English Bulldog Puppies for Sale in Westminster, CO

Colorado residents filled a room at the Standley Lake Library in Westminster Wednesday night to question a developer who has a plan to put 40 homes at the site of the former Zerger Elementary School in Westminster's King Mill neighborhood.

Cardel Homes has a deal with Jeffco Public Schools, which owns the property, to tear down the school and build 40 single-family homes on the property.

"Unfortunately, the school district can't use this building anymore," Jeff Keeley, a development consultant working for Cardel Homes, told the crowd. The school system has been selling off some of the schools it has closed as enrollments have declined. After Zerger closed, it served for a time as a charter school that is no longer operating at the site. The building is unused, but locals frequent the green space.

"Listen to us and stop these sales. Stop these closures and do your job," said Gary Bland, talking about the school district. Bland, who distributed a survey to local residents, said 97% of those who answered don't like the current plans for the property. Many want the City of Westminster to create a park on the property, but the city did not make a bid for the property when JeffCo Public Schools put it up for sale.

"You lose the character of the neighborhood," said Kent McBride about the proposed development, who lives on a street that abuts the property. McBride said his wife, who suffers from Alzheimer's Disease, can walk over the property.

"One of the last things physically she can do is just walk," he said. "She walks, but she doesn't feel that she gets lost because she has the school as a point of reference."

Keeley declined an interview request, but answered questions along with other representatives from Cardel Homes. When residents said they feared what might be dug up when soils were stirred in construction in the area not far from Rocky Flats, he told the crowd the company would not build if the property was found to be contaminated.

Zoning for the property is appropriate for housing development, said Westminster planning director John McConnell. But the city council will have to sign off on a change to the city's comprehensive plan, giving the council a chance to weigh in on the developer's plans. That timeline is not yet shaped.

Alan Gionet

Your Reporter Alan Gionet reports on a wide variety of issues and specializes in covering stories in Colorado's foothills. Share you story ideas with him by sending an email to yourreporter@cbs.com.

Carl Zerger Elementary School has been closed since 2011, but is still a treasured part of the King Mill neighborhood and Westminster community in the Denver metro area. The building may be unused, but families and residents get plenty of use out of the playground, blacktop and green space on the former school campus.

"It means a lot to the residents to where they can come here and use the park and the open space," said longtime community member Jim Fenimore.

The land is in the process of being sold by the school district in Jefferson County to a developer, Cardel Homes, who plan on turning it into a new neighborhood of roughly 40 new single family homes. Fenimore, and other residents in the community, is against it.

"We need to have this building preserved to where it can be used as a later date," he said.

He's not alone.

"You lose community," said Karina Taugelwelder, who has lived in King Mill for 6 years. "You lose the playfulness of the kids who we see play on the playground."

"It's the loss of public spaces in favor of public development which is I think a big issue that we're facing in the state of Colorado," her husband, Eric Phillips, added.

In their proposal, Cardel Homes outlined that there will be dedicated park land space towards the south of the subdivision, servicing the new homes as well as the greater neighborhood. They also provided a traffic analysis which suggested that the 40 homes would be less of a daily traffic hassle than the pick-up and drop-off times of a school day.

But Gary Bland, who sent out 500 surveys and received over 460 back regarding the issue of the development, has another concern. If more families move into the neighborhood, the likelihood is higher that they will be coming with young kids and where they go to school will be an open question. Zerger was closed in 2011 citing declining enrollments.

"We paid for with our tax dollars, this school," Bland said. "So don't sell it. I'm going to stop you. I think it's the wrong thing to do."

"It won't be long until younger people have little kids and they need a place to have schools," chimed in Dan Hoffman, a longtime resident whose children went to Zerger. "And where are they going to put them?"

There will be a meeting at Standley Lake Library from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. for residents to discuss the development with community leaders and the developer himself.

Andrew Haubner

Your Reporter Andrew Haubner specializes in reporting about Jefferson County in Colorado. Share you story ideas with him by sending an email to yourreporter@cbs.com.

Family fun day organisers hope to put canal fees in the spotlight

A BOATERS’ “Big Bash” is being held this weekend with organisers hoping to shine a spotlight on new charges set to be introduced on the canal.

The National Bargee Travellers Association (NBTA) said there will be live music, children’s activities, stalls and speeches at the family fun day in the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal in Westbourne Park from noon tomorrow, Saturday.

“There’s going to be music, stores, and all sorts of activities for people to enjoy rather than just marches or speeches,” said Jake Oscar Saville, of the NBTA.

He said the association members are concerned about surcharges being imposed on “itinerant” boaters – also known as “continuous cruisers” – living in boats who do not have a fixed mooring.

A “commission” has also been launched by the Canal & River Trust, the body responsible for maintaining the historic waterways.

Mr Saville said he believed itinerant boaters’ interests were not being represented to the commission, and added: “It’s a commission to look into the future of itinerant boaters but there’s nobody from our community that’s a part of it.”

The NBTA, launched in 2009, is a volunteer organisation providing support and advocacy for the various people living on boats across the United Kingdom. The NBTA believes the surcharge discriminates against them and is a direct threat to a traditional, low-impact, lifestyle.

They argue the fee risks pricing their communities off the water entirely.

Mr Saville said: “We’ll continue to organise as best we can to make sure that they are aware of what their legal rights are and that they’re not being discriminated against by enforcement that isn’t legally proper.”

The commission was launched in January and is chaired by lawyer Andrew Cowan, alongside Sir Chris Kelly and a CRT rep. The CRT said: “It has been 30 years since the British Waterways Act 1995 was passed and, in that time, there have been many changes to the canal network and how it is managed, the number of boats licensed on our waterways, and the way people are choosing to use their boats. We believe it’s a sensible time to take a fresh look at how we license boats on our waters and help us consider whether it would be sensible to consider possible changes that better reflect the use of the network, today and in the future.”

For more on the association and fun day go to: https://bargee-traveller.org.uk/

It turns out that seeing a band you saw in your 20s, when you are now in your 40s, can make you feel like the sands of time are running a tad low

The Boy Least Likely To at Bush Hall

IT is illegal to say anything slightly negative about the carefully constructed icon Beyoncé, but if you were on a late train any time last week you would have been surrounded by scores of middle-aged people in cowboy hats.

No doubt they thought Bey loved them back for rocking her London gig merch but by any sober analysis these fans had actually become the worst hen party searching for the right platform for Brighton.

At the risk of prosecution, is there anything more predictable than Beyoncé having a country swing reinvention in the middle of her stellar soul career?

Amid the Stetsons, you’d have found Harrington also on my way back from a gig.

A little more low key, 200 people had been in the Bush Hall in Shepherd’s Bush for a band you’ve either never heard of or can’t remember, called The Boy Least Likely To. It’s the sort of cute venue that wherever you are standing you can see the faces of the performers, and you don’t have to queue for the loos.

That’s not to say all this is definitely better than the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, readers can make up their own minds about that.

Now, I would’ve thought I’d have felt old going to a Beyoncé show, such is the desperation you find in so many in their 40s and 50s, claiming, as they do, to love the superpowers of pop in a see-through bid to cling on to a lost level of cool. Saying you like Beyoncé at our age, or Taylor Swift or Stormzy or bubble tea, is like those who claim they really can’t miss The Super Bowl. You’ll stare and insist you’re enjoying it, but you don’t really understand what’s going on.

And yet, in the end, it was going to The Boy Least Likely To that made me feel old, and not just because their songs are often sad nostalgic spins about missed opportunities and what life could’ve been if we’d made a different choice at a different time.

The Boy Least Likely To on GMTV nearly 20 years ago

No, it turns out that seeing a band you saw in your 20s with other people who were also in their 20s, when you are now in your 40s and the people around you are too, suitably makes you feel like the sands of time are running a tad low.

The band was playing their 2005 album The Best Party Ever in full as an anniversary special, but last time I saw them it was a packed house at the Scala in King’s Cross and here it was just the happy survivors, still nodding away to their softly-sung, folksy indie tunes, complete with an occasional toot on the recorder.

Everybody was wearing slightly more expensive stripy jerseys and better looking sneakers than the last time we convened to hear these songs, but there were more bald heads, extra rings around the eyes and regular phone checks on the baby-sitters. It was like a scene that might have been in High Fidelity, something poetical about the realisation by a Hornby-type that songs only freeze time for so long and somehow they can make you feel happy and sad at the same time.

As if to illustrate the bittersweet nature of this gathering, band leader Jof Owen explained his tooth had popped out like an old man last week, while the new keyboardist turned out to be the daughter of the original keyboard player.

She was in the womb the first time around.

To think, I came to this place to feel jolly, not to question what I have actually done with the past 20 years.

Maybe The Boy Least Likely To felt the same way returning to their little masterpieces from the early 2000s.

They once had Rashida Jones – Anne Perkins in Parks and Recreation and much more – in their music video, and got to play out GMTV one morning with their song Be Gentle With Me.

Another of theirs featured in the Peter Rabbit movie soundtrack, but you wouldn’t really call them famous.

Maybe 20 years from now, when Beyoncé is still romping around in a shiny catsuit in her 60s and people of a similar age are wondering how she still has the energy for it, Sarah from Burgess Hill will dig out the fading cherry Stetston she wore to see her heroine sing the Cowboy Carter album in 2025.

Fair enough, I shouldn’t be a grinch – because that speck of a bright gold light they made out on the stage from the last row of the Spurs stadium last week and the giant screens on which they actually watched the concert will no doubt be burned into the brain forever.

Nothing makes your memory clearer than your favourite music played live, nothing is better at granting you a sorcerous quantum leap back to a certain moment, place, argument or kiss.

But, boy, a song most likely can make you feel old.

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Story of mother negotiating a system that feels designed to set her up to fail sits firmly in the Ken Loach school

Idil Ahmed and Posy Sterling in Lollipop [Tereza Cervenova/MetFilm]

LOLLIPOP Directed by Daisy-May Hudson Certificate: 15 ☆☆☆☆☆

THIS film is another testament to the power of cinema to both profoundly move you as an individual – but hopefully shed a light on our society, and act as a call to arms.

Lollipop sits firmly in the Ken Loach school and has been compared to his seminal 1966 work, Cathy Come Home, about poverty and homelessness.

Director Daisy-May Hudson, who in her early 20s documented her family’s homelessness for film, has created a powerful feature about a mother trying to negotiate a system that feels designed to set her up to fail.

The director’s backstory means this film is from the heart, and makes it impossible to look away or build up a counter to the points that slowly reveal themselves.

We meet Molly (Posy Sterling) as she finishes a four-month prison sentence. Her council home has been taken away – going to prison means she is registered as making herself “intentionally homeless”.

Her two children, Ava and Leo, have gone to stay with her mum, Sylvie (Terriann Cousins) – but Sylvie has problems and so the children have been taken into care.

We embark on a journey with Molly as she tries to navigate a world that feels designed to make her life as hard as possible, to be as complicated, costly and inconclusive as it can be, to have hoops and hurdles at every turn.

With believable performances that draw you in, we share the sense of hopelessness and danger – from the worry of coming out of a prison gate and then having to set up a tent in a London park because Molly has nowhere else to go, to the infuriating experience of dealing with poorly paid, demotivated frontline staff who are seen as the agents of a broken system.

Molly won’t get her kids back until she has a house – and she won’t be given a house until she gets her kids back. Such is a recognisable Catch-22 so many find themselves in and that Hudson’s film so eloquently, and woefully, portrays.

The story progresses as we watch Molly’s reaction to this series of “unfortunate circumstances” that is rash and counterproductive. But ask yourself, what would you do?

She finds an ally in an old friend Amina (Idil Ahmed), and the plot follows them as they try to be the parents they want to be, facing down a world against them.