Colorado Springs reaches limit with Katrina evacuees
Colorado Springs – City officials declared they’ve done enough for hurricane evacuees and have drafted a plan to let a faith-based charity and the NAACP take over relief efforts.
Officials have asked a man who has bused in evacuees to start taking them elsewhere, as they fear social services will be stretched too thin.
“I think we have every reason in the world as a community to be proud of how compassionate we’ve been,” City Manager Lorna Karma said Monday. “But I think we need to say, ‘No more.’ Or we need to drive them to Denver.”
Norman Vaux of Cañon City, who has arranged transportation for about 500 evacuees to Colorado Springs, said a bus that left Baton Rouge, La., with 49 passengers probably will be the final run.
At least 2,000 people have registered for aid in Colorado through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and a shelter has been set up at the former Lowry Air Force Base in Denver and Aurora.
By the end of the week, Colorado Springs will have processed more than 1,600 evacuees, helping them to find shelter, jobs and cars, Deputy Fire Chief Steven Cox said. It originally offered to aid 1,500.
Fire Marshal Brett Lacey has drafted a plan to let Lutheran Family Services and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People take over relief operations.
Some council members said they were reluctant to suggest evacuees go elsewhere in Colorado. Councilwoman Margaret Radford said she didn’t want the city to be known as the town that said, “No.”
FORT MORGAN
West Nile death is state’s first this year
A Morgan County resident has died from the West Nile virus, the state’s first reported death this year from the mosquito- borne virus, officials with the Northeast Colorado Health Department announced Monday.
Details of the death – such as age, gender and where the virus may have been contracted – were not immediately available. A spokeswoman for the six- county health department did not immediately return a phone call left after business hours.
The virus, which can cause serious neurological problems and affects mostly the elderly and very young, first appeared in the United States in New York City in 1999 and spread west. Since then, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has counted at least 16,800 human cases and 659 deaths nationwide.
DENVER
Grandfather sought in molestation of kids
Authorities are seeking a 64-year-old man they say sexually molested his four grandchildren.
Police have issued an arrest warrant for Juan Alberto Melo-Zuleta, who lives in Colorado and California. The children, who live in Denver, range in age from 5 to 11. They said that their grandfather called what he was doing was a “game,” officials said. The female victims, according to an arrest warrant affidavit, said Melo-Zuleta engaged in a variety of sexual activity from removing their clothes and performing oral sex to penetrating them with his fingers. The children say they were assaulted late last year and early this year.
COLORADO
Panel to seek funding for “obsolete” bridges
The Colorado Transportation Commission voted Tuesday night to ask the state legislature to earmark $91.3 million in capital construction money to repair or replace 20 “structurally deficient and functionally obsolete” bridges across the state.
They are among the worst of 106 bridges in the state that the Colorado Department of Transportation rates in “poor” condition and in need of replacement.
The legislature’s capital development committee is expected to consider the request, and the full General Assembly may act on it next year.
DENVER
Fund set for hip-hop artists wounded in car
Two Denver hip-hop artists who were shot Sunday morning at East 10th Avenue and Grant Street remained hospitalized Tuesday, family and friends said.
Qutice McGaughy, also known as CAC, and Michael Hope, also known as Innerstate Ike, have performed in hundreds of shows throughout the state and country.
A fund for medical costs has been established by the families of both men.
Donations may be sent to 18601 E. 48th Avenue No. 112, Box No. 5, Denver, 80249.
McGaughy, 26, and Hope, 24, were in a Dodge Neon in the intersection when the shooting occurred at 2:25 a.m.
A third man inside the car was not injured but has not cooperated with police.
