Judy Montero

Mayor Hick was in Sunnyside yesterday, touring one of the newly energy-efficientized units in the Quigg Newton Homes housing development (near 44th and Mariposa). The entire Denver public housing system will be going green over the next few years, adding low-flow faucets amd high-efficiency lighting and appliances. The savings will amount to $1.8 million a year, not counting the environmental benefits. More on the conversion in today’s Denver Post.

While we’re on the subject of housing, here are a couple of related items. First, NEWSED will be running free housing workshops this fall; the first one covers home repair / maintenance and is slated for September 19, co-sponsored by Denver Urban Renewal; several financial-education classes will ensue in October / November, co-sponsored by Mile High United Way. For more information, see NEWSED’s August newsletter or call Ricardo Rodriguez at (303) 534-8342.

Second, I stumbled onto a pretty cool blog today: Baker Pads. It chronicles the renovation, step by step, of an 1892 Victorian in the Baker neighborhood, in the southwest corner of District 9. They’ve been at this for most of a year, and have documented every phase of the renovation with descriptions / photos. Featured in today’s update: pristine hardwood flooring. If you own (or covet) one of District 9’s many historic homes, you’ll get a kick out of this blog.

The Burlington Northern Railroad has weighed in on commuter-rail options in the Northwest Corridor. Here’s the (no pun intended) money quote:

. . . while BNSF’s requirements would not prohibit RTD from operating EMU on the NWR Corridor, implementing them would significantly increase the cost of operating EMU on the NWR Corridor and would far exceed the project’s current budget to provide Commuter Rail service from downtown Denver to Longmont.

The project team drove that point home in a presentation to the RTD Board on August 14. That’s the hurdle EMU supporters will have to overcome, and time is running short. The NW Corridor project team is planning to hold a series of public workshops about vehicle technology in September; when dates/times/locations are announced, we’ll let you know. 

The good news is that the public comments to date are running strongly in favor of EMUs over DMUs. If you want to add your voice to this chorus, submit a comment here (if you haven’t already done so).

Judy chaired a meeting of her FasTracks committee on Monday, and it generated a little news in Tuesday’s Denver Post — an article, headlined “Union Station trench could be big savings.” Nothing wrong with the article, which accurately reported that the Union Station master developers are considering running the subgrade commuter lines into the station via open-roofed trenches, rather than fully enclosed tunnels. The latter would require expensive ventilation and circulation systems, to keep diesel exhaust from building up inside the tunnels; those costs can be avoided with an open-air-trench design. The savings could amount to as much as $50 million.

But the article didn’t report Judy’s question: if you build an open-air trench, where does the exhaust go? Two other members of the committee were asking the same question. The answer, according to Eric Anderson of the Union Station Advisory Committee, is that it simply vents into the open air — but because it’s not in a confined space (i.e., a tunnel), it dissipates naturally. ”Won’t that just add to the pollution downtown?” Judy asked, and Anderson said pollution estimates would be documented the project’s Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), which is due about this time next year.

Denver Public Works voiced another set of concerns regarding drainage — Union Station lies at the bottom of downtown’s entire runoff network, which heads downhill toward the South Platte. That subject, too, will be covered in the EIS. The mayor’s office has a few questions of its own about the project and is trying to arrange a meeting, tentatively set for September 7. Representatives from Council, RTD, DRCOG, CDOT, and Continuum/East-West will be there.

A draft copy of the EIS is available at the Denver Union Station website. You can see the full FasTracks committee meeting via Channel 8’s Denver Online at this link.

A big thank-you to everybody who came out to the rally at North High this morning. Jovenes Unidos and Padres Unidos were out in force, along with some students from the Colorado School of Mines’ Minority Engineering Program and representatives from Regis University and Metropolitan State. The list of VIPs and poobahs in attendance included Judy, District 3 Councilman Rick Garcia, DPS Superintendent Michael Bennet, and School Board member Lucia Guzman.

Judy was the only North High alumnus among the speakers. She described her alma mater as a phoenix rising from the ashes, with a new curriculum and faculty and a new lease on life. Principal Joann Trujillo-Hays said that the labor of getting everything ready for the new year — so many new hires, books, courseworks, &c — reminded her of childbirth, but so too did the joy at finally having the new program in place. Superintendent Bennet said Trujillo-Hays deserves all the credit for North’s successes — but responsibility for the failures, if any, should lie with him and his staff.

Councilman Garcia noted how important public schools are to the life of an urban neighborhood. He said he hoped the North High redesign would succeed so that, in 12 years or so, he can send his toddlers there. Ms. Guzman spoke of public education as a form of social justice; good schools have to work for all the members of a community, not just the select few. A 2003 graduate of North High school wrapped up the speechifying; alas, I never caught her name. She is now a senior at the University of Denver, and she spoke about the value of thinking and dreaming big. North High needs to be a way-station, she said — a place that prepares students to take the next step and go to college.

We’ll keep a close eye on how things go at North this year. Thanks again to everyone who showed up to help launch the new year with such enthusiasm.

Per the good folks at Riverfront Park dot com, the stairs on the Millennium Bridge are getting replaced. The new flight of steps, to be composed of granite, will take a little over 2 months to install; temporary steps have already been built, and demolition is underway on the old stairs. The project is slated to wrap just before October; we’ll keep you posted. By the way, if you attended last Thursday’s season finale of the Riverfront Park Fashion Series — or, for that matter, if you missed it — photos will be up at Riverfrontpark.com shortly, as well as at Riverfrontparkfashion.com.

Hope to see you tomorrow morning at North High for the rally and get-together to welcome all the new students and faculty.

Here’s a quick reminder to mark your calendar for next Tuesday’s welcoming rally at North High School. August 21 is the first day of school, and the first day of a new era at North. Join the ceremonies from 7 to 7:30 a.m. and show the incoming students and faculty that the entire Northwest Denver community is behind them. Judy will be in attendance, along with other members of Council and officials from the City and the Denver Public Schools.

Another event you should know about: Platte Street merchants will host the 3d annual Summer Stroll this Saturday, August 18, beginning at noon. It’s an old-fashioned street fair with sidewalk sales, street performers, food carts, musicians, and plain old people-watching. The event wraps up with a screening of The Blues Brothers in the Vitamin Cottage parking lot (15th and Platte) at about 8:30 p.m.

Hope to see you at one or both of these events.

The annual budget discussion has begun in the usual fashion: a demand for cuts, cuts, and more cuts. That’s inevitable in the post-TABOR, post-9/11 fiscal environment. But in at least one area, Judy is hoping to get a funding increase: DPD’s gang enforcement unit.

That unit was beefed up in the 1990s, when gang activity reached a zenith, but it has suffered gradual manpower losses over the last decade. Decreased crime rates explain part of the gang unit’s shrinkage; tight funding accounts for the rest.

Although crime levels remain at low levels (much lower than in the early 1990s), there has been an increase in gang activity this year, including the northeast portion of District 9, in the Swansea and Globeville neighborhoods. Judy’s thought is to beef up enforcement now and get the gangs under control, rather than waiting for a small problem to grow into a big one.

With funds as scarce as they are, getting any increase won’t be easy — and it might have to come at the expense of other funding priorities. Judy’s seeking feedback on the issue at the outset of budget discussions; please weigh in with your opinion.

The HUNI Planning and Community Development Committee will hear a presentation from Julie McKay about the Northwest corridor (the Boulder line) of FasTracks. This is one of the two commuter-rail lines for which the technology (electric vs diesel) remains undecided — and for which you can still influence the outcome. If you care about the EMU/DMU issue, attend and voice your opinion. The meeting is at 7 p.m. at St. Elizabeth’s, 2835 West 32nd Street, on the 14th floor. If you can’t attend the meeting, you can still express your wishes by submitting a comment via the Northwest Corridor’s home page.

At last night’s City Council meeting, a zoning amendment in District 9 won unanimous approval. The rezoning changes the parcel at 301 Kalamath from an I-1 designation to C-MU-30. It will allow for this property, a former gas station and auto-salvage junkyard, to be redeveloped into a mixed residential-office building. The rezoning application enjoyed the active support of the Baker Historic Neighborhood Association. It also advances the objectives of Blueprint Denver and the 2003 Baker Neighborhood Plan.

The other big piece of business, of course, was the series of 10 bond and mill-levy ordinances, all of which will require voter approval in November. If approved, the package will fund infrastructure maintenance and capital improvements for a variety of city facilities. The major funding priority for District 9, the 38th Avenue underpass, is contained in Council Bill 419 — but the entire package of 10 bills merits approval and has Judy’s support.

Yesterday’s Blueprint Denver Committee included a presentation by Aylene Quale, transportation and special projects manager for the Downtown Denver Partnership. Quale heads up the Downtown Denver Transportation Management Association, one of three transportation management associations (or TMAs) in the city of Denver.

TMAs run a variety of programs to promote the use of public transit. They help developers design good, convenient public-transit connections into their site plans; they work with employers to educate their workers about public commute options; they work with elected officials to get public-transit amenities (everything from light-rail systems to bike lanes) approved and funded. More on the concept of TMAs at this link.

Between the buildout of FasTracks and the redesign of Denver Union Station, the Downtown Denver TMA has a lot going on. “We’ve got some great initiatives underway,” says Quale. “There’s FasTracks, of course, but it’s a lot more than that. The Downtown Area Plan has a lot of recommendations in it to improve transit options downtown. We’re going to need people to help us keep pushing for those recommendations to be acted on, and for those projects to be built out.”

If you’d like to be on Quale’s notification / distribution list, send her an e-mail at ayleneq@downtowndenver.com. To see her presentation at the Blueprint Denver Committee, here’s a direct link to the video — drop down the “Jump to Topics of Interest” menu below the video screen and click the “Transportation Management” line.