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hange is difficult to perceive until you stop, step back, and look at what was then and what is now. We decided to do that for
the 2013 Times-Call Community Review. This annual edition provides us the opportunity to take a broader — and sometimes deeper — look at the communities we serve.
So, what’s changing in Longmont and the St. Vrain Valley? What are we in the process of becoming? This edition looks at 10 areas where we have changed and are changing, from the
arts to ... well ... weirdness, something we labeled as being “less conventional.” We took our question to readers, too. What do you think we are becoming? Many of you agreed that
while the St. Vrain Valley is getting bigger and more congested, it is getting a little better every day. — John Vahlenkamp, managing editor
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“Longmont is like this up-and-coming arts area. There are a lot of eyes on Longmont.” Patti Burton
Matthew Jonas / Times-Call
Patti Burton poses for a portrait inside her studio, Wednesday, Feb. 20, at the Rabid Rabits Galeria in Longmont.
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atti Burton lived in Longmont in the early 1980s, and she doesn’t recall the city as being particularly artsy back then. She remembers that drivers used to cruise Main Street. She does not remember the presence of many arts activities. She later went to work in Boulder at the University of Colorado, and then, along with her husband, Steve, moved to Ajijic, Mexico, where she opened a jewelry studio and gallery. In the late 2000s, the Burtons were looking to return to the United States, and, in searching for the right place to relocate, a strong arts environment was central to their decision. They considered Paducah, Ky., which offers a widely recognized artist relocation program and a vibrant community of artists. They looked at Oil City, Pa., which also has a program to attract artists. In the end, however, they liked what they saw back in Longmont. At the time there was an effort to create an arts center in downtown Longmont. Some downtown arts leaders were talking about the creation of an arts district. With these and other factors, the Burtons were sold. They moved to a home at 530 Kimbark St.
Lewis Geyer / Times-Call
Art in Public Places administrator Lauren Greenfield sits next to “Imagine,” a shock box at Mountain View Avenue and Airport Road.
and converted the front rooms into gallery and studio space, called Rabid Rabits Galeria. Now they’re contributing to Longmont becoming artsier. “Longmont is like this up-and-coming arts area,” Burton said. “There are a lot of eyes on Longmont.” To have been involved in Longmont’s downtown arts scene in the last couple of years was to have experienced a spirit of optimism and renewal. There has been much discussion about the future of local arts, and recent years have seen lots of personal and organizational efforts to create bonds between the players. If support of the arts is the goal, Longmont has been talking the talk. It turns out it has also
been walking the walk. A partial list of new or expanding arts programs in recent years tells the story: Creation of a downtown arts and entertainment district. The Longmont City Council’s designation of 2012 as the Year of Art. The state naming downtown Longmont last year as one of five Prospective Creative Districts in Colorado. The new Pecha Kucha and film series at Firehouse Art Center. The participation by the most-ever businesses — 30 in 2012 — in ArtWalk, and, on July 20 last year, the biggest ArtWalk attendance yet recorded in the annual event. Growing city concert series at various venues.
Additions to the city’s public art collection, including the “Spirit of Longmont” installation on the Diagonal Highway. Establishment of the Shock Art program. The Shock Art program was initiated last year by Longmont Power & Communications and the city’s Art in Public Places program. Local artists, selected through a process that involves members of the public, are commissioned to paint roadside utility boxes throughout the city. Lauren Greenfield, the administrator of AIPP, says Shock Art has been popular with the public. “This project has generated a huge response from the community,” she said. Last year Greenfield initiated another local arts program — StART, which offers bicycle and walking tours of public art in the city. One of the tours attracted almost 40 people, and the program’s success has led Greenfield to recruit docents for more tours this year. This and other evidence causes her to agree that Longmont is becoming artsier. “I think as the population grows there seems to be an increasing interest in all the arts in Longmont,” she said. One of the people who’s most responsible for the
local arts boost is Debbie Adams, president of the Longmont Council for the Arts, which operates the downtown Muse Gallery and other programs. She spearheaded the Year of Art initiative and is one of the primary advocates for the downtown arts and entertainment district. “Even from the time I moved here four years ago, Longmont has become more artsy,” she said. She noted that Second Fridays, a program in which downtown venues offer special attractions on the second Friday of the month, has recently enjoyed renewed attention and even occurs on more Fridays than just the second of the month. One of the goals of Year of Art was to achieve a total attendance count at local 2012 arts event that at least equaled the city’s population, 86,270. The initiative exceeded that figure by 20,000, Adams said. “That definitely brought the arts community together,” Adams said. At the time, Adams was preparing to visit Artspace in Loveland as part of a tour that was awarded to a Longmont contingent through the city’s Prospective Creative District designation. The tour is part of the efforts Adams and others are making to make Longmont even artsier.
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“You can’t outguess the weather. A lot of things have changed in farming over the years, but our dependency on Mother Nature is constant.” Kent Peppler
Matthew Jonas / Times-Call
Farmer Kent Peppler poses for a portrait Tuesday, Feb. 19, in a field near his home in Weld County.
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s Kent Peppler puts it, 2012 didn’t jump up and smack anybody in the nose with water warnings. Not at first, anyway. “We had no reason to think about drought,” said Peppler, a fourth-generation farmer and president of the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union. “We had a 90 percent snowpack, water in our lakes and we had our snowiest month in front of us.” Or it should have been. Instead, March came and went with just a hundredth of an inch of water — a grim precursor to a year that wouldn’t even reach eight inches of precipitation. “After the end of April,” Peppler said, “we were looking at each other and saying ‘Oops.’ ” 2012 wound up being even drier for the Longmont area than the famous drought year of 2002. But it also was the continuation of a trend. For seven straight years, Longmont has gotten less moisture than its 30-year-average says it should. Sometimes it’s missed by a little, sometimes by a lot, but it hasn’t actually reached or broken its 14.24-inch “typical” level since 2006. Longmont, it seems, is becoming a pretty parched place. “1999 was a wet year,” Times-Call weather expert Dave Larison said, going through records that date
back to 1909. “But it’s been 13 years since then, and only three have been above our normal level. Ten have been below.” “We’re in a dry cycle,” he said. “How long, that’s unknown. But we’re certainly in a dry cycle.”
t~íÉêI ï~íÉê ~åóïÜÉêÉ Ken Huson has a different way of reaching the same conclusion. As Longmont’s water resources administrator, it’s his job to anticipate the city’s water demands and be ready to meet them. And those demands have been going up. In six of the 10 years since the ’02 drought, Longmont’s water use hit record levels for at least one month. Sometimes for much longer than that — 2006 set five monthly records, for example. None of those records were set in 2012, but not for lack of trying. In 2012, the city used 18,256 acre-feet of water. In the last 10 years, only 2006 and 2007 hit the tap harder. And in that year of heavy usage, the much-needed mountain snowpacks vanished fast. “If you look at 2012, the trend was below average but still close until March,” Huson said. “And in March, it just shut off and dropped like a rock.” Longmont ended up avoiding water restrictions in 2012 through a combination of senior water rights, reserves such
and 64 percent in the South Platte basin. And while Longmont’s water supplies are still solid, they’re getting close to “careful” levels. Huson projects that supplies will be equal to 139 percent of demand — that is, 39 percent more water than the city’s residents are likely to ask for. If that level hits 135 percent, the first level of city water restrictions goes into place. “We’re getting close to where we want to start thinkLewis Geyer / Times-Call ing about actions,” Huson said. The Oligarchy Ditch flows underneath a bridge and into a low At level one, water use by Union Reservoir in September 2012. city agencies gets cut by 10 percent. If water supplies hit as Button Rock Reservoir, and and it’s not looking too good,” 120 percent, that takes Longa bit of luck. The luck came he said. mont to level two, where evearly in the year when memNick Sekich of the Higherybody goes under watering bers of the Colorado-Big land Ditch Company, a suppli- restrictions. Thompson project — which er to many Longmont-area February’s heavy snowfall brings water over from the may help — about 12.5 inches farmers, agreed. Western Slope — got a whop“We lost a lot of production — but only so much. A typical ping 90 percent allotment, alstorm gives one inch of water last year, but this year’s looklowing communities like for every 20 inches of snow, ing so much worse,” Sekich Longmont to draw nine-tenths said. “There’s just no water to Larison said. What really hurt of an acre-foot for every share even rent out there. The cities Longmont last year was the they held. A normal year has lack of spring and summer are holding on to it.” an allotment of 60 to 70 perrainfall, he said; while the city cent. still got its July “monsoonal” iççâáåÖ ~ÜÉ~Ç With the CBT water as a rains, the combined moisture Even with its water cushion, cushion, Longmont not only of March, April, June and Authe effects on Longmont have weathered the 2012 drought, gust didn’t even reach an been visible. Both Union Resit was able to lease water out. inch. ervoir and McIntosh Lake are Farmers like Peppler bought For Peppler and farmers below half-full, and the boatit eagerly. like him, it means a year of ing season at Union may be “We were just trying to watching closely and keeping shortened as a result. The keep things wet,” Peppler the crop insurance close to smaller Burch Lake is at twosaid. “We were just going to hand. irrigate until we ran out of wa- thirds capacity. “You can’t outguess the No one’s expecting much ter.” weather,” he said. “A lot of It’s a tactic he knows is like- recharge to come from the things have changed in farmsnowpack, which in February ing over the years, but our dely to be harder this time was at 73 percent of average around. pendency on Mother Nature for the Upper Colorado basin “Next year’s another year is constant.”
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jçêÉ bÇìÅ~íÉÇ “They don’t have a lot of time; they don’t have lots of money. Something is pushing them to go back to college.” Steve Steele president of IBMC
Matthew Jonas / Times-Call
Medical assistant student Desiree Varn, left, watches as classmate Amanda Riss, right, practices taking blood from a simulated arm during class Thursday, Feb. 28, at the Institute of Business and Medical Careers in Longmont.
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s Longmont becoming better educated? How do you even determine that?
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “educated” as “having an education beyond the average; giving evidence of training or practice.” At Dictionary.com, the definition includes “having undergone education; ... based on some information or experience.” On the other hand, Mark Twain once said, “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” With apologies to Mr. Clemens, we’ll have to look at schooling to answer to our question. The St. Vrain Valley School District has seen its graduation rates increase for several years; 81.6 percent of all students, including those at alternative schools, and 89.1 percent of those at the traditional schools, graduated in 2012. Since the Colorado Department of Education regularly changes how it determines that graduation rate, current data can’t be compared to rates from 10 years ago.
However, U.S. Census data show that among 18to 24-year-old Longmont men, 19 percent had not earned high school diplomas in 2011, compared with 34.2 percent in 2000. Among women in that age group, 14.6 percent had not earned high school diplomas in 2011, compared with 28.6 percent in 2000.
U.S. Census data show that among 18- to 24-year-old Longmont men, 19 percent had not earned high school diplomas in 2011, compared with 34.2 percent in 2000. Among women in that age group, 14.6 percent had not earned high school diplomas in 2011, compared with 28.6 percent in 2000.
So it seems that far more St. Vrain Valley residents are graduating from high school. In today’s economy, 2000, according to the U.S. though, a high school Census. diploma alone won’t get So it’s not surprising that you too far. enrollment at the University of Colorado at Boulder cçìêJóÉ~ê ÇÉÖêÉÉë has been increasing. EnéêçîáÇÉ çåÉ é~íÜ rollment of undergraduate According to a Bureau of and graduate students reached 29,278 students in Labor Statistics release rethe fall of 2012, a 12.5 pergarding wages in the fourth cent increase since 2000, quarter of 2012, workers according to the universiwith only high school diploty’s website. mas earned a median wage While the number of libof $647 a week or $33,644 a year; those with bachelor’s eral arts students has outpaced the overall growth, degrees earned a median the increase in engineering salary of $1,168 a week or students is outstanding: $60,736 a year. Enrollment in the engiThe percentage of Longneering department has inmont residents with bache- creased 30.9 percent since lor’s degrees — not includ- 2000. ing those with more That’s not by accident. advanced degrees — increased to 22.4 percent in “We have made a commitment to increase engi2011 from 19.6 percent in
neering (enrollment) ... to help meet the needs of the local and regional workforce growth,” Provost Russell Moore said in February. The school has added other programs, as well, to help meet the needs of businesses and students, including a doctorate in Asian languages and civilizations; master’s and doctoral degrees in architecture; a master’s in telecommunications; and a doctorate in German studies. German studies? Students had been losing interest in CU’s German language program, but some new faculty members proposed integrating it with liberal arts or busi-
ness and revitalized the program, Moore said. And, it turns out, there’s a market in Colorado for those who know Germany. “Germany is Colorado’s second-largest trading partner” said Jeffery Cox, associate vice chancellor for faculty affairs.
^ëëçÅá~íÉ ÇÉÖêÉÉë çÑÑÉê ~äíÉêå~íáîÉ êçìíÉë But you don’t have to commute out of Longmont to get an education that leads to a better-paying job. Opportunities to earn associate’s degrees abound, from Front Range Community College on the city’s south side to the Institute of Business and Medical Careers on the north. IBMC opened in Longmont in September 2010 and expanded its campus in 2012. The school has about 250 students — “about where we want to be at this point,” Steve Steele, president of IBMC, said in February. With that enrollment, the school can keep its classes small, yet offer several programs. In Longmont, the school offers programs in health, business, paralegal
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Matthew Jonas / Times-Call
Paralegal student Savannah Ortega, poses for a portrait inside the law library, Thursday, Feb. 28, at IBMC.
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“They don’t have a lot of time; they don’t have lots of money,” Steele said. “Something is pushing them to go back to college.”
percent since 2003. When you count heads, 4,946 students were on campus in the fall, a 10.5 percent increase from 2003, the college reported.
The appeal of earning an associate’s degree or technical certification can be seen in enrollment increases at Front Range Community College’s Boulder County campus in LongThe average age of IBMC mont. students is 27, and most Since 2003, enrollment are looking to start a sechas been growing, no matond career, he said. The youngest student is 17 1 ⁄ 2 — ter how you count it. The an early high school gradu- number of full-time equivalent students was 1,942 in ate — and the oldest is 62, he said. 2012, an increase of 25.9
Enrollment peaked in 2011, with 2,008 FTE students and 5,069 actual students, according to college officials.
and massage, with business administration and paralegal studies the most popular, Steele said. Students usually have a life event, such as a layoff, a divorce or even their children starting school or going off to college, that triggers their interest in a new career, he said.
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One of Front Range’s perennially popular programs, nursing, has long had a waiting list; space limits the classes to 24 students at a time, said Tammi Bailey, director of nursing education. Changes in health care
are changing how nursing students are educated, she said. “The nurses have to be sharper than they were before,” Bailey said, pointing out that hospital patients are sicker than they used to be, and medical care involves more technology than it did in the past. “We have to start teaching nurses how to think, how to problem-solve,” Bailey said. The outlook for jobs requiring associate degrees or vocational training is quite healthy, according to the Bureau of Labor Statis-
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tics. Between 2010 and 2020, the number of jobs for medical sonographers is expected to increase 44 percent; for therapy assistants, 41 percent; and for dental hygienists, 38 percent. Steele doesn’t see the various types of colleges in and around Longmont as competing against each other, and encourages potential students to explore all their options. “It takes all of the education experiences to meet the needs and the demands,” Steele said.
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Women in Business DEBBIE CONN
PRISCILLA TROST GKCC
Owner
I have been owner operator of Scoopy Doo’s for 20 years (taking care of crap for people since 1993). That is when I purchased a 9 yr old service route out of a business for sale ad in the Times Call. Didn’t really know what I was getting into, but there was something about working with dogs. I loved it! It took me no time at all to find this was the perfect job for me & my family. When I leave for work I am greeted all day by the most loving creatures on earth. It is not hard to smile all day. I get to see a multitude of personalities, most of which make me laugh out loud. I make a lot of busy lives much easier. After 20 years of taking crap, literally & verbally, everyone has a pun (or so they think). It has just added to the fun of my business. To all my friends that just love to give me crap, your bill is in the mail. To all the great people that have supported me all these years. Thank You All So Very Much!!! For 20 wonderful years!
Scoopy Doo’s
303-678-8860 (go visit our web site) www.scoopydoos.net
LINDA HEIL
As a certified diet wellness coach, I have the privilege of helping others of all ages to transform their bodies and lives, 90 days at a time….in ways that are simple, affordable, delicious AND fits within normal daily living. After being in the nutrition industry for the past 14 years I am especially delighted to offer a winning combination of customized genetic key coaching along with the Body byVi 90 Day Health Challenge. In my clients’ words: “I lost inches and pounds, and she was so patient with me … Enjoyable, positive, and affirming, and even my husband has made some changes… Especially pleased with improved blood sugar and the results of my most recent lab tests… Lots of trouble walking due to pain. But now I have energy, enjoy walking, and need new clothes because they’re too big!” Strategies for Wellness 303-877-7069 www.coachp.bodybyvi.com www.strategies4wellness.info
CANDICE BAHNSON
DR. NICOLE PYGOTT
ROSE CHAMBERLAIN
Is a Colorado Native, she began her career with New York Life late 2008. She enjoys helping people and being involved in the Longmont community. Candice is a member and on the board for the Northern Colorado NAIFA, (National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors). She is also a MDRT (Million Dollar Round Table premier association for financial professionals) member and qualifier. She is inspired by her clients and her friends always willing and wanting to help with planning. Candice can assist you with the proper amount and type of life insurance. Long-Term Care Insurance to help protect your assets and to make it easier for your family if there is ever a need for care. Retirement planning and rollovers and education funding.
Dr. Pygott has has been providing outstanding audiological services to patients in the Longmont area at the Colorado Hearing Tinnitus and Balance for the past 13 years. As a member of numerous professional organizations including the American Academy of Audiology and Colorado Academy of Audiology she expands her knowledge in the field of tinnitus therapy through exclusive training opportunities. Colorado Hearing Tinnitus and Balance is proud she is able to preserve an over 35 year old tradition of exceptional patient care in all aspects of medical treatment for hearing, tinnitus and balance disorders.
Imagine how your business would benefit if you knew everyone,too!
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Owner - In Home Pet Sitting Linda Heil, is a Longmont native and owner of Paw Au Pair. Linda truly loves what she does and is loved by all her furry four legged clients. We provide top-quality care for your pets in the secure familiar environment of their own home. We understand how important it is to find high quality service as well as professionalism. Linda and her staff pride themselves in providing such a service. Whether you need our services for dog walking, pet sitting, trip to the groomers or vet’s office, we can meet your needs. For your peace of mind, Paw Au Pair is bonded and insured, veterinarian recommended and a member of PSI. Linda truly loves what she does and is loved by all her furry four legged clients.
Paw Au Pair
In Home Pet Sitting and Dog Walking Service
303-485-8498 • www.pawaupair.com pawaupair@msn.com
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Owner, Strategies for Wellness
She can be reached at 303-775-5859, www.candicebahnson.nylagents.com, cbahnson@ft.newyorklife.com. 1047 Morning Dove Drive, Longmont, CO 80504
Director & Doctor of Audiology, Au.D. F-AAA
Marketing and Networking Solutions
Checkoutourcalendarforupcomingworkshopsandseminars,or contact Rose to set up a custom one up today! Marketing plans can be daunting, but when done well, can set you up for growth and prosperity. Rose and her expert power team will work with you to execute and implement a powerful marketing plan that will get you on the path to success. •Visual Marketing/Photography •Web Design • On-Line Presence,www.theLongmont.com • Networking Events • Schedule your own‚ ‘RED CARPET’‚ event Rose can personally set up and manage your social media marketing program. From Facebook toTwitter,Foursquare to Pinterest and many more! Your customers will stay engaged and YOU will stay top of mind!
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Rose Chamberlain 303.746.3830 Check out our services visit www.roseknowseverybody.com Connect with me on facebook www.facebook.com/rosechamberlain Coffee & Connections www.facebook.com/ CoffeeConnect1 .
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“I tell them, ‘Animo, we can do it, is only a few more minutes, use all you have, suck it in and blah blah blah.’ They like it, and I like their reaction, too.” Martha Garcia Sabor Latino Dance instructor
Greg Lindstrom / Times-Call
Martha Garcia leads Sabor Latino, a dance class at the Ed & Ruth Lehman YMCA in Longmont on Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013.
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hen Martha Garcia’s doctor threatened to put her on a regimen of medications to control her high cholesterol and triglycerides, the thought of a medicine cabinet with rows of pill bottles filled her with dread. “It made me feel like an old lady. I just pictured my mom with her bottles in the bathroom cabinet,” said the 46-year-old Longmont woman. Instead, she decided to get into shape. Inspired by a series of webinars her work sponsors, Garcia shrank portion sizes and cut out flour tortillas, rice, pasta, sweets and beef. She began sweating in an aerobic dance class, Sabor Latino Dance, at Longmont’s Ed & Ruth Lehman YMCA. This August, she’ll mark three years teaching the class, which she leads three times a week. When she’s not teaching, Garcia does Zumba and lifts weights at the Y. “Everybody thinks that I live here,” she chuckled. The schedule has paid off, helping her drop from 210 pounds to 145. She now wears size 7 pants, down from size 18. More importantly, Garcia said, her doctor has taken away the threat of medications.
“I don’t consider myself skinny. But I’m not like I was before,” she said.
q~âáåÖ ëã~ää ëíÉéë While Garcia’s is a success story, it wouldn’t be fair to say it represents health throughout Boulder County. That’s more of mixed bag, which is the case for much of the state. Paradoxically, even with one of every two Colorado adults being overweight or obese, Colorado is still the leanest state in the country.
pated in some physical activity or exercise in the past month, the Colorado Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System found. The percentage of Boulder County adults with high blood pressure fell from 16.2 percent in 2007 to 15.4 percent in 2009. And, by 2009, the number of adults who eat fruits and vegetables five or more times a day grew to 34.2 percent, an increase of almost 3 percentage points over 2007.
So can you really say Longmont is becoming Boulder County ranks healthier? There’s certainly fourth of 59 Colorado counmore awareness about ties when it comes to overall health and more inquires health, according to the 2012 about how to get healthy, report of county health rank- said Melissa Trecoske ings from the University of Houghton, manager of LiveWisconsin Population Health Well Longmont, a movement Institute. started in 2008 to provide healthy options locally. But there are still issues. In 2009-10, 30.6 percent of “It’s about taking those adults in the county had a small steps, and maybe the body mass index that indinumbers don’t reflect the cated they were overweight small steps. But there is a or obese, according to the progression toward healthier most recent numbers from choices,” she said. the Colorado Behavioral For example, the St. Vrain Risk Factor Surveillance SysValley School District in tem. It’s worth noting that’s a drop from the 34.5 percent 2011 secured a nearly $1 million grant from the Colorado in 2007-08. Also, Boulder County adults with high cho- Health Foundation that pays for training for physical edulesterol grew from 31.8 percation training and allows cent in 2007 to 33.6 percent each district school to buy in 2009. new P.E. equipment. There is also good news. LiveWell Longmont also Nearly 91 percent of Boulder installed a Weigh and Win County adults surveyed in kiosk at the Longmont Pub2009-10 said they partici-
Certain health issues disproportionately affect minorities, including Hispanics. For example, while 3.6 percent of white Boulder County adults surveyed in 2009-10 had diabetes, 8.4 percent of Hispanic adults in the county had the disease. That same year, 28.5 percent of Hispanic adults in the county reported they were obese, compared to the 13.1 percent of white adults who said the same. lic Library, which allows participants to get paid for losing weight and maintaining a healthy weight. From when the kiosk was installed on June 12, 2012, to Dec. 31, 892 people enrolled in the program, losing a net of 1,427 pounds. Participants’ average starting weight was 196 pounds and 83 percent had a body mass index that showed they were overweight or obese at the initial weigh-in.
oÉ~ÅÜáåÖ íÜÉ i~íáåç Åçããìåáíó With her acrylic nails, tattoos and black eyeliner, Garcia doesn’t look like a typical fitness instructor. Her black
hair — accented with a prominent red streak — is pulled into a high, tight ponytail, and her nose and lip piercings gleam. Her high-energy workouts, though, are effective. During a recent 50-minute class, the music pumped into the gym — high-energy hiphop and techno with a few Latin selections — and Garcia started dancing to the beat. In front of a class of about 30, she demonstrated her calisthenic dance moves, punching the air, swiveling her hips and rocking back and forth on her feet. She punctuated the moves with
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SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2013 11
eÉ~äíÜ `çåëÅáçìë
Greg Lindstrom / Times-Call
Raquel Samora, left, works out during Sabor Latino, a dance class at the Ed & Ruth Lehman YMCA in Longmont, on Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013.
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than it was even a few years ago, she said. the occasional “whoop” or “I’m a pusher,” Moreno “ow.” said. “I say, ‘You have to deEl Comité executive direc- cide yourself how to take tor Marta Moreno peeked in care of your body.’ ” Certain health issues disat one point and gestured for proportionately affect minorthe music to be turned ities, including Hispanics. down. She was helping lead For example, while 3.6 pera nutrition learning session cent of white Boulder Counin an adjacent room. ty adults surveyed in 2009-10 Outreach efforts both had diabetes, 8.4 percent of from the Y and from Salud Hispanic adults in the counClinic have prompted Longty had the disease. That mont’s Latinos to get serious same year, 28.5 percent of about health issues that disHispanic adults in the counproportionately affect the ty reported they were obese, Hispanic community, she compared to the 13.1 persaid. Financial aid, scholcent of white adults who said arships and free classes have the same. helped. Overall, the Latino Garcia has a theory about community is healthier now why. 12 SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2013
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“(It’s) because of the way we eat, the way we cook. We love rich food. The other day, I made my husband refried bean burritos. You think I made them for myself? No, because I know what’s in them,” said Garcia, who works as an administrative assistant for the city’s public works department.
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Raul Montero and his wife, Blanca, are regulars in Garcia’s Sabor Latino Dance class. Blanca danced even when she was nine months pregnant with the couple’s 2-year-old daughter, Raul said. “We love it. We are Lati-
nos, and Latinos love dancing,” he said, adding that the class has helped him lose 35 pounds over the last several years. First-timer Lissa Almaguer bowed out of a mid-February dance class about 10 minutes before the end. Garcia immediately noticed. “What happened?” she inquired. “I’m done,” said Almaguer, almost apologetically. “It’s only 10 more minutes,” Garcia pushed. Lissa Almaguer promised that she and her husband, Javy, would be back. The couple met while dancing at a Denver nightclub and
LONGMONT TIMES-CALL COMMUNITY REVIEW
haven’t been able to dance lately, in part because they have two children, both under the age of 2. (The Y’s free childcare during the dance class helped them make it to the gym). After they married in November 2010, both began to happily pack on pounds. “You get comfortable and you don’t care anymore, so you start gaining weight. You don’t have time to go to the gym,” Lissa Almaguer said. Garcia keeps photos of her former self on her cellphone. She is quick to point
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`çåíáåìÉÇ Ñêçã é~ÖÉ NO out that she wasn’t ashamed of being “a big girl” and was never plagued with selfconfidence issues. Even at her heaviest, she wore tight, revealing clothing and the kind of Texas cowboy hats typically reserved for men. Her health, though, suffered. Now, she said, she feels lighter and healthier. And she’s spreading the gospel. “You know that sometimes you can see some participants are just standing here trying to do the class and hardly moving, but I push them,” Garcia wrote in an email. “I tell them, ‘Animo, we can do it, is only a few more minutes, use all you have, suck it in and blah blah blah.’ They like it, and I like their reaction, too.”
Greg Lindstrom / Times-Call
Residents participate in Sabor Latino, a dance class at the Ed & Ruth Lehman YMCA in Longmont on Feb. 19.
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SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2013 13
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“We have always been a business community. The original industry was agriculture.” Susan Pratt owner of Pratt Properties
Lewis Geyer / Times-Call
Cars fill the Seagate parking lot along Nelson Road on Feb. 14.
14 SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2013
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nce upon a time, the job opportunities for someone born in Longmont were fairly limited. If you didn’t grow up aspiring to work in some form of agriculture or in a customer service/retail type of job, your prospects for making a good living likely existed outside the town’s borders. As IBM rolled out its huge Gunbarrel campus in the mid-1960s, Longmont was the very definition of a bedroom community even as IBM employees by the hundreds were putting down roots in Longmont. But those days are long past. Today, the city is one of the most substantial job centers on the Front Range.
coverage area, Longmont would at least be even, if not up, over the past decade. Primary jobs are those where goods or services are produced locally and sold elsewhere, bringing new money into circulation in the community. Conventional wisdom in the economic development world says every primary job spins off two to three non-primary, so that’s a lot of jobs. Long-timers have watched the job base build substantially from the days when Longmont was a sleepy little agricultural town. “I was talking to a friend in Thornton, he said, ‘We have only 61 primary employers,’ ” said John Cody, president and CEO of the LAEC. “We have three times that amount and we’re a smaller city.”
According to the Longmont Area Economic Council, Longmont began 2013 with 11,176 primary jobs, a 15 percent drop from the 13,102 primary jobs in place when the city started 2003.
Cody said that in his travels around the country, “Most communities our size in population would kill for the industrial base we have.”
While the number is down, if you factor in the 650 jobs lost when Seagate bought Maxtor in 2006 and the 350 that went away when Butterball closed its plant last year, and also the fact that the LAEC no longer counts jobs in southwest Weld County as part of its
It didn’t happen by accident. It took forward thinking and a lot of work for that to happen. Business leaders and developers had to have the vision that Longmont could become an employment center, even without the benefits of the federal labs and the
university that the town down the road enjoys. And Longmont’s civic leaders had to be willing to invest in the careful planning and infrastructure that would be needed to pull it off.
Administration to build an air traffic control facility in Longmont. Meanwhile, Ken Pratt’s father, Harold, was building homes in Longmont to house a lot of those IBMers and air traffic controllers.
And it also took a great many people putting their own money on the line, at a time when sugar beets may have seemed the safer bet.
By 1965 IBM had broken ground on its facility and at the same time Hewlett-Packard announced it was coming to Loveland and Kodak to Windsor.
qêá~äI Éêêçê ~åÇ éÉêëáëíÉåÅÉ “We have always been a business community,” said Susan Pratt, owner of Pratt Properties. “The original industry was agriculture.”
“Those three industries changed the complexion of Northern Colorado,” Pratt said.
Added Cody, “HP and Kodak both came after IBM, so the risk component that comes as part of this process She’s quick to spread the was made less when a big credit around, but Pratt and company like IBM comes her late husband, Ken, played no small part in estab- in.” lishing Longmont as a job Ken Pratt joined his father center. in the Pratt Agency in 1967 and took over when his fa“Longmont, and the Pratts, deserve a lot of credit ther died in 1969. The company continued to build for this,” Cody said. “They homes but by the next decdidn’t want Longmont to be ade had decided to branch a bedroom community any out into commercial developmore, and it’s not.” In the early 1960s, around ment. The early plans were to buy land, get it annexed the time IBM made its aninto the city and zoned and nouncement that it was then sell the lots. going to build a huge campus along the Diagonal Highway between Longmont and Boulder, a group of businessmen in Longmont formed the Longmont Industrial Park Board. That group lured the Federal Aviation
The plan initially was to lure “heavy industry” to Longmont, Susan Pratt said. A caboose parked next to the railroad tracks on the south side of Ken Pratt Boulevard — then Florida Ave-
nue — advertised lots for sale and touted Longmont as a great place to do business. But heavy industry would require better railroad access than could be found in Longmont, so the Pratts had to change course. “Eventually we decided to build a spec building to see if we could lease it,” Susan Pratt said. That building was 1801 Lefthand Circle, where Lefthand meets Sunset Street. Soon to follow were 1811 and 1821 Lefthand. “That proved that warehousing wasn’t of need in this community because they were very difficult to lease,” she said. Around the same time companies began spinning out of IBM — Storage Technology Corp. for one. So the Pratts and their business partners got the idea to pursue high tech companies. They made road trips to Silicon Valley try to lure companies to Longmont, but it was a tough pitch, Pratt said. First, she said, at that time, this area didn’t have a high enough concentration of high tech companies. Northern California companies also told them, “Something must be wrong because our ground was too cheap,” she recalled.
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SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2013 15
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Lewis Geyer / Times-Call
The Seagate building seen on Thursday, Feb. 14, 2013.
`çåíáåìÉÇ Ñêçã é~ÖÉ NR She said on one trip, as they made the rounds from company to company, they were pitching their land for $1.50 per square foot developed, but were getting shut down at every turn. By lunch, she said, Ken decided to up the price to $3.50 per square foot, “And it was the first time we got a positive response.” They also learned that high tech companies didn’t want to build their own buildings — their focus was on technology. They wanted to lease a building from somebody else who had taken the risk of building one. And, Susan Pratt said, she and Ken and their partners also learned how important the aesthetic aspects of Silicon Valley were and they deWWW.TIMESCALL.COM
cided to bring them to Longmont. “We drove around in Silicon Valley and took pictures, and we came back here and copied their buildings,” Pratt said. Those Pratt buildings have a distinctive look even today: grass-covered earthen berms physically separate the streets from the parking lots; walking trails and exercise stations are sprinkled liberally throughout; and the interiors are designed as “flex” space — they’re adaptable to office or industrial. Most have high ceilings, and the loading docks are strategically placed. Ultimately, about 2 million square feet was built, including the largest conference center in Boulder County. “That was primary jobs, and that’s what really started
millennium,” said Cody. “Since the millennium things “When you look at the goals of most haven’t changed all that of the communities in Colorado you much.” In fact, Cody said, the ’90s the 2000s were almost see, a lot, sustainability, meaning they and mirror images of each other in terms of job growth: the don’t want to have to rely on an ’90s being the boom times employment base somewhere else.” and the 2000s being mostly negative. John Cody But even while recovery president and CEO of LAEC from this most recent downturn has been slow in coming, Longmont still is well below the national average recruiting and retaining prishifting the complexion of in unemployment and well Longmont,” Pratt said. mary employers — still the above the national average LAEC’s primary mission to In 1981 the Economic Dethis day — incomes in Long- in wages, he notes. And velopment Association of that’s because of the city’s mont continued to climb Longmont, now known as job base. the Longmont Area Econom- throughout the rest of that “When you look at the decade and through 1990s, ic Council, was formed, and goals of most of the communiwhich helped attract more Ken Pratt was part of its inties in Colorado you see, a lot, housing and more retail to ception, along with many of sustainability, meaning they the city. the city’s other business don’t want to have to rely on leaders of the time. “That’s when it started, an employment base somewhere else,” Cody said. With EDAL charged with and it went on through the
LONGMONT TIMES-CALL COMMUNITY REVIEW
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SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2013 17
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“I think we were weird before.” Longmont Mayor Dennis Coombs
Matthew Jonas / Times-Call
Mayor Dennis Coombs poses for a portrait with his bike he rides to work, on Feb. 13 in his office at City of Longmont Civic Center.
18 SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2013
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WWW.TIMESCALL.COM
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içåÖãçåí áë ÖÉííáåÖ ïÉáêÇÉêI ÜáééÉêI ÅççäÉê out bouts at the Boulder County Fairgrounds.
t isn’t easy to shake a nickname like “Longtucky.”
Boulder County Bombers skater Christie Marcotte, 45, who has lived in Longmont for 13 years, said when she first moved to Longmont she considered it a “cow town.” (That may be a nice way of saying “Longtucky.”)
With apologies to Kentucky, the intended jab to the Longmont community hits home — and, really, people, ouch. While the pejorative kind of stings, it probably made sense when it was first lobbed and stuck like Gorilla Glue. The city a decade ago was decidedly square. Given the city was actually founded as a square mile, it may have been a bit hard for the population to think outside the box. A decade ago, Longmont had little to offer in the weird department, the tapestry of subcultures that made our neighbors to the southwest a hub of the interesting, odd and entertaining. Of course, there are the bumper stickers owning it: “Keep Boulder Weird.” You know, like Austin. Meanwhile Longmont had a mall and a little Walmart. And some pawn shops. Can’t forget those — Pawnmont. Little by little, though, Longmont has been shedding its culturally conservative shell and letting its freak flag fly. In the past decade, Longmont has welcomed and found markets for the hipsters and hippies, the freaks and the geeks, the tattooed and the pierced, the yogis and the pole dancers for fitness, the punks and the geeks. Well, maybe it
Matthew Jonas / Times-Call
Boulder County Bomber faelust, center, waits for equipment inspection before her team’s bout against Pueblo’s Jailhouse Jawbreakers on Saturday night Feb. 23, at the Boulder County Fairgrounds.
pace for the city. It is most apparent when he stands near the portraits of his predecessors in the council Take the mayor for chamber. He seems instance. decidedly liberal. On a recent Wednesday, “Fiscally, I am very Dennis Coombs met with a conservative,” he said. visitor from Zambia who was He isn’t sure the cultural interested in American shift in Longmont is a move government structures, to the weird side. signed city documents, and worked in his office at the “I think we were weird Longmont Civic Center — in before,” Coombs said. cycling gear. But, he noted, “We’re “I probably should have changing, definitely,” adding been a little more dressed up that there is a vibe that for the guy from Zambia,” he residents are getting more said, with his road bike liberal, bike-friendly and art leaning against he wall loving. behind his desk. Along the same lines, a decade ago, skate culture While City Council is nonpartisan, the shift from a was confined to the streets. Now Longmont has a large long line of apparently conservative mayors to a city skate park at Sandstone Ranch. Perhaps even less leader who bikes into work expected, the city is now on any day he can possibly home to a women’s flat track get away without a suit and roller derby league that sells tie is a decided change of
wasn’t a welcome so much as an infiltration — po-taytoe, po-tah-toe.
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“It has become more progressive, really,” she said. “In time, people have moved here and they are more adventuresome, they are more open, I think,” she said. She skates under name Give ’Em Elle and thrives in the derby community’s do-ityourself punk ethos. The women-dominated sport with a reputation for being a bit counterculture has found a broad and supportive fan base in Boulder County. Marcotte has two sons that she is raising in Longmont. “They play hockey and baseball, and they totally love that I play roller derby,” she said. Something like this was out of the question when she first moved to the city. She said she felt like there was nothing to do. Oh, my, times have changed. “I think it is pretty amazing,” she said. Kathe Heinecken, owner of Barbed Wire Books and a 20-year resident of Longmont, said she sees the cultural changes for the better just looking out of her bookstore’s window on Main Street. She sees a Crackpots,
where residents can go to create art, the Longmont Theater Company, and a store geared toward the outdoors lifestyle. “I think Boulder has peaked with the expense of living (there) and the frenetic-ness,” she said. “The people are bringing the best part of that culture here, while leaving behind what they don’t want.” Businesses geared toward serving those different cultures, like her store, independent coffee shops, fitness businesses of all stripes, and bars and music venues are thriving. She said Longmont is not just supporting those businesses because of a growing population, but because of the type of people who make up that population. “I see a bunch of kids in here of every subculture, and they seem pretty happy,” Heinecken said. And the residents aren’t just partaking of art, but making it. Graffiti artist Gamma Acosta is Longmont’s best known artist. He has sold works nationally and he has been commissioned for works in and out of the city. Perhaps it is time, Longmont, to shuck off the old nasty nicknames and adopt something new. Something hip and progressive, like Denver’s LoDo, or HiLo, or LoHi, or even SoBo. Perhaps Longmont, Colo., could be LoMoCo?
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y t i n u Review Comm Support the Suppor he llocal ocal bbusinesses usinesses tthat hat ma make k a difference in our community 1871
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y t i n u Review Comm Support the Suppor he llocal ocal bbusinesses usinesses tthat hat ma make k a difference in our community 1962
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y t i n u Comm Review Support the local businesses that hat ma make ke a di difference fference iinn our our community community 1981
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y t i n u Review Comm Support the Suppor he llocal ocal bbusinesses usinesses tthat hat ma make k a difference in our community 1991
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“I was a stay-at-home mom. ... In the blink of an eye, (we went) from having an income to no income at all.” Symone
Lewis Geyer / Times-Call
Symone works at the Boulder County Department of Housing and Human Services on Friday, March 1. Symone got a job at the county department after her husband was laid off from his job.
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any people living in Longmont and the rest of the St. Vrain Valley — along with their neighbors elsewhere in Boulder County — have found themselves in personal financial straits over the past five years. With the late-2007 onset of the Great Recession, many St. Vrain Valley individuals and families found themselves, for the first times in their lives, having to turn to government agencies and nonprofit community organizations for aid in trying to get back on their economic feet. Economists have said that 1 1 ⁄ 2 -year-old downturn ended in June 2009. But local officials say the struggles of many of the Longmont area’s needy individuals and families have continued in the more than 3 1 ⁄ 2 years since the Great Recession concluded. Trying to cope with pay cutbacks or unemployment, the possibilities of foreclosures or of eviction from rental housing, still-escalating health-care expenses, and the rising costs of covering such basic safety-net needs as food, shelter and clothing. One of the Boulder County Department of Housing and Human Service’s success stories in helping such families is a 25-year-old Longmont woman whose husband lost his Lyons-area job about three years ago.
Lewis Geyer / Times-Call
From left: Symone; her husband, Jose; and son Jose, 5. Symone got a job at Boulder County Department of Housing and Human Services after her husband was laid off from his job.
“I was a stay-at-home mom” with a 2-year-old son, said Symone, who consented to tell her story on the condition that her family’s last name not be used, The family went, “in the blink of an eye, from having an income to no income at all,” Symone said. She said that with her 26-year-old husband, Jose, out of work for what appeared to be likely a lengthy time, there wasn’t any way to pay the family’s everyday bills other than for her to try to go to work herself. Symone said contacts she’d earlier made while in the county’s Genesis parenting program for
pregnant girls and young mothers and fathers told her of the kinds of assistance that she and her family might be eligible for. Symone and her husband signed up for such services as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, for Medicaid’s health care coverage and for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. She began attending classes at Workforce Boulder County, absorbing such topics as interviewing skills, resume writing and computer use. Symone eventually landed an extended internship with the county, performing such
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tasks as scanning paperwork for a little over a year. Then, she got a temporary county job which has since translated into a position as an administrative technician in the Boulder County Housing and Human Services’ Longmont branch office. Her husband has been something of a stay-at-home dad, taking care of the couple’s son, little Jose, who’s now 5 years old and will be entering kindergarten next fall. Symone, in her current paid post, is one of the frontdesk greeters who check clients in when they show up for appointments or direct them to the appropriate
staffers when assistanceseekers need information about — and navigation through the bureaucracy of getting — the family support services available to people in the circumstances where Symone and her husband found themselves five years ago. Symone’s supervisors said she’s earning too much now to qualify for most kinds of assistance herself. But they said that’s an indication of how those programs helped her. “We’re very grateful,” Jose said when he recently took their son to visit his wife at work. There have been some signs of a slight economic upturn since mid-2009, with unemployment rates and foreclosures dipping, said Frank Alexander director of the county Housing and Human Services Department. But “this isn’t like a boom,” Alexander said, adding when it comes to housing and human services needs, the past few years have only been “a slowing of the crisis.” In many respects, the economic downturn, the still-slow recovery afterward, and their impacts on Boulder County residents have been countywide, Alexander noted. His department’s statistics show that the number of Boulder County clients getting several kinds of county-administered
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kÉÉÇÑìä `çåíáåìÉÇ Ñêçã é~ÖÉ OR assistance — such as various cash paymentprograms, supplemental food assistance, and government-supported health care programs such as Medicaid — totaled 14,633 distinct cases in calendar 2008, rising to 20,417 cases in 2012, nearly a 40 percent increase. But a significant number of those human services benefits went to needy families and individuals in Longmont and elsewhere in the Boulder County portion of the St. Vrain Valley — an area Alexander called “a big geographic swatch” across the northern third of the county. Residents of the St. Vrain Valley, which stretches down through Lyons and into Longmont, accounted for 49 percent of the total countywide caseload getting food, cash and medical
services in 2008 and represented 47 percent of the countywide total in 2012. The rest of the people getting those particular services lived in such communities as Boulder, Louisville, Lafayette, Erie, Ward, Nederland and Jamestown, or in unincorporated Boulder County locations areas outside the St. Vrain Valley. Alexander said that some past recessions were brief enough — and the recoveries rapid enough — that middle-class families with temporarily reduced incomes could tap their savings or other private resources, or could turn to other family members for short-term assistance, when they needed help in paying for groceries, rent, house mortgages, doctors’ visits or auto expenses. That wasn’t always the case for people finding
such as when it comes to buying or renting housing, said Domenico, a former county assessor. But she indicated that the same income demographics that attracted people to the affordability of the St. Vrain Valley may also mean that people many people living “This one has penetrated there were further,” he said, and it has disproportionately hit by the gone beyond many Boulder recession. County residents’ ability to Domenico emphasized the cope with, over the long run. importance of the county’s Boulder County nonprofit organizations in commissioners chairwoman identifying the Boulder Cindy Domenico said that County residents most in when it comes to human need of the non-government services and health services that are available, programs — along with channeling people to the employment-finding or appropriate federal, state retraining services for and local government people at risk of sinking into agencies when those people long-term poverty because of are found to be eligible for their joblessness — “there is government assistance. a need, there, in Longmont.” County officials also frequently applaud Boulder The Longmont area has County voters’ November long been one of the more 2010 approval of a 0.9 mill affordable places for people property tax, with revenues to live in Boulder County, themselves unemployed or underemployed during the 2007-2009 recession and hasn’t been the case for many Boulder County individuals families that still are struggling financially in the years since then, Alexander said.
applied to fill voids left by state cuts in funding for housing and human services programs. That “Temporary Safety Net” initiative, however, is set to expire at the end of 2015, unless the county commissioners ask voters to authorize extending all or part of the special tax levy, and unless voters go along with any such proposal. Part of the revenues from that tax were used to help fund community organizations’ assistance in providing such services as emergency shelter, rental and food assistance, and outreach to let people know they’re eligible to be enrolled in Medicaid and children’s health care programs. Other services have included communitybased mental health and substance abuse treatment, dental health and reducing a wait list for child-care assistance.
LONGMONT ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT DISTRICT NAMED A PROSPECTIVE CREATIVE DISTRICT BY THE STATE OF COLORADO WHAT IS THE A&E DISTRICT?
• 2 independent community theaters • 2 non-profit art organizations & classrooms • Restored opera house • Eclectic mix of art galleries and shows • Interactive & Educational themed retailers • 5 dance or music schools • 25 restaurants • 30 historical landmarks • Historic Callahan House • Thompson Inn Bed & Breakfast • St. Stephen Plaza & Church & much more.
Learn all about it at DowntownLongmont.com 26 SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2013
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“We used to play out here in the dirt. When I was little that was awesome, but now I need a skate park.” Tyler Crespin
Greg Lindstrom / Times-Call
Tyler Crespin, 20, rides at Stephen Day Park in Longmont on Feb. 13.
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yler Crespin spent a sunny afternoon recently catching some air on his BMX bike in the skate park at Stephen Day Park. Opened in 2005, the sprawling park near East Mountain View Avenue and County Line Road features a soccer field and other grassy areas, basketball and volleyball courts, a large jungle gym area, multiple picnic areas and wide sidewalks running throughout. There’s also a paved and unpaved BMX/ skateboard area. “I used to go there 10 years ago,” said Crespin, 20, pointing to Fall River Elementary, adjacent to the park. “Out here there was nothing. It was flat. We used to play out here in the dirt. When I was little that was awesome, but now I need a skate park.” Stephen Day is but one example of Longmont’s park system and the amenities the city has added over the years to allow residents more options for playing outside. And if there was any doubt residents appreciate the city’s adding more parks, bike trails and the like over the years, that doubt was set aside by the results of the city’s recent biennial customer satisfaction survey, where 83 percent of respondents rated Longmont’s trails “good” or “excellent.” The addition of more parks and trails partly
Greg Lindstrom / Times-Call
A cyclist rides along the St. Vrain Greenway near Sandstone Ranch in Longmont on Feb. 8.
reflects the city’s population growth, but it also reflects changing attitudes among city leaders, who have listened and responded to residents’ wishes. “It’s a nationwide movement, so there are a lot of discussions all over about making towns more walkable and ridable,” said Buzz Feldman, who operated High Gear Cyclery in Longmont for 23 years before closing it in 2009. “Every survey shows that’s what people want.”
But not everyone in Longmont has always shared that spirit. Feldman said he recalls a period in the late 1990s where, “as a bike shop owner, I had seen the city take bike lanes off the street.”
formed in 2001 around making Longmont more bicycle-friendly, Feldman said.
But he credits a change away from that to a Longmont City Council that at one point included Leona Stoecker, Fred Wilson, John Caldwell and the late Doug Brown, all of whom were cyclists.
But as a result of the task force more bike lanes were added to city streets, a process that continues today.
A 20-person task force was
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“The first few meetings were really contentious — everybody was just butting heads,” he said.
“Bicycle Longmont evolved out of that task force,” Feldman said. “After that task force was over,
about a half-dozen of us said, ‘We want to keep that conversation going.’ ” In 2003, he said, the League of American Bicyclists introduced its “Bicycle Friendly Communities” program and Longmont received recognition. It was the lowest level of recognition, bronze, but that the city was recognized at all was a point of pride, Feldman said. In 2012 Longmont was bumped up to the silver level of
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lìíÇççêëó `çåíáåìÉÇ Ñêçã é~ÖÉ OV Bicycle Friendly Communities for the first time. The league has also recognized two companies in town, Xilinx and Left Hand Brewing Co., for their friendliness to bicyclists. Feldman continues to advocate for bicycling in Longmont, as does Bicycle Longmont, which boasts of hosting more than 200 free rides, events and programs each year. Ryan Kragerud, the group’s president, said the G’Knight Ride, an annual charity event that started in 2010, drew 2,300 people last year — that includes riders and volunteers — and he’s expecting 3,000 this year. He also said that Bicycle Longmont’s weekly Wednesday night family rides, which have been around for several years,
topped 2,000 riders for the first time last year, with the largest single-night attendance topping out at more than 200. Participation in the Venus de Miles charity ride has been increasing steadily in recent years, according to director Teresa Robbins. Its high point was 2,103 riders in 2011. That was down last year, she said, but it was the first year organizers mandated participants raise a minimum of $75 in pledges in addition to paying the entry fee. Dave Swenson, former owner of Bike-N-Hike, said the shop has supported the annual Bike MS ride for the past 16 years. The multi-day event has grown to more than 3,000 riders, he said. Swenson said interest in cycling was limited in 1974 when he came to Longmont to work at Bike-N-Hike, then owned by his father-in-law.
“That’s one of my favorite things to do is ride to Sandstone Ranch, go to the visitor’s center, the old house (site of the Coffin homestead) and sit on a nice bench and watch the other people recreating.” Dave Swenson former owner of Bike-N-Hike “We had only the parks, plus the country roads,” Swenson recalled. “We saw (mainly) people coming from Boulder back in those days — there wasn’t that much going on here.
said he also can recall days when the term “bicycle friendly” would not have been applied to Longmont.
“The choice that people had was to find safe routes around Longmont, which was tricky.”
“No doubt,” he said. “There were people who thought that a bike was a toy and that they got in the way of the cars. And some of the more arrogant bicyclists tend to perpetuate that.”
Swenson, who still works part-time at Bike-N-Hike,
Today, he said, he sees riders everywhere during
the warm months. Some are riding recreationally, but many are using their bikes to commute to and from work. “It’s easier to get around,” Swenson said. “That makes it safer and more enjoyable.”
kÉï jÉñáÅç íç tóçãáåÖI íÜêçìÖÜ içåÖãçåí As more bike lanes were being added back onto city streets in the early 2000s, the St. Vrain Greenway was already well under construction. The first section was built as a donation to the city by the late Jimmie Kanemoto. That’s the stretch of path that runs along the river between South Pratt Parkway and Main Street. The St. Vrain Greenway now stretches from just west of Golden Ponds all the way east to Sandstone Ranch.
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Greg Lindstrom / Times-Call
Kim Shugar, left, manager of natural resources and Paula Fitzgerald, right, Parks & Open Space project manager, discuss outdoor developments in Longmont on Feb. 15.
`çåíáåìÉÇ Ñêçã é~ÖÉ PM “That’s one of my favorite things to do is ride to Sandstone Ranch, go to the visitor’s center, the old house (site of the Coffin homestead) and sit on a nice bench and watch the other people recreating,” Swenson said.
“At buildout the trail becomes a regional trail,” said Paula Fitzgerald, the city’s parks and open space project manager. She explained that the St. Vrain Greenway is being incorporated into the Colorado Front Range Trail, which will ultimately stretch from New Mexico to Wyoming.
Ultimately the St. Vrain Greenway will extend east to St. Vrain State Park and then continue into the Carbon Valley. Westward, the trail will extend to Pella Crossing at Hygiene. Both of those legs are expected to be completed in 2015.
Much of the St. Vrain Greenway has been funded by Great Outdoors Colorado money, which comes from Colorado Lottery ticket sales. And the price tag for such a jewel running along the St. Vrain River through the city has been a hefty
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one. The cost per mile ranges from $300,000 to about $800,000, depending on a variety of factors, such as if the city owns the land or has to buy it, Fitzgerald said. Bridges add another $150,000 to $200,000 each to the cost and underpasses, such as the one that goes under County Line Road near Sandstone Ranch, can cost about $350,000 each.
mìÄäáÅ áåéìí çå é~êâë Stephen Day Park is an example of the city’s neighborhood parks, designed to serve a particular neighborhood with a variety of ameni-
ties such as, in that case, a BMX/skateboard area. Longmont also has district parks, such as the Jim Hamm Nature Area and Roger’s Grove, which focus more on natural areas and more passive recreation; and community parks such as Sandstone Ranch, which have fields and courts for organized team sports and are typically much larger complexes. Neighborhood parks typically take about a year to build, though their planning and design phases can stretch out much longer. Community parks are done
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in phases over several years and can carry a price tag of up to $20 million, according to Kim Shugar, the city’s manager of natural resources. Parks are paid for through multiple revenue streams, including the parks improvement fee, funded by residential building permits; and the city’s open space fund, put into place a dozen years ago. The city’s Public Works & Natural Resources Department is putting together a parks, recreation and trails master plan, which should
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Joggers enjoy an afternoon workout along the St. Vrain Greenway near Sandstone Ranch in Longmont on Friday, Feb. 8, 2013. Greg Lindstrom / Times-Call
`çåíáåìÉÇ Ñêçã é~ÖÉ PN be completed by July, Shugar said. That plan will help guide her department’s planning, including where parks should be added. But the public works department also solicits extensive public input, she said. “Absolutely we do, and sometimes it’s really simple stuff like horseshoe pits or bocce ball, which we put in Rough & Ready (Park),” Shugar said. Plans include additional phases of development at Jim Hamm and Lake McIntosh and construction of a 10-court tennis complex at the Quail Campus.
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Of course, there’s more to being an outdoorsy city than just bike paths and parks. Long-timers such as Swenson and Feldman say they’ve seen the city change in a lot of other ways over the years. .
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Neither Lake McIntosh nor Union Reservoir used to allow outdoor recreation, and now both do. The ice skating rink at the pavilion in Roosevelt Park is a relatively new feature, and neither skate parks nor dog parks used to exist in Longmont. Even sidewalks are something taken much more seriously than they used to be, noted Feldman, who sits on the city’s Transportation Advisory Board. Fay Reynolds — a member of the city’s Senior Services Board and who predated Feldman on the TAB — said a focus of the board going back to the mid- to late-1990s was to make Longmont a more walkable city. “One of the big things that we pushed was that there was a lot of city property, parks and other things that had no sidewalks,” Reynolds said. “That’s one of the things that we really pushed for.”
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Ideally, “you try to do a job” on the council “by trying to work with both sides and coming up with the best decision.” Roger Lange former Longmont mayor
Matthew Jonas / Times-Call
Former Longmont Mayor Roger Lange poses for a portrait, Monday, March 4, at his office. “Frankly, I didn’t know what party some of the council members were affiliated with. And I didn’t care,” he said of his time on the council.
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ver the past three decades, Longmont’s local politics have been becoming more partisan, say several of the city’s former mayors. That’s not necessarily a good thing, most of those mayors said, because — carried to extremes — it could lead to the political divides that permeate the federal government in Washington, D.C., and that often cause heated statehouse clashes in Denver. Longmont’s mayor and its six other City Council members are — theoretically, at least — elected to nonpartisan positions. Candidates for those seats aren’t identified on election ballots as Democrats or Republicans or Libertarians or as being unaffiliated with those or any other recognized political parties. In recent years, however, more and more voters have been asking mayoral or council candidates, or candidates’ supporters, to tell which political party those local office-seekers belong to. And local party activists have openly endorsed certain candidates, or even slates of candidates, appealing to their fellow party members to work for electing their favored council and mayoral hopefuls. That wasn’t typically the case 30 years ago, said Bill
Swenson, Longmont’s mayor from November 1981 through November 1985. Back then, the political and ideological disagreements in council election campaigns and among sitting council members fell more along “more of a growth vs. no growth dividing line,” Swenson recalled. Swenson said that when he was a councilman from 1977 to 1981, while he was mayor, and during another stint as a councilman from 1985 to 1989, “I think the Republicans had a majority” of the nonpartisan seats on those councils. Swenson’s own Republican Party alignment was no secret. His wife, Betty, was a GOP representative in the Colorado Legislature part of the time her husband served on the council — a House seat Swenson later won and filled for eight years in the 1990s. “But back then, the issues at the Longmont council level were all pretty local, such as whether we should expand our boundaries, things like that,” Swenson said. “It was very centralized right on the town and didn’t go beyond that.” Leona Stoecker, Longmont’s mayor from November 1993 through November 2001, is also a Republican. Stoecker said, however, that “I honestly did not know the party affiliation of any of my fellow council members
“I honestly couldn’t tell you” the party affiliations of the council members who served while he was a city staffer and then mayor, Al Sweney, Longmont’s mayor said. “I never thought of any of them that way” He said his council bosses’ and later, his council colleagues’ party preferences. for eight years.” Other, she quickly added, than Democrat Tom McCoy, and Stoecker said her occasional disagreements with McCoy were “strictly over policy differences, not party.” Stoecker ran unsuccessfully for a partisan post in 2002, as the Republican candidate for the House seat being vacated by term-limited Bill Swenson. In recent years, she and her husband, Bernie, can frequently be spotted at, and sometimes host, Boulder County and Longmont GOP gatherings. But Stoecker said that while she was mayor, “I really was not partisan. I absolutely did not go near a political party during those eight years. ... I may be naive, but I honestly thought I was a servant of the people,” rather than “a Republican mayor.” Ten years after Stoecker
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exited the mayor’s office, Longmont voters elected a Democrat to that city government post — although neither Dennis Coombs, who bested incumbent Bryan Baum in that contest, nor Baum, a Republican, had their party affiliations on the 2011 ballot. Nor, however, did either man hide his party preference, and the Longmont Area Democrats members campaigned actively for Coombs’ election and Baum’s defeat. Coombs said that after an election, constituents sometimes make mistaken assumptions about what an officeholder will do or how he or she will cast council meeting votes. “I was actually kind of surprised when people said: ‘Because you’re a Democrat, you must be anti-business, anti-real estate,” Coombs said. Quite the contrary,
Coombs said: “I’ve always been a conservative financial person. I’ve never bought a car unless I could pay for it.” He said that as a co-owner of the Pumphouse Brewery and Restaurant, he’s a businessman himself “and so in some ways, I identify with the Republican Party.” Said Coombs: “Most of the things the council deals with aren’t ‘R’ or ‘D’ issues. Picking up the trash, for example. Water.” Coombs said that in the 2011 election, Brian Bagley, who won the Ward I seat, “was backed by the far right, and I was backed by the far left.” But Coombs said he and Bagley — as well as Coombs and Councilwoman Katie Witt, a Republican activist who ran for state Senate in 2004 and worked actively in Mitt Romney’s 2008 and 2012 Colorado presidential campaigns — have had almost identical positions on many municipal issues. “I know that the Democrats have been pissed off at me about certain stances I’ve taken,” Coombs said. “People try to put you into a box,” Coombs said, but putting Longmont’s local issues and its council members votes’ into Republican or Democratic boxes “is counterproductive.” Baum, Longmont’s mayor from November 2009 to
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Matthew Jonas / Times-Call
Former Longmont Mayor Leona Stoecker is pictured in her Longmont home on Tuesday, March 5, 2013. Stoecker said that when a nonpartisan local governing body begins casting votes along party lines, “to me it mirrors the Washington political system more than what people on the local level need and want.”
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November 2011, said one of the differences between recent city elections and those of 30 years ago is that “the national politics has really drilled down to local politics. I think that’s sad.” The result, Baum said, is that while “there used to be compromise” on controversial municipal issues, “I don’t see that in this partisan environment right now.” Several other former mayors said, as Swenson and Stoecker did, that they really
36 SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2013
didn’t consider their own party affiliations, or those of their council colleagues, while trying to reach consensus on city matters. Al Sweney, Longmont’s mayor from November 1987 to November 1989, was once the city’s finance director and its city manager. “I honestly couldn’t tell you” the party affiliations of the council members who served while he was a city staffer and then mayor, Sweney said. “I never thought of any of them that way” He said his council bosses’ and later, his council .
colleagues’ party preferences “never got into the picture whatever.” Sweney, who said he considers himself an “independent” — one who hosted a GOP neighborhood precinct caucus in his home in 1990 but who now “leans more toward the Democratic side. I just go vote like I want to,” he said, adding that he voted for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. Fred Wilson, who unseated Sweney in the 1983 mayor’s contest and stayed in
that post through 1993, before later serving two stints as a councilman, said, “I think I’ve always been a registered Republican, but never active in the party. I probably registered as a Republican because my mother and father would have disowned me if I hadn’t.” Said Wilson: “I suspected that (Councilman Tom) McCoy was a Democrat, but we were able to get along, work together.” Wilson said that from what he’s heard, local municipalgovernment politics has
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become more partisan in recent years, even though “so many things they deal with” on the City Council “aren’t Democrat or Republican issues.” Roger Lange, Longmont’s mayor from November 2007 to November 2009, said that when he first became a city councilman in 2001, “frankly, I didn’t know what party some of the council members were affiliated with. And I didn’t care.” That’s “all changed,” Lange said. “It’s unfortunate.”
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m~êíáë~å `çåíáåìÉÇ Ñêçã é~ÖÉ PS Julia Pirnack, Longmont’s mayor from November 2001 through November 2007, said, “I think it is becoming more partisan. “And I think it’s a shame because the local policy issues, and reaching solutions for those, usually has almost nothing to do with partisan politics” or the “points of view one party has versus the other,” Pirnack said Pirnack, who said she was unaffiliated with any political party while mayor but is now a registered Republican who’s not closely aligned with the GOP, said that “when I was in office, we could kind of guess which party people belonged to,” But she said she thought that most of her time as mayor, she thought the council was “pretty balanced.” She said she felt the council “was pretty effective in getting issues out on the table, talking about them and honestly making decisions to not engage in issues that belonged to other elected officials at the state or federal level.” Pirnack said she started seeing more open partisanship during her final two-year term as mayor, and in the years since, when she said outside activists would come to Longmont, take an issue and try to drive “the public discourse” on that issue. That, she said, has sometimes “really turned the dialogue about local affairs into something divisive.” The shift from largely nonpartisan approaches to Longmont policy-making came, Lange said, while he was a council member, when “four liberal council candidates got on the council at the same time” and often voted as a bloc in 4-3 decisions on disputed issues. Lange — a Republican who ran unsuccessfully for a Boulder County commissioner’s seat in 2004, didn’t name the four. They were Karen Benker, Sean WWW.TIMESCALL.COM
Times-Call file photo
From left: Former mayors Al Sweeney, Bill Swenson, Julia Pirnack, Fred Wilson, Leona Stoecker and Bob Askey pose together in October 2005.
McCoy, Sarah Levison and Brian Hansen. “From that point on, there were a lot of 4-3 votes,” Lange said. “I’m not saying that’s good or bad, but that’s when the dynamics started changing on the council. Since then, it’s been a different body.” Benker, McCoy and Hansen were later defeated in re-election bids. Levison won re-election to her seat in 2011. Lange, who lost his own reelection bid to Baum in 2009, said that whenever there’s a strong conservative or strong liberal faction on a politically divided council, “that’s when a lot of things get very partisan, and the decision making gets impacted by it.” Stoecker said she hasn’t always agreed with her own party’s positions. She said that when a nonpartisan local governing body begins casting votes along party lines, “to me it mirrors the Washington political system more than what people on the local level need and want.” Said Stoecker: “I think there’s such a polarization, now, in political thought.” In part because of the Internet
and social media, “we are so aware, instantly, of what’s said, what’s not said, what’s done. People are affected by that.” But “we don’t need for everyone to think the same, to be so in lockstep with a party that they don’t use their brains,” Stoecker said. Coombs suggested that the instances of partisan disagreements among the current council are sometimes exaggerated by members’ supporters, opponents and other observers. “We get along really well,” Coombs said, “even if we vote differently.” Baum said that too often, partisanship has been “pretty prevalent in the decisions made, even by our local council. ... We’re seeing it in Washington, we’re seeing it in Denver, and we’re seeing it down on Kimbark Street,” in Longmont’s council chambers. At too many levels of government, “there’s no compromise any more,” Baum said. “It’s the my-wayor-the highway mentality.” Baum said that when he was mayor, “some people who looked at my record
couldn’t tell if I was a Republican or a Democrat, and I’d say that’s the way it’s supposed to be.” Political parties’ involvement, meanwhile, extended to another nonpartisan post on eastern Boulder County voters’ 2012 ballots. In the contest for a Regional Transportation District seat, Boulder County Republicans’ fliers urged votes for Longmont RTD candidate Jeff Ilseman, while the county Democratic Party’s endorsements suggested that ballots be cast for either Erie’s Cheryl Hauger or Longmont’s Judy Lubow. Lubow won that race. Also last year, parties’ taking of political sides also extended to the antihydraulic fracturing charter amendment on the city ballot. Democrats were including brochures for that measure in the door hangers they left at many Longmont voters’ homes, and the county’s Democratic Party stated its support for the initiative in fliers listing their party’s candidates and positions on other ballot issues. Baum, Pirnack, Swenson, Stoecker, Lange and Sweney
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— along with fellow former mayor Bob Askey, who held that post from 1979 to 1981 — consented to allowing their names and pictures to be used on mailers and campaign ads urging Longmont voters to reject Amendment 300, the antifracking measure. Wilson said he didn’t get the invitation in time to decide whether to join the others, although he said he leaned toward opposing Amendment 300. Coombs said he deliberately took an officially neutral position on the amendment. As for the political alignments of council members, Pirnack said that when council candidates are on the campaign trail, some people’s first question was: “Are you a Democrat or are you a Republican?” She said that if they disagree with a candidate’s affiliation, those people’s sometimes say: “I’m not voting for you.” Said Pirnack: “People are great categorizers, and some people just want to have things laid out in a neat way.” However, she said, “it’s unfortunate that people feel like they have to belong to a party to get elected.” Ideally, Lange said, “you try to do a job” on the council “by trying to work with both sides and coming up with the best decision.” That approach “offends some people” who don’t want their mayor or council members to compromise or who expect them to follow some sort of party line, Lange said. He said that with partisan politics, “you end up with gridlock. You don’t end up with good decisions.” Lange said the key to being an effective mayor or other council member is that “regardless of which way you lean” on the political spectrum, “people see you making decisions for the good of the community and that those decisions aren’t obviously biased or partisan. Then, you’ll be all right.”
SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2013 37
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“I have heard police officers would not want to come out on their own. I don’t blame them either.” Maria Elizarraraz community manager for Stonehedge Place apartments
Lewis Geyer / Times-Call
Community manager Maria Elizarraraz is working with the Longmont Police Department through its crime-free mulithousing program to make Stonehedge Place a safer environment for its residents.
38 SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2013
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decade ago, police officers would not respond alone to calls at the 114-unit apartment complex at 600 Martin St. In fact, it was policy. The Stonehedge Place complex was just too dangerous — known for drug deals and violence. “Frankly, we didn’t want to go there with just one officer,” said Longmont Public Safety Chief Mike Butler. “Every call there was a two-officer call.” The Section 8 complex with units from one to four bedrooms has evolved in the past decade thanks to a former owner-manager who worked to crack down on the troubled housing complex. “It has fallen off the radar now, and it is considered a very safe community,” Butler said. But the evolution did not happen in a vacuum, and it has not been the only change in the city. It serves, instead, as one example of an overall drop in both major and quality-of-life benchmark crimes, which has made Longmont a safer community anecdotally and statistically. Major crime rates in Longmont have dropped 48 percent in the past decade. Those major crimes, which are reported to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation annually, are
done well with efforts to clean up the community and its reputation as a dangerous place to live, but she said she has work left to do and will get it done with the support of the owner and the Longmont police. Elizarraraz said she didn’t know much about the complex when she accepted the job in June, but has learned more since she started. “I have heard police officers would not want to come out on their own,” she said. “I don’t blame them either.” Now there is a Longmont police substation on the property and Elizarraraz and another full-time employee work in a newly built office on the property. Longmont Master Police Officer Sara Aerne makes regular visits while she Lewis Geyer / Times-Call works with Elizarraraz to get Master police officer Justin Ownbey investigates graffiti on Warren Avenue, near Tulip Street the property up to the stanon Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013. Ownbey is a member of the Gang & Crime Suppression Unit. dards for full membership in the Longmont Police Department’s Crime-Free Multibe benefiting from a national aggravated assault, arson, p~ÑÉ ~í eçãÉ housing program. burglary, homicide, forcible downward trend in major Maria Elizarraraz is not inThe program, which Aercrimes. sex offenses, robbery, timidated. ne leads, certifies multiunit However it has happened, larceny theft and motor She is not scared. She is housing properties that have the local data show that vehicle theft. not going to tolerate criminal met criteria for safe physical Longmont has been steadily While Butler said he does activity. It’s possible she environments — like landgetting safer for residents in won’t tolerate even poor not want to downplay the scaping features that don’t the past decade. In fact, the work of the officers at the housekeeping. double as hiding places for city’s customer satisfaction Longmont Police Elizarraraz is the commu- criminal activity and proper survey, released in January, Department, he said the nity manager for the Stonelocks on doors and windows indicated that residents cooperation of the hedge Place apartments at — and have adopted backranked crime and safety community has been key to 600 Martin St. She took the ground checks and a lease curbing problem properties, concerns only fifth among post in June after the new addendum that leads to evictop worries for the city to quelling gang activity and owner, who lives in New tions for tenants involved in address, behind the communicating crimes and York, hired her after warncriminal activity. economy and jobs, stores potential crimes to police so ing her that she must be In Longmont, 143 properand retail, traffic, and they can be addressed. The tough to handle the job. The schools and education. previous management had city, he noted, also seems to `çåíáåìÉÇ çå é~ÖÉ QM
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p~ÑÉê `çåíáåìÉÇ Ñêçã é~ÖÉ PV ties are enrolled in the program; 38 are fully certified. “Longmont is about 49 percent rental,” Aerne said. “We have all of the big apartment communities in the program except one.” The program is voluntary and can cost owners money to make the upgrades to meet safety standards, but Aerne said many are more than willing to make the investment. Others, she said, don’t participate because of owners or managers’ philosophies about keeping government and private business separate. The program creates a formal relationship between police and property owners, who receive weekly reports about police calls to the property and sometimes information about renters who were arrested off-site, which would be a violation of the Crime-Free Multihousing lease addendum and could
lead to evictions. Elizarraraz said she has had tenants move out under the threat of eviction and has used the lease addendum with several others to help clear out problems. She is keeping a binder of police calls to track any simmering problems. A background check for an applicant listing a felony history sat on her desk. The results meant he would not be getting a unit on the site, which maintains long waitlists for units. The applicant had felony convictions. Explanations for the convictions don’t matter. She said she wants tenants with clean histories and clean apartments to feel safe at home and a felon next door would not help.
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Butler said that the partnerships created in the Crime-Free Multihousing program are examples of the shifts in the department’s ap-
proach in the past 10 years. Other programs and police units have worked to create relationships with people in the city in an effort to strengthen relationships with law enforcement and more effectively direct police resources. The 2006 stabbing murder of 17-year-old Martin Garcia brought Longmont’s gang population and related crimes into sharper focus causing a community outcry about the gangs. The same year, Louie Lopez was hired and the Gang Response and Intervention Program was founded out of the city-run youth center. The Longmont Police Department also founded the Gang Crime Suppression Unit in the wake of the stabbing. The community-based program and police department attack the same problem from different angles. The police unit tracks city residents who are affiliated with
gangs, even if they are members of non-local gangs and are the only member of that gang in the city. Unit Officer Dan Kilian notes that the unit is aware of one motorcycle club member who just commutes through the city on his way to work. While the man doesn’t cause any issues, officers know him and his affiliation in case something happens. By in large, though, most local gang members belong to one of six local gangs. The gang and crime suppression unit tracks 242 people on a regular basis — roughly half the number reported in 2006 — and Kilian said much of staying on top of gang crime comes from talking to members, who may share information with officers that will help quell simmering issues. The officers also keep up with gang news and activities by reading the graffiti they leave behind. Master
Police Officer Justin Ownbey, a gang unit officer, recently visited locations of reported graffiti from one particular gang. The tagger signed his work. “They are trying to claim this area as their own,” he said, stopping to speak with a neighbor in the area who told the officer that property owners had removed other tags that went up at the same time as the one Ownbey was inspecting. The tags in the neighborhood around Longmont High School may seem like simply vandalism, but Ownbey said it could mean more from a law enforcement perspective. Keeping situations from boiling over is a major part of his unit’s work. “Anything out of the norm in general is concerning because we’ve had a quiet winter,” he said, adding that officers are going to have to start asking around to identi-
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p~ÑÉê `çåíáåìÉÇ Ñêçã é~ÖÉ QM fy the tagger and try to get more information about the motives for them. “It raises some flags.”
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Part of controlling gang crime escalation is keeping the graffiti-based communication among them to a minimum. In 2006, also after the Garcia stabbing, the city hired a graffiti removal employee who removes or covers graffiti after taking digital photos of it with geotags — mapping data attached to the photo — so that police officers can review any messages in the graffiti and map the locations to target troubled areas. Graffiti can mean a gang is marking territory. If a rival gang crosses it out, it is read as disrespect and can escalate issues between rival members. Amber Johnson works for the city’s code enforcement and parks departments and hits the streets everyday with a truck full of paint, a power washer, and chemicals that can remove paint from all manner of surfaces. On a recent cold morning she painted over a gang-related tag on a fence along the railroad tracks in an east Longmont neighborhood. “We try to get rid of them as soon as we can so they don’t go back and forth,” she said. She notes that if her paint doesn’t match the surface she tries to keep her work tidy by painting over the tags with squares or rectangles. On some surfaces, a power washer or chemicals can remove the paint in a way that makes it difficult to tell the surface was ever marred. If graffiti is left on private property she and police officers have to work with property owners to get a waiver to remove the vandalism. That can slow down the process a bit. On city property, some WWW.TIMESCALL.COM
Lewis Geyer / Times-Call
Longmont city employee Amber Johnson paints over graffiti on a wood fence along the railroad tracks between 15th and 17th Avenues on the morning of Feb. 19.
places are hit more than others. She has a bike that gives her quick and easy access to underpasses and greenway areas that are favored by some vandals. “Playgrounds get hit a lot a lot,” she said. When Ownbey headed to Centennial Park to check out a reportedly large gang tag, he found Johnson had beat him there. “It does feel nice to go to a spot and see that you are making it prettier,” Johnson said. Studies have shown that graffiti and disorder crimes do no proliferate well in communities that immediately address or fix a problem. Winter is a calm time for the gang unit on the whole, so many of the officers assist with other operations in that time. Recently they conducted surveillance on several shoplifting suspects
who were costing local stores thousands in Longmont and neighboring communities.
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The Longmont police also have a unit dedicated to drug crime. The Special Enforcement Unit has worked in recent years with federal agents and the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office to infiltrate and dismantle large drug supply operations. The investigations have netted dozens of suspects have monthslong investigations that used wiretap warrants and undercover purchases. Longmont Detective Stephen Schulz, who recently worked with the DEA on Operation Halfway House Hunters, said the fight against drugs in the community is a tough one. Police often find
that when one operation is dismantled, others fill in the market demand. Those arrested in the recent operation were moving ounces of methamphetamine, heroin and cocaine to users in Longmont, he reported. They were the largest supplier in the area. But police had busted up two other large rings within the past two years. Drug use, it seems, is an ever-present problem. However, it isn’t measured in the federal crime benchmarks.
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Meanwhile, overall calls for service for quality-of-life crimes in the city have slipped over the years. In the past 10 years, calls reported to dispatchers on quality-of-life crimes — which includes disturbances, drunk subjects, graffiti and criminal mischief, loud music, noise complaints, party complaints,
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shots fired, and suspicious situations — peaked in 2007 with 7,343 calls and dipped to 5,817 in 2012. Butler said the community as a whole has rallied in the past decade and taken more responsibility for the safety by making reports. He also credits focuses on special training and resources for domestic violence issues, drug investigations better analysis of crime data, a public-safety tax that put more officers on the streets, and tough-on-crime prosecutions from the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office. And, he said, he feels the community has noticed. “People come to me and say ‘I know you don’t hear this often, but I want to tell you what a great job your police department is doing,’ ” Butler said. SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2013 41
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“A great place for small businesses. I am a small business in town and work with a lot of small businesses, and it’s been awesome. ... Everyone wants to help everyone succeed, which you don’t find very much anymore.” Brian Berry, 35, of Longmont
“Busy.” Declan Magill, 11, of Niwot
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“I guess it’s becoming very optimistic.”
Kim Magill, 47, of Niwot
“It’s becoming a growing and vital city. And I support everything that’s going on downtown.” Bill Weber, 76, of Longmont
“Bigger.”
Connie Snowden, 9, of Longmont
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tÜ~í aç vçì qÜáåâ\
“Busy.”
“A leader in opposing fracking. That’s my pet peeve. We’re making national news because of making that vote on Nov. 6.” Judith Blackburn, 74, of Longmont
Chris Batlle, 22, of Longmont
“Crowded would be the first thing to come to mind.”
“A metropolis.” Angie McCreavy, 39, of Longmont
Ron Cole, 54, of Longmont
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“A family town. That’s a good answer, don’t you think?”
“Healthier, because we’re out here walking even though it’s freezing.”
Buckie Minor, 34, of Longmont, asking his 4-year-old son, Skyler Minor, for his opinion
Jennie Rouge, 36, of Longmont, while walking at Roosevelt Park
LONGMONT TIMES-CALL COMMUNITY REVIEW
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SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2013 43
tÜ~í aç vçì qÜáåâ\
“Rather interesting. Kind of confusing, actually.” Raven Wilson, 17, of Longmont
“More interesting. I just think it’s becoming a really interesting town.” Brett Nichols, 50, of Longmont
“Polluted air. Unlivable because there’s so many chemicals in the air. It’s toxic to your health.” Roy Fresquez, 56, of Mead
44 SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2013
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LONGMONT TIMES-CALL COMMUNITY REVIEW
“A reflection of its citizens’ moral and spiritual condition.”
David Hartman, 62, of Longmont
“I would say more populated. I seem to encounter more traffic.”
Marisa Shrider, 35, of Longmont
“I think we’re growing slowly.” Olivia Barajas, 20, of Longmont
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tÜ~í aç vçì qÜáåâ\
“I feel like it used to be a really residential, nice town, and now it’s not as much. ... It’s gone downhill.”
“It’s not safe, honestly, because of everything that’s gone on. I don’t feel safe anymore by myself.”
McKenzie Murray, 16, of Longmont
Becca Mau, 17, of Longmont
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46 SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2013
tÜ~í aç vçì qÜáåâ\
I think Longmont is trying to find a hold on the small community again.” Joseph Herman, 30, of Longmont
“Boulder, because we’re going to an outdoor mall, we’re going to no smoking in outdoor areas, we’re going to the ArtWalk things Boulder has. We’re becoming Boulder, in my opinion.” Brenda LaSalle, 29, of Longmont
“It’s growing. I lived here 30 years ago and it’s grown since then.” David Hinrichs, 57, of Erie
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“We have more business.”
Saul Prieto, 46, of Longmont
“I’ve lived here since 1980, and population’s grown. The worst thing about this town is they’re trying to run the small businesses out of town.” Don Koepp, 67, of Longmont
“(Firestone) is growing. It’s becoming a hotspot, our area is. It’s nice. It’s why we moved out here.” Christine O’Dell, 39, of Firestone, with her son Brendan O’Dell, 9
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tÜ~í aç vçì qÜáåâ\
“It’s becoming bigger. It’s kind of becoming like Boulder.”
“Better and better. I think it’s a good balance for everyone in the sense that there’s something for everyone, and I think it’s only going to get better.”
Sherry Trusty, 45, of Longmont
Gary Flauaus, 60, of Longmont
“It’s losing its individuality. It’s becoming more generic, when you look at the areas off Ken Pratt and the large retailers.”
“Little Mexico.” Jamai Wilson, 37, of Longmont
Ilona Yenny, 58, of Erie
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“A destination!” Edwina Salazar
“Boulder.” Bonnie Jennings
“Has it really even changed?” Lynne Norikane Newberry
“Little Boulder!! YUK!!”
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“I would say Longmont is becoming more family-friendly and community-oriented. I don’t think Longmont will ever be Boulder. There’s more social and economic diversity here than in Boulder, which is apparent in the local politics. That said, would any homeowner or business owner really turn their nose down at property values and sales increasing if more ‘Boulder types’ moved here? If a Boulderite wanted to develop Butterball, I’d let ’em.” Steph Myers
Glenn W. Hawkins LONGMONT TIMES-CALL COMMUNITY REVIEW
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tÜ~í aç vçì qÜáåâ\ “Longmont is becoming its own. Longmont is becoming stronger in its own identify defining the town with its authenticity of arts and culture, a strong sense of community and family, and a spirit of collaboration to not be Boulder!” Debbie Adams
“Longmont is becoming diverse. When I moved to Longmont in 1971, it was a farming community with pig farms and Japanese truck farms. What a big difference 40 years makes.” Martha A. Lane
Liliana Castellanos
“I think Longmont is becoming a city that welcomes anybody to live here. We have a real sense of community. I don’t think it’s becoming Boulder at all other than some city officials and their Boulder-like ideas. I work in Boulder and can’t wait to leave it to come home to Longmont.” Teena Taylor
“Less of a cow town.” Marian Hall
“More technological.”
48 SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 2013
“Longmont is becoming my home. I love Longmont. It’s a safe place to live, to go out with my kids, spend time at the park and make new friends. I just simply love it!”
“Longmont is becoming more like Boulder. In the cuckoo ‘Portlandia’ kind of way. It is not a compliment.”
Deborah Cameron
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Jeremy Berggren
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Longmont United Hospital won the National Research Corporation’s 2012/2013 Consumer Choice Award for the Boulder, CO market. Consumer Choice results are derived from Market Insights, a national survey of 260,000 consumers, and is based on a hospital that possesses: 1) 2) 3) 4)
Best Overall Quality Best Overall Image/Reputation Best Doctors Best Nurses
recognizes Longmont United Hospital as: Best in Region* for Overall Cardiac Services (2013) Five-Star Rated for Treatment of Pneumonia (2008-2013) Five-Star Rated for Treatment of Bowel Obstruction (2011-2013) Ranked Among the Top 10% in the Nation for Overall Pulmonary Services (2012) *Region is Boulder, CO as defined by the federal government’s Office of Management and Budget.
To the people at Longmont United Hospital who have been taking wonderful care of our patients,Thank YOU!
find a physician 303.485.3553
303.651.5111 luhcares.org