MAYOR’S CORNER

By Hollie Rogin, Mayor of Lyons Redstone Review

LYONS – In between tubing, enjoying the Sandstone concerts, and all the rest that Lyons has to offer in the summertime, there are opportunities to make your voice heard about extremely important issues that will affect our community for decades to come.

Last month, I wrote about the Cemex application to extend its Dowe Flats mining permit for an additional 15 years. If the application is approved by the Board of County Commissioners, Cemex asserts it would shut the plant and begin the three-year reclamation process after 15 years. Cemex maintains that if its application is denied, it will continue to operate its plant indefinitely by trucking materials in. Boulder County Open Space and Cemex negotiated these options and presented them to us.

The Town of Lyons is a referral agency, which means that the County wants our input on the binary choice before us. They gave us a deadline of June 10. The Board of Trustees agreed to ask for an extension to that deadline so we could gather input from our community and our Boards and Commissions. The County responded to this request on July 5 and gave us an additional two weeks. What does this mean? It means that by the time you read this, you’ll have just a few days to get the Town Board your input on the issue (if you haven’t already).

To provide written comment, email Deputy Clerk Marissa Davis at Mdavis@townoflyons.com prior to close of business on Friday, July 15. We will also have a public hearing and Town Board discussion on July 19. Those details will be posted on the Town website and communicated in e-blasts. We want to know what you think, and we welcome all ideas.

Another extremely important opportunity to provide input that will directly affect Lyons in both the short- and long-term is the Lyons Thrive Comprehensive Plan Growth Framework Survey. That’s a mouthful to say, but what it means is that you can make your voice heard about whether, how, and where Lyons should grow in the next decade and beyond. Want to see affordable housing in the Eastern Corridor? Increased density elsewhere? A rec center? Something completely different? It’s time to let us know! The survey is open until July 31. Make some time to review the maps and proposals, and then give your feedback at: https://lyonsthrive.com/participate/survey_tools/survey.

Finally, if you would like to be more involved in your community for the longer term, there are several openings on our fun and hard-working Boards and Commissions. It’s a once-per-month commitment (with the exception of the Board of Adjustments, which meets as needed) and you’ll be directly contributing your talents to our community.

Current openings include: Housing and Human Services, two vacancies; Economic Vitality Commission, one vacancy; Planning and Community Development Com-

Rogin mission, one vacancy; Historic Preservation Commission, one vacancy; Board of Adjustments, two vacancies.

Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy summer to help Lyons navigate toward a bright and beautiful future.

By Chief Peter Zick, Lyons Fire District Chief Redstone Review

LYONS – Happy July, Lyons. I hope all of you had a great Fourth of July. I was impressed that the Lyons community refrained from the use of fireworks this year as we did not have any significant calls because of fireworks being used. Our wildfire risk in our community is very high and anything we can do to elminate risk keeps us all safer. Great job.

First, and foremost, I would like to thank everyone who voted in the Lyons Fire Protection District election in May. Our mill levy increased passed by a margin of 575 (yes) to 184 (no). This increase will allow the Lyons Fire Protection District to upgrade staffing to meet our increasing call volume that has been occurring year after year, and will allow us to further protect our community from wildfires by being fully staffed, and having fully trained firefighters on duty every day to protect our community. We greatly appreciate all the support.

As many of you know, the Lyons Fire Protection District suffered a tragic loss of one of our members. Firefighter Griffin Ferguson was a valued and loved member of our department, and the shock and grief that followed his passing hit our department very hard. On behalf of the Lyons Fire Protection District, I would like to thank our community for the tremendous outpouring of support and love everyone showed us during this difficult time. Everyone in the community came together in our time of need with food donations, cards, phone calls, and even just giving one of us a hug when we were struggling. This unfortunate event brought us all together as a community and truly showed that we all come together to help our community. Thank you so much.

We are excited to announce that we will be taking delivery of a new fire truck this year. This truck was ordered to replace one of our current trucks that is over 25 years old. We spent a lot of time and effort to design the truck so it will be able to serve our community in many different capacities. The truck should be arriving sometime in September/October this year. I am planning on having an open house or pancake breakfast event for our community when the truck arrives so the whole community can come help us with the ceremony of pushing the old truck out of the bay and pushing the new one in. That’s right, the fire service pushes out the old and pushes in the new, so we need our whole community to come help us. We will announce the date and time as we get closer to the event.

We have been working on ways to keep our tubers and rafters safer on our rivers this year. Lyons Fire, Boulder County Sheriff and the Town Trustees are committed to making our rivers safer for our residents and our visitors. You may have seen that when the river gets to a certain flow rate (measured in cubic feet per second) we close the river to all tubers. This ban is designed to keep our tubers from getting overwhelmed by high flows and risking getting injured or drowning during extremely high flows.

Although this process may be disappointing to those that come here to use the river, the bans have shown to Zick

reduce the number of rescues that we perform on the river, in turn preventing serious injuries that could occur. We greatly appreciate the understanding and patients during these times. If you are using the river to tube or kayak, even if the flow is low, please be safe and have the proper life jacket on to keep yourself safe. Even the strongest swimmers get into trouble because the water is often cold. I am excited to announce that the new Lyons Mayor

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This is the message and tribute that Mayor Hollie Rogin reads at the opening of each Lyons Town Board meeting to honor the Native Americans and indigenous people who were the caretakers of the land making up the state of Colorado, before any of the Europeans arrived. We must acknowledge with respect (as non-Native people) that the land on which we stand, live, and learn, is the traditional territory of the Ute, Cheyenne and Arapaho Peoples.

We also recognize the 48 contemporary tribal nations that are historically tied to the lands that make up the state of Colorado.

Hollie Rogin was sworn in as Mayor of Lyons on April 18, 2022. Before that she was elected to serve on the Board of Trustees for the term of 2020 to 2022. In 2015, Rogin created the foundation for what is now the City of Boulder’s Commercial Affordability program on a pro bono basis. While serving as a Trustee, she was the Town Board liaison to the Economic Vitality Commission and the Historic Preservation Commission.

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