Optimism on Avalon

For those who believe the Avalon Theatre is a facility worth saving, and that the city of Grand Junction should play a major role in that rejuvenation effort, the news from last Friday’s City Council meeting was indeed welcome. During the meeting, members of the council indicated their support for a $7.6 million plan for the first phase of reconstruction on the historic theater. As Mayor Sam Susuras stated, “This is a city-owned building. I do not want to see it go ...

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Middle East muddle

Iranians elected a new president over the weekend who is seen as a reformer. Tunisians are struggling to figure out what role Islam should play in their developing constitution and government. And fighting in Syria continues unabated by the news that the United States will begin to provide small arms to the rebels fighting against the Assad regime. Certainly, in comparison to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — who slammed a fist down on any internal dissent, angered the Western ...

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Muddy Gauntlet race in May raises $16,200 for Special Olympics, sponsoring group says

Athletes of varying shapes, sizes and fitness levels got extra dirty this past May for a good cause, raising more than $16,200 for the Special Olympics, it was announced Thursday. This was the second year that the Western Colorado Contractors Association challenged folks to run “The Gauntlet” — a muddy, obstacle-filled race of nearly three miles, held May 11 near Grand Junction Motor Speedway. “Nobody has their cellphones, and they leave their cares behind. ...

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Flag Day and freedom, security and surveillance

On this day 236 years ago, the Continental Congress adopted a resolution adopting as the official flag of the fledgling nation a banner with 13 red and white stripes and 13 white stars on a blue background. It was more than a century later when a teacher in a one-room school in rural Wisconsin began pushing for a national day to recognize the American flag. And it wasn’t until 1949 that President Harry Truman signed into law legislation passed by Congress to officially designate June ...

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Answers still needed about gas explosion

Grand Junction city officials are understandably relieved that a just-released report has absolved the city of any blame in the March natural gas explosion that destroyed two houses and injured a number of people. Even though the report was prepared by a private contractor working for the company that provides the city with insurance, there’s good reason to accept its conclusion. After all, the city does not construct or maintain natural gas pipes within its boundaries, nor does it ...

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Weld plan to secede 
is unlikely to succeed

Weld County is serious about possibly seceding from Colorado, along with a few other counties in the northeastern part of the state, and forming a new state, County Commissioner Sean Conway said this week. Why, it’s so serious, in fact, the county will have a schedule of meetings prepared later this week, meetings to discuss the proposal with people from other counties, as well as citizens of Weld County. Excuse our skepticism, but this is all balderdash. It’s political ...

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Community-driven park legislation

A few people may criticize Colorado Sen. Mark Udall and 3rd District Rep. Scott Tipton for establishing a committee of Mesa County residents to attempt to draft legislation that would designate Colorado National Monument as a national park and simultaneously address community concerns about the designation. It will be seen by some folks as passing the buck. Of course, if Udall and Tipton wrote the bill themselves, they would be accused of pushing park designation from Washington and not ...

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Return on investment more than just money

To hear some members of the Grand Junction City Council discuss it, the Avalon Theatre is no more than a business enterprise for the city — a matter of profit and loss and return on investment. If the bean counters on the council don’t see numbers that point to a profitable proposition for the city’s stockholders — i.e. taxpayers — well, then they want nothing to do with it. But, of course, the city is not a for-profit corporation and the Avalon is a cultural ...

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Getting It Right, June 9, 2013

A story on Page A1 Saturday should have said the water feature downtown is near the corner of Fifth and Main streets.  ...

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Corner of 6&50 to close for 6 days

The ongoing snarl during busy traffic times around the I70-B Reconstruction Project, near the Rimrock Shopping Center, will presumably get more difficult to negotiate next week as crews are planning to shut down one side of a key intersection. Starting Sunday evening, getting to businesses like Sam’s Club and the Golden Corral restaurant will require lengthy detours, as the north side of the intersection of Independent Avenue and the I-70 Business Loop will be shut to traffic for ...

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DNA ruling weakens Fourth Amendment

The U.S. Supreme Court’s Monday ruling on the use of DNA samples after someone is arrested — but not yet convicted of a crime — created some strange bedfellows. The court was split 5-4 on upholding the constitutionality of a Maryland law, but the divide wasn’t along usual conservative-liberal lines. Liberals, moderates and conservatives joined in upholding the law, while the court’s most conservative justice, Antonin Scalia, wrote the dissent that was joined ...

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Tipton wants bill to cut backlog at Veterans Affairs

An amendment by U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Colo., to a spending bill would divert $10 million in conference spending toward efforts to cut the case backlog at the Department of Veterans Affairs. The amendment was accepted by unanimous consent and the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act was then passed by the full House. The VA backlog has grown by more than 2,000 percent over the past four years despite an increase in the VA budget of more ...

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Gov. Hickenlooper’s backward process

It’s no surprise that Gov. John Hickenlooper opted to sign Senate Bill 252, which doubles the renewable energy requirement for rural electric cooperatives, but it is disappointing nonetheless. Our disappointment isn’t because the governor and the Democratic leaders of the Legislature who pushed this bill want to increase the amount of wind, solar and other energy rural cooperatives use to generate electricity. The ratio should be boosted, and going from a 10 percent renewable ...

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Updated trails master plan
 adds focus to schools’ safety

Planners who are focused on urban-area trails and paths showed off Tuesday some modern additions to a decades-old master plan of Grand Valley trails. Members of the Urban Trails Committee hope that the updated Grand Valley Trails Master Plan — on public display Tuesday afternoon during an open house at the Mesa County Central Services Building — becomes the start of a renewed effort to update the area’s network of non-motorized rights-of-way. “The goal … is ...

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Getting It Right, June 5

An item on page 9A Tuesday, in Health Briefs, should have said that a stem-cell study by Dr. Julian Robert Gershon is approved by the International Cellular Medicine Society, not the Food and Drug Administration.  ...

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Morse recall effort decidedly off target

Some gun-rights advocates were almost giddy with their announcement Monday they had gathered enough signatures to begin the recall process against Colorado Sen. President John Morse. They were also a bit premature in declaring the recall effort a success, since the signatures they gathered still must be verified. And then there is that little matter of an actual recall election to determine whether Morse remains in office. It’s clear there will be plenty of money from pro-gun ...

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Scaling back subsidies

Weaning some folks from federal government subsidies created to protect family farmers has never been easy. Even programs designed to move recipients off farm subsidies have morphed into bureacratic boondoggles that simply disperse cash, whether farming occurs or not. Fortunately, it appears one such program,  which pays out billions of dollars to people who own land but may not live on it or even grow any crops on it, could soon be killed. According to the Washington Post, ...

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Harry Butler, R.I.P.

When he campaigned for a seat on the Grand Junction City Council this past spring, Harry Butler knew he was up against two opponents, one of whom was part of the slate of candidates endorsed by the Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce and had substantial advertising money. Even so, Butler chose not to spend any money on his campaign. The fact that Butler won that election, giving him a seat on the council for the second time, surprised many people. But Butler didn’t gloat or ...

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Pot publications have right to be displayed

The latest front in Colorado’s ongoing marijuana war was opened last week when several pot-oriented publications sued the state over new marijuana regulations just passed by the state Legislature and signed into law last week by Gov. John Hickenlooper. High Times magazine, The Daily Doobie and Hemp Connoiseurs are not objecting to the major portion of the rules adopted by the Legislature, rules aimed at regulating recreational marijuana use following the passage of Amendment 64 by ...

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Blotter, June 2, 2013

Man arrested in stabbing Sheriff’s deputies responded early Saturday to the 700 block of 37 9/10 Road and found Ignacio Venezuela-Bajeca, 43, with a knife wound. He was then taken to a local hospital with a serious injury. The man suspected in the stabbing, Eligio Parra Zamora, 37, was found later in Palisade, in the 100 block of Bower Avenue. He also was taken to a local hospital, with a minor injury, and later arrested on suspicion of first-degree assault. The victim was ...

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3 finalists compete for library director, as Tallman retires

In their search for a new library director, the Mesa County Public Library District Board of Trustees has narrowed the field to three finalists, it was announced. One of the finalists for the job, Shana Wade, is the current public services director, and has been with Mesa County Libraries since 1996. Another of the finalists, Joseph Sanchez, has served seven years with public and academic libraries across the state, including five years as library director at Red Rocks Community ...

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On the record, time to fire Holder

Embattled Attorney General Eric Holder isn’t receiving much media love these days, even from news organizations that have typically been big boosters of the Obama administration. His latest gaffe certainly deserves media wrath. Holder sought meetings with the Washington Bureau chiefs of several major news organizations this week to discuss his deteriorating relationship with the press and how the Justice Department can deal with government leaks without trampling on the First ...

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Getting It Right, May 30, 2013

Bambi Rude, 36, was not arrested on suspicion of theft on May 20, as was reported in the Blotter yesterday. The Grand Junction Police Department said they made an error by including Rude on their daily report.  ...

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Surplus of suicides 
demands more action

There’s been a push in Mesa County for several years to make residents here more aware of the problems of suicide in this community. And for good reason. Statistics show that Mesa County’s suicide rate is three times the national average. If that weren’t frightening enough, a report from I-News Network, published in Sunday’s Daily Sentinel, showed that three of the top four neighborhoods in the state for suicide deaths by firearms from 2000 through 2011 were in ...

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Ruling reaffirms voters’ responsibility

The Colorado Supreme Court’s decision Monday to uphold the constitutionality of the state’s school finance system will undoubtedly disappoint many people who had hoped the court would void the system and order the state to spend considerably more money — perhaps as much as $4 billion a year — on K-12 education. Although The Daily Sentinel has repeatedly argued that more spending on public schools is needed, we see Monday’s Supreme Court decision as important ...

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Slogans, slights 
and suggestions

Now that the summer tourist season is officially upon us, we denizens of Mesa County might want to consider how we present ourselves to the visitor arriving from outside the area. We’re not suggesting that people here need fashion makeovers. Who doesn’t appreciate Wranglers and cut-off T-shirts or, alternatively, excessively colorful spandex? Rather, we’re talking about the signs people see as they drive in on Interstate 70, the ones with the county slogan that also ...

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Monumental myths

As thousands of people from around the country gather in the Grand Valley this week for the Alpine Bank Junior College World Series, it’s a safe bet many of these visitors — who may see or hear references to Colorado National Monument — will have little clue what the monument offers. Is it a statue or a granite slab with names carved onto it? People who have an inkling that a national monument is an area managed by the National Park Service are likely to view it as a sort ...

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Montrose police seek 
white truck 
in shooting

Police were still looking Thursday evening for at least two people allegedly involved in a drive-by shooting that happened in broad daylight on a downtown Montrose street earlier in the day. According to police, a white four-door Chevrolet pickup with Texas plates traveled past a parked car in the zero-hundred block of North Cascade Avenue in Montrose just after 10 a.m., and three or four gunshots were emptied into the unoccupied vehicle. No one was injured in the alleged shooting, ...

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Another project helps prime economic pump

The announcement by St. Mary’s Hospital Thursday that it will soon embark on the next phase in completion of its 12-story Century Project is welcome news, both for the health care system in western Colorado and for the local economy. The $40 million project is one more local endeavor that will help prime the area’s economic pump as we continue to recover from the recession that arrived four years ago. The project consists of completing the infrastructure on floors nine through ...

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Death Notices, May 22, 2013

■ Paul G. Coe, 87, Grand Junction, died May 18, 2013, at his home. Rosary will be at 7 p.m. Monday at Callahan-Edfast Mortuary. Services will be at 11 a.m. Tuesday at St. Joseph Catholic Church. Burial will follow at 1 p.m. at Veterans Memorial Cemetery of Western Colorado. Survivors include his wife, Margaret M; two sons, David A. of Highlands Ranch and Patrick F. of Monument; one daughter, Debra M. Coe of Austin, Texas; and nine grandchildren. Memorial contributions to St. ...

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Plug this hole in regs

The discovery that thousands of gallons of natural gas liquids leaked into the Parachute Creek watershed has raised questions that go beyond the actions of Williams, the company involved. Perhaps of equal importance is what regulations need to be put in place to help prevent such a spill from happening again. The leak has exposed a seeming gap in government oversight over the pipeline containing the gauge from which the liquids leaked. It also comes at a time of increasing concern about a ...

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Justice for infanticide

Many people, no doubt, would like to see Philadelphia abortion doctor and murderer Kermit Gosnell executed for his gruesome crimes — snipping the spinal cords of just-delivered babies that were alive and squirming. But the fact he will spend the rest of his life in prison, with no chance of parole and no opportunity to appeal his multiple murder convictions is a reasonable resolution to this horrific case. It is also evidence that our justice system continues to reach the right ...

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Water-plan wariness

Gov. John Hickenlooper on Wednesday directed state water officials to draft a statewide water plan by December, 2014, and the reaction from water experts on the Western Slope was something less than unbridled enthusiasm. That shouldn’t come as a surprise. Too many people on the Front Range view a statewide water plan as a means of coercing people in western Colorado to give up more of their water for the growing cities east of the Continental Divide. Or, as has often been the case ...

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Death Notices, May 16, 2013

■ Jewyll Nadine Eng, 87, Grand Junction, died May 18, 2013 at her home. Services will be 3 p.m. Saturday at American Lutheran Church, 631 26 1/2 Road, Grand Junction. Mrs. Eng was a homemaker. Survivors include her husband Donald V.; two sons, David of State College, Penn., and Jonathan of Grand Junction; two daughters, Deborah of Atlanta, and Jennifer of Minneapolis; a sister Joan Josephson of Tuscon, Ariz.; and six grandchildren. Memorial contributions to the Augustana College ...

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Proposed DUI limit is a sobering limit

The National Transportation Safety Board’s recommendation this week that all 50 states lower their legal blood alcohol limits for driving under the influence of alcohol from 0.08 to 0.05 percent shouldn’t be too frightening for Coloradans. After all, drivers in Colorado have had to deal with the 0.05 limit for decades. Get caught driving with that much alcohol in your blood in this state, and you will face the lesser charge of driving while ability impaired, not driving under ...

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Obama’s headaches 
originate at the top

Both Attorney General Eric Holder and a spokesman for President Barack Obama assured the public Tuesday of their commitment to maintaining a free press. But that supposed commitment looks far less real in the wake of the news that Holder’s Justice Department had secretly subpoenaed more than two months of telephone records of Associated Press reporters in at least three different cities, including office, cell phone and home phone records. The president of AP sent a letter to Holder ...

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Tea and tax scrutiny are problems for IRS

Few government agencies hold such broad authority as the Internal Revenue Service, so when the IRS starts targeting groups for their political viewpoints it is a threat to free speech and our political system. Such abuse of a federal agency’s power to focus and even harass those with contrary political views smacks of the petty despots of Third World nations. It’s good to see a number of leading Democrats, including President Barack Obama, are condemning the IRS actions. It ...

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Others should join transparency project

New members of the Grand Junction City Council — and other local elected officials, for that matter — should take a page from Mesa County Commissioner Rose Pugliese’s playbook when it comes to keeping the public informed. No, we don’t mean they need to rush to create a Twitter account, although that’s fine if they will use it. Rather, they should look for ways to go beyond the letter of the law when it comes to open meetings and open records and push for more ...

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A tenuous start for immigration reform

The immigration reform bill engineered by the so-called Gang of Eight — four Republican and four Democratic senators, including Colorado’s Michael Bennet — received its first hearing in a Senate committee 
Thursday, where there was bipartisan support for the measure, even outside the Gang of Eight. But there are also heartfelt disputes over aspects of the legislation that could kill the bill. We hope that doesn’t occur because we, like many others across the ...

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Deaths, May 9, 2013

■ Kenneth C. Dunn, 74, died Jan. 12, 2013, in Lake Charles, La. A celebration of life will be 11:30 a.m. May 25 at the Hotchkiss Senior Center. Mr. Dunn was an aircraft maintenance engineer. He is survived by his wife Susan Booth; two brothers, Kay E. of Price, Utah, and Emmitt E. of Olathe; two sisters, Bernita A. Dove of Grand Junction and Betty M. Klasien of Crawford; and five step-grandchildren. ■ Jean Marie Francis, 82, died April 4, 2013, in Palm Harbor, ...

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Blotter, May 9, 2013

Park arson in Fruita For the second time in as many years, someone started a fire in a trash can at Fruita’s Little Salt Wash Park, 1135 18 Road, causing extensive damage to the nearby pavilion. According to Parks and Recreation Director Ture Nycum, his crews discovered major damage to the structure on the south side of the park last Friday morning. Someone used an unknown accelerant to set fire to a trash can, which caused the plastic of the pavilion to melt and led to ...

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Legislature wraps up conroversial session

With controversial bills about guns and gays, new rules for marijuana and voting, plus attempted changes in how this state deals with energy and an important but unfinished effort to change the state’s school-finance law, the 2013 legislative session has been an eventful one. How successful the session is viewed may depend on one’s political affiliation. But it’s clear that Democrats were just as partisan as their GOP counterparts when they were in control. In fact, if ...

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Congrats, CMU cyclists

It’s not often that the local school wins a national title, although the overall 2012-13 Division II collegiate cycling national championship that Colorado Mesa University claimed over the weekend is actually the second the university has won in the past few years. What makes this year’s title all the more impressive is the turmoil the CMU cycling team went through late last year and early this year after former coach Rick Crawford was fired when he admitted having helped in ...

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Finally, a standard for driving stoned

On the second to the last day of the 2013 legislative session, the Colorado Legislature finally approved a bill to set a legal standard to determine when someone is driving under the influence of marijuana. The approval of House Bill 1325 is the culmination of several years’ effort by state Sen. Steve King of Grand Junction, who has long argued that with medical marijuana and now, legal recreational marijuana, prosecutors need a solid, quantifiable basis for determining when someone ...

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West Star flies high

The special meeting of the Grand Junction Regional Airport Authority this morning is critical, not just to the airport, but for the entire community. However, the decision before the Airport Authority should be an easy one. The authority board is being asked to approve an $8 million, public-private partnership that will allow West Star Aviation, Inc. to significantly expand its service facilities for high-end private jets and result in up to 150 new top-paying jobs at the company that has ...

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Rockfall closes Colorado Highway 133 near McClure Pass

A rockfall closed Colorado State Highway 133 in both directions today at milemarker 29, and it will remain closed through at least Monday night, if not longer, Colorado Department of Transportation said in a release. About “7 or 8” large rocks fell on the road about 9:30 a.m., creating a “crater” about two-feet deep, 12-feet long, and 10-feet wide, the release said. The two largest rocks were the “size of a dump truck,” the release said. The area of the ...

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City’s annual hydrant flush begins Monday

For approximately the next two weeks, city residents may notice discolored water, low water pressure and increased water in streets and gutters, as the City of Grand Junction conducts its annual spring hydrant flushing program. The program is done annually since the 1993 discovery of a harmless bacterial biofilm in the city’s water system, according to a news release from the city. No biofilm has been found since, and the city attributes that to this hydrant flushing program. The ...

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TABOR transgression needs to be reversed

For 20 years, local governments and the state of Colorado have sought means around the often-crippling revenue limits in the state’s TABOR Amendment. Most efforts were entirely legal and accepted by voters. But the TABOR end run that Mesa County adopted in 2007 is another matter altogether, one of dubious legality that is contrary to the spirit of TABOR and was enacted without any input or knowledge by county taxpayers. Because no minutes were taken at the meetings when this was ...

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Blotter, May 3, 2013

Gun threat alleged A man suspected of pointing a gun at another person is alleged to have sped away from Grand Junction police when they attempted to contact him about the incident. On Wednesday, police attempted a high-risk traffic stop of a silver Lexus they believe was being driven by Anthony Milnes, 24, in the area of the Interstate 70 Business Loop and 30 Road, according to an affidavit. Police were investigating a report that Milnes pointed a pistol at someone earlier that ...

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Death Notices, May 3, 2013

■ Ida Archibeque, 86, Olathe, died April 30, 2013, at Colorow Care Center. Services will be at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Delta. She is survived by three sons, Marshall of Delta, Steven of Craig and Thomas of Montrose; two daughters, Frances Bissell of Milton, Wash., and Christie Guthrie of Pueblo West; two brothers, Toby Romero of Eckert and Benjamin Romero of Florissant; eight sisters, Jenny Ricord of Grand Junction, Martha Even of Pueblo, ...

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