What’s Happening in Golden Today?
9-10AM Women’s Exercise and Bible Study @ First United Methodist Church
9:15-9:45AM Baby Time @ Golden Library
10AM and 1PM Wild West Walking History Tour
10AM, 1PM and 4PM Wild West Short Tour
10-10:55AM Silver Sneakers Classic (Virtual)
10:15-10:45AM Preschool Time @ Golden Library
12-12:55PM All Levels Yoga (Virtual)
1-1:45PM Silver Sneakers Yoga (Virtual)
1:30PM Triad – Senior Safety @ Jeffo DA’s Office
Today’s topic: Where can I get some help?
4-5PM LEGO Build and Play @ Golden Library
6-7:30PM Got Shelter? Navigating the Unhoused Crisis (Virtual)
6PM New World Disorder Movie Night @ Pedal Pushers Cyclery
6-8PM Trip Planning and Terrain Management Clinic @ Bentgate Mountaineering
6:30-8:30PM Bar Bingo Night @ VFW Post 4171
City Council Meeting
5PM City Council Study Session @ City Hall
Legislative Priorities
City Council will hold a study session with our legislative representatives, including Senator Jessie Danielson, Rep. Brianna Titone, and Chris Rork, Senator John Hickenlooper’s Front Range Regional Director. They will go over policies that they want the state and feds to support. What follows is a brief (!) summary of the 7 page document. See the original for more details.
They want more power to add more affordable housing, particularly near public transportation; to acquire land to build more affordable housing, to protect mobile homeowners, to add rent control, and to oppose limits to the city’s authority to promote affordable housing.
They will ask the representatives to promote economic development tools, including urban renewal laws and state funding to support business expansions and cultural venues. They want them to oppose limits on the city’s and GURA’s financial tools that facilitate urban renewal projects.
They want the state and feds to follow Golden’s lead on environmental issues.
They want the state and feds to support policies promoting equity, human services, education, business development, voting, and participating in municipal meetings.
They want to promote intergovernmental cooperation on trails, open space, public land, education, affordable living, affordable childcare, and just compensation.
They want the other levels of government to support local control regarding employment issues, meeting accessibility, and transparency. They oppose any erosion of home rule authority and unfunded mandates.
They support efforts to introduce gun safety legislation, including different local gun ordinances.
They want to maintain Golden’s home rule regarding fees and taxing and TABOR modification. They would support home rule limitations to promote goals of mutual interest such as licensing and wildfire mitigation.
They want the state and feds to support local control of municipal development and land use, growth management, and the elements included in our comprehensive plan.
They want funding to acquire more parks & open space, to incent land conservation, and to protect Clear Creek and its banks.
They want funding to support public health/human support services and support for local regulation of marijuana, nicotine, and vape products.
In support of public safety, they want funding for legal counsel for people appearing in municipal court, body cameras for Golden police, and first responders for mental health crises. They want state funding to cover Golden’s emergency responses outside the City limits, including I-70 and Clear Creek Canyon. They want more support from the state DMV regarding cars with built-in breatholyzers. They want financial support for wildfire mitigation. They oppose unfunded mandates for local first responder forces.
They want funding for services to seniors, people with disabilities, veterans, and their caregivers. This would include support for housing, food, and transportation that would enable people to age in place.
They want to require the state or feds to fund mandates that they impose on local governments.
They want to expand the City’s ability to use certificates of participation (which allow the city to incur debt without a vote of the citizens.
They want regulatory support to improve Golden telecommunication infrastructure.
They want funding for transportation projects, including complete streets (adding bike lanes and sidewalks). They want state support in reducing noise produced by commercial vehicles. They want legislation that would decriminalize alternative modes of transportation on roadways.
They want legislative support allowing us to protect Clear Creek, our water supply, allow us greater control over the Creek within our City limits, and allow us to assess HOAs when the City needs to hire people to control their stormwater.
After the study session, Council will break for dinner and return at 6:30 for the business meeting.
6:30PM City Council Business Meeting @ City Hall
City Council will have a study session at 5PM, then take a dinner break, then start the business meeting at 6:30PM. They will begin with public comment, which you can make in person or by sending email to publiccomment@cityofgolden.net.
The consent agenda includes approval of an agreement with Farmers Highline Canal. The company has an easement through city property to allow them to maintain their ditch and gate. This agreement will allow them to make some repairs, replace the fence, and clean up the foliage around the ditch & gate.
The second consent agenda item is approval of Council’s strategic plan for 2023. This is recommended reading if you want to know what changes to expect this year. I spotted all sorts of interesting things. Here’s one that particularly caught my eye: “Council directed staff to evaluate options for the overall design of Washington Avenue between Clear Creek and 13th, including the potential for closing the street to vehicular traffic, traffic control device alternatives (including removing streetlights), and reallocating existing ROW.”
They will read proclamations for National Read Across America Day Proclamation and International Women’s Day Proclamation. The Golden Rotary Club will update Council on their projects. They will approve a resolution encouraging the legislature to pass various gun safety policies.
They will discuss the Environmental Assessment for the new U.S. Geological Survey building. Staff is suggesting a number of comments that the city should provide. They are concerned about inadequate parking and travel levels in the intersection at 19th and Washington. They want to see a pre-treatment permit added for hazardous materials, since that waste might otherwise be sent to Golden’s sanitary sewer.
They want noise mitigation for the building’s generators. The Environmental Assessment describes the area as “noisy urban residential,” and based on that, they anticipate the generators being less noisy than background. In fact, the building is surrounded by campus and single family homes–not “noisy urban.”
The E.A. has not made provision for stormwater runoff. Staff points out that with this building and several others to be built soon, we will lose permeable ground surface, so the School needs to make provision for stormwater filtering and retention.
Council will be asked to consider two appeals to decisions made by the Historic Preservation Board. The decisions concerned a house at 915 9th (map), within the 8th and 9th Street Historic District. The owners plan to demolish the house, which is believed to have been built in 1873, and replace it with a new house. HPB provided Certificates of Appropriateness (COAs) for both the demolition and the new construction.
One of the appeals came from Kevin Yoshida–a neighbor to the property, an architect, and a member of the Planning Commission. Mr. Yoshida detailed several objections to the information staff provided to HPB and the processes they followed to reach their conclusions. The second appeal came from Henry Tiberi–a local resident and contractor, who has owned and restored several historic properties. Mr. Tiberi objects to the proposed replacement home, saying it is not appropriate or compatible for a historic district.
The final topic in the public part of the meeting will be discussion of how to account for dwellings with shared facilities under the 1% growth limit. You may recall that the Aurum “boarding house” project evaded the growth limit because the apartments did not have full kitchens. The ordinance being considered tonight proposes counting 3 of those kitchen-less apartments as one “dwelling unit” as counted by the residential growth limit. Tonight is just a preview of this topic. The public hearing will be held on March 14th.
The business meeting will be followed by an Executive Session (no public, no cameras) to discuss provisioning of telecommunications in the City.
Trivia
6PM Trivia Tuesdays @ Golden Mill
6:30-8:30PM Team Trivia Tuesdays @ Buffalo Rose
Valentine’s Day Drink Specials All Day!
Live Music
7PM Stick Men @ The Buffalo Rose Events Center
6PM Karaoke with Linda @ Dirty Dogs Roadhouse
6PM Open Bluegrass Pick Night @ Over Yonder Brewing
Celebrating Heart and Soul of Golden Month:
GoldenToday.com
Since Goldentoday is a member of the Golden Cultural Alliance, I’ll use this final day of Heart and Soul of Golden month to mention that this is our 16th Anniversary! Thank you to Tracy Evanko, who’s been maintaining the calendar and business pages for more than a decade. Thanks to the talented photographers who supply the delightful Golden Eye Candy.
Thanks to the readers, who keep me informed and entertained with their running correspondence and commentary. And a BIG thank you to the sponsors and contributors who make it all possible.
I began the website and email with the desire to help Golden’s cultural organizations. In 2007, there was no single, reliable place to help spread the word about their events, so I created this one. At that time, Golden business was still struggling a bit, so I began promoting businesses as well.
Eventually I began paying more attention to city government. It seemed that citizens never learned about changes until it was too late to provide input. For that reason, I began writing detailed previews of upcoming meetings.
In 2020, in an effort to keep people entertained during the pandemic shutdown, I began writing daily articles about Golden History, Frankly, I hadn’t intended to keep it up for three years, but here I am.
Such obsessively-local news isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but it seems to appeal to Golden people. I currently have well over 1300 subscribers, almost all of them Golden residents, and about 65% of them read it on any given day.
With so much encouragement, tomorrow I’ll start my 17th year of telling you What’s Happening in Golden!
Thanks for reading.
Barb
Monthly Appeal
Many thanks to the people who sponsored this email for the month of February! If you enjoy the Eye Candy, the events, the descriptions of upcoming city meetings, and the Golden History, please consider sponsoring us for March–or contributing a small amount on a monthly basis. Click here to find out how.
Thanks,
Barb Warden
goldentoday.com
303-278-2701
