Home Care In Centennial, CO

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CENTENNIAL, Colo. — An electric vehicle inside a Centennial garage started a fire on Wednesday morning, South Metro Fire Rescue said on the social media site X.

This happened a few blocks east of Cherry Creek State Park just before 8 a.m. Wednesday. There were no injuries, the agency said.

One of the battery packs was burning and damaged. The vehicle was pulled out of the garage onto the driveway and an EV fire blanket was used to control the fire, SMFR said.

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Firefighters checked the rest of the home for any fire damage. The Hazardous Materials Team and Aurora Fire Department also came to help South Metro Fire Rescue, according to SMFR.

The burning vehicle was towed to a safe location, SMFR said.

Later in the day, SMFR said the fire started in a 2019 Jaguar I-PACE. The department said a recall was issued for the vehicle in 2023 due to an issue of batteries overheating and causing fires.

With hopes of getting re-elected to represent District 2 on the Centennial City Council, incumbent candidate Christine Sweetland said she has loved serving as a council member.

“I’ve always been a volunteer and helped in the community. And this just feels like a bigger extension of that,” Sweetland said. “I have an important voice in the future of the city. And I want to continue to make that happen.”

Sweetland is running for the District 2 seat against candidate Rick Rome and write-in candidate Priscilla Rutledge.

She worked in telecommunications for about 15 years, working in different roles such as marketing and customer service, before switching her career to being a real estate appraiser, she said.

“Every role I had in my telecommunications jobs really helped me figure out how to run my business,” she said. “I love being a small business owner.”

Sweetland said being an appraiser helps with addressing issues on city council, especially when it comes to housing.

Some of her priorities include addressing housing issues, ensuring people feel safe in the community and focusing on what multimodal micromobility could look like in Centennial.

“I truly am passionate about the changes and growth that is happening, and … I want to have a strong voice in what our city’s gonna look like in the next 10, 15, 20 years,” she said. “I truly want what’s best for our city.”

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Housing is an issue where the decisions the council makes today will be really impactful in five to 10 years, Sweetland said.

“I think we’re a lot more open to exploring different housing opportunities than we ever have been in the past,” she said. “I think we’re a lot more open to looking at, like, maybe a Habitat for Humanity or some similar nonprofit-type housing solution.”

The council has been studying and discussing potential strategies it could adopt to address housing affordability and accessibility issues in Centennial.

Some of those strategies include an inclusionary zoning program, permitting accessory dwelling units, implementing a land banking program and having an expedited review process.

Inclusionary zoning is defined as policies that require and/or incentivize residential developers to include affordable units in their development or pay a fee-in-lieu of building affordable units.

Sweetland said she supports an inclusionary zoning ordinance and would want Centennial’s to be similar to Littleton’s ordinance.

“I think if we do adopt an inclusionary zoning policy, that we have to be open to the fact that we’re gonna be looking at it often to make changes to meet the needs of the community — the changing needs of the community,” she said.

Sweetland said she was not a fan of accessory dwelling units initially.

“But, during the housing study, it did get a lot of support from our community,” she said. “And so, I think if it’s right for, you know, certain areas, and the community supports it, I think that, you know, we’re going to do that.”

Land banking refers to when local governments buy, acquire and hold land for later development as affordable housing.

“I think everybody’s very supportive of land banking, just because it’s more of a market-driven solution,” she said. “That’s something we’re gonna have to partner with somebody.”

She said she cannot imagine Centennial ever standing up its own housing authority, but she believes there are enough partners in that space for the city to work with.

Sweetland said expedited review means looking at the city’s procedures to make sure that when people want to do developments in Centennial, they can get the structure they need to go forward before they put in a lot of money.

“Expedited review, now that we kind of have a better grasp on that, I think that’s a really good one,” she said.

Sweetland said she would also like to see more live-work units developed in the city, saying she thinks it is an untapped solution to an affordability issue.

Sweetland said the city has a great partnership with the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office.

“They did ask us for more deputies. And I think that’s going to be really helpful, because people want to see that there are officers available if they need it,” she said.

During a Sept. 12 city council work session, the sheriff’s office presented a 2024 budget request for Centennial that included adding five staff — two patrol deputies, two traffic safety deputies and one investigator.

Sweetland said about half of the city’s budget goes toward the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office.

She said she likes that the sheriff’s office has a co-responder program to help people who are experiencing a mental health crisis.

“I think that’s really important,” she said. “Public safety takes different forms, and so, I would like to see if we can, you know, expand that.”

A lot of residents worry about the issue of homelessness, Sweetland said.

The city recently worked with Arapahoe County to create a new position — a Centennial homeless outreach liaison who works with people facing homelessness and refers them to resources or programs.

Sweetland said she thinks having an outreach liaison helps a lot.

“We’ve done some really great programs. And, you know, I would like to see that continue,” she said.

Sweetland said she would like to see the city do more multimodal projects, such as the project happening on Colorado Boulevard.

Centennial needs to figure out better connections so that people feel comfortable taking shorter trips, such as 1-3 miles, by walking, biking, or using an electric scooter rather than taking a car, she said.

“I just think that we need to kind of focus a little bit more on what that multimodal micromobility looks like,” she said.

Sweetland said many Centennial residents are proud that the city has no debt.

“Even when interest rates were so low, it was almost like, are we hurting ourselves?” she said. “Because we’re … waiting to save this money in order to do these projects, when we could take basically a zero interest rate loan, but it’s, you know, people in our city really appreciate that.”

“I’m committed to keeping that when it makes, you know, sense to do it — it just means that projects take a little longer in Centennial,” she continued.

Sweetland said she sometimes has to explain to residents that although the city’s reserves look really high, all the money is earmarked for future uses.

In the city’s budget, she thinks the city should prioritize funding the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office, funding for public works to invest in having good streets and sidewalks, as well as prioritizing open space, parks and trails.

“In our city, we have a lot of already defined parks and open space,” she said. “But I want to make sure that we have the connections so that if we do build more neighborhoods, that they have the same access to those amenities as everybody else.”

When it comes to voting on controversial issues, Sweetland said she believes that in most decisions, it is possible to find common ground.

“The other thing we have to remember is that decisions that we make aren’t set in stone,” she said. “We can always change it.”

She said she tries to always explain why she is voting a certain way when she sits on the council chamber dais.

Sweetland likes to go to events and educational opportunities to learn more about issues, she said.

“I have to be willing to listen to other viewpoints before I make a decision,” she said.

When it comes to supporting local businesses, Sweetland expressed pride in how the council spent its COVID-19 relief funds.

According to a city report, Centennial received more than $10.39 million through an agreement with Arapahoe County. Of that, about $9.2 million went to small business assistance.

Sweetland said the city started with a grant program for brick-and-mortar businesses, such as restaurants.

“But what I’m most proud of is that we still had money left over, and I asked that we also open it up to, you know, our small businesses that are home-based businesses — to, you know, the hairdressers, the massage therapists,” she said.

She said she also suggested that the city open up grant money to nonprofits.

Looking at how the city can continue to invest in local businesses, Sweetland said she supports the city’s program, Spark Centennial.

She also would like for Centennial to look at doing similar campaigns as she has seen Aurora and Littleton do where they help promote local businesses.

“I’d like to see us do some more of those types of things where we’re really focusing on some of those local unique Centennial businesses that people don’t even know exist,” she said.

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The Army and Navy have vast territories of land and sea to conduct full-scale war games and training exercises. But what about the Space Force? At the moment, the nascent new branch of the U.S. military does not really have the resources, infrastructure or doctrine to execute such critically important real-world scenarios for their personnel.

Satellite operations expert Even Rogers identified that problem when he left the Air Force a few years ago.

“We didn't leave the military because we wanted, necessarily, to start a company,” he said. “It was because we believed that we had deep specific knowledge on the problem.”

That knowledge led to the creation of True Anomaly — the company Rogers founded a little more than a year ago — and the “Jackal” satellite.

Rogers described the Jackal as an “emulator” of sorts for Space Force training missions. It can play the role of an adversary sparring partner from a hostile nation or a cooperating ally. It is also equipped with sensors to track the movement of all the satellites and earth-bound assets involved in the exercise.

“(Space Force leaders) really need a flexible environment where they can get capabilities in there very quickly, understand what their performance is and then iterate on systems rapidly,” Rogers said.

True Anomaly hosted a grand opening for their 35-thousand-square-foot facility in Centennial late last week. The team is preparing to build a fleet of autonomous satellites to support future Space Force training exercises — at an assembly rate of one “Jackal” satellite every five days.

The Thursday ribbon-cutting was attended by the likes of U.S. Rep. Jason Crow and the recently-retired first Chief of Space Operations, the Space Force representative on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond.

Crow told the few dozen gathered for the event that the facility represented an evolution, at least in the space domain, from the military’s historic years-long cycles of weapons development.

“The technology we create today, or that our adversaries create today, is only going to be relevant for two to three years, and then it'll be irrelevant. So those old contracting styles and that old style of procurement is not going to meet the day,” Crow said.

The first two Jackal satellites are scheduled to launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California next February, aboard a SpaceX rocket.

Rogers said while he is first focusing on military contracts, the company eventually intends to sell to commercial operators in need of space security training.

True Anomaly, at about 90 employees currently, represents another shift in the military and other government entities looking more to the rapidly expanding ecosystem of small and midsize space companies in Colorado.

The Front Range has the highest concentration of space-focused workers in the country.

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When neighbors and friends first asked Valdan Vandemark if he would be interested in running for Centennial City Council, his initial answer was no, he said.

“And then I started getting really interested in what city council really does, what they’re accountable for, how they impact the lives of, you know, all my neighbors and me,” Vandemark said. “And my ‘no’ quickly became … ‘How could I not run?’”

Vandemark is running against incumbent Council Member Richard Holt for the District 3 seat.

“I went back and listened to, you know, hours and hours and several years of city council meetings,” he said. “I started to get really enrolled and excited about the possibility of serving and making that kind of difference.”

After listening through the city council meetings, he also felt unrepresented in his district, he said.

The 31-year-old said he does not think there is anyone around his age, or who thinks about business in the same way he does.

Vandemark said he has always had an entrepreneurial way of thinking. As a teenager, he started an online coaching business for different video games. Since then, he has worked as a manager for various companies, he said.

He now runs his own ADT security business, he said.

“I have a lot of experience working with people younger than me, people older than me, people my age, in managing teams of those people that, you know, get great results and have them work well together,” he said.

Some of the main issues he believes the city faces are housing and public safety. If elected, he said he will be a public servant, make himself available to people, and be active in the community.

“I’m clear that I will be a better representative for the residents of District 3,” he said. “I’ll do that by collaborating, listening, making myself massively readily available for people.

“And I’m going to show up prepared. I’m going to be a team player,” he added. “I will take your call, I’ll listen to what you have to say, and I will work with you and anyone I have to (on a) solution, common sense solution.”

Housing

One of the main issues Centennial faces is housing, Vandemark said.

“A responsibility for city council would definitely be housing,” he said. “Housing is going to be one of the biggest influencers on the future of Centennial in the next five to 10 years.”

Most of his friends cannot afford to live anywhere near where they grew up. He has also heard from older adults that they cannot afford to downsize, he said.

Vandemark would like to see more mixed-use developments in Centennial.

“I’m a huge fan of SouthGlenn,” he said, referring to The Streets at SouthGlenn. “Now, I think the rent prices are too high to be competitive in any market with the way they did that.”

“But, having a place where there’s, like, nice retail, there’s things to do, there’s restaurants, there’s activity, you know, and there’s higher density living options for people — that is something I’m all for,” he said.

Vandemark said he sees a lot of underutilized and aging office shopping and retail spaces that he thinks could be redeveloped into mixed-use areas with higher density living options that are more affordable.

The council has been studying and discussing potential strategies it could adopt to address housing affordability and accessibility issues.

Some of those strategies include an inclusionary zoning program, permitting accessory dwelling units, implementing a land banking program and having an expedited review process.

When it comes to accessory dwelling units, also called ADUs, Vandemark said the council will need to regulate them.

“They’re going to need to be regulated in a way that … works, is safe for both the occupants and safe for the people owning them, and kind of can be an organic fit to a neighborhood,” he said.

Vandemark said he supports having public hearings on things like that, providing a chance for neighbors to share their input.

“Overall, I’m for ADUs,” he said.

Inclusionary zoning is defined as policies that require and/or incentivize residential developers to include affordable units in their development or pay a fee-in-lieu of building affordable units.

Vandemark said he is “not really for or against inclusionary zoning.”

“In general, I am more of an advocate of being in communication and working with people than, kind of, just putting ordinances and saying, ‘You need to follow X, Y, or Z,’” he said.

Public safety

In the last year or so, Vandemark said his work vehicle has been broken into, his personal car was broken into and his neighbor’s house was broken into.

The Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office was responsive and great, but there was no follow-up about the home invasion, he said.

He said he thinks the council should have a conversation with the sheriff’s office about whether it is getting what it needs to manage things.

The sheriff’s office did recently present a 2024 budget request for Centennial that included adding five staff — two patrol deputies, two traffic safety deputies and one investigator.

Vandemark feels there is a lack of communication between residents, city council and the sheriff’s office.

He said he is someone who can help bridge that gap by communicating what residents are experiencing and what the council plans to allocate to the sheriff’s office.

If elected, he would be attentive to local homeowners association meetings and local board meetings, he said. He also gives out his cell phone number and described himself as reliable and responsive.

“I’m someone that likes to be, you know, very active in the community,” he said.

He will also listen to what the sheriff’s office says it needs and will be “a voice for both sides,” he said.

Vandemark said he has family members in law enforcement and feels for that community.

“Part of this conversation is not just to be like, ‘Oh, we’re not getting what we need.’ It’s really to look at how can we support you guys, the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s (Office), as a community to make policing easier and more effective in our community?” he said.

Finances

Fiscal responsibility means spending money well on things that benefit the people who pay for it, Vandemark said.

“I think the city council does a pretty good job of being more fiscally responsible already,” he said.

The city contracts out many of its services and generally has less employees than other cities of a similar size, he said.

He thinks the council should prioritize public safety and infrastructure in the city budget.

Making decisions on controversial issues

Vandemark said he cannot promise to be an expert on everything, but he will do a ton of research when it comes to voting on issues so that he clearly understands both sides.

“I think that starts with talking to people,” he said.

When making a decision on a controversial issue, he would take a “common-sense look at things” and try to make a decision that will benefit everyone, he said.

He said he would be very transparent about why he is voting a certain way.

“When someone (is) a part of the decision making process, I think whether the decision is quite what they want it to be or not, as long as they feel heard, I would say … that’s my main goal,” he said.

“I want people to feel heard in the conversation,” he added. “That’s my approach to that — just transparency, honesty, collaboration.”

Supporting local businesses

Vandemark said he would advocate for “getting things passed quickly” for local businesses.

“If they have zoning issues or things they need to get done, that we make that a very easy, streamlined process for someone to come into Centennial and say, ‘I want to open a business,’” he said.

He said some shopping centers in the city have quite a few vacancies, and he would like to explore working with developers and property owners to potentially redevelop those shopping centers or make them more appealing.

“Overall, I think the biggest thing for businesses is just making it really easy for them … and simple for them to operate here,” he said.

Tagged: candidates from centennial city couniclcentennial city council candidatesCentennial council electionvaldan vandemark

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Priscilla Rutledge decided to run for a council seat on the Centennial City Council, District 2, because she wanted voters to have options.

“It wasn’t really so much that I wanted to run for city council as that I wanted there to be a choice for people who were voting,” she said. “At the time that I applied to be a write-in candidate, the incumbent in my district had no opponents.”

There are now three candidates for District 2 — incumbent Christine Sweetland and challengers Rick Rome and Rutledge, a write-in candidate.

“What I would bring to the city council is an open mind and ability to find things out — and not go off of assumptions, but to actually find out what is actually happening,” Rutledge said.

Rutledge, who moved to Centennial in 1998, said she got her undergraduate degree in theater and her graduate degree in library and information science.

Before retiring about five years ago, she worked as a research librarian professionally, she said.

“I’m really good at finding out about things and looking at all sides of things, which I think is valuable,” she said.

If elected, the first thing she would do is find out what the citizens view as the main issues facing Centennial, she said. For her, something she wants to look into is roadwork in the city.

She also wants to look at what regulations are in place for the city, she said.

“Are there any of them that we can take out of the books so that people are less regulated?” she said. “I think one of the things I would like to do is see what we can take off the books, as well as what … we might want to put on the books.”

Rutledge said she believes government exists so that “the greatest number of people can live their lives in safety … and without being interfered with.”

She said she is good at working with other people and compromising.

“I’m not really interested in who’s right or wrong, I’m interested in what’s going to work,” she said. “And that’s how I will approach the job of city council.”

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The Centennial City Council has been studying and discussing potential strategies it could adopt to address housing affordability and accessibility issues.

Some of those strategies include an inclusionary zoning program, permitting accessory dwelling units, implementing a land banking program and having an expedited review process.

Rutledge said she is a big believer in having lots of different answers, so she would be willing to consider any of those strategies for the city.

“I don’t think there’s a one-size-fits-all,” she said. “I think we need to be able to use all of them in certain areas, and in certain ways.”

Inclusionary zoning is defined as policies that require and/or incentivize residential developers to include affordable units in their development or pay a fee-in-lieu of building affordable units.

There are a variety of ways to design an inclusionary zoning program, including whether the inclusionary zoning policies should be mandatory or voluntary.

Rutledge said her impulse would be to start with incentives rather than requirements.

“And if it gets to the point where incentivizing isn’t working, and as a council we think that we need to have these affordable units, that would be the time to mandate,” she said. “But we don’t start with mandates.”

Rutledge said that she can see how accessory dwelling units could become a burden on a neighborhood if everyone built something on their property.

“I think that would be the kind of thing that I would want to be able to be flexible on and say yes sometimes and no … some other times,” she said.

Rutledge said it is important that the city has a well-run law enforcement agency so that there can be a quick response to issues and to ensure any kind of preventative measures are put in place.

One issue is scams, she said, as older adults are typically a big target for scams and she has heard of younger adults being targeted with texting scams.

“I’m not quite sure what a city government can do in that line, but I would think that would be very important is to — looking how to protect people who are vulnerable,” she said.

She also thinks the government should prioritize compassionate measures. An example would be offering a way to help people who are facing foreclosure to stave it off, she said.

She said another example of a compassionate measure is her church’s involvement in the sanctuary movement, helping provide immigrants a place to stay.

“I’d be very interested in what can we do, you know, as a city, that would make it easier on people, because there is not only the people who come over the border, but there’s also the people from like Afghanistan, or the refugees from Darfur and other places that are coming,” she said.

“They get here, they need help. How can we help? I think that’s, especially for us who have so much, you know, it’s something we should be doing,” she added.

For Rutledge, fiscal responsibility means that a person or entity does not spend more than they have.

If elected, she would look at what the city’s income is, where it comes from, and if it is “the appropriate place to be getting our income,” she said.

“And then, what are we spending it on? Are we getting the biggest bang for our buck that we can get? And, do we need to be spending what we’re spending?” she said. “That’s how I would go about it.”

When it comes to voting on controversial matters where some residents support and some oppose an issue, Rutledge said the first thing she would do is examine what the city charter says.

“Because as an elected official, I see my job as maintaining what the citizens put into place when they created the City of Centennial,” she said. “So, the first thing I would do is go to the charter and see how the charter speaks about whatever the issue is.

“And then, the next thing I would use is my own common sense and my values,” she continued.

Rutledge said she would look at what people are objecting to and why, as well as what people are advocating for and why.

She said a question she would consider is: “How does this impact people’s ability to live their lives … safely and without interference?”

“If this is something that, as far as I can see, is not going to have a big impact on public safety and isn’t going to interfere with their lives, I’m all for it,” she said. “That’s how I’d go about it.”

To support local businesses, Rutledge said she would make sure it is easy to access businesses.

“That is definitely one thing I’ve noticed with certain places I like to go, and it’s hard to get to them,” she said.

She also wants to look into whether there are companies that make small business loans operating in Centennial.

“Is there something the city council … could do to make it more attractive for them to operate in Centennial? Can we make people who want to start a business — can we make it easier for them to get up and running and get the money they need to start?” she said. “I would be looking at all of that.”

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