City Cast Denver

It’s Denver Restaurant Week and we’re exploring all aspects of the dining scene. Today, John Hinman is a pastry chef and the owner of Hinman Pie. But he’s also the founder of Culinary Hospitality Outreach and Wellness, or CHOW, a nonprofit offering support groups and mental health courses to restaurant workers that’s grown by leaps and bounds in the last two years. Host Bree Davies sits down with Hinman to talk about how his own mental health struggles led to CHOW, the specific challenges of working in Denver restaurants today, and what kinds of positive changes he’s seeing in the local food world. If you’re interested in attending one of CHOW’s support group meetings, check out the Denver chapter’s in-person gatherings on Monday nights at 6 p.m. at 1633 Fillmore Street. Follow @CHOW_org on Instagram for up-to-date information on meetings and other resources.In today’s City Cast Denver newsletter, local musician Arnie Swenson remembers his friend, collaborator, and jazz great Ron Miles, who passed away last week: https://denver.citycast.fm/newsletter/Check us out on Twitter: @citycastdenverLooking to advertise on City Cast Denver? Check out our options for podcast and newsletter ads at citycast.fm/advertise Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Denver Restaurant Week kicks off today! We’re talking Mile High culinary history, the cowtown stereotype we can’t seem to shake (Rocky Mountain Oysters, anyone?), and more. Host Bree Davies is joined by newsletter writer and resident CCD foodie Peyton Garcia, along with regular Friday chat contributor, Westword’s Patty Calhoun, plus Denver restaurateur-turned-behind-the-scenes-culinary-expert John Imbergamo for a look at what Denver’s food world means to us — and the rest of the country. In today’s City Cast Denver newsletter, Peyton rounds up the best escape rooms in the metro area. Read and subscribe: https://denver.citycast.fm/newsletter/What’s your favorite restaurant in Denver? Tell us on Twitter: @citycastdenverLooking to advertise on City Cast Denver? Check out our options for podcast and newsletter ads at citycast.fm/advertise Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The City of Denver has already paid out more than $3 million in settlements to people injured by the police while protesting the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020. But now, a group of 12 protesters has taken their case to court, marking the first federal trial in the country to challenge police violence against those racial justice protests. The ACLU’s Colorado office is representing most of the plaintiffs, and senior staff attorney Sara Neel joins host Bree Davies to take us inside their case and talk about the implications for future criminal justice reform. Bree mentioned the Office of the Independent Monitor’s December 2020 report on the Denver Police Department’s response to the racial justice protests that summer. You can read the whole 94-page report documenting multiple examples of excessive force here: https://www.denvergov.org/content/dam/denvergov/Portals/374/documents/2020GFPReport_OIM.pdfPlus, this episode includes another installment of Voice on the Street, our partnership with Denver’s street paper, The Denver VOICE. You can support the Voice by buying a copy from your local vendor, donate online or via Venmo. And if you want to get a little extra support to Albert Bland, our guest on this episode, make sure to include his name in a note with your Venmo transfer. Denver Restaurant Week starts on Friday, and Peyton has got all the local food news you need to know before booking your reservations in our newsletter. Read and subscribe here: https://denver.citycast.fm/newsletter/Follow us on Twitter @citycastdenverLooking to advertise on City Cast Denver? Check out our options for podcast and newsletter ads at citycast.fm/advertise Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Until recently, Justin Murchison wasn’t really thinking about buying a home. He was more focused on paying down his credit card debt and taking care of his plants. Then he stumbled upon on opportunity that most young people in Denver only dream about: a path to buying their first home. City Cast Denver host Bree Davies chats with Justin about his journey to homeownership. Plus, we’ll hear from Santhosh Ramdoss, vice president of impact investing at Gary Community Ventures. He helped create The Dearfield Fund that made Justin’s home purchase possible and he says it could be the key to shrinking Denver’s racial home ownership gap. Wanna know where Gary Community Ventures got that name for their fund — Dearfield? We talked about the historic Black homesteading community with Westword editor Patty Calhoun a few weeks ago, and you can learn even more courtesy of the Colorado Encyclopedia. Do you want a chance to see Radiolab founder Jad Abumrad at the Paramount Theater on April 17? We’re giving away two free tickets, and all you have to do to enter is write a really nice review of City Cast Denver wherever you listen to podcasts, and rate us 5 stars. Then, take a screenshot of your review and send it to us at denver@citycast.fm by April 1. Near the end of this episode, Bree mentions a federal civil rights trial over the Denver Police Department’s use of force during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020. We’ve got a full breakdown of the trial in our newsletter today. Read that and subscribe here: https://denver.citycast.fm/newsletter/Hang out with us on Twitter @citycastdenver! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

More than 1,000 homes were destroyed when the Marshall Fire ripped through Louisville, Superior and unincorporated Boulder County in late December, sending thousands of Coloradans headlong into an urgent search for an affordable place to live. Now that the dust has settled, all those families are thinking about rebuilding what was lost, and it’s going to be expensive — especially with the brand new climate-friendly building codes Louisville instituted last October. Denver Post reporter Noelle Phillips has been covering the story, and she joins host Bree Davies to talk about the fire’s impact on our housing market, the cost of a “green” rebuild, and how Louisville residents are feeling about those new building codes now that it’s wildfire survivors who’ll be footing the bill. Subscribe to the CCD newsletter for more Denver news fresh in your inbox every weekday morning: https://denver.citycast.fm/newsletter/Follow us on Twitter @citycastdenverLooking to advertise on City Cast Denver? Check out our options for podcast and newsletter ads at citycast.fm/advertise Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the summer of 2020, the mayor’s office joined forces with Colorado Village Collaborative to launch the Safe Outdoor Space program as an emergency measure to help address Denver’s crisis of homelessness. Safe Outdoor Spaces, or SOS sites, have since provided warmth, shelter, food, restrooms, trash service, and more to more than 240 unhoused Denverites. Still, many people were against the sanctioned campsites and fought hard to keep them out of their neighborhoods. Today on the show, Host Bree Davies talks with Cuica Montoya, SOS Program Director for the Colorado Village Collaborative, and Ian Stitt, an SOS Site Manager liaison for the St. Francis Center. They discuss how these spaces create community for our unhoused neighbors, how the SOS program convinced the haters, and how they attracted another $3.9 million in city funding this year. Learn more and support the Colorado Village Collaborative’s Safe Outdoor Space program here.Check out previous City Cast Denver episodes from 2021 about the Safe Outdoor Space program from the perspective of an SOS resident, and learn about the battle one local church that fought to bring the program to its neighborhood. Did you know Quiznos is from Denver? The first location ever opened on 13th Avenue in 1981, and it looks…. like every other Quiznos. But the chain has gone through A LOT since then, and Peyton’s got the whole story for you in our newsletter today. Read and subscribe here: https://denver.citycast.fm/newsletter/Hey, we’re on Twitter! @citycastdenver Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s the transportation quagmire of a generation: the RTD train to Boulder that never arrived. CPR transportation reporter Nathaniel Minor would even go so far as calling it a “Ghost Train.” For this week’s Friday chat, he joins City Cast Denver producer Paul Karolyi and host Bree Davies to discuss his podcast series Ghost Train and what he learned about Denver’s relationship to transit. Oh, and what really happened with that Denver to Boulder train. Listen to all four parts of Ghost Train right here: https://www.cpr.org/podcast/ghost-train/Nathaniel also wrote up a piece about some of his reporting for Denverite: https://denverite.com/2022/02/22/why-dont-rtds-trains-go-into-denvers-neighborhoods/And here’s the Streetsblog piece by David Sachs that Paul mentions: https://denver.streetsblog.org/2022/01/31/commentary-in-streetsblog-denvers-absence-local-news-has-a-responsibility-to-get-out-from-behind-the-windshield/Looking for things to do this weekend? The CCD newsletter does a weekly events roundup every Friday. Find that and subscribe to the newsletter here: https://denver.citycast.fm/newsletter/Give us all of your transit hot takes on Twitter. Follow us @citycastdenverLooking to advertise on City Cast Denver? Check out our options for podcast and newsletter ads at citycast.fm/advertise Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last May, we brought you the story of Shawn and Ben Johnson, a Sunnyside couple who wanted to build an ADU, or accessory dwelling unit, in their backyard so Shawn’s disabled mom could live close. The Johnsons were stymied by an obscure body called the Board of Adjustment for Zoning Appeals (BOA), which is in charge of approving any exceptions to the zoning code and which the Johnsons came to see as discriminatory. Now, after a year throwing themselves against the bureaucracy, the Johnsons have helped to make a change: Denver City Council recently voted to reform the BOA. So we called up Kathryn White, the Denver North Star reporter who alerted us to the Johnsons’ situation in the first place, to unpack the reform and its possible citywide impacts. Plus, we checked in with the Johnsons to hear if this means they can finally build their ADU. For the full backstory, here’s a link to our first episode with the Johnsons (May 19, 2021): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/why-cant-this-denver-couple-build-adu-for-their-disabled/id1557798162?i=1000522342311Here’s a link to Kathryn White’s first story laying out their case (May 14, 2021): https://www.denvernorthstar.com/north-denver-couple-denied-zoning-variance-to-house-disabled-mom-subjectivity-and-bias-on-denvers-board-of-adjustment-for-zoning-enters-public-spotlight/And here’s her latest, a report on the recent reform of the BOA (February 15, 2022), which has since passed: https://www.denvernorthstar.com/city-council-moves-to-bring-zoning-departments-board-of-adjustment-into-modern-era/Looking for somewhere good to eat this weekend? Peyton’s got a roundup of all the latest food news and other delicious tidbits in our newsletter today: https://denver.citycast.fm/newsletter/What do you think about the BOA reform? Let us know on Twitter @citycastdenver Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You know that spot on I-70 on the way into the mountains? That spot where it goes from three lanes to two, and there’s always traffic? Well, it’s called Floyd Hill, and last week the Colorado Department of Transportation kicked off a new $700 million effort to fix it. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was even in town to celebrate the occasion! But is their plan really going to address the root of the problem? Host Bree Davies talks to Colorado Sun environment reporter Michael Booth about why our elected leaders are so eager to cheer on the project and how CDOT is planning to mitigate the climate impact. For more on the Floyd Hill project, check out Michael Booth’s full report for the Colorado Sun, including the impact this project will have on the people who live in the area. Imaging getting on I-70 and sitting in an hour of traffic just to pick up groceries!They’re finally demolishing the old Ramada Inn on East Colfax, so Bree is sharing stories and reminiscing in the newsletter today. Subscribe here: https://denver.citycast.fm/newsletter/What do you think about adding an extra lane to I-70 at Floyd Hill? Let us know @citycastdenver Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Search for the “best” schools in the Denver metro area, and you’re going to find your way to the Cherry Creek School District. They’ve got 67 schools in and around Greenwood Village, Glendale, and Cherry Hills Village that consistently rank among the best in the state, academically. But one former administrator and several current and former employees say that A+ reputation is obscuring a toxic culture of discrimination, racism, and sexual misconduct. Today on the show, host Bree Davies talks with Denver Gazette reporter David Migoya about his investigation into the school district’s alleged issues, including a look into a Title IX investigation launched last summer by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. Read David Migoya’s full investigative reporting on the school district for the Denver Gazette here.Newsletter writer Peyton Garcia has a round-up of all five film festivals happening across Colorado this week. Subscribe here: https://denver.citycast.fm/newsletter/Follow us on Twitter: @citycastdenver Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices