Will Grandbois

Carbondale resident and former Tibetan Buddhist monk, John Bruna, is about to head out on a national book tour for his first book, “The Wisdom of a Meaningful Life: The Essence of Mindfulness” (Central Recovery Press), but not before he celebrates the book’s Aug. 1 launch with a pre-release party on July 25 in the Calaway Room at the Third Street Center. The event starts at 6:30 p.m. with a talk by Bruna, followed by a book signing and chance to visit with the author. (Special arrangements were made with the publisher to have books available for purchase here in advance of the official publication date). Light refreshments will be served, and everyone is welcome.
“The Wisdom of a Meaningful Life: The Essence of Mindfulness” was written to offer readers an accessible, practical distillation of the spiritual teachings and life experiences that inspired and supported Bruna on his own path of recovery

As Carbondale prepares for the 45th annual Mountain Fair at the end of this month, another annual celebration, the 78th Garfield County Fair at the fairgrounds in Rifle, is well underway, at least in terms of traditional 4-H competitions and exhibitions that help make up the backbone of the event.
Rifle is located 25 miles west of Glenwood Springs, along the I-70 corridor, at the Colorado Highway 13 interchange.
The main County Fair schedule, of course, does not get going until Aug. 1 and runs until Aug. 6, and will include two rodeos, a demolition derby, a monster truck exhibition and a live concert at the outdoor arena on Aug. 5, featuring country music stars Josh Turner and Chris Janson.

Ron Stein, an endocrinologist living in California, is hoping to develop a three-quarter-acre parcel of land that abuts Highway 133 — between Colorado Avenue and Main Street — as a mixed-use project with rental apartments and commercial businesses.
To do that, he has applied to the town to rezone the parcel from its current PC (planned commercial) to MU (mixed use), in part because the new mixed-use zone in the Unified Development Code (UDC) allows for a blend of residential and commercial uses.

Ranchers and other residents of the area around Garfield County Road 102 on Missouri Heights have been concerned for years that developers might build a large subdivision of homes on the 562-acre Hunt Ranch (located at 893 CR 102).
But Garfield County’s 2008 rejection of a development plan, which proposed construction of 93 homes, appeared to cool the interest of developers. The proposal was submitted in the name of an entity known as Hunt Ranch LLC, by planning consultants JAM Development LLC, OTAK and DDA, Inc.

When the Carbondale Mountain Fair opens on July 29, 2016, the traditional invocation and announcements will be made from the 32-year-old Sopris Park Gazebo stage, built in 1984 and dedicated to a man whose death the year before had stunned and saddened the community.
The Benjamin H. Reed Memorial Gazebo, as it is informally known, took more than a month to build, according to numerous local volunteers who worked on the project, in time for that year’s Fair.

The Town of Carbondale is trying to save the large, double-stemmed cottonwood immediately to the west of (and somewhat behind) the Sopris Park Gazebo, after tests showed that the aging tree is suffering from internal rot and fungus.
As a result, town workers are expected to erect barricades to keep people from parking on the ground above the tree’s root system, and to string supporting cables between the two trunks, so that they provide mutual support and prevent a potentially “catastrophic” rending of the junction of the two trunks, according to town staff and a report filed recently at town hall.

There are nine members of the Mt. Sopris 4-H Club who plan to take a variety of projects to the Garfield County Fair in early August, according to a list compiled by club leader Wendy Hayden. The club’s list of projects includes several “market swine,” or pigs raised to be sold at the Fair and slaughtered; about half a dozen breeding beef or market beef (cattle); two baking projects; a horse; and exhibits about archery and photography.

Carbondale’s planning and zoning commission last month approved the site plan and a minimum lot-size variance for a project to redevelop two parcels along Cooper Place, a dead-end street that stretches northward from Garfield Avenue between Carbondale Car Care and the Garfield Avenue Apartments.
The project calls for replacement of a single-family modular home on the west side of the street adjacent to the dead-end of the street,

Three generations of the Nieslanik family, whose East Mesa ranch sits at the top of White Hill Road and looms over Carbondale’s southeastern neighborhoods, have been busy putting together a renewed marketing campaign to sell their locally grown beef to customers in the Roaring Fork Valley and around the Western Slope.
The family company, Nieslanik Beef, has put together a new website (nieslanikbeef.com) and is rebranding itself, in keeping with growing demand for organically raised and processed beef products.

Carbondale Trustee A.J. Hobbs, who has served roughly half of his four-year term, announced last week that he will be stepping down “some time in early September” in order to attend courses at the Crestone Healing Arts School in the San Luis Valley area.
Hobbs, 30, was elected in 2014, the same year as his fellow trustee, Katrina Byars, and under ordinary circumstances Hobbs would have been up for reelection in 2018.
Following the recent municipal election, in which three new trustees were elected, and the resignation of former Mayor Stacey Bernot earlier this year, Byars and Hobbs, along with two-term Trustee Frosty Merriott, represented the remaining institutional memory on Carbondale’s Board of Trustees.
All that has now changed.