ARVADA 2.7.13
February 7, 2013
A Colorado Community Media Publication
ourarvadanews.com
Jefferson County, Colorado • Volume 8, Issue 37
Options aim to streamline beltway C-470 Coalition nears decision on funding By Glenn Wallace
gwallace@ourcoloradonews.com Plans to improve the west side of the Denver metro area’s 470 beltway system could include an express lane. The C-470 Coalition is expected to make decision today on how to fund proposed improvements to southern sections of C-470. The Jeffco commissioners received a status update on the C-470 Coalition work, along with one about the county’s own “western” beltway study during their Jan. 29 meeting. Douglas County commissioners, along with Jefferson County and other stakeholders, started the C-470 Coalition in 2011 with the goal to develop and implement
improvements to the C-470 corridor that would make the freeway safer and less congested. The coalition developed an interim goal of providing one additional lane of traffic in both directions from Interstate 25 to Kipling Street. The coalition has three main options its considering to pay for the $200 million needed for those new lanes: make the new lanes “Express Toll Lanes,” make all of C-470 into toll lanes, or use taxes (sales tax or property tax) inside an “area of Benefit.” Jeffco Transportation and Engineering Director Kevin French said the likely consensus from the coalition members is that the express toll lane option is both the easiest to achieve (built by 2017), and would be the most acceptable to the public once built. “It would give drivers the option, whether or not to use the toll lanes,” French said, adding that studies looking at similar ex-
press lanes show commuters would use the faster lanes an average of four times a week. French said the coalition had done public surveys to see which funding method would be preferred, and found tolling of any sort, typically scored low. “The most-approved option really isn’t on the table … wanting someone else to pay,” French said. Once the first segment’s work is complete, the coalition is tasked with looking at the second segment of C-470, from Kipling to I-70. French also gave an update on a $700,000 county-only study, taking a macro-look at the western half of the 470 beltway. Jeffco Commission Chair Donald Rosier, District 3, said the expense of the study had been criticized. “There’s pieces of the road that haven’t even been studied, or looked at, so we’re in danger of having all the pieces but not see-
ing the big picture,” Rosier said. French said that his department has proposed using $190,000 of the study funding to carry out “a good public input, and marketing plan” to gauge awareness and support for the beltway in general, as well as to see what funding methods might be preferred to pay for future roadway development. District 2 Commissioner Casey Tighe cautioned that the county should keep an open mind about funding possibilities, including looking at taxation. “Tolling doesn’t have to be the answer,” Tighe said. French said the first part of the study should be complete by June. Phase two would involve traffic analysis and cost estimates. He said the total cost is still expected to be $700,000 and that the funds would come from money already earmarked for parkway/beltway development.
High court to consider access in Sigg case Media challenges closed hearing Staff report
Teade Sysling recounts an excerpt from his “A Boy from Amsterdam” over a cup of coffee at his home in Arvada Wednesday, Jan. 30. Photo by Andy Carpenean
Book captures wartime in boy’s eyes Autobiography details growing up in Nazi-occupied Holland, life after war By Sara Van Cleve
svancleve@ourcoloradonews.com When visiting his mother’s stepaunt in Amsterdam, a young Teade Sysling witnessed something that is still clear as day in his mind some 70 years later. “Going through the street, the Germans began gathering people in trucks and taking them away,” Sysling said. “We came through the street and there a was truck standing there with a cage on top of it and in that cage there were at least 50 people standing there, all Jewish people.” As Sysling walked by, he saw Nazis force a woman out of her home, and her last words before the truck drove off are instilled in Sysling’s mind. “She was talking to the lady who lived above her and the last words she said before the truck drove away were, ‘Tell so-and-so there’s sandwiches in the closet,’” Sysling said. “That was the last thing she thought about.” “That is in my mind, engraved like the
‘When you start writing, you write about a certain thing you remember ...’ Teade Sysling best photography,” the Arvada resident said. “I’ll never, ever forget that. It’s an incident that doesn’t involve your relatives, you just walk by and see it.” This incident and many more are told by Sysling in his new autobiography, “A Boy From Amsterdam.” His memoir tells the story of his life — from when he was a young boy growing up in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam while his mother helped save local Jews to riding a bike with tires along the cobblestone and surviving the Winter of Hunger, when the Nazis cutoff food delivery to Amsterdam. His story goes beyond World War II to when he left Holland to study in Switzerland and France before journeying to America in 1957, just a couple days after
meeting his future-wife, to whom he is still married to this day. “When you start writing, you write about a certain thing you remember, and as you’re writing pictures start to slip into your mind that add up to it,” Sysling said. “It’s amazing how bright your memory is.” Work with CoorsTek brought Sysling to Golden years ago and he has been a resident of Arvada for 30 years. It wasn’t until 2000, after a visit to Amsterdam, that he began writing his memoir for his children and grandchildren, and to tell younger generations about the Winter of Hunger, a subject rarely taught, he said. “The Nazis ordered that the trains could no longer be used to bring food to the big cities, and the all of the big cities on the west part of the country, like Amsterdam, there was no food coming,” Sysling said. “That was called the Winter of Hunger. When you tell that to people who were raised in Colorado, Nebraska, the Midwest, they don’t have a clue where Holland is, but when it comes to this, they don’t know anything about it. That’s what made me want to write a factual history as accurate as I could about what we went through at that time.” “A Boy from Amsterdam” is available on Amazon for $23.50.
The Colorado Supreme Court will consider arguments in a request for access to the preliminary hearing in the case of Austin Sigg, the teenager accused of killing 10-year-old Jessica Ridgeway of Westminster. Judge Stephen Munsinger closed the hearing in order to ensure a fair trial and protect the privacy of the victims and their families. But prosecutors and media organizations including the Associated Press, the Colorado Press Association, the Colorado Broadcasters Association Sigg and several other media outlets argue that Munsinger issued his ruling without hearing evidence or considering alternatives to preventing the public from attending a court hearing. Munsinger will have until Feb. 11 to explain to the Colorado Supreme Court why he closed the hearing to the public. Prosecutors and the media organizations will then have until Feb. 19 to reply. Sigg’s preliminary hearing is currently scheduled for Feb. 22. Sigg is facing 19 charges including first-degree murder, kidnapping and sexual assault on a child in the case of Ridgeway, who was last seen walking to school in Oct. 5, 2012. He is also accused of attacking a woman who was jogging last May in Ridgeway’s neighborhood.
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