Opinion

Opinion

Whose Choice Is It Anyways?

The waste collection company we currently use just sent us a note that as of July, they will only pick up garbage in their branded trash cans and will no longer pick up garbage bags that are not inside their trash cans. This replaces the six-bag allowance we had up to now. We compost and

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Opinion

I Will Talk To Anyone About Anything

June is here and not a minute too soon. May was a tough month to swallow, with senseless crime, selfish politics, insane property taxes and the end of an era for some of our schools. Of course, let’s not forget the crazy rains and the rabbits that invaded our gardens. It’s like the modern version

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Opinion

Do You Need Change?

I’m always hearing that “change is hard.” The way we educate our students, the way we eat, what is now acceptable to say, or even stand for. We’re told to accept change or be “canceled.” The Beatles sang about life changing “forever but not for better.”  But I would argue that not all is lost

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Opinion

Embracing Failure

The Cambridge dictionary defines “augmentation” as the process of increasing the size, value or quality of something by adding to it. Think about the ingredients in your Sunday morning pancakes: flour, milk, baking soda – boring, right? But, when you augment what’s there, substituting honey for sugar, adding fresh berries and drenching each bite in

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Opinion

It’s Always A Great Time To Thank People

Thank you Clancy’s for putting on another amazing St. Patrick’s Day festival. Four thousand people came through the doors, paying an easy $3 entry fee, which raised $12,000, of which more than half went to two charities and the rest helped pay for the tents. The event attracted a huge amount of people from outside

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Education

Truth And Hope For Wheat Ridge Schools

Let me introduce myself. I’m Susan Miller, and I represent District Four on the Jefferson County Board of Education. So why am I here writing about Wheat Ridge? Because I’m a fiercely proud mom of four Farmer graduates. We choiced our first child into Wheat Ridge High School back in 2010, when Griff Wirth and

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Opinion

Challenging The Status Quo

Why is a 40-hour work week standard? It’s most commonly accepted that Henry Ford implemented it in his factories in 1926. Ford saw the value in an eight-hour workday. This could be because he was an altruistic businessman who saw the value in a work/life balance. Or, he could have been a profiteering capitalist who

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Opinion

Save Our Community, Save Our Schools

First things first, thank you, Wheat Ridge. You are an incredible community that comes together whether you have been here for decades or are new to the neighborhood. We did not save our beloved elementary schools, Wilmore Davis, Vivian or Kullerstrand. But as a community, we came together in love for our kids, educators and

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Opinion

I Choose Good

I felt someone shaking my arm and then his voice came through: “Sir, can you hear me, are you alright?” The last thing I remember was my right ski lifting off the snow…and then blackness. Losing consciousness is never a good thing and I don’t know how long I was out for. But being woken

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Opinion

In Search For More

What defines perfection for you? For some it’s a perfect score on an exam. A baseball game won with no runs from the opposing team. For others it’s more of a feeling of perfection. The sound of shifting from second gear into third at 7,000 rpm, the fly line landing perfectly still and the sound

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Opinion

You’ve Got Mail

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

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Opinion

Letters to the Editor

Navigating Wadsworth Construction ‘An Adventure…Amusing’ Dear Editor, Although it is an inconvenience, I know the end result will be worth it. Every time I travel Wadsworth, I try to look at it as an adventure. Will this street be blocked off? Will there be one lane of traffic on this side? Will the left turn lane

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Opinion

Thank You

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

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Education

Closures: How Did We Get Here, What Can We Do?

I’m the proud father of four WRHS Farmers. I served as the Chair and CoChair of the WRHS School Accountability Committee for five years, and have watched the interaction between Jeffco Public Schools and Wheat Ridge for a decade. Like many, I’m outraged by the proposal to close three WR elementary schools after millions in

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Education

Kudos For Ms. Siddoway, Kullerstrand

Dear Editor, From the moment you are greeted by Ms. Siddoway you are embraced with warmth, kindness, love and passion. After 18 years of being a teacher at Kullerstrand Elementary, her passion for teaching continues to grow. My son had Ms. Siddoway for first grade, he started her class as a remote student in August

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Opinion

28 On 38

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

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Opinion

Best. Festival. Ever.

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

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Opinion

I Love You, Now Change!

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

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Opinion

Fix Your House Before You Come For Mine

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

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Opinion

What’s Wheat Ridge All About?

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

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Opinion

Not So ‘Great Expectations’

There was one message drilled into every K-12 student’s head: go to college or you’ll never find a job. Nearly a year after receiving my degree, I suspect I was lied to. I don’t want to point fingers. But, when feeling bitter about my minimum wage job, my university seems like a great place to

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Opinion

Does Exclusivity Breed Bad Service?

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

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Opinion

For Goodness Sake

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

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Opinion

Adopting Miss Daisy

There she was, staring back at me from the Facebook page of Animal Rescue of the Rockies. A sad, skinny, bedraggled pit bull. It was love at first sight. I waited 37 years to adopt a dog; a decision I did not enter into lightly. During the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, animal rescues

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