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VOLUME 120 | ISSUE 20
WEEK OF MAY 18, 2023
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Riverdale park getting amphitheater
Legislature asks voters to approve 10year property tax relief plan BY JESSE PAUL AND ELLIOTT WENZLER THE COLORADO SUN
Riverdale Regional Park, which now includes the Adams County Fairgrounds, Waymire Dome and the recently opened Riverdale Animal Shelter. Stringham and Parks and Open Space Director Byron Fanning presented two options for locating the amphitheater — alongside the memorial itself or across the water on Mann-Nieholt Lake’s northern shore.
Colorado voters will decide in November whether to approve a 10-year plan to rein in skyrocketing property taxes, as well as whether the state should distribute about $2 billion in Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights refunds checks next year in equal amounts rather than linking their size to people’s income level, with more money being sent to higher earners. The questions were placed on the November ballot on May 8 by Democrats in the Colorado legislature as the General Assembly wrapped up its 120-day lawmaking term. The legislature worked until about 10 p.m., just before its 11:59 p.m. deadline, to complete its work, when the Capitol carriage turns back into a pumpkin. The last few hours of the session were chaotic, with Republicans walking out of the House chamber in protest, Democrats in the House lambasting each other and the Senate limiting debate to stop a GOP filibuster. The property tax plan, pushed for by Gov. Jared Polis, will appear on the ballot as Proposition HH and
SEE AMPHITHEATER, P4
SEE RELIEF, P15
A dragon boat sits moored in the Mann-Nieholt Lake on Adams County’s Riverdale Regional Park, across the water from the county’s PHOTO BY SCOTT TAYLOR new Veterans Memorial, which is due to be finished by Memorial Day this year.
that alone will justify this,” Colorado battleship, with the bow Commissioners agree to and Commissioner Chaz Tedesco said. jutting into the lake and the current “Anybody that uses that facility will passing through the site. It will put new feature across lake see it, and it can become an iconic trail be surrounded by trails, memorial place. People will see it in everyone’s plaques and places to sit. It is the from Veterans Memorial background and they’ll want to see it latest addition to the expansion of BY SCOTT TAYLOR STAYLOR@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
Adams County’s new Veteran’s Memorial will get a companion amphitheater across Mann-Nieholt Lake next year, county commissioners agreed May 9. “When people are taking pictures and their event is backed up to the lake, they’ll have that battleship and that memorial in the background
and come there.” Work on the county’s new Veteran’s Memorial, a replica battleship being built along the southern shore of Mann-Nieholt Lake in the Riverdale Park complex, is due to wrap up in the next couple of weeks. The memorial opens by Memorial Day, May 29, according to Cyndi Stringham, Adams County’s manager of planning, design and construction. When finished, the memorial will be a life-sized model of the USS
VOICES: PAGE 6 | OBITUARIES: PAGE 7 | LIFE: PAGE 8 | CLASSIFIEDS: PAGE 12
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