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Monday, April 14, 2008
GJHS reinstates popular wrestling coach
Grand Junction High School Principal Jon Bilbo and the school’s wrestling coach, Bud Glover, have reached agreement over the team’s future direction, and it includes the popular coach staying on to lead the team.
“Mr. Bilbo and Coach Glover are committed to continuing to move the program forward in a direction wrestlers, coaches, and parents can all be proud. As a result Coach Glover will remain as the Head Wresting Coach for the 2008-09 school year,” the school district said in a press release today.
A number of students came to Glover’s defense after hearing he had been forced to resign as coach last week. Many walked out of class in protest on Wednesday morning. Protesting students, estimated at about 60 by district spokesman Jeff Kirtland, pressed Bilbo to retain the coach.
Read the full story in tomorrow’s edition of The Daily Sentinel.
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Governor signs bill allowing Sunday liquor sales
DENVER (AP) — Colorado liquor stores will be able to stay open on Sundays starting in July under a bill signed by Gov. Bill Ritter today, reversing a law dating from the repeal of Prohibition.
Times have changed since the 1933 measure, Ritter said, adding that the new law is in the best interest of consumers.
Supermarkets and convenience stores are now pushing for a law that would let them sell full-strength beer to better compete with seven-day-a-week beer sales in liquor stores.
They’re currently limited to selling 3.2 beer.
Sean Duffy, a spokesman for the grocery and convenience stores, said they aren’t against Sunday sales but believe that limiting them to 3.2 beer is unfair. He said only four states sell the “archaic product.”
Ritter said he considered how the Sunday sales bill would affect supermarkets and convenience stores before signing it. He said those stores benefited from a law passed last year allowing them to sell discounted gasoline.
The new law makes Colorado the 35th state to permit Sunday alcohol sales at retail stores. It’s the 13th state pass such a law since 2002, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, the liquor trade group.
The council lost an attempt to repeal Colorado’s blue law three years ago in the face of opposition from liquor stores. This year, owners of large liquor stores assembled a coalition with smaller ones to push for Sunday sales and to fight a proposal to let supermarkets and convenience stores sell full-strength beer and wine.
A Senate committee killed that bill after liquor store owners said it would hurt Colorado’s system of independent liquor stores as well as the craft brewers the stores have helped promote.
The supermarket group has since dropped its bid to sell wine but is still holding out for full-strength beer.
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County backs wilderness designation
The Mesa County Commission unanimously adopted a resolution today supporting Congressional legislation that would create the Dominguez-Escalante National Conservation Area and Dominquez Canyon Wilderness Area.
The area is west of Delta and Montrose and south of Grand Junction on 200,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management property on the Uncompahgre Plateau.
The subject has been in the congressional pipeline for conservation status for the past two years.
The commissioners are just the latest in a long train of supporters who have backed the proposal, which is expected to be introduced later this year by Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colorado, and could be acted on by Congress later this year.
“This is a result of countless hours contributed by citizens and various public officials,” said Commissioner Steve Acquafresca.
The resolution passed by the commission today represents a compromise reached among the various users of the area — off-road enthusiasts, hikers, bikers, horse riders, etc… — through a series of public discussions.
“Nobody got everything they want, at the same time nobody felt their particular feature would be in jeopardy,” Acquafresca said.
Delta County recently passed a similar resolution and Montrose is also expected to pass one in support of the national designation.
A handful of residents expressed their support of the decision to support the pending legislation.
“This will be one of the most important steps you take as a board,” Bill Grant, president of the Western Colorado Congress, told the commission, adding that this decision would have effects long after they are dead.
“It is a gift to us, our children and all our future grandchildren,” said Barbara Meeysenburg. She said she and her friends hike there on a regular basis and have determined the area a grand place worthy of national protection.
Sen. Salazar would agree.
He put out a call in 2006 and late last year to rally support for the conservation area.
He intends to introduce legislation later this year that would safeguard the area for decades to come.
“Much time has been spent hearing public opinion on the creation of a National Conservation Area for the Dominguez-Escalante area and it is important the county commissioners now have the time to review the public’s input,” Salazar said in a news release issued late last year. “I look forward to hearing their recommendations and stand ready to assist in anyway possible on further action.”
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Climatologist: Dry spell cuts flood threat from Colo. snow melt
FORT COLLINS (AP) — A Colorado weather expert says several weeks of dry weather have reduced the risk of flooding from Colorado’s deep mountain snows.
State Climatologist Nolan Doesken said Monday the deep snow is a cause for concern but the threat has decreased.
Doesken, a researcher at Colorado State University, says Colorado’s snow usually melts off gradually as warm temperatures work their way up to high elevation, reducing the chance of floods.
Major flooding becomes more of a threat when snow melts quickly.
Doesken says not all of Colorado has benefited from deep snow. Much of the Eastern Plains have been dry since last summer.
He says recent storms have reduced the threat of drought but the area still needs spring storms to keep from drying out again.
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Judge upholds former Collbran clerk’s award
Former Collbran City Clerk Shirley Nichols prevailed over the town in a lawsuit in which she alleged the town failed to protect her property from flooding, as it had promised in a contract.
Mesa County District Judge David Bottger upheld a jury’s award of $100,000 to Nichols and her husband, Donald, and tacked on $24,891 in interest and costs.
Bottger filed his ruling on Thursday.
Collbran had disputed the suit, saying that the agreement wasn’t reached in an official meeting of the town council.
The mayor, Town Administrator Bruce Smith and Shirley Nichols were parties to the 2002 agreement, court papers said.
Smith and Shirley Nichols are now working as town administrator and town clerk respectively in De Beque.
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Teens sentenced in 2007 Clifton shooting
The two teenagers guilty of shooting 18-year-old Martin Martinez in the face in late 2007 were spared a prison sentence this morning as Mesa County District Court Judge Dick Gurley accepted a plea bargain he characterized as the best of several poor options for the pair.
Erick Deleon, 17, and Thomas English, 15, were sentenced to six and seven years, respectively, to the Colorado Department of Correction’s Youthful Offender System, which provides rehabilitation and education services to young convicts.
Both boys pleaded guilty earlier this year to shooting Martinez in the face Sept. 20 when he opened the door of his family’s former home at 528 Garland St. in Clifton.
As part of their plea deals, both will face two decades or more in prison if they mess up in the Youthful Offender System.
In a letter to the court, Martinez said the shooting has left him mentally and physically scarred, including the loss of sight in one eye and much of his sense of smell.
“The worst scars are the ones that are inside,” he wrote.
Martinez told the court the trauma of the shooting, which left him lying in a pool of blood in the doorway of his former home, caused his mother’s poor health to worsen.
“Now it is a struggle to go to school and (to help) my mother who is very sick right now,” Martinez wrote, noting that she is now in a Palisade nursing home.
After both Deleon and English apologized to Martinez and their own families, Gurley said the case was extremely difficult for him.
He said that probably everyone in the community, other than Deleon and English’s family and friends, thought the pair should spend a long time in prison for what they did.
Gurley added there is a certain amount of irony in the fact that Deleon and English will be allowed to append the next six or seven years of their life attending school and college on the public dime while Martinez will have no such luxury.
“When you’re done serving your sentences, you’re done,” Gurley said. “He’s going to have to live his life with the consequences of your actions for the rest of your life.”
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2-year-old boy drowns in Montrose Sunday
MONTROSE — A 2-year-old boy died Sunday night of drowning in rural Montrose County, said Montrose County Sheriff Rick Dunlap.
The boy was discovered missing about 7 p.m., Dunlap said a large group of people began searching for him. The family did not speak English, Dunlap said, and a neighbor called to report the child missing about 8 p.m.
As deputies were en route to the mobile home on 6800 Road where the family lived, deputies were informed that the boy had been found in water and was not breathing.
“Upon arrival deputies observed several people in the area and CPR being performed on a small child,” Dunlap said. “Deputies took over CPR and continued until emergency services arrived. The child was then transported to Montrose Hospital and was pronounced dead a short time later.”
Dunlap said the boy apparently fell into a septic tank.
“We don’t know whether they had to take the lid off to work on it or not and we are investigating this as an accident,” he said.
A large number of people were at the residence all afternoon, riding horses and 4-wheelers, Dunlap said.
The name of the boy and his family are not being released at this time, Dunlap said.
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Cop shop
Boat seen in canal: At 7:12 a.m. Sunday Mesa County Sheriff’s Department deputies investigated a boat in the Grand Valley Canal.
“After investigation it was determined the boat was pushed into the canal by unknown persons,” according to Sheriff’s Department reports.
The owner recovered the boat as it floated near the 2900 block of Orchard Avenue, deputies said.
Deflation: Several Clifton residents woke Sunday to find flat tires on their rides.
Residents in the 500 block of Campbell Way had their tires punctured overnight, deputies said.
Vandals punctured tires at: 526 1/2, 528 1/2, 517 1/2, 518 1/2, 521, 524, and 526 Campbell Way.
Residents told deputies tire replacements or repairs would cost them between $100 and $400 each.
— Sentinel staff
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Bears start waking up
There is no such thing as a snooze button in a bear den.
Bears across the state are starting to yawn, stretch, claw the sleep from their eyes and stumble out of their dens.
Depending on the weather and elevation, they start coming out in early to mid-April.
But if they don’t find green grass or new plant growth to eat, they might go back into the den.
Females with cubs come out later, but they will all be out by May, according to the Colorado Division of Wildlife.
The DOW is asking residents in bear country to make their property “bear-resistant” by cleaning or removing any items a bear might consider potential food source
Once a bear finds food in a location, it becomes programmed to continue looking for food in similar places.
If that location is near people, the desire for easy food will replace its fear of humans, according to the DOW.
— Sentinel staff
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Coal truck rolls in Douglas Pass
A semi trailer carrying a load of coal rolled on Colorado Highway 139 this morning and was blocking one lane of traffic through Douglas Pass, according to the Colorado State Patrol.
The accident occurred at 5:57 a.m.
The driver of the semi was taken to the hospital.
The driver was able to pull himself from the cab and was walking around when help arrived, troopers said.
— Sentinel staff
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