March 2017

Meet the Royal Bonedalian Mounted Police – the first step in a 90 day adjustment period before all motor vehicle traffic ceases in town proper.
“It starts with law enforcement setting the example,” explained Police Chief Gene Schilling, who was on pooper scooper duty Saturday morning thanks to a blown ACL.
Existing staff will have first priority in the hiring process as the town phases out its streets department in favor of new positions as mucker and stablehands. Foreman Smiley Wise, a blacksmith and former rodeo star, will head the new crew.
The proposal, passed unanimously at a special town council meeting on March 21, has drawn some criticism by earth-hating residents.

A fire call at the Basalt Post Office on the evening of March 29 turned out to be more smoke than anything, according to Fire Chief Scott Thompson.
The building was closed for business, Thompson said, when someone smelled smoke – though the alarm system wasn’t triggered.
“We didn’t know what we had and it seemed to be getting worse, so we treated it like we had a fire,” Thompson said.

The Carbondale Board of Trustees gave a somewhat tepid response on Tuesday to a proposal to annex about 2.6 acres of ground at the north end of town and make it home to a new mini-storage complex along Highway 133. But the trustees did not indicate an unwillingness to work with the developer, Dr. Ron Stein and his corporate persona, Huntington L.P., headquartered in Burbank, Calif. Stein, also owns the Sopris Shopping Center on Highway 133, as well as land between Main Street and Colorado Avenue at Highway 133, which is hopes to develop into a mixed-use project of homes and businesses.

On the morning after spring break, four school buses leave the venerable bus barn on Third Street in Carbondale, but don’t return. The maintenance crew and a handful of drivers have spent the last week moving all the old tools and parts up to a new facility near El Jebel. In a few months, Roaring Fork School District hopes to have the old building torn down, the soil sampled and mitigated as needed, and a new teacher housing complex under construction on the site.

April 2, 1987: The Town of Basalt commended those who had rescued a man from his burning aircraft when it crashed in Holland Hills two weeks before.
“Let it be known to everyone that’s what saved my life,” Federal Express pilot Greg Dunham reportedly told Police Chief Larry Johnson when the idea of special recognition was proposed.

Roaring Fork School District Superintendent Rob Stein announced on March 24 that he had offered the job of principal at Roaring Fork High School to Brett Stringer, who currently serves as principal at the North Middle School Health Sciences and Technology Campus in Aurora, CO. Stringer accepted the position, Stein reported in an email to the district’s staff and obtained by The Sopris Sun, and will be starting the new job on July 1 if the selection is confirmed by the school board on April 12.

For some local nonprofits, it seems as if they’ve been around forever. Take Roaring Fork Outdoor Volunteers (RFOV), which works with the Forest Service and other agencies to repair and build trails on public lands, and undertake projects that state and federal agencies can’t afford. RFOV is marking its 22nd year of improving access to public lands through the work of volunteer crews.
“We’ve accomplished quite a lot since our first project season in 1995, when we had only three projects and 105 volunteers,” said RFOV Director David Hamilton on the nonprofit’s website.

If producing a Daniels Fund recipient or Boettcher scholar is a feather in a school’s cap, Roaring Fork High is on its way to a headdress.
This year, the graduating class of fewer than 80 students boasts six such scholarships – two Boettchers (a full ride anywhere in the state) and four Daniels (a full ride anywhere in the country).

In Carbondale they are called “micro-units” rather than their more common designation as “tiny houses,” and there are some key differences in how local governments view the growing national phenomenon of ultra-small houses, compared to the viewpoints of other jurisdictions.
For example, in Carbondale if the tiny house is perched on wheels it can only be located in an RV Park. But if it is built on a permanent foundation and can be hooked up to the town’s water and sewer systems it can be located in a more traditional residential subdivision, according to Chief Planner Janet Buck.