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Boulder County childcare for needy gets a boost
Dec 27th
Help with childcare available for qualified Boulder County families
Funds from Ballot Initiative 1A continue to boost childcare program and promote self-sufficiency
Boulder County, Colo. – Boulder County Families who need help with childcare and who meet eligibility requirements are once again being invited to sign up for childcare assistance. The Colorado Childcare Assistance Program (CCAP) waitlist is open for applications. CCAP is a program that supports individuals and families at or below 185 percent of the federal poverty level, helping them access quality childcare so the parents or guardians can remain employed or in educational programs. For low-wage working parents and guardians, or parents enrolled in school or technical training, childcare can represent an extraordinary expense.
As economic conditions have worsened, the need for childcare assistance has increased dramatically in Boulder County. Not only are more families in need of this help, but also declining wages and job losses have made more families eligible for CCAP benefits. In 2010, the Boulder County Department of Housing and Human Services suspended enrollment for CCAP because need was outpacing resources for the program. Later that year, Boulder County voters approved Ballot Initiative 1A, which was designed to help backfill deficiencies in state funding for county human services programs. Among other things, money from 1A, also known as the Temporary Safety Net, has been used to reopen the CCAP waitlist and to expand the program itself. More than 40 percent of the $5.1 million raised by 1A in 2011 is being used to meet additional childcare needs in Boulder County.
In order to qualify for CCAP, parents or guardians must be Boulder County residents, and must have a job, be searching for a job, or be in school or seeking training. Income caps for qualification are based on family size. As examples, a family of three with a monthly gross income of less than $2,857 or a family of four with a monthly gross income of less than $3,346 could take part in CCAP. Families who qualify pay a portion of the childcare costs based on income. A full list of requirements and more information on CCAP is available on the Boulder County website or by calling community partner Aspen Family Services (which administers CCAP’s application process) at 303-604-1043, ext. 2828.
No consensus for GMOs, pesticides, “experimental farming” in #Boulder County’s cropland policy
Dec 13th
Commissioners to consider Cropland Policy at Dec. 20 public meeting
Boulder County, Colo. – The Boulder County Commissioners will deliberate on public testimony and comments received concerning the Cropland Policy Advisory Group’s (CPAG) policy recommendations for Boulder County Open Space croplands on Dec. 20 from 1-3 p.m.
What: Public meeting for the Board of County Commissioners to consider the proposed Cropland Policy for Boulder County Open Space agricultural lands
When: Tuesday, Dec. 20 at 1 p.m.
Where: Commissioners’ Hearing Room, Boulder County Courthouse, third floor, 1325 Pearl St.
Alternative viewing: Watch the meeting live online the day of the deliberations
The meeting on Dec. 20 is open to the public, but no further public testimony will be taken. All comments submitted to the commissioners via regular mail, electronic mail, phone calls and in-person testimony leading up to the Dec. 20 meeting date will be taken into consideration.
The meeting will be Web streamed live on Dec. 20. Members of the public can view the meeting online at:www.bouldercounty.org/government/pages/hearings.aspx. A taped version of the meeting will also be posted on the website as part of the commissioners’ video archive.
Background
The CPAG, consisting of nine members appointed by the commissioners, held meetings over a nine-month period to create a comprehensive Cropland Policy for Boulder County Open Space agricultural lands. The policy recommendations address soil health, economic sustainability, pest management, program administration, water, livestock, recreation and natural resource protection on agricultural lands. Through a consensus process, CPAG developed more than 80 policy recommendations. Three areas failed to achieve consensus: genetically engineered crops, use of certain pesticides, and experimental farming practices.
On Dec. 8, the county commissioners held a public hearing attended by more than 500 people, many of whom signed up to speak. At the hearing, the commissioners and attendees received a staff presentation on the county’s existing practices and programs, an overview of CPAG’s recommendations and a summary of input from the Food and Agriculture Policy Council (FAPC), the Parks and Open Space Advisory Committee (POSAC), and Parks and Open Space staff. The presentation was followed by 8 ½ hours of open public comment.
Members of the public have been providing input over the nine-month period, and all comments have been recorded as part of the public record. In addition to the many open meetings and hearings held by CPAG as they formed their recommendations for the cropland policy, several subsequent public meetings have been held to consider the draft policy: a staff presentation and joint public hearing on Nov. 15 to FAPC and POSAC, FAPC deliberations on Nov. 16, POSAC deliberations on Nov. 17, and the public open comment hearing with the Board of County Commissioners on Dec. 8.
For a copy of the Cropland Policy provided to the commissioners and information about the policy, please visit the Cropland Policy website or contact Resource Planner Jesse Rounds at 303-678-6271 or croplandpolicy@bouldercounty.org.
CU Boulder “snakeman” moving on and up
Dec 13th
CU-BOULDER LAB EXPERIENCE LAUNCHES
CAREER PATH FOR GRADUATING SENIOR
CAREER PATH FOR GRADUATING SENIOR
After two years of working in a University of Colorado Boulder laboratory that recently gained international media attention for its work with snakes and heart disease, graduating senior Ryan Doptis has set his sights on becoming a research scientist.
Doptis, a molecular, cellular and developmental biology major from Las Vegas, will graduate on Dec. 16. He has worked the past two years in the laboratory of CU-Boulder Professor Leslie Leinwand, the chief scientific officer of CU’s Biofrontiers Institute.
“At CU-Boulder I’ve had a lot of opportunities when it comes to getting real-world experience,” Doptis said. “After two years of going through the molecular biology program, I decided I wanted to try lab work. And I really wanted to do meaningful research that wasn’t the same cookie-cutter experiment every semester.”
He found a perfect fit working in the laboratory of Leinwand, who is an expert in genetic heart diseases including hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, the leading cause of sudden death in young athletes. Doptis’ work involves both cardiovascular and metabolic responses to eating conducted in a very unusual animal model – the Burmese python..
The research opportunity has been very fulfilling, he said, because he enjoys working with snakes and studying how they can provide insight into new ways to think about and treat some of the most serious medical problems people face, such as heart disease.
One of the things the Leinwand lab is investigating is the process by which a Burmese python’s heart size drastically increases after a gigantic meal. A python’s meal can often be 25 to 100 percent of its own body weight.
“What our research focuses on is in those few days when the snake is digesting the meal, they ramp up their metabolic rate by fortyfold,” Doptis said. “In doing that, their heart and their liver are able to get 50 to 100 percent larger than they are at a resting state. And after they digest their meal, they actually drop those organs back down to their resting size.”
A lot of the research in the lab centers around how the pythons’ heart size can change so quickly without ill side effects. Answering that question could someday lead to medical breakthroughs in the area of treating heart disease, which is the leading cause of death in the United States. When people develop certain types of heart disease, they develop something called cardiac hypertrophy, which means their heart gets enlarged. Once that happens, it’s irreversible.
“These snakes are able to increase the size of their hearts, and then shrink the size of their hearts after every meal,” Doptis said. “We’re trying to understand the mechanism of how that can apply to possibly bring down the size of a human heart that has become enlarged.”
As part of his work in the lab, Doptis applied for and received a research grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to help fund some of the python research he was working on.
“I designed an experiment and completely conducted that experiment myself, and was funded by Howard Hughes Medical Institute for that experiment,” he said. “I don’t think that’s something you can find at every university.”
Once he graduates, Doptis plans to go to graduate school and work on a doctorate degree that involves lab work.
“The experience I’ve had here will be invaluable when I enter graduate school, because I know my way around a lab, I know how to work a lot of the equipment and I’ve learned how good experimental design is done,” he said
