A Colorado medical device company admitted to orchestrating an elaborate health care fraud scheme that resulted in the overbilling of patients and insurers by hundreds of millions of dollars.
Zynex Inc., an Englewood-based firm that manufactures and sells medical devices used for pain management and rehabilitation, entered into an agreement Tuesday with the U.S. Department of Justice to avoid prosecution.
The company, as part of the deal, agreed to pay between $5 million and $12.5 million in penalties — the final tally will depend on its earnings and profit during the settlement period — and will forfeit millions of dollars in unpaid claims.
Zynex admitted to participating in a conspiracy to commit health care fraud, securities fraud, mail fraud and other violations, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Rhode Island announced in a news release.
Zynex, in its deal with the government, also admitted to collecting more than $873 million for its products, including more than $600 million for supplies, “the vast majority of which were the result of fraud,” investigators said.
The company acknowledged that it shipped and billed for medically unnecessary supplies in excess quantities and misled investors who were unaware of the fraudulent billing practices.
Zynex agreed to implement enhanced compliance and corporate governance reforms “designed to prevent future misconduct,” the DOJ said, and will cooperate with the government’s ongoing investigations.
“This resolution addresses the seriousness of the fraud committed by Zynex while recognizing the substantial turnaround in conduct implemented under new management,” U.S. Attorney Charles C. Calenda said in the news release.
The company, in a subsequent news release, said the resolution “represents the fulfillment of the commitments we made as a new management team when we arrived in August 2025: to break from the past, rebuild the company as compliant-by-design and create a new future for the company, its customers and employees.”
Zynex leaders say they have completely overhauled their billing and supply replenishment practices, and enacted new marketing policies to ensure the company remains compliant with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Englewood city leaders are hoping Aldi will fall in love with the city after the company recently announced plans to expand into Colorado.
In the city’s January newsletter, officials said the city has made the first move, initiating contact with Aldi’s corporate real estate team and a local representative.
Englewood’s assertive stance follows the low-cost grocer’s announcement last month that it plans to have 50 locations operating in Colorado in the next five years, part of a broader nationwide expansion plan.
With several empty storefronts, the city hopes the German company will open multiple Aldi locations in Englewood.
However, the city said in the same January newsletter that “there are no viable purchase options available for the company at the moment.”
But Englewood isn’t backing down.
Officials said it will continue working with the company to explore potential options.
Aldi has yet to release specific opening dates or construction timelines for Colorado locations.
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An RV park in Sheridan that has accommodated low-cost housing for decades will close to make way for a new apartment complex, leaving dozens of residents looking for new places as Colorado remains short on affordable housing and such alternatives as mobile home communities.
The Sheridan City Council in November approved rezoning the 16-acre Flying Saucer RV Park at the intersection of West Hampden Avenue and South Bryant Street. Indiana-based Garrett Companies will submit plans to the city for a seven-building, 362-unit complex, replacing the 162 spots for recreational vehicles and tiny homes.
Garrett and the family that has owned the property for 75 years are expected to close the deal by the end of June. Residents will have to move out by then.
The developer and the family haven’t disclosed the financial terms.
Anne Whipple, part of the fourth generation of the family to run the business, told Sheridan council members that the decision to sell the property wasn’t made lightly. She read a statement saying the family struggled with ending its legacy of “providing a safe, quiet community for tenants that the City of Sheridan has come to know.”
But Whipple said the time, cost and energy to keep the park going are unsustainable. The park’s owner, 94-year-old Lucille Tourney, wants “to release her family from this burden,” she added.
After learning last summer that the site was for sale and being eyed for new development, Steve Ohlfest started a website to rally support for saving Flying Saucer. Ohlfest, a 21-year park resident, urged people to turn out for public meetings on the project. He even contacted area mobile home park owners to gauge their interest in the property.
Now, Ohlfest and his wife, Tina, aren’t sure where their next home will be. Just a handful of RV parks in metro Denver allow year-round living and their rates are generally higher. The Ohlfests are 16th on a waiting list for a spot in Loveland where they could move their tiny home. A Woodland Park site that caters to tiny homes hasn’t had anyone leave in five years.
A community in Montrose that accepts tiny homes is a possibility for them. They expect to pay thousands of dollars to haul their 26,000-pound home and other belongings to the Western Slope if they move there.
“What are our other options? We can’t afford a house in Denver,” Ohlfest said.
Garrett Companies said it will hire a consultant to work with individual Flying Saucer residents who need help moving their recreational vehicles, finding a place to live or applying for housing and social services. The company said in December that residents should hear from the consultant after the first of the year.
“The intent is to do right by people, particularly people of lesser means and people who are older,” said Cary Brazeman, a spokesman for Garrett.
Meredith Long has rented a spot at Flying Saucer for three years, living in a travel trailer part of the year and moving it to Steamboat Springs where she runs a business during the winter. Long said park residents include people who travel back and forth from other homes, retirees and disabled veterans who’ve lived there for several years.
Several have turned the park that runs along Bear Creek and has tree-lined roads into long-term homes with fenced yards and outdoor decks.
“They kept trying to say it is temporary housing and never meant to be permanent, but that’s not how they operated it,” Long said of the park’s owners.
The room was packed for an October Sheridan planning commission meeting on the project, Long said. After the planning commission recommended that the city council approve the rezoning, she said turnout for the meetings dropped because people felt defeated.
Flying Saucer RV Park in Sheridan, Colorado on Thursday, Sept. 25, 2025. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
“For me it’s just been the process that’s been the most frustrating, with the lack of communication and transparency from the city of Sheridan,” Long said.
The park owners haven’t kept residents informed either, she added. People are uneasy after a couple of tenants were served eviction notices in the last few months, Long said.
Whipple, the onsite manager at Flying Saucer, declined to talk to The Denver Post about Long’s concerns. She told the city council in the November meeting that 40 of the park’s spots were vacant.
“There have been several people who have left without paying rent, leaving us with significant expenses,” Whipple said.
City officials said they’ve kept in touch with Flying Saucer residents while considering the development plans. The city held a neighborhood meeting in June on the proposed rezoning. Notices of the planning commission and city council meetings were sent to property owners and residents within 300 feet of the RV park, including the individual RV spots.
Notice was published in the Littleton Independent newspaper and signs in English and Spanish were posted on the property, according to the city.
Home sweet home?
Sheridan Community Development Director Andrew Rogge said the Garrett Companies’ rezoning application met city criteria and was consistent with the goals of the city’s comprehensive plan. He said rezoning the property from business/light industrial to planned unit development will make the site more compatible with surrounding properties, which include the River Point at Sheridan shopping center.
And Rogge noted that a 2025 housing needs assessment showed Sheridan is short of 309 units and will need 409 more units over the next 10 years.
Rents for the apartments that will replace the RV park will be market-rate. Rogge said in an email that Sheridan doesn’t have an ordinance requiring the developer to build a certain number of affordable housing units.
However, city officials said two affordable housing projects were recently approved. One development will add 149 apartment units. A Habitat for Humanity project will add 63 single-family homes.
A Garrett representative said during the June neighborhood meeting that rents for its apartments would likely range from $1,600 to $2,600.
“I couldn’t afford your apartment and I make good money,” Councilman Ernie Camacho.told Garrett representatives during the council meeting.
Camacho, the lone vote against rezoning the RV park, voiced support for more single-family homes rather than apartments.
The council members who favored rezoning said they cared about the fate of the RV park’s residents, but respected the owner’s right to sell the property. They also said the limited terms of the leases underscored that the park wasn’t intended to be a permanent home.
Whipple said when the family decided in 2024 to put the property on the market, they let new tenants know the leases would be capped at six months. Before then, leases were month to month but didn’t have a maximum term.
Dawn Shepherd of Littleton urged the city council to reject the rezoning application. The former director of the Englewood Housing Authority said Sheridan has typically tried to provide housing for lower-income residents.
“I feel like they didn’t have a very good choice in this case,” Shepherd said.
She’s skeptical about how much Garrett’s consultant can do for residents. “It sounds good, that they’re going to get a house specialist to help them.”
But similar options don’t exist, she said.
Shepherd believes Ohlfest, a fellow Englewood Rotary Club member, and his wife will land on their feet. She’s not as optimistic about others at the Flying Saucer park. She worries they’ll have to resort to parking their RVs on city streets or in Walmart parking lots.
“That’s not home,” Shepherd said. “That’s not having a place to go.”
Some might say the new Aurora Regional Navigation Campus that opened recently in a former 255-room hotel is undergirded by one of humanity’s seven deadly sins — envy.
The intent is to turn that feeling into a motivational force. For his part, Mayor Mike Coffman prefers to refer to the three-tiered residential system at the homeless navigation center as an “incentive-based program” — one that awards increasingly comfortable living quarters to those showing progress on their journey to self-sufficiency.
“The notion here is (that) different standards of living act as an incentive,” Coffman said in early November during a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the campus, which occupies a former Crowne Plaza Hotel at East 40th Avenue and Chambers Road. “The idea is to move up the tiers into much better living situations.”
Clients in the new facility, which opened its doors on Nov. 17, start at the bottom with a cot and a locker. They can eventually migrate to a hotel room, with a locking door and a private bathroom.
But that upgrade comes with a price.
“To get a room here, you have to be working full time,” Coffman said.
It’s an approach that the mayor says threads the needle between housing-first and work-first, the two prevailing strategies for addressing homelessness today. The housing-first approach emphasizes getting someone into a stable home before requiring employment, sobriety or treatment. A work-first setup conditions housing on a person finding work and seeking help with underlying mental health and addiction problems.
“We’re providing a continuum of services that starts with an emergency shelter,” said Jim Goebelbecker, the executive director of Advance Pathways.
Advance Pathways, the nonprofit group that ran the Aurora Resource Day Center before its recent closure, was chosen through a competitive bidding process to operate the new navigation campus in Aurora — with $2 million in annual help from the city. Goebelbecker said the tiered approach at the new facility “taps into a person’s motivation for change.”
The Aurora Regional Navigation Campus’ debut nearly completes a mission that has been in the works for more than three years. It is the fourth — and penultimate — metro Denver homeless navigation center to go online since the Colorado General Assembly passed House Bill 1378 in 2022.
The bill allocated American Rescue Plan Act dollars to stand up one central homeless navigation center. The plan has since shifted to five smaller centers, with locations in Aurora, Lakewood, Boulder, Denver and Englewood. The Colorado Department of Local Affairs in late 2023 approved $52 million for the centers. The final center, the Jefferson County Regional Navigation Campus in Lakewood, is undergoing renovations and will open next year.
Aurora’s center, with 640 beds across its three tiered spaces, is by far the largest of the five facilities.
Cathy Alderman, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, said the opening of Aurora’s navigation campus is “a really big deal.” Aside from serving its own clientele, she expects the center to send referrals to the coalition’s newly opened Sage Ridge Supportive Residential Community near Watkins, where people without stable housing go to address their substance-use disorders.
“A person can go to one place and get multiple needs met,” Alderman said, referring to the array of job, medical and addiction treatment services that give homeless navigation centers their name. “We are excited that the new campus is now up and running.”
The new Aurora Regional Navigation Campus, operated by Advance Pathways, photographed in Aurora on Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
‘How do I move up?’
Walking into the Aurora Regional Navigation Campus feels like walking into, well, a hotel.
The swimming pool was removed during renovation, as was a water fountain in the lobby. Everything else stayed, including beds, bedding, furniture — even a stash of bottled cocktail delights. But not the alcohol to go with it.
“They left everything, down to the forks and knives and a wall of maraschino cherries,” said Jessica Prosser, Aurora’s director of housing and community services, as she walked through the hotel’s industrial kitchen.
The kitchen, which was part of the $26.5 million sale of the Crowne Plaza Hotel to Aurora last year, was a godsend to an operation tasked with serving three meals a day to hundreds of people. The city spent another $13.5 million to renovate the building.
“To build a new commercial kitchen is a half-million dollars, easy,” Prosser said.
The layout of the navigation center was deliberate, she said. The hotel’s convention center space is now occupied by Tier I and Tier II housing. The first tier is made up of nearly 300 cots, divided by sex. There are lockers for personal belongings and shared bathrooms. Anyone is welcome.
On the other side of a nondescript wall is Tier II, which is composed of a grid of 114 compartmentalized, open-air cubicles with proper beds and lockable storage. The center assigns residents in this tier case managers to help them treat personal challenges and get on the path toward landing a job.
The Tier II “Courage” space, which offers overnight accommodation for people who are working on recovery, employment and housing pathways at the new Aurora Regional Navigation Campus in Aurora, on Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
Tier III residents live in the 255 hotel rooms. They must have a full-time job and are required to pay a third of their income to the program. Residents in this tier will typically remain at Advance Pathways for up to two years before they have the skills and stability to find housing on the outside, Goebelbecker said.
People living in the congregate tiers can house their dogs in a pet room, which can accommodate 40 canines. (No cats, gerbils or fish). The center also doesn’t accept children. Around 60 staff members, plus 10 contracted security personnel, will work at the facility 24/7.
Shining a bright light on the path forward and upward inside the facility — the windows of some of the coveted private rooms are fully visible from the lobby — is an “intentional design feature,” Prosser said.
“How do I move up?” she mused, stepping into the shoes of a resident eyeing the facility’s layout. “How do I get in there?”
The Tier III “Commitment” space, which provides private rooms that will serve people who are in the workforce and are building towards financial independence, seen at the new Aurora Regional Navigation Campus in Aurora on Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
It’s a system that demands something of the people using it, Coffman said, while at the same time providing the guidance and help that clients will need.
“This is not just maintaining people where they are — this is about moving people forward,” the mayor said.
The approach is familiar to Shantell Anderson, Advance Pathways’ program director. She told her life story during the ribbon-cutting ceremony, bringing tears to the eyes of some in the audience.
A native of Denver’s Park Hill neighborhood, Anderson fell in with the wrong crowd. She became pregnant at 15 and got hooked on cocaine. She spiraled into a life on the streets that resulted in her children being sent to an aunt for caretaking.
But through treatment and by intersecting with the right people, she recovered. She earned a nursing degree and worked at RecoveryWorks, a nonprofit organization that operated a day shelter in Lakewood, before taking the job at Advance Pathways.
The Tier I “Compassion” emergency shelter, which provides immediate short-term shelter for those in need at the new Aurora Regional Navigation Campus in Aurora on Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
“This is a system that honors people’s dignity,” Anderson said, her voice heavy with emotion.
In an interview, she said assuming the burden to improve her situation was critical to her transformation.
“I actually did that — no one gave me anything,” said Anderson, 48. “If it was handed to me, I didn’t appreciate it.”
How much responsibility to place on the people being helped by such programs is still a matter of intense debate by policymakers and advocates for homeless people. The housing-first approach favored by Denver and many big cities across the country is anchored in the idea that work or treatment requirements will result in many people falling through the cracks and staying outside, particularly those who face mental-health challenges.
The Bridge House in Englewood, one of the five metro area navigation centers, follows a “Ready to Work” model that is similar to that of the upper tiers of the Aurora Regional Navigation Campus.
Opened in May, the Bridge House has 69 beds. CEO Melissa Arguello-Green said the organization asks its clients (called trainees) to put skin in the game by landing a job with Bridge House’s help and then contributing a third of their paycheck as rent.
“We help them find employment through our agency so they can leave our agency,” she said. “We’re looking for self-sufficiency that will get people off system support.”
Arguello-Green said she would like to see more coordination between the metro’s five navigation centers, though she acknowledged it’s still in the early going.
“We’re missing that come-to-the-table collaboration,” she said.
Advance Pathways volunteer outreach coordinator Evan Brown organizes the clothing bank before the Aurora Regional Navigation Campus’ grand opening ceremony in Aurora on Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
Homeless numbers still rising
Shannon Gray, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Local Affairs, said her department had started convening quarterly in-person meetings across the locations.
“While each navigation campus is unique and reflects community-specific strategies, they are all a part of a regional effort to bring external partners together onsite to provide needed services and referrals,” Gray said. Together, they are “building towards a larger regional system to connect homeless households to a larger network of opportunities.”
The centers are permitted to “tailor their approach to their unique needs and vision,” she said. While Englewood and Aurora use a tiered system, Gray said, the other three centers don’t.
“It is important to understand that DOLA serves as a funder for these regional navigation campuses — we do not oversee their operation or maintenance,” she said.
Denver’s navigation center, which opened in December 2023 in a former DoubleTree Hotel on Quebec Street, offers 289 rooms to those in need, said Julia Marvin, a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Housing Stability.
She called the facility an “integral component of Denver’s All in Mile High homelessness initiative,” Mayor Mike Johnston’s ambitious effort to appreciably reduce homelessness in the city. The center is just one of several former hotels and other shelter sites in the system.
Earlier this year, his administration cited annual count numbers showing a 45% decrease in the number of people sleeping on the streets since 2023 — dropping from 1,423 to 785 people, despite overall homelessness continuing to increase in that time.
In fact, homelessness numbers are still going in the wrong direction across the seven-county metro, per the latest Point-in-Time survey from the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative, which captures a one-night snapshot. The January count revealed that 10,774 people were homeless on the night of the survey, up from 9,977 in the count the year before.
Anderson, the Advance Pathways program director, said the new Aurora facility was opening at just the right time. Despite a recent calming in runaway home values in metro Denver, the $650,000 median price of a detached home in October still demarcated a housing market that was out of reach for many.
“I am excited,” Anderson said of the Aurora navigation campus’ debut. “I’m waiting for people to walk through the door and start the next chapter of their journey.”
A former Englewood police officer was arrested on suspicion of assault after he pulled a man over for running a stop sign and, after struggling to communicate in Spanish, proceeded to shock the man with a Taser, put him in a chokehold and drag him to the ground, investigators said Tuesday.
Ryan Scott Vasina, 30, faces charges of second-degree assault, third-degree assault and first-degree official misconduct, according to the 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office. The second-degree assault charge is a felony, while the other two charges are misdemeanors.
He turned himself in at the Denver Sheriff Department on Monday and was released on a $25,000 bail, according to the district attorney’s office.
“This type of conduct is a stain on the profession and is not reflective of the Englewood Police Department or the people who serve our community with honor,” Police Chief David Jackson said during a news conference on Tuesday morning at the district attorney’s office in Centennial.
Vasina, at the time a probationary officer, pulled over 20-year-old Carlos Rangel-Rincones, a Venezuelan national, shortly after 11 p.m. Oct. 8 near South Lincoln Street and East Layton Avenue, according to an arrest affidavit.
Investigators said Rangel-Rincones was seen running a stop sign on dash-camera video.
Rangel-Rincones primarily speaks Spanish and knows minimal English, so he had trouble understanding Vasina during the traffic stop, he told investigators through an interpreter. Vasina never requested an interpreter to respond to the scene, District Attorney Amy Padden said during the news conference.
In the expletive-laden encounter, Vasina repeatedly asked Rangel-Rincones for his license and keys and refused to answer the man’s questions, according to the arrest affidavit. He told Rangel-Rincones to turn off the car, and the man complied, but then asked for the keys, which Rangel-Rincones did not turn over.
Instead, Vasina repeatedly tried to pull Rangel-Rincones out of the car while cursing and insulting him as Rangel-Rincones pulled back and tried to access a translation app on his phone.
Vasina again ordered him to get out of the car and used his radio to tell emergency dispatchers Rangel-Rincones was fighting him, but his body-worn camera footage showed that wasn’t the case.
Instead, the recording showed Vasina telling Rangel-Rincones he was going to shock him and then deploying the Taser one second later, investigators wrote.
Rangel-Rincones then got out of the car, and Vasina told him to get on the ground, but immediately put him in a chokehold and dragged him down.
Rangel-Rincones told investigators that he was trying to send his location to his mother-in-law because he thought he was going to be killed.
Vasina choked him for about 12 seconds and put his weight on the man’s back, further injuring him because he still had Taser barbs in his body, investigators said.
Rangel-Rincones could not breathe during those 12 seconds and was later photographed with bruises on his neck, Padden said. He never fought, resisted or failed to follow lawful orders before Vasina used force, she said.
Investigators also wrote in the affidavit that Rangel-Rincones did nothing to warrant Vasina’s use of force and did not resist even as he was being choked.
The type of chokehold Vasina used in the traffic stop is illegal in Colorado, and all chokeholds are prohibited under the Englewood Police Department’s use-of-force policy unless deadly force is authorized.
Englewood police started investigating the encounter after Rangel-Rincones came to the department on Oct. 9 to file a complaint, Jackson said Tuesday.
Jackson learned about the encounter five days later when an unidentified person from outside the police department emailed him late Oct. 13, he said. Englewood police first reviewed Vasina’s body-worn camera video on Oct. 14 and immediately referred the case to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. Vasina was put on administrative leave that day.
Vasina was still a probationary officer and was terminated after his probationary status was revoked, Jackson said. He was hired at the Englewood Police Department in November 2024 and previously worked at the Colorado State Patrol from June 2021 through October 2024.
Vasina did not have a disciplinary record in Englewood and an initial review of his other body-worn camera video did not show similar incidents, Jackson said.
State Patrol officials referred questions about Vasina’s employment, including his disciplinary record and past use of force, to the agency’s records department, which did not immediately respond to a public records request on Tuesday.
Vasina’s state police certification through the Peace Officer Standards and Training board was still active as of Tuesday afternoon and did not show his arrest. His next court date was not available Tuesday.
Law enforcement officials are searching for an Indigenous teenager reported missing Wednesday from Englewood, according to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
Tyrain Willow, 17, is a 5-foot-4-inch, 120-pound boy with black hair and brown eyes, according to a missing Indigenous person alert from the agency. He is affiliated with the Northern Arapaho Tribe.
Tyrain was last seen at about 7 a.m. Wednesday near South Broadway and Eastman Avenue in Englewood, CBI officials said in the alert.
He was wearing a white-and-black Los Angeles Dodgers hat, black jacket, black shirt, gold/tan pants and white shoes, investigators said. He may have been wearing an earring in his right ear.
Anyone who sees Tyrain or has information about his whereabouts is asked to contact the Englewood Police Department at 303-761-7410.
Authorities have accused a Roseland man of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a 27-year-old woman around the same time that he allegedly shot a 36-year-old woman to death and set her body on fire outside an Englewood garage.
Gregory Hudson, 65, faces felony counts of murder, concealing a homicidal death, aggravated kidnapping, arson and aggravated criminal sexual assault with a firearm, police said.
Chicago firefighters and police were first called to the 6500 block of South Damen Avenue just after midnight on Thursday, according to a police report. There, they found an unidentified woman lying burned outside the garage located at 6539 S. Damen Ave.
A witness told police he’d been in his car at the end of the block when he saw a white box truck circling the block, park near the garage and drive away after several people poured what he thought was gasoline at the front of the garage.
The woman, who had accelerant on her body, had also been shot in the back of the head and her stomach, the report said. An autopsy conducted by the Cook County medical examiner’s office determined that she had died of the gunshot wounds.
Police documents also state that authorities have linked Hudson to an alleged kidnapping and sexual assault against a 27-year-old woman. That alleged attack took place in Roseland within an hour of when authorities arrived on the scene of the fire in Englewood, according to police reports.
Hudson was arrested Thursday afternoon in Morgan Park, police said. He is set to appear at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse Sunday afternoon.
A new pass in Englewood has been formed by Hurricane Milton’s strong winds and storm surge, according to The Weather Channel.The storm cut a new pass through a barrier island, which happened two weeks after Helene ripped open Midnight Pass on Siesta Key, The Weather Channel wrote. Meteorologist Matt Devitt said that Hurricane Helene started the path and Hurricane Milton finished it. The pass is about 8 to 10 feet deep, he said. Hurricane Milton made landfall on Florida’s west coast on Oct. 9 as a Category 3 storm, leaving behind a trail of destruction.Related: Hurricane Milton ravaged one of the most popular areas for ‘snowbirds’ on Florida’s Gulf Coast
CHARLOTTE COUNTY, Fla. —
A new pass in Englewood has been formed by Hurricane Milton’s strong winds and storm surge, according to The Weather Channel.
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In Englewood, Stump Pass is no more. It’s now Stump Island and only accessible by boat. There is a new pass, “Milton Pass” where the hurricane removed part of the barrier island. Milton Pass is 10 foot deep. Here is the before (Google) and the after (NOAA survey). pic.twitter.com/asQbKdaXyD
The storm cut a new pass through a barrier island, which happened two weeks after Helene ripped open Midnight Pass on Siesta Key, The Weather Channel wrote.
Meteorologist Matt Devitt said that Hurricane Helene started the path and Hurricane Milton finished it. The pass is about 8 to 10 feet deep, he said.
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You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.
Hurricane Milton made landfall on Florida’s west coast on Oct. 9 as a Category 3 storm, leaving behind a trail of destruction.
The Florida Lottery recently announced that Nancy Rinehart, of Englewood, claimed a $1 million prize from?the $20 Gold Rush Limited scratch-off game.
The Charlotte County woman chose to receive her winnings as a one-time, lump-sum payment of $795,200.00.
The Florida woman purchased her winning ticket from Englewood Food Store, located at 2680 Placida Road in Englewood. The retailer received a $2,000 bonus commission for selling the winning scratch-off ticket.
She claimed the winning prize at the Lottery’s Fort Myers District Office.
The $20 scratch-off game, GOLD RUSH LIMITED, features 32 top prizes of $5 million and 100 prizes of $1 million. Additionally, this ticket is filled with more than 33,000 prizes of $1,000 to $100,00.
The game’s overall odds of winning are 1-in-2.65.
Scratch-off games are an important part of the Lottery’s portfolio of games, comprising approximately 74 percent of ticket sales in fiscal year 2023-2024. Additionally, since inception, scratch-off games have awarded more than $63.1 billion in prizes, created 2,175 millionaires, and generated more than $19.24 billion for the state’s Educational Enhancement Trust Fund (EETF).
The Florida Lottery is responsible for contributing more than $46 billion to enhance education and sending more than 983,000 students to college through the Bright Futures Scholarship Program. The Florida Lottery reinvests 99 percent of its revenue into Florida’s economy through prize payouts, commissions to more than 13,600 Lottery retailers, and transfers to education. Since 1988, Florida Lottery games have paid more than $95.7 billion in prizes and made more than 4,000 people millionaires.
The employee-owners of the Fancy Tiger Crafts Co-op were hoping to stay in Denver when it became clear they needed to leave the space on South Broadway that housed their yarn, needles and classes for almost two decades.
That didn’t happen — their rent in Baker doubled, so they needed to leave.
But they did end up happy with where they landed.
It turned out that their new block, further down Broadway in the heart of Englewood, was a refuge for other businesses fleeing high overhead.
“When we found this space, we were like, ‘Well, it’s just outside of Denver. It’s downtown Englewood. It’s three or four miles south, whatever,’” recalled Marta Johnson, one of those co-owners. “We’re still on Broadway.”
Johnson said she and her Fancy Tiger co-owners have no beef with their old landlord. They get it, Denver is more expensive than ever.
And it’s helped that they found a budding business community in Englewood.
“Yeah, being not in Denver isn’t a huge deal,” she said.
Broadway runs through downtown Englewood. Aug. 17, 2024.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
But Denver City Council member Flor Alvidrez, who presides over the district, said these relocations are “concerning.” There’s a certain “character” that’s lost when a small business leaves, she told us, especially because she worries only well-financed tenants will be able to afford to replace them.
“Businesses close and open. That’s a part of time. But what scares me is that the ability for someone that’s not wealthy to start a business is going down,” she said. “New businesses will come, but will they be snazzy investors or will they be a local person that’s just opening their dream?”
Those super-local ventures may yet survive in Denver, but it might take some creative thinking.
Joe Phillips is the ex-Sputnik bartender who opened Fellow Traveler in Englewood a few years ago.
He’s encouraged to see Englewood’s main street growing — it’s a good sign for Fellow Traveler. But he’s not sold on the idea that those good tidings have come at Denver’s expense. Broadway may be in flux, but it’s not finished.
“I’ve been going to South Broadway for over 20 years, and I’ve seen the changes. When Punch Bowl [Social] opened up, we all thought it was the end of the world and we were like, ‘Well, South Broadway is over now, it’s just going to be the bros and the Chads and all that shit.’ But it survived and it found a new era,” he told us. “I’m doubling down on that side of Broadway.”
Fellow Traveler owner Joe Phillips in his Englewood bar. Aug. 17, 2024.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Alvidrez told us there is assistance available for local proprietors, mini-grants for micro-businesses and federal money issued by the state. At the city level, she said she’s working to make it easier for businesses to expand into parking lots, as they did during the pandemic, so they might squeeze more cash out of fixed open hours.
But she admitted that City Council can’t control the whole economy. She said small local enterprises might need to share space on corridors like Broadway to afford the rent, or try to diversify their offerings.
“A good example of that, I think, is Molecule Effect, where they are a bar at night, but they’re a coffee shop during the day. You can only make so much money on coffee,” she said. “We do have to evolve. And that does mean finding other parts to cut your costs.”
Available property in Downtown Englewood. Aug. 21, 2022.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Meanwhile, Englewood has mostly welcomed these economic refugees to their downtown.
Nick Perry purchased Edward’s Tobacco Shop, a few doors down from Fancy Tiger’s new spot, and its building about four years ago. All of this new interest, he said, is a good sign.
“You can definitely see that this neighborhood’s on the upswing. It kind of feels like maybe this could become the next Tennyson, or that kind of shopping district. If you go around the neighborhoods, you’ll see it’s being gentrified, a lot of scrapes, a lot of new builds,” he told us. “There’s a big push from the city, and there’s a downtown development committee, that are really starting to put a lot of resources into this area.”
Nick Perry, owner of Edward’s Tobacco Shop, in his Englewood storefront. Aug. 21, 2022.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
While we didn’t get a hold of anyone with the city of Englewood for this story, everyone we spoke to in their downtown Broadway corridor said they were happy with the ways local government was supporting their ventures.
Johnson said she’s met most of her new neighbors, many of whom were excited to connect. She’s hopeful they’ll gel into a support network as they get their footing. (Fancy Tiger is still relying on a crowdfunding campaign to cover their moving costs.)
Phillips said he’s looking forward to Mutiny moving in next door. Their exit from Baker will probably impact Sputnik’s business, but it will be a boon for Fellow Traveler.
He views all of these moves, he added, as more of an “expansion” of Broadway rather than a death knell. But Englewood, he added, will need affordable housing, and a lot of it, to really reach economic viability.
“I’m excited about the changes going on here. My one fear is, even if every storefront in downtown Englewood was the coolest place, it’s not going to change the availability of housing in this area,” he said. “The density in this area is not built to handle a real vibrant downtown community.”
Inside Fellow Traveler in Englewood. Aug. 17, 2024.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Wes Champion, who’s owned retail shops here long enough to remember when the old Cinderella City Mall made this one of the busiest business areas in the metro, said that additional housing development is probably inevitable. He just suspects it will have to wait until the Federal Reserve lowers interest rates.
“This is going to all turn into small retail stores with housing,” Champion said. “It’s just a matter of time.”
Wes Champion stands in his Anderson’s Vacuum and Colorado Shaver combination shaving, vaccuum and yard store in Downtown Englewood. Aug. 21, 2022.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Real estate in Englewood, in turn, may heat up like it did in Denver. But Perry said he’s not worried about all this new demand making it more expensive to exist there.
“We’re years and years away from it becoming like what they’re escaping in Denver,” he told us. “We’re a long ways from that.”
CHICAGO — Two brothers were reported missing from Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood on Monday evening and are considered high risk due to their medical needs, police said.
According to police, 12-year-old Rickey Burrage and his nine-year-old brother named Rashed Burrage are in need of medical attention.
The two were last seen Monday around 5:00 p.m. bear the corner of 62nd and South Emerald Drive in Englewood, and they are considered high risk due to the medical attention they need, police said.
Ricky is 5 foot three inches and weighs 80 pounds while his younger brother Rashed is 5 foot two inches and weighs 75 pounds. They were both seen wearing t-shirts and backpacks.
The brothers went missing back in August of 2023.
If any information is recovered on the brothers, contact police immediately. WGN is actively following the incident and will update as more information is recovered.
CHICAGO (WLS) — Three men were wounded in a drive-by shooting in the Englewood neighborhood Tuesday night, Chicago police said.
The victims, ages, 65, 61 and 51, were standing in the 6600-block of South Halsted Street at about 9:27 p.m. when police said someone in a white van opened fire.
The 51-year-old man was shot in the back of the head and transported to Mt. Sinai Hospital in critical condition, police said.
The 61-year-old man was shot in the shoulder and transported to the University of Chicago Medical Center in fair condition, police said.
The 65-year-old man was shot in the ankle and arm and transported to the University of Chicago Medical Center in good condition, police said.
The van then fled the scene westbound, police said. No one is in custody and Area One detectives are investigating.
CHICAGO — Chicago police are investigating a fatal shooting that occurred Saturday morning in the Englewood neighborhood on the city’s South Side.
According to police, a 55-year-old man was in the 6700 block of South Ashland Avenue at about 11 a.m. when he was approached by an unknown vehicle. An offender began firing shots at the man, hitting him in the body.
The victim was taken to an area hospital in grave condition, where he was pronounced dead.
Police say nobody is in custody and Area One detectives are investigating.
DENVER — Inside MyKings Ice Cream, the owner and two environmental designers are opening up boxes and boxes of supplies.
“It’s kind of like Christmas all over again,” said Amber Barbella, the owner of Diversion Designers, a locally-based waste consulting company, as she opened up a box of new serviceware for the ice cream shop.
Instead of a holiday, it’s more like spring cleaning for the shop’s owner Leday Grant. She’ll be moving all of her one-time use items like paper ice cream cups and plastic spoons into storage, and replacing them with something reusable.
Customers will soon get their ice cream in sundae dishes with real silverware. Even popcorn bags have been swapped out for reusable popcorn buckets. All of it can be washed and used over and over again.
“You think about seeing 10 customers a day, that’s 10 cups. If they want to leave with it, that’s 10 lids and also the spoons,” said Grant, “It’s at least a $10,000 saving just by having the reusable products. That’s going to make a tremendous change.”
Every dollar counts for small business owners. The cost of all of the brand new reusable serviceware to Grant? Not a single penny.
“We knew we were going to have fees coming in from the bag free program and we can reinvest those fees in the community,” said Becky Goyton with Denver’s Office of Climate Action, Sustainability and Resiliency.
Since 2021, the City of Denver has collected $5 million in fees from the $.10 everyone pays for bags at the store. About $100,000 of it is now available for small businesses who want to get rid of their one-time use serviceware and upgrade to something more sustainable.
“Every business will get a one-on-one consultation before we develop a purchasing plan,” said Barbella. Diversion Designers has teamed up with the City of Denver on the initiative.
The businesses will receive up to $600 to buy reusable to match their specific vibe. The designers work with the business owner to make sure the choices fit the resturants’ needs and aesthetic to help ensure it’s a long-term commitment.
Applicants need to have onsite dining to be able to apply. Priority is given to women and/or minority-owned businesses.
“Knowing that your 10 cents is going toward a small business, a portion of it is going to a small business, helps bring you in again,” said Grant.
Click here to apply for the pilot program. There are 35 total spots.
“A little bit goes along way”
Just south, in Englewood, small businesses are also getting a boost from the bag ban.
“Our whole concept was built on local food sustainability and minimizing impact on the environment,” said George Gastis of Grow + Gather.
From their inception, they’ve used more eco-friendly options for their to-go containers like recyclable plastic or compostable boxes.
Restaurants across the state are now required to follow suit with a styrofoam ban in effect. Establishments can use up whatever stock they have left first.
The City of Englewood has collected about $100,000 in bag fees. They are using $18,000 to reimburse restaurants for their sustainable container choices and to help a few others make the transition.
Four businesses, including Grow + Gather, who were already using more sustainable to-go containers were given a reimbursement of $500 as “Waste Reduction Leaders.” Two additional businesses, one from Englewood and one from Sheridan, were given the reimbursement to help cover the cost of transitioning away from using styrofoam.
“The biggest benefit of the grant is the obvious, that they have to do it anyway. So then they can utilize some city funding to help them with the transition,” said Melissa Englund, the Sustainability Coordinator for Englewood & Sheridan. “I would say at a bigger scale, a benefit of getting rid of polystyrene products is, it’s really bad for the environment. There’s no way to actually recycled polystyrene. So it just builds up. It’s also really bad for human health, especially if it’s in contact with heat.”
It’s an effort to make things a bit easier on small businesses that are hoping to take care of their customers and the environment.
“A little bit goes a long way. I think this is just probably the beginning of what’s going to become a little higher criteria for how we run our businesses,” said Gastis.
“This is one step to make Colorado a more green place for everyone,” said Grant.
The current application process for Englewood’s pilot program is closed but they say they do plan to open up more spots later this year. The application can be found by clicking here.
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