After 18 years the Neighborhood Gazette will now be found in your mailbox – weatherproof, windproof and certainly shortage-of-labor-proof. It will still be available, of course, in stacks at the Wheat Ridge Rec Center, city halls (Wheat Ridge, Edgewater and Mountain View), local restaurants, bars and coffee shops as well. I am excited by this
Over the last number of years I’ve lowered my expectations of people, my city and even myself. Mostly as a defense mechanism to not be disappointed when things don’t go my way or just generally don’t work out. I know I’m not alone in doing so. I’m slowly starting to reverse that. I’m sure there’s
There was a time where you moved to a neighborhood and your parents would look for the nearest school and that’s where you would go. Schools were about pure education. Teaching you to write, to read and various levels of math. When families started tuning in closer to what motivated their children, they began shopping
On Sept. 4, Wheat Ridge Police Department clocked a driver going 133 mph on I-70. Shocking and dangerous? Absolutely! So are the speedsters driving through our neighborhoods. But there comes a time to call out the opposite: the ones just crawling on 38th Avenue at speeds well below what small mammals travel at. 28 mph
To declare this year’s Carnation Festival as best-ever would be the understatement of the year. The music was absolutely my favorite part of my festival. Clearly tribute bands are very well supported and loved, from Journey, Led Zeppelin and, of course, the Lizard King and his Doors were absolutely fantastic. Great idea with the second
As a real estate broker I always ask those moving to Wheat Ridge: Did you move here because of how we are, or how you’d like us to be? The answers vary of course. We are human beings and change is the constant in our lives. Our meals, our opinions, our clothes and the list
It was only six years ago when I helped on the Jeffco School Bond initiative. It included details about how much was going to be spent and where. The community was surveyed for priorities and needed changes. The $567 million bond narrowly passed. We were getting new schools, air conditioning in old buildings, lead pipes
The Neighborhood Gazette is distributed to every door in Wheat Ridge, Edgewater and Mountain View. I invited the mayors of these cities to meet me for a conversation at Stylus and Crate, the Gazette’s official coffee house. When I emailed them, I thought it would take some time before I heard back. I was wrong.
Art in the Barn was really an extension of the many events and programs meant to highlight artists and increase awareness of art. The Barn event was actually a “gala”-styled evening with only 100 tickets being sold and artists having to qualify their art in order to participate in the silent auction. Set in a
What’s Wheat Ridge all about? A question we hear from our friends, relatives and sometimes even our neighbors. What’s in the water that makes this town so filled with drama, yet inspiring and fun, a place where people carry grudges and drop them at a dime to help each other? A town where lanes are
It was in the summer of 1974 that Roman Halaba left Poland and moved to Colorado. He already knew Theresa, who had moved with her parents back in 1967. She was a student at North High School. In 1975 they had bought a duplex on 44th and Harlan so they could live on one side
Join us for a wonderful evening of music, art, food and community at “Art in the Barn” on Saturday, June 11th at 5 Fridges Farm. Featuring artwork from: Bruce Beck Carolyn Doran Alex Hinst Nancy Johnson Theresa Joyce Mickey LaFave Lori Ann Levy-Holm Sina March Vicki Metz Danny Mey Julie Midyett Michael Morten Shirley Nakamoto
UPS, FedEx, DHL or Amazon. Who will Wheat Ridge choose as their exclusive single-package delivery company? All those trucks throughout the day, every day. Just imagine the damage to our roads and noise pollution. 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., seven days a week! Some deliver commercially and some drive all the way to my house
Wheat Ridge has always been a place of conversations. From 1969, when there were debates, door knocking and map drawing, defining our future and determining our identity against those larger cities wanting to impose themselves on our community. The pendulum has swung from one side to the other. There were conservative years where spending was
ADU, Auxiliary Dwelling Unit, granny flat, carriage house, guest house. Many names with many uses. But, of course, many opinions. For years it was a can kicked down the road by previous city councils here in Wheat Ridge. Finally, a new group is focused on addressing and creating a set of rules where citizens can
The Marshall Fire really started a conversation around the #GoBag. If you had just five minutes to evacuate and leave your home, what would you take with you? Food? Water? Just how much can you take? I’ve been asking my friends, family and clients, even strangers on chairlifts I meet every Wednesday. The most common
There’s something to be said about a “Good thing worth waiting for” or “Patience is a virtue” and “Good things come to those that wait.” These days “the long game” has been on my mind for many reasons. The growth of Wheat Ridge has been slow and steady. From the amazing recreation center on Kipling
For many families with school age children, it’s enrollment time of the year again. And while for many it will just be a repeat action, we are seeing more parents considering new options. It wasn’t that long ago that families found themselves needing to create a classroom environment in their own homes – competing, of
We keep hearing about the supply chain: boats stuck in harbor without labor to unload or deliver goods to retail and food distributors; not enough servers and kitchen staff to prepare and deliver the food to your table. In our case the issue came to a head over the holidays. Getting a notice that after
When I initially wrote this article, I realized I had been writing about 2020 instead of ’21. But like so many, these last two years feel like one long one. We seem to have a 12- to 18-month time lapse. We plant memories around important dates and events. Like Christmas (that we missed), birthdays (not
By the time this is printed, the elections will have been counted and a winner declared in my hotly contested District 3 City Council race in Wheat Ridge. The two different-styled candidates are equally caring and capable but, interestingly enough, both attract extreme views, actions and opinions that often taint their original message. Being a
As humans we crave communication in some fashion or another. As parents we look for regular news from our grown kids, maybe from each other as well. As employees, we look for regular communication from our bosses and coworkers. As citizens we look for updates from our city and local politicians – politicians that eagerly
While Prospect Valley’s website shows an old black-and-white photograph of the original school building back in 1898 at 32nd and Pierson, the PV most of us know is the one built in 1967. It has a rounded network of hallways and open concept classrooms with no doors, and walls low enough for laughter and excitement
August was a tough month and I’m glad it’s over. I spent two weeks in bed fighting COVID-19. Thankfully, I was surrounded by knowledgeable and caring people who checked in on me throughout the ordeal. I still can’t smell a thing and I’m physically feeling beat up, but I’m not dead. That’s most likely because
