R
EDSTONE R•E
•
V•I
•
E•W
LOOK FOR REDSTONE REVIEW AT ISSUU.COM / SDCMC
VOLUME 16, NUMBER 8
LYONS, COLORADO
RESIDENT / OCCUPANT PRSRT STD ECRWSS US POSTAGE PAID LYONS, CO PERMIT No 2053 $.50
SEPTEMBER 16 / OCTOBER 13, 2015
B •R •I •E •F •S Construction of Meadow Park Phase II LYONS – The final phase of the park’s recovery plan will begin the last week of September, and the park will be closed to the public beginning Oct. 1. The work will take place throughout the winter and spring seasons, and is anticipated to open on July 1, 2016. The Phase II master plan can be found on the town website.
Hope and Harvest LYONS – After a lengthy hiatus, the Town Hall Art Shows are back on the docket. Understandably, the Town of Lyons needed the usual gallery area for ongoing flood recovery presentations and displays. Friday, Nov. 6 (between 4:30 and 7 p.m. at Town Hall) is the drop-off date for the community’s creative responses, from all ages and abilities, to the show’s theme Hope and Harvest. All ready-towall-hang 2D and 3D interpretations must be accompanied by a neat display placard that features the title and medium of the work, artist’s name and contact information, and sale price, if appropriate. Artists will be asked to complete a brief contract / release form at the time of drop-off. There will be an opening reception and tapas community potluck at Lyons Town Hall on Saturday, Nov. 11, from 6 to 8 p.m. Wine will be available and donations are encouraged to help support the continuing and unfolding efforts of Lyons Arts and Humanities Commission (LAHC). The LAHC has also slated four three-month shows featuring various area artists for 2016. All shows will have opening Saturday evening receptions and are tentatively scheduled for the following dates: Continue Briefs on Page 2
Like uson Facebook
issuu.com/sdcmc
I •N •D •E •X LYONS
2
MAYOR’S CORNER
3
LOCAL
4
OPTIONS
5
CONCEPTS
6
INSIGHT
7
DEDICATION
8
A&E
9
FOUNDATION
10
INTENTION
11
CONNECTION
12
CONTEXT
13
Artist Deborah Butterfield captures the essence of the horse with her contemporary sculpture – characters of strength, spirit and grace. Explore Butterfield’s use of minimalistic line and powerful form at her current exhibition, The Nature of Horses, now through October 18 at the Denver Botanic Gardens. PHOTO BY CATHY RIVERS
Town staff addresses confluence residents’ concerns By Susan de Castro McCann Redstone Review Editor LYONS – At a special Lyons Town Board meeting held on September 1, residents from the confluence area, which sustained the most damage during the 2013 flood, aired their grievances to the board. One by one the residents got up and told the board that they were delayed and held back every time they submitted an application for a new building permit for repairing their damaged homes. They said they felt like no one wanted them here, but they repeatedly said they were not going away. Kat Wechsler, a confluence resident, said she had submitted an application for a building permit at least six times and each time the staff found something wrong with the application. Then one confluence resident got up and said she was so discouraged she had considered suicide. You could see the look of shock on the trustees’ faces. They listened, asked questions, made notes said they would take action on the residents’ concerns. “We want trust and we have lost trust in the system. We don’t want to bend the rules; we want help to get through the system. We are constantly told no to everything we submit,” said Joe Meckle, a confluence resident who has been working to raise his house onto a higher foundation but found the standard height requirement for flood plain areas did not always match up with what he was told.
Trustee Connie Sullivan said, “I am sorry that you feel that we don’t want you here, because that is so not true.” Mayor John O’Brien said, “We are not back (in Lyons) unless all of us are back. We need to work on the process and make the process more efficient.” The board met with the town staff, and a public workshop was held on September 14 with the town board, town staff, confluence residents and the public. The meeting was productive, but as everyone knows there are no simple answers, the solutions are often complicated, and each house and family has unique and specific problems so that one solution does not fit all. Many or perhaps most of the problems came from the fact that the engineers, architects, consultants, and hydro engineers hired by the individual homeowners to help them re-design their homes to qualify for a building permit were not qualified to re-design structures for a 100-year flood. Often these people had no or very little experience with building in a floodway or in a flood plain and were not qualified or in some cases incompetent when it came to meeting Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) standards. And at great expense to the home owners the plans had to be redone and sometimes a study was required. Those living in the floodway, the fastest moving water filled with debris during a flood, have to get a no-rise certification.
Town Administrator Victoria Simonsen said that one consultant working for a home owner turned in plans showing a water elevation rise in his plans. FEMA does not allow for new construction to create any rise in the water elevation that was not there originally. She explained that this (plan) was unacceptable and that the FEMA standard is 0.008 rise. The consultant said, “Oh you actually mean no rise?” Her response was, “Yes, no rise means no rise.” There is no way to get around FEMA. Town Engineer Jim Blankenship told the residents that if the town allowed a home to be built that did not meet FEMA guidelines the town could lose all its FEMA funding. Everyone that has had to deal with the flood has been on a huge learning curve. The homeowners had been upset because they felt that their applications went to the bottom of the pile of applications and that the town engineer needed more help. They said it took too long to get a response. Town Administrator Victoria Simonsen addressed those concerns. She said that 101 plans have been processed for 56 properties; 78 have been approved, 16 are still pending and only one has been rejected. Almost 80 percent of those applications have been processed. “We are working through about eight to ten permits now. We try to provide some guidance for those who need help with the permitting process. We keep records of Continue Town on Page 15