TOP STORY: About a hundred people attended a meeting in Crawford on Monday evening, February 17th, to discuss a Delta County School Board proposal to merge the Montessori School at Crawford with Paonia’s North Fork School of Integrated Studies, a Waldorf inspired school. The proposal, which is meant to cut operational costs, comes as the School Board anticipates a shortfall in funding if the State changes the way resources are allocated to public schools. Marty Durlin reports.
FEATURE: The Paradise Theater in Paonia will host "Joe Cocker, A Tribute" on Thursday February 27th and Friday February 28th. Taya Jae sat down with the show's creator Sean Barna to learn more.
LOCAL NEWS: Discussion continues on the Delta Main Street redesign project, reports the Delta County Independent. Current project designs show the big picture. The city hopes to have a 90% completed design by early June. The last 10% of the design will be nitty-gritty details, plans to begin construction by mid to late October. The project is supplemented by the $13 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Rebuilding American Infrastructure With Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) grant, among other budgeted resources. More information on this project can be found at deltamainstreet.com. The entire story is found at deltacountyindependent.com
Montrose County Republican Party vacancy committee selected West End resident Sean Pond to fill the District 3 commission seat following the unexpected death of Commissioner Rick Dunlap who passed away on February 8th. Pond received 25 votes, edging out the next nearest contender, Scott Riba, with 19 votes. Two other contenders conceded after the first round. Pond will serve until the next election
Ouray County Manager Connie Hunt resigned last week, reports the Ouray Plaindealer. Hunt stepped down after a three hour meeting with County Commissioners who reiterated that they were unhappy with some of her work and gave her a lower evaluation score than the previous year. Hunt, who has been the county manager for 23 years, said she will continue in the position until June 30. Her resignation, timeline for her last day of work and the county’s next steps will be discussed at the board’s Feb. 25 meeting. You can find the complete story at ouraynews.com.
On August 12th last year a flood surge in Ouray County destroyed properties and infrastructure, including head-gates for the raw water supply to Ridgway's water treatment facility. However not all of the damage was in Ouray County. KVNF's Brody Wilson reports on how the governor's emergency disaster declaration has been expanded.