Will Grandbois

On Jan. 27, two dozen Carbondale residents huddled around two oversized town plats, marking the town’s artistic and cultural resources. Stars and arrows quickly blossomed all over the maps, indicating music venues, theatres, gardens, architect offices, artists and crafts workers, galleries and restaurants.
The occasion was a creative-zone meeting entitled “Way-Finding and Connectivity,” sponsored by the Carbondale Council on Arts and Humanities (CCAH). As explained by CCAH Executive Director Amy Kimberly, the meeting was a “brainstorming session to map Carbondale’s creative resources,” and part of a process that will include applying for a grant from the state of Colorado in May.

SUN: What’s up with the Unified Development Code (drafting a new zoning code).
JANET BUCK (planning director): “We’re going full tilt into the code rewrite. You’ll see slow times and times for public comment and review. People really need to keep track of what’s going on. They can go to the UDC website ) and sign up for updates.”
STACEY BERNOT (mayor): “The consultant we’re using has initiated a great Internet interface that allows people to provide their feedback. The idea is to update our land use code that’s over 30 years old, and have it dovetail nicely with our newly approved comprehensive plan. Our hope is to have it streamlined and user friendly, so that it not only reflects what the community wants but everyone knows the lay of the land before they get in there.”

On Tuesday night, after extensive public input and some deliberation, the Carbondale Board of Trustees opted for a compromise in their recommendation to Garfield County on Colorado Rocky Mountain School’s application for the county to vacate the part of County Road 106 that runs through the school campus.
The motion for a compromise was made by trustee Frosty Merriott, then seconded and heavily modified by trustee Allyn Harvey.
The motion, which the trustees approved 4-1, states that the right-of-way should only be vacated if pedestrian access is allowed to continue through the school, or an alternative path is created along the eastern boundary of the school’s property.

It might be just outside city limits, but a recent request for Garfield County to vacate a section of County Road 106 is quickly becoming another Carbondale controversy.
On one side is Colorado Rocky Mountain School (CRMS), an institution that has coexisted with the town since 1953. On the other is unincorporated Satank, once a competitor for the railroad stopover and now a ’Bonedale neighborhood in all but the legal sense. Between CRMS and Satank is a little less than a quarter mile of County Road 106, which runs through the school campus before intersecting with Dolores Way. CRMS wants that section of County Road 106 vacated, while many Satankers and residents along Dolores Way want Garfield County to keep it on the books.

It’s been more than a year since the Garfield County commissioners approved an application for a waste transfer station on County Road 100 east of Carbondale, and little if anything seems to have happened at the proposed site.
But Don Van Devander, general manager for waste-hauler Mountain Rolloffs Inc., told The Sopris Sun the company is slowly chipping away at the multitude of tasks that must precede the new trash-sorting complex. The transfer station should take shape this year on the former Mid-Continent Resources coal load-out property.

On Jan. 15, Carbondale Mayor Stacey Bernot untied the ribbon on an array of 356 solar panels that are now powering the town’s Roaring Fork water treatment facility.
“It goes towards Carbondale’s ongoing goals for green energy and offsetting our use,” Bernot said in a press release. “What more appropriate place than our nature park for a living example of what we hope to achieve? This array will offset 100 percent of our historic energy use at this water plant.”

The year is 1879 and Indian agent Nathan Meeker, a renowned national authority on agriculture, is becoming frustrated by the slowing progress of the civilizing of the Indians. The volunteer Ute plowmen and ditch diggers that Chief Douglas (Quinkent) had organized were not showing up, so Meeker requested a budget from Gov. Pitkin to hire white people to plow up the winter range of the Nünt’z at a faster rate. Gov. Pitkin had campaigned with the slogan “the Ute’s must go!” and the money to hire white workers came quickly.
Meeker had given a few of the chiefs land parcels on a surveyed grid for a town he had laid out on their winter range. This was to entice them to cooperate and now he was plowing that up in an effort to consolidate the fencing necessary to keep Indian horses out of the irrigated fields. Meeker even plowed up the racetrack where horses raced during the great Bear Dance gathering in the spring.

Gary Pax, 65, brought his lawn chair, newspaper, and coffee and pastry, arriving in near zero-degree temperatures at 7:01 a.m. on Jan. 15 to nail down the historic “first in line” honors at the Doctor’s Garden marijuana shop on the third floor at 580 Main Street.
A salt-and-pepper bearded Marc Horwitz, from Moab, Utah, dressed in blue overcoat, scarf, multi-color fleece hat and wire-frame glasses, got there a bit later. As the fourth or fifth buyer he might go down as Carbondale’s first “marijuana tourist” – depending on future definitions of the term.
And 25-30 others waited, shivered, joked around and waited some more before the Doctor’s Garden finally opened its doors about a half-hour after its 9 a.m. target time.

Mike Strang wore many hats — jean-clad rancher, businessman, and tuxedoed auctioneer, perennial MC at numerous events and devoted family man — but there was one hat he wore most of the time.
“He could wear a cowboy hat to almost any event,” daughter Bridget Strang told The Sopris Sun on Wednesday afternoon.
Strang passed away at his Missouri Heights ranch on Jan. 12. He was 84.

The committee for The James Surls Center for Visual Art has made the decision to not continue with the Carbondale Branch Library space for the project, according to a press release. “We are extremely appreciative of the town’s support of our project and the process to get us to this point,” said Jim Calaway, the driving force behind the Surls Center.