FEATURE: For many parts of the rural Rocky Mountain West, public transit just doesn't exist, meaning locals and visitors are dependent on cars to get around. The Roaring Fork Valley 's local public transit system, RFTA , is the largest rural transit system in the U.S. For Rocky Mountain Community Radio, Caroline Llanes looks at reasons residents take the bus, and how RFTA is trying to make its service even better.
TOP STORIES: Montrose County is looking to sue the state of Colorado for taking over $25 million dollars in severance tax money from local governments to balance Colorado’s budget, reports the Montrose Daily Press. Montrose County Commissioner Roger Rash called the state’s maneuver ‘theft’. Among a number of actions, House Bill 1413 took millions from Colorado’s local governments and placed it in the state’s general fund effectively depleting numerous local government’s severance tax funds to zero. Montrose County is joining a number of other Colorado counties in the proposed suit.
The man accused of killing two people near Paonia in 2022 could see trial in 2025, reports the Delta County Independent. Mark Burns is charged with first-degree murder and robbery in the deaths of Michael Arnold and Donna Gallegos in early February of 2022. An amended charge of tampering with physical evidence, a class-4 felony, was more recently added; a preliminary hearing for that charge has been set for Oct. 18. Burns, recently waived his right to a speedy trial inorder to give his new attorney time to study the murder charges against him, thus pushing the trial out until next year.
