VOLUME 35 | ISSUE 27
WEEK OF JULY 6, 2023
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Conservation group receives $350,000 as part of full canal protection goal
Law was unconstitutional, and legislators were warned BY JESSE PAUL AND ELLIOTT WENZLER THE COLORADO SUN
Runners and walkers enjoying the trail along the High Line Canal at Three Pond Park in Cherry Hills Village. BY TEDDY JACOBSEN TJACOBSEN@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
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LOCAL OBITUARIES LEGALS CLASSIFIED
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The High Line Canal, which winds 71 miles across the metro area, will soon be permanently protected as regional open space. Great Outdoors Colorado, an environmental nonprofit, announced in June a $350,000 grant to High Line Canal Conservancy to help permanently protect the canal as a continuous recreational, ecological, historical and stormwater resource. “Permanent protection of the canal has been a top-line goal of our board and organization since the beginning in 2014,” High Line Canal Conservancy CEO Harriet Crittenden LaMair said in a press release. “It’s extremely exciting to be actively working with Denver Water, Arapahoe County and other local governmental partners toward a permanent protection vehicle.” The canal spans 860 acres and its associated trail system connects walkers, hikers, runners, cyclists, horseback riders and others to thousands more acres of parks and open spaces. The canal runs through parts of Adams, Arapahoe, Denver and Douglas counties, spanning a solid slice of eastern metro area from north to south. “It’s important for the community to know that the canal is preserved permanently for them to use freely into the future,” High Line Canal Conservancy Senior Director of Programs and Partnerships Suzanna Fry Jones told
Colorado Community Media. Jones said Denver Water will maintain ownership of the canal, but has been moving its customers to more sustainable sources of irrigation water in recent years. Denver Water Senior Community Relations Specialist Jimmy Luthye said they plan to play an active role in the ongoing discussions about the canal’s future. “The evolution of the public’s use of the canal for recreation and stormwater management, along with its original role as a water delivery method is one of the reasons why Denver Water and regional partners, including cities, counties, park and flood districts and stormwater management entities, have partnered with the High Line Canal Conservancy to assist their mission to preserve, protect and enhance the 71-mile canal,” Luthye said in an email to Colorado Community Media. The conservancy is expected to complete legal work to secure protection, gather documentation of the present conditions of the canal and assess potential future projects with the grant. Great Outdoors Colorado’s Director of Programs Chris Yuan-Farrell said the process will likely involve a conservation easement, which is a legal agreement that limits land use to protect its conservation values. YuanFarrell added that the grant is part of the environmental nonprofit’s land acquisition program, which supports urban and rural habitat protection
COURTESY EVAN ANDERMAN
priorities and increases access to the outdoors. “This is a substantial resource for Colorado to have and now it will be permanent,” Yuan-Farrell said. “Whereas before, there was always an opportunity for Denver Water to sell that property to somebody else. This grant helps take that off the table.” He said the funding provided by Great Outdoors Colorado should last the conservancy for years to come. “This is a fund for the conservancy to maintain and grow,” Yuan-Farrell said. “It’s like seed funding for a hopefully larger substantial endowment with the expectation that perhaps the municipalities and counties that have land by the canal will contribute to it.” Great Outdoors Colorado invests a portion of Colorado Lottery proceeds to help with the preservation and enhancement of parks, trails, wildlife, rivers and open spaces, according to its website. The nonprofit has awarded multiple grants to the High Line Canal Conservancy over the years. In 2022, Great Outdoors Colorado provided $41,100 to help rid parts of the canal of an invasive species. “Their funding has been so impactful to all of the work that we’ve done,” Jones said. “And this is the next big stage of our work for permanent protection.” Jones said more details about the canal’s function as a fully conserved space are expected to come this fall.
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When a group of Colorado lawmakers in 2020 sought to end the state’s statute of limitations for lawsuits in child sex assault cases, some victims and victims’ advocates wanted them to try to go even further. Their request was that Colorado give victims of abuse for whom the statute of limitations had expired a window to sue not only their abusers, but also organizations that shielded the perpetrators or negligently allowed the abuse to continue. The nonpartisan Office of Legislative Legal Services, which offers state lawmakers legal advice, said such a window would violate the state’s constitution, which prohibits the General Assembly from reviving a claim for which the statute of limitations has run out. It turns out that opinion held merit. The Colorado Supreme Court last week struck down the part of Senate Bill 88, a law passed by the legislature in 2021, giving victims of child sex abuse dating back to the 1960s a three-year window starting on Jan. 1, 2022, to file lawsuits against their abusers and the institutions or organizations that failed to stop the abuse. The high court’s decision was unanimous. There were many concerns about the constitutionality of Senate Bill 88 as it was debated in the legislature, but the measure’s sponsors took the rare step of proceeding anyway, saying the severity of the crime demanded it. Dozens of pending or soon-to-be-filed cases were unraveled by the Supreme Court’s ruling. “We knew that there would be a challenge to this law because the opponents of the measure made SEE WARNED, P3
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