America Celebrates July 4 With Hot Dogs, Banners And Barbecues

In playwright David Myers’ “237 Virginia Avenue,” a father and son play a not-always friendly, increasingly freighted game of Monopoly. When Rex asks son Eric, an adjunct professor, what he’s at work on, Eric says he’s writing about “Debt. History. Property.” To which Rex interjects, “Sexy. Sounds like a real bestseller,” with no small measure of sarcasm.

As soon as the sun begins to rear its hot head on warm spring and summer days, the familiar jingle of ice cream trucks returns to Denver neighborhoods. There’s still nostalgia in a trip to a local ice cream shop, even when you think you have no more room left in your stomach after dinner.

Thornton will be able to build a critical segment of a 70-mile pipe to bring water from the Cache la Poudre River to the fast-growing suburb north of Denver, after elected leaders in Larimer County unanimously — if begrudgingly — approved a permit for the northern segment of the pipe on Wednesday night. Colorado’s sixth-largest city, with a population of nearly 160,000, has been claiming for years that without access to Poudre water shares it has owned for decades, long-planned residential growth in the city is jeopardized — including affordable housing. But a procession of county residents has spoken out against the proposed project at a series of public hearings held over the past couple of weeks, insisting that Thornton simply could allow its shares in the Poudre River — equaling 14,700 acre-feet a year — to flow through Fort Collins before taking the water out for municipal use. Doing so, they say, would increase flows and improve the river’s health. But just hours before Wednesday’s meeting, one of the opposition groups to the project — No Pipe Dream — said it sensed momentum had turned the city’s way, issuing a public statement that said “we’ll skip the torture of tonight’s hearing on our ‘good neighbor’ Thornton’s plans to win the water tap lottery and appease hungry developers.” Before casting her yes vote Wednesday, Larimer County Commissioner Kristin Stephens said she wished Thornton would send its water down the Poudre “because that’s what the community wants.” “We can’t do that,” she said, referring to a 2022 Court of Appeals decision that ruled that Larimer County cannot force Thornton to use the river as a conveyance. “Thornton’s pipeline is the best of what feels like a bad solution,” she said. Commissioner Jody Shadduck-McNally also said she wanted to keep the water in the Poudre “for as long as possible,” but noted that Thornton had satisfied the county’s land use criteria and state water law with its pipeline.

Dear Amy: A little over a year ago, working with my mother’s doctor, I decided it was in her best interests (she has dementia) to move into assisted living. With help from my spouse, I was able to maintain her unoccupied house for about a year. We have other elderly relatives in the neighborhood who kept us posted if anything required attention. A few months ago, it became apparent that mom would be staying in assisted living and so we decided we needed to sell the house in order to fund her care. All throughout the estate sale and listing the house for sale we kept the relatives informed so they wouldn’t feel the need to maintain constant surveillance on the property. Luckily the house sold very quickly for a very good price to a nice family.

Too few parking spaces, lengthy queues for open spots, cramped designs that can’t handle crowds — Denver-area drivers brace themselves for headaches when they try to navigate the most stress-inducing parking lots in the city and beyond. The Denver Post went searching for the worst parking lots in metro Denver, with help from more than 100 people who weighed in with their opinions in an informal survey on social media platforms X and Facebook.

Moon Alert: There are no restrictions to shopping or important decisions today. The Moon is in Gemini. Happy Birthday for Thursday, May 9, 2024: You have strong morals and a sense of fair play, which you will defend. You appear calm, but you are also a vigilant proponent for your beliefs. This year it’s time to create solid foundations in your life.