Disqus - Latest Comments for barefootmeg

Re: Sometimes You Need To Destroy a Perfectly Good Mansion

barefootmeg — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 17:30:59 -0000

Oh rats. I thought this was a reply to the affordable housing conversation earlier today.
OK, so ignore all that.

As you say, you're guessing that rehabilitation is too expensive so don't really consider it as a possibility. Having the numbers (as you can see in my misplaced previous comment) sometimes shows that guessing doesn't provide accuracy.

Re: Sometimes You Need To Destroy a Perfectly Good Mansion

barefootmeg — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 17:28:44 -0000

This is exactly why I like seeing the dollar for dollar comparison between rehabilitating an older property compared to scraping and building new. I have seen about 10 examples of projects in Denver where just over half the time it was cheaper (and significantly faster) to rehabilitate an older building. The rest of the time it made more financial sense to scrape and replace. But the speaker (during a talk hosted by Historic Denver about 5 or 6 years ago) did a great job of breaking out exactly how the projects were funded and what the financial benefits of reuse were. I'd love to see something like that for the two properties included in today's presentation.

Re: Sometimes You Need To Destroy a Perfectly Good Mansion

barefootmeg — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 16:15:27 -0000

I'd love to see a photo of all the buildings that replaced the mansion to get a better sense of whether it was a good reuse of space or not. Given that the mansion could easily have held several apartments and the grounds could be filled with infill buildings, it's hard to get a good sense of whether replacing the building was worth it or not.

Re: There’s No Such Thing as Affordable Housing

barefootmeg — Wed, 04 Jan 2023 14:51:16 -0000

It seems to me like part of the problem is people's expectations for living spaces. A local example is a building in our downtown (Fort Collins, Colorado) that was originally built in the late 1800s to have a business on the first floor and 7 living units on the second floor with one shared bathroom. Now a new owner is planning to add additional space to the building in order to have a smaller retail space than before, interior car parking, and 2 living units. The end result matches present-day expectations for living spaces better, but provides few living places that will be taking up more square footage.

Another example is when I was in college, I lived in half of a house with another 5 women and we shared one bathroom. In the downstairs unit of the house there was another 6 college students and they also shared one bathroom.) This also came with about 5 or 6 parking spaces in the backyard of the house. Nowadays new apartments are built for college students that provides one bathroom and one parking space (often in a structure) for each renter (even when they're in a 5 person unit).

All of this is to say that nowadays we're really good at using more space for fewer people. So yeah, we need more overall units. But don't we need to rethink our expectations as well? If it worked for humans to share spaces in the past, why do we think it'll be so bad today? In fact, we might even be better off as we learn how to live with others rather than to avoid them.

Re: Guest Post: The Pedestrian Beg Button: Why is It Still a Thing?

barefootmeg — Sat, 20 Jul 2019 13:15:01 -0000

My favorite are the intersections with very long intervals for motorists, but there's still no automatic light for pedestrians. The button doesn't provide *added* time, it just provides a "go" light - period. Why the heck not just add an automatic ped crossing if the motorists are going to get such a long interval? What would that hurt? But no. Pedestrians must beg to cross.

Re: How Land-Use Restrictions Make Places Tilt Left

barefootmeg — Fri, 31 Aug 2018 23:27:53 -0000

I would love to have heard more about density in this report. In my experience, the more people you have living closer and closer together, the more regulation needs to be put in place to make sure everyone gets along. People who lean democrat seem, also in my experience, to be more comfortable with proximity to others, whereas many republicans I know prefer living in more rural or sprawling areas where they come in contact with fewer people and can better regulate who they do and do not come into contact with on any given day.

Re: When White Parents Won't Integrate Public Schools

barefootmeg — Tue, 30 Jan 2018 20:46:50 -0000

Parents do gamble with their children's education, every time they decide where to send their kids to school. Some people think they're playing it safe by basing their decision on test scores, but that choice is just as much a gamble as any other. Some parents choose to visit several schools before making a decision. They're the ones who may be gambling a bit less than the rest. But no matter how the selection is made, there are no guarantees.

Re: When White Parents Won't Integrate Public Schools

barefootmeg — Tue, 30 Jan 2018 13:01:40 -0000

It looks like you're pulling from the same statistics that I'm pulling from. So you can see why a community that's 11% Hispanic having a school that's over 50% Hispanic shows that all the poverty is being consolidated into one school, largely thanks to the fact that parents can choice their kids out of a high poverty school.

As far as whether it counts, I think when you have an elementary school that's 80% or more Free and Reduced Lunch, that counts as a low income school. I think if you have a school that's over 50% Hispanic, with other races in the mix as well, that counts as an integrated school racially. I don't remember the homelessness statistics, but I believe it was 10% for the middle school, last I heard. That's pretty high. I know that at the high school level, they had 100 students churn in and out of the school before school counts happened in October, so there's a lot of turnover of students, which shows an unstable or migrant population. In my mind, all of these things are exactly the kind of problems that we're talking about.

What thresholds would you use for a school to count?

Re: When White Parents Won't Integrate Public Schools

barefootmeg — Tue, 30 Jan 2018 11:56:31 -0000

We found that if we could just get parents to come in the door, they got it. They met the teachers and the students and realized what a strong, vibrant community we had.

It's the parents who refused to even consider it, who refused to put a foot in the door, that sent their kids elsewhere and helped reinforce the local stereotype that our low income schools are overwhelmed with problem teachers and students.

Re: When White Parents Won't Integrate Public Schools

barefootmeg — Tue, 30 Jan 2018 11:54:48 -0000

We're in the Poudre School District which encompasses most of Fort Collins, Colorado as well as Wellington, Laporte, Bellvue, Red Feather Lakes, and Livermore.

It's important to note that in Colorado, parents can "choice" their students into any school in the state. So theoretically, if I wanted my kids to attend a school on the other end of the state, I could do that, as long as I could get them there each day. So we do have neighborhood schools, but it is fairly easy to move your kids out of your own neighborhood school and into one on the other end of town.

We also have a fairly strong charter school system here. As long as you're able to get your student to and from the school, all of the charter schools are options right along with the neighborhood schools. This system works really well if you have a STEM student and you want to send them to the STEM focused middle school, or you have an autistic elementary school student and want to send them to a school that has built up their expertise in dealing with autistic kids. But it has also meant that in schools with an already high percentage of low income or Hispanic kids (our Black population is at about 3%, our Hispanic population is closer to 11%) then parents often choice their kids out of those neighborhood schools and send them elsewhere.

So despite having an overall Hispanic population of 11% in the city, our kids' middle school was over 50% Hispanic not only due to how neighborhood boundaries were drawn, but also because many While families from the gentrifying downtown area choiced their kids into another school. The school also hit about 75% Free and Reduced Lunch, which is an indicator of family struggles with poverty.

We also struggled with negative stereotyping against the school that went back as far as the 1970s. I found a newspaper article while researching the school history that called out the school for racial tensions, stating that the rural students were instigating fights with the Hispanic students. The school district repeatedly short-changed the Hispanic student population as was even documented in a history of the school district that a local historian wrote a decade or so ago.

The school fights high turnover rates in their staff, not only because it's a difficult situation to be in, with the expectation of accelerating student learning beyond the usual one year of growth, but also because the other schools in the district lure the teachers away, knowing that if they can effectively teach our students, they'll be amazing with students that are already well supported at home. But the ones that stay are not only amazing, but they also feel that they have a calling to reach the needs of our student population. They're not biding their time till they reach retirement age. They've actively chosen to remain, to excel, to innovate, and to be agents of change in our community.

There are a lot of things working against low income kids in America. But in my experience, it's rarely their teachers. It might be school administration, or the school district, or a community that red lines their families, discriminates in terms of hiring practices, fails to main infrastructure in poor areas, or fails to provide adequate transportation options. But the teachers that I've met have gone above and beyond in terms of meeting the needs of their students,. My kids have clearly benefited from being under the tutelage of teachers who have a heart for all kids, not just the easy to teach who come from financially secure families.

Re: When White Parents Won't Integrate Public Schools

barefootmeg — Mon, 29 Jan 2018 20:02:34 -0000

It's underperforming because it has a huge percentage of low income students. Many of these students are behind grade level when they enter kindergarten and remain so, putting them several years behind by the time they get to middle school.

I know that many schools (if not all schools) have a fantastic selection of teachers. That said, however, when I speak with parents whose kids attended the other, better performing middle and high schools in our city, none of them felt that their school had the close-knit community attitude that our schools had. When I'd ask them about the teachers or classes, they'd shrug their shoulders and say that they were fine. Or they'd mention one particular teacher that outshone the rest. But when I talk to other parents whose kids attended the same schools my kids attended, it is phenomenal the amount of gushing that ensues. There's not just one teacher that rises above the rest. There's not even one teacher in each grade level that rises about the rest, or in each department. There is an overwhelming recognition that these teachers go above and beyond daily. I truly believe they're a caliber above. They have committed to the toughest kids in a community that routinely short-changes them, and that makes all the difference.

When the district statistician would compare our statistics to other middle or high schools, what they found was that our schools rated lower than the others, when you looked at the amount of growth that high performing students had in these "tough" schools compared to the amount of growth their peers (starting from the same standardized test grades in elementary, so the high performing kids in the other schools) had, the high performing students in the poor performing schools outpaced their peers in those other schools.

This is what we figured out. When you have a teacher that receives a student that's two or three years behind academically, and they have to try to accelerate their learning to get them to grade level, then they learn skills that teachers in "high performing" schools just don't, because they don't have to. So when you stick a high performing kid in that scenario, their academic achievement shoots through the roof because they were already at, or above grade level. But now you're paired them with teachers who know how to accelerate growth in a meaningful way. It's a really powerful situation that resulted in a mind-blowing education for our kids.

PLUS, they also had an immersive cultural experience that they wouldn't have gotten in any of the other schools. And they were part of a community that, as I speak with families whose kids attended other schools, doesn't seem to be replicated in other schools except for kids on sports teams.

Re: When White Parents Won't Integrate Public Schools

barefootmeg — Mon, 29 Jan 2018 18:55:48 -0000

We sent our three kids to "underperforming schools" and they were absolutely fantastic schools. Teachers don't stay in a struggling school because it's easy. They stay because they love their students and give them their all. My kids are now rocking their University classes thanks to the fantastic education they received through our neighborhood schools.

Re: When White Parents Won't Integrate Public Schools

barefootmeg — Mon, 29 Jan 2018 18:53:34 -0000

Except that that's exactly what we did and our kids truly benefited from it. They graduated high school and entered college as sophomores thanks to the programs that were implemented at the school to benefit all the students, and especially the high level of low income students. If you're interested in reading more, see my comment under 1980Gardener above.

Re: When White Parents Won't Integrate Public Schools

barefootmeg — Mon, 29 Jan 2018 18:50:53 -0000

We sent our kids to our neighborhood schools The middle school and high school that they attended had the highest rate of poverty of any in our community. I don't know that our sending our kids there did anything to improve the lives of impoverished students, but it meant all the world to us. Our kids received a top notch education from extraordinary teachers. Because many of our peers choiced their students out of the same schools that we were sending our kids to, our kids were in smaller classes, which meant more one on one time with their extremely dedicated teachers.

All three of our kids have since graduated and are in college. The oldest began college with 46 college credits thanks to programs through high school. The next two were both in the IB Diploma program and one was granted 36 credits at her university and the other received 32. They're on the deans list.

So, in response to your number 2 and 3, sending our kids to a "low performing school" (and it is, if you look at the standardized test scores) was the best thing we could have ever done for our kids. When you have teachers that give their all to reach kids from difficult home lives, then those teachers also give their all to the kids from the well-to-do families. They're passionate about what they do, otherwise they wouldn't stay in a school where they're constantly looked down on by their peers throughout the district.

Re: A Haunting Glimpse at How Detroit Gave Way to Asphalt and Cars

barefootmeg — Thu, 11 Jan 2018 19:57:31 -0000

How much of Detroit's decline was because of automobiles and how much was because of severe issues with racism? Both are at fault, in my opinion. Both have done their damage. But if I had to pick just one thing that's done more damage to the City of Detroit over any other thing, I'd go with racism. It has seeped into all areas of life, and into every corner of not just Detroit but of Metro Detroit. It is an ever present under current in education, employment, social activities, government operations,... you name it.

Re: The Uncomfortable Truth About Campus Rape Policy

barefootmeg — Sat, 09 Sep 2017 11:02:47 -0000

The universities are prescribed to behave in each situation as they did in the situation I know of first hand. So when I say that they did not hold any sort of trial and gave the male no opportunity to defend himself, what I mean by that is (as this article explained so well) the government of the United States has dictated that universities may not give the male a fair trial. Instead the decision is to be made behind closed doors (without the male having access to lawyer, evidence, decision making process, etc.) by an individual.

You may feel that this specific example is too general. And you may feel that when the university stated that the procedure they were following in this specific example is the same procedure that they must, by law, follow in all cases, that that is also too general. But as far as I can tell, this is you trying to find an excuse not to believe this is happening and it's not, in any way, an attempt to hold an honest discussion about what is going on and what should be done with it.

In other words, you're focusing your attention on finding fault with me, rather than having to look at what is going on. Hopefully you'll read through this article and the upcoming articles as well. They are speaking truth, a truth that needs to be heard by the general public and a truth that needs to be addressed so that real justice can be found for students, whether male or female, assaulted or not. We need to end this harmful charade that doesn't bring justice but rather multiplies harm.

Re: The Uncomfortable Truth About Campus Rape Policy

barefootmeg — Sat, 09 Sep 2017 00:29:47 -0000

I'm not speaking generally. I'm speaking about a very specific experience, I just didn't name names.

Male did something that showed he was socially inept (and not in the least bit sexual in nature -- by every single account both from female perpetrator and male victim as well as friends of both). Female retaliated with a no contact order. Male was kept from freely walking around his own dorm even though female lived in another dorm because female wanted to come and go without restriction but wanted male punished for his behavior. Male's frustration at situation lead to additional consequences such as temporary removal from campus, several days worth of missed classes, not being able to explain to anyone what was going on, no opportunity for a fair trial etc. After several months, the university determines that he didn't do anything wrong other than entering a study room to get a water bottle while female in room. He's sentenced (in addition to the high cost he's already paid) to several weeks worth of "Can't we all just get along" classes. And the female perpetrator was allowed to tell anyone and everyone her side of the story without the male victim ever having the chance to share his side. I

He was guilty until proven... aw, heck. Why prove anything. Just punish the kid. Who cares if he did anything wrong.

If you feel that a very real experience of what this article is talking about is something that should be "repealed" then so be it. I like to think that we live in a country where everyone is entitled to a fair trial. But clearly many people are OK with something much more draconian taking place within universities.

Re: The Uncomfortable Truth About Campus Rape Policy

barefootmeg — Fri, 08 Sep 2017 21:29:21 -0000

This is how cases are handled on some campus, even when it's not a sexual assault issue. If a female student feels uncomfortable about a male student's behavior, she can request a no contact slip. (The female students would rather fill out a slip than learn how to communicate with another person and explain how and why they feel the way they do.) The male is put on notice (with little explanation) and if there's a perception of violation, they're immediately put under severe restrictions without any opportunity to defend themselves.

For autistic males whose behavior is sometimes awkward and can make others uncomfortable, this gives females an easy way to be able to avoid them without having to explain why.

The universities immediately punish the male students while taking months to make a determination on whether anything bad actually happened or not. It's insane.

I'm not a DeVos fan by any means, but if all she does is get this repealed, then I'll feel like this administration has accomplished something positive.

Re: Feasting Fort Collins On The Road – Silverton

barefootmeg — Sat, 08 Jul 2017 10:47:16 -0000

Rob and I have been trying to figure out where we should celebrate our anniversary. He had been thinking Vancouver or Pittsburgh. But then he started flipping through our coffee table book on Colorado and he realized he hasn't seen much of our own state. So I suggested Silverton. We'll be heading that way in a couple weeks! :-)

Re: Whet Your Appetite with The Colorado Room

barefootmeg — Fri, 02 Jun 2017 17:35:57 -0000

Ate there for the first time today. Got the veggie caprese and the portabello mushroom. The portabello mushroom was a bit spicier than I like, but the caprese was so freakin' good that I think that's all I'll ever eat there in the future. It was heavenly. If I were only allowed to eat one kind of sandwich ever again for the rest of my life, it would be the caprese from the Colorado Room. (The caprese sandwich from Coppermuse is a very close second, though.)

I didn't get the putine, but my friend did and I am definitely trying that next time. I did steal a few fries from another friend, though, and they were quite tasty.

I tried their kombucha. I forget the name of the folks that make it, but it was really unusual. I'm calling it BBQ flavored because it's a bit sweet and a bit smoky. It went well with my sandwiches.

We met in their large open area in back. It felt like we were outdoors, but when it started to rain, we didn't get wet, making it a best of both worlds kind of situation.

I am definitely going back to this place. It worked great as a meeting location and the food was delicious!

Re: City Council Caves to the Anti-Housing, Pro-Parking Crowd Again

barefootmeg — Sun, 26 Feb 2017 18:21:08 -0000

In the new Downtown Plan that Fort Collins is sending to City Council for approval in the next couple of weeks, there's an interesting section on how parking requirements are affecting building design. The expense of adding parking has led to construction with cheaper materials as well as the use of other cost cutting measures. So Fort Collins is ending up with a bunch of new buildings that no one is happy with, all because there was a parking quota that had to be met.

The City Council has consistently, of late, eschewed paid on-street parking in the downtown area as well as reducing parking requirements for new construction. And passing the Downtown Plan doesn't mean that steps will be taken to actually deal with the situation. But City staff have repeatedly found that we should be removing, or at least reducing, parking requirements for new construction, not only for transportation and environmental reasons, but now for urban design reasons as well.

Unfortunately you can lead a City Council member to data, but you can't make them act on it.

Re: Fare thee well

barefootmeg — Mon, 02 Jan 2017 16:09:46 -0000

:-(

I'll miss your articles! They always felt so close to home for me.

Re: Food For Thought: Commercial Development, Growing Pains, and the Evolution of Community

barefootmeg — Tue, 30 Aug 2016 19:04:45 -0000

"We like to go out to dinner and know the owner of the restaurant, run into friends, and be presented with an experience that feels Fort Collins."

Yes!

While I think this looks different for everyone (When I hang out with older folks who have lived in Fort Collins since the 1960s or earlier, we end up at very different restaurants than when I hang out with folks who are younger or moved here more recently.), I think it's that sense of connection -- that you know the owner or the other patrons or even just the old building that the place is in -- that adds value to the experience. And we want that value. We want that connection. It improves the food we eat, the drinks we drink, the times we share with our friends and family.

Re: The Loafing Shed

barefootmeg — Tue, 30 Aug 2016 10:51:59 -0000

Last night I tried to meet up with a friend on the southeast side of town. I had suggested Fiona's, not realizing they're closed at night. So she settled on Bindle. Also closed. Her husband looked up the Loafing Shed and saw that it should be open. So we headed over there, only to find that they'd started their new fall hours, and were closed. We tried a cafe near King Soopers on Drake. Closed. Daz Bog in Front Range Village. Closed. We're talking 7:30 at night and every frickin' place was closed! We ended up in a near empty Panera.

I had no idea that outside of Old Town, pretty much everything shuts down at 7 or earlier. And you're not kidding when it comes to having an utter lack of choices. Jessup is really the only splash of flavor in an otherwise very mundane part of town. Front Range Village is trying... but it does not have the je ne sais quois of Jessup.

So, I still have yet to try out the Loafing Shed. Hope to make it over some time when they're open in the near future.

Oh, and another note. I had no idea there was a second parking lot down the hill. So now I know where to go when things are packed. I look forward to the new left hand turn going in for those of us arriving from the north.

Re: Swiss Chard & Mushroom Pie

barefootmeg — Tue, 21 Jun 2016 21:56:16 -0000

I think it worked well with spinach. I think the only thing I'd change is I'd put in the whole thing of bacon instead of just a couple of strips. :-}

The whole family liked it. I'll definitely be making it again. (But maybe not on such a hot day.)