Elmer's Twomile Blog

It's gonna be so, so green around here for a while.

Taken at Goose Creek hours after two inches of hail collected on my  window sill yesterday.

About 8 p.m. on Monday.

I love longer days.

A lot of the time when I’m looking for material for the blog, I just thrash around on Google until I find something new. Today, it’s not particularly exciting, but it does get at sort of an interesting question for me.

Obviously I’m interested in community character, or I wouldn’t be doing this. How large or small does a community have to be to have a character?

This little sales pitch for a home in Winding Trail Village makes it sound like it’s a community of scientists. Ha! How cool would that be? I like to take it a step further and just imagine all of the scientists showing up in labcoats and Priuses all at the same time, watches synchronized to the atomic clock…

Many of the neighbors in this community are scientists and engineers who work at NCAR.  Working at NCAR and living in Winding Trail Village is a perfect match because you can walk to work.  There is also a planned light rail station nearby.

(By the way, the post is about a year old.)

What would you say, in the broadest of strokes, is the character of your immediate block or complex or subdvision?

…or a lot of new nearby vacancies?

Here’s a Boulder Blueline post about a bunch of proposed developments kinda-sorta in our area, but mostly to the south or east of what I’d really consider our neighborhood at this point.

All five projects are within or very close to one census tract, bordered roughly by 28th St. on the west, Arapahoe on the south, 55th St. on the east, and the Diagonal and Independence on the north.  In the 2000 census, this tract had a population of 6,125 and an average household size of 2.0 people, with a 50-50 split between rental and owner-occupied units.  If the new units also averaged a household size of 2.0, they would bring an additional 2,200 people to the area, raising the population in the census tract by over a third from the year 2000.

In addition to details on the locations and whatnot of the developments, the post goes on to predict more traffic and talk about how some of it is tied into the very murky future of Boulder Junction.

Which you might know better as Transit Village.

Or even better as “hey, what was that I heard that one time about a passenger train coming to Boulder eventually? Like by 2042? And isn’t it now being talked about as just a super fancy bus stop?”

Police responded to a report of a prowler who was knocking on the doors and windows of a residence in the 3200 block of O’Neal Circle. Police found a 46-year-old man outside and arrested him for Domestic Violence, Harassment and DUI and DUI per se. The man is a former boyfriend of the victim. 11-5916

Someone tampered with an irrigation ditch gate at the Goose Creek Fork, (approx. 2635 Mapleton), flooding an area near 30^thStreet & Pearl Parkway. No suspect information. 11-5924

Naropa University, whose Paramita Campus is right here in Elmer’s Twomile, over next to the Cork, is considering a move to consolidate their three campuses into one contiguous campus on a hypothetical 50-acre piece of land… somewhere.

The Paramita Campus

That would definitely mean more open land up here eventually, but it’s a long-range plan:

“Running programs at three different campuses, separated by miles, really tears at the fabric” of the school’s mission, said Brian Bissell, Naropa’s chief financial officer.

Bissell said the goal is to identify a relocation site that is at least 50 acres. He said that location may or may not be in Boulder, and that other municipalities have expressed interest in luring the university.

“We need to find the right space,” Bissell said, adding that early direction from Naropa’s board of trustees is to try and keep the university in Boulder.

But while several members of the City Council expressed their desire to keep Naropa in Boulder, they also acknowledged that it’s becoming much harder to find that kind of developable space in the city.

Boy, first my friend Barry moves out from that Stratford Park complex (directly across from Paramita and the Cork) and now this.

I came across a pretty adorable account of a therapy dog and her guardian visiting Columbine Elementary to explain to the kiddos what a therapy dog is all about:

Many of you know our dog, Maddie, is a therapy dog at the County Juvenile Center where we visit the kids each week. A few weeks ago, Maddie and I tried something new. We made a therapy dog visit to my grandson’s preschool. What fun this was! My husband,Tom, joined us on this one. They were having “career week,” where parents came and talked to the kids about different jobs (have kids advanced since I was that age?) — so I talked about what a volunteer is and types of animal-related volunteer jobs. And Maddie let them know all the different important jobs that dogs do for humans, like her current job as a therapy dog, service dogs, search and rescue dogs, etc.

Photos and more over at the blog.

I still haven’t gotten my camera fixed. Sorry. But here’s a product shot of something I saw rolling around Elmer’s Two Mile Park last weekend: A Bakfiets CargoBike.

The Bakfiets CargoBike

The one I saw had two tennis racquets and some other stuff in it — and a little seat for kiddos. The brave soul who was piloting it let me try it out — it’s not easy to ride one of those, right at first! The hardest thing is that the wheel you’re turning is awfully far away from your handlebars.

Anyway, pretty cool ride. I’m jealous. But not jealous enough to drop $3,000 on one.

The Camera reports that our local elementary school was one of the bright spots among third grade test results:

Boulder’s Columbine Elementary, where about 75 percent of students are low-income, saw the biggest increase in its scores overall of any district school — up 25 percentage points, from 38 percent scoring proficient and advanced last year to 63 percent this year.

Columbine Principal Guillermo Medina said the school’s teachers will need to look “much deeper” than average school scores.

…

Columbine is one of seven Boulder Valley schools that receives Title I money from the state and can be sanctioned for failing to make adequate progress on state tests. Several other Title 1 schools also made gains, though they weren’t as large as those at Columbine.

Police investigated a burglary in the 2700 block of Valmont. The residents admitted to leaving their door unlocked. A game system and computer items are missing. No suspect information.