The Stapleton United Neighbors (SUN) Board of Directors will hold a community meeting on Thursday Sept. 10 at 6:30pm at the Community Hub at Northfield (8230 Northfield Blvd #1350 —also known as the new location of the Cop Shop in Northfield Mall) open to the public. The focus of the meeting will be to hear from the community about the proposal to change the name of our neighborhood and discuss concerns raised by the organization Black Lives Matter 5280 (BLM5280) through flyers distributed the weekend of Aug. 8. Their online petition regarding the history of the community’s namesake was signed by over 1,200 residents of Northeast Denver neighborhoods and other individuals.
As a registered neighborhood organization (RNO) in the city of Denver, SUN’s mission is: to provide a forum for our residents; to maintain a communication network between ourselves, our neighboring Denver residents, and the city of Denver; and to act on issues of importance to the community as a whole. The SUN board believes that discussion of this naming issue falls in line with our mission statement, as there are many members of SUN who have requested a change in the name of the neighborhood, and thus the name of SUN as well.
This meeting will be SUN’s first step in helping foster a community discussion on this issue. The agenda will be designed to facilitate a civil discussion, allowing all individuals a chance to be heard and to hear from others.
While a public meeting is one method of measuring public opinion, the SUN board includes members whose professional lives involve polling and statistics. As such, SUN’s full approach will likely include both the rescheduled public meeting Sept. 10, as well as a communitywide survey that will be constructed based on input gathered Sept. 10 and fielded after that meeting. Please sign up for e-mails from SUN at www.StapletonUnitedNeighbors.com to ensure you are sent an invitation to complete the survey when it is available.
The SUN board has decided to hold a special meeting due to the previous cancellations of our normally scheduled August and September meetings. Starting in January 2014, SUN has hosted regular board meetings on the third Tuesday of most months. At such meetings, we make an effort to hold timely discussions and always provide a forum for community members to bring issues to our attention.
The August SUN board meeting would have occurred on the 18th, and would have included the discussion of the proposal for a name change. The August SUN meeting, however, had been previously cancelled July 23 due to the public meeting at Fletcher Elementary School, which was announced via a press release by Forest City. At this meeting, plans for the development of Stapleton in Aurora were described in detail by the developer’s contractors. Members of the SUN board and active community members who typically attend monthly SUN meetings indicated their preference for attending the Forest City-hosted meeting and canceling the SUN meetings.
The third Tuesday in September falls on the second day of the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah. Months ago when the conflict was noted, the September meeting was cancelled. After the August meeting was canceled at the end of July, the board noted the long stretch without a SUN-hosted meeting and began discussions about how best to handle this gap. After hearing from concerned community members about the importance of having a meeting to discuss the proposal of renaming our neighborhood, the SUN board has decided to hold a special meeting. We will return to our normal meeting schedule in October.
SUN Meetings are held on the 3rd Tuesday of every month at 6:30pm (Block Captain meeting) and 7:30pm (Board meeting) at the Central Park Recreation Center, 9651 MLK Jr. Blvd. For information about SUN, visit www.stapletonunitedneighbors.com. To contact SUN or confirm meeting time, email stapletonunitedneighbors@gmail.com
The suite number for the Community HUB/Cop Shop in Northfield Mall is misprinted. It should be suite #1350, next door to Toby Keith’s restaurant.