Serving the community since 1866
WEEK OF NOVEMBER 28, 2024
VOLUME 158 | ISSUE 48
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SPECIAL HOMETOWN HOLIDAYS EDITION
‘Where history and mystery converge’
Golden to buy 6 apartments to preserve as affordable housing Purchase represents a first for the city BY CORINNE WESTEMAN CWESTEMAN@COLOROADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
Marco, a Bell graduate himself, said his class never did anything like this when he attended the school. He was proud of his daughter and her classmates for putting it on. Dad Cory Allen was likewise proud of his son, Cayden, and his classmates for putting together an escape room like this. He said if it’d been a real escape room, he’d give it a five-star review. Cayden’s geology-themed challenge was especially difficult, even for someone with a professional geology background like Cory. Cayden said he enjoyed coming up with all the different materials to build the challenges, especially his English/language arts one.
To preserve naturally occurring affordable housing units and allow several Goldenites to stay in their homes, the City of Golden is buying six apartment units at 1501 Ford St. During its Nov. 12 meeting, the City Council approved buying four two-bedroom units and two one-bedroom units for $1,350,000 total, or $225,000 per unit, which staff members said is in line with local market prices. The city will use American Rescue Plan Act funds it received during the COVID-19 pandemic to buy the units, and staff has recommended setting aside an additional $500,000 in ARPA funds to do future property improvements. The property owners were scheduled to complete some improvements to the property by Dec. 1, and the closing date was slated for Dec. 18. Steve Glueck, assistant to the city manager, said the current tenants all live on month-tomonth leases and are anxious to stay in their homes. He told the councilors these six households would otherwise be displaced if the city didn’t buy the property, and the current owners wanted to work with the city to ensure the current tenants could stay. While the city has focused before on building affordable housing and/or workforce housing units, Glueck said preserving existing units is a worthwhile goal that can be equally difficult to achieve. “One of the problems we face … is that once things go on the market, things go very quickly, and oftentimes it’s difficult to compete,” he said. “In this case, the property owners were committed to trying to work with us.”
SEE ESCAPE ROOM, P2
SEE HOUSING, P4
Monica and Michael Martin celebrate “escaping” Bell Middle School’s seventh-grade showcase Nov. 14 with their son, Xavier. The seventh-graders put PHOTO BY CORINNE WESTEMAN together a series of escape room-themed challenges for their families to solve.
Golden seventh graders host escape room-themed showcase for their families BY CORINNE WESTEMAN CWESTEMAN@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
Many believe Gertrude Bell’s ghost haunts the school named after her. A longtime teacher in Golden, Gertrude Bell died in 1963 — the same year Bell Middle School opened. Many believe her “unsettling presence lingers” in the building and grows angrier every year as her legacy is forgotten. As students and their families assembled Nov. 14 for the annual seventh-grade showcase, they were told they wouldn’t
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be able to leave the school — “where history and mystery converge” — without solving a series of puzzles to prove they remember Bell and her legacy. “Keep your wits about you,” an instructional video warned them. “ … Give her the recognition she so desperately craves.” This year’s seventh-grade class organized and hosted an escape room for its annual showcase, with their families having to solve a series of challenges based on the students’ math, science, language arts and social studies curricula. After watching an instructional video describing the premise of Gertrude Bell’s ghost and legacy, the 263 seventh graders and their families set off to solve five challenges through-
out the school building. The exact challenges were unique based on the student. But, for each challenge their families solved, they received a “key.” A family needed five keys to “escape” the school, with several families stopping to take pictures with “We escaped” signs on their way out. Sophia DeCarlo said she had fun building challenges for her dad, Marco, to solve. She appreciated seeing so many families stop by to participate in the escape room-themed showcase. Marco said Sophia had been talking about it all day, betting he wouldn’t be able to escape. The challenges were difficult, he said, with the social studies one being the hardest, but he managed to earn all five keys and “escape.”
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VOICES: 10 | HOLIDAY EVENTS: 12 | SPORTS: 19
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