“A 31-year-old Steamboat Springs endurance athlete who had just moved to Golden was killed Saturday after being bitten by a rattlesnake,” reports The Steamboat Pilot. “According to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, Daniel Hohs was about one and a half miles up from the Mount Galbraith trailhead in Golden when he was bitten on the ankle. A woman who he was with called 911 at 12:40 p.m. Saturday. Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Jenny Fulton said Hohs was hiking when he was bitten. He took a couple steps and sat down, Fulton said. The snake was described as being about four feet long.”
“A local oil and gas trade group has until midmonth to decide whether to appeal after the federal government recently prevailed in a legal dust-up over two rare wild mustard plants on federal land in Rio Blanco County,” reports The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. “Christine Arguello, a U.S. District Court judge in Colorado, ruled in August against the West Slope Colorado Oil and Gas Association’s legal challenge of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Land Management actions in connection with a research project in the county. It involves planting the Dudley Bluffs bladderpod and Dudley Bluffs twinpod on 12 plots. West Slope COGA can appeal within 60 days of the Aug. 16 ruling. “We’re still in discussion. A decision hasn’t been made” about an appeal, said West Slope COGA’s executive director, David Ludlam.”
“Last week in Keystone, a modern-day prophet on climate change addressed a room of several hundred High Country residents as they chomped away at their breakfasts, daring each of them to accept a simple challenge,” reports The Summit Daily News. “‘I’m asking you to save civilization,’ he said unabashedly. ‘You’re being asked to do a major thing and your response should be, ‘Oooh, I don’t know if I’m your person, I can barely wake up in the morning.’ But the truth is history is replete with people of no power at all who have done incredible things.’ The directive seemed straightforward enough to Auden Schendler, who is regarded by many as an oracle on the future of outdoor-centric life and sustaining human existence as we know it, but it was perhaps not the lesson attendees might have expected over their buffet bacon and eggs. However, if maintaining the mountain lifestyles they’ve come to enjoy is important, he said, the time to act is now.”
“Dan Frantz is a clinical specialist in psychiatry at North Range Behavioral Health, and in the decades he’s worked as a mental health professional, one incident always has stuck with him,” reports The Greeley Tribune. “It was Nov. 15, 1987, a frigid, snowy day in Denver, and Continental Airlines Flight 1713 was improperly de-iced before it took off for Boise, Idaho, from the old Stapleton Airport. As the plane lifted off, it over-rotated due to a buildup of ice on its left wing. It crashed onto the runway wing-first, then rolled onto its back as a flash fire spread through the cabin. Twenty-eight people died. Through interviews with the first-responders and emergency room personnel who treated the injured, a pattern emerged: Everybody who had something to do with the crash was traumatized to some degree. But the ER workers, because they weren’t on-site, felt they hadn’t earned their emotions. This is becoming more relevant in the digital age, when people can log onto Twitter and in real time see genocide unfold in Myanmar, Puerto Ricans struggle without water and electricity or country music fans get gunned down in Las Vegas. Everything spreads faster in this modern world, including despair and trauma. Mental health professionals say it’s much easier now for people to have adverse emotional reactions to events, and if that happens, it’s important for people to know their feelings are valid. And it’s just as important to not be afraid to ask for help.”
“People supporting or opposing the lifting of Longmont’s years-old ban on businesses selling marijuana and marijuana products within its city limits can present their arguments to the City Council on Tuesday night,” reports The Longmont Times-Call. “The council is to hold a public hearing — and may cast a final vote — on an ordinance that would eventually allow up to four such retail businesses to sell marijuana in Longmont. In a 5-2 vote on Sept. 26, the council gave its initial approval to the ordinance that would lift the pot-shop ban and establish detailed regulations about where such pot shops could operate, requirements of applicants seeking to be one of the four city-authorized stores, and the conditions for operating those shops they get city licenses.”
“Staff at the city of Loveland received word last week that efforts spanning several years to change a secondary detour route for Interstate 25 to keep traffic from traveling through the city via U.S. 287 have been successful,” reports The Loveland Reporter-Herald. “Capt. Pat Mialy of the Loveland Fire Rescue Authority said as of now, the secondary detour route for I-25 traffic will be down Weld County Road 17 rather than down 287, as was originally planned. Beginning in 2012, Mialy worked together with the city’s Transportation Planning Division, members of the Colorado State Patrol, and several local fire and police departments to make an adjustment to the Colorado Department of Transportation’s Traffic Incident Management Plan, or TIMP. The TIMP lays out alternative routes for interstate traffic in case of traffic incidents, construction, or other road blockages.”
“It seems like you can recycle almost anything these days. But sometimes, it’s hard to know exactly how to do it,” reports The Coloradoan in Fort Collins. “From mattresses to electronics to bubble wrap, we put together a handy guide on how to recycle traditionally hard-to-recycle stuff in Fort Collins. If you get inspired, Fort Collins is partnering with Spring Back Mattress Recycling for a special collection event from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Oct. 7 at the Timberline Recycling Center, 1903 S. Timberline Road. For a $5 entry fee, visitors can recycle mattresses, box springs, books and bulky, rigid plastics at discounted rates. Find more information on the Fort Collins recycling website.”
“Process-related concerns abound as the City Council attempts to squeeze in meetings before Election Day on the latest proposal to annex, for the purpose of future development, the long-contested Hogan-Pancost parcel in east Boulder,” reports The Boulder Daily Camera. “The 22-acre parcel of Boulder County land, surrounded by city property and services near the Keewaydin and Greenbelt neighborhoods, has for more than two decades been a source of controversy. Development proposals there have repeatedly been thwarted, both by citizen pushback and downvotes from planning officials.”
“Take a wrong turn on Fountain Creek Regional Trail near Willow Springs Ponds, and you might find yourself ‘walking the plank,'” reports The Gazette in Colorado Springs. “El Paso County employee Brian Olson used the nautical metaphor to describe an abrupt drop-off, now blocked off to the public, where water has washed away 10 to 20 feet of the Fountain Creek bank and – with it – the trail. It’s one of two stretches of the path, each more than 500 feet in length, that have been lost to erosion since floodwaters inundated the county in 2015. The area is among five other flood-damaged spots, including other trailheads along the Fountain Creek Regional Trail and stretches of the New Santa Fe Regional Trail, that will get some attention if county voters approve a ballot question in the Nov. 7 election.”
“Therese Michels estimates she’s touched the lives of nearly 1,500 people in the 40-plus years she’s worked as a psychoanalyst in the Four Corners,” reports The Durango Herald. “And at age 91, she’s not about to slow down. “I like to say I flunked retirement,” Michels said from the living room of her small, quintessential Durango cottage home on the grid. Michels opened her first office in Durango in 1974 in a building across from what is now a Burger King, 1415 Main Ave. Over time, she built clientele, mostly from word of mouth from patients who had positive experiences in her sessions.”
“Dragon Man Mel Bernstein believed his store — stocked with thousands of guns, including 200 machine guns — was impenetrable,” reports The Denver Post. “A pack of seven German shepherds, chain-link fences, reinforced steel doors and 36 surveillance cameras have kept thieves at bay for decades. But Bernstein’s store was just as vulnerable as dozens of others across Colorado. On the evening of Aug. 27, copycat thieves took his truck, rammed it into the Colorado Springs store’s entrance to create a breach and stole 82 guns, including two machine guns. Based on the success of burglars committing a rash of similar crimes across Colorado in the past year, the burglars had every reason to believe they would get away. What the burglars didn’t know was that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had formed a task force to go after smash-and-grab gun store thieves aggressively. Task force members swarmed Bernstein’s property within hours of the crime. Task force members arrested suspects and recovered most of the guns before they could be sold to Pueblo street gang members, as intended.”
“When Jesse Hicks is released from the Colorado Department of Corrections in December, he will be ready and equipped to join the workforce as a trained ironworker,” reports The Cañon City Daily Record. “Hicks, 27, is one of 10 offenders from Skyline Correctional Center to complete the Gladiator Program, a weeklong (40 hour), non-paid program offered by the Colorado Department of Corrections in conjunction with the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers.”
