Changing lives for the better Westminster's Wellness Court
SPRING EVENTS GUIDE
From Sheepdog to Peep's Dog
4 6 7 11 12 8 14
Metzger Farm: An Oasis of Historic Preservation
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Nancy McNally Mayor nmcnally@ westminsterco.gov
Sarah Nurmela Mayor Pro tem snurmela@ westminsterco.gov
Claire Carmelia ccarmeli@ westminsterco.gov
David DeMott ddemott@ westminsterco.gov
Obi Ezeadi oezeadi@ westminsterco.gov
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Your hub for City happenings, stories, and neighborly advice at www.westminsterco.gov/ TheWestyWord
Amber Hott ahott@ westminsterco.gov
Kristine Ireland kireland@ westminsterco.gov
THE ICE RESCUE TRAINING WITH WFD
When the frigid cold turns Westminster’s waterways into icy landscapes, residents can take comfort knowing that a team of highly specialized divers is ready to take the plunge and save lives.
Westminster Fire Department’s (WFD) Water Rescue Team, renowned throughout the region for their expertise in ice dives and recovery missions, plays a critical role in keeping the community safe through the winter and spring months.
Fire Paramedic Alec Shogan, who leads the team, said frozen lakes and ponds present unique dangers for both people and their pets.
“Our community loves the outdoors and recreation, and we’re fortunate to have several great bodies of water for that, but frozen bodies of water can be extremely dangerous,” Shogan said. “One of the more common things we see is pets walking out onto the ice, which leads to owners following them or trying to save them if they get caught in a bad situation. I have three dogs, so I know it would be hard for me, even as a trained professional, to resist going after them.”
The water rescue team trains monthly to sharpen their skills, and completes an annual
ice dive on Standley Lake as part of their training. Preparation and practice are key, because time is of the essence in such cold, harsh conditions.
“Once you enter the water beneath an ice shelf, the clock is ticking,” Shogan said. “Because of thermodynamics, you lose body heat 25 times faster when you're in the water. That leads to becoming hypothermic substantially faster.”
For the training dive, firefighters cut through the ice shelf to create a wide hole, then don full drysuits and scuba gear to dive and swim underneath the ice. Firefighters practice swimming in search patterns, locating people and objects, and maintaining communications with support staff on the surface.
As one of only two fire departments in the region with a dedicated water rescue team, WFD works hand in hand with local partners. The team also trains the park rangers at
Standley Lake, so they can assist with ice rescues above the surface, and hopefully prevent the need for a dive operation.
Although Westminster’s Water Rescue Team is always prepared for the worst, Shogan’s best advice to residents this spring is to just stay off the ice.
“When it comes to ice, there is no good way to gauge the strength or thickness,” Shogan said. “Just because it's thick doesn't mean that it's strong. It is a dangerous environment, and the second that you go through the ice, you have minutes to be able to get yourself out. If you're not prepared for being submerged in that environment, it has a significant increase in the potential for a fatal accident.”
To learn more about the Westminster Fire Department’s Water Rescue Team and see an ice rescue training session in action, watch our video by scanning the QR code.
Second Annual
Ready, set, report! Do you know of a pothole on a public Westminster street that needs to be repaired? This spring, the City is once again bringing back Pothole Palooza, a marathon week to fix as many potholes as possible in our community. Our streets team will hit the roads from April 14-17 filling any potholes that have been reported by residents, and any others they find along the way.
“Pothole Palooza isn’t just about fixing roads,” said Street Operations Superintendent Brock Hufford. “It's about building a safer community where every driver and pedestrian can feel more secure. We’re committed to working with residents to maintain and enhance the infrastructure that keeps our neighborhoods moving.”
Westminster's first-ever Pothole Palooza in April 2024 was nothing short of a triumph!
During the four-day event, residents reported a whopping 456 potholes on City-owned and maintained streets. Thanks to the hard work of our dedicated streets team, nearly 3,000 potholes were repaired during the event at 420 locations across Westminster, leaving residents with smoother and safer commutes.
How to Report Potholes
Beginning March 20, residents can start reporting any pesky potholes they’ve encountered on City-owned streets so that crews can target repairs during Pothole Palooza. The reporting form can be found by visiting: bit.ly/ReportPotholes25.
It’s important to note that crews will only be able to address potholes on Cityowned streets and cannot repair those located in private parking lots or on state-maintained roads like portions of Sheridan Boulevard, Wadsworth Parkway, Federal Boulevard, and U.S. 36.
As an added incentive, residents who submit a pothole for repair will be entered into a raffle to win a personalized street sign. Not only will you be improving the roads, but you could also take home a unique prize!
Be sure to submit your pothole reports by 2 p.m. on Thursday, April 17, so crews have ample time to work on potholes before the event wraps up. Let’s work together to keep Westminster’s streets in great shape!
You can always report potholes on City-maintained streets on Access Westminster by scanning the QR code or visiting: westminsterco. gov/AccessWestminster
NEIGHBORLY ADVICE
We ’re here to help!
For general inquiries and assistance, contact a Community Assistant.
Free Mulch Available Now
The City's self-serve mulch site, located at 9920 Westminster Boulevard, is now open for the season! Westminster residents can haul away as much mulch as needed, free of charge. All mulch is the product of the City's tree limb recycling events held throughout the year. The site is open seven days a week from 7 am to 7 pm until supply runs out. For updates, please scan the QR code.
Monday-Friday, 8 am to 5 pm
303-658-2400
Request a Return Envelope
Residents can request a free return envelope with your monthly utility bill by contacting Westminster's Utility Billing team.
Call: 303-658-2405
Email: ub@westminsterco.gov
Scan the QR code to learn more about Westy Water.
Get Involved with the City
Do you want to help shape the future of your community? Serving on one of Westminster’s boards or commissions is your chance to make a real difference while collaborating on important issues that impact our city. Share your voice, contribute your ideas, and help preserve the vibrant quality of life we all cherish. Scan the QR code to apply today and be part of something meaningful!
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Westminster's Wellness Court
It’s a typical afternoon in Colorado. The sun is shining, yet dark clouds are in the distance, foreshadowing a storm on the way. However, the atmosphere inside Courtroom B at the Westminster Municipal Courthouse is bright and cheery. Dark clouds won’t dampen the mood of everyone there. It’s a day
Paula Frazier thought she’d never see. The Westminster resident thought overcoming her personal demons would be too hard — she didn’t think her life was worth the fight. She was wrong. Today is the day she graduates from Westminster’s Wellness Court.
Frazier, a grandmother to 17 grandchildren, is very open about her struggle with alcohol abuse. She said she started drinking when she was only seven years old.
"I grew up in North Carolina. My uncle made moonshine, and we drank it,” she explained, adding there wasn’t much else to do in her small town.
Now, at 63 years old, she stopped drinking thanks to support from Westminster’s Wellness Court, an innovative type of court the City started in 2019. Select defendants who plead guilty to non-violent crimes are offered a chance to attend the program as a way to get back on their feet, avoid jail time, and break the cycle of recidivism.
Once an offender agrees to join the program, Westminster’s Wellness Court Navigator Hannah Friskney steps in and helps them get acclimated. In addition to regular court
Paula Frazier, Wellness Court Graduate
hearings scheduled for participants, she offers resources and support to guide them to a better mental and physical state so they avoid becoming repeat offenders.
“As they advance through the wellness court phases, we offer them incentives along the way, which are gift cards, hygiene kits, or bus passes,” Friskney said.
According to Frazier, those incentives work. She remembers watching her peers in the program get one, but the judge said she couldn’t have one yet because she hadn’t earned it. Not getting that Subway gift card made her want to prove to everyone that she could do it, that she could be better.
He had faith in me, he believed in me.
In Frazier’s case, she said she wouldn’t have been able to get sober and turn her life around without support from Judge Jason Lantagne and Friskney. Even when Frazier slipped up in her sobriety, she said Judge Lantagne never lost faith in her and did his best to help her get on board with the program. “He had faith in me, he believed in me.”
Getting sober and changing a life is about more than just putting down the drink. Wellness Court helps participants get to the root of their problems. Frazier’s transformation didn’t happen overnight, and Friskney didn’t give up.
At first, Friskney set Frazier up with traditional talk therapy, but when that didn’t work, she switched gears.
She introduced Frazier to peer support, where participants meet with people who have been
in similar situations and have come out on the other side. Once Frazier connected with a peer support counselor she could relate to, Friskney said it just clicked.
Even though the path sometimes curved and wasn’t a straight line to graduation, she made it.
On the day of Frazier’s graduation, she put on a cap and gown and proudly strutted through the courtroom while Pomp and Circumstance played over the speakers. Wellness Court participants cheered her on, imagining themselves following her footsteps in a year’s time.
People who know Frazier shared stories of how much she had overcome to complete the program and become a functioning member of society. Judge Lantagne spoke first.
“Where you were in terms of decisionmaking and your ability to handle problems several months ago, as to where you are now, the transformation is unreal,” said Judge Lantagne. “You have become a role model in the program and other participants talk about what they’ve seen you accomplish and the hope that it gives them.”
Then it was Frazier’s turn to take the mic herself. “I want to say thank you. I was a handful. Many times, I wanted to tell the judge to put me in jail. But my team said, ‘Paula you can do it.’ It feels good to be sober. You saved my life.”
Now that Frazier is done with the program, she said she will never go back to drinking. She wants to stress how important this program is and that it’s not the City being soft on crime. “We need this program, and we need a lot more of them,” Frazier said. “We
need honest people to work the program. If you’re not honest, you’re not ready, you’re not hungry. Don’t do the program — do the time.”
She still attends Wellness Court to show support for people moving forward in their own journeys, and she also joins the peer support group to help show it is possible to change, and that the program is worth it.
It lets me know that I’m here and I’m ready.
During her time as a participant, Frazier would ring a little bell every time she entered the courthouse. It became one of her rituals. As part of her graduation present, the Wellness Court team gifted her with two bells, which she continues to ring every day when she gets up in the morning. It’s more than a symbolic gesture — “It lets me know that I’m here and I’m ready.”
For a more in-depth look at Westminster's Wellness Court program, scan the QR code or visit bit.ly/WellnessCourt.
Register at: www.westminsterco.gov/ specialevents Spring
Saturday, May 10 10 am to 4 pm
City Park Recreation Center 10455 Sheridan Blvd.
Armed Forces Day Ceremony
Saturday, May 17 10 am
Armed Forces
Tribute Garden 6001 W. 104th Ave.
Movie in the Park
Moana 2
Friday, May 30 7 pm
City Park 10455 Sheridan Blvd.
Sponsored by Intermountain Health, Xfinity, and Yogurt Brothers
Friday, June 6 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm
Historic Westminster
“My role is to change the situation that people are involved in, and Yukon is the conduit that I use,” said Steve. “A big part of therapy is that we change the mindset of the individual to ease them from what they're going through and give them something else to think about.”
Sheepdogfrom to peep's dog
There’s a unique employee among Westminster staff whose role is to connect with people on a deeply emotional level — without uttering a single word. The work is so crucial that the people we depend on to help us turn to his fluffy fur for comfort when they need it. His mission is to make life better one snuggle at a time.
Meet Yukon, the four-year-old certified and insured therapy dog, who works with the Westminster Police Department’s (WPD) Victim Advocate Program.
“A therapy dog is different than a service dog,” explained Steve Major, Yukon’s trainer.
Operating as a team, Yukon and Steve offer critical services such as crisis intervention and stress reduction to victims of crime. They take their services to several Westminster facilities, including the Municipal Courthouse, Public Safety Center, fire stations, and the Adams County District Attorney's Office.
The team begins every interaction by asking if a person would like to visit with Yukon. If they do, Yukon takes it from there, absorbing pets, snuggles, and even playing fetch.
“He'll come up and sometimes I've seen him put his head in their lap. Or just even lay down at their feet,” said Steve.
WPD Victim Services Coordinator Drew Hogan is proud of the impact the team has had on both victims and first responder staff who experience indirect trauma in their line of work, like dispatchers or those who review body camera footage.
“It's about reducing the impact of trauma,” Hogan said. “The physical act of working with the dog is to help the victim or person get to a point of self-regulation.”
“Now, even when police officers introduce us to other people, they say he's their therapy dog too,” Steve said with a smile. “I've seen people that were in tears, and after spending time with Yukon, snap completely out of it.”
It'sabout reducing the impactoftrauma“ “
We just try to put a smile on people's faces. “ “
Steve and Yukon joined WPD's Victim Services Unit in June 2024. They completed background checks, numerous tests, and the same 40 hours of training courses required of all victim advocates to become Westminster’s therapy dog team.
Careful to reiterate the importance of people seeking help should they need it, Steve has a message for the community: “There's a very large awareness now of self-care. These services are available to you if ever you should need them.”
For more information on victim services, or to volunteer as a victim advocate, visit: www. westminsterco.gov/police.
MY NAME IS Hello Yukon
Metzger Farm: AN OASIS OF HISTORIC PRESERVATION
Looking across the water at the historic green and white structures that occupy Metzger Farm Open Space, it’s easy to assume —wrongly — that the story of this tranquil estate near 120th Avenue and Lowell Boulevard begins and ends with a local family homesteading and maintaining the property for the past 150 years.
The truth, as it turns out, is a much more dynamic story of a fiery orphan turned Attorney General and how he struck gold with a 320-acre hobby farm in Westminster; a suburban oasis that led to a groundbreaking cooperation between two future Front Range communities.
The story of John Metzger was a real-life ragsto-riches tale, having overcome childhood adversity to become a people’s attorney in Denver. He took the “counsel” part of his work to heart, helping veterans, pensioners, widows, and others who might not have otherwise been able to afford legal services.
He was turned down for service in WWII due to ulcers, but a young John Metzger still found a way to contribute to the war effort by opening a munitions plant in Denver that provided millions of anti-aircraft shells to the U.S. Navy.
In the early 1940s, his budding legal career led him into state and local Democratic Party politics, and Metzger began to earn a reputation as a vocal young activist devoted to fighting corruption.
Eventually, John Metzger desired an escape from the busy public life he lived in town. In 1943, during a casual conversation with his good friend and Denver’s district attorney at the time, James T. Burke, Metzger struck a deal to purchase Burke’s 320-acre agricultural property north of Denver.
Throughout the 1940s, John Metzger and his wife Betty enjoyed living on the farm that John called "Loch-in-Vale," Scottish for "Lake
in the Valley." They started a family and raised two children, John William and Karen, on their farmstead. John continued to work in Denver as a lawyer, while Betty played piano on KOA radio, played the organ at two local churches, and taught private piano lessons.
Although the farm was not the Metzger family’s primary source of income, John and Betty continued to improve the property. They raised animals, including chickens and John’s prized herd of Scottish Shorthorn cattle. They also enlisted the help of nearby farmers to grow and harvest a few crops, such as alfalfa and buckhorn wheat.
However, a statewide drought that began around 1950 and lasted for six years made it increasingly difficult to produce crops on Metzger Farm. Over time, the property became better suited for raising livestock, and pastures full of grass for grazing replaced many of the previously plowed crop fields. The Metzgers' daughter Karen, who was heavily involved with the West Eastlake Range Riders and participated annually in the National Western Stock Show, eventually pastured her horse on 16 acres of repurposed wheat field.
The iconic ponds on the property did not exist when John Metzger first purchased it, but he took advantage of the natural topography and existing irrigation to excavate and fill the two ponds and improve the landscape. Today, these ponds serve as valuable habitat for wildlife and a key characteristic of the open space. Residents have access to the larger pond via a maintained trail and purpose-built fishing pier.
Nowadays, visitors to Metzger Farm Open Space can see an abundance of wildlife, including an active heron rookery, on the property. Joe Reale, open space superintendent for Westminster, said Metzger farm is unique in the suburban landscape.
“It’s a real oasis,” Reale said. “As soon as you get out there, you’re instantly away from all the city life, but it’s also conveniently close to home.”
The Metzger Farm parcel has been jointly managed as open space since the cities of Westminster and Broomfield formed a joint foundation in 2005 to acquire the property. After drafting a master plan and preparing the area for safe recreation, Metzger Farm Open Space began welcoming residents in 2012.
Westminster Mayor Nancy McNally served as a liaison throughout the process and is excited to see the continued enjoyment of a historic property bustling with wildlife and preserved for visitors from all walks of life.
“Never underestimate a simple get-together to talk,” McNally said. “A great partnership may be around the corner! This land has become a treasure for both cities' citizens for generations to come.”
City of Westminster
4800 West 92nd Ave.
Westminster, CO 80031
Deadline for submissions
MONDAY MAY 5
Westminster is blooming with beauty every spring, and we want to see it through your lens! Submit your best spring photos of Westminster — whether it’s flowers, landscapes, or moments of local life — and you could win exciting prizes in our Leave No Trace Spring Photo Contest. The contest is open to all, so grab your camera and start snapping. For more details and to submit your photos, scan the QR code or visit www.westminsterco.gov/ springphotocontest.
