SPEAKER_01 0:00

This week's episode is sponsored by Dairy Arts Center and their signature event, the Crystal Ball Gala. Picture this. One night where art turns into prophecy. The Dairy Arts Center's most dynamic night of the year, Peak, returns April 23rd, 2026 with the Crystal Ball Gala. This isn't your typical gala. It's a night for the curious, a night of readings, revelations, and immersive art, where artists become oracles, performances feel like prophecies, and the room comes alive with ritual, spectacle, and radical creativity. Sip crafted elixirs, indulge in incredible cuisine, and gather with fellow seekers who know how to balance refinement with rebellion, all while supporting the Dairy's mission to provide diverse opportunities to create, learn, and engage in high-quality performing, cinematic, and visual arts experiences. The cards are on the table. Claim your place before the moment passes. Tickets are on sale now at thedairy.org. The Frequency is a frequency frequently. It's Wednesday, March 11th. I'm your host, Shay Castle. And this is The Frequency. A weekly local podcast covering the news, events, and voices shaping the Boulder Valley. This week's episode is sponsored by Dairy Arts Center and their signature event, the Crystal Ball Gala. Later on, we'll be fighting capitalism with an exploration of time banking. But first, the headlines. There have been eight confirmed cases in February and March, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health. All were unvaccinated minors. The outbreak is believed to have stemmed from an unvaccinated person within the community or traveling to the area in early February, the Colorado Sun reported. In response to the outbreak, Broomfield High and Broomfield Heights Middle School told all unvaccinated students, staff, faculty, and visitors to avoid the schools for 21 days. 91% of Coloradans are vaccinated for measles, according to state health data, and 93% of school-aged children, but immunization rates have fallen in recent years among a rise in anti-vaxxer rhetoric. The City of Boulders Police Union has filed a complaint against the co-chair of the civilian watchdog group tasked with reviewing alleged police misconduct. The complaint accuses Maria Soledad Diaz of bias for her criticism of changes to the way the Oversight Group operates. In recent months, rules were changed so that the Oversight Panel can no longer review cases if both the police department itself and the independent monitor, a city employee, have already determined there was no wrongdoing. Members, including Soledad Diaz, say that limits the independence and review power of the panel. Police union president Brian Pleiter said Soledad Diaz, quote, alludes to bias-motivated policing practices, which are not evident. End quote. The police department has twice been found to pull over, ticket, and arrest black and Latino residents at higher rates than white residents. A 2025 report also showed that Boulder officers disproportionately use force against black and Hispanic or Latino residents. The police oversight panel was formed in 2020, when Boulder officers pulled their guns on a black Naropa student picking up trash outside his home. Read more from Boulder Reporting Lab at the link in our show notes. Lafayette City Council will revisit signage at the town cemetery, meant to honor residents buried in unmarked graves. In October, the city installed two plaques to recognize some 200 people buried in a potter's field. Residents pushed for signage that list all known persons buried at the cemetery, but council, in a 4-3 vote, declined. The site instead hosts a QR code directing visitors to an online list of names. Since that decision, three new members have joined Lafayette City Council. Residents pressed the new council to reopen the matter. The unmarked graves include many Hispanic, Latino, and Chicano residents, some with descendants still in the area. Two local historians, Frank Archuleta and Doug Connerau, helped uncover the unmarked graves, working for years scouring hundreds of public records to identify remains. They believe the unmarked graves are related to the heavy presence of the Ku Klux Klan in town. A number of KKK members held leadership positions throughout Lafayette during that time period.

SPEAKER_02 4:40

Now I have a list of 40, maybe 40 or 50 members, named members of the Klan. And their association with the town, and all of them are active in town. Town board members, town mayor, town city clerk, town treasurer, I mean you named that period of climate and after. And it's you know there was clear discrimination. 23 is when the clam charter was enacted here when they chartered the local cloud in 1923. And then 1935 was the last, one of the last clam parades, rogue carrying porches, singing song parades in Lafayette, particularly when in Colorado, um in 1935. And that that had to do with the Rose Luares. This is all interconnected. All of it's interconnected.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

That's Doug Connero talking about Rose Luares, who led the fight for equal access to the city swimming pool after it was barred to non-white residents. Lafayette would eventually rename its swimming pool facility after Luares. The town's history museum will detail the events in a new exhibit, Racism and Discrimination at the Lafayette Swimming Pool, 1934. An opening reception for the exhibit is planned 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, March 13th, at the Collective Community Arts Center, 201 North Public Road. Boulder County residents can receive up to$500 in rebates for work to make their homes more resistant to fires. The 2026 Wildfire Mitigation Rebate Program is open through October 8th. Anyone living in Boulder County, renters or homeowners, can apply for qualifying work, which includes removing junipers, decluttering decks, replacing fences with non-combustible materials, and covering vents with mesh or fire-resistant materials. Learn more at the link in our show notes. I'm nice. I'm pretty and I'm smart. I'm a cat. Sex in the City actor Kristen Davis will give CU's commencement speech this spring. The university announced last week. Davis, best known for her role as Charlotte on the show and its spin-off, and just like that, was born in Boulder. Her father was a psychology professor at CU, and her mother is an alum. CU is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. Graduation is Saturday, May 2nd, at Folsom Field. With Daylight Savings Time starting this past weekend, today's main story is all about time, how you spend it, and what it's worth. Time banking is a platform that allows you to exchange your time through services, instruction, or direct aid for the services, instruction, or direct aid of others. Unlike the real world, everyone's time is valued equally in the time bank. One hour of pet sitting is equal to one hour of legal advice. As the website says, it's not barter, it's reciprocity. These exchanges don't have to be direct. Say I'm an excellent editor, which for the record, I am. If I spend one hour editing on Time Bank, I get one time credit added to my account. I can then use that credit to spend on whatever is offered up by any member of my local time bank. For instance, one hour of snow driving lessons. That's not a hypothetical. I really did use some of my time credit to get lessons on driving in the snow during the January storm. Somebody showed up at my house and let me use her car to spin donuts in a parking lot and practice going up and down hills and around corners in near whiteout conditions. That somebody was Heather Goldsboro, president of Time Bank Boulder. Heather joined me recently to talk about Time Banking's many benefits and the tremendous growth Boulder's Time Bank is currently undergoing.

SPEAKER_03 8:48

Time Bank Boulder, it's been around since 2003, and we are a community that helps people help each other. We trade time and everyone's time is valued equally. So if I spend an hour helping you uh clean out your refrigerator, I get a time credit, and then I can use that to get help with something else.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

Yeah, I think that's one of the neatest things is that time is valued equally, which is so not the case in our society at large. And also the tracking of the time specifically makes it different from bartering, which is, I think, you know, one of the alternative economies that people are most familiar with. And also I didn't know until I joined the time bank, bartering is not tax exempt, but time banking is.

SPEAKER_03 9:34

Because it's not, it's not direct. I don't have to get help from the same person that I help. And that also makes it a lot more convenient. I've received firewood, canning jars, poles, tea, uh potash for my garden. I borrowed chocolate molds to make Christmas candy. I borrowed gardening tools, canning equipment, an apple picker, a folding table, a squeegee, a food dehydrator. I've gotten multiple cat sits out of the time bank and help clipping my cat's nails. I got a ride to the doctor after a car accident. I've had clothes mended and altered. I've gotten counseling on like difficult issues I couldn't figure out. I got woodworking advice, a photography lesson, and a ride to the airport before 5 a.m. Okay, yeah. The before 5 a.m.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

part is incredibly impressive.

SPEAKER_03 10:30

One of the other things that I love about the Time Bank is I don't need to jump through a bunch of legal hoops to provide a service for some type of credit. I don't have to prove that I went to school for something. What matters is that I can do it. I don't need to buy liability insurance to start a business. I can just provide the service and get something back for it. One example for me specifically would be foraging. I love to forage and I love to teach people how to eat wild food. And I was able to offer that as a time bank event last year. And 12 people showed up and we spent an hour and a half walking around Boulder looking at plants. If I wanted to start that as a business, to do that on a regular basis, there would be so much work in the beginning before I would even get to do the fun part and a lot of monetary investment too insurance, business licenses, things like that. But if I offer it through the time bank, I can just do it.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

Can we talk a little bit about what the Time Bank Boulder community looks like? So there are time banks all over the world. This is not just a boulder phenomenon. Do we know how many active members there are? How much exchanging is happening?

SPEAKER_03 11:48

This year, the Time Bank has really seen a resurgence in activity. Like most things, it experienced a deep lull during COVID. And we've been working to bring it back from that. We have over 100 active members. Already this year, they've completed 128 exchanges for a total of 301 hours. That is a huge increase from last year. Last year was only 60 exchanges and 95 hours by this time.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

Are there certain skills that are highly represented? Are there any that you're like, hey, we're really missing this sector or something?

SPEAKER_03 12:25

There are a few things that are always hoped for and in demand. One of them is massage. I personally am hoping for some people with mechanic skills. I would like someone to help me learn to change my brakes and give me a place where I can do that so that I can use their tools and not have to store them myself because I don't have a place to put those. A lot of the exchanges, though, that occur are common everyday things, like give me a ride to the store. Can you pick up this loaf of bread from this specific place for me because I can't get there in time? Some people cook for other members. I know one member who had someone prep like a week's worth of salad for them because they just don't like chopping vegetables. It's really the little, the small quality of life things that happen most often. There's also a group uh that gets together through the time bank for Spanish language practice, another, another group that plays Scrabble once a week. But we are working to try to bring in more of those, what the monetary system would call high value skills, just because it's good to have a mix and those people need help with things too.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

I actually joined not only because I think it's cool and creates a world that I want to see, but my hair clippers are like very loud and I'm afraid to put them on my scalp. And so I joined to have those repaired, and that's my only outstanding ask still that hasn't been met.

SPEAKER_03 13:51

So yes, if anyone out there listening to this is good at small appliance repair, I know you're out there because there's an event at the library occasionally where people like that show up. Please join the time bank. I did, I did ask for toaster repair and I didn't get that one. One of the angles we're pursuing is trying to bring in people from organizations that already provide great services because we can give those people uh credit for their time. They're already volunteering and we can give them time credit for that volunteering. It just makes it easier to pay it forward. It's it's more efficient. That's all. I don't think that all time banks offer um hourly credit for community service, but we do. We want to be a help to the community at large, not just to each other. And that's one way that we can do that.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

I was thinking when you said it's more efficient, I was like, it's more efficient, but without losing soul. It's somehow more soulful too. So I think a lot of time efficiency comes at the cost of human connection. Things that I I use too, the automatic ATM and things that remove the humans from your life. It's all in the name of efficiency, but you lose those interactions. And the time bank is efficient and interactive, which is so great.

SPEAKER_03 15:08

I think time banking is especially important in metropolitan areas because when you live in a small town, you know everyone already, and you can just ask for help and you build, they call it social credit. I mean, time bank members let each other into their homes. I know one time bank member recently lent their car out to another member's relative. You have to trust people to do things like that. You have to meet them, you have to know them. And when you join the time bank and you complete a few exchanges, every exchange is like a witness that says, Yeah, this person is not going to steal from you. They're trustworthy, they're normal. It's okay to interact with them and you don't need to be afraid.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

I loved that everyone had to do a uh, I would say somewhat extensive application and background check, not like a criminal background check unless you're providing elder or childcare, I believe. But you ask for two references and they were contacted. I checked with them, and that made me feel so good as a you know, a member of a somewhat more vulnerable population, as a woman. Like the internet can be a scary place and meeting strangers online can be really scary. So to know that everyone there was verified and referenced was like, okay, I'm probably safe here.

SPEAKER_03 16:25

We recently made the references a very strong requirement. It wasn't before, but we think that that's important because we want people to feel, you know, safe enough to interact with each other. Because that's kind of the point. We always encourage people to take, you know, Craigslist level precaution. Like ask them where you're gonna meet them. You know, if you don't feel comfortable, meet them in a public place the first time or talk to them over Zoom. That's okay. You don't have to say yes to going to someone's house or giving someone a ride if you've never met them. Is there anything else I should be asking you? Some people also tell me when I tell them about the time bank, I don't think I have anything to give. And I have never found that to actually be true. It makes me kind of sad that someone would say that about themselves. And if you join the time bank, we will absolutely help prove to you that that is not true. People offer the most basic things, and they're a huge help to others. Sometimes people just call on the phone and check on someone, and that's all they do, and that has value. A ride to the store has value, it's needed, it's necessary. And you can also lend things if you have a piece of equipment, even just like a simple kitchen tool, like a blender. Sometimes people need those too, or a hairdryer, or an old computer that you would probably throw away otherwise. There's always, always something that you can do to help someone else. And I I hope that no one sits alone in their house and thinks I have no value because there's just no way that's true.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Thank you so much for the snow driving lessons. I was so proud of myself. You have no idea. I would never have done that. My sister had offered to teach me, and I was like, if you had showed up at my door in that snow, I would have turned you around and made you go home. But because you were a stranger, I was like, well, I I can't. I can't waste her time and I have to be polite. And focusing on making conversation with you kept me calm. It was very cool. So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_03 18:26

Yeah, and you've just you've just taught me another advantage of time thinking. Sometimes you just need a stranger.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

You can listen to my full interview with Heather at patreon.com/slash boulder frequencypod. Thanks to Heather and Doug for their help in putting the show together. I'll be joined next week by Erica Mahoney, a boulder-born journalist and daughter of Kevin Mahoney, who was killed in the King Super Shooting five years ago this month. Thanks for listening. Before you go, here's one more thing.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

This is fundamental and definitional to what it is to be a human in time. We really hate this fact for a lot of reasons. Uh, so we do a lot of things, often masquerading as productivity techniques or habit change projects and projects of personal transformation, mainly to make ourselves feel uh that that's not true, mainly to sort of help us ignore the vulnerable and uh limiting and constraining truth of being a human. You start to feel that it's only if you kind of do enough stuff that you get to feel good about yourself. There's no limit to the amount of stuff that is coming in to the you know the input side of this arrangement. Uh your outputs are very limited, so you're just in this kind of tangle the whole time. And like, yeah, ultimately that can't be the definition of a meaningful life that you like the the the number of things that you did. It's it's got to be something about what you did and whether you did it in a spirit of like showing up for a and presence while you were doing it. It just leads to this, you know, it leads to this way of measuring ourselves that is never going to lead us to complete the way we're okay.