R
JANUARY 28 IS
NATIONAL BLUEBERRY PANCAKE DAY
EDSTONE R•E
•
V•I
•
E•W
LOOK FOR REDSTONE REVIEW AT ISSUU.COM / SDCMC VOLUME 17, NUMBER 12
LYONS, COLORADO
RESIDENT / OCCUPANT PRSRT STD ECRWSS US POSTAGE PAID LYONS, CO PERMIT No 2053 $.50
JANUARY 18 / FEBRUARY 15, 2017
B •R •I •E •F •S Martin Luther King remembered Congress passed Martin Luther King Day into law in 1983 and it was signed by President Ronald Regan. It was celebrated on January 16 this year. Coretta Scott King wrote this about her husband’s legacy: “The Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday celebrates the life and legacy of a man who brought hope and healing to America. We commemorate as well the timeless values he taught us through his example – the values of courage, truth, justice, compassion, dignity, humility and service that so radiantly defined Dr. King’s character and empowered his leadership. On this holiday, we commemorate the universal, unconditional love, forgiveness and nonviolence that empowered his revolutionary spirit.” “We commemorate Dr. King’s inspiring words, because his voice and his vision filled a great void in our nation, and answered our collective longing to become a country that truly lived by its noblest principles. Yet, Dr. King knew that it wasn’t enough just to talk the talk, that he had to walk the walk for his words to be credible. And so we commemorate on this holiday the man of action, who put his life on the line for freedom and justice every day, the man who braved threats and jail and beatings and who ultimately paid the highest price to make democracy a reality for all Americans.” Continue Briefs on Page 4
issuu.com/sdcmc Like us on Facebook
I •N •D •E •X LYONS
2
MAYOR’S CORNER
3
LOCAL
4
OPTIONS
5
ECOLOGY
6
INSIGHT
7
CONTEXT
8
A&E
9
FOUNDATION
10
CREATE
11
CONCEPTS
12
Above: Josh Ellis photographed this bobcat in his backyard.up Highway 7 near Raymond. The cat was watchful of Josh, but didn’t seem to mind the 20 minute photo shoot while he hunted. Top left: Doug Powell got this image of a little bobcat that hung out at the base of a tree in his yard for 45 minutes, presumably waiting for a meal to descend.
Flood projects continue as long as state reimbursements stay on track By Susan de Castro McCann Redstone Review Editor LYONS – After the water settled from the September 2013 flood, and after damage assessments were made, then the recovery began in earnest. Grants and government recovery funds were applied for, people from government agencies showed up to look at the damage and oversee the flow of money. But as the work progressed things started to bog down. The town board was concerned that the town could not finish all the projects that needed to be done by the deadlines set by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Colorado Development Block Grants-Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) and other funding agencies. In some cases extensions were granted, but the real problem was getting the reimbursements for the work from the state. FEMA and other granting agencies send the recovery funding to the state, which holds the money until the individual projects are completed and until the state has gone over every receipt to make sure all the conditions for the grant are met. It’s very time consuming. The reimbursement issue was a problem that was not anticipated in the beginning by the town board and town staff; so once reimbursement problem came to light, the town staff began working with the state to find ways to solve it. The state had to give Lyons advances to cover their immediate expenses. To illustrate the magnitude of the problem,
Town Administrator Victoria Simonsen told a group of residents at a town hall meeting on January 11 that the town has spent approximately $35 million on flood recovery projects so far and the state has advanced the town $3 million. Many projects have already been reimbursed by the state over the last three plus years, but many projects are still waiting for reimbursement. After many months of meetings with the state, Administrator Simonsen said that the staff is now hopeful that the reimbursements will now arrive in a more timely fashion. At the town hall meeting Mayor Connie Sullivan and Administrator Simonsen went over some of the projects that have been completed. The new wastewater treatment is now completed and up and running. This project was just getting started before the flood then put on hold until it could resume. The LaVern M. Johnson Park (formerly Meadow Park) restoration was completed with many new amenities. Over a mile of the St. Vrain River restoration was completed. The town closed on 23 buyout properties for $5.87 million. There are still about three more buyout properties left to close on. Roads, sidewalks, lighting, landscaping and many other projects have been completed and many more are in the works and need to be completed. Simonsen told residents at the meeting, “We are waiting for reimbursement on about 40 projects. We have some projects that we started three years ago that we have not been reimbursed for yet. It has been (taking)
about six months to get reimbursement for many projects.” The town is now heading into Phase II of recovery projects. There are several priorities in this phase. At the top of the list is finding a place for the Public Works Building which was destroyed by the flood, and FEMA told Lyons that it cannot rebuild at the same site because it is in the floodway. The town needs about two to three acres of land for the building. Lyons owns very little land so the town board is trying to purchase the two decommissioned water treatment plants owned by the City of Longmont at the east end of Lyons. The two plants are located on each side of Colorado Highway 66 and are located in Boulder County and the properties would need to be annexed into Lyons. The two parcels combined are about ten acres. If the town can purchase the land from Longmont and if the town can annex the land, the plan is to use a few acres for the Public Works Building and to sell the rest to a developer to create a mixed-use development to include affordable housing and market-value housing and some commercial. Simonsen said to the residents, “We have a plan to actively pursue purchasing it (the Longmont water plants). We can use some money from the enterprise funds to purchase it.” The town needs to create zoning that would allow for the creation of jobs to meet the requirement set by the funding source. Simonsen said that other flood rebuilding projects include the McConnell Bridge, which will cost about $2.7 million. The design for the bridge was just approved by FEMA on December 31, 2016. FEMA will pay for 75 percent of the cost and CDBGContinue Town on Page 14