Monthly Archives: August 2007

Mark your calendars for Tuesday, August 21st, at 7 a.m.  All of Northwest Denver will be showing up for a rally to help launch the reopening of North High School. It’s the first day of school, and members of the school board, City Council, and DPS administration will be on hand to welcome new faculty and students. Above all, they’ll be celebrating the new vision for North that was unveiled over the past year.

Judy will be on hand, and hopefully you’ll be there too. Bring a sign, wear the school colors (purple + gold), and help the new era at North get off to an auspicious start. Hundreds of people attended meetings over the last year and a half to provide input, help shape the new curriculum, and chart the school’s new course. The stakes are high not just for the students but for the entire community; we can’t afford to let North High fail.

You might have read about the great volunteer effort in support of Manual High School in northeast Denver. We need to do something similar in our own neighborhood — for the kids, and for ourselves. I’ll post more information on the rally as the date gets closer. For now, mark it down and hold the time open.

The Denver Division of Community Corrections is considering options for expanding halfway-house capacity in District 9.

Halfway houses are transitional facilities zones that help paroled prisoners reintegrate into the general population. In principle, they’re a good idea: the parolees get the support and supervision they need to rejoin society. Most studies suggest that halfway houses do not pose any threat to the surrounding community; on the contrary, they tend to make cities safer because they steer ex-cons away from bad old habits.

Nevertheless, halfway houses are not popular; quite understandably, most people would prefer not to live near one. And in Denver, most people don’t have to: the zoning code requires that these facilities be sited a certain distance away from residential neighborhoods, schools, and other such areas. The mandates are strict, which means that when Community Corrections needs additional halfway-house capacity — as is currently the case — it’s very difficult to find a permissible location for a new facility.

Community Corrections is seeking additional halfway-house capacity all across the city, not just within District 9. Within our district, it has identified one parcel that has zoning approval for halfway-house construction. But rather than build another facility, Community Corrections is offering another solution: increase the allowable capacity at existing halfway houses. The cap now stands at 60 beds per facility; by doubling that to 120 beds, Community Corrections can meet its capacity needs without building any new facilities anywhere in Denver.

It is still very early in the process, and all options are open. Which of these routes seems more palatable? Is it better to add new facilities and spread the halfway-house population around, or raise the bed limit and keep this population concentrated at the already-existing locations?

Feedback is welcome, and this is a good time to provide it. No commitments have been made yet, so the policy is very malleable and subject to public influence.

Update re EMUs on the North Metro corridor: Public comment will be taken tonight from 6 to 8 pm at the Carpenter Rec Center in Thornton, 11151 Colorado Boulevard. If you can’t make it to the meeting, send an e-mail to RTD registering your preference for EMUs. See yesterday’s post for details. Last night’s meeting in Commerce City drew several dozen people and a strong show of support for EMUs.

As for the other undecided corridor, Northwest Metro: The project team for that line is setting up informal meetings during the month of August with residents that lie along the route. The purpose of those meetings will be to discuss the EMU/DMU issue, as well as other aspects of the project. Some of the meetings will be with registered neighborhood organizations (RNOs), but the project team also will be available to meet with smaller groups of residents unaffiliated with an RNO. If you’re interested in arranging one of these meetings, or finding the date of a meeting that’s already on the calendar, contact the Northwest Corridor’s public involvement liaison, Julie McKay, at (303) 442-7367 (ext 204).

The Northwest line’s formal workshops on the EMU/DMU issue — the meetings that will decide the crucial issue of which technology is designated as the “locally preferred alternative” — won’t take place until September. When those dates are set, they’ll be published here.