeting.
The Colorado Court of Appeals also found that the council waived its claims to attorney-client privilege when the city published information about the March 14 private meeting.
“We conclude that the City Council violated … the OML by improperly convening and taking a ‘position … or formal action’ in deciding to end Jurinsky’s censure proceedings during the March 14 executive session,” Furman’s decision reads.
“Because we have concluded that the City Council waived the attorney-client privilege regarding its com-
munications at the March 14 executive session, the recording of this session must be released.”
Between April 2022 and November 2023, the city racked up more than $27,000 in expenses for the Law Offices Of Hoffmann, Parker, Wilson & Carberry, P.C. to represent it in the case and fight the release of the meeting recording, according to information obtained by Sentinel Colorado through a records request.
Jeff Roberts, executive director of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, said last year after news that Aurora would appeal that the appeals court ruling supports important provisions of Colorado’s Open Meetings Law and that it will have “precedent-setting value.”
“We had a reason to believe something was not right. And it was puzzling when the district court didn’t fully see it that way. And now, that’s been vindicated by the Court of Appeals,” Roberts said.
“I see it as a positive upholding of important aspects of the Open Meetings Law and the public’s right to know at least something about what their elected officials are discussing when they close the door on the public.”
— Sentinel Staff
Trump’s 2019 portrait to be taken down at Colorado Capitol after he claims it was ‘distorted’
A portrait of President Donald hanging at the Colorado state Capitol will be taken down after Trump claimed it was “purposefully distorted,” state officials said March24.
House Democrats said in a statement that the oil painting would be tak-
en down at the request of Republican leaders in the Legislature.
“If the GOP wants to spend time and money on which portrait of Trump hangs in the Capitol, then that’s up to them,” the Democrats said.
The portrait was painted during Trump’s first term and unveiled in 2019. Colorado Republicans raised more than $10,000 through a GoFundMe account to commission the oil painting by Sarah Boardman, who also produced the Capitol’s portrait of President Barack Obama.
The commissioned portrait came at the heels of a controversy caused by a prank where a progressive activist placed a portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin in a place reserved for Trump’s portrait in 2018.
Trump lauded Obama’s portrait, saying “he looks wonderful,” then suggested that the artist “lost her talent as she got older.”
One Trump supporter at the time said that the portrait “does him great justice.” But in a Sunday night post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said he would prefer no picture at all over the one that hangs in the Colorado Capitol.
R“Nobody likes a bad picture or painting of themselves, but the one in Colorado, in the State Capitol, put up by the Governor, along with all other Presidents, was purposefully distorted to a level that even I, perhaps, have never seen before,” Trump wrote.
The portraits are not the purview of the Colorado governor’s office, but the Colorado Building Advisory Committee.
Trump’s comments had prompted a steady stream of visitors to pose for photos with the painting before the announcement that it would be taken down.
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Editorials Sentinel
ICE prison officials cannot be trusted to run Aurora immigrant prison
The debacle last week caused by two escaped inmates from the privately owned GEO ICE prison in Aurora not only destroyed what little credibility the Trump administration clings to, but the morass raised new questions about whether the public and inmates are safe from mismanagement of the facility.
The most recent public danger from the GEO ICE detention center at 3700 Oakland St. became public last week after GEO employees called Aurora police to report that two inmates had escaped — four hours before employees called police for help. Not only did they lose two inmates, saying there was a power outage, but then Trump ICE and Homeland Security officials unsuccessfully tried to blame Aurora police for the gaffe.
One of the two escaped men was spotted and apprehended by an Adams County sheriff’s deputy 12 miles away from the prison almost two days later. The other escapee is, presumably, still on the lam. It’s difficult to know because local and national ICE and Homeland Security officials are not transparent nor forthcoming about operations and inmates, and they are increasingly dishonest.
According to Homeland Security and ICE officials, a power outage occurred at the facility at about 9:30 p.m. last Tuesday. It’s unclear whether the outage affected only the GEO prison or an area surrounding the prison.
Regardless, prison officials told Aurora police that an investigation that night and the next day revealed that two inmates left the facility through a door to the outside that may have become unlocked when the power cut out.
Reportedly, prison officials began counting prisoners and first determined at about 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, three hours later, two inmates were missing. At some point, GEO workers identified who the missing inmates were.
Police records show that GEO ICE officials called Aurora police at about 2:30 a.m. to report the missing men, but the message delivered to police was unclear what had actually happened, police said, hours after the men had clearly escaped.
Aurora police sent a squad car and an officer to the prison at 5:30 a.m. to get a clearer picture of what was wrong.
Just a short time after that, Trump ICE officials began telling the media that Aurora police had ignored their urgent pleas for help, saying that the cops were acting sympathetically to the escaped immigrants.
“This is not anything like what has been portrayed,” Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain said at a later press conference in an attempt to set the story straight. It’s unclear whether the ICE officials who were trying to peddle that false narrative were acting out of incompetence or just outright lying, but Aurora offered the public irrefutable proof of what really happened, and the Trump administration offered proven falsehoods.
Unanswered so far is, how inept this privately run prison is so that the inmates are able to escape when the power goes out? Colorado has no shortage of jails, detention centers and prisons, and the state, like most, has no shortage of power outages. Does this operation have no plans or ability to protect the inmates or the public every time the power goes off?
Just as worrisome, when the power does go off at this private prison, it takes hours to determine whether the facility’s potentially 1,500 inmates and staff are accounted for, and presumably safe.
Also, does this operation not have some kind of manual or experience in what to do when they believe an inmate has escaped the prison? Everyone in Aurora would be distressed to know that employees are told only to call 911 before the end of their shift.
The most worrisome part of this, however, is that officials from GEO, ICE and HSI were not only dishonest about what really happened, and tried to wrongly place blame on Aurora police, but when confronted by police about HSI misinformation, they had no interest in publicly correcting their factless polemic.
This facility has been a serious hazard to inmates and the public for years.
When first elected to Congress in 2018, Rep. Jason Crow, D-Aurora, and some city councilmembers worked valiantly, and unsuccessfully, to force the private prison to be transparent about who they kept and report the condition of the inmates. After years of trying, Congress has begrudgingly offered only minimal assistance, under multiple presidential administrations, in allowing the public to ensure inmates are properly cared for.
More than one inmate has died at the hands of GEO prison employees. Kamyar Samimi died in the detention center Dec. 2, 2017. The 64-year-old Iranian immigrant, who’d lived in the United States for years, had become addicted to opioids in Iran at the age of 6, his family told the Sentinel. When he was detained at the center, a prison employee took him off his nearly lifelong treatment of Methadone, and he died after complications from the change. His family wasn’t notified of his death for two days.
Melvin Ariel Calero-Mendoza, 39, a Nicaraguan asylum seeker died at the detention center in 2023 of a pulmonary embolism after sustaining a series of injuries to his right leg while in the facility, according to records obtained by the Sentinel.
The documents and investigation raised questions about the medical treatment of people in immigration detention centers, and whether his death was preventable.
Reports show he injured himself during recreation time playing soccer, and despite complaints of pain from that injury, was given only analgesics and told to use cold and warm compresses.
For years, Aurora police, firefighters and county health officials have struggled with this prison in an effort to ensure professional and competent emergency and urgent services, which are inevitable in a large prison setting like the GEO ICE facility.
Just as problematic, has been the ability for members of Congress, city and state officials, activists, the ACLU and the media to get factual and transparent accounts of inmates and what happens inside the prison.
Given the clearly incompetent and possibly corrupt nature of the new Trump administration in its handling of immigration matters, the public cannot count on the administration for assistance. In fact, the Trump administration may become the biggest problem yet for Aurora with this mismanaged detention center.
The only hope for the Aurora community, and others, is that the courts and Congress will see the danger this detention center poses, and how that danger is amplified by the administration’s dishonesty and incompetence to properly administer and supervise its operations.
The Colorado congressional caucus needs to begin work immediately on forcing the Trump administration to bring in competent professional oversight and offer immediate transparency to stem what could too easily become a tragic humanitarian crisis.
More Colorado shadows than light during Sunshine Week for 2025
Sunshine Week, which started Sunday, is an annual celebration of Americans’ right to know what government is doing. This year, there is far more to be concerned about than to celebrate, both nationally and here in Colorado.
Already in 2025, the White House barred the Associated Press from the Oval Office and announced that it, not the correspondents’ association, will decide which reporters participate in the presidential press pool. The cost-slashing Department of Government Efficiency tried to declare itself exempt from the federal Freedom of Information Act. Thousands of U.S. government webpages suddenly went offline, depriving the public of vital information regarding public health and safety. And FOIA officers were among those fired from federal agencies like the Office of Personnel Management.
“Good luck with that they just got rid of the entire privacy team,” someone with an OPM email address wrote in response to a FOIA request made by CNN.
In Colorado, the threats to government transparency are more subtle but still serious.
Exorbitant fees are among the biggest obstacles to disclosure. The Colorado Open Records Act entitles you to copies of any records of state and local government unless a specific statutory exemption applies. But if it’s going to cost you hundreds or thousands of dollars to get those records, are they really public?
Governments can now charge $41.37 an hour — after the first hour — to process CORA requests, thanks to an inflationary factor in the law that boosted the maximum rate 23 percent last July 1. Multiply $41.37 by however many hours it purportedly takes to fulfill a request — the records custodian decides that — and getting public records can quickly become unaffordable.
The Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition has for years asked the state legislature to reevaluate CORA’s out-of-balance research-and-retrieval fee formula. Instead of doing so, lawmakers this session will likely pass a bill that gives records custodians up to three weeks to fulfill requests made by the public, who are pretty much powerless when the statutory deadlines aren’t met.
Delayed responses are a common impediment to government transparency. Forcing requesters to write paper checks to pay for public records is another. And CFOIC regularly helps people fight Incorrectly applied exemptions to the law via our hotline and sunshine laws guide. New exemptions, making certain records confidential, are added almost every year.
Legislation in 2024 greatly expanded the number of public school employees whose evaluations are not subject to public disclosure. If disciplinary records are used to prepare those evaluations, the Court of Appeals ruled recently, they too are off-limits to the public, shielding from scrutiny educators who are found to have engaged in misconduct.
A bill approved this session hides the iden-
tities of ranchers and others who seek and get compensation from the state for property damage caused by wildlife — despite the wildlife commission recently naming two ranchers who are receiving nearly $350,000 in state funds.
Another successful bill keeps secret the details of “name, image and likeness” contracts between state universities and student-athletes, some of whom are worth six-figure deals to exploit their star status. If you suppress that information, you can’t scrutinize whether NIL deals are fair or treat men and women athletes equitably.
There also is a significant new exemption to the Colorado Open Meetings Law.
A year ago, ironically during Sunshine Week, the legislature unbound itself from major portions of the law, redefining “public business” as it applies to the General Assembly and letting lawmakers communicate behind the scenes in an unlimited way — via email, text message or other means — even though the law still declares that “the formation of public policy is public business and may not be conducted in secret.” Democratic legislators used the newly enacted provision to exclude reporters from caucus meetings before an August special session on property taxes.
The voters of Colorado initiated the Sunshine Act of 1972, but the legislature is free to amend it. It’s not in the Colorado Constitution. Should it be? Should the public’s right to attend government meetings and inspect government records be enshrined in our constitution as it is in seven other states? You might be asked that question when you fill out your ballot in 2026.
Stay tuned.
Jeff Roberts has been executive director of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition since 2013. He was at The Denver Post from 1984-2007 as a reporter, assistant city editor and data journalism specialist and later spent four years at the University of Denver’s Center for Colorado’s Economic Future. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Northwestern University. Roberts is also board president of the National Freedom of Information Coalition.
JEFF ROBERTS, GUEST COLUMNIST
Puzzles
Aaron Howe, visiting Colorado’s state Capitol from Wyoming on Monday, stood in front of Trump’s portrait, looking down at photos of the president on his phone, then back up at the portrait.
“Honestly he looks a little chubby,” said Howe of the portrait, but “better than I could do.”
“I don’t know anything about the artist,” said Howe, who voted for Trump. “It could be taken one way or the other.”
Kaylee Williamson, an 18-year-old Trump supporter from Arkansas, got a photo with the portrait.
“I think it looks like him. I guess he’s smoother than all the other ones,” she said. “I think it’s fine.”
Trump spoke disparagingly about Polis, accusing him of not only manipulating the portrait, but that “Radical Left Governor, Jared Polis” is extremely weak on Crime in particular with respect to Tren de Aragua, which practically took over Aurora (Don’t worry, we saved it!).” Trump has for months promoted a false narrative that Aurora was “overrun” by Venezuelan immigrants and members of the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua. After repeating the false claims during his March 4 speech to Congress, Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman and others told Sentinel Colorado that the false narrative has could hurt local businesses and the economy.
The Trump portrait was still up Monday morning. Boardman did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press, but the artist previously told The Denver Post when the portrait was unveiled that it was important that her
depictions of both Obama and Trump look “apolitical.”
Shelby Wieman, a spokesperson for Polis said in a statement that the governor was “surprised to learn the President of the United States is an aficionado of our Colorado State Capitol and its artwork.”
“We appreciate the President and everyone’s interest in our Capitol building and are always looking for any opportunity to improve our visitor experience,” Wieman continued.
— JESSE BEDAYN
Associated Press COPS AND COURTS
Aurora officer shoots, injures boy, 16, police say charged them after car break-in attempt
An Aurora police officer shot and injured a 16-year-old boy early March 24, saying the teen was seen trying to break into cars and charged at police when they confronted him.
The boy is hospitalized with a “non-life-threatening” leg wound, police said.
Two officers were patrolling Sunnyside Condominiums, 1035 S. Elkhart Way at about 3:15 a.m. when the shooting occurred.
The two officers said they saw someone trying to break into cars in the parking lot of the complex and confronted the person, Aurora police spokesperson Joe Moylan said in a statement. Police said the suspect is a 16-year-old Hispanic boy.
The boy ran away “behind some trees and vehicles,” Aurora police Division Chief Mark Hildenbrand said during a press conference Monday
INOGEN®
morning. “He immediately came out from behind the cars and approached officers at a very fast pace.”
Hidlebrand said the officers repeatedly told the boy to stop, but he continued moving toward the officers.
“The officers were actually retreating backwards to create space,” he said.
At one point, one of the officers fired “two to three” shots at the boy, striking him in the leg.
The boy then threw down a knife and complied with officers, Hildebrand said.
He was then rushed to a nearby hospital for treatment.
“We don’t know what motivated this individual to not comply with orders and charge at officers,” Hildebrand said.
Hildebrand said police have had previous contact with the boy but did not provide details of what that was. Police said they have been in contact with the boy’s family since the shooting.
Moylan said that at some point during the confrontation, one of the officers told dispatchers they saw “something shiny” in the waistband of the boy’s pants. Dispatchers apparently broadcast that information as they pursued the boy.
Hildebrandt said police frequently patrol the complex and the nearby area because of frequent car break-ins.
The shooting will now be subject to an investigation by a Critical Incident Response Team, which includes an outside police agency and investigators from the 18th Judicial District. In addition, the shooting will be investigated by Aurora police detectives, the department’s Internal Review Board and a Use of Force police unit.
The officer who shot the boy is a sergeant who has been on the force for 20 years, Hildebrand said.
He was not identified and has been placed on paid administrative leave, which is Aurora police policy.
— Sentinel Staff
Son of woman in domestic dispute fatally shot man, 37, in Aurora, police say
Police say the son of a woman involved in a domestic dispute with an Aurora man shot and killed the man March 21, according to Aurora police.
On Saturday, police arrested Laneidra Williams-Whitehead, 45, and her son Jamir Williams, 24, both of Aurora, in connection with the shooting death at Richfield Apartments, 17142 E. Adriatic Drive.
Arapahoe County coroner officials identified the slain man as 37-year-old Roosevelt Devon Williams.
“The preliminary investigation determined that the victim and Laneidra were in an active relationship and had been involved in a domestic dispute earlier that evening,” Aurora Police spokesperson Agent Matthew Longshore said in a statement. “Later that night, Laneidra’s son, Jamir Williams, arrived at the location and confronted the victim. During the confrontation, Jamir produced a handgun and shot the victim.”
Both suspects face first-degree murder charges, police said.
Rescuers were called to the apartment at about 10:15 p.m. March 21 after a downstairs apartment resident heard a commotion upstairs, discovered the slain man and called for help, police said.
The shooting victim, unidentified by police, died from his injuries later at a hospital.
The case will be heard in the 18th Judicial District.
“The arrests were made with the assistance of multiple Aurora Police Department units, as well as local and federal partner agencies,” police said.
— Sentinel Staff
Aurora police seek help identifying man accused of exposing himself to children at pool
Police are asking for the public’s help in identifying a man accused of exposing himself to children in an Aurora indoor pool last month.
Witnesses told officers the man depicted in the photos exposed himself to them at the Central Recreation Center pool, 18150 E. Vassar Place, at about 5 p.m. Feb. 26.
“Attempts to identify the man have been unsuccessful to date,” Aurora police said in a March 18 social media post.
The suspect is described as a Latino man in his 30s, about 5-feet 6-inches tall, weighing about 170 pounds with a medium build. He has short black hair and a short black beard.
“He was last seen wearing glasses and dressed in all black clothing,” police said. “There is no associated vehicle information at this time.”
Police said anyone with information can call Metro Denver Crime Stoppers at 720-913-7867. Tipsters can remain anonymous and still be eligible for a reward of up to $2,000, police said.
— Sentinel Staff
