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WEEKLY BRIEFS - City of Arvada internal news October 23, 2023 Airpark provides community benefit though partnership with AAM The Arvada Associated Modelers Airpark is a special use park located in northwest Arvada that the City leases to the Arvada Associated Modelers (AAM) club. AAM is one of many partner organizations that works with the City to provide services and events for the benefit of the Arvada community, including the Jets & Props Over Arvada event highlighted in this video. Other similar partner organizations include the Horse Protection League, the Indoor Equestrian Center, and community-supported agriculture and urban gardens such as Rose Roots, Frontline Farming and the Arvada Gardeners. For more information about AAM, visit ArvadaModelers.com. If you live in Arvada, there is one week left to take the Community Survey by Oct. 31 If you live in Arvada (or have friends or family who do), please note that the community survey will open Oct. 1. Resident feedback is critical to the City's understanding of the current and future needs of Arvada and acts as a consumer report card, providing residents the opportunity to rate their satisfaction with their quality of life, community amenities and local government. The survey is available in English and Spanish at ArvadaSurvey.com or by calling [PHONE REDACTED]. To learn more about the Community Survey and review past survey results, visit ArvadaCO.gov/Community-Survey. Email your news to ---PAGE BREAK--- Nov. 1 Bagels and Ballots at Arvada City Hall Join JeffCo Clerk Amanda Gonzales at the ballot drop box by the front door of City Hall. Drop your Jefferson County ballot, grab a bagel and ask all your ballot processing questions! City of Arvada Workplace Giving Campaign Giving at work is easy, especially when you spread out your giving through a number of pay periods. We invite you to find the nonprofits and causes you care about most and donate directly through your paycheck! Everyone is welcome to participate in the City of Arvada Workplace Giving Campaign. Every dollar makes a difference! Sign up to contribute by Friday, Dec. 15, 2023 and your selected nonprofit(s) will receive your gift throughout 2024. Join with your coworkers to make a lasting impact! Did you know that City of Arvada Employees contribute over $10,000 each year to support nonprofits? That’s less than $5 per paycheck. Let’s work together to make this amount even higher next year! Please contact Jennifer Kemps on the Employee Committee Outreach team at [EMAIL REDACTED] or x6754. Email your news to ---PAGE BREAK--- Organizational Service Effectiveness Work System Network Logon Credential Password Minimum Length Increase On Wednesday, Nov. 1, the IT Department will be increasing the minimum character length for our network logon credential passwords. The new minimum character length will be 16 characters. We are making this change because our current standards are out of date with modern security thresholds and must be adjusted to provide adequate security protection. The new standards will be enforced the next time your account has reached the 90 day password age limit. With this change, please take the opportunity to ensure that you are using a password that is unique to your Arvada account- a password that has not been used anywhere else on the internet. Password reuse is a leading cause of cybersecurity incidents for organizations. We also encourage you to employ a rather than a Password. A is a sentence-like string of words that is longer than a traditional password, which is easy to remember and difficult to crack. Best practices that users can incorporate when creating strong include the following: ● Use an easy to remember but uncommon group of three to eight words. ● Use capital letters or capitalize certain words. ● Add punctuation and special characters that make sense to you but no one else. ● Use unusual or abbreviated spellings of words. ● Make some letters into numbers. ● Spaces are allowed and count as special characters Below are examples of that meet our complexity standards (do not use these): ● Purpleturkeybanana#7 ● ● $2FidgetywhiteSquirrel ● Red@ndyellowthencame2b ● V00dooIcandowh@tudoEZ Your IT Service Desk Team can be reached at: Website: itservicedesk.arvada.org Email: [EMAIL REDACTED] Phone: [PHONE REDACTED] x.4357 Email your news to ---PAGE BREAK--- Open Enrollment 2024 The annual Employee Benefits Open Enrollment period is Oct. 23 through Nov. 3. This applies to all full-time and part-time benefited employees and health plan eligible employees. What makes Open Enrollment important to me? ● For most employees, this is the only window to make any Benefit changes and/or update Benefit coverage! ● Most 2023 Benefits automatically rollover to 2024, EXCEPT for Flexible Spending Accounts (Health FSA and Dependent Care FSA). ● No action is needed UNLESS: ○ You want to make Benefit changes. ○ You want to participate with an FSA Plan(s): You must actively enroll in the Flexible Spending Accounts to have a 2024 Plan. ● There are some enhancements to the UMR and Dental plans for 2024, so please attend one of the onsite presentations to learn about the enhancements. Virtual options and a recording will also be available. Upcoming Open Enrollment Events Benefits presentations coming to your facility! Presentations will include an overview of benefits, information about any changes coming in 2024, and Q&A sessions. No registration is required to attend. There will also be a recording available on Inside Arvada. Onsite and virtual benefits presentations DATE TIME LOCATION Thursday, Oct. 26, 2023 7 to 8 a.m. Wastewater Shop 5555 W. 56th Ave. Thursday, Oct. 26, 2023 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. Council Chambers, City Hall 8101 Ralston Rd. Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2023 7 to 8 a.m. Indiana Shops, Lunchroom Indiana St. Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2023 1 to 2 p.m. Dr. V Bayer on The Mindful Path to Health Goals Register for the Webinar Open Enrollment contact information If you have any questions, contact Human Resources Benefits Specialist Leesha Neuhold at [EMAIL REDACTED]. Email your news to ---PAGE BREAK--- Cybersecurity Awareness Month: Major trends in cybercrime As time passes and technology evolves, cybercriminal strategy and tactics change and adapt to new technologies and security solutions. The following discusses three current trends in cybercrime. Social engineering and business email compromise Social Engineering is what we call “hacking the human element” and most often leads to a business email compromise. As discussed in this year's training, Social Engineering is the act of contacting someone, preying on emotions or instilling a sense of urgency to grant an attacker the access they desire without needing to exploit technical vulnerabilities. This is often used to cause a business email compromise, where the attacker is able to elicit money from the victim, or completely take over their email account. Phishing can also result in unauthorized access to City networks, as well as the installation of malware on digital assets. This can be prevented through training and awareness, and reporting social engineering attempts so we can ensure no one else falls victim to this attack. Removable media Removable media is often used as an attack vector to deploy different types of malware. Removable media, such as USB thumb drives and external harddrives, are typically small and easy to transport and conceal, and are not often viewed as high-risk. However, cybercriminals can preload removable media with malware that runs as soon as it is plugged in, which they then distribute in various ways. Cybercriminals may pretend to be a vendor at a convention offering a free trial of their software, hand the drive to an attendee and let things take their course. In a USB study, almost 50% of people in trials plugged in unknown USBs into their computers and opened files therein. 98% of the devices were picked up in the study, so it could be that more participants plugged the USBs into their computers, but didn’t interact with the pre-loaded content. We can reduce the risks associated with removable media use by implementing more strict removable media policies that stops auto-running of programs, as well as by implementing controls to prevent the loss of confidential information via removable assets. Ransomware Ransomware is a particular type of malware that and locks down all the data and programs on a device, and does not allow any of that data to be used or accessed again until a ransom is paid, after which the criminals provide a key that will unlock the data. This is a problem because ransomware gangs can’t exactly be trusted, so there remains a risk that the key won’t work, which would result in a monetary loss and still being locked out of data/systems. We currently try to prevent this through anti-malware software deployed on computers and servers, strict policies on what programs are allowed to execute commands, restrictions on who can download programs and what they can download, and other policies that would prevent unwarranted downloads and administrative actions needed to carry out a ransomware attack. Thanks for reading, and remember to stay vigilant and keep your shields up, as awareness across the entire city is our best way to prevent a cyber incident! Email your news to ---PAGE BREAK--- Employee status changes We invite you to view this spreadsheet to see employee status changes. Employees may demonstrate interest in similar job opportunities in the future by contacting Human Resources at [EMAIL REDACTED] or [PHONE REDACTED], or your supervisor to obtain additional information. Here’s how to view City of Arvada job postings All City of Arvada job opportunities are posted on our job link. Arvada University Update Register in advance on the Arvada University Learning Calendar. Contact Liza Nolder ([EMAIL REDACTED]) with questions. Session/topic Date Registration details Type of Training Host Ergonomics in the Workplace *Wellness Punch! Send a screenshot of your course completion to [EMAIL REDACTED] for credit.* Available anytime on Learn Register on Learn Virtual, Valerie Reed Trakstar New User Training Nov. 8 from 8:30 to 11 a.m. Register on Inside Arvada In person, PD Training Room, City Hall Jeff Monzingo and Scott Jarvis Cultural Humility Nov. 9 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Register on Inside Arvada Government Center, Brighton Adams County 7 Habits of Highly Effective People *Emerging Leader prerequisite* Nov. 17 from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Register on Inside Arvada West Woods Community Room Noelle Oberg Email your news to ---PAGE BREAK--- Employee Committee Corner Halloween Parade with Lawrence Elementary and Arvada K-8 The ghouls and goblins are back in action on Tuesday, Oct. 31, starting at 9 a.m. at Wolff Park, across the street from City Hall. Pre-K and Kindergarten students from Lawrence Elementary and Arvada K-8 will be stopping by for some treats from the City of Arvada employees stationed around the park. We invite you to dress up, bring some candy, and participate in the Halloween Wagon Decorating Contest and theme your team in style! Winner gets a pizza party for their team! View the Halloween Wagon Decorating Contest rules. Please contact your Employee Committee at [EMAIL REDACTED] if you have questions. About the Employee Committee Employee Committee representatives meet in order to plan and coordinate events as well as collect departmental updates to bring back to their respective teams. Check out the links below to see who your representative is, view the upcoming list of potential City events and browse Employee Committee meeting minutes: ● Find My Rep! ● 2023 Events Schedule* *Please note: this is a working document and all events are subject to change. ● Meeting Minutes - September Please contact your Employee Committee at [EMAIL REDACTED] if you have questions. Infrastructure 2024 water, sewer and stormwater rate increases approved The City Council approved updated water, sewer and storm rates and fees last week. 🔵12% rate increase for water and sewer water and $2 sewer services fee increases rate increase for stormwater This new revenue will help fund repair, reinvestment, and inflationary impacts so we can continue to provide a high level of service to the Arvada community. See the press release or visit the Utilities Rates & Fees page for more information. Email your news to ---PAGE BREAK--- Ralston Road Updates Ralston Road is in the final paving process. This is a huge milestone toward project completion! Following final paving, more lanes and left turn pockets will be able to open toward the end of the year as the median work and side street paving is completed. Finishing this work will be dependent on the weather. Any paving, concrete or landscaping work that is delayed will be completed in the spring. We are so grateful for everyone's patience during this improvement project. We are almost done! W. 72nd Avenue Updates 72nd Avenue construction is also reaching a major milestone as phase 2 (Swadley Court to Oak Street) is nearly complete. This phase of the project should be mostly wrapped up near the end of the year. Phase 3 (Oak to Kipling) includes the railroad overpass (roadway underpass) is still in design and is expected to begin toward the end of 2024. The corridor will be open and the project will experience a pause in work between phases. Visit the project page for more details. Vibrant Community & Neighborhoods Work System Check out results from Gold Strike Park Survey #2 The future of Gold Strike Park is one step closer to being unveiled using community input from a recent community survey. From Aug. 15 through Sept. 11, the Gold Strike Park project design team conducted Community Survey asking people to choose between two proposed park designs: Concept A – Wandering Creek and Concept B – Adventure Destination. Read the Survey #2 Summary to see which concept design the community preferred and why. And stayed tuned for the final design in early 2024! Order low-cost trees through Trees Across Arvada Trees Across Arvada, which is part of the Colorado Tree Coalition’s state-wide Trees Across Colorado program, provides the community the opportunity to purchase low-cost deciduous trees. The size, price, and weight of the trees encourages community members to plant their own trees, enhancing Arvada's community forest with a selection of trees that promote drought tolerance and diversity. Planting trees is a great way to beautify your yard, add tree diversity, and reduce your summer utility bill by increasing the shade in your home. Tree orders and payments are due Dec. 8. The availability of some trees is limited, so order early by visiting the Trees Across Arvada webpage. Email your news to ---PAGE BREAK--- Majestic View Nature Center’s upcoming programs Whether you’re looking to meet new people, try something new, or deepen your connection to nature, we have a program for you at the Nature Center! Coming up in November: ● Forest Bathing Workshop: Saturday, Nov. 4 from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Join us for this special mindfulness workshop and let the natural world ignite your imagination. ● Nature Lover’s Book Club: Wednesday, Nov. 29 from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. This month, in collaboration with the Standley Lake and Arvada libraries, we’re reading Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson. Register to attend these programs (and more!) on CivicRec. Safe Community Two suspects arrested for armed robbery There were two suspects recorded on video who were involved in an armed robbery and shooting in Arvada. On Sunday, Aug. 27, 2023, at approximately 10:40 p.m., two males entered Laguardia Liquors at 8008 Chase Drive and robbed the store clerk at gunpoint. Gunfire was exchanged between the suspects and the store clerk. One suspect received non-life-threatening injuries and was later identified and arrested. The suspects are facing charges of armed robbery. The judges in both cases released the suspects on personally recognized bonds. The Arvada Center for the Performing Arts Discount ticket opportunity for City team members starting on Oct. 26 Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella City of Arvada Employee discount tickets go on sale on Oct. 26, 2023 Performance dates: Nov. 24 - Dec. 31, 2023 Performance times: Tuesday - Saturday at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday at 1 p.m., Saturday - Sunday at 2 p.m. When a young woman is forced to be a servant by her evil stepmother, it takes knowing her self-worth, some wonderful friends, and a little magic to help her get out. Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella takes a whimsical turn in the Arvada Center's production this holiday season, creating a mysterious but playful world where magic is real and dreams come true. Email your news to ---PAGE BREAK--- This stylish contemporary take of the fairy tale classic promises fantastical costumes, hilarious dialogue, romantic lyrics, and unforgettable music for a truly magical experience. Content: ages 4 - adult City of Arvada Employee Discount Tickets $15 Tickets, limit 4. Tier II and Tier III seating only. Purchase through the Box Office, or by calling [PHONE REDACTED]. You must state which city department you work for, and use promo code 11209. Email your news to