Inside Arvada

Inside Arvada's Neighbors Connected Program with Marco Randazzo

• City of Arvada • Season 1 • Episode 5

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Marco Randazzo is an Arvada resident, dad, music lover, and Neighborhood Leader.

In this episode, Marco talks about what it means to be a Neighborhood Leader with the City's Neighbors Connected Program and the value he has found in discovering new, creative ways to connect with his neighbors. 

Some of the topics covered:

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Visit us at ArvadaCO.gov/Podcast or email us at podcast@arvada.org.

Katie:

Welcome to Inside Arvada, the City of Arvada's podcast, where we bring you conversations with the people who make Arvada a thriving community. Hear stories about the past, present and future of Arvada through the lens of the city team members who help make it all happen. Explore the complex topics impacting our community, from the roads you drive to the water you drink, the parks where you play to what your neighbors think. Join us as we take you Inside Arvada. Welcome to Episode 5. I'm one of your hosts, katie Patterson, and I'm here with my co-host, sean Starr. Hey, sean.

Sean:

Hi Katie.

Katie:

We are so excited to have our interview with Marco Randazzo today. He is a neighborhood leader with our Neighbors Connected program. He has lived in Arvada for seven years with his wife, lizzie, and their two kids. They live up by Stanley Lake and his background is in music teaching and production and he's been a full-time realtor here in Arvada for the last five years.

Sean:

Yeah, really fun, entertaining conversation with Marco. It was great to learn from him the value of the Neighborhood Leaders Program and the value of getting to know your neighbors from a social level, but also at times when you might need them for emergencies or weather-related instances. So it was great to learn from Marco some of the lessons and values that he's gained from the Neighborhood Leaders Program, and so with that we will toss it to our interview with Marco. Hi, marco, welcome to Inside Arvada. We're so excited to have you on. You're our first non-city employee to be a guest on the podcast, so we're thrilled to have you. Let's begin by telling us a little bit about yourself and your experience with the city.

Marco:

Thanks for having me, sean, thanks for having me, katie. I'm really excited to be to be doing this today. Yes, I've been a resident here for seven years in Arvada. We moved my wife and I moved from Orlando eight years ago. We live downtown, rented, while we got to know, know the areas and Arvada really spoke to us and we've lived here for seven years, have two little kids and we just love it out here. Yeah, it's the best.

Marco:

What I love about Arvada there's a ton. What's great for me is we're in Northwest Arvada, so we're by Stanley Lake, rolling Hills. It's beautiful. You can see Boulder from Stanley Lake and all of that feels like you're out in the country and you're still only about 15 minutes away from Olde Town. Right, you guys are really close to Olde Town here at the City of Arvada. Olde town Arvada is amazing and especially since, like post COVID, they've got all the streets blocked off and kids can walk around. Right, you've got a kid. It's it's, it's great. So I've got, m y kids are one and three, so there's just lots of great things to do for families here in the city. I could talk about the city for a long time, but I don't want our podcast episode to be two hours long. My favorite thing about living here also is or one of the best things about the city is the outdoor pickleball courts at 82nd. Do you guys play pickleball?

Sean:

I've played once.

Katie:

I have never played.

Sean:

Okay, and it was really fun I can't wait to play again.

Katie:

Yeah, I think I'd love it. I just never have it's fun.

Marco:

Yeah it's great because anyone can join, no matter how old or young, athletic or non. You can just play. So, um, yeah, if I were to pick. Another thing I love about the city is the apex center. The 82nd street Apex center has like the best outdoor courts in all of Denver. Mountain views, they've got dozens of courts. It's great.

Katie:

Nice. Well, today we're going to spend most of our time talking about our Neighbors Connected program, which you are a neighborhood leader for, and so the program provides resources and training opportunities for our residents who want to get to know their neighbors, spend time with their neighbors and do some impactful projects and activities. So tell us a little bit about the program and why you decided to get involved.

Marco:

Yeah, the Neighbors Connected program is really great. So I've been a part of it for just over a year now. And originally so, my neighborhood, Pioneer Ridge, i t's right by the Apex center and 82nd, a small, small community.

Marco:

Originally there was, um, uh, someone asked me to step up and help at the HOA. So, uh, I had never been on the board of an HOA, um, but you know, I said, yes, let's do it. There's usually three people at a time and much like volunteering, you don't really know what you're getting into until you get into it right. And then one of the first things, um, that someone uh said they wanted me to check out was the neighborhoods connected meetings. They, uh, they had been going to them off and on and they said, hey, you know, you could go and represent our neighborhood and at least check it out. I had no idea what it was going to be and again, I said yes, because I'm open for good things to happen. It's like let's just go and see what this thing's all about. And that happened to be the same day that Brady was taking over the program. So I met Brady, great guy who runs it. Brady is the neighborhood engagement coordinator for this program and, yeah, so that's why I first joined it. But the reason that I continue to join it and be a part of it is its impact on my life, my community and other people's communities here in Arvada. It's great.

Marco:

There's lots of things we could. We could talk about it on this podcast, but yeah, essentially what it does is it helps neighbors connect to each other, learn how to support each other. The quarterly meetings provide resources for us about, you know, neighborhood conflicts and neighborhood programs and ways you can volunteer here within the city and stuff happening around the city all sorts of stuff like that. That's one thing that it does. Another thing that it does is it helps empower people to be leaders in their neighborhood and throw parties for their neighborhood and things like that.

Marco:

Who doesn't love throwing parties? Well, I guess not everyone loves throwing parties, but everyone loves going to parties if you're invited to them. So it provides people opportunities to invite their neighbors to block parties, social events, things like that, which is extremely important. We can talk about that for a while, but not a lot of people have the resources or they don't know just how to do it. You know, I know we'll talk about the block party trailer here in a minute. Um, but there's. There's other ways to connect with people, and just encouraging neighbors to reach out to each other and provide an invite is huge, even if people can't make it, cause you never know what people are going through. So that's sort of a long answer to your question, sean, but yeah.

Sean:

Yeah, you mentioned it. The block party trailer, I think is a big draw for a lot of people who are part of the Neighborhood Connected program. Have you had experience with that block party trailer, because I know it's super popular, and what does it all include and how did the block party go with the trailer?

Marco:

Have you been to one of these? Have you been to one of these? Nuh-uh. Brady, you been to one of these? Oh yeah, um yeah.

Marco:

So the neighborhood that I'm in used to do them with the city of Arvada. I've been there for just almost three years now and since post COVID they haven't done them. And, uh, so with my neighborhood, you know, I looked around specifically and I'll I'll come back to this, but because it's smaller, um it, you know, it seemed like I should start throwing multiple parties of smaller scale to have more opportunities for people to come, because it's a small neighborhood, 25 houses, right, um, but I did throw a block party trailer in Club Crest, which is a neighborhood off 80th and Wadsworth, right behind Indian Tree Golf Course, and that went great. So we no longer live there, but we did live there for just over four years. We turned our house into an Airbnb.

Marco:

So we're still a part of that community, we still have friends that are neighbors over there and since being a part of this program, um, you know, realized that would be a really great neighborhood to throw a block party, and even though I don't live there, we're, like I said, we're still involved in the community and um, so a friend of mine who lives just down the street from my Airbnb asked if, if she would host it at her house, you know, on her driveway and I would help her do it. And so together we rented the block party trailer. Um, it's free. If anyone doesn't know from the city of Arvada, it's free. The block parties, block party trailers free. Uh, reserved it. Uh, I did it on a Thursday night, so when I had reserved it was a bit late into the summer and it's really popular. So, if anyone out there is listening, what is the date that it goes live? We're going to talk about that.

Sean:

May 25th so it's live now. You know the weekends fill up quick so you can visit arvadaco. gov/ neighborhoods to enroll and to apply to have the block party trailer.

Katie:

And we'll put the link to that page in show notes, as always, yeah.

Marco:

So that's live. So you can go to the website and reserve the block party trailer if you want. Um, saturdays and Sundays are pretty popular and they fill up Um. By the time I realized this would be a good option. It was mid summer and we just picked a Thursday night and it was great and I booked it for like a month away and, uh, I picked a hundred houses to invite you know, in club crest around my Airbnb and we had like I don't know 25 people come. It was awesome and that's you know. We can talk more about this, but it's tricky to know who to invite, like how to get the word out, because this group at the time didn't have a Facebook group, and I'm helping them get a Facebook group set up now. I wish there was one when I lived there. Do you guys have Facebook groups for your neighborhood?

Katie:

No, mine's very small as well. So yeah, but that was going to be. My follow-up question was just like how did you spread the word cause that does feel like it could be a lot of door knocking. I don't know.

Marco:

Yeah, well, um, yeah, it can be that. So that is a good point, katie, A lot of people in my experience have that sort of initial feedback about a party or being a leader or whatever. They feel like this is going to be a lot of work, how the heck am I going to do this, what do I even do? And then they just do nothing. Right, and I get it. People are busy.

Marco:

Everyone's got their own lives going on, you know families, work, hobbies, like life, um and so, first of all, if you don't have a lot of time on your hands to throw one of these things, people will just not do it. But also it takes a little bit of energy, takes, you know, take some intention. So what I did is, um, you know, there's a program online called Canva. It's very easy to use for someone like myself who's not very graphic designer friendly, but I can learn how to use a program super easy. And I just made a little uh poster that said block party club, or a summer block party for club crest. Pick the date, the time.

Marco:

Um, you know said food and drinks, provided, uh, an address, and I printed it out on you know some little card stock things and I took my uh, one of my kids and my dog on a walk and we just walked and put it in a hundred mailboxes. Just took a couple hours, you know. Um, but again, that was part of. The trick is like, how many people do we invite here? It's hard because club crest is a huge neighborhood and what's weird is sometimes the bigger the neighborhood, the harder it is to know your neighbors. Sure, does that ring a bell? Yeah?

Sean:

Yeah, and I mean, what is the value of getting to know your neighbors? How have you seen those kind of shared experiences, you know, add value to just your everyday life and getting to know the people who live right next to you, because it's amazing, sometimes you can live somewhere and not know someone who lives right next door to you.

Marco:

Dude, it is wild. That was my experience. Growing up in Florida is like we didn't know any of our neighbors at all and I didn't think at the time that it was weird. But now looking back it's like man, it would have been tight if we like kind of knew who was around us, but we just didn't have relationships with them, right. So here's an example to answer your question, sean.

Marco:

So at that club cr est block party, which I helped them throw and we're going to help them throw it again this summer, there was a neighbor from the street behind where we threw it that came and a neighbor that was like two doors down from the house that I threw it and they had both lived there for like 40 years and they had never met each other. And they got to talking and they were talking about the changes in the neighborhood and they were having a great time. And you know club Crest is a very diverse neighborhood. There's lots of young people, there's lots of elderly people and you know that was about the split also at the party. And it was very cool having like some of these people who were the original owners of the neighborhood, who bought houses there in the seventies, and them getting to meet my, my daughter. My daughter was very, very little at the time, right, but got to meet her, you know, she was less than a year old at the time. It was like very cool.

Marco:

And then seeing these neighbors connect over just you know the same, living across, you know, essentially across the street from each other for four decades and never having met face to face, like how cool is that? So that's just an example of like a way that these block parties can bring people together. Um, there's, there's infinite ways, but I think that another, a second part of an answer to your question is we touched on this earlier is just the fact that people are invited to something you know, because if you're not like, okay, let's back up. If you're a part of, like, a church group or a school group or a sports league with your kids or something, there's lots of like built-in communities, are you part of anything like this right now?

Sean:

Sure, yeah. I mean, you know you have my kid that you mentioned, started to make friends with the kids that you know kids, parents, that he's in preschool with that sort of thing athletic teams, and it's kind of those existing communities that are built for you. Sure, right.

Marco:

Having an opportunity to just invite someone to something I think is very meaningful. You know, even if people can't make it, I think they appreciate being invited. This is one of the biggest takeaways I had from one of our neighborhood leader meetings is this was one of the topics that they had talked about was the idea of inclusion and the idea of just extending the invite. So, you know, if people can't make it, there is still, you know, 75 households who couldn't make it or you know something like that who received the flyer that they were invited to something down the street. That probably made them feel a little better about where they live, knowing like I'm seen, I'm cared about, someone wants me here.

Marco:

Now there are going to be people that have a lot of stuff going on that maybe missed it or don't care, and that's, that's fine. But there are very often people who will be invited to something and you never know, like how much it's going to make an impact on their lives, Especially if people are lonely, especially if people have lost a loved one. You just never know what people are going through, especially down your street, right? Because when people are going through hard stuff. It's not like they want to just raise their hand and talk about it, especially to people they don't know. They probably don't even want to talk about it to the people that they're close with, because going through hard things is tough At least that's been my experience. So again, I think this is a way that these programs they're not just bringing people together for having a drink and burgers together in someone's driveway on the block, but they also do have the opportunity to make a really big impact on someone's lives and we might not even know about it.

Sean:

So what exactly is in the trailer?

Marco:

Friday trailer. The trailer has games like you know the giant tic-tac-toe that's taller than my three-year-old. You know he loved that. It's got tables and chairs and the Frisbee can game. You know, a recycling bin and a trash bin basically everything you need to throw a party. It's just like the city of Arvada drops it off wherever you want it. If you need to block off any streets, you can apply to get that permit approved and then, if you do, there are like road blockades you can put up in specific designated areas and the whole thing just rolls out like a transformer set. It's just like here's all the stuff you need to throw a party. It's like the easy button. It's great, um, and yeah, I mean. You know there's cornhole, there's a lot of stuff in there, and I'm really impressed at how much stuff they get into that trailer. I know you've seen it. It's big, but it's not like a school bus, but it literally has everything you need to throw a party for like a hundred people. All you need is a trip to Costco and you're good. All you need is a trip to Costco and you're good, or just Amazon it. You know if you're busy, um, yeah, so everything is provided there. What you do need to provide is is any food, you know, beverage, napkins, cups, that sort of thing, um, but again, we did ours very, very minimally. At Club Crest, you know, uh, we had, we had some drinks and some food and one table and a lot of people brought like bags of chips and sides, you know cause we didn't like specify it was a potluck or anything but people like to do that, they like to bring stuff right. Isn't it fun to show up to a party? Oh, you can't co me empty handed. Yeah, exactly. So you know, we had a lot of stuff to share and and it was great. So that was my experience throwing it.

Marco:

I'll share one other story. So there is a guy in our neighborhood leader meetings named Carlos, who is like the king of party throwing. I mean, he just has this thing down and he has the time and the mental bandwidth to do it and he loves doing it and he's got two little kids also. I've become friends with this guy and, um, you know, he also does lots of movie nights on his own. He just loves throwing parties for his neighborhood. He's in Woodland Valley. Shout out Woodland Valley to Carlos. Um, and I went and got to see one of his block parties this summer and it was epic. Now he does it like to the nines.

Marco:

If you've ever been to one of those block parties where it's like, how did they do this? I mean they had tons of coolers and they had he was grilling burgers and they had a cotton candy machine and it was like I mean it was epic right. Now that's one end of the scale, right, but not everyone has the. I certainly don't have the ability or knowledge to do that kind of thing, but I could throw together a small block party with just getting some snacks and food, printing one flyer and then order and get reserving the Arvada block party trailer. So you know there's and we'll talk about this in a minute but there's smaller ways you can throw parties for your neighborhood that are outside of this, which which we want to encourage as well. How to get the word out, you asked. So we send it out to. You know we've dropped it in people's mailboxes. That's certainly an easy way to do it. It's also a nice way to do it, cause you might say hi to people, right, um, you might get to have a neighbor interaction, which is very, very cool, especially for people who don't talk to their neighbors a lot. Um, if you know people, the best way is to just text them the picture. I did that with all the neighbors that I knew, because we've lived there for just over four years, and asked them to share it with others that they knew, even if they weren't part of that hundred group. Hey, if they live close to Club Crest, invite them, send it over.

Marco:

For my neighborhood we throw smaller parties, like in my backyard, a couple of times a year. We already had one last week, so for that I just posted on the neighbor's Facebook page hey, it's going to be happy hour at my backyard, 5:30 to 7:30. Come on over. We got drinks. Bring a drink If you want. It cost me 50 bucks for like LaCroix's and ice, you know, and other people brought drinks. We didn't do food. Um, someone brought like a snack tray, very low production, low pressure. My kids just ran around in my place at my backyard and people sat by my fire and, you know, on the patio and we just hung out. It was great and I had like a third of my neighborhood show up.

Marco:

So smaller events like that for smaller neighborhoods like Katie, yours is a small neighborhood this is something you could do very easily is just send out word If you want to open up your backyard or your front yard or get a neighbor to do it for you, something like that and just invite people over.

Marco:

You know we didn't even have people in our house. You know, I got two little kids. It's a big deal to get house to try to get it clean, to have people inside, um. So this way we didn't even have to and we just opened up the gate, put a little party sign. You know we've done this. We did this last year a couple of times out. So for smaller neighborhoods, I think this is a really good approach and we'll be talking about this at the end of the month at the next neighborhood leader meeting to our neighborhood leaders, encouraging them to reserve the block party trailer. But also, if they have smaller communities or they just want to throw a lower production style event, to do something like this and just get the word out. Pick a day, find someone who's got a backyard that can hold a couple dozen people and just invite people and do it a couple times through the summer to give people multiple chances to come hang out.

Sean:

I love that idea because it forces you to get to know your neighbors and exchange contact information, because there's people who live next door to me who I wish I had their cell phone number, because we're gone and there's an Amazon package delivered or like we're gone and they need you know my sidewalk needs to be shoveled or who knows. There's a number of reasons and I don't have everyone's number, but you get everyone together. That's a good opportunity to you know, share contact information and you know. Otherwise it's kind of weird. You just knock on someone's door hey, what's your cell phone number?

Marco:

You've lived next to me for 20 years, right, exactly?

Marco:

I don't even know your name. But yeah, so let's stay here for a second. That is another reason this whole thing can provide a big impact. Okay, so, like geez, what was like three weeks ago, the wind from hell hit Arvada right and other parts of the city. My power went out while my kids were asleep, or it was, or I thought it was going to come back on, and then we put them to sleep and it was still wasn't out and it was like we're it felt like we were escaping from from prison. It was like you know, rushed out of the middle in the middle of the night, packing our kids, trying to get them to our in-laws a couple miles away. Um, you know, and times like that, like, let's just say, the roads weren't safe to drive on, you know, and we needed something.

Marco:

Our neighbors are the only people you can really reach out to, um, in some situations, or they're the closest, certainly, like if I need someone I trust to to to come over and hold one of my kids while I take care of something else, if Lizzie and I both weren't there, something like that or this goes far beyond. Like I need a cup of sugar, you know. Um, far beyond. Like the whole, it's nice to know your next door neighbor thing. It's like when, when there's a an emergency or when you really need something, or if you're in a pinch, um, you know, open your front door and the houses that you can see, those are the people that might be there for you, that would love to reach out and support you and help you however you can. My neighbors are amazing. They would do anything if I asked them. Um, but it helps that I know them right.

Marco:

It wasn't the case in Club Crest, because I knew several of them right, but not like the community I have now where I really know most of my neighbors. So you know, everyone listening to this might have had a time where they were helped by a neighbor. So, just like, if you're listening to this, picture that and then think about what that feeling might be like for someone else who needs it. So these programs that we're doing are just giving people more of an opportunity to get to know each other, to get their contact information, like you said, to connect, not just for times when we're inviting each other to parties or to volleyball, you know, or or sports or whatever, but you know if there's something you need in an emergency situation. Having neighbors that you trust is huge. Especially now that I'm a dad and I'm just like man I feel safer knowing my neighbors. You see what I mean.

Katie:

Yeah, I really appreciate that. I think that's like the worst case scenario. End of the value of it all is just that when something bad happens which inevitably, you know, scale might be different it can happen that you have these people that, um yeah, brought up gosh so many like past memories for um me when we've had stuff like that and when I was being born my brother went and stayed with the neighbors right Like wow that was lucky Um yeah so it's, um, really extends both from the fun to the the most important.

Katie:

And now I have lots of, like, elderly neighbors, so just being able to check on them and you know, feel like you have that at least they're not elderly and don't have cell phones so you've got to go knock on the door. But, um, you know, it's good to be able to like build that relationship for those scenarios where you're worried about the person.

Marco:

Yeah, Sean anything coming up for you like that.

Sean:

Not necessarily. I did want to kind of shift gears a little bit, and you know talk about the neighborhood grant program. So that's part of the Neighbors Connected program and so we offer a few different kinds of grants that range from, you know, a few hundred dollars If you do want some help with your block party, you can get a grant for that to where we have you know $500 neighborhood experience grant all the way up till you know $3,000. If you want to do like a big neighborhood project. Do you have any experience with some of these neighborhood grants and some projects you've done with with that fund?

Marco:

Yeah. So Carlos, um, when I was a part of his block party, he had gotten one of these grants and he had used it so he could get just lots and lots of food, because he had like a hundred plus people Right, and that can get expensive if you're footing the bill yourself. So I was able to share that experience with him. You know it was nice having a full dinner there. It was very, very cool. Um, side note, that was also uh.

Marco:

At that party last year I was super, super grateful. He asked me to come and do music for for them. So I got to do Beatles covers and kids music and do some live music set for like an hour, which is super fun Cause I don't I used to be a music teacher and I I don't do a lot of music these days. So that was a lot of fun to be a part of that and I invited my family and my in-laws and we all had dinner afterwards and hung out with the neighbors at Woodland Valley, which is like two miles south of us. But you know, this provided us an opportunity to get connected with them. So that was my experience with the grant program as being a part of a neighborhood party that was done like at a bigger scale, with like a full dinner that you know. The neighborhood leader didn't have to pay the several hundred dollars himself.

Sean:

Yeah, the neighborhood concerts, the sort of Tai Chi, yoga classes, there's been, you know, pumpkin carving competitions, that sort of thing is the most common activities we see with those grants and then oftentimes also the little free libraries that you see around neighborhoods. Neighbors put those up with that money as well.

Marco:

Those are cool projects.

Sean:

A lot of fun stuff that you can do.

Marco:

Yeah, I've heard of people at the neighborhood leader meetings talking about ice cream. Some of them have done you know, you get the smaller grant, you can get a ton of ice cream, you know. Or hire a little local business, you know, dessert trailer or something like that. I've heard a couple stories like that that are very cool, where a couple hundred bucks goes a long way and the city is supporting it, um, which is a very cool thing that you guys do, uh, just to kind of give a little pizzazz to some of these parties, right, or at least encourage and help some of these neighborhoods that might not otherwise do it if they didn't have, you know, the financial means to do it, to do themselves. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Sean:

You mentioned the um, the quarterly meetings the neighborhood leaders have, and I think earlier this year there was a conflict resolution meeting. What do you remember from that uh, training and and how has that helped you with? I don't know if you've had to apply it hopefully not but what were some of the lessons that you learned from that conflict resolution?

Marco:

Get off my lawn! Yeah, that was a oh boy. That was an interesting one that I remember being a very interesting experience. We broke out into small groups and went through scenarios, went through scenarios and it seemed to be like this uh, you know this, this deep dive into your mind, of human psychology, when you have a problem with your neighbor and some people are, uh, very direct and some people are passive, aggressive, and some people bottle it up, right, and they were going through scenarios of like if your neighbor, you know, shovels their snow into your yard, what do you do? Do you shovel it back into their yard? Do you shovel it into their house, you know, into their front porch? Do you call them? Do you, you know, quietly dismiss it? Do you bottle up the anger and then let it come out a different way?

Marco:

There's these different things that um and usually, you know, one of the clearest answers, um was like an obvious choice, but it made you think about all the other ways that people handle these conflicts, whether they're choosing it on purpose or not. You know everything down to my neighbor once like mowed, like, kind of, was like kind of on my side of the yard. It's like it's not a big deal. It doesn't matter. But one thing that helps is I know my neighbor. My neighbor is awesome and he's helped me out with stuff before. If I had no idea who my neighbor was, you know, and you catch someone on the wrong day in the wrong mood, then you might get someone who's like I can't believe you're mowing my side of the yard.

Sean:

The first time talking to him is hey, what are you doing? Mowing my yard?

Marco:

What a cool first impression to go knock on the door. Excuse me, can I have your cell phone number because I'm going to invite you to the next block party. Also, stay off my yard. Like that's not cool, yeah. So again it comes back to the point you said earlier about how you know. It's nice when you're connected and you don't have to ask for someone's cell phone number. If you already know them. You can just text them. Get off my yard or don't mow my yard. No, just kidding.

Marco:

But, um, you know, there was several experiences that, uh, people talked about in small groups and what. What surfaced at the end of that was really the fact that the more people are connected to each other, the easier resolution becomes on all levels. Connection really solves a lot of problems. I'm a big believer in that. So you know that was a cool experiment that they did, where, you know, we got into small groups and talked about these things.

Marco:

Obviously, ideally, people are not getting into conflicts all the time with their neighbors, but naturally it just happens. Yeah, so that's like one of the things that we do at those neighborhood leader meetings you know quarterly is it's some sort of content like that to help neighbors get more connected to each other. Give you some resources about how to better treat each other. Even if not everyone coming to these meetings is throwing a party, you know there's I brought. I brought a neighbor down the street once and I had someone from Club Crest, my old neighborhood, come to one of these meetings, just so she knows what's going on in the city and then she can help throw the next block party if she wants to. We're just giving people opportunities, yeah.

Sean:

Right on. Well, we're going to wrap things up with our lightning round. It's, you know, a series of questions that we ask. So I'll turn it over to Katie for the lightning round.

Katie:

Okay, what is your favorite thing about arvada? It can be a place, a fact or hidden.

Marco:

Oh my gosh, um, my favorite thing about living in Arvada, I live in northwest Arvada close to Standley Lake, which is technically Westminster, but right there in Arvada you can see it and we've got all those trails on the south side of it. You know it's just north of 86th and Simms. We took family pictures there yesterday with my two beautiful kids , they're 1 and 3, and my wife and it's was ,so like the sun sets by the mountain and just being on this side of Arvada, makes it feel like you're out in the countryside, and it's just beautiful. I love it. Hang on, what's your favorite thing about Arvada?

Katie:

Well, Sean and I actually have already done this for our listeners but in case they missed our intro episode. I said the number of parks that we have close by. Everybody has a park within 10 minutes of their house or something like that, and that includes myself and I have a really special park near our house where we planted a tree in memory of my dad, so it's really nice to be able to get to walk there.

Marco:

I do remember that episode, yeah.

Sean:

My favorite thing is the Ralston Creek Trail. I mean, how can you not love?

Marco:

the you bike sometimes to work on it.

Sean:

Yeah, look at that recall. Yeah, so that's great. Trails and parks. Yeah, everyone's favorite thing about here Awesome.

Marco:

We get that one a lot. What was your first, last, or best concert? Oh my gosh. The last concert I went to, uh, was extremely special to me because I took my son to his first rock show. So my son is three, right, your kid is five, right.

Marco:

But um, uh, the band is called our last night and they do primarily cover songs. So, like taylor, swift, post malone, they cover everyone. But they also have an album called disney Heavy which is all Disney songs, like 25 Disney songs, and it's in hardcore screamo music style, which is like my favorite kind of music. So it's half singing, half screaming and you know it's a way to get kids into metalcore music, into the scene music that I really love. And so we saw them. They came to Denver and played at the Fillmore 4,000 cap room you know huge venue, and, um, we were out way past his bedtime but we went and we made it for like half of their set before I just like had to get them home, um, but he was able to see some of the music. He wore you know the noise uh protection headphones and he danced and we had just a great time and it was probably the most fun concert I've had of my entire life because I was there with my kid.

Katie:

That's really special, that's cool.

Marco:

Yeah.

Katie:

What brought you to live in Arvada?

Marco:

Honestly, it's just the perfect mix of city and mountains. You're right between. Like the community is great. We love all the parks and trails, like again, there's a lot. But really, locationally, the main thing that was a draw for for my wife and I was um one, affordability. More than like downtown Denver or if you get up into Boulder County it's very expensive, right. So Arvada is really a nice mix where you can still get good bank for your buck and you're outside of the city. So you know we're 25 minutes from a Rocky's game, we're 25 minutes to Boulder. We can hop on I-70 and head into the mountains. I got mountain views from my neighborhood. It's, it's beautiful. So it's really the best mix of being like in a suburban Denver city and being close to the mountains at the same time. Plug for Arvada, I mean, what else could be better?

Sean:

han that plug for.

Marco:

My first job was a bag boy at Publix in Orlando, Florida.

Marco:

It's kind of like a King supers they don't they don't have Publix out here, they're super popular out in Florida. It's like, yeah, it's a, it's a grocery store, so here, public side, here super popular out in florida it's like, yeah, it's a grocery store, so here. I was very good at it. Okay, you ready, check this out. How's your day going? Man, paper or plastic, still got it and it's a. Was that great? Here's the thing. It was a trick question because whatever she said, it was like you really should be using your own reusable bags and listen to the episode of the. You know the guest who was on inside arvada, who talked about conservation and recycling.

Marco:

Yes, that was my first job. It was very fun. Uh, now I sell houses for a living and it's great, but there was something that was kind of cozy about working in a grocery store for low key yeah, yeah.

Katie:

It was like a pretty classic first job. Uh, lifeguard.

Marco:

Cool, yeah, and what do you? What do you do now? You work in the city. Remember about it Easy.

Sean:

My first golf clothing. Oh, it was pretty boring. Yeah, I gained a good appreciation for customer service nice and how to treat you know customers people in that customer service industry as well, so you know what's cool about golf not very much.

Marco:

Not a golfer. Golfer, oh, that hurts. Ball. Pickleball is way bac. All right. No, I do like. I golf a couple times a year. It's fine. I'm just taking a stab at the golfer over here, ouch. It's personally, do you golf with your ?

Sean:

I took him out to a par three for the first time a couple of weeks ago and he did awesome. So I can't wait to just keep growing up with him with the game, cause I didn't start until I was like in middle school and that's still fairly young, but like I can't wait to see him pretty much, since he was old enough to hold a club, I've been trying to get him into the game.

Marco:

that does sound like fun to be, to be truthful. Okay, fair enough very fun yeah I can't say.

Katie:

I think I golfed for the first time when I was like 25, like it was full, full adult. I've done it three times ever so never played 18. It's like nine is a great cap.

Marco:

That'. We could golf together. That's the thing I do like golf, but it's the time to me. I'm not as patient as Sean over here, so that's kind of the thing.

Sean:

That's fair criticism. It is a long time to go to 18 holes, for sure.

Katie:

I'm trying to do jumping jacks in the middle or something to move more.

Marco:

Hey, hybrid golf, that's a cool, cool way to do it. Sure.

Katie:

Soccer golf, that's a yeah. Anyways, we do have one more of these. Okay, what's the best thing you've learned in being in the neighbors ?

Marco:

I'd say the best thing I've learned being a part of the neighbors connected program is I'm starting to see how being a tight part of your community over time can have generational impacts. You know there's some people there that have come like with their kids and my kids are a little too young to bring to that but like soon enough they could come and check it out. They're very much a part of, like the happy hour. You know party styles that we throw in our backyard already and I'm starting to think like if, man, if I've got a plot, a flag planted here in Nevada. Long-term, my kids grow up like knowing their neighbors and being a part of other neighborhood parties. Like we go to Carlos's block party and he he actually came to mine at club crest as well and we have this like community that we're building together. Like how cool would that be? I didn't have anything like that as a kid, so I'm I'm starting to think more long-term now.

Marco:

Isn't it funny how being a dad really changes your perspective on everything, right? So now I'm thinking about you know, the impact that being connected with your neighbors can have like on your family and other families in other neighborhoods over time. Right, and the neighborhood leader. You know, meetings that we do is just a part of that, but it certainly is an empowering part of that, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, that was the last question, right, how's that? Can I say thank you so much for having me on this podcast. It's been super, super fun.

Katie:

Back at you. Thank you so much for coming on. We really appreciate your time and getting a little different perspective than we've had so far and getting to hear so much about what it's like living here.

Marco:

Yeah, absolutely. And, katie, I wanted to say thank you for something because, or Sean, who wrote the lyrics to this, to the song that you guys came up with.

Sean:

TYeah, yeah, he is the brains behind the jingle.

Marco:

From the roads that you drive to the water that you drink, the parks where you play and what your neighbors think. You guys didn't even know that that was going to be a song that would be in this episode. No, from the roads that you drive to the water that you drink fo the parks where you play and wh your neighbors think hey.

Katie:

TWe're gonna have to replace our jingle now.

Sean:

Yeah, yeah katie, you're out, marco you're in.

Marco:

I think your elevator music sets the good tone for, like the city of anyway\ rvada intro, we'll just you know, I anyway hat was a song that just like it came into existence, you know, because of you guys. So I just want to say thank you, I love it.

Sean:

Thank you so much for coming on Awesome.

Marco:

Thanks guys.

Katie:

So before we let you go, we'll do our news and other upcoming events that are going on. So, as always, don't forget, you can submit your feedback and questions by emailing us at podcast@ arvadaorg. And right now the annual water quality report just came out, and that's a report that comes out every year and tells our Arvada water customers what has been tested for in their water to help our customers feel informed and confident that their water is safe to drink. And so we will put a link to that in the show notes. And we are rolling quickly into summer, and so Movies Around Town is kicking off. Tell us some more about that, sean.

Sean:

Yeah. So Movies Around Town kicks off Friday, june 7th, at Homestead Park with a free showing of Barbie, so be there beforehand for some live music, with Showtime starting around dusk. Also, we have a park naming project going on right now. There's a few days left for the communities to suggest names for what's currently being referred to as Holistic Health and Fitness Park, but the Arvada Park Advisory Committee is listening to name suggestions for that park through the end of the month, may 31st and then finally, june 8th is a busy day with a lot of city events going on. We have the Kids Fishing Contest at the Arvada Blond Reservoir, we have our Volunteer Appreciation Event that day and then finally, we have our bulky item drop-off from 9 am to 2 pm at the North Area Athletic Complex, and that's included free to all residents as part of the city's waste hauling program. We will include a link in the show notes for a complete list of acceptable items and what to know before you go.

Katie:

Thank you again to our guest, marco Randazzo. It was great to have him on today. Be sure to listen to our next episode featuring Darren DeLay, the city's parks and urban design manager, and don't forget to stay in touch with us. Visit our website at arvadacogov/ podcast. You can subscribe to the show or send us an email at podcast at arvadaorg to ask us questions to be answered next time. Thank you to our listeners. Please don't forget to promote, subscribe, rate and review the show. Recording and editing support was provided by Arvada Media Services producer James Long and Sean. Leave us with your fun fact.

Sean:

There are 93 officially recognized neighborhoods in the city of Arvada Whoa.