Will Grandbois

Members of the Garfield County Planning Commission were up late on Feb. 12, when a public hearing on Colorado Rocky Mountain School’s application for vacation of a county right-of-way through the school’s campus lasted over five hours, wrapping up just past midnight. The room was packed and more than 50 people offered input, split roughly evenly between proponents and opponents of the request.
The eventual “no” vote of 5-2 to recommend denying the “Location and Extent” (L&E) portion of the request and 5-2 recommending denial of the “Vacation” portion of the request came after a somewhat heated late-night discussion between members of the commission.

So what’ll it be this time around for the former library building: a performing arts facility, non-profit outfit, for-profit business, day-care center, educational facility or numerous other uses with the probable exception of a bilingual Bingo parlor?
Folks have until March 28 to speculate because that’s the deadline for proposals to lease the 3,800-square-foot building from the town. The RFP (request for proposals) is available on-line and at town hall. The field is fairly wide open because the RFP only states that the town is soliciting proposals from “qualified non-profits, for-profit businesses and community groups” to occupy the former Gordon Cooper Library at 76 S. Fourth St.

After a public hearing of over five hours, which lasted until just after midnight, the Garfield County Planning Commission voted 6 to 2 on Wednesday to deny the “Location and Extent” portion of CRMS’s application for Vacation of the County Road 106 right-of-way that runs through the school’s campus

We had to trim a lot from this week’s Cop Shop, so here’s the complete scoop.

Ray Sauvey called the Station 81 ladder truck “a parade float.”
Mike Waski said “(higher) taxes … straight out” doomed last November’s fire district mill levy ballot question.
Jason Sewell said the “GQ” public doesn’t understand the services the Carbondale & Rural Fire Protection District provides, then said they see fire trucks at the stations getting washed “every other day,” which they see as “big waste of resources.”
And so it went on Feb. 4, as the grassroots group Who Ya Gonna Call met to discuss what went wrong with last November’s mill levy ballot question, plus “trouble shoot” for another mill levy question in November, stir interest in May’s district board elections, and generally try to figure out where the district should go next.
“ … What does the community want for essential emergency services … on a budget it can afford?” group organizer Jeff Wadley said as he kicked off the forum, held at the Third Street Center.

Tony Award-winning poet/playwright Lemon Andersen makes his Carbondale debut in “Project Verse” at the Crystal Theatre at 8 p.m. on Feb. 14.
Carbondale wordsmith Wade Newsom, along with a select group of local poets, will warm up the stage for Andersen.
In “Project Verse,” Andersen will share stories and poetry that create a vivid portrait of his adverse yet often humorous coming-of-age experiences while growing up in Brooklyn in the ’80s and ’90s. “Andersen’s poems touch on young love, sibling rivalry, juvenile crime, addiction and, ultimately, personal triumph toward self-discovery and redemption,” said a press release.

An independent, peer-reviewed geologic and economic analysis released on Feb. 12 by the Thompson Divide Coalition finds “little to no economic viability” for the drilling of oil and gas leases currently held in the Thompson Divide, according to a press release.
Among the assessment’s key findings is a conclusion that oil and gas exploration in the Thompson Divide “will likely fail… and would leave lasting visual scars on a pristine landscape” that currently supports 300 jobs and nearly $30 million in annual economic activity, according to independent economists.

This is the second in a two-part Q&A article on the state of Carbondale. It leads off with questions for the Carbondale & Rural Fire Protection District)

The following is not a typo or really bad play on words: The second annual First “Fat” Friday Mardi Gras parade rolls down Main Street at 4:30 p.m. on Feb. 7.
Most folks probably understand dates (Feb. 7), times (4:30 p.m.), locations (Main Street) and know what a parade entails (in this case floats, paraders and spectators).

Renee Maggert, a 27-year resident of Carbondale, first started noticing symptoms at least two years ago: fatigue when hiking or rafting, not as strong as in the past, weight loss and more. Today, she suffers from double vision and cannot drive; she has also moved in with friends because she often chokes when eating or swallowing; if her weight drops to 88 pounds she’ll have to use a feeding tube.
Maggert’s COBRA insurance expired recently and she faces mountains of medical bills. To help her out, friends have organized a sweetheart dinner and dance at the Orchard from 6 to 10 p.m. on Feb. 14 (see the ad on page five for details).
Kim Velasquez, who is helping to organize the event, said her kids went to school with Maggert’s. They and a few others were always at Roaring Fork High School serving and preparing food for sports teams. “But Renee was the person the coaches and teachers would call. If they needed someone to organize and get the job done, she was always eager to help,” Velasquez said.