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  • Locations: News Published

    Aspen Science Center responding to STEM challenge

    Dropping watermelons from ladders, making fountains out of soda bottles, and creating geometric structures from zometools are just a few of the activities kids experience when they enter the world of the Physics for Kids BBQs hosted by the Aspen Science Center. On July 22 at 5 p.m., the center makes its way to the Colorado Mountain School (CRMS) campus in Carbondale for its yearly evening of simple BBQ fare and hands-on science geared towards kids of all ages. read more →
  • Locations: News Published

    Basalt Boy Scouts looking for a new home

    This year marks the 24th year that Basalt Boy Scout Troop 242 has been meeting in a quaint log cabin located on the outskirts of Willits. Approximately 30 registered Boy Scouts attend weekly meetings and store their equipment there. By the end of this month, the scouts will have to vacate the cabin to make way for a condominium development project. They are getting the word out about losing the space in the hope they can find a similar place to meet elsewhere in the community. Troop 242 has never actually owned the cabin. The original owners, who granted the scouts use of the cabin in 1991, were local architect Michael Lipkin and his family. Since then, ownership of the property has changed hands multiple times. The various owners of the property have always continued to allow the scouts use of the cabin. read more →
  • Locations: News Published

    Fire committee wants more time, board reluctant

    The ongoing task of writing a 10-year master plan for the Carbondale & Rural Fire Protection District is being rushed to the point where citizen reviewers do not have adequate time to digest all the information coming from a team of consultants, the district’s board of directors was told at a meeting on Tuesday night. “We feel like we’re being rushed too far, too fast,” said fire board member Carl Smith, who sits on the Master Plan Steering Committee that is working with the fire board to review and mold a draft master plan. “I think the reality is, we’re all looking at some kind of potential mill levy adjustment,” Smith added, referring to the district’s ongoing financial difficulties since the recent recession drastically cut property tax revenues, which are the district’s main source of income. read more →
  • Locations: News Published

    Carbondale counts 14 marijuana related businesses, two under review

    For a short time several years ago Carbondale had licensed 13 businesses to grow, prepare and sell legal medical marijuana in town, under a voter-approved medical-marijuana law passed as a state constitutional amendment in 2000. Under the 2000 law, patients as young as 18 were eligible for doctor-approved prescriptions to buy marijuana for treatment of a number of ailments. But the number of actual, open medical-marijuana businesses never was that high, said Town Clerk Cathy Derby, who explained that some hopeful applicants got their licenses to open shops but never did. read more →
  • Locations: News Published

    “Smart Meter” debate continues on the E-Board

    The local fight over Smart Meters took an unusual turn this week, when Carbondale’s Environmental Board got a look at the question of whether the growing amount of atmospheric electromagnetic radiation [EM] is linked to the disappearance of honey bees and the disorientation of migratory birds as well as potentially posing a health hazard to humans. Carbondale residents Jody Powell and Cedar Rose, along with visiting activist Gary Duncan from Pagosa Springs, Colorado, believe the links are real and told the E-Board members the connections should be viewed as warnings signs of electromagnetic pollution that is threatening wildlife as well as human health. But members of the E-Board, as it is known, were not quite so sure, and asked Powell and Rose to work with the board’s subcommittee on Energy & Transportation to come up with a recommendation that the E-Board can consider. read more →
  • Locations: News Published

    Butch moving his lobster shack to C’dale

    It looks as though Basalt’s loss will be Carbondale’s gain, as plans jell for the opening of Butch’s Lobster Shack on a now-vacant lot at the corner of Second and Main streets, possibly within a couple of weeks. Butch Darden, who has been in the restaurant business in the Roaring Fork Valley since 1979, confirmed to The Sopris Sun on Monday that he has reached an agreement to lease the lot, owned by Bren Simon, that until recently was occupied by a construction trailer linked to the development of the Marble Distilling Company and Distillery Inn. The distillery is located two doors east on Main from the Lobster Shack’s planned site. read more →
  • Locations: News Published

    Teens Giving Back to Carbondale all summer long

    Denise Wright says “There’s nothing more powerful than a group of kids with an idea.” Wright should know. The Roaring Fork High School teacher has worked with kids for years. This summer, she is the part-time coordinator for a new student-driven group called Teens Giving Back (TGB), which volunteers at CARE, Heritage Park and other public and private organizations. Just this week, TGB volunteers helped pull weeds at North Face Bike Park, part of an on-going project so the town won’t have to spray the invasive plants. “Kids are some of the most generous people you’ll ever meet,” Wright told The Sopris Sun. “They love giving back.” read more →
  • Locations: News Published

    E-Board recommends expanding ban on plastic bags

    Carbondale’s Environmental Board this week recommended that the town expand its ban on plastic shopping bags to include all businesses, instead of just City Market, the town’s largest grocery store and its biggest generator of sales tax revenues. The E-Board, as it is known, on Monday approved a proposed ordinance to be sent on to the town’s Board of Trustees. It was the E-Board that came up with the town’s existing bag ban, passed in 2011, which outlaws the use of plastic shopping bags by all grocery stores larger than 3,500 square feet, and requires grocery stores to charge a 20-cent fee on any paper grocery bags handed out to customers who do not have a reusable bag for their purchases. A portion of that fee can be retained by the grocer, for use in educating consumers about the bag ban, under the original ordinance. read more →
  • Locations: News Published

    City Market kicks off application process for new store

    With repeated assurances that the action would not carry over to broader approvals or “entitlements” for this or other nearby development proposals, Carbondale’s Board of Trustees on Tuesday agreed to waive a Community Impact Assessment requirement for a planned new 58,000-square foot City Market grocery store, on land once tied to two failed, large-scale development proposals — the Village at Crystal River (VCR) and the Crystal River Market Place (CRMP). The 7.8-acre project site, at the northwest corner of Main Street and Highway 133 on land once owned by the Colorado Rocky Mountain School, also would contain a gas station and a smaller retail building. The grocery store is meant to replace the existing City Market store, which the owner, Kroger Corporation, called “outdated and dysfunctional” in a memo to the trustees. read more →
  • Locations: News Published

    Nepalese expect disaster with upcoming monsoon

    There is a feeling among all the relief workers and local people that when the monsoon hits, so will disaster. The surface has been loosened by earthquakes and prepped to wash away in the rain. “The monsoon is coming” has added a new level of urgency to our work. At the beginning of June. Robin, Collin, Devika and myself went back to the Dalit village, Bonpale, to determine if they wanted to learn to build earth bag houses. We knew we had to pass through Palungtar, the village that previously ignored half of it inhabitants because they were from a lower caste. I felt compelled to go back and deliver the supplies requested by those excluded in an attempt to balance things out, right the social injustice. On one hand it felt good, but on the other I couldn’t help but wonder if this will only perpetuate the caste divisions. Just talking about it, even writing about it is a way of acknowledging that the system is in effect. I believe that if you want to induce major social change, one must begin with the language. “Choose your words carefully.” read more →