Senator Schwartz offered the following comment on the Local Foods, Local Jobs Act today:

“As our economy continues to recover, it’s important that we provide Coloradans with every opportunity to strengthen their small businesses. This legislation will help support our local communities by allowing small scale growers and producers to make the most of their products.”

The Local Foods, Local Jobs Act will ease impediments to local markets by exempting home kitchens from certain health inspections that are generally applied to large retailers. Home kitchens will be trained on safe food handling and processing procedures, as well as labeling requirements to ensure healthy products. Small businesses that promote locally sourced foods can get a strong start due to these streamlined regulations. Having passed in the Senate today, the bill now heads to the House for consideration.

This bill is part of the Senate Majority’s “Colorado Works Jobs Package,” a series of bills focused on continued job creation and economic growth in the state.

Nearly 30 other states have passed similar laws to promote local products. Senate Bill 48 is sponsored in the House of Representatives by Representative Don Coram (R-Montrose).

Thought Process, Rob Adler, Salida High

Non-Biological, Riley Donavan, Salida High

10th Annual SHS & BV Student Art Exhibition
Curiosity Collage Cabinets
Salida Café
300 W Sacket Ave
February 2 – March 31

image: Wikimedia Commons

Here is a list of birds seen over the weekend by watchful locals Andrew and Gene:

On the north side of the railroad tracks across from the ball field, in the calm, backwater of the Arkansas River there was two Gadwall pairs, one Wood Duck pair, one American Coot, and a male Hooded Merganser. On CR 163 I found 2 Northern Shrikes, 1 Rough-legged Hawk, 2 Red-tailed Hawks, and Northern Pintail, Mallard, Gadwall, and Green-winged Teal in the pond. There was also a dead Great Blue Heron at the pond that was caught in a strand of wire as part of the fence that runs across the pond. On the opposite side of the River from Mt. Ouary State Wildlife Area was a Bald Eagle.

Rough-legged Hawk circling above Kobe just south of Leadville, and a juvenile Golden Eagle soaring near the Toes of the Indian in BV. Good birding!

You can also submit email comments to the Commissioners and their staff at:
dgiese@chaffeecounty.org, fholman@chaffeecounty.org, dpotts@chaffeecounty.org, bchristianse@chaffeecounty.org, dreimer@chaffeecounty.org,pbaldwin@chaffeecounty.org

You can view the county memo with more information at http://gigshowcase.com/EndUserFiles/33312.pdf

In December, Governor Hickenlooper announced that Colorado was seeking an official “Spaceport” designation from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The United States space program has three sectors – civil, military and commercial. The FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation is responsible for licensing, regulating and promoting the commercial-sector space industry.

Senator Hodge’s Colorado Aerospace Jobs Act will further the process of achieving spaceport designation by creating the required limited liability statute that will shield commercial space flight companies from lawsuits not based on negligence or intentional wrongdoing. Colorado is already home to 400 space related companies, and the industry is estimated to generate $3 billion in state revenue annually.  This legislation allows for the continued growth of the aerospace industry in Colorado by creating a stable and transparent regulatory climate.

The first to benefit from the Colorado Aerospace Jobs Act may be the Front Range Airport in Adams County, which is located six miles from Denver International Airport.  Front Range Airport is working on developing a space-plane program in which suborbital planes fly on the edge of space, and can transport cargo and passengers across the globe in as little as two hours.  A similar program is developing in New Mexico.

Front Range Airport Aviation Director Dennis Heap testified on behalf of the Colorado Aerospace Jobs Act today and offered the following comment:

“The concept of Front Range Airport as a Spaceport was introduced to us less than six months ago, and we have been highly motivated by the possibilities.  Colorado needs good jobs and sustaining economic growth.  Spaceport designation is very important, but it is just a catalyst to enrich the already robust aerospace industry of Colorado.”

Senator Hodge offered the following comment on the Colorado Aerospace Jobs Act today:

“Coloradans have always had an adventurous entrepreneurial spirit, and the commercial space industry is the new frontier. With one of the most highly educated workforces in the nation and an existing aerospace industry it just makes sense to make our state attractive to these companies.”

Currently, Colorado has the second largest private aerospace workforce in the country, and space related industries employ more than 163,000 workers. In addition, eight of the nation’s top ten aerospace industries are located in Colorado, and Colorado universities provide some of the best aerospace and engineering research in the nation.  The combination of a trained workforce, inventive learning institutions, and proactive legislation make Colorado an ideal candidate to receive a spaceport designation.

The Colorado Aerospace Jobs act is a key component of the Senate Majority’s “Colorado Works Jobs Package,” a series of bills focused on continued job creation and economic growth in the state.

The City of Salida and her partners are applying for this unique and most likely once in a lifetime opportunity to realize our long term vision of transforming the abandoned railroad yard into a public riverside recreation and natural area in the heart of Salida and to provide legal access to our trails and public lands to the north.

The Salida Siding Trail Project includes the purchase of 14.03 acres of land from the Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) for a 1 mile non-motorized trail corridor along the north side of the river, a pedestrian underpass below the tracks, a wildlife friendly fence along the public trail, an upstream pedestrian bridge across the Arkansas River connecting to the City’s Marvin Park, fishing/picnic/seating areas, river bank stabilization, and a parking lot and restroom.

City officials and interested individuals have been working for many years with the UPRR to acquire legal access across and along the Railroad property to alleviate a trespassing issue across the tracks, which are currently inactive.  The City has not, until this point, been financially able to pursue the UPRR’s offer to sell the property.  Fortunately, however, Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO) introduced a new River Corridors Initiative with funding of up to $32 million for large-scale projects centered around river-based recreation and open space.  The Salida Siding Project concept was accepted by GOCO and the City of Salida has been invited to submit a full application for this initiative by March 16, 2012.

The project will have a significant impact on downtown Salida serving as an attraction for visitors seeking access to the river and the miles of trails adjacent to downtown.  With this project, visitors will now have a substantial and accessible parking lot to use while they spend the morning fishing or hiking and then walk into downtown for lunch.  This recreation amenity in the heart of our downtown will bolster our reputation as a destination with a variety of easily accessible activities including recreation, entertainment and the arts, shopping and dining.

The total project cost is approximately $3.6 million.  The City Council has pledged to financially help the project with Conservation Trust Funds.  Additional funding, as well as in-kind support, is being sought from other partners.

We encourage everyone interested to please come help us significantly improve and enhance the quality, utility and appreciation of the Arkansas River corridor in the heart of Salida.

Dara MacDonald, Community Development Director

Article source: http://cityofsalida.com/2012/02/salida-siding-trail-project-public-meeting/

There is a new proposal to open a large number of Chaffee County roads to unlicensed Off Highway Vehicle use, and it has the potential to negatively impact you, your home, and the entire county. County roads are closed to OHV use (ATVs and dirt motorcycles) by state law. Counties have the authority to modify this.

Opening county roads to OHVs will negatively impact habitat, ecosystems, all quiet users, existing uses, residents, the enviroment and safety along these routes. The proposal includes opening Spiral Drive/County Road 176 and a section of County Road 173 on City of Salida Open Space land on Tenderfoot Hill., which could shroud downtown Salida, the riverfront, the Salida  Mountain Trail system and the entire city in a cloud of noise, dust, exhaust, etc.

The proposal also includes opening County Road 185 further north off of Ute Trail/CR 175.  This action will form a new connection between Salida and very heavily used Fourmile motorized recreation area near Buena Vista.  Opening CR 185 will allow large numbers of OHVs and the OHV related problems of Fourmile (off route use, dust/erosion, dispersed motorized camping impacts, displacement of other public land users) to spread south to Salida.

This is not about access as all these roads are already open to licensed passenger vehicles.  OHV users already have over 500 miles of open and legally designated routes available to them in Chaffee County.   Its not about transportation as OHVs are recreational vehicles. It is about excess access for the convenience and fun for a small percentage of public land users (whose chosen form of recreation is very high impact and often not compatible with other uses).

Proponents of this proposal are presenting this as an economic benefit to the county. There may be limited benefits but the costs of potentially displacing our already existing economic base (the majority of locals and tourists who live here and visit to enjoy our quiet community, hike, bike, climb, boat, camp, fish, hunt etc, etc.) is far too great a risk to take for the benefit of a few.

This proposal has the potential to change the very nature of Chaffee County.

There will be a public input meeting regarding this Wednesday Feb 8 at 1 p.m. in the Commissioner Meeting room of the County Courthouse on Crestone Ave. in Salida. Anyone is welcome to comment in general or with specific reasons why specific routes should or should not be opened.

You can also submit email comments to the Commissioners and their staff at:
dgiese@chaffeecounty.org, fholman@chaffeecounty.org, dpotts@chaffeecounty.org, bchristianse@chaffeecounty.org, dreimer@chaffeecounty.org,pbaldwin@chaffeecounty.org

You can view the county memo with more information at http://gigshowcase.com/EndUserFiles/33312.pdf

The above press release was submitted by The Chaffee Running Club. We have reviewed the proposal here at The Citizen and believe Chaffee County should fight this proposal and continue its pursuit of quiet use visitors. Our experience around quads has been consistently poor. With an extensive effort by Salida Mountain Trails in recent years to develop hiking and biking trails in and around Salida, the idea of letting the notoriously fast and often out of control quads on roads with blind corners and loose gravel, (where small children hike and learn to ride bikes) is comical. If you need proof, head up Silver Creek this 4th of July. Its unfortunate for responsible OHV riders, of which there are many in Chaffee County.

Salt Lake City, Utah
Driving around Salt Lake City on a pleasant day last June in a plain white city government car, Doug Dansie pauses at the corner of two streets, 1300 South and 300 East. This is a residential neighborhood where old trees tower over the houses. But there’s no house on this particular corner lot. Instead, it’s occupied by a billboard.

The billboard isn’t a 10-story freeway giant or one of those garish cutting-edge electronic signs that constantly flash digital ads like imitation Las Vegas casinos. It’s only about 25 feet tall, with four angled faces that advertise a “Gem Faire” for dealers and jewelers as well as a nonprofit group that helps Iraq War veterans.

Still, “it’s inappropriate to have a billboard in a residential area,” says Dansie, a senior land-use planner for the city with decades of experience, who’s wearing a striped shirt with his sunglasses secured by a cord around his neck.

Beyond the question of whether a billboard should stand next to houses in the first place, some people resent this billboard for a different reason. For more than five years, neighborhood residents have been trying to create a park on this small lot to honor a police sergeant, Ronald L. Heaps, who was shot to death here in 1982. They’ve raised some cash, and the city has offered grant money, but they haven’t been able to strike a deal with the billboard company, which owns the lot as well as the sign. Dansie puts it bluntly: “The billboard is holding up the park plan.”

He drives on past other controversial billboards; there are many. Much larger signs emblazoned with hard-to-ignore ads for everything under the sun — office-furniture blowouts, lingerie, colonoscopy doctors, Rio Tinto mining, and a fast-food chain with a playfully illiterate slogan — Eat Mor Chikin — dominate long stretches of I-15, the main corridor through the string of cities along the scenic Wasatch Mountain Front. Other billboards punctuate the metro area, even in the midst of an active downtown renewal effort….Continue reading full article

What do you think about the highway 50 corridor Salida?

We’re slowly forming a strong community of skaters here and Frantz Lake has been great this year.  We have a set of ground rules that everyone pitches in on ice maintenance, shoveling when finished, and folks that go out after dark to flood the surface.  We had 20+ on sunday and the facebook page is popular.

See the facebook page for a big group shot of all us.

Take care,

Jon

There is an SMT meeting tonight at The Salida Cafe if you’d like to learn about the organization. The meeting starts at 7pm downstairs. Grab a pint and come on down!

This unit has collected over $50 this winter so far, roughly $3 a day. Does that seem like a lot, or a little to you? Let us know.

Salida Mountain Trails is an all volunteer organization commited to building and maintaining sustainable, non-motorized, multi-user trails on public lands adjoining the city of Saliida. We are a chapter of Salida Parks Open Space and Trails, a 501c3 not for profit.

Pridemore Construction will have G St from Third St to Fourth St closed from February 1st-February 2nd for construction on a new sewer service line. If any concerns arise please call Public Works at 719-539-6257. Thank you for your patiences.

Filed under Public Notices

Article source: http://cityofsalida.com/2012/02/road-closure-2/

courtesy of Bat Conservation Int'l

On Wednesday, February 8, the Greater Arkansas River Nature Association (GARNA) will host a program on bats following their annual association meeting. This year’s program will be led by GARNA Board Member Dr. Paul Robertson. The fact that 2011-12 has been declared the European and International Year of the Bat by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, an affiliate of the United Nations, may come as a surprise to many people. The fact is that the more than 1,000 species of bats are immensely important both ecologically and economically to most of the world’s peoples via the control of crop pests and the pollination and seed dispersal of economically and ecologically important plant species. Bats also play a critical role in the natural restoration of ecosystems particularly in tropical forests and savannas. Dr. Robertson will introduce the audience to the world of bats both locally and in exotic locales, their value to humans and the world’s ecosystems, conservation challenges faced by their champions, and the story of how Bram Stoker, the original Dracula author, came up with a story that has fascinated many for over a hundred years. The program will be set against a back-drop of some of the best bat photography ever taken. Dr. Robertson is currently The Nature Conservancy’s San Luis Valley Project Director. He received his undergraduate degree in zoology at Louisiana State University, his master’s degree in evolution and his Ph.D. in ecology at the University of Kansas, and for several years was the Executive Director for Bat Conservation International in Austin, Texas.

The event will be held at the Salida SteamPlant annex. The public is welcome to attend beginning at 7:00 p.m. for dessert and refreshments. The Bat program will begin at 7:30 p.m. and last about an hour. The event is free and people of all ages are encouraged to attend. For more information please call GARNA at 539-5106.