Local News

 A recent mountain lion attack on a dog in the Brook Forest community is among an increasing number of incidents in the area.

Brook Forest resident Judi Atencio said the cougar came into her yard on Feb. 7, grabbed her dog Lucy by the head, and started dragging her up the hill. 

The dog, a beagle-coon hound mix, was outside for only five minutes when the lion attacked her, Atencio said. The incident happened at 7 p.m. when it was dark, she said.

“All I had to get the cat away was a flashlight,” said Atencio. 

The long-awaited community garden planned at Buchanan Park is now available to gardeners interested in acquiring a plot.

Those who would like to sign up for a space in the garden and find out what’s involved in the process can attend the kickoff meeting Feb. 28 at the Buchanan Recreation Center. “We’ll tell people about the garden. … We’re looking forward to helping people learn,” said Margaret Rode of the community garden committee of Evergreen’s Alliance for Sustainability. “This is going to be an organic garden.”

A new system being used by Jeffco Public Health to answer teens’ questions about sexual health via text-message is already proving to be quite popular.

After being online for only three days, the Go Ask TISH program had already received more than 100 questions about sex and sexual health, said Kelly Conroy, Jeffco’s public health nurse supervisor.

“We’ve had a great response since it has launched,” Conroy said. “We really wanted to increase our outreach to teens and young adults.”

A test of the county’s new emergency notification system is being considered a success, after it reached out to more than 347,000 phone numbers across Jeffco and Broomfield, along with parts of Adams, Douglas and Clear Creek counties.

The test, which took five hours on Feb. 6, successfully connected to about 74 percent of the registered telephone numbers, a high mark, said Jeffco sheriff’s spokesman Mark Techmeyer.