Home Care In Layfayette, CO

By Jess Cohen

Last week, U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper joined the Starbucks Union workers on their picket line in Lafayette, Colorado.

This week, 92% unionized Starbucks workers authorized a nationwide strike, including strikes in Lafayette and Colorado Springs.

“Starbucks is not a poor company – and yet they refuse to negotiate in good faith with their own workers,” said Hickenlooper. “These Colorado workers are out striking for their right to organize and for better working conditions. We’re proud to stand with them.”

Earlier this week, Hickenlooper called on Starbucks to end its illegal union-busting efforts and negotiate a fair contract with its employees. Starbucks Workers United, the union representing these employees, includes more than 300 workers in Colorado and 12,000 workers across the country. The company was found guilty of more than 500 labor law violations and has been accused of 125 new allegations of union-busting since January of this year.

Last year, Starbucks and its workers made progress toward a fair contract, reaching 33 tentative agreements on key issues such as health and safety and protections against unfair firing and discipline. The negotiations abruptly halted after Brian Niccol took over as CEO in September 2024.

In a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee hearing, Hickenlooper blasted Starbucks’ then-CEO Howard Schultz for how the company rejected labor disputes.

Hickenlooper is a strong supporter of union workers. He helped introduce Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act to strengthen workers’ rights and help working Americans negotiate better salaries, benefits, and working conditions. He also co-sponsors the Protect America’s Workforce Act to repeal two union-busting executive orders from the Trump admin and restore collective bargaining rights and workplace protections for federal workers.

Jess Cohen writes for Senator Hickenlooper’s office.

Read Part One

As noted in Part One, the Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD) Board recently indicated unanimous approval for repealing the “Water and Wastewater Surcharges” they’ve been collecting from monthly customers for the past several years. Those fees — which are unpopular with certain customers — were intended to reimburse the District when development fee waivers are granted to deed-restricted workforce housing projects.

Why these surcharges were once thought to be a good idea, I cannot say; they were established before I joined the Board. But I support the idea of eliminating them.

Disclosure: I currently serve as a volunteer member of the PAWSD Board of Directors, but this editorial reflects only my own opinions, and not necessarily the opinions of the PAWSD Board or staff.

The Pagosa Springs Sanitation General Improvement District (PSSGID) has a different mechanism for covering workforce housing waivers. Instead of charging a customer surcharge to cover waivers, the PSSGID Board — the same people who serve on the Town Council — transfer funds from the Town’s General Fund into the PSSGID budget.

PAWSD could use a similar mechanism — transferring funds from its General Fund into the Water and Wastewater funds…

…if the Board wants to continue supporting workforce housing. That’s certainly an important question.

I also mentioned in Part One that the footprints imprinted into quick-drying cement in front of the Liberty Theater last week caused me to think about government fees and taxes.

Once they are in place, they tend to remain in place.

For example:

The Town Council asked the voters, earlier this month, to establish a 1% sales tax to be used to address serious sewer repairs and upgrades east of Piedra Road. The Town’s financial advisors conceded that the tax will cost a typical family $12 – $15 a month in increased expenses when they buy food.

In response to that information, the Town Council passed Resolution 2025-18 on October 7, indicating that they might — might — feel comfortable holding PSSGID customer bills at the current $71 a month, instead of increasing the bill to $76 a month as previously scheduled.

Considering that PSSGID will now have $3.5 million in increased income from the new sales tax. maybe the monthly fees could actually be lowered? To make up for the extra taxes families will be paying for food and necessities?

I have appealed to the Council more than once, speaking as a town resident, to consider reducing the monthly sewer fee, which is already higher than the $47 monthly sewer fee paid by PAWSD households west of Piedra Road.

From Resolution 2025-18:

1. Support for Ballot Measure 2A. The Pagosa Springs Town Council officially supports and encourages the passage of Ballot Measure 2A in the November 4, 2025, coordinated election. The Town Council believes that this measure represents the most viable and equitable pathway to securing the long-term health and reliability of the community’s wastewater infrastructure.

2. Commitment to Cost Mitigation: In the interest of responsible fiscal management, the Town Council will continue to explore strategies to reduce the impact of capital improvement funding requirements on sewer service rates.

3. Rate Stabilization. The Town Council acknowledges that the scale of the required wastewater infrastructure investment is significant. Any future rate adjustments will be determined based on the PSSGID’s financial needs and operational requirements. The Town Council is committed to exploring all possible options for rate stabilization.

With an additional $3.5 million flowing into the PSSGID budget, starting in January, it would seem feasible to reduce household sewer bills.

This idea — “rate stabilization” — might be discussed at tomorrow’s Town Council meeting at 5pm at Town Hall.

Here’s what 30 years of Economic Development has produced for families living within the Town of Pagosa Springs. A median household income of less than $33,000 a year, when a typical house rents for more than $24,000 a year.

A place where 42% of children live below the federal poverty line.

However, we recognize that sometimes, the footprints have already set in the concrete. That it’s oh-so-difficult for a bureaucracy to rethink a scheduled fee increase.

It’s a common problem. Bureaucracies wanting more and more money, more and more staff, more and more buildings.

I suppose we all could find ways to spend more and more money on more and more things. In that sense, government bureaucracies are no different.

I’m thinking this morning about a recent joint meeting between the Archuleta School District (ASD) Board of Education and the Pagosa Peak Open School (PPOS) Board of Directors. PPOS is a tuition-free K-8 school operating in a former office building near Walmart. It was authorized by ASD in 2017 as a ‘school of choice’, to serve Archuleta County families looking for something slightly different from the traditional public schools. As a non-profit charter school, PPOS has its own independent Board of Directors, but is financially connected to ASD.

I believe the joint meeting of the two Boards on November 11 marked the first time they’d sat down at the same table to discuss Pagosa’s educational future.

Disclosure: I currently serve as a volunteer member of the Pagosa Peak Open School school board, but this editorial reflects only my own opinions and not necessarily the opinions of the PPOS board or staff.

In this case, we are not talking about footprints already set in concrete. The discussion concerned future decisions by the two Boards and ultimately, by Archuleta County voters, about the best way to provide safe, functional school buildings.

ASD has been conducting research into the feasibility of abandoning two downtown schools — Pagosa Springs Elementary School, and Pagosa Springs Middle School — and building a brand new K-8 school somewhere in the county. Two possible locations have been discussed:

1. Adjacent to the existing Pagosa Springs High School, in downtown. Site development costs (not including building itself) up to $17.0 million

2. Adjacent to the Vista subdivision uptown on a 37-acre parcel owned by ASD. Site development costs (not including building itself) up to $8.7 million

The new school would require a bond issue and an increase in property taxes for 20 to 30 years. So not exactly “permanent footprints”, but something close to it.

The District’s planning committee will be discussing this potential bond issue tonight at 5:30pm at the Middle School Library. The meeting is open to the public.

Read Part Three… tomorrow…

At a Lafayette City Council meeting Tuesday, the members voted 5-2 to approve a resolution endorsing Ballot Issue 2C, which, if passed by voters during next week’s election, would fund improvements to three city projects: improvements to the Bob L. Burger Recreation Center, a new civic center to replace the existing city hall, and improvements the City Service Center.

The ballot measure asks voters to authorize a $74 million increase to the city’s debt through a general obligation bond, a cost that, city staff says, would be funded by a property tax increase over two decades. General obligation bonds can be issued by state and local governments and are backed by their taxing authority, according to the Colorado Department of the Treasury.

The city has estimated that for a home valued at $500,000, the increase as a result of the ballot measure passing would be about $16 per month for an increase of $197 per year, according to a spokesperson.

The service center is a facility used primarily by the Public Works and Parks and Open Space departments, according to the city website. City vehicles are serviced and fueled at that location, the website says.

Councilmembers Nicole Samson and David Fridland voted against the resolution, while the rest of the council voted in favor. Samson said her vote was not necessarily in opposition to the ballot measure itself but, rather, driven by hesitation to take an official position on a question that is already in front of voters.

Her vote against the resolution was “about endorsing the measure,” Samson told Colorado Hometown Weekly on Wednesday. “We already put it on the ballot. It should be left up to the voters to decide … It’s an odd thing to make a statement about something we already voted to send to voters.”

‘Tremendous amount of benefits’

Fridland also said his vote against the resolution wasn’t so much a statement on the ballot measure but on whether the council should take an official stance, potentially influencing voter opinion.

“I agree with Councilmember Samson that I don’t think we should try to influence folks. (Voters) should make decisions based on the facts and based on their circumstances,” Fridland told Colorado Hometown Weekly on Wednesday, adding: “We’ll see how I vote, personally.”

Before Tuesday’s council vote on the resolution, Mayor JD Mangat encouraged residents to learn more about the measure before voting one way or the other.

“Please take the opportunity to reach out to folks that are directly impacted … and I would say all Lafayette residents are,” Mangat said. “You may not visit the service center every day, or the city hall every day or the rec center every day, but you do receive a tremendous amount of benefits from those facilities.”

As of Wednesday afternoon, no council members other than Samson and Fridland responded to questions from Colorado Hometown Weekly about their Tuesday-night vote on the resolution, or whether it reflected their views on the ballot measure itself.

Past divide on ballot package

Before agreeing to send Ballot Issue 2C to voters, the City Council discussed two options for the bond package during a July 1 meeting. Package A included the recreation center, civic center and service center projects, and would mean a total debt issuance to the city of $74 million, while Package B included only the recreation center and service center, with a debt issuance of $40 million, according to a council document.

Mangat, Mayor Pro Tem Brian Wong, and Councilmembers Crystal Gallegos and Saul Tapia Vega supported advancing Package A. Councilmembers Tim Barnes, Fridland and Samson favored Package B. Council ultimately directed staff to move forward with Package A — the version appearing on the ballot for Nov. 4.

During an Aug. 19 meeting, the City Council voted 6-0 to send the bond question to voters as it appears on the ballot. Tapia Vega was absent from that meeting.

Last week, one mom in Lafayette believed she heard a stranger's voice coming from her baby monitor, and now she's hoping other families will take a second look at their security.

Mom, Jane asked not to share her last name due to privacy concerns. She says she's been using a Nanit baby monitor for the last 19 months, but heard a strange noise last week.

Jane said she typically checks in on her son's baby monitor on her phone, which is what she was doing last week.

"I was waking up, he was waking up. I could hear him babbling over my phone," Jane said, "And then all of a sudden, I just heard this really weird sound."

Jane says she ran in and unplugged the camera immediately as she believed that her Wi-Fi-enabled monitor may have been hacked.

"It's been devastating. It has been really hard to just figure out what steps to take, how to protect ourselves," Jane said.

She reached out to the company Nanit to report the incident. A spokesperson for the company sent CBS Colorado a statement in part:

"We are aware of this reported incident and have been in touch with the customer directly. Our product team conducted an initial assessment and found no indication of compromise. However, out of an abundance of caution, our team is performing a deeper investigation."

As Nanit continues to look into the claim, Jane says she still feels uneasy, adding, "I think that the words are clear as day. The voice is clear. It doesn't sound like some audio problem. It sounds like somebody was speaking to my child," Jane said.

Metropolitan State University of Denver Computer Science Professor Steve Beaty explained that home security cameras, like baby monitors that are connected to Wi-Fi, have varying levels of security against hackers.

"This is among our most sensitive data, if it's not the most sensitive data, and so we have to be very, very careful around this," Beaty said, "There's no question at all that local signals that are not connected to the internet are going to be safer."

Beaty added that he believes monitor hacks like this are somewhat rare, but anything you can access online and out of the house has the potential to be viewed by others as well, no matter what brand the device is.

"Oftentimes, we will say that security and convenience are at odds with each other. And so, you know, it'd be really nice to never lock our doors, because it would be very convenient to get in and out of our homes, but we lock them to increase the security," Beaty said.

Beaty added that monitors over a radio frequency can still be hacked into locally, but not as far-reaching. He also recommended people have strong passwords, keep device software updated, and consider investing financially in the quality of the product, as it could indicate a level of more secure software.

Meanwhile, Jane says she is now using a closed-circuit baby monitor and is hoping to feel more secure.

"I don't know what happened. No one knows what happened. I'm not getting explanations. But if there's any risk to any of our children, obviously, I want other people to be aware," Jane said.

"At Nanit, the privacy and security of our families is our top priority. Nanit cameras use 256-bit AES encryption to keep our customer data safe, and we enforce multi-factor authentication on all user accounts for added security. Every access to the camera through the app is logged and our customers can manage who can access the different accounts on their camera."

"We completed a full review of this case with our engineering team and shared the results with the customer directly. The mobile device access logs show that no sound was sent from the camera itself during this time period. The microphone, however, registered elevated sound levels at that same moment, indicating sound from the environment was picked up by the microphone, not produced by the camera."

"While this is uncommon, we are continuously working on methods to improve feedback from our microphone that may produce distorted sounds. We stand behind our products and have issued a full refund to the customer."

Website: www.ericryant.com

Age: 65

Years in Lafayette: 10

Education: Some college Florida State University

Professional background: Independent business owner, licensed general contractor state of Florida, published author.

Political/community experience: Ran for City Council 2023, volunteer for Lafayette Chamber of Commerce.

Council has urged neighboring communities to do more on housing and other shared challenges. What role should Lafayette play in regional partnerships on issues such as housing, transportation and environmental sustainability

Lafayette actively collaborates with its regional partners and other local municipalities to monitor the pace at which Lafayette grows. Growth must continue, but at a pace that doesn’t push out the people that already live here. With the increase in population RTD services throughout the community need to be expanded as well. The city’s affordable housing project, Willoughby Corner, has created 400 rentals and for-sale homes and is a viable option for low-income families. Now that this program is in place, Lafayette can illustrate to other communities how effective it is. On environmental sustainability, Lafayette has implemented plans for watershed protection, wildfire mitigation and open space preservation. Lafayette will continue this course if I’m elected.

As Lafayette grows and changes, how would you balance preserving community character with making room for new residents and businesses?

It’s important that the council closely monitors how the town grows. One of my focuses is to ensure “Old Town” doesn’t lose its charm and history. I will continue to make sure that our town keeps its appeal by working with local organizations to enhance the overall appearance and continue the preservation of Old Town Lafayette. Being a town of only 30,000 people and in the Denver/Boulder metro area, Lafayette must find ways to promote the image and get the name out to prospective new residents. Lafayette has done this through hosting community events, like the farmers market.

What do you see as the most pressing issue facing Lafayette right now, and how would you address it if elected?

The most pressing issue for our citizens is the increased daily living expenses that Lafayette and other local communities are facing. Increased utilities, property taxes, insurance costs and daily expenses, such as food, gas and transportation has made it difficult for many Lafayette residents to live comfortably. Programs that are in place to help our residents need to be expanded. I will also look for new opportunities, such as new federal and state grant programs, to help ease the burden our residents face.

Josh Beryl

Website: tinyurl.com/bdebnc2c

Age: 45 years old

Years in Lafayette: About 3 years in Lafayette, 15-plus years in the Front Range

Education: Bachelor’s in Literature, Masters Degree in Education – English for Speakers of Other Languages & Secondary Language Arts.

Professional background: Taught high school for 15 years in the Front Range including English for speakers of other languages.

Political/community experience: Volunteered for many school board campaigns in Jefferson and Denver Counties and sat on the DCTA Fund which chooses to endorse and donate to school board campaigns in Denver on behalf of the members of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association

Council has urged neighboring communities to do more on housing and other shared challenges. What role should Lafayette play in regional partnerships on issues such as housing, transportation and environmental sustainability?

Lafayette is positioned to be a leader in the region and must continue to build coalitions with other local governments. Important policies including tax and minimum wage are not effective if Lafayette operates in a silo. We have the backing and support of the community to push for wide access to affordable housing and environmental responsibility and must capitalize on this opportunity.

As Lafayette grows and changes, how would you balance preserving community character with making room for new residents and businesses?

New businesses must be responsible to the community and their employees. One way to maintain the community that we love in Lafayette is to defer to small business, independent entrepreneurs and local revenue over corporate interests and big business. New residents should be welcomed and encouraged to join Lafayette by offering affordable housing, reasonable cost of living, increased minimum wage that allows for working folks to support their families. Contracts, especially with large companies, must include provisions for worker protections, rights to collectively bargain, and strict oversight from the city.

What do you see as the most pressing issue facing Lafayette right now, and how would you address it if elected?

The most pressing issue for many is safety. I am running to represent and protect the most vulnerable people in our communities, especially people whose identity is under attack and those being profiled and unjustly stripped of their constitutional rights. I want to ensure that any law enforcement, including immigration agents, are prohibited from wearing masks and must be wearing visible identification at all times as well as verbally identifying themselves when working in public. Lafayette must act reasonably and constitutionally by protecting personal information of those who live in our city so everyone can send their kids to school safely and securely, work and pay taxes. Furthermore the city must act responsibly with other privileged information and contracts with private companies that collect such information including surveillance data that must not be used to circumvent the rights guaranteed in the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.