Dan Goldhamer an expert horticulturist, gave an illustrated talk including information on the physiological effects of drought, types of soil, plants that do best with less water, best way to water –deeply and infrequently, to mulch thinly farther from trees (not a clump at the base), and said CSU Extension is a source of help for answers to many questions we may have.
Our evening kicked off with Eric M Richardson of CDOT appearing to talk about the transportation funding initiatives that are the result of recent legislation and may appear on the ballot as early as this fall. Eric addressed the potential of the tax and bond initiatives allowing CDOT to move beyond a maintenance-heavy budget to new projects, as well as local city and county grant flexibility.
Their office conducted an online voluntary survey regarding the proposed alcohol policy changes that would go into effect for the year 2019 as a trial period. The report will be presented to the public on June 10.
The policy and FAQ are on denvergov.org/alcoholpolicy.
The new policy would allow special event permits at all parks for consumption of beer, wine and alcohol.
Removing City Council from vote on DPR park use issues seemed easy a few years back, but putting the vote back in City Council is harder. Still, it is a necessary move, to give citizens a local elected voice. INC and PARC & ZAP are persevering. Also the public needs to know details on park budget expenses.
Proposed dedicated parks tax floated by CM Jolon Clark. Clark’s proposal would increase the city’s sales tax rate by 0.25 percent, or 2.5 cents per $10 purchase. That would bring the effective sales tax to 7.9 percent on regular purchases.
Harriet described the process and importance of creating the Conservancy for this 71-mile-long historic canal which dates to the 1880s and was originally an irrigation ditch for agriculture. It begins at Waterton Canyon and ends at the S. Platte, north of DIA. Today it runs through four jurisdictions each of which has signed on to the Conservancy project and takes an active part. The water it receives from Waterton is regulated by Urban Drainage and Flood Control engineers
Nowhere is that conversation more ripe than in Denver where Denver B-Cycle, one of the nation’s first station-based bike share systems, calls home. We already have a well-used, well-known, and well-loved bike share system and the City and County of Denver is waiting to see how dockless fares in Dallas, Seattle, and even Aurora, before permitting dockless bikes to hit the streets. So, for now, we have just one bike share system. Nick provided a vision for what the future of that system may be.
Fred Weiss and Laura Morales of DPR distributed copies of Proposed Revisions of the DPR Alcohol Policy, and a “Tentative Timeline” showing the draft policy to be completed May 1, public hearing at Parks/Recreation Advisory Board (PRAB) June 13, draft finalized June 27, PRAB vote July 11 with public notification of result July 12. As the proposals were enumerated, attendees raised well considered questions, concerns, and reports of particularly event-related problems encountered with the present regulations (3.2 beer only), expecting these problems would be more prevalent with additional liquor (including hard liquor).
