Sunrise Over the Mesa
Photo by Jen Rutter
What's happening in Golden today?
- All day: CURRENT EXHIBITS AT THE MUSEUMS
- All day: CURRENT EXHIBITS AT THE MUSEUMS
- All day: Live Workouts with Community Center Pros
- All day: Golden History Tours
- All day: Golden History Tours
- 10:15 AM-10:45 AM: Let's Dance @ Golden Library
- 12:00 PM-12:30 PM: Mondays with the Mayor
- 12:00 PM-4:00 PM: Stitch'n B*tch @ Golden Quilt Company
- 2:00 PM-3:00 PM: Virtual: Active Minds Monday
- 5:00 PM-5:00 PM: Michael Madness - A Festival of Mikes! @ New Terrain Brewing Company
- 5:30 PM-8:00 PM: The Principles of Artistic Expression @ Foothills Art Center
- 6:00 PM-9:00 PM: Teach Me to Play! Mondays @ Golden Game Guild
- 6:30 PM-6:30 PM: GURA Board Meeting @ City Hall Council Chambers
- 8:00 PM-9:00 PM: Colorado Trivia League @ Morris & Mae
For more information, visit the Golden Today Calendar
Concentrating Golden's Affordable Housing
Current and proposed Foothills Housing Authority Projects in the central neighborhood
5:30PM GURA Board Meeting @ City Hall
Fair Warning: This meeting description contains opinions.
Foothills Regional Housing Authority will attend the GURA meeting to discuss acquiring more property in the central neighborhood. They have have built two large affordable housing projects in that neighborhood in recent years, and want to build a third.
This time, their target is the former Golden Motel, located at 24th and Ford Streets, directly across the street from their 2022 project, the Flats on Ford. That followed their 2012 project, Lewis Court. All three are within 500 feet of each other.
Foothills Regional Housing Authority is asking GURA and the City to contribute $500,000 toward the $2.7 million purchase price. They will, at first, keep the current tenants in place, and their longer-term plan is to redevelop the property. Learn more….
The Housing Authority has been working with city staff on this purchase for some time, but kept it very quiet. The January 23rd City Council meeting included an Executive Session (no cameras, no public present) with the stated purpose: “to discuss the potential purchase, acquisition or transfer of two real property interests, one related to affordable housing and the other related to open space/trails and to determine positions on matters that may be subject to negotiations, developing strategy for negotiations, and instructing negotiators regarding the subject properties. ”
I don’t know which neighborhoods are getting open space/trails, but the central neighborhood is once again the designated low-income area.
Tonight’s meeting memo says, “It is an appropriate use of GURA funding to improve the Central Neighborhoods URA, similar to last year’s bike/ped investment adjacent to Golden High School; such GURA support is also very consistent with GURA’s prior actions in the other URA’s.”
Note: GURA has not funded affordable housing in the other Urban Renewal Areas. In fact, they specifically decided that the Parfet/Briarwood neighborhood was too expensive for affordable housing.
The memo goes on to say, “affordable housing should be integrated into the fabric of Golden’s existing neighborhoods.”
Again, that statement seems to apply only to the central neighborhoods. The last time the Housing Authority integrated a project into an existing neighborhood (other than the central neighborhoods), was forty-one years ago, in 1983 (Canyon Gate Apartments).
Discussions have been happening outside of the public view, as indicated in tonight’s meeting memo:
“Doe [sic] to timing constraints, the Development Committee, staff, the City, and the project team began conversations to provide more specifics and detail to the proposal, and more recently began working on a draft agreement per Development Committee direction”
Staff has scheduled an executive session at the conclusion of tonight’s GURA meeting, so they can continue to discuss the issue away from public scrutiny:
“The March 11, 2024 GURA board discussion is intended as a full presentation of the project and an opportunity for board members to seek clarification and provide direction. Staff is very supportive of the project. An optional executive session is included on the published meeting agenda, in the event that the board feels it should meet in that confidential format to provide direction to staff negotiators.“
If you want to submit comments on this project, be at City Hall at 5:30, at the beginning of the GURA meeting. You can email the GURA commissioners by addressing a note to Robin Fleischmann: rfleischmann@cityofgolden.net.
You can also send email to City Council at CouncilComments@cityofgolden.net.
Golden History: Drys Vs. Wets
Otten’s Place Saloon, located at the southwest corner of 11th and Ford Streets, circa 1910 – Golden History Museum collection
115 Years Ago
The lead article in the March 11, 1909 Colorado Transcript is entitled “Urge Citizens to Quell Lawless Reign.” The article states that Golden had, “at not infrequent intervals, street disorders, brawls, assaults and batteries, stabbings and attempted stabbings, desertions of families, attempted murders and tragic killings, all of which have been directly due to the drunkenness produced by Golden saloons. Because of them we have seen men and boys go from here to penitentiary and reformatory. We have often had to bury their victims….”
It went on to say that it was “never wholly safe for a young woman to cross the principal thoroughfare of the town after nightfall on the way to or from church or her work because of the drunken loungers furnished by the saloons.” The article was signed by the Pastors of the Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist churches.
That same front page featured “Business Men Issue Protest.” This was a letter in response to the “Anti-Saloon League,” which was waging a campaign to turn Golden into a dry town. It was signed by nearly every business owner in town. These men said that none of those awful things were happening in Golden. “Very little, if any, disorderly conduct can be traced to the Golden saloons…. The Golden police magistrate hardly knows what it is to have a drunk before him, and one policeman day and night suffices for the whole town.”
This letter-writing campaign filled the front pages of the paper from February till the end of March. The “drys” said that saloons would corrupt the Colorado School of Mines boys. The merchants said there was much more drinking in Boulder, Greeley, and Fort Collins–college towns that had gone dry.
One stand-out article appeared on March 18th, when Richard Broad, one of the most staid and respected businessmen in town, wrote a piece called, “Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Thy Own Community.” He said the ministers had “over-heated imaginations.” He said he’d been in business on Washington Avenue for over twenty years and the city had only grown more peaceful and orderly as the years went by. He added that in twenty-one years he had “never heard of one single case of insult to a woman on our streets.”
Professor Patton from the School of Mines headed the Golden chapter of the anti-saloon league. He wrote a letter implying that an unnamed “banker” was in partnership with a saloon-keeper, so of course he would defend him.
Richard Broad, chairman of the bank as well as owner of a dry goods store, wrote back that saloon owners did business with the bank–just as Professor Patton had a few years earlier when he had asked investors to back him in a pottery business, which had failed.
Other examples of dirty pool appeared in the paper. The merchants accused the ministers and Professor Patton of being “transients,” and said that non-tax payers should not have a say in running this city. (I checked, and Patton had lived in Golden since at least 1894.)
Another merchant wrote “From limited investigation, it appears that the prime movers in the local option agitation are in the same class with Prof Patton–preachers and other non-taxpayers who are but temporary residents. The estimable lady who visited my house and endeavored to induce my family to sign a ward petition admitted that she was comparatively a stranger in Golden, having lived here less than a year, and that she paid no taxes.”
The “wets” won their point at the April 5, 1909 vote. The anti-saloon option garnered 322 votes while the pro-saloon faction gathered 704 votes. The wetness didn’t last for long. In 1914, the “drys” brought an anti-saloon amendment to a statewide vote. Golden still voted against Prohibition, but the state approved it. Prohibition went into effect in Colorado on January 1, 1916–four years ahead of National Prohibition.
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!
Golden History: James Pomeroy Killed by Streetcar
Streetcar bridge over Kinney Run
86 Years Ago
The March 10, 1938 Colorado Transcript had a grisly tale to tell. At about 9 o'clock Sunday evening, James H. Pomeroy had left his home on 13th Street for a walk. The next morning, a passer-by found his body under the street car bridge over Kinney Run. (This would be approximately where Jackson Street crosses in front of Safeway.)
The coroner empaneled a jury, and together, they visited the scene of the accident. They also examined the streetcar which had arrived in Golden just after midnight. They concluded that Mr. Pomeroy had been "lying down on the side of the street car track when struck by the car." His body had been dragged over the bridge for about eighteen feet before dropping to the dry stream bed below. The streetcar driver said he was unaware of having hit anything.
Mr. Pomeroy had worked as a custodian at the School of Mines for about ten years. The Avenue Flashes column in the Transcript commented as follows:
The death of Pomeroy was a shock to the citizens of Golden--he was a quiet unassuming man who attended to his work loyally.
James Pomeroy left a wife, two adult children, and two grandchildren. He is buried in the Golden Cemetery.
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!
Weather
Overnight: Partly cloudy. Low around 37, with temperatures rising to around 41 overnight. West wind around 9 mph.
Monday: Mostly cloudy, with a high near 62. South southwest wind around 8 mph.
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