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VOLUME 22, NUMBER 4
LYONS, COLORADO
RESIDENT / OCCUPANT PRSRT STD ECRWSS US POSTAGE PAID LYONS, CO PERMIT No 2053 $.50
MAY19 / JUNE 16, 2021
B •R •I •E •F •S Congressman Joe Neguse comes to Lyons LYONS – Congressman Joe Neguse is expected to be in Lyons on Sunday May 23 at 9 a.m. at Town Hall Plaza next to the Lyons Town Hall, 432 5th Ave. He will only be in Lyons for about 45 minutes and will give an update on the infrastructure bill under discussion in the U.S. Senate. The public is welcome to attend.
Looking for stories to share for Pride Month LYONS – The Redstone Review and the Wide Spaces Community Initiative are looking for four to six short pieces to publish in the Redstone’s June issue. We are looking for honest voices from the LGBTQ+ community to share. The pieces should be 200 to 400 words long. Please let Janaki Jane know as soon as possible if you are interested or to bounce ideas, and be ready to send your finished piece by June 1 to Janaki Jane at joyjane@gmail.com.
Safe Route to School LYONS – The Town of Lyons and the design engineers invite you to a public meeting discussing the initial design considerations regarding the Safe Route to School and the 4th Ave. pedestrian bridge over the St. Vrain. The $855K project is being funded by a $500K grant from CDOT’s Safe Routes to School Program and CBDGDR funds.
New Park Regulations LYONS – With the safety and enjoyment of visitors in mind the town has reached out to local officials to help determine an occupancy limit for both of the parks. The new occupancy limit set for LaVern M. Johnson Park is 1,596 and for Bohn Park the limit is 855 for the river portion of Bohn Park and 5,985 people for the park as a whole, which includes the ball fields, dirt bike park, and the dog park. This summer our gate attendants will be enforcing the occupancy limit by turning away visitors once the parks have reached capacity. We know many people come from out of town to visit our parks Continue Briefs on Page 10
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“Storm Coming In” at Walden Ponds. Photographed on May 2 by Cathy Rivers
Town Board discusses, a new hotel on Main Street, access to CR69 from Martin property and other issues By Susan de Castro McCann Redstone Review Editor LYONS – Discussions at the Lyons Town Board meeting held in mid-May included a report from Administrator Victoria Simonsen who said that the town is eligible for a grant to revitalize Main Street which would include lighting along a block or two along Main Street. Attorney Brandon Dittman reported to the board on the ongoing litigation with Honeywell International Inc., the company that was hired to redesigned/upgrade the Lyons wastewater treatment plant. Attorney Dittman told the board that there is still no word yet on whether the Honeywell legal case stays in district court or whether it goes to arbitration. He said that a number of motions have been filed mostly to take it out of district court. He said all documents are public at this point and anyone can see them on the district court website. Administrator Simonsen said that interviews had been conducted with four potential candidates for a new finance director and that three candidates were well qualified. She said that they hoped to hire a new finance director before the end of May. She further added that all the licensed realtors in Lyons have been contacted to see if any had experience in listing municipal property. The town board is getting ready to list the old water treatment plant on Apple Valley Road for sale. Only two realtors responded and were asked to submit a proposal. If none respond by the deadline, Administrator Simonsen said she will go outside the Lyons area to find a realtor. In other news the town board discussed some updates on the former Festivarie Inn, a small boutique hotel at 349 Main St. owned by Craig Ferguson. Ferguson recently sold the Festivarie Inn to Moss Rock LLC a group from Lyons. Subsequently, staff met with representatives of Moss Rock, LLC. Their plans now include securing the site with construction fencing, repairing the sidewalk and actively working with architects, engineers and planners on an updated hotel. They plan to build a 35-room hotel on the site. They have also
secured the property at 355 Main St., which is rented to Moxie Bakery. Moss Rock representatives said they would like to start the planning process on the hotel as soon as possible. It looks like Lyons will have a new hotel on Main St. in the near future. The town board moved on to a discussion of the Steve McCain property, located at 431 4th Ave. Philip Strom, Interim Planner told the board that the current industrial use of property is not permitted within the Commercial Zone District. The property has been used as an excavation business which stockpiles materials, such as gravel and dirt, and uses industrial equipment, such as front loaders, dump trucks, and flatbed trailers, to move the materials to and from the site. This use is a hazard to the adjacent residential neighborhood and library. The proposed Safe Routes To School path will run along the property frontage with 4th Avenue and increases the risk of the industrial use at this location. Planner Strom pointed out that the property appeared to be in violation of several Municipal Code violations including property maintenance, air pollution, general nuisance and general provisions as well as several International Property Maintenance Code violations including drinking facilities and location of employee toilet facilities. Mayor Nick Angelo suggested that they table the discussion to a future date and create a future agenda item where the public could weigh in and ask questions. The agenda item will most likely occur on the June 21 agenda, but no date has been confirmed yet. The town board continued with a discussion of the Martin property, which is a flood recovery buyout property that was deeded over to the town by Boulder County. Currently is has not been annexed or zoned. There are still questions concerning the access from the Martin property onto County Road 69 which the town board wants to resolve and to secure that access. Trustee Craig Lowell, said that he walked around the Martin property to look at the access and was yelled at by one of the property owners near the Martin property. Lowell said that any other people looking for the access
may have altercations with angry neighbors and a bad situation may occur until the access is settled. Two land title surveys have been sent from Boulder County as initial information. Staff has asked for clarity on the following prior to proceeding: the exact width of the ROW and its alignment off of CR69, if the turnaround the county requested made it into the final deed language, any language regarding access/easement for the pre-flood drive, along with any other detail or useful findings that may help to solidify the alignment needed from the Martin Parcel to CR69. Utilities Director Aaron Caplan gave an update on the water, sewer and electric issues in Lyons. Wastewater: Our new general permit has been issued and we are allowed to start using the new outfall pipe at the wastewater treatment facility. We have a contractor who has begun work to make the switch to the new outfall. As of Thursday morning, we are not sure of an exact date of the switch over. We are reviewing the new permit with our WWTF operator to understand the new regulations. They did include approval of raising the BOD allowed into the plant to 1,535 lbs. However, it isn’t official until the improvements that the town submitted to have done for the rerating are done. Electric: 95 percent of the new electric meters are installed. We were short about 50 meters. The town did not have notes on what meter forms were at what locations. We use six different types of meters and wanted to be careful on how many meters of each type were ordered. The meter company has declared force majeure because of disruptions to supply chains and is estimating the meters not to be available until July. The initial integration of the new meters into our current billing did not go smoothly. The company that we use for billing did not seem to properly test the integration process. Staff have manually been going through accounts checking for billings that appear that they could be incorrect. In addition to this, and as was to be expected, many of these ancient meters were Continue Town on Page 15