Herald HigHlands RancH 3.28.13
Highlands Ranch
Douglas County, Colorado • Volume 26, Issue 19
March 28, 2013
A Colorado Community Media Publication
ourhighlandsranchnews.com
School voucher dispute moving forward Colorado Supreme Court will decide whether to take up contentious issue By Jane Reuter
jreuter@ourcoloradonews.com A plaintiff in the Douglas County School District voucher case says the state appeals court erred in several area Feb. 28 in upholding the voucher program. The process
to take the case to the Colorado Supreme Court is under way. An attorney on the other side, representing families who had originally received vouchers, says the program’s design keeps private schools and government separate, ensuring its constitutionality. The two sides likely will get to argue those points again, though the case doesn’t automatically move to the higher court. It first must be approved for review by a certiorari, an order from a higher court that directs the lower court to send the case to it.
The Colorado Supreme Court receives more than 900 certiorari petitions annually stemming from Court of Appeals decisions, and agrees on average to hear one of every 14 petitioned cases. Director of Taxpayers for Public Education Anne Kleinkopf, among the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against DCSD and the Colorado Department of Education, has no doubt this petition will be granted. “The issues are of such great public importance and they are such novel legal issues,” she said.
A Colorado Court of Appeals three-judge panel ruled 2-1 that the voucher, or Choice Scholarship Program, is legal. It also said the plaintiffs lacked legal standing to bring suit, that the program doesn’t violate the state constitution’s requirement of a uniform system of free public schools and that it does not provide aid to religious schools. DCSD implemented the pilot program, allowing parents to use a portion of public school funds toward private school tuition, in March 2011. A Denver District Court Voucher continues on Page 16
Pair re-elected to HRCA board
in the Swing of Spring
Unopposed incumbents get 85 percent support By Ryan Boldrey
rboldrey@ourcoloradonews.com
Ava Weddon, 2, enjoys the first day of spring March 20 at Civic Green Park in Highlands Ranch. Ava spun around in circles and laughed while her sister and mother played nearby in the early afternoon sun. Photo by Ryan Boldrey
Community weighs in on FasTracks Citizen Advisory Committee talks about parking, extensions By Ryan Boldrey
rboldrey@ourcoloradonews.com Sabrina Koehler wakes up early every morning to drive to the Littleton Mineral RTD Station. If she doesn’t get up early enough to arrive by 8 a.m., though, she is forced to drive to Broadway before she can finish her commute into Denver for work. Koehler is like a lot of Highlands Ranch residents who ride RTD on a regular or daily basis. And with a wait list to purchase reserved parking in the lot, many in-district riders are not finding the convenience they hope for. The message was heard loud and clear at the FasTracks Citizen Advisory Committee meeting March 20 at Southridge Recreation Center in Highlands Ranch. One suggestion, which came from Englewood Mayor Pro Tem Jim Woodward, was that RTD could start working on parking issues prior to the construction of some lines that have been pushed to the back burner, setting up bus runs to lots that will serve future stations and alleviating some
The Littleton Mineral Station is currently the end of the Southwest Light Rail Line. Once the Southwest Rail Extension is complete, the route will continue to Lucent Boulevard and Plaza Drive in Highlands Ranch. Photo by Ryan Boldrey of the current parking issues. For those who already opt to take the bus to the station, they are finding they are adding a half-hour to their commute, and all too frequently, the RTD buses arrive two
minutes after their trains leave the station, causing them to wait even longer. That’s another issue that Susan Wood, RTD project manager, said will be looked at. RTD continues on Page 16
Incumbent Highlands Ranch Community Association directors Jeff Suntken and Brock Norris were both re-elected to the board last week. Yet even though both men ran unopposed, neither gained full support from the delegate body present. Only 73 percent of all lots were represented in the vote, due to a high number of absences at the March 19 annual meeting, but of those present, each candidate received just 85 percent of the vote, with delegates Monica Wasden, Tim Riggle, Karen Huschka, Clay Shubin and Bill Buettner all abstaining from the process. “I have concerns with some of the direction that they are taking us in and I Suntken just hope that by abstaining my vote they will think to pay attention to all of the residents in the community and not just a select few,” said Wasden, who represents 1,533 lots in District 80 and also abstained by proxy on behalf of 556 lots in three other districts. Norris With only 58 of the 91 districts represented during the evening, the abstentions that came from the eight districts sent a bit of surprise through the room. One other delegate who abstained was overheard saying that they hadn’t been pleased with all of the decisions made by the current board and that it would have been nice to have had other options in the election, but nobody else stepped up to run. With the board remaining unchanged from the previous year, the directors made the decision to continue in their current roles as officers, with Scott Lemmon continuing as board president, Christina Caputo and Craig Ziesman as co-vice presidents, Suntken as treasurer and Norris as secretary. “To have a board that is already used to each other and has a year under our belts is a big advantage,” Lemmon said. “I am personally very excited about it. I think Jeff and Brock both work very well to be representative of the delegates.”
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