WIZARDS AT THE NEXT LEVEL More than a few Windsor High School athletes are now playing their sport — from soccer and baseball to lacrosse and track — in college. Get caught up with where former Wizards stars are now.
SERVING WINDSOR SINCE 1896
SUNDAY, MARCH 29, 2015
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ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
YOUR WINDSOR:
Getting to know the people who live in and love their hometown
THREE’S A CROWD? Third economic development group could boost or muddy NoCo job efforts, leaders say
BEACON LIBRARY
Windsor Town Manager Kelly Arnold entertained the crowd prior to the USA Pro Challenge race in downtown Windsor two years ago.
COLORADOAN LIBRARY
Construction on Woodward’s industrial turbomachinery systems building continues in Fort Collins. Woodward CEO Tom Gendron is a member of Northern Colorado Economic Alliance, an economic development group that hopes to market the area to prospective employers. By Pat Ferrier PatFerrier@coloradoan.com
When it comes to bringing new jobs to Northern Colorado, a fledgling group hoping to draw employers to Larimer and Weld counties believes there’s power in numbers. The two counties house about 650,000 residents, a threshold that brings more clout than either county can achieve on its own. With more than 164,000 new residents projected to move into the two counties within 10 years, adding jobs to Larimer and Weld is critical to the region’s economic future.
But how best to lure those jobs here may put three economic development organizations on a collision course. Northern Colorado has suffered from lackluster marketing efforts, which render the area nearly invisible in the race to attract new business, according to Northern Colorado Economic Alliance, a privately funded nonprofit that expects to be fully operational in April. Politically, no existing economic development group can market outside their own city or county, the group said. Established organizations Northern Colorado Economic
Windsor is unique place to town manager
Development Corp. and Upstate Colorado Economic Development focus on Larimer and Weld counties, respectively. “They are rightly so focused on their own communities, so we feel like that’s the role NCEA needs to take on and go out to the country and world and say Northern Colorado is an amazing place — you ought to take a look,” said Mary Atchison, NCEA’s chief operating officer. Northern Colorado Economic Development Corp. in Loveland is regrouping after
By Kyle Eustice
See JOB GROWTH / Page 3
For the Beacon
Kelly Arnold has always been ambitious. He graduated from Colorado State University with a degree in business administration and pursued his master’s in public administration from the University of Kansas. As the current town manager for the Town of Windsor, Arnold has worked in municipal government for 30 years, a career which started with the city of Fort Collins while attending school at CSU. Prior to coming to Windsor, Arnold was city manager of Laramie, Wyoming, and Grand Junction. As Windsor prepares to celebrate its 125th anniversary, the Brighton native helped ignite the festivities at the Kick-Off Party, which was held on March 23 in front of Town Hall. The Beacon caught up with Arnold to talk to him about Windsor’s future. Question: First and foremost, how did the 125th anniversary kickoff go? Answer: We had a good turnout with Mayor Vazquez providing his perspective on 125 years and the reading of an official proclamation that declares Windsor’s birthday of 125 years this year. Windsor was incorporated on April 2, 1890. A special evening light display has been created and is featured at Town Hall, which was unveiled on Monday night. Q: When did you become town manager and what do you love about your job?
SCHOOLS
Confederate flag causes stir at Windsor HS By Michael Hill For the Beacon
A flag flap has created a stir at Windsor High School during the school’s Diversity Week. The rights of students to be able to fly flags of their choosing on school property became a discussion point after a student came to school on Tuesday flying a Confederate flag off the back of his truck. After the flag was removed by a school administrator, a group of students took issue with the decision and responded by showing up to school the following day flying a variety of different flags, including American flags, a Confederate flag, a “Don’t Tread On Me” flag and a Georgia state flag, from their vehicles. Windsor High School 10th-grader Mikayla Richardson was one of the students who took part in the flag display. She said the show of flags constituted a statement of diversity. “The people that were flying the flags were either from the South or have family there,” she said. “It’s Diversity Week at the school and we’re showing where we come
OUTSIDE
from and what makes us unique.” While Richardson claims that insufficient explanation was provided for the removal of the Confederate flag on Tuesday, Richard Windsor High Thomas School Assistant Principal Richard Thomas, who did the removing, said the decision to do so was spurred by a call from a concerned citizen. “What happened was that we had an adult in the community that contacted us and was upset that there was a Confederate flag being flown by a student in the parking lot,” he said. Thomas said after fielding the complaint, he went out to the parking lot, saw the flag in question and asked a group of students congregated there who the truck belonged to. “I told them we can’t fly that flag because it creates hard feelings and that we’d just gotten a phone call about it,” said Thomas, who explained that while the school has no specific policy governing the dis-
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play of flags, district policy frowns on anything that causes a disruption within the school environment. Thomas said since the student was not present and the truck was locked, he took the flag back to his office and had a talk with the student and his parents, both of whom said they had “no problem” with the decision to remove the flag. However, Thomas said, it became evident to him that some of the other students were upset about the incident after another student came to school the following day flying a Confederate flag from his vehicle. “I know that Ms. (Michelle) Scallon, our principal, had a good discussion with that student and some of the other students that were upset,” Thomas said. “She said, ‘Let’s try to have an understanding here,’ and tried to explain what Diversity Week means here at the school. It was a good discussion and things went well.” Windsor Police Chief John Michaels said that while certain students’ alleged removal of the flag on Tuesday constituted theft, there are currently no legal issues in
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question. “Theft is intent to deprive and since there was no such intent it has just become an issue of whether or not flags can be flown on school property, which is something that is up to the school district,” he said. Thomas said the student who came to school on Wednesday with the Confederate flag flying from his vehicle was not asked to remove it. “After discussing it yesterday among a group of administrators, we thought it over and decided to allow it,” he said. Richardson, however, took issue with that version of events. “On Wednesday, when Mr. Thomas heard about it, he got mad and said we couldn’t fly American flags either,” she said, adding that she doesn’t see why flying the Confederate flag on school property is a “big deal.” “I know there’s concerns with what that flag represents with slavery and all that, but that’s not what this is about,” she said. “We’re just trying to show our patriotism and for them to try to take that away is not right.”
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