WHEAT RIDGE MAYOR Celebrate 50 Years With Wheat Ridge In 2019! Page 4
NEIGHBORHOOD NEWS HEALthy Wheat Ridge Builds Healthy Champions Page 5
ASK THE SUPER What Non-Funding Issues Will We Hear About In 2019? Page 6
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Gazette NEIGHBORHOOD
WHEAT RIDGE | APPLEWOOD | MOUNTAIN VIEW | LAKESIDE | BERKELEY January 15 – February 15, 2019 • ngazette.com • FREE
Goats Gone Missing, Reward Offered n By
Nancy Hahn
I
f you live in Wheat Ridge, watch the news or read NextDoor, you have heard about Five Fridges Farms missing male goats: Wendell, Daryl and his other brother Darryl, Yoda and Creampuff. Sometime between Dec. 30 and New Years Eve morning, the gate to their pen at the Kipling Trailhead Open Space was opened, and they haven’t been seen since. Volunteers and the Wheat Ridge Police have searched all along Clear Creek and the Greenbelt. What is it that has made the entire community so concerned? Goats have distinct personalities and enjoy people. When they thought I wasn’t looking, my own children repeatedly shared their breakfast cereal with Mr. Stubbs, our first goat. He followed them to the bus stop. I’m sure teachers heard, “My goat ate my homework.” Wheat Ridge has enjoyed many opportunities to get to know the goats from Five Fridges Farm. Five Fridges has shared their goats with the community for years. In 2017, Dr. Amanda Weaver of Five Fridges Farm was concerned about chemical weed killers being used beside 38th Avenue by the Continued on page 8
FIVE FRIDGES FARM’S GOATS ARE STILL MISSING as the Neighborhood Gazette went to press, but the company is “overwhelmed with gratitude for the community helping us find the missing boys,” including seven trained volunteers from Colorado 4x4 Rescue and Recovery conducting a search on Jan. 1. PHOTO COURTESY OF 5 FRIDGES FARM
Bottling Company’s Expansion, Renovation Benefits From City Tax Rebate n By
O
Mike McKibbin
ne of the largest private employers in Wheat Ridge will get a partial rebate of city use tax the company paid related to a planned four-phase renovation and expansion project. The Rocky Mountain Bottle Co. submitted a request to participate in the city’s business development zone program. The company paid $1.05 million in city use tax associated with the first phase of a possible $120 million renovation project at their plant, 10619 W. 50th Ave. in Wheat Ridge. City staff recommended a 25 percent rebate, or approximately $262,500, and that council agree to future rebate amounts through 2021, when the full project is scheduled to end. City council consensus at a Dec. 17 study session was to grant the request. Existing Wheat Ridge companies and companies relocating to the city can ask to be included in the program for a partial rebate of use tax and other fees paid for new construction or redevelopment. The program allows a maximum rebate of 75 percent of use tax on building materials, furniture and fixtures associated with the development, building permit fees and zoning fees. According to the council agenda packet, the project will replace two of the company’s three furnaces with one larger furnace that uses cleaner-burning oxy-fuel technology to lower emissions and increase energy efficiency. A second phase under consideration for later this year would expand plant capacity and a third phase slated for 2020 would add new technology for production monitoring and quality inspections. A fourth phase
would include rebuilding the third furnace in 2021. “Part of this request will help us remain competitive and continue in the years to come,” plant manager William Dillaman told the council. City Manager Patrick Goff said if the company does spend around $120 million on the four-phase project, they would receive a total rebate of around $630,000.
EPA settlement that calls for plant improvements not mentioned at council meeting
The project will also meet the terms of a 2017 settlement Rocky Mountain Bottle Co. reached with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment over a furnace expansion project in the late 1990s. It was done without obtaining permits
or installing required pollution control equipment and resulted in significantly increased emissions of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide. Nitrogen oxides (NOx) can cause or contribute to health problems and adverse environmental impacts, such as groundlevel ozone, acid rain, global warming, water Continued on page 2
PEOPLE YOU SHOULD KNOW
Wheat Ridge’s First Poet In Residence: Sharon Heinlen n By
Elisabeth Monaghan
W
hen visitors come to Wheat Ridge, they don’t have to go far to discover public art on display throughout the city. That’s because through its Cultural Commission, the City of Wheat Ridge is committed to promoting the arts and the artists who live in the area. To celebrate Wheat Ridge’s 50th Anniversary in 2019, the City’s Cultural Commission has integrated poetry as part of its program with the recent appointment of its first Poet in Residence. When Wheat Ridge resident Sharon Heinlen learned about the newly created Poet in Residence program, she recognized an opportunity to merge her love for the community where she’s lived for 18 years, with her passion for poetry. “I have written poetry all my life, including as a young child,” Heinlen explains. “Poetry was a part of my public-school education, K-12, and it instilled in me the importance of this art form and its contribution to “I HAVE WRITTEN POETRY ALL MY LIFE, including society and communities.” As a poet, Heinlen, who currently serves as an adjunct professor as a young child,” said Sharon Heinlen, Wheat Ridge’s
first-ever Poet In Residence.
Continued on page 8
WHEAT RIDGE
PHOTO COURTESY CITY OF