City Star Brewing is hosting an Adopt YOUR Town campaign this Earth Day. The Berthoud brewery is sponsoring this litter clean-up by offering free beer in exchange for a bag of trash. Participants can earn a beer by showing their City Star beer slinger a photo with their bag of trash. Alternatively, community members can drop off at City Star’s roll-off dumpster rented just for the campaign. A red City Star tent will be set up with the dumpster, located in the parking lot on the SE corner of Third Street and Mountain Avenue. Litter will be traded for free beer coupons at the tent Friday, April 22 from noon to 7 p.m., and Saturday, April, 23 from 8 a.m. to noon. Families are encouraged to participate with their kids. There will also be root beer on hand at the City Star tent to trade for trash.

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Properties in the recent 37E fire burn area, located southwest of Carter Lake will be surveyed by staff from the Larimer County Assessor’s Office this week.

Assessor staff will be in the field during normal business hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday thru Friday in Larimer County vehicles and equipped with Larimer County ID cards for identification purposes.

“The property survey will ensure property owners receive fair and equitable valuations from damage caused by the fire,” said Larimer County Assessor Bob Overbeck. “Our thanks go out to the hard work by the first responders, and thus far, no damages to buildings have been reported.

The fire that began Friday spread to roughly 114 acres and thanks to the quick response of area fire departments and first responders was 75% contained by Saturday evening. According to social media posts from the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office although high winds had been forecast throughout the week leading up to the fire, favorable weather allowed crews to make progress on fighting the fire leading into Saturday.

The fire, located near Vision Way and County Road 37E in the Blue Mountain Area north of Lyons, was reported about 3:30 p.m. Friday.

The fire resulted in mandatory and voluntary evacuations in the surrounding area located in Larimer and Boulder Counties. Residents in both the mandatory and voluntary evacuation areas were all allowed to return home by Saturday evening, according to tweets from the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office and Boulder Office of Emergency Management.

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The Colorado State Board of Education will begin considering final recommendations on revisions to the social studies academic standards at its May board meeting after receiving more than 17,000 online comments and nearly 1,000 emails in public comment on the matter. The board expects to continue its review of the standards throughout the fall, with final approval expected no later than December.

At its April monthly meeting held last week, the board heard a summary of public feedback on the draft revision recommendations for the social studies standards and initial responses from the committee on Tuesday and heard public comment on Wednesday. The most discussed topic was the standards review committee’s recommendation in its draft proposal to remove references to LGBTQ individuals for grades below fourth grade.

Statute requires standards to be reviewed and revised every six years.  House Bill 19-1192 requires the board to consider changes to the state’s history and civics standards to incorporate the contributions of minorities, including but not limited to American Indians, Latinos, African Americans, and Asian Americans, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals and the contributions and persecution of religious minorities.

After proposed revised standards were presented to the board in November, significant public comment was received through February urging the committee to remove references of LGBTQ individuals in the social studies standards in early grades. The board is obligated to consider public comment before making its final decision.

In addition to the social studies standards, the board voted to approve revisions to the Colorado Academic Standards for the arts, which include dance, drama and theater arts, music, and visual arts. The visual arts committee revised its final recommendations based on feedback from the board at its February meeting. Changes align essential skills with grade-level expectations and middle school standards in music and visual arts to performance rather than grade levels. School districts will have two years to transition local standards, curriculum and assessments to align to the revised standards, with implementation anticipated to begin in August 2024.