Coronavirus/COVID-19
Public Health References
CDC * Colorado * Jefferson County * City of Golden
JCPHD updates these numbers Monday through Friday at about 3 PM. Here’s a summary of growth over the past week, based on Jeffco Public Health’s Case Summary Page:
Cases in Jeffco: +2805
Nov 6th: 11,143 | Nov 13th: 13,948
Deaths in Jeffco: +27
Nov 6th: 346 | Nov 13th: 373
Ever Hospitalized in Jeffco: +129
Nov 6th: 834 | Nov 13th: 963
Recovered in Jeffco: +1434
Nov 6th: 8,275 | Nov 13th: 9,709
Known Cases in Golden: +108
Nov 6th: 358 | Nov 13th: 466
School of Mines COVID-19 case page. | Masks are required. | City and County fire restrictions are in place. | Sign up for exposure notifications.
Virtual Golden
6-6:55AM Virtual Dynamic Circuit
8:30-9:30AM Virtual Power Training
10:15AM Spanish Story Time with the Library
6:30PM Downtown Development Authority Meeting
Tonight, the DDA will consider several grant requests, discuss their 2021 budget, review the costs of adding festive lighting to Miners Alley, and evaluate Foothills Art Center’s proposal to use about half of the Legacy Fund to fix up the Astor House.
The Colorado Environmental Film Festival requests $3,000 to support the February 2021 event. Due to the ongoing pandemic, the event will be mostly virtual, but they hope to have one day of screenings at the Mountaineering Center.
The Golden Mill is requesting an Exterior Improvement Grant of $2,500 to defray the cost of painting the building.
The board will hold a public hearing on their 2021 budget.
The owner of the Opera House building (now the Ace Hi, Alpha Graphics, and some second-floor apartments) needs to build a new trash enclosure. They had an agreement with the former owners of the neighboring building (to the north) to share an enclosure, but the new owner does not wish to continue that arrangement. The new enclosure would use part of the city parking lot. The normal split on such grants would be 2/3 by the owner and 1/3 by the DDA, but in light of the COVID-induced business climate, the DDA may fund as much as 80% of the estimated $32,000 cost.
City Staff has been researching a plan to install decorative lighting in Miners Alley from 11th to 14th Streets. The goal is to make the alley feel more pleasant and safe, and to possibly move some of the public events in that direction. They now have a proposal, and the cost would be $107,906.34. The DDA will discuss whether they want to fund this proposal.
Finally, they will discuss the use of the Legacy Fund for rehabilitating the Astor House. The City recently solicited proposals to find someone who would occupy the building and bring new life and vitality to that corner. They chose to work with Foothills Art Center. The building is currently an empty shell–no walls, no plumbing–completely uninhabitable.
Foothills Art Center is asking that the City–which would still be the owner of the building–assume about 1/3 of the cost to rehabilitate the building. They are asking for $926,077.
The proposed source of the money is the Legacy Fund, which contains approximately $1.8 million. This Fund was reserved by the Golden Urban Renewal Authority when they finished their 25 year de-blighting project downtown. They wanted to use it for one last big downtown revitalization project. Since the Astor House is the last blighted building downtown, and since it belongs to the City, GURA recently voted in favor of using about half of the Legacy Fund to rehabilitate the Astor House.
The Downtown Development Authority has an equal say in the use of that Fund. While they want the Astor House revitalized, they propose devoting $500K to the project rather than $926K. Members of the GURA board will attend tonight’s meeting and they will jointly consider the issue.
For more information on any of these issues, or to watch the meeting live at 6:30, go to the Agenda page on the City website.
Golden History Moment
70 Years Ago
The November 16, 1950 Colorado Transcript reported on the ongoing, terrifying polio epidemic. They were anticipating that the U.S. would reach 31,000 new cases by the end of the year. This was a scary time to be a parent, and–thanks to the post World War II baby boom–there were a lot of parents in Golden. In 1950, we still had five years of anxiety ahead. A vaccine was developed in 1955. For a really impressive graph showing the difference it made, check out ourworldindata.org/polio.
In other news, the owner of a pinball machine was fined $25 for allowing a minor to play on the machine.
People who wanted to invite a Mines student to be their guest at Thanksgiving were instructed how to sign up. The paper said that this was a long-standing tradition in Golden.
Everyone was invited to a square dance at Central School (later Mitchell Elementary, at 12th and Jackson). A square dance club from Denver would be giving an exhibition before the dance.
The Bunzel Addition to the City was accepted.
The streetcars had been eliminated the previous June, and residents who lived along 44th Street were still waiting for the service to be replaced by the promised bus line. The Transcript pointed out that this loss of transportation was causing Golden to lose some of its regular shoppers.
The paper included an editorial saying that Armistice Day should be abolished. It was established at the end of World War I, to celebrate the end of “the war to end all wars.” Since we had since gone through another World War and were already involved in Korea, there was a certain bitterness at the idea of celebrating the end of war.
The Jolly Rancher–still located on Washington Avenue at that time–reminded people to buy hostess gifts for Thanksgiving. The store would be open from 11AM-3PM on Thanksgiving day.
Watson’s Poultry Farm was offering to deliver oven-dressed turkeys, any day, anywhere.
The Golden Gem Theater had several Westerns scheduled, including Destry Rides Again, When the Daltons Rode, and I Shot Billy the Kid.
There were several ads from successful candidates from the recent election, thanking those who had voted for them, and one rather grumpy ad by someone who had unsuccessfully campaigned to set up a Small Claims Court in Golden.
Many thanks to the Golden History Museum for providing the online cache of historic Transcripts, and to the Golden Transcript for documenting our history since 1866!
