Scholarship applications being accepted
Applications are being accepted for the Four Corners Board of Realtors Dean Hanson Memorial Scholarship.
This scholarship can be awarded to traditional and nontraditional students seeking post-secondary or graduate education regardless of year of enrollment. Students must be residents of Montezuma or Dolores counties.
Selection criteria include scholarship, leadership and financial need. The application deadline is April 15.
Applications need to be mailed or turned into the Four Corners Board of Realtors at 350 W. Montezuma, Suite A, Cortez, CO 81321, or emailed to fourcornersboard@gmail.com, or can be dropped off at a high school counselor’s office.
For more information, call 565-0112. Applications are available at the counselor’s office in the high schools in Montezuma and Dolores counties or at the Four Corners Board of Realtors office, via email, or at fourcornersboardofrealtors.com.
Southwest Open School board to meet March 2, 9
There will be a work session meeting of the Southwest Open School’s Charter Board on Monday March 2 at 10 a.m. The session will be held in the Dolores Student Center located at the Southwest Open School. The public is welcome to attend.
On Monday March 9, the Charter Board meeting will be held at 5:15 p.m. The meeting is also in the Dolores Student Center. For more information, call 565-1150.
Archaeologists to meet at Crow Canyon
Big MACC – The Big Meeting at Crow Canyon – will be held Friday, March 6.
The bi-annual gathering of archaeologists and researchers working in the Four Corners region is an opportunity to share recent research with colleagues and learn about their work.
Presentation submissions are due by Wednesday, Feb. 25. To secure a spot, send the presentation title, subject matter and list of authors to Susan Ryan (sryan@crowcanyon.org).
The meeting registration fee is $18. Lunch will be available in Crow Canyon’s dining hall for $10, or participants may bring their own lunch. Fees will be collected at registration (cash or checks only), but reservations are due by Feb. 27. Contact Susan Ryan by emailing sryan@crowcanyon.org or calling 564-4381.
Registration is from 8:30 to 9 a.m. at the Gates Building at Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, 23390 County Road K, Cortez. Presentations will run from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 5 p.m. Each presentation will be 10 minutes long, followed by five minutes of questions. Posters also are welcome.
A reception will follow presentations from 5 to 6 p.m.
Lawmakers honoring black cowboys, ranchers
DENVER – The Colorado Legislature is marking Black History Month in true Western fashion – by honoring black cowboys and ranchers.
The state House planned an observation Friday to honor the cowboys and the Black American West Museum in Denver. The House is also inviting some black professional rodeo cowboys.
Finally, the celebration wouldn’t be complete without former Speaker Terrance Carroll. The Democrat was Colorado’s first black speaker and is an avid horseman.
Colorado turns to toll roads for funding
DENVER – As funding for highway construction and upkeep dwindles, Colorado has increasingly turned toward a once-unthinkable way to fund road expansion: tolls.
The federal highway trust fund gave the state nearly 9 percent less last year than in 2008 after adjusting for inflation, mirroring a nationwide dwindling of earmarked funds for road maintenance. But in Colorado, state budget woes and a unique tax limitation law have exacerbated the trend, according to transportation officials. The state’s Department of Transportation said it now spends $1.2 billion on roads when in 2007 it spent today’s equivalent of $1.7 billion.
Plans to replenish the agency’s coffers from Colorado’s newly flush general fund are being dashed by the state constitution’s requirement that excess revenues are refunded directly to taxpayers.
Nobody thinks the state can successfully raise its already-low gas tax. That has left government with two options, according to Don Hunt, the outgoing Department of Transportation executive director – improved cash management and tolls.
Reshuffling the way the agency manages its available cash has let it keep up with maintenance needs so far, Hunt said, but he called that “pulling the last rabbit out of the hat.”
To expand lanes the agency is relying on private companies to charge tolls. Some residents last year objected to the state allowing a firm to charge vehicles for use of additional lanes on U.S. 36 between Denver and Boulder. But the state also plans to allow a company to charge tolls on new I-70 lanes both in the mountains and on the way to the airport.
Democrats are increasingly talking about asking voters to let lawmakers keep some of the extra revenue generated by the recovery rather than refund it to taxpayers as required by the 1992 ballot measure known as TABOR, or the Taxpayers Bill of Rights. Transportation funding is one of the reasons why, they say.
But Republicans say the state has to live within its means. GOP House Leader Brian Del Grosso contended that Democrats have not made transportation a priority and chose to spend elsewhere.
Residents are first to ask feds to block legal pot
DENVER – Colorado already is being sued by two neighboring states for legalizing marijuana. Now, the state faces groundbreaking lawsuits from its own residents, who are asking a federal judge to order the new recreational industry to close.
The owners of a mountain hotel and a southern Colorado horse farm argue in a pair of lawsuits filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Denver that the 2012 marijuana-legalization measure has hurt their property and that the marijuana industry is stinky and attracts unsavory visitors.
The lawsuits are the first to claim that federal racketeering laws allow them to win damages from pot businesses that flout federal law. The plaintiffs have not specified amounts they would seek.
“If these lawsuits are successful, it could be devastating for the industry,” said Sam Kamin, a University of Denver law professor who helped craft Colorado’s pot regulations. “But it will be very difficult for the plaintiffs to prove damages directly attributable to the marijuana industry.”
Journal Staff & Associated Press