Happy Friday, and happy Juneteenth. City offices, the museum, and the library are closed today for the holiday, so if you had a trip to municipal court or Bemis in mind, save it for Monday. I'm back in town after a couple weeks away and glad to be, because this is a good weekend to be here. Father's Day is Sunday and summer's fully on, heat and afternoon thunderstorms and all, so get the cookout going early. There's a lot on the civic calendar too, starting with the restaurant deal that just cleared council.

Turns out one of our TrailMark neighbors has been quietly building entire worlds. Ron Lamberson writes novels, and not just one flavor of them. His Kilimanjaro Club series (A Grave Invitation, The Poachers of Immortality) is globe-trotting adventure-mystery, while Heavy Metal Moon swings all the way out to sci-fi. The man holds a creative-writing degree and an MBA, has set foot in more than 40 countries and all seven continents, and somehow still finds the time to write from right here in 80127.

If you're hunting for your next summer read, or you just like backing a local author, start with A Grave Invitation, where a Wall Street financier days from his big merger gets yanked into the hunt for his murdered grandfather's secrets and a covert society of adventurers. Picture Indiana Jones with a finance background.

Find all of Ron's books at ronlamberson.com.

So Littleton's really doing this. Two weeks ago I promised to dig into what the 1st Street Farms deal actually commits us to. Here it is. On June 9 council approved it 4 to 3, the city's first public-private partnership of this kind. The package lands somewhere between 5.5 and 6 million, and it comes in three pieces: a 2 million loan the developer pays back out of the project's own future sales tax rather than the usual way, a full rebate of the project's sales tax for up to five years, and roughly 93,000 in waived development fees.

In return, Littleton gets a $28 million project at the RiverPark site where Santa Fe meets Mineral: a 15,000 square foot restaurant, a 13,000 square foot event venue, and a public field with green space along the river. The Gastamo Group is building it, the Park Burger and Homegrown Tap and Dough people, and yes, there's Peyton Manning branding attached, though that part's just promotional. Mayor Kyle Schlachter was one of the three no votes, and his objection was blunt: giving up five years of sales tax and carrying that loan for seven or more years is, in his words, a burden to Littleton taxpayers. Had the deal failed, the developer said the site would've become about 270 townhomes instead. No opening date yet.

A correction, and a loaded night ahead. I pointed you to the June 16 council meeting for the sewer and stormwater rate study, but it didn't land on that agenda. The city's got the rate design discussion set for the July 21 council session instead. That's the same night as the public hearing on the Shea Homes rezoning in TrailMark, the one that'd add 27 homes and lift the neighborhood's cap toward 850 units. So July 21's shaping up to be a full evening at the Littleton Center. If either one touches your block, put it on the calendar. For the record, the study still proposes 25 percent sewer and 60 percent stormwater increases for 2027 and 2028, with any changes taking effect January 2027.

One more from that June 16 meeting. Council signed a letter of support for a Front Range Passenger Rail station at Mineral Station, right here in Littleton. Front Range passenger rail is still years out, but a Mineral stop would put Littleton in line for it, in the same corridor that's about to land 1st Street Farms. Worth watching.

Mark the 27th for the carnival.** The Hornbuckle Foundation's 5th annual Community Carnival is Saturday, June 27, from 4 to 8 p.m. at the Ken-Caryl Ranch Community Park on Sangre de Cristo Road. It's all ages and benefits a local nonprofit working on mental health and substance use. This is the one close to home to build a Saturday around.

Free music, two nights running. Wednesday, June 24, the Littleton Museum's summer concert series has Delta Sonics on the lawn at 6:30 p.m., free, bring a blanket. Then Thursday, June 25, the Foothills series at Clement Park's Grant Family Amphitheater brings Ryan Chrys and the Rough Cuts, outlaw country and rock, 7 p.m. and also free.

Looking to the Fourth. Foothills throws Red, White and You on Friday, July 3, from 5 to 10 p.m. at Clement Park, with a live band and fireworks around 9:30. It's the big one for the holiday weekend out here.

The standing ones. The Downtown Littleton Farmers Market runs Saturdays 8 to 1 on Nevada Street, and the Pokémon GO crew still meets for Raid Hour on Wednesdays at 5:50 p.m. at the Clement Park skate park.

Two new places to eat, both in the zip. Nanu's Kitchen just opened in the Jefferson Marketplace center on South Kipling, an Indian eatery with a full bar and a chai and naan people are already talking about, open 11 to 9 daily. It's from Bibek Rauniyar, who runs a handful of Indian kitchens around the metro, so the place knows what it's doing.

Over on West Bowles, Fast as Pho has been pulling a crowd since it opened this spring. It's fast-casual Vietnamese, pho with broth simmered overnight, banh mi baked fresh, plus boba and soft serve on the side. Owner Tan Ngo wanted to do for pho what everybody else did for the burrito, quick without cutting the good part. Worth a stop if you haven't been.

Full summer rules now. With Saturday topping out near 96, the only smart hike is an early one, so be heading back down the exposed stretches of South Valley Park and the Hogback before the heat and the afternoon storms stack up. Carry more water than you think you need. Over at Deer Creek Canyon, the Black Bear Trail stays closed through July 31 for nesting raptors, so plan around it. Waterton Canyon's open, but remember dogs aren't allowed in there at all, on account of the bighorn herd. And the rattlesnakes are out on the warm rock everywhere right now, so watch your footing and keep dogs close.

Need a ride across town this summer? Event and Airport Transportation is running $80 flat-rate Sprinter transfers between any two Littleton addresses all June, up to 11 passengers. Think a group dinner downtown, a birthday night out, or getting everyone to a Littleton event without a designated driver. They also handle airport runs and Red Rocks. Reserve at least an hour ahead at limolimo.limo. Local and licensed, Colorado PUC LL-03624.

Fireworks and the Fourth. A heads-up before anyone stocks up: personal fireworks are illegal inside Littleton city limits, sparklers included. Out in unincorporated Jeffco, anything that leaves the ground or explodes is out too. There aren't any county fire restrictions in effect this week, but the sheriff's been flipping them on during the hot, dry, windy stretches, and one of those bans all fireworks countywide. Check jeffco.us before you buy anything for the Fourth.

Watering's down to two days a week. We're under a Stage 1 drought, which means a mandatory two-day-per-week schedule and no watering between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. This applies to Ken Caryl households too, not just Denver Water customers. Your two days depend on your address, so check with your provider. The midday rule's the one people forget.

The obvious one. City offices, the museum, and Bemis library are closed today for Juneteenth, back open Monday.

The detailed closings list is back, and the top of the market did the talking this month. Three homes on the Ken Caryl Valley side landed within a hair of each other: 16 Mountain Pine Drive at $1,250,000, 132 Willowleaf Drive at $1,235,000, and 73 Buckthorn Drive at $1,200,000, all closing in the first half of June. At the other end of the ladder, you can still find a one-bedroom condo around here starting near $285,000. The 80127 median's sitting in the high 600s to low 700s depending on the week, and the wider picture is steady with a little cooling in it. Homes are going for about 98 percent of asking and taking around six weeks to sell, a long way from the bidding wars of a couple years ago. Every tier's changing hands, which is the healthy sign.

Hot and summery straight through the weekend. Friday's the mild one near 86, with a slim chance of an evening storm after 5. Saturday's the scorcher at 96 and looking dry, so that's the day to find shade and keep the water close. Father's Day Sunday settles back to around 89, with a 30 percent chance of storms rolling in after noon. It's the classic June pattern: clear and calm in the morning, clouds and maybe thunder by mid-afternoon. So if you've got outdoor Father's Day plans, knock them out before lunch and let the afternoon do its thing. One more for today, the state's called an Ozone Action Day across the Front Range, so if you can skip the mower and roll your errands into one trip, the air will thank you.

A neighbor's view from the front row. A reader who lives right at Mineral and Santa Fe went to the June 9 hearing and wrote in afterward. Her read of the room: the comments ran heavily in favor, and the only real argument was over the city putting up the loan, not the project itself. Her own worry is the one I keep circling back to. Once Costco, the new housing, and this event venue are all feeding onto the same stretch of Santa Fe, what does the traffic actually look like? Nobody's fully answered that yet. If you were at that meeting, or you live in that corner of town, hit reply and tell me what you're seeing.

That's the week from the foothills. Reply and tell me what I should be keeping an eye on. I read all of them, even the ones I'm slow to answer.

Joey

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Joey