unknown 0:00

The frequency of the frequency.

SPEAKER_05 0:09

Good morning, Boulder County. It's Wednesday, September 16th. I'm Shay Castle, and this is the Frequency, a weekly local podcast covering the news, events, and voices shaping the Boulder Valley. We're back after a week off for the holiday and ready to get you all caught up on what's happening in your community. But first, a word from our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by Boulder Bookstore. Come visit Boulder's community bookstore on the Pearl Street Mall. Besides having an amazing selection of books, they host author events every week. On Thursday, September 24th, see Thomas Lowe Fleischner, author of Astonished by Beauty, and Anne Haven McDonnell, author of Singing Under Snow. The event begins at 6.30 p.m. Visit Boulderbookstore.com to buy tickets, see a full list of upcoming events, and support the store's Literacy Foundation in its mission to donate books to schools and students in need. That link, once again, is Boulderbookstore.com. And now, the headlines.

SPEAKER_04 1:21

Stability matters for students. So show me the data that what we're currently doing is negatively impacting performance. The financial gains are very meager. A 1% budget savings, significant upfront costs, and only a 5% utilization gain in Boulder specifically. The board has had in place a subcommittee called the Long Range Advisory Committee for several years, looking at two very specific metrics utilization and number of rounds per grade. Douglas specifically was never flagged for falling below the first status criteria of 60% utilization and under two rounds per grade. It's a really confusing thing as a school district to abandon a process that you've held on to for a long time. And we don't have any answers as to why. My name is Aaron Palmer. I am a community member and I am a parent of two students who attend Douglas Elementary School.

SPEAKER_05 2:23

Aaron is just one parent from a group advocating a no vote on BVSD's plan to close and consolidate a half dozen schools in Boulder County and Broomfield. The group, Better Plan for BVSD, staged a protest ahead of the September 8th board meeting. The meeting lasted over five hours, with more than 180 members of the public speaking, about a quarter of whom were students at affected schools. Many are asking the district to delay a decision on the proposal. The board is scheduled to vote September 22nd, with the changes going into effect for the 2027-2028 school year. In other BVSD news, the Anti-Defamation League has dropped its federal civil rights complaint against the district for its failure to stop repeated harassment of a Jewish student at Southern Hills Middle School in Boulder. The complaint was filed in June with the U.S. Department of Education. The district has been in mediation with the Anti-Defamation League until this week. In exchange for dropping the complaint, BVSD laid out a six-part plan to address anti-Semitism within the district. It includes centralizing anti-discrimination and anti-bullying resources, like the safe to tell reporting system, strengthening policies and procedures, increasing training for administrators and educators, and strengthening consequences for repeated acts of hate. A spokesperson would not confirm if the district intends to adopt the ADL's anti-Semitism curricula. Some parents circulated a petition opposing the organization's framing of Israel military action in Gaza and asked BVSD not to partner with the organization.

SPEAKER_03 3:58

Some of the specific concerns with the ADL is the conflation of anti-Zionism and most pro-Palestinian speech with anti-Semitism using the IRA or International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition uniformly. Like I don't think anyone thinks anything but when they read that Title VI complaint, that these deeply troubling incidents of anti-Semitic bullying need to be addressed, and that what happened to this child and family is incredibly concerning. And like how the district figures out how to approach that is going to be a really important question. So all of us are saying there needs to be a comprehensive response to anti-Semitism. Our caveats are like it should not be with the ADL and it should not be using the IRA definition.

SPEAKER_05 4:50

That's the voice of Lisa Kunkel, a parent of a BVSD student who led the petition efforts. The district also plans to convene an advisory group that includes, quote, community representatives, according to a statement issued last week.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

So we want to make sure that our community is reflected.

SPEAKER_05 5:31

Megan's body was found in Boulder Canyon six days after her disappearance in February 2025. A review of the case was the first under a state law requiring additional scrutiny around the deaths and disappearances of indigenous Americans in Colorado. Megan's family remains highly critical of the process, saying the 40-member cold case team was disengaged, underprepared, and misinformed on key facts. Megan's father, Joe Trussell, told Axios Boulder, quote, That's what I would tell a family member in our situation. Do not expect results until this law is tweaked. Read more at the link in our show notes. The city declined to renew a long-term contract with the operator of license fleet reading technology, instead moving to a contract that can be canceled with 30 days' notice. A new vendor was supposed to be selected this month, with the city conducting a competitive bidding process over the summer. But a September 10th press release said the vendor selection process will extend into spring 2027. An engagement process is being designed now, the release stated, with more information promised soon. Flock captures images of cars and some cyclists and pedestrians every time one passes a camera. Those images are then uploaded into a searchable database that can be accessed by law enforcement for a certain amount of time. A process critics have compared to warrantless searches and mass surveillance. Also, in the press release, the city announced it will shorten the length of time that data can be kept in the system from 28 days to 14. Denver and Longmont ended their contracts with Flock in favor of another company, while Fort Collins removed its license plate reader cameras altogether. Find the city's press release and a link to our deep dive on Flock technology in our show notes.

SPEAKER_06 7:28

Well, the pizzas are all made fresh from a dough ball, and when we put one out and somebody comes up and buys eight slices at once and buys all the pizza, it's just kind of what's been happening. But we're going as quickly as we can.

SPEAKER_05 7:40

Colorado's first pizza festival drew a crowd of 9,000 and lots of complaints. The festival was planned for less than half that amount of people, according to organizers. The overcrowding resulted in long lines for every participating vendor and even water. Due to the warm temperatures, numerous people were escorted from the festival by medical personnel, and organizers have since issued an apology for mishandling the planning. They vowed to make changes before the festival's return next year. On the plus side, some $60,000 was raised for four nonprofits fighting hunger and food insecurity, including Longmont Food Rescue, Community Food Share, and Colorado Friendship. All three local groups said the money would have a huge impact on their organizations. Community Food Share said with their cut, they will be able to provide 30,000 meals to families across Boulder and Broomfield counties. Colorado Friendship will give weekend food bags to children in the St. Rain Valley School District. In an emailed statement, Naomi Curland with Longmont Food Rescue wrote, At a time when SNAP benefits have been severely cut and so many people are facing food insecurity and seeking nutritional support, this fundraiser will bolster our programs to meet the growing need in our community. September is Hunger Action Month. Find links to support all three organizations in our show notes. Pizza Fest may be mercifully over, but you can still visit Longmont to get some of the state's absolute best slices. Tyler Hickman from Our Sister Podcast did a wonderful story on the up-and-coming foodie scene in that town. Find it at themountaineear.com slash podcast or at the link in our show notes. That's T-H-E-M-T-N-E-A-R.com slash podcast. An immigrant detention center in northern Colorado is preparing to fully staff up. Bighorn Correctional Facility has held a half dozen open houses at the former private prison, located roughly 30 miles east of Longmont in Hudson, Colorado. More than two dozen jobs were advertised. Officials have declined to confirm an opening date for the detention center. Meanwhile, an immigrants' rights group is suing the town of Hudson, claiming the facility needs a special use permit to operate. Although the building was once a private prison, the conditional use permit that allowed it to operate as such lapsed in 2013, according to the lawsuit. The underlying zoning on the property is industrial. The town of Hudson maintains it has no grounds to oppose the reopening, and that the federal government's authority supersedes its own.

SPEAKER_02 10:14

There is a way for them to say no. They do have water waste problems. They have problems with their roads. They already don't have roads that can sustain vehicles with that kind of weight. They don't have enough staff on their law enforcement to begin with. They have a lot of zoning issues and problems within the town itself. So all of these things combined, how do they know that as a town that they can sustain something of this magnitude? They're already having these issues, and the town is only 1,500 people or so. So if you double that, how are they going to be able to have it run? The Aurora Center already is having problems. If Aurora can't do it, how is Hudson going to do it, basically?

SPEAKER_05 11:05

That's Jennifer Montes, an advocate who has been attending town meetings in Hudson for more than a year to oppose the reopening of the facility. Hear more from Jennifer in the January 14th episode of The Frequency. And read more about the lawsuit against Hudson from the Colorado Sun at the link in our show notes. Hotel Dolderado workers on Friday organized their largest demonstration since they began picketing more than three months ago. The historic hotel was bought by Nashville-based private equity group AJ Capital Partners in 2024. It is set to become part of the Hilton brand of graduate hotels located in university towns. Workers at Hotel Dolderado say the new owners cut staff, increasing workloads and degrading the work environment. Employees are attempting to unionize and report the hotel has brought in anti-union consultants to meet with workers one-on-one. Hotel Dolderado workers are now attempting to, quote, get the attention of Sundance Film Festival, according to a recent press release. Sundance organizers announced July 29th that Hotel Boldorado would serve as festival headquarters. Workers at the Hotel Boldorado are simply asking for a fair process to decide on a union, free of intimidation and retaliation, said Gwen Mills, international president of Hospitality Union Unite here in a press release. Quote, We hope Sundance Film Festival will support the workers who are opening the doors of their workplace to the festival. The September 11th demonstration drew support from the National Teamsters Union as well as several local elected officials and candidates. In response to an emailed request for comment, a Sundance spokesperson wrote, We will continue to actively monitor the developing situation and hope both sides arrive at a mutually agreeable solution. We started the show talking about school closures. Let's end it that way. Today we've got our first ever listener feedback.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

Hi Shay, it's Shaquille from Longmont. On the September 2nd episode, you talked about the Boulder Valley School District closing schools and Boulder updating its comprehensive plans so that more homes can be added to the city. I wish you'd discussed the connection between those two topics. BBSD is losing students because families with children can no longer afford to live in Boulder County. This is primarily because Boulder has obstructed the construction of homes for decades while adding tens of thousands of jobs. This created a shortage, at first causing people to move to other cities in the county, and now restrictive housing policies in every Boulder County city have made it so that only the richest can afford to move here. By definition, this excludes most people, especially families with school-age children. You can see this playing out in the St. Franley School District right now. This last year, the district announced the closure of Sanborn Elementary in Longmont due to low enrollment, just months after asking voters for $740 million to build new schools in Erie, Meade, Firestone, and Frederick, and they're going to ask for even more money to build new schools next year. The difference between those places, all in the same school district, is that, for now, those outlying cities are still affordable to families because they are adding homes through sprawl. The school closures will continue until Boulder, Longmont, and every other city in Boulder County gets its act together and makes it legal to build something besides million-dollar single-family homes. Otherwise, the state demographers' predictions are going to come true, and Boulder County is going to become the world's largest old folks' home.

SPEAKER_05 14:39

A huge thank you to Shaquille for taking the time to email me this voice note. The housing shortage and school closures are not just a Boulder problem. Although anti-growth policies here were among some of the most aggressive in the country. Adams County also recently announced school closures, including Centennial Elementary in Broomfield, and Denver Public Schools closed or restructured 10 of its schools before the current academic year. Estimates of the housing deficit vary, but range between 3.7 and 5.5 million homes across the country. Prices have risen as construction failed to keep pace with economic growth in key regions. The U.S.'s capitalistic system also incentivizes the development of high-cost luxury housing as builders seek to turn a profit. The shortage of homes considered affordable to low-income Americans tops 7 million, according to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. No state or major metropolitan area has an adequate supply of affordable and available homes for extremely low-income renters. One more thanks to Shaquille for broaching these topics. I'm sure we'll revisit them many times on the podcast. Send your thoughts about the frequency or any Boulder County current events to boulderfrequency at gmail.com. As always, thanks for listening.