May 2017

At the Carbondale Board of Trustees meeting on May 24, Trustee Frosty Merriott kicked off discussion of a proposed town Ecological Bill of Rights by holding up a partially crushed plastic water bottle he had found on the pavement next to his parked car outside Town Hall.
“You can’t make this stuff up,” declared Merriott, who has advocated banning such single-use plastic bottles in town as part of the community’s commitment to environmental friendliness.

Don’t worry; your coffee won’t come with a sermon just because Mid Valley Church pastor Lance Norton is brewing it for you — unless you want it to, of course. “I know it’s an odd combination, but I don’t want people to think of it as the Christian coffee shop,” Norton said. “A lot of pastors view their primary role as Bible study and preaching, and I just don’t see it that way. You have that bartender that people kind of talk to about everything, and I hope I can be there for people that way whether they’re a Christian or not.”

A leading literacy expert explains an ongoing discussion in the education community at the Carbondale Branch Library at 7 p.m. on May 25.
There are at least two components to this discussion: whether students better develop reading skills through formal study such as spelling lists and grammar/vocabulary exercises, or through reading for their own pleasure.

May 26, 1977: Mayor John Fleet denied that there was any sort of feud brewing between the Town of Carbondale and the Carbondale and Rural Fire Protection District.
May 22, 1997: An old dispute over access to the undeveloped Te Ke Ki and Aspen Crystal River Estates subdivisions found new head when a local ranch manager plowed berms into the road south of Catherine Store.

Nearly 60 people showed up at Carbondale Town Hall on May 17 to talk about plans for parking and other proposed improvements to an increasingly popular mountain biking, equestrian and hiking trails system along Prince Creek Road south of town. In addition, more than 80 people submitted written comments to the Pitkin County Open Space & Trails Department’s website, mostly thanking the county for dealing with the situation but also offering numerous suggested changes based on their individual experiences and understanding of the issues involved.

Mark Gray sits on a stool in front of roughly 30 students whose chairs form an arc filling the band room at Roaring Fork High School (RFHS). Behind him is a whiteboard with the lines of a musical staff imprinted on one portion alongside handwritten calendar dates denoting “Battle of the Bands,” a May 31 dinner, and the school’s graduation — remaining dates of the band’s concerts.