Posts tagged removal
City of Boulder News Briefs (for reals)
Apr 7th
The City of Boulder’s Parks and Recreation Department has begun a tree removal and replacement project on the 1300 block of the Pearl Street Mall.
The project will include removing declining linden trees and tree grates, realigning tree vaults, enlarging tree grates and planting new trees. This work may cause brief, minor access closures. The project is expected to be completed by April 15 (depending on weather and contactor scheduling). There are no anticipated business access impacts due to this work.
For construction updates, visit www.BoulderParkNews.org.
Boulder Municipal Court to close from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. April 8
Boulder Municipal Court will be closed from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Friday, April 8, for a staff meeting.
Washington Village Progress Report for Nobo North Boulder
Mar 9th
-Steven Toot, VP of Construction
SENIOR COHOUSING:
Establishing a Healthy, Sustainable Lifestyle for an Aging Generation
by Chuck Durrett
Last year Americans drove 5 billion miles caring for seniors in their homes (Meals on Wheels, Whistle Stop Nurses, and so on). In our small, semi-rural county in the Sierra foothills, Telecare made 60,000 trips in massive, lumbering, polluting vans-buses – usually carrying only one senior at a time – schlepping a couple thousand seniors total over hill and dale to doctor’s appointments, to pick up medicine, or to see friends. In our cohousing community of 21 seniors, I have never seen a single Telecare bus in the driveway. In cohousing it happens organically by caring neighbors: “Can I catch a ride with you?”; “Are you headed to the drug store?”, etc. And this alternative is much more fun and inexpensive for all involved, and much less damaging to the environment. Wolf Creek Lodge, a new senior cohousing community under construction, has 30 units on 1 acre within walking distance of downtown Grass Valley, CA. population 12,000. Top of mind, one future household will be moving from a 20 acre lot, 9 miles from town, another from 15 acres, also 9 miles out of town, and another from 13 acres, 7 miles from town. These are young seniors planning not only to live more sustainably, but more fulfilling as well.
Bill Thomas, M.D. and prominent author on issues affecting seniors, describes our currently predominant scenario of caring for seniors as the “$3 trillion dollar dilemma.” The cost of care for the 78 million new senior/baby boomers “coming of age” in the next 20 years will be $3 trillion dollars more per year than it is now (and that is in a nation with a $13 trillion dollar GDP – to put it into perspective). It goes without saying, that the current pattern is not sustainable from an environmental, cultural or financial point of view.
President Obama has announced that for us to arrest global warming, we will have to reduce carbon emissions by 2% per year until 2050. It seems doable, but last year, carbon emissions increased by 1.4% – we are headed in the wrong direction. Given this situation, we’ve got to do something. We need to think collectively about how to set seniors up for success and to help them achieve their full potential into their last 20-30 years and how to set the environment up for success at the same time. Cohousing is for seniors who want to be a part of the solution.
SENIOR COHOUSING WORKSHOP APRIL 11-15, 2011
Senior Cohousing: A Community Approach to Independent Living, second edition published by New Society Publishers (www.newsociety.com) – and the type of communities it describes and helps to create – allows seniors to live lightly on the planet and to enhance their quality of life at the same time.
City to remove emergency call boxes from the Hill due to lack of legitimate use
Feb 4th
The call boxes, also known as “blue phones,” have instead become a source of frequent pranks. In 2009 and 2010, police received 351 calls from the blue phones – all of which turned out to be false. In each case, police responded, diverting them from other responsibilities and actual calls for help.
The city has been providing the blue phone service since 2002, and at that time, the equipment served an important safety purpose. Today, however, with the prevalence of cell phones, the police department believes they are no longer needed. Emergency calls for service from that area universally come from cell phones and landlines. In addition, the phones are starting to break and would require costly repair or replacement.
“We remain committed to providing prompt and effective public safety service to University Hill and all other areas of the city. That is our number one priority,” said Police Chief Mark Beckner. “While these phones helped the community feel safer when cell phones were not as prevalent, their value and purpose has diminished with the changing times.”
The phones that will be removed are located at:
1202 Pleasant St.
12th Street/Pennsylvania Avenue
13th Street/Euclid Avenue
12th Street/College Avenue
1000 block of 14th Street
The city has met with both university officials and representatives of CU Student Government, and all are in agreement that the phones on the Hill have outlasted their intended purpose. Any money saved from keeping this equipment operational will be put back into the Hill maintenance fund.