Author: Janna Goodwin

Psst-! City Park West neighborhood association is 20 years old this month!

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October 17th is CPW RNO’s twentieth birthday. This week, help us celebrate by posting, on our Facebook page, photographs (taken this week) around the neighborhood. Your favorite spots… places you remember being different… places that soothe your soul… places you meet friends for a walk, a game of basketball, breakfast, a beer… places that make you happy. Write a line about the photograph (and let us know in the post if we can use it in the future here on our website, with your name credited, of course!)  

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Notes from June, 2020 District 6 Police Commander’s Community Advisory Board meeting

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District 6 encompasses neighborhoods from Union Station downtown to the CBD, Five Points, Cap Hill, North Cap Hill, Uptown, City Park West and Cheeseman. This month’s (June 2020) DPD District 6 community meeting was a remote meeting, hosted on Microsoft Teams. There were around twenty community members present, in addition to officers Teresa Gillian and Austen Munson, and Sgt. David Albi. (Sorry– I didn’t catch the other names, but probably those cc’d on the e-mail from DPD: Lts Kenneth Chavez and Tony Gallawa). City Councilman Chris Hinds was among community attendees. The usual monthly crime report was given, a slide show of neighborhoods in District 6. April through end-of-May stats include the following, which reflect both COVID-19 impacts (e.g. domestic violence rates related possibly to the stay-at-home order) and protests/riots. (“Protests” here refers to lawful gathering; “riots” to property damage and violence). City overview — Violent crime was down 2.4%. Property crimes were up 11.8%. Overall crime was down .5%. Domestic violence calls were up 1.7%. Traffic accidents were down 4.1%. Crime Notes (by neighborhood in the district) Union Station– break-ins were up. Two assaults were related to protest activity. CBD — Crimes related to the protests caused some spikes, especially in property and “public & other” crimes (trespassing, drugs, other). There has been an increase in motor vehicle thefts (two Jeeps were stolen, only one recovered). North Cap Hill — Violent crime was up 150%, related to the protests. Property crimes up 41% and “public and other” crime up 100%. Cap Hill — Violent crime up 145%. Property crime up 20%… and “public and other” crime was up 573%. Officer Munson said that “when we see this stuff all over the news, we see an increase in these incidents.” City Park West: Violenc crime was up 54%, mostly domestic violence related to COVID-19 stay-at-home. Property crimes were down 19%. “Public and other” crimes were up 69%. Community members are advised that garages are targeted and are related to bike thefts. The takeaway is to always keep garage doors closed when not actually present in the garage– and to register bikes and make sure they are locked up. We are also advised to keep valuables out of vehicles or at least locked and out of sight. Honda, Subarus and Ford F150s most need clubs (owners can contact the PD for a free club). Protest/policing discussion notes* The floor was open to questions; community members were invited to talk about the protests, and police officers acknowledged collective trauma. Three officers were injured when a car mowed them down (two had broken legs). They are on the mend. Neighborhoods were vandalized, stores and public property defaced and civilians hurt. Councilman Hinds said that he was at the protests and there was a huge difference between (peaceful) daytime protests and more rowdy or violent nighttime protest-related activity that became out of control and riotous. He hopes to understand all stories and to listen to all perspectives. Denver is “not Minneapolis,” Sgt. Albi said.…

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From District 6 Officer Gillian

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Hi! I hope you are ALL healthy and well.  Please see the [letter and] Press Release [below letter] from the Denver Police Department in relation to staying safe physically, mentally and emotionally during this time of increases stress and quarantine. During these challenged times, it is imperative that we take care of ourselves but more importantly, that we take care of each other. If you see a crime in progress, please call 911.  With more people home, our neighborhood watch should be in full effect with the incredibly increase of eyes and ears in our neighborhoods.  Also, please remember to be vigilant of the businesses that are closed.  When you are out for essential business, exercising or walking your dog, keep your social distancing and PLEASE make sure you to call 911 if you see suspicious activity in our nonessential retail locations.  If you have a business that is currently closed, we want to help provide signage to deter criminal activity at your place of business.  Remember that those who are considered “nonessential” are counting on the residents, remote security systems and the police department to keep watch while they can not be present. If we do this, we will be a good neighbor. In closing, please remember to stay home and only travel out of necessity.  We are all this together and will be on the other side shortly.  Please feel free to share this valuable information on your forums, internal communications and services for the homeless. Stay healthy and be well! Respectfully, Officer Theresa Gillian Denver Police Department 720.663.8203  Resources for Residents Experiencing Abuse in the Home  DENVER – These are challenging times, but the City and County of Denver is doing its part to ensure that those who find themselves in hard times have the help and access to the resources they need. This is especially true for those who live with an abusive partner. Regardless of the stay at home order, there continues to be resources and support for victims of domestic violence and child abuse. “Staying safe and healthy during this time isn’t just about washing your hands or physical distancing, it’s about ensuring that where we ‘stay at home’ is safe, too,” said Mayor Michael B. Hancock. “If you are housed with your abuser, you are allowed to leave to find a safe place to shelter. If you need help with that, there are resources for you.” There are simple ways to reduce the stress COVID-19 brings, such as, limiting the amount of news you watch or read, going for a walk while minding social distancing, playing a board game, reading a book, limiting anything that could alter your judgement, such as alcohol or marijuana, taking a timeout if things become too much, and many others ideas to help create a positive and safe place at home. A video from Mayor Hancock with a message about COVID-19 and home safety can be accessed by clicking here. Resources regarding domestic violence and child abuse: Denver Police services…

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March 23, 2020 Letter from the Colorado Department of Human Services: Hunger and Child Care

Request for Applications for the Colorado COVID-19 Emergency Hunger Relief Fund   Dear Partners,First off, I just want to say how incredibly impressed I am by the dedication, resilience and innovation that I am seeing in light of our current context. The news is sobering, but doesn’t highlight the incredible assets we have in our state, our people. As you know, we sent out a survey last week to try to understand the assets and needs of our network. You can read an assessment of the survey. Not surprisingly, one of the largest needs identified in the survey was needing additional financial resource. To that end, we have partnered with a number of local funders to respond to these needs, and are pleased to share that our Request for Applications for the Colorado COVID-19 Emergency Hunger Relief Fund is now live. More information in both English and Spanish, including the application, can be found on our website. Please note that the turnaround for this RFA is quick, with the first wave of applications due on Wednesday, March 25th at 5 p.m. in order to be part of this weeks’ funding cycle. The current plan is for the applications to open each week on Monday and close on Wednesday. We know that needs will continue to evolve and change, and we want to be as responsive as we are able. We are also working on addressing the remainder of the findings, including planning a webinar on emergency response structures with CDHS, helping understand what coalitions around the state are doing and sharing updates on state programs as they find flexibilities due to the current crisis. We will also be working to match assets with needs identified in the survey. Please feel free to contact me directly (303-974-8427) if we can be helpful to you and thank you again for everything you do. In partnership,Erin   Childcare Needs Survey Governor Polis called together a group of early childhood providers, advocacy groups, school districts and foundations to partner with the Colorado Department of Human Services (CDHS) to establish a system of emergency child care centers for our emergency and essential workers — called the Colorado Emergency Child Care Collaborative. Many in the Blueprint partnership have expressed concerns about resources that can help their employees continue to work during this time.  If you or your organization is providing critical front-line response services, such as health professionals, health facilities staff, emergency responders, public safety, etc., the Collaborative would like to connect you to child care providers if your current provider is not able to continue service.    The Collaborative is surveying families to understand the need for these services and they are also identifying current and “emergency” providers. To register for this child care program, please open this Google Doc and click on the highlighted survey link, or dial 2-1-1 for additional information. Every effort will be made to match those who need care with a licensed facility near them that has available capacity to help. We are working to implement expanded subsidies and/or sliding scales for families who cannot afford child…

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Covid-19 epidemic resources: Food. Child care. Hunger relief. Information. Volunteer opps.

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Below are a number of useful links, which we’ll try to keep updated: WHO Coronavirus dashboard Volunteer (Colorado governor’s website) Donate (Colorado governor’s website) Connect (NextDoor) News (Denver Post) Free internet from Comcast for 2 months Denver Public Schools and CV-19 AARP (great information and resources for seniors here) Department of Labor and Employment (file for unemployment) Denver Rescue Mission Metro Care Ring Information on the Families First Coronavirus Act to help families in time of unemployment Information on the Defense Production Act that will suspend evictions  Information about your credit card payments and what credit card companies are doing to alleviate your burden IRS Coronavirus tax relief Hunger relief (updated March 23, 2020) Child care needs survey and resource (updated March 23, 2020)  

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Minutes from City Park West monthly meeting 3.18.2020

The 3.18 meeting was held on Zoom, an online meeting platform. For some reason, although the meeting was set up on Zoom to begin at 6, some folks logging in saw a 7 p.m. start time, so you might have logged on and been confused. We’ll try this again soon, get it to work for everyone, and may host more frequent meetings. In virtual attendance: Jo Untiedt, Janna Goodwin, Alyssa Knutson, Scott Holder, Brendan Cady In summary: While we’re still trying to paper the neighborhood with flyers about the East Central Area Plan, the timing is obviously bad now for neighbors to focus on non-urgent issues. Most of our meeting, we discussed how City Park West RNO might best help our local community in this global crisis. While Nextdoor provides community information and resources, we are concerned about shut-ins– e.g. the elderly and disabled– who are not tech-savvy. Those who may not know how to use social media, or who might have an ipad but not realize its full power (or know how to download health, safety, communication or even entertainment apps to help get through these trying times). We will post helpful links whenever we are made aware of them, and will also listen to those involved in coordinating volunteer efforts to learn how the City Park West RNO can be of service.

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This month’s virtual meeting will be on Zoom: March 18 at 6 p.m.

Join the City Park West meeting this month virtually. We can’t promise anything (this is all new) but we’re using Zoom and it ought to work. Log on at 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 18. On the agenda: Updates and local resources for coronavirus information and services; East Central Area Plan comments and timeline Here is the “Join” URL that makes it available to (I think) whoever signs on https://us04web.zoom.us/j/419104388   The software version we’re using is “Bacis” and will stop after 40 minutes. Folks will have to log back in using a new URL   https://us04web.zoom.us/j/914844653  

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