The Home Front: As word of ICE raids hits Roaring Fork Valley, Carbondale approves policies to ‘gain the trust of immigrants’

ICE raids hits Roaring Fork Valley, Carbondale approves policies to ‘gain the trust of immigrants’" title="The Home Front: As word of ICE raids hits Roaring Fork Valley, Carbondale approves policies to ‘gain the trust of immigrants’" />

“Carbondale trustees have approved new town policies in an attempt to gain the trust of immigrants, while word has spread of arrests by federal immigration officials in the Roaring Fork Valley,” reports The Glenwood Springs Post-Independent. “Ted Hess, a Glenwood Springs immigration attorney, said that several of his immigrant contacts reported numerous arrests early last week by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, though that activity is difficult to verify. Hess said all he has is anecdotal evidence, but he received seven phone calls Aug. 14 from people reporting ICE arrests and activity, and similar accounts followed later in the week. ICE has arrived, he said, and these kinds of raids will be a feature, periodically, of living in this valley. “Obviously, this makes life more risky and miserable if you’re undocumented. What it really does all too often is separate functioning families who are contributing to our society and economy.”

“On Tuesday, a police standoff in the 600 block of Greeley’s 13th Street drew a crowd, with some people recording the arrival of police vehicles on their phones,” reports The Greeley Tribune. “The Aug. 6 Windsor Mill fire — which investigators believe was intentionally set — lured many out of their beds early on a Sunday morning to watch firefighters battle the blaze. Just a few days later on Aug. 9, a Fort Collins man died after his car collided with the sign at the intersection of U.S. 34 and Colo. 257 in the midst of rush hour traffic. Cars slowed as drivers strained to get a glimpse of the scene. The question is, why? What leads people to sneak up to a police perimeter at a SWAT standoff or a new mother to listen to a police scanner after midnight? These are negative situations, many of which turn tragic.”

“Construction of a $34 million psychiatric hospital in Grand Junction got a $2 million boost Thursday,” reports The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. “The donation toward the expansion of the Mind Springs Psychiatric Hospital is the largest single contribution ever given by the Colorado Health Access Fund of the Denver Foundation. It brings the construction fund to $12.7 million, or 70 percent of its $17.5 million goal. Construction on expanding the current 32-bed hospital at 515 28 3/4 Road to 64 beds is to begin this fall. “The need for this expansion continues to grow the longer we wait to begin construction,” said Sharon Raggio, president and chief executive officer of Mind Springs Health and West Springs Hospital. “This significant investment places us closer to our fundraising goal and allows us to start the process of moving dirt at the construction site, bringing us one step closer to rebuilding more lives.”

“Rulings on pretrial motions filed by both prosecutors and defense attorneys could be issued by a judge as early as Friday in the murder case against Berthoud teen Tanner Flores, accused of killing former Boulder County Rodeo Queen Ashley Dootlittle,” reports The Loveland Reporter-Herald. “Flores, 19, was taken into custody at gunpoint June 10, 2016, by Mesa County Sheriff’s Office deputies. Doolittle’s body was reportedly discovered in Flores’ vehicle with three bullet wounds to her head. Flores, now being held at the Larimer County Jail, did not speak during his appearance at Thursday’s motions hearing in front of 8th Judicial District Judge Greg Lammons.”

“Crossroads School in Longmont has a Rumba that roams the halls during the school day, greeting students and picking up any stray morsels in the carpet,” reports The Longmont Times-Call. “But it isn’t a Roomba vacuum that’s cleaning the floors. Rumba Hoover is a 2-year-old black labrador/boxer/Staffordshire terrier mix therapy dog in training at Crossroads. Crossroads is a small, faith-based school that helps middle and high school students who have had academic or behavioral struggles in other schools.”

“Yampa Valley Housing Authority may have crossed the threshold of a new era in the decades-long discussion about the need to increase community housing in Ski Town U.S.A,” reports The Steamboat Pilot. “But the outcome will ultimately be decided by the voters in the November election. Motivated by the findings of the Community Housing Steering Committee report of December 2016, the YVHA board voted Thursday to seek voter permission to collect a 10-year, one-mill property tax within its district, which includes the city of Steamboat Springs and surrounding areas but no other towns.”

“According to results from the 2017 administration of statewide assessments by the Colorado Department of Education, students in Pueblo County School District 70 are performing under expectations but have, for the most part, improved from last year in tested areas,” reports The Pueblo Chieftain. “The D70 students were among 550,000 Colorado students from the third through 11th grades assessed last spring. Third- through ninth-graders took Colorado Measures of Academic Success assessments in English language arts and math, and fifth-, eighth- and 11th-graders took science assessments.”

“Saturday will be test day for Colorado State University’s new on-campus stadium and the extensive planning that has gone into making the massive facility and its support systems ready for prime time,” reports The Coloradoan in Fort Collins. “That will include the Rambassadors. The Rambassabor program is a collaboration involving Visit Fort Collins and CSU. It will place friendly volunteers around the perimeter of campus to direct visitors to the stadium and answer questions.”

“Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke recommended Thursday that President Trump alter at least three national monuments established by his immediate predecessors, including two in Utah, a move expected to reshape federal land and water protections and certain to trigger major legal fights,” reports The Durango Herald. “In a report Zinke submitted to the White House, the secretary recommended reducing the size of Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, as well as Oregon’s Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, according to multiple individuals briefed on the decision.”

“As controversy sizzles across the country over the removal of statues honoring Confederate heroes, the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum is raising money to erect a sculpture of a local woman whose livelihood brought blacks and whites together during an earlier divisive era,” reports The Gazette in Colorado Springs. “A bronze tribute to beloved African American entrepreneur Fannie Mae Duncan will eventually greet passersby in front of the Pikes Peak Center, less than a block from where she opened the famous Cotton Club on West Colorado Avenue in the 1950s. The club was the first in the city to permit patrons of all races, who were greeted by Duncan’s black-and-white sign in the window that read ‘EVERYBODY WELCOME.'”

“Sunlight fills every corridor, the exit visible even from the opposite end of the apartment building,” reports The Denver Post. “Its 60 bedrooms have no doors to shut, but, instead, window-sized wall cutouts to see through to the living room. And the “safe courtyard,” filled with deep-pink rose bushes and shade umbrellas, is open to the sky yet fenced off to prevent outside entry from Federal Boulevard. The design is unique in Colorado and rare nationally, a “trauma-informed” apartment building that soon will house people who for years have lived on Denver’s streets, in and out of jail, detox and emergency rooms. There are no crevices, nothing that resembles a dark alley or shadowy stairwell. “These are the folks who are really resistant to treatment. They didn’t sign up for it,” said Joann Toney, director of clinical housing services for the Mental Health Center of Denver which will open Sanderson Apartments to its first residents next week.”