August 2016

Carbondale’s elected leaders on Tuesday continued an ongoing discussion about installing lights along town streets, trails and paths that historically have been dark sections, out of a concern for public safety stemming from recent nighttime attempted sexual assaults and other problems.
Discussions about public safety have taken on added urgency following reports by women of attempted sexual assault in recent weeks, and Trustee Ben Bohmfalk announced at the trustee meeting that the town’s Bike/Pedestrians/Trails Commission recently talked about the need to provide better lighting on trails and streets, particularly along the Rio Grande Trail.

The Basalt Chamber of Commerce has launched a series of monthly business education luncheons featuring different speakers from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Basalt Regional Library.
The series is called “Topics at Twelve.” CMC assistant professor Rob Martin was scheduled to present a talk titled “New Media & Marketing: A Look Over the Precipice” on Aug. 11.
“Topics at Twelve” will be held on the second Tuesday of each month. The Basalt Chamber business education committee members include: Nikki Soda (Jaywalker Lodge); Danielle Howard (Wealth by Design); and Shayla Groves (Design Finch).

The Carbondale Board of Trustees did not quite come up with a final response to the town’s “short-term-rentals” (STRs) problem at Tuesday night’s trustee meeting.
But they did informally conclude that the official response will be to impose restrictions on “non-owner-occupied” houses that are rented out to vacationers, and avoid placing any such restrictions on “owner-occupied” properties where the owners are renting out rooms to help out with family-related expenses or simply to earn a little income while away on family vacations or other absences.
That, the trustees told planners Janet Buck and John Leybourne, should be the substance of regulations aimed at preventing a loss of locally-oriented and affordable housing in favor of more profitable commerce in the vacation-rental sphere.

Carbondale’s citizen managers of the town parks and recreation facilities will meet next week to consider a proposal by a local ranching family to make some improvements to Nuche Park, a rustic expanse of pasture and grassland tucked between the Crystal River and Highway 133 at the south end of town.
The topic is scheduled to come up at the Aug. 10 meeting of the Carbondale Parks & Recreation Commission, which will take place at 7 p.m. at the Sopris Park Picnic Shelter, rather than in the confines of a meeting room at Town Hall, according to Recreation Director Jeff Jackel.

Regional public lands conservationists cheered last week when the BLM announced, as its “preferred alternative” under a recently completed Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), that it plans to cancel 25 controversial gas-drilling leases in the remote region known as the Thompson Divide area near Carbondale.
While the news generally was acknowledged as good by those who want to keep drilling rigs out of the relatively untrammeled Thompson Divide area, that outcome is by no means assured by the BLM’s announcement, according to experts on the situation.

Carbondale’s “pioneer home museum” has been closed more than it has been open since it was deeded over to the town last year, but those in charge of the facility hope that is about to change.
Officials with the Mt. Sopris Historical Society had hoped to open the Historic Thompson House, a city-owned museum and surrounding grounds that dates back to the 1880s, earlier this summer, said the society’s executive director Beth White.
But a number of delays got in the way, said White and the president of the society’s board of directors, Lew Ron Thompson (a member of the family that owned and lived in the house for more than a century), meaning the historic facility is likely to remain closed to the general public until sometime in the fall.