Volume 6, Issue 5 February 15, 2025 - March 14, 2025
JV CHEER TEAM MIXES WITH MODERN ART
Two Skinner Middle students hit by drivers this school year
Sloan’s Lake athletic fields to close for 2025 season
Reseeding to force park patrons, sports leagues to relocate
BY NATALIE KERR
e multi-use athletic elds on the northwest side of Sloan’s Lake could be closed for a portion of 2025 as Denver Parks and Recreation (DPR) reseeds the area to restore sparse turf and improve ground conditions.
Seeding and closure will begin in the spring and last through the end of the year, according to DPR o cials. DPR said it may choose to reopen elds earlier if the reseeding and germination results and conditions meet and/or exceed the
department’s standards.
Park visitors will have to adjust their activities in response to the closure, a change that particularly a ects organized sports leagues in the area, like Volo Sports, a national adult sports league that operates several groups in Denver.
Volo typically permits between 6,000 and 8,000 participants for sports at Sloan’s Lake each year, and the organization hopes to still be able to provide activities despite the closure.
Volo is working with DPR to nd a suitable solution before the league begins in the spring and ideally hopes to permit a space within Sloan’s Lake, said Greg Sileo, a Policy Advisor at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck law rm and a representative of Volo Sports.
“We just want to be in the park — that spot isn’t better for us than anywhere else, but based on what we know, we think it makes the most sense and is the most promising,” Sileo said.
In past years, DPR has conducted partial closures and rotating improvement projects to keep some areas of the athletic elds at all times. But because conditions are so poor and other areas of Sloan’s Lake are heavily utilized for events like races, walks, leaf drop and large events like the Dragon Boat Festival, that was not possible this year.
“DPR understands the inconvenience these temporary closures may cause and is working to ensure that the park can support the long-term recreational needs of the community,” DPR marketing and communications director Stephanie Figueroa said in an email. ough it causes some inconvenience, making sure the landscape at Sloan’s Lake is well maintained and healthy is paramount, said Kurt Weaver, a lake advocate at the Sloan’s Lake Park Foundation.
SPECIAL TO COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA
Two Skinner Middle School students were struck by motorists while walking or biking to school in the last few months in two separate incidents that Denver Police said were both the fault
On Oct. 31, Denver Police records show that a driver hit and injured a student on a bike who was crossing Lowell Boulevard on the West 41st Avenue
Police records note that the driver, who was going straight on Lowell Boulevard, “failed to yield the right-of-way” and did not see the child crossing at the bikeway and pedestrian crossing. is intersection is one block away from Skinner Middle School. e child sustained minor physical injuries.
A few months later on Jan. 15, a Skinner Middle School student was crossing Federal Boulevard on foot in the crosswalk with a walking light. Police records show that a driver turning did not see the child and hit and injured the sixthgrader, who was transported to the hospital after the crash with injuries.
Denver Police cited “careless driving” in its records. is intersection is two blocks from Skinner Middle School and next to Columbian Elementary School. Federal Boulevard, as mentioned in previous Denver North Star coverage, is North Denver’s most dangerous street.
Since Jan. 1, 2024, according to Denver Police records, there have been nine crashes within two blocks of Skinner Middle School on surrounding streets.
The Denver North High School junior varsity cheer team performed recently at the Museum of Contemporary Art on a stage created to look like a basketball court. See a photo gallery on page 11. COURTESY OF GLEN ROSS
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Sister Cities Denver to host Roman Dinner Fundraiser
Feast to raise money for international program
BY JILL CARSTENS SPECIAL TO COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA
Pietro Simonetti learned the value of international exposure as a young adult travelling from Italy to the United States in high school before attending CU Boulder. He ended up settling in Colorado and now helps provide opportunities for other young adults to travel abroad.
Simonetti is the committee chair of Denver Sister Cities for Potenza, Italy. Working with the Potenza Lodge in North Denver, he is spearheading a fundraiser to raise scholarship money for high school students to travel to Potenza this summer.
Denver Sister Cities is an established citizen diplomacy organization with the goal of nurturing international partnerships through cultural, educational and economic endeavors. In addition to Potenza, Denver has partnerships with nine other cities.
DPS responds to threat of deportations in schools
“ ere are so many advantages to making connections abroad,” Simonetti said “It is not just a cultural exchange but an opportunity to share ideas about growth, infrastructure and collaborative partnership.”
Even former Mayor Michael Hancock participated in an exchange program when he was 17 years old, traveling to Japan as part of Sister Cities.
“Unfortunately, when Italy’s youth travel, they often do not return home to live,” remarked Simonetti as he explained how this isolates cities like Potenza. He visited recently, meeting with the mayor of this city of 60,000 who lamented that when their youth do not come back these municipalities become stagnant without that vitality.
But it is the possible positive e ects of such isolation that sparked the interest of scholarship applicant Gracie Middlekau . She has been fascinated about “blue zones” in the world where expectancy is unusually higher.
“I’m fascinated about the ‘blue zones’ in small towns in Italy,” she said. “ e isolation might not be such a bad thing when it comes to quality of life and longevity. ese zones seem to have the key to a balanced life.”
e primary aim of the scholarship this year, Simonetti added, is to encourage diversity by supporting students who might not ordinarily have the funds to a ord this type of travel.
e six students receiving scholarships will become ambassadors of Denver and the U.S., so in their applications the Sister Cities committee looks for students who demonstrate a maturity and willingness to be positive representatives to their host families and sustain a pleasant decorum throughout their visit.
Once accepted, the students will meet Mayor Mike Johnston and take part in preparation classes.
e two-week itinerary will begin in Naples where the students will journey towards Potenza on a small bus, navigating roads that were rst established by pack animals. e trip shies away from touristy areas, emphasizing interaction with the day-to-day workforce and residents of the area.
ey will travel along the Amal coast visiting farms and even a castle, learning about the long and varied history of the area. Once reaching Potenza they will settle in with host families, take classes and immerse themselves in the food, culture and industries of this part of Italy.
Superintendent
cites guidelines for in event federal agents come to facilities
BY ALYSSA AVILA SPECIAL TO COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA
In the wake of President Donald Trump’s second term, o cials across the country have been implementing new policies in response to the administration saying immigration o cers can enter “sensitive areas,” such as schools, churches and hospitals, to detain undocumented immigrants.
In a recent statement, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston denounced Trump’s mass deportation plan. Johnston also o ered reassurances to people that the city will continue to protect sensitive areas and will take legal action if Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) or other federal agencies enter those locations.
According to city statistics, Denver received nearly 43,000 migrants between January 2023 through mid-February 2025. Most have been reported to be from South and Central American countries. Of those migrants, many have children enrolled in Denver Public Schools (DPS).
DPS has seen a spike in enrollment of “new-to-the-country” arrivals than it has in years past. Scott Pribble, the director of external communications for DPS, spoke to e Denver North Star and shared insights into the recent spike.
According to Pribble, at the start of the 2023-2024 academic year, DPS welcomed 4,763 new arrival students. However, that number dwindled with only 3,941 new arrival students enrolled by the end of the academic year. As of Oct. 1, there were 3,198 new arrival students still enrolled in DPS.
“Some schools are serving more newto-(the)-country students than others,” Pribble said, but he did not name any speci c schools.
In Denver, changing demographics have introduced new dynamics into classrooms, particularly with the increase of multilingual learners. DPS has been steadily adapting to meet the needs of students who may be navigating both a new language and a new educational system.
e Multilingual Education provided by DPS strives to equip schools with the adequate tools, training and support that is needed to cultivate inclusive and highquality learning environments for language learners.
More than 200 languages are spoken in the district with about 35,000 students who are multilingual learners, with Spanish being the native language for the majority of those students. Of the 200 schools within the district, DPS currently has 15 dual-language and immersion schools teaching students in either various languages as well as English.
In response to the president’s executive order, cities nationwide are mobilizing to safeguard individuals, including students, who could be targeted by ICE and other federal agencies.
Students on a trip to Potenza, Italy, pose for a photo on a recent Ambassador Program trip, provided through Denver Sister Cities.
COURTESY OF DENVER SISTER CITIES
Denver board considering amending policy to add a pause
Board to hold initial vote to delay decision at Feb. 20 meeting
BY MELANIE ASMAR CHALKBEAT
e Denver school board is considering pausing any future school closures until closures that are underway are executed and plans for vacant buildings are nalized.
e proposal comes three months after the board voted in November to close or partially close 10 schools with low enrollment at the end of this school year. More than a year and a half earlier, the board voted to close three small schools in the spring of 2023.
e proposal doesn’t include a timeframe for a moratorium on school closures, though several board members oated the idea of two or three years during a meeting ursday.
“We consistently heard from community, ‘ is is too much. We need to catch our breath. Every year you’re talking about closing schools and there’s this list and there’s a lot of anxiety,’” said board member Michelle Quattlebaum, who proposed the pause.
e board has not set a date to vote on the proposal, which would amend the board’s school closure policy. Board President Carrie Olson said she would add it to the Feb. 20 meeting agenda for a rst reading. e amendment must have a rst reading and a second reading before the board can vote.
e school closure policy, known as Executive Limitation 18, requires the superintendent to present a proposed timeline each August for school closures
for the following school year. e policy says the superintendent will make a recommendation to close or consolidate
speci c schools each November and the board will vote that same month. e proposed amendment says the su-
perintendent “shall not present any new recommendations until the approved recommendation has been executed.” It includes a caveat that says the superintendent can recommend a closure “if there is a signi cant change in enrollment, a signi cant change in funding, or an unforeseen emergency.”
Superintendent Alex Marrero told the board that it would realistically take a minimum of two years to execute a school closure, including nalizing plans for the future use of the building. e district is just starting that process for the schools set to close this spring.
Quattlebaum said educators and families have told the board that they anxiously await anytime the superintendent releases a list of schools at risk for closure. e proposed pause is meant to add “some normalcy to this process, some consistency, and some relief,” she said.
“What we do not want to happen is we don’t want our teachers, our educators leaving schools for fear that they may end up on a list,” Quattlebaum said. “Because when our sta leaves, the quality of education goes down.”
Neighboring Je co Public Schools enacted a similar school closure moratorium a few years ago that has now expired. Je co has closed 21 schools since 2021 due to declining enrollment and is now considering closing or redesigning another. is story was printed through a news sharing agreement with Chalkbeat Colorado, a nonpro t news site covering educational change in public schools.
Columbian Elementary is one of 10 schools that will close or partially close at the end of this school year due to low enrollment.
PHOTO BY MELANIE ASMAR / CHALKBEAT
Food forests bring fresh produce to neighborhoods
Denver Urban Gardens has 24 edible gardens throughout the metro area
BY MERYL PHAIR SPECIAL TO COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA
roughout the Denver metro area, edible gardens are popping up in unused lots.
ese gardens have trees planted in 8-foot-wide sunken basins lled with mulch with divots acting as sponges to gather rainwater and retain moisture. Small berry bushes and nut shrubs are planted near the trees with bigger bushes lling out the areas between the basins.
e growing network of green oases is part of Denver Urban Gardens (DUG)’s Etkin Family Foundation Food Forest Program, an initiative that has expanded to 24 planting sites. is harvest season, the neighborhood forests will supply the immediate community with an assortment of fresh produce, such as apples, cherries, peaches, gooseberries, hazel-
nuts and pears.
Niki Barouxis, DUG’s food forest manager, said the initiative came out of the need for more public access green spaces across the city. Unlike DUG’s community garden program that focuses on individual garden plots and annual plantings, the food forests are gardens of perennials, those that stay alive year round and grow year to year.
“Our food forest program is designed to be stewarded by community members and grown by and for the public,” Barouxis said.
e food forests provide fruit trees, nut shrubs and berry bushes for anyone who wants to stop by for fresh produce. Each of the gardens across the metro area has signage that indicates what is in each garden and when produce should be harvested. Having started in 2022, the sites are still young and this summer will
ABOUT SELLING?
be the rst year to bear fruit for the public, Barouxis said.
“Right now, the sites are being babied and getting ready for public harvest,” Barouxis said. “We do have some existing sites where we added more perennials to make it into a food forest such as Barnum Community Orchard, which had mature fruit trees already there.”
By increasing green space throughout the city, the growing canopy has important environmental bene ts such as keeping neighborhoods cool by providing shade that lessens the “urban heat island e ect” and activating unused plots of land. rough diverse plantings that mimic a forest, the sites also increase biodiversity and provide habitat for wildlife.
plication will be open from June through August, and Barouxis said DUG currently has the management capacity to open four to six new sites a year. Ideally, these sites will be turned over to “tree keepers” who will steward the neighborhood forests.
“The unique thing about our program is we’re specifically doing food forests, which include more diverse plantings rather than an orchard where it’s just fruit trees.”
Niki Barouxis, DUG’s food forest manager
Barouxis said DUG looks for several factors that indicate an ideal food forest site such as a slope on which fruit trees do particularly well and access to water. ey typically look for sites near existing DUG gardens while schools and churches are good community partners for land use. One of the food forests was even planted on top of a land ll.
“Land ll sites are great places for fruit trees because if there is an uptake of any toxic materials, it stays within the woody parts of the plant and doesn’t get to the fruit so they’re great for remediation,” Barouxis said.
Tree keepers can apply for DUG’s food forest training, a program that accepts applications on a rolling basis throughout the year. Training will include basic stewardship such as pest and weed control, watering and pruning. ese dedicated volunteers will also have access to ongoing educational workshops and resources such as DUG’s all-encompassing food forest guidebook. No prior experience is required and community members can also volunteer their time working at these sites without being a trained tree keeper. e garden stewards are also encouraged to grow what might work best for their unique neighborhood needs, such as corn and squash or even owers, but DUG requires noti cation if they will be planting trees.
Barouxis explained most trees are not native to Denver and so trees are selected for their ability to thrive in an urban environment, speci cally those that are disease-tolerant and do well in an arid climate.
is year is also the rst DUG has an application for community members to submit proposals for food forest sites. at ap-
A gooseberry bush in one of Denver’s food forests produces its first crop.
Community members get to work planting a neighborhood food forest.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF DUG
FOREST FOODS
“We have experimented a little bit with di erent trees,” Barouxis said. “In 2023 we tried a hybrid persimmon, which is a fusion between a native and an Asian persimmon, and last year we planted some pawpaws.”
Food forests are an ancient form of land stewardship, around for much longer than Denver was a city. Interest in these community-centric food access
projects has popped up in other metro areas such as the Beacon Food Forest in Seattle and the Festival Beach Food Forest in Austin, Texas. DUG is also connected to Giving Grove, a network of community orchards across the country. “ e unique thing about our program is we’re speci cally doing food forests, which include more diverse plantings rather than an orchard where it’s just fruit trees,” Barouxis said. “Many of these sites are stand-alone, whereas we’re expanding these all over the city. Our vision is to have one in every neighborhood.”
“I
– Eric D.
Local volunteers held support during a food forest planting day despite the snow.
Creighton Hofeditz with Denver Urban Gardens shows volunteers how to plant root trees.
Flowers bloom at one of the many community gardens run by DUG across Denver.
Hispanics and Mexican-Americans in the Northside: 1858 to 1925
Texas or by way of New Mexico. e earliest Hispanic communities were in the San Luis Valley, with the town of San Luis dating to 1851.
Soon, other towns grew up along the Rio Grande and the Arkansas Rivers. Both Trinidad and Pueblo bene ted from trade on the Santa Fe Trail, with their residents making their living as traders, farmers and town builders. Others arrived to work as trappers and hunters in search of beavers and bison. Some intermarried with women from the Plains tribes, starting families along the Front Range.
Chroniclers of Denver’s early history reported some of these Hispanic gold miners, settlers, and entrepreneurs as early as 1857. Andrew Sagendorf and Ransom Smith, arriving to record mining claims, mentioned Mexican-Americans prospecting on Clear Creek. ey also recorded a claim on the Platte that carried the name of Spanish Bar. Retired fur trader José Merival and his Lakota wife greeted new gold seekers as they arrived in 1858. William Larimer noted that Jesùs Aubreyo had set up a store in April of 1859, on the corner of McGaa and “F” Streets in Auraria. Larimer described Aubreyo as a “gentleman and good citizen.” In the rst 20 years of Denver’s existence, anyone who came prepared to be a productive member of the community was welcome. e Mexican-American villages of northern New Mexico became another
source of workers along the Front Range. According to historian Sarah Deutsch, for decades, the villages had survived because of the strong sense of community spirit that bonded individuals together.
Women maintained village churches, provided aid to each other in times of need and served as “curanderas,” or healers, and midwives, called “parteras,” as well as carpenters, gardeners and religious leaders. is was the norm because each year the men traveled away from the village to nd seasonal work. Eventually, the women and children made the move as well, establishing their own new collaborative communities in mining camps and in small towns such as Brighton, Ft. Lupton and in North Denver. eir husbands worked in agriculture, mining and in other manual labor jobs. From the late 1860s as more people moved north, they found work on the railroads that were reaching Denver.
In 1869, former Gov. William Gilpin commented on the large ow of immigrants coming from Southern Colorado to help in building the new railroads. When Denver got streetcars, immigrants were part of that workforce as well. ese people lived close to their jobs, initially north of downtown and then by the
1920s moving up into the Northside.
In the early 1900s, a new group came from Mexico into the United States, into Denver and into the Northside. e 1910-1920 revolution in Mexico drove out wealthy and poor alike. ose who were middle and upper class lived in areas more de ned by class than by race. Of course, there was some ethnic segregation, meaning that west Denver became more heavily Mexican-American
as they integrated into the new society. North Denver had always been working-class. is population started out by living alongside the existing ItalianAmericans, although not always in harmony. As the younger generation of Italian-Americans moved out, their houses were available to the newer workingclass immigrants.
NEW YEAR, NEW PLAYS
The Su ragette’s Murder
By Sandy Rustin
Directed by Margot Bordelon
This 1910 map shows the part of North Denver settled by migrants. COURTESY
Rebecca A. Hunt
Finding your own ‘groovement’
’ll say it here,
Ii’ll say it there,
I’ll say it every gosh darn where:
You are not broken,
You are not awed, and yes, this even means your ‘bod.
ese things about us that hurt and cry, the ways we win and the times we y.
All these things, they make you, you;
We own them,
We hate them,
It’s just what we do.
We need them, we curse them all day and night too.
When the curtain closes, the lights dim out,
When the breaths all cease to ll our snout.
ese things that haunt us and wreck our sleep
Will oat away, dust in the deep.
So today and tomorrow as you plot your improvement, please, take just a moment and honor your … “groovement”!
“Groovement,” a word I made up that means the things about us, entrenched in us and not necessarily conducive to goal attaining or ladder-climbing but make us intrinsically who we are. ings that may frustrate us sometimes but may also serve a purpose and
‘The
may not need to be resolved away or xed or therapized. One of my “groovements” is that I get bored or exhausted or distracted and don’t always nish things with the enthusiasm that I bring to them at the start.
summer seems a long way o .
Like getting into writing the poem above and choosing near the end to make up a word instead of sitting with the last phrase until it was perfect. e result? “Groovement.”
If I had fought my nature and forced myself to nd the “perfect ending” for my poem, I’d never have discovered my new favorite word. e world is a challenging place. We are clever, resilient beings who are equipped to rise to so many of the challenges.
But sometimes, we are better served by owing with them and allowing ourselves to be who we truly are at our core. So, here we are. It’s February, and 80% of us, statistically, have abandoned our New Year resolutions. It’s cold, we have more than our usual share of gray days here in the Mile High City this month, and while summer camp sign-ups are already open for our kids, the promise of
Mesmerist’ takes readers through a dark twist
When a young woman arrives at the doorstep of the Bethany Home for Unwed Mothers in a tattered but garish purple gown and bearing a bag of money, the home’s residents know this is no ordinary arrival.
Rumors y that this new resident is Marguerite the Magni cent and the question of her identity drives the plot of “ e Mesmerist” by Caroline Woods.
Told from the perspective of three women connected to the Bethany Home, this historical mystery weaves a complex tale of crime and exploitation. It’s 1890s Minneapolis and the social climate is dismal.
e nation is mourning the lives lost in the Civil War, and the country’s nancial systems are in dire straits. Spiritual practices such as mesmerism, a form of hypnotism that gives the practitioner undue in uence over the recipient’s actions, are ourishing.
Victorian morality is at odds with the proliferation of bordellos, and the Bethany Home for Unwed Mothers provides a progressive and much-needed community resource.
All residents are given a pseudonym at the Bethany Home to preserve their anonymity because many of them arrive by way of the Red Light District.
Abby, a Quaker who runs the Home and believes every girl deserves a second chance, names the new arrival Faith. Faith’s selective mutism and odd behaviors make her the target of scorn and intimidation and she actively encourages the rumors of her dark powers to protect herself.
Faith’s roommate, May, befriends her while digging into her past. May is near the end of her one-year stay at the Beth-
HEALTH & WELLNESS CHECK IT OUT
So? So! What if we allowed ourselves to feel all those things? Disappointment from not making it to the gym this week.
Frustration with driving in the snow, cold because it’s cold out! Feeling things, noticing when things aren’t as we want them, understanding how we like to improve, all of those things help us grow. ey help us evolve. Which is the goal, right?
But we can’t do that if we only resolve to change, fail and then beat ourselves up. We must forgive ourselves for our part in the thing not turning out so we can move on. And we have to practice knowing when the thing we thought we needed to change may actually be a part of us we might learn to work with rather than ght.
As Neil Armstrong is reported to have said, “Every human has a nite number of heartbeats. I don’t intend to waste any of mine.”
Being alive means there is always something to grieve, while at the same time having so much to celebrate. So let’s get on with it!
Work toward spending those heartbeats on a life full of building and tearing down and repairing and accepting and evolving. Like the sound of starting to celebrate yourself a little more?
Try this quick exercise. Grab a piece of paper and something to write with. Set a timer for 30 seconds. Without editing or judging, write as many things as you can that you like about yourself. Can’t think of anything? What about the fact that you have opposable thumbs? Maybe you make great guacamole. Animals love you. You can sing. You know how to boil an egg. You can read! Did you slap anyone today? It can be hard to notice what’s working. But just like biceps, our ability to celebrate ourselves grows when we work it. So, if that was hard for you, great! You have room to grow. Come back to your list once a week and just see if it doesn’t get easier. See if just maybe you start to get into a rhythm of self-acceptance that just might help you start to celebrate your own groovement.
Erika Taylor is a community wellness instigator at Taylored Fitness, the original online wellness mentoring system. Taylored Fitness believes that everyone can discover small changes in order to make themselves and their communities more vibrant, and that it is only possible to do our best work in the world if we make a daily commitment to our health. Visit facebook.com/erika.taylor.303 or email erika@taylored tness.com.
Wendy Thomas
any Home and wants a husband before she has to leave. She encourages the attention of the dapper and wealthy Hal while trying to keep her living situation secret from him. Her desperation to have a home colors her judgment and makes her vulnerable to malicious in uences.
Abby Mendenhall, the treasurer, board member and manager of the Bethany Home, solicits donations to keep the doors open. When a former resident goes on record alleging that starvation is the norm and a witch girl has taken over, Abby has her work cut out for her: clearing the home’s name, investigating Faith’s past and determining the provenance of the money she brought with her.
All the while, malevolent forces are front of mind when a “sporting” girl is murdered and a madam goes missing.
Based on a true story, this atmospheric and chilling novel is reminiscent of Victorian Era penny dreadfuls. e setting is based on the original Bethany Home for Unwed Mothers and Abby Mendenhall. Some supporting characters and the perpetrator of the crimes are actual people from history.
If you’re looking for a compelling story with a dark twist, check out e Mesmerist at a Denver Public Library branch near you.
Wendy omas is a librarian at the Smiley Branch Library. When not reading or recommending books, you can nd her hiking with her dogs.
Auraria Campus safety center to open in 2027
New building will host police station, student spaces
BY LONDON LYLE
Auraria Higher Education Center (AHEC) is planning to construct a new 33,000-square-foot, three-story safety center to improve security on campus and create additional student spaces, which is expected to be completed by 2027.
e state will fund the multi-milliondollar project with no student fees. e building is planned to host a new police facility and a number of public spaces, including classrooms and an event center designed to hold 100 people.
Kwon Atlas, a consultant on the project and the director of economic development for the Montbello Organizing Committee, said the group envisioning the project prioritized community engagement in the design process for the new facility.
“Our work really starts with hearing from the community,” Atlas said during a recent press conference about the building plans.
e planning process rst began in 2021 with a campus-wide survey that received more than 1,000 responses. ose engagement e orts resulted in many of the recommendations the group started out with, said Carl Meese, deputy chief of planning and sustainability at AHEC.
Some of the public-facing components that AHEC is exploring right now include a student lounge that may be accessible 24/7, study areas and class labs.
Since completing the program plan in 2022, the project has secured $35 million
in state funding, with an additional round of funding to come this spring. Construction is set to begin later this year, and the center is projected to open in fall 2027.
e new facility will feature sustainable design elements with the goal of achieving LEED Gold certi cation, including rooftop solar panels, parking canopies and an all-electric energy system.
“As a police department, one of our priorities is to really get out and be involved with the community,” Auraria Campus Police Department Chief Jason Mollendor said. “We want people to understand who we are and how we want to keep our community as safe as possible.”
e ACPD regularly hosts outreach events, including Barbecue with a Badge, Cocoa with the Cops, and Campus Safety Night, which o er students opportunities to meet o cers and give feedback on safety concerns.
“We get to know students, and they get to know us,” Mollendor said. “You build that trust now so that when there is a problem, you don’t hesitate to contact the police department.”
e new facility is designed to address the campus’s growing population and safety needs. Originally built for 15,000 people in the 1970s, the Auraria Campus now serves approximately 45,000 students, faculty, and sta . ere is currently one holding cell in the designated police department space that doesn’t have access to a bathroom.
Mollendor said that most interactions ACPD o cers have are with individuals from outside the campus rather than students.
“We are in a challenging area, being downtown, a very urban setting,” he said. “I hope when you’re on our campus, you feel incredibly safe, and you might not feel that same way when you cross the street.”
Criminal justice professor Joe Schreiner from the Community College of Denver said the educational bene ts of the new classrooms will be a game-changer for educators.
“Criminal justice is a very dynamic environment, both in terms of practical application as well as academic study,” Schreiner said. “Being able to integrate all of those di erent elds into one area allows students to expand horizontally and vertically, working with MSU, CU, and CCD in a shared space.”
e site is to be built on 7th Street and Curtis Street, where the current temporary modular classrooms are located.
“We’re planning a building that is open and inviting, not just for the police but for the entire campus community,” said Julie Zurakowski, an architect for Anderson Mason Dale Architects.
Zurakowski and Holly Hall, the Auraria Campus lead architect, have been gathering student feedback through “visioning exercises,” including dot-placement activities to gauge preferences for student spaces.
“We’ve been looking for feedback and will continue to do so,” Zurakowski said.
“We want to understand what the three institutions on this campus really need.” Despite the project’s emphasis on community collaboration, concerns about student trust in law enforcement were raised. Atlas responded by reiterating the project’s commitment to ongoing engagement with the campus community. ey intend to hold focus groups with student government and campus clubs. Mollendor said ACPD strives to uphold a serious commitment to transparency and accessibility. “We want people to meet us where they live,” he said. “We’re not asking people to come to the police department to get cocoa—we’re going on the mall, we’re staying on campus, because we want to make sure people know what we’re doing.”
Students have raised concerns about the building’s distance from the main campus. e project’s location near Colfax was chosen partly due to code restrictions preventing construction in the 500year oodplain, which covers much of the campus.
“ is is your building, too,” Hall said. “We really want to know how you see it, how you value it, and how you can share your thoughts and ideas.”
As planning continues, project leaders encourage students, faculty, and sta to provide feedback. A link to a form to provide feedback is available in this article at denvernorthstar.com.
Auraria Campus Police Department Chief Jason Mollendor, center, speaks about the planned Auraria Campus safety center, which is expected to be completed by 2027, on Jan. 30 at the Tivoli Student Union.
PHOTO BY LONDON LYLE
Frank Schultz sells LoHi corner for $5 million
Building has been in Denver since the 1800s
BY MATT GEIGER BUSINESSDEN
Frank Schultz is moving on from his old life in LoHi.
“It was our o ce, I used to live right next to it … there’s future potential there,” he said.
Schultz sold the two-story, 11,000-square-foot building at 2563 15th St. in January, which once housed the o ce for his real estate business, Tavern Hospitality. e buyer, fellow Denver real estate player rive Development, spent $5.25 million to acquire the LoHi corner that sits at the intersection of ve di erent streets.
at translates to $475 a square foot for the real estate. Patrick Henry and Boston Weir of Henry Group Real Estate represented Schultz in the deal.
“We had quite a few bites in a market that’s not so great,” said Schultz, 53. e building houses approximately 5,500 square feet of o ce space up top with ve, roughly 1,000-square-foot retail spaces on the bottom. Just one of those storefronts has a tenant, Ohana Island Kitchen, which plans to stay there, Je Ayres, VP of Development at rive, told BusinessDen.
e half-acre property dates to the late 1800s and is in a historic district that limits changes to the existing structure. e building comes with 46 parking spaces behind it, though the rm has no immediate development plans there.
“We’re big West Denver guys, and we love LoHi and think there’s a lot of potential down there,” Ayres said. “It seemed like a good opportunity to get in there and improve the look of the historic building and get some tenants in there relatively quickly.”
rive has been around for ve years and is working on a couple residential projects near Sloan’s Lake that should break ground in the spring and summer of this year. It’s also working through getting permits for its planned food hall concept on an old industrial lot in Lincoln Park.
But they have a new type of project to take on in this little old building in LoHi. “ e o ce might be a bit of a struggle (to lease), but given that it’s a bit di erent than the other o ces sitting vacant may help us,” Ayres said.
Before the pandemic hit, it was the ofce for Schultz’s business. From there, he
FUNDRAISER
oversaw a portfolio that stretched across the metro area, his holdings spanning industrial, o ce, retail and his favorite: hospitality.
COVID hit his business hard, as many of his properties relied on in-person foot tra c.
Simonetti said the student visitors will then become the hosts for their Italian friends when they visit Denver later this summer. It is an exchange program that is aimed at creating lifelong bonds. He is still in touch with the rst family that hosted him in Iowa decades ago. e rst fundraiser for the scholarship will be a grand Roman dinner cooked with a sustainable farm-to-table philosophy and held at the historic Potenza Lodge o of 38th Avenue and Tejon Street.
e Potenza Lodge was founded in Denver in 1899 with the goal of helping Italian immigrants socialize with their fellow countrymen as they familiarized
Following that up with a lawsuit in early 2023, when Schultz’ mother sued him; she also was his business partner. She accused her son of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from company bank accounts, cutting her out of real estate deals and failing to repay $3.7 million in promissory notes. Schultz countersued the next month.
e two settled their spat last year.
“My mom is an amazing person … she was a very big part of teaching me a lot of things, especially buying real estate,” he said. “We’re one step closer to just being mother and son, which I’m looking forward to.”
But in the meantime, Tavern Hospitality – the company they ran together – continues to wind down. He listed a dozen of the business’ properties for sale last April, which included the one he just sold in LoHi. He’s also since sold two industrial properties in unincorporated Arapahoe County.
Schultz still owns half of Chopper’s Sports Grill at 80 Madison St. in Cherry Creek. He said he’d like to buy his mother’s half if “she’s willing” to sell.
Schultz also started his own company,
themselves with their new home. Today the lodge continues to serve as a place of camaraderie for its members, organizing ongoing community events and participation in charity fundraising.
A fundraiser will take place 6-10 p.m. March 15 at the lodge, 1900 W. 38th Ave. Toga attire is encouraged and there will be several price points to choose from for the dinner. A live auction will also be a part of the festivities.Tickets can be purchased at denversistercities.org/events/. e application for this particular 2025 trip has closed, due to popular demand the committee is planning a second trip and inquiries are welcomed.
More information will be posted to the Denver Sister Cities website. Students interested in applying for scholarships for the Potenza trip for summer 2026 can nd information at denversistercities. org/trip/ptz25/.
A shot of the property at 2563 15th St. from the view of 15th Street. The building was constructed in 1887, records show.
Good Boy Hospitality. It owns the bar Whiskey Tango Foxtrot in Union Station North and restaurant Otravez along the 16th Street Mall. e former is slated to reopen in February, with the other to follow in March.
But he’s in no rush to do much more.
“Since these properties that have sold, including this one, there’s not a ton of pressure on us to get everything sold at a discount … there’s not a need to liquidate.”
Frank Schultz
Denver Comedy Underground reopens its doors in Five Points
Club finds new home after performing in basement of Althea
BY JACQUI SOMEN SPECIAL TO COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA
With the exception of a cozy night in watching the latest special on Net ix, it can be di cult for Denver comedy fans to nd a quality show that won’t cost them close to $100.
From entry fees to parking and drink minimums, great comedy often comes with a high ticket price.
Denver Comedy Underground is the antithesis of this model. It serves top-tier comedy with a side of free pizza or cereal. You don’t have to buy drinks (unless you want to), and now they have a new space dedicated to the medium.
Denver Comedy Underground, led by local comic Ben Bryant, has been a staple of the city’s laughter scene for several years, but until recently, it was operating out of a church basement at e Althea Center for Engaged Spirituality. e new location is at 675 22nd St., located between California and Welton streets next to Woods Boss Brewing Company. e club had its rst weekend of performances over the Jan. 25 weekend in this new neighborhood that Bryant calls “truly communal and social.”
“I am just so grateful for everyone who came out and all the comics and sta
who made it happen,” Bryant said about Denver Comedy Underground’s opening weekend in its new space. “It’s o to a good start, and I think there are a lot more great places we can take it.”
Bryant is no amateur when it comes to the Denver comedy scene. He began his tenure in the city with a monthly show at the now-closed art center, e Bakery called “Guest List.”
is show was highly regarded and was even lauded as “one of the best comedy nights in America” in e Interrobang comedy magazine. After a break from “Guest List,” Denver Comedy Underground developed organically, starting with weekly shows and growing from there.
Even with a new space with roughly 140 seats (they’re still re ning the layout) that the comedians can call their own, Denver Comedy Underground isn’t giving up on what made it popular to begin with—Denver comedy-goers can see top-tier comedy alongside free pizza.
e venue will also continue to host its famous “secret shows,” where audience members purchase tickets without knowing who they will see.
“Normally, (the performers) are just fun surprises,” Bryant said. “Willing crowds are pretty down for anything. Ultimately, these are people who are going (are saying, ‘I’m going to just see capital C comedy.’”
A dedicated space also brings new opportunities. Denver Comedy Underground now o ers brunch shows, as it was previously challenging to reserve space at the church on Sundays, called the “Brunch O Laughs Comedy Show” at 11:30 a.m. every Sunday morning. is new series features a free cereal buffet and the option to purchase specialty brunch cocktails and mimosas.
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People can also demonstrate their comedy chops at the venue’s new “Underground Mic Night!”series hosted every Wednesday night. Each Friday night, audience members can watch professional comics roast each other in the venue’s“Roast Battle Series.”
Denver Comedy Underground recently moved to Five Points after being in the Althea Center in the Cheesman Park neighborhood.
North High junior varsity cheer team shines at MCA
BY COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA STAFF ERIC@COTLN.ORG
Spirit was in the air, along with some sporty art installations.
Denver North High School’s junior varsity cheerleading team performed Jan. 14 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 1485 Delgany St. e stage for the performance was a rendering of a basketball oor. North High’s event was part of the “Movements Toward Freedom” pro-
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gram, which ran at the MCA for several months.
Alyssa Page, the North High cheerleading director and head coach, told e Denver North Star last month that the performances would be slightly di erent from the group’s normal competitions. e performance included tumbling and stunting and dancing as well as instruction from coaches. e routines were a variety the team had worked on all season for halftime performances.
The North High School junior varsity cheer team performed on an artistic basketball stage Jan. 14 at the Museum of Contemporary Art. PHOTOS BY GLEN ROSS
CLOSURE
e Foundation is a nonpro t that advocates for proper care for the lake and surrounding park landscape, which is heavily utilized and overburdened, Weaver said. He worries about moving sports to a different section of Sloan’s Lake, which have not usually been used for group sports and could be degraded as a result. “It’s a very popular area, and it gets used a lot, meaning it’s going to have some maintenance on it,” Weaver said. “ at’s always a balance with the community usage and what the community wants to use the park
A year without sports at Sloan’s Lake would be a loss for the community, said Deb Neely, co-president-elect of Sloan’s Lake Citizens’ Group, a registered neighborhood organization that promotes community engagement and neighborhood development in West Denver.
Group sports are positive for people’s mental, physical and social wellbeing, and when Neely walks past people playing sports at Sloan’s Lake, she can see how much fun it brings to adults and kids alike, she said.
“I walk by these sports being played, and it makes me proud to live by Sloans Lake and to be involved with the Sloan Lake community because of these activi-
It’s important to Volo that the park is properly maintained, and reseeding is good for everyone in the long run, Sileo said. In the meantime, Volo is hoping to use the northeast section of the park o Byron Place in 2025, to keep Volo local to Sloan’s Lake. is option has received some pushback due to its proximity to the children’s playground and residential homes.
Volo has reviewed options at other parks with DPR, but moving to a new park could make Volo inaccessible to some residents, and many other parks are already booked for other group activities, often until late in the evening.
Participants registration fees are used in
part to support the Volo Kids Foundation, a nonpro t partner of Volo Sports that helps fund free, organized sports for children living in low-income communities. A decline in participation could have a ripple e ect on the foundation, Sileo said.
“Sports and especially adult social sports are all about community building, it’s a way to get people engaged in a community, socializing, being out, being active, and it’s a great way to activate a space, especially a space that is so central to the community like Sloan’s Lake,” Sileo said. e DPR Parks Permitting team works with historical permit holders to identify a substitute location upon an athletic eld or park closure, but does not guarantee a eld replacement, Figueroa wrote.
FROM PAGE 1
Open space at the northeast side of Sloan’s Lake o Byron Place. Volo Sports is hoping to relocate to a di erent area of the park to continue providing sports leagues in the neighborhood during 2025.
PHOTOS BY NATALIE KERR
The athletic fields on the northwest side of Sloan’s Lake. The fields will be closed for 2025 while Denver Parks and Recreations reseeds to improve turf cover and ground conditions.
HIT BY DRIVERS
Skinner Principal Julie Stephens was at the scene after both crashes with students and their families. After the October Crash, Stephens showed up a few days later for a City Council public comment session in a personal capacity.
“Many of our kids at Skinner love biking to school,” Stephens said. “I got a radio call with a message I never wanted to get as a school leader. One of our eighthgrade students who regularly bikes to school had been hit by a driver a block away from school. My heart sank as I ran to the crash site.”
Stephens said the City Council needs to fully fund the Vision Zero and Safe Routes to Schools programs.
“Safe street design not only protects our kids, it also reduces air pollution and the need for parents and their caregivers to drive their kids to school,” she said. “Sadly, the driver that hit our student … was also a parent at the school.”
Mayor Mike Johnston proposed $1.17 million for street safety capital improvements for the Denver Safe Routes to School budget in his original budget released in the fall. Denver City Council proposed increasing that capital improvements budget to $2.17 million during the budget amendment process, and the change was accepted by the mayor in the nal budget.
Denver Public Schools has 207 schools in the district, so the budget would leave around $10,483 per school if that amount were divided equally among all DPS schools. To give you an idea of how little that money could purchase, one speed hump is around $2,000, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
One raised crosswalk costs around $7,000 to $30,000 dollars. A rapid rect-
angular ashing beacon, a crosswalk with ashing yellow lights, like the one at West 41st and Lowell, costs on average $22,500.
A new tra c signal costs about $480,000 to $750,000 to install. As an example of what the city has prioritized larger funding for in recent years, Denver and the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) spent about $60 million to reconstruct the I-25 and Broadway highway interchange.
In contrast, in 2025, CDOT has awarded $7 million dollars of Safe Routes to Schools funding for the entire state, only allocating funding for about half of the dollars requested by school districts that applied for grants.
Matthew Elliott has a son who attends Skinner Middle School and another son that attends Edison Elementary. ey walk or bike along West 41st Avenue and cross over both Federal Boulevard and Lowell Boulevard where the crashes happened this school year.
COMEDY
Ben also mentioned the possibility of new shows and formats.
“Maybe classes, podcasts, and special one-o shows, from crusher standup shows, to more experimental kind of ideas,” he said.
Denver Comedy Underground isn’t just appealing to audiences. It also provides a unique experience for comics.
“It’s a very good mid-size room, and the Denver crowds are great,” Bryant said.
“Comedy can really become a grind where you’re performing for not a lot of people or you’re performing for an Elks Lodge in the
middle of nowhere, and here we just get good fun crowds who are there for comedy and a good night out.”
Denver Comedy Underground o ers audience members and comics an intimate experience that’s hard to nd elsewhere in Denver, or as Bryant put it, “You can see alive, in-the-moment, like impossible-toreplicate things for 20 bucks a person, plus you get pizza. I think that’s very special.”
Denver Comedy Underground has its roster announced through July, with upcoming headliners including Brad Wenzel, Ali Sultan, Jake Silberman, Logan Guntzelman and Shaunak Godkhindi. Ticket prices range from $15-$20 per person, depending on the show.
For the full lineup, visit denvercomedyunderground.com.
Dr. Garrison
“It’s frustrating. I mean, I feel like there have been a lot of words from the city, that they’re trying to make our streets safer, but I don’t see a lot of action about them actually doing it,” Elliott said.
Elliott said Denver installed a neighborhood bikeway on 41st Avenue a few years ago, but the paint and plastic ex posts don’t do much for safety in his opinion. He said he’d like to see more substantial infrastructure, like raised crosswalks that force drivers to slow down or red-light cameras that try to change the behavior of drivers running red lights.
He said he has noticed more students walking and biking to school in the last few years, especially since they installed the bikeways on Perry St and West 41st Avenue.
“ ere’s some momentum starting to build,” he said, “but we just don’t have the safe infrastructure in place to get these kids to school safely.”
A child and adult cross the street while drivers wait for them at West 41st Avenue and Lowell Boulevard, one block away from Skinner Middle School.
PHOTO BY ALLEN COWGILL
Add ltered water. Cook with love.
Filtra tu agua. Cocina con amor.
Si tu casa está inscrita en el Programa de reducción de plomo, asegúrate de utilizar la jarra de agua provista con su ltro cada vez que vayas a cocinar, beber o preparar fórmula para biberones. Recuerda que hervir el agua no elimina el plomo, primero debes ltrarla.
If your home is enrolled in the Lead Reduction Program, be sure to use the water pitcher and lter provided for drinking, cooking and preparing infant formula. Boiling water does not remove lead, so lter rst. Learn more at denverwater.org/Lead Obtenga
RESPONSE
e Denver North Star reached out to several families with students enrolled in DPS to understand their experiences adapting to life in the U.S., but these requests were declined.
“My assumption is that most families would not be willing to talk now for fear of being identi ed,” Pribble said.
CBS News Colorado recently obtained an interview with a family, although they did not want to be identi ed, and
HUNT
Mexican-Americans, who had been born in the United States and spoke a mix of Spanish and English did not always feel comfortable with the new arrivals from Mexico. Also, outsiders did not always distinguish between the Americans and the immigrants, a problem that could cause tension.
But ultimately, by the 1930s, both groups built viable communities that included homes, businesses, ethnic associations and churches. eir children attended
shared their perspective as to the fears and challenges they are currently facing.
Following the spike in deportation rates, the family told the news station they decided to pull their children out of DPS amid immigration concerns.
DPS superintendent Alex Marrero sent out a guidance to principals after sta and families voiced concern of the possibility that ICE would be present on school grounds. e document, “Guidance for Government Presence O cial Presence at DPS Buildings,” aligned with Johnston’s commitment to keeping sensitive spaces protected. Marrero emphasized DPS’ longstanding policies of not
both public and private schools.
I drew parts of this column from my 1997 doctoral dissertation called “Urban Pioneers: Continuity and Change in the Ethnic Communities in Two Denver, Colorado Neighborhoods: 1875-1998.”
Expect to see more in the next few months as we continue to explore the stories of our Latino neighbors.
Dr. Rebecca A. Hunt has been a resident of North Denver since 1993. She worked in museums and then taught museum studies and Colorado, Denver, women’s and immigration history at the University of Colorado Denver until she retired in 2020.
allowing individuals with “wrongful intent” to enter buildings.
Marrero cited DPS Administrative Policy JIH, prohibits student interviews, interrogations, searches and arrests on DPS property including transportation routes and during school activities.
Marrero also reassured families that the district is “required to limit” those who have access to student documents.
e protection of new arrival students is cemented in DPS policies. Under the DPS Administrative Policy, DPS does not collect the immigration status of those seeking enrollment.
“DPS does not check immigration sta-
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tus of our students or our families. We welcome everyone into our schools in the same way. No policies were created to supporting these families,” Pribble said.
Marrero recently rea rmed that despite an increase in new arrival students in DPS, no new policies regarding migrant students have been created since 2019.
In addition to the established multilingual programs and support services, the district remains committed to training administrators and faculty to ensure that their schools remain a place of sanctuary so students can thrive.
should focus on that candidate’s qualifications for o ce. We cannot publish letters that contain unverified negative information about a candidate’s opponent. Letters advocating for or against a political candidate or ballot issue will not be published within 12 days of an election.
• Publication of any given letter is at our discretion. Letters are published as space is available.
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