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Along the north side of the new Carbondale Branch Library are seven pillars decorated with art glass — a creation designed by local glass artist Shannon Muse, but created by more than 20 hands and more than 100 minds.
The work of art, which is called “Pillars of Light/Pilars de Luz,” contains more than 5,000 pieces of recycled glass along with Swarovski crystals and metallic-sheened dichroic glass. Embedded among the pieces of glass are quotes contained in tiles made of opalescent iridized glass.

The new Carbondale Branch Library has more of everything than before: square footage (13,000 now compared to 3,200 at the old Gordon Cooper Library), books (20,500 compared to 18,020 before), study rooms (four now compared to zero before) and public computers (20 now compared to six before).

Despite its unassuming name, the Pardon My Garden club is 80 members strong, all living and gardening throughout the Roaring Fork Valley. This summer, for the first time in its 20-year history, the non-profit organization is planning a tour featuring 11 gardens stretching from Watson Divide to El Jebel.
The first annual Garden Tour, billed as “Ornamental and Edible Gardens of the Mid-Valley,” will take place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on July 27. In the past, the club has held plant sales and donated the proceeds to individuals or local organizations, typically giving grants totaling between $5,000 and $7,000 a year. The ticket sales from this summer’s tour will be used for the same purpose.

CDOT holds 133 open house • Valley View holds blood drive • CMC informs students • RFOV goes 14ers • Pitkin County distributes broadband survey • Bike park open house slated • Library district holds finance meeting • Senior matters starts Chatter Box • Crystal Caucus meets

Send in Mountain Fair memories • Grett heading to Lindenwood • Free yoga session • Renegade Band rehearsal • Sopris Run-off returns • C’dale residents graduate CMC • Dr. Peters joins Red Hill

Faced with escalating costs and at times escalating tempers, Mountain Fair is holding a first-ever lottery for 20 shade-tent spaces this year.
According to the Carbondale Council on Arts and Humanities’ current newsletter, CCAH members who are chosen in the lottery will be charged $100 for a 10’X10′ spot to pitch their open-sided tents during the three-day party, while non-members will pay $125.
Money raised will go toward Mountain Fair creating a “shade structure” or structures that will be put up in years to come to create shade for everybody.

The Carbondale Board of Trustees voted 5-1 to allow a 170-foot-long solar array at the entrance to the Nature Park on Tuesday night, but not before John Foulkrod invoked one of the environmental movement’s most quoted songs.
“We’re paving paradise to put up a parking lot,” said Foulkrod, paraphrasing one of Joni Mitchell’s best-known songs. “ … we’re destroying one of (the most) beautiful things we have left in town.”
Foulkrod voted against the array. Voting for it were Stacey Bernot, John Hoffmann, Elizabeth Murphy, Pam Zentmyer and Allyn Harvey. Frosty Merriott was absent.

Years of planning and discussion between the town of Carbondale and the Colorado Department of Transportation will translate into actual construction this September, when crews begin removing power lines along Highway 133.
Electric, cable TV and fiber-optic lines should be completely relocated and buried by November, opening the door to a major overhaul of the highway itself in April-October 2014. A third traffic lane will be added in the center of the highway to function as a left-turn lane for both northbound and southbound cars, and a new roundabout will take the place of the existing signalized intersection at Main Street and 133.
While they’re at it, crews will also make a series of pedestrian- and bicycle-oriented improvements — adding paved trails and crosswalks to ease travel along the highway and across the highway.

Taking off from a portable 4’x4’ blue helipad with a bright orange H, an eight-rotor remote control helicopter with an HD camera launches into the air. And hovers.
Moments later it skims a farm irrigation system for several hundred yards then swoops higher into the air capturing a shot of Red Hill.
“Let’s get the shot in reverse,” suggests co-owner and pilot Jon Fredericks of Altitude Filmworks to co-owner and camera operator Louis Wilsher.
Swooping backwards through the air in a reverse bell curve the helicopter returns then does a 90-degree jib and flies off toward Spring Gulch while capturing the Colorado Rocky Mountain School’s campus. After a few more fly-overs, Mark Gotfredson, CRMS’s Director of Communications, nods in approval and Fredericks lands the helicopter back on the pad.