Thursday, October 27, 2016

6 The Johnstown Breeze

2534 from page 2

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dents having to ride on Weld

County Road 17 to U.S. Highway 34, or take the frontage
road adjacent to Interstate 25.
James and Mellon agreed
that a direct path wont likely
happen during their lifetime.
James even acknowledged a direct route is the elephant in the
room, but How do you eat an
elephant? You eat it one bite at
a time.
Im going to start sticking
it in front of councils nose, in
front of the countys nose, in
front of anybodys nose that
will smell it: The development
of County Road 3, James said.
Development of that, James
said, potentially leads to the
opening up of the Highway 402
corridor.
Franklin added the road is a
part of High Plains Boulevard
that has future connection plans
to Colorado Highway 60 and to
I-25.
Tom Peterson, former Fort
Collins city planner, said trail
systems would suffice, but
nothing is in the pipeline for
trails in Johnstown in the interim.
James, however, called attention to a pipedream of his of
a trail along the Big Thompson
River. He said most likely it
wont occur in his lifetime either, however.
If it did happen, though,
would there be a grocery store
in proximity to it in 2534?
A buzz of such a store began when the Gateway Apart-

ments were announced, but

Franklin said those talks have
cooled since. James said talks
with representatives from Safeway and King Soopers happened two years ago, with the
conclusion Johnstown still had
to meet the desired population
numbers the grocery giants are
seeking. But its a guess by
James that the town is inching
toward that magic number.
We need a grocery store,
Diaz said. I know Hays (Market) would probably say no, but
how many of us (here) actually
go to Hays besides me?
When we consider building in a community some of the
things we look at include current and projected population
growth, traffic patterns, competitors and land availability,
Kris Staaf, Director of Public
Affairs Albertsons/Safeway
Denver Division, wrote in an
email.
Staaf declined to provide
specifics citing competitive
reasons.
Whether a grocery store
goes into the area remains to be
seen, but residents in 2534 will
have even more presence by
the Johnstown Police Department next year.
In September, Johnstown
Council approved a roughly
1,400-square-foot, $153,000
police substation to be located
inside Liberty Firearms Institute. JPD Chief Brian Phillips
said officers could be occupying it in January.
I think its huge for two
reasons, Phillips said of the
substation. The main reason is

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it increases the partnership we

have with the residents and the
business owners up in that area.
Right now, we have some subdivisions up there, you talk to
residents when we get calls up
there, and they call the police
and we show up they think
Why are you here? Theyre
expecting Loveland (Police) to
show up because theyre so
close to Loveland.
So, I think this is an opportunity for them, for everybody
that lives up there and our officers that work up there, to enhance these relationships with
the community, and let them
know that the Johnstown Police
Department is here to serve
you, and thats our goal, Chief
Phillips said.
The other benefit, Phillips
said, is it will save JPD officers
working the 2534 beat a drive
back-and-fourth to the current
station house. The substation
will have hours mirroring the
main office, and is currently
designed to hold two officers, a
detective and some administration personnel.
JPD looks to increase its
staff starting next July with the
addition of another officer and
supervisor. Chief Phillips said
that in January of 2018 those
same positions look to be
added to again. He said that
timeline will give the department adequate time and coldhard data on the growth of
2534, allowing the department
to be properly staffed. He said
the current average response
time for emergency calls in
2534 is 10-12 minutes. Routine

calls average 15-20 minutes.

As the town moves north, so
will its police department, because, as Chief Philips said,
any towns PD is based on the
boundary lines designated for
that municipality. However, the
same cant be said for Front
Range Fire Rescue or the RE5J School District.
Although those boundaries
do lie in the Town of Johnstown, they lie outside of
boundaries of the Front Range
Fire Rescue Authority, FRFR
Chief Ron Bateman said. Or if
you weed it down more, the
Johnstown Fire Protection
boundaries. Fire protection in
2534 is served by Loveland
Fire Rescue Authority/Loveland Rural Fire Protection District. The ambulance service is
provided by Thompson Valley
EMS.
The two authorities have an
automatic aid agreement for the
area, which Greg Ward, LFRA
Division Chief-Operations explained means if theres a call
of a structure fire or auto accident requiring extraction tools,
FRFR is automatically paged
for assistance. In exchange,
Loveland sends a unit to Johnstown when theres a structure
fire. That agreement has been
in effect for the last four years.
For 60-plus years the land
where 2534 now sits has been
under LFRAs jurisdiction, said
LFRA Fire Chief Mark Miller.
As the area started to take off
over a decade ago, Chief Miller
said LFRA created an annexation agreement that keeps it under their watch.
Our board is very adamant
that they would like to keep it
within Loveland Rural Fire
Protection District, Miller
said.
Chief Bateman said talks
about FRFR taking over the
area fully are like Groundhog
Day, meaning not every year,
but periodically, and those talks
dont appear to be turning into
courses of action anytime soon.
Operationally, we work
very well together, Bateman
said. I think that we have a
mutual respect, and so theres
certainly no desire to make a
frontal assault in that regard.
Mellon said its his personal
feeling that fire protection remains as is, adding he doesnt
see any reason to force a
boundary change.
LFRAs station six, located
on McWhinney Boulevard, is
two miles away from the heart
of 2534, but as the area
e m e r g e s , Wa r d a n d C h i e f
Miller said a new station is
scheduled for construction in
the next five years in 2534.
See 2534 on page 8