Judy Montero

A quick followup to yesterday’s post about LoDoNA’s holiday canned-food drive: I forgot to add that Judy will be the honorary hostess for the Denver Rescue Mission’s annual holiday banquet. That event takes place on December 23 beginning at 11 a.m. and provides more than 500 homeless men, women, and children with a Christmas feast — turkey and all the trimmings. Each attendee also gets a new blanket as part of the Rescue Mission’s “Bless with a Blanket” program.

The Rescue Mission is set for the holiday feast, volunteerwise; more than 40 folks have already signed up to help cook and serve the meals, and VIPs such as Councilman Doug Linkhart and 9News anchors Bob Kendrick and Adele Arakawa will be lending a hand as well. But if you want to make a contribution to support the feast, Bless with a Blanket, or any of the Rescue Mission’s various other programs, you can donate online.

Judy was a member of the Denver Commission to End Homelessness and is a staunch supporter of Denver’s Road Home, the visionary 10-year plan to end homelessness in the city. She’s very happy to lend her support to the Rescue Mission.

Our friend Celeste of the Riverfront Park blog is coordinating LoDoNA’s holiday canned-food drive. Collection points have been set up at about a dozen buildings in LoDo and the CPV, and the proceeds will be hauled up the hill to the Bienvenidos Food Bank in Highland, half a block from my house — same place where Judy and staff helped give out Thanksgiving dinners a couple weeks back. Celeste is looking for volunteers on December 1 (this Saturday) to help move donations from the individual collection points to a central loading area; if you’re available, post a comment at her blog.

On tonight’s calendar:

• Parks and Rec will host the first of a series of meetings to discuss rec-center programming, services, hours of operation, and other issues. This is in followup to the deal struck last month by Judy and other councilmembers to avoid service reductions at 11 rec centers (including 6 in District 9).
• Officials from the city and Historic Denver, Inc., will be hosting an open house about historic preservation tonight at the Webb Building (201 Colfax) beginning at 5 p.m. It’s of particular interest to residents of District 9, which is rife w/ historic districts and properties.

Judy voted with the majority last night in approving a zoning amendment to loosen setback restrictions on evaporative coolers. The vote was 9-2, with 2 abstentions. The amendment gives homeowners an incentive to opt for evaporative coolers (which are low-polluting and energy-efficient) over traditional AC units. With a winter front on the way, a new cooling unit is probably not high on your list of priorities . . . . but file the information away for next spring. The red tape has been cleared away to help you make the environmentally wise choice.

The Denver Post has a preview of the upcoming repairs on the I-70 viaduct, which looms over Globeville and Elyria-Swansea. They’re gonna do all the work at night, which is great if you’re a commuter but maybe not so great if you live near the highway — wee-hours traffic will be diverted off the span and down into your neighborhood. I’ll try to get some information from CDOT re the exact detour route(s), and the dates they’ll be active.

Judy was down on Santa Fe Drive today for a ribbon-cutting at the Santa Fe Tequila Company, a new restaurant / cantina that opened with the help of a Neighborhood Business Revitalization loan from the city Office of Economic Development. Judy’s quoted like so in the official press release: “This restaurant is a very welcome addition to the healthy mix of businesses that have grown and emerged along Santa Fe Drive. We have a bustling corridor, with a strong focus on the arts and culture that other neighborhoods and even other cities are trying to emulate.” Mayor Hick also attended the ceremony; I wasn’t there, but if any pixs turn up (have ‘em? send ‘em!) I’ll post them here soon.

Oh by the way, here’s Claire Walter’s quickie review of the new joint.

Hope ev’ybody had a happy Thanksgiving. Council reconvenes tonight with a public hearing on a couple of zoning-code amendments. CB 477 would exempt ground-mounted air conditioners and swamp coolers from side-setback regulations; CB 598 proposes to lift height and bulk-place restrictions pertaining to swamp coolers.

Judy hasn’t taken a position so far; she’ll be listening carefully to the arguments presented tonight. The argument in favor of the amendments is that the existing regulations are outdated. They were written 50 years ago, when air-conditioning units were much bulkier, much noisier, and much less common than they are today. As air-conditioning has become more common, applications for exemptions have skyrocketed; zoning staff routinely approve those applications, but reviewing and processing them requires large chunks of staff time.

The argument against is that air-conditioning units can be noisy; if the setback requirements are relaxed, you might have to live a few feet closer to your neighbor’s AC unit. But the tradeoff is that you’d have greater flexibility to position your own AC unit . . . . .

Below are a couple of links to staff reports about the proposed amendments. The hearing begins tonight at 5:30.

cb-477-ac-staff-report.pdf
cb-598-ec-staff-report.pdf

A quick update re the Thanksgiving dinner giveaway at the Bienvenidos Food Bank last week : the total number of families served was 697. Thanks to everyone who supported that effort.

Last night the Denver Public Schools board approved the plan to close eight schools, including 3 in District 9. One of those schools, Smedley Elementary, sent a large delegation of kids to last night’s meeting, and their presence made a powerful impression. Outgoing board member Lucia Guzman said that “looking at them face to face does put a personal feeling on what we are doing.” But she added that the status quo is not serving those students, not providing them with the education they deserve. It will be Judy’s priority to support the families directly affected by this transition and to help the schools implement the reforms.

Here’s a little good news: the Highland Pedestrian Bridge picked up a couple of impressive honors. The National Steel Bridge Alliance (NSBA) named it as one of 7 bridges to receive national recognition next week at the World Steel Bridge Symposium. And the state chapter of the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) recognized the bridge last week with an Honor Award for Structural Systems.

I’ll be out the rest of the week for Thanksgiving. Safe travels to everybody who’s on the move.

Judy and her staff spent yesterday morning in Highland at the Bienvenidos Food Bank, a stone’s throw from my house, helping to distribute Thanksgiving dinner packages. Each box included turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, bread, and other yummies. The total number of households served was in the hundreds; I’ve got a call in w/ the Food Bank and will give you a hard count ASAP. Here are a few pics; click on the thumbnail for a full-size view.

Just around the corner from the food bank, Rosa Linda’s Mexican Cafe will be holding its 23d Annual Thanksgiving Feast next Thursday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. I just got off the phone with Oscar Aguirre, who tells me the restaurant is already set with a full complement of volunteers for the event. But if you want to support the cause w/ a check, that’s always appreciated. Make the check out to Rosa Linda’s Cafe and put “Thanksgiving Feast” in the subject line; send it to 2005 West 33d Avenue, Denver CO 80211.

A couple of quick updates: a) the Millennium Bridge has reopened in the Central Platte Valley; b) here’s an article about DPD’s new graffiti cams, which I mentioned yesterday. One other item: I’d love to hear from anybody who attended the DNC 2008 community forum at REI last night. If you were there, please post a summary of the meeting in the comments to this post, or send me an e-mail (address is on the sidebar at right).

And now, without further ado, here’s a full list of the projects in District 9 that will be funded through the $550 million tax package approved by the voters last week:

TRANSIT / THOROUGHFARES
38th Avenue Underpass
Rehabilitation14th Street Streetscape/Sidewalk
Transit-Oriented Development:
       •  40th and 40th Station
       •  10th and Osage Station
       •  13th and Decatur Station

FACILITIES
Fire Station #11 Renovation
Fire Station #6 Renovation
Denver Health 5th Floor Expansion
Childcare Centers:
       •  Neighborhood House
       •  Westside

PARKS
Swimming Pool Maintenance / Replacement:
       •  La Alma
       •  20th Street
       •  Aztlan (slide structure)
       •  Swansea (slide structure)
       •  Rude (slide structure)

Rec Center Maintenance
       •  Ashland
       •  Aztlan
       •  La Alma
       •  La Familia
       •  20th Street

Restroom Construction / Rehabilitation
       •  CPV Skate Park
       •  Rude
       •  Chaffee

Playground Rehabilitation
       •  Argo

Irrigation System Replacement
       •  Swansea
       •  Lincoln Park
       •  Park Avenue Triangles
       •  Dailey
       •  Valverde
       •  Weir Gulch Marina

Trails Maintenance
       •  Platte River Trail

Those are just the projects specific to District 9. On top of those, we’ll be seeing pothole repairs, curb/gutter improvements, street repavings, new traffic signals and street signs, alley upgrades, and a host of other basic infrastructure jobs throughout our district and indeed throughout the city. All this for a few extra tax pennies per household. You won’t find a better buy anywhere else in town.

Tonight the city will hold the fourth and final session in its initial round of community forums regarding next year’s convention. This one takes place right here in District 9, just across the river from the convention site (the Pepsi Center), at the REI Flagship store. It lasts from 6 to 7 p.m. and will be hosted by mayoral advisor Katherine Archuleta.

“We’ll provide an overview of what’s going to happen during the convention,” Archuleta says. “Most people don’t know how a convention works — how it’s structured, who the partners are. We’ll explain those basics, then open it up for questions.”

Archuleta says most of the questions at the first three forums had to do with street closures, business access, and neighborhood impacts. “We’re going to work with the neighborhoods very closely,” she says. “We don’t know the exact footprint of the security boundary yet, and we don’t know what the exact transportation corridors will be. But we do know that nothing will be shut down for an entire day. The plan is to do rolling street closures, so that nothing will be shut down for long periods of time. The priority is to minimize the impact on neighborhoods and businesses. We won’t be able to eliminate that impact entirely, but we’ll be able to minimize it.”

Archuleta adds that the city will be hosting additional rounds of community meetings as the convention nears. No part of town will be impacted as heavily as District 9, and good communication between residents and the city will be critical to good management. Tonight’s a good opportunity to get that conversation started.

Judy’s at a press conference as I type this (~ 10:15 a.m.) with Mayor Hick and Chief of Police Whitman to announce a new pilot program recommended by the Graffiti Task Force (which Judy co-chaired). For the next 30 days, the city of Denver will have the free use of 8 automated surveillance cameras with wireless feeds. They’re motion-activated, and in addition to shooting video they also send an automatic text message to patrol cars in the area, tipping them off to suspicious activity. The objective is to catch graffitists and other vandals in the act; the wireless component enables DPD to move the cameras all over the city, so if a particular neighborhood starts getting tagged hard, the police will be able to have cameras in place almost immediately. The cameras are being provided by Law Enforcement Associates, a North Carolina corporation.

This is the second Graffiti Task Force recommendation to take effect, along with the new ordinance (approved last week) reducing property owners’ time window for removal of graffiti. Further recommendations of the Task Force are queued up for implementation, and all should be in place before next summer, when tagging’s high season begins. We’ll keep you posted.

Police are still looking for Anthony Chavez, the 25-year-old suspect in the LoDo shootings two weekends ago. But this weekend’s Rocky contained more information to support the claim made here last week, viz. that in spite of this isolated instance LoDo is generally a very safe district. The Rocky article pointed out that there have only been 3 homicides in LoDo in the last 5 years. A heavy police presence, bolstered by private security at LoDo clubs and restaurants, makes this a tough environment for hardened criminals. Most of the crimes logged down there are alcohol-related nuisance incidents, as opposed to serious matters.

It doesn’t make the early November shootings any less serious. But that incident wasn’t part of a trend.