Daylight Saving Time will start tonight/tomorrow morning at 3AM. This month’s full moon will occur at 8:53 tomorrow morning. For future reference–the first day of spring is still more than a week away: it happens on March 20th.
Fire Protection
As of late yesterday afternoon, the South Table Mountain fire was 50% contained. The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department did a good job of keeping people informed via Facebook, and the Golden Transcript stuck with the story for the duration.
One of my readers wrote in to ask why newspaper articles and TV coverage didn’t mention Golden’s firefighters as working on the South Table Mountain fire. The answer is that they were there, but they were not the lead agency. Fire Departments have agreed-upon “territories.” That section of South Table Mountian falls withing Fairmount’s purview. I asked the City’s Public Information Officer to explain how this works, and this was her response: “The area where it started is not within city limits, and every fire department goes by boundaries they have all agreed upon. Fairmount was the lead agency at first because it was within their boundaries. West Metro and Golden were quickly called to assist. So we are there and have been since the beginning, but we are not the lead agency. West Metro oversees Fairmount, so for press purposes, West Metro takes over and puts out the info.” Thanks to Karlyn Tilley for that clarification.
Parking
On Thursday night, City Council considered a request by the developer & residents of the two new downtown buildings (12th & Jackson and 13th and Jackson). The buildings don’t have enough parking for the residents, so the developer was required to pay the city “cash in lieu” to help pay for the public parking garages. The developer and residents thought that they would then be excused from paying for the new annual parking permits. Other downtown residents do have to pay when they keep their cars in public parking.
One of my readers wrote in to say, “If the city doesn’t believe the “cash in lieu” payments were paid to offset parking fees for new residents, what exactly was the purpose of the payment? It sounds like nothing more than a bribe.”
The answer is that the cash in lieu payments are intended to pay for existing and future parking structures. The annual parking fees are intended to discourage people from acquiring multiple cars and storing them in the parking garages on a more or less permanent basis. The parking fees are also designed to deter School of Mines students and employees from using downtown parking.
In this instance, City Council compromised by allowing the new residents to park one car free for the first five years. A second car would cost $900/year.
