The Avon Town Council will examine Columbus Day on Tuesday, and the seven-member board is expected to consider a recommendation to stop observing the holiday in Avon. <\/p>\n
The recommendation comes from Town Manager Eric Heil, whom the Town Council asked in October to prepare a recommendation on renaming the holiday. Heil said in 2019, some members of town staff simply referred to the day as \u201cMonday\u201d since they were working that day. Columbus is one of 10 federal holidays recognized by the U.S. government recognizes and marks every second Monday of October.<\/p>\n
At a meeting a few days before Columbus Day 2019, Council Member Scott Prince said he would like to see the holiday honor something other than Christopher Columbus.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe history has proven to be wrong about what we initially all learned as kids,\u201d Prince said, \u201cand I think it\u2019s appropriate for us to change that name here in Avon.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a memo published Friday, Heil said most departments within the town of Avon must work on Columbus Day regardless of its status as a national holiday.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlternatives were discussed with the leadership team, and it was felt that a \u2018floating holiday\u2019 would be the most beneficial for employees,\u201d Heil wrote in the memo.<\/p>\n
Council Member Tamra Underwood said she also works on Columbus Day. <\/p>\n
\u201cPersonally what I recognize on Columbus Day, traditionally, is not just great Italian Americans who have contributed a lot to our society but exploration and risk-taking and science,\u201d Underwood said. <\/p>\n
As of Columbus Day 2019, 12 states have either changed the name to Indigenous People\u2019s Day or stopped observing the holiday altogether, and more than 100 cities, towns and counties across the country have done the same.<\/p>\n
Town attorney Paul Wisor said the change would be easy to make in Avon.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a home rule municipality we are fully authorized to recognize the second Monday in October as whatever day we want,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The idea to change the name to Indigenous People\u2019s Day \u2014 as celebrated by the city of Denver \u2014 was brought up as a possibility in October, but Avon Mayor Sarah Smith Hymes said that before the town decides on a name it should determine what it is trying to celebrate. <\/p>\n
\u201cDoing something that nobody has done before, being on the vanguard of something that\u2019s important \u2026 I think we could go along those lines, perhaps, but let\u2019s explore it over the next 10 months and decide later,\u201d Underwood said in October. <\/p>\n
Avon resident Michael Cacioppo expressed strong feelings about the holiday\u2019s connection to Italian Americans. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou want to insult Italian Americans,\u201d he told the Avon Town Council, \u201cgo for it, but I\u2019ll tell you something: Karma goes around.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cacioppo said Columbus was one of the first people to recognize that the world is round and he is still a hero to Italian Americans who celebrate him on Columbus Day.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a special day to my grandfather Joe Palladino, who was a member of the Knights of Columbus,\u201d Cacioppo said. \u201cMy grandfather, who spoke what I call Kansas City Sicilian, used to beam about Christopher Columbus.\u201d<\/p>\n
Council Member Jake Wolf said the council doesn\u2019t want to step on the culture of Italian Americans. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to honor the Italian Americans, we want to honor the indigenous people to this valley. \u2026 Can we figure out a way to do both without starting some kind of revolution?\u201d Wolf asked. <\/p>\n
The Columbus Day discussion is the first item on the agenda for Avon\u2019s meeting Tuesday, which is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. at town hall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Avon Town Council will examine Columbus Day on Tuesday, and the seven-member board is expected to consider a recommendation to stop observing the holiday in Avon. The recommendation comes from Town Manager Eric Heil, whom the Town Council asked in October to prepare a recommendation on renaming the holiday. Heil said in 2019, some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-39292","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-02 20:18:03","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KIFT - The LIFT FM","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39292\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}