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LOOK FOR REDSTONE REVIEW AT ISSUU.COM

VOLUME 15, NUMBER 1

LYONS, COLORADO

RESIDENT / OCCUPANT PRSRT STD ECRWSS US POSTAGE PAID LYONS, CO PERMIT No 2053 $.50

FEBRUARY 19 / MARCH 19, 2014

B •R •I •E •F •S Important town meeting LYONS – Updates on the town recovery and planning process will be discussed at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 19, at LifeBridge Christian Church on Colorado Highway 66 east of Lyons. If you want to know how the recovery process is going, plan to attend this town meeting. Sea Bright, a small town on the Jersey Shore, had more than a thousand homes and businesses damaged or destroyed in Hurricane Sandy and the streets were filled with mountains of sand and debris. Lyons Mayor Julie Van Domelen asked the mayor of Sea Bright what was the most helpful thing she did to facilitate recovery and she said community recovery planning. Community Recovery Planning is an inclusive process that does three things. First, it helps disaster-impacted communities, such as Lyons, identify the issues they face and want to address. It then provides a framework for developing solutions to address those issues. Finally, it provides a vehicle for building consensus around the best proposed solutions. Outside agencies can help facilitate the planning process, but it is the community that must determine the issues and agree on the solutions. Simply, after the planning partners are gone, the town will be left with a document that it must feel comfortable in implementing. In Lyons, the town has partnered with the Colorado Department of Local Affairs and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help facilitate the Lyons Recovery Planning Process which will produce the Lyons Recovery Action Plan. The Planning Process kicked off on December 18 when over 500 Lyonites met at LifeBridge Church in Longmont to begin charting the town’s road to recovery. Eight Recovery Working Groups were formed including housing, business Continue Briefs on Page 4

I •N •D •E •X LYONS

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MAYOR’S CORNER

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OPTIONS

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CONTRAST

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CONTACT

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INSIGHT

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A&E

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CULTURE

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FOUNDATIONS

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OUTREACH

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OUTCOME

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INTEREST

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Blue Mountain. Photograph by Susan Silberberg-Peirce

BOT election will be held in April Lyons looks at raising its debt ceiling as the flood recovery continues By Susan de Castro McCann Redstone Review Editor LYONS – The Board of Trustees, BOT, will be up for re-election in April. The election will be a mail-in ballot. All six Trustee seats and the Mayor’s seat are up for election. The Mayor, Julie Van Domelen, has indicated that she is not running for re-election again due to her busy schedule and needed family time. Mayor Van Domelen has endorsed John O’Brien, who has decided to run for mayor. O’Brien teaches in the school of business at the University of Denver. He has been the Chamber of Commerce president and the chair of the Planning and Community Development Commission. No one else has turned in a packet to run for mayor so far. Packets are due by the end of February. Trustee Kirk Udovich is term limited as a trustee. So far two current trustees have picked up packets to run again for BOT; Trustee Dan Greenberg and Trustee Connie Sullivan have picked up packets. Trustee Dawn Weller is undecided as to whether she will run again and Trustee LaVern Johnson said she will run again and Trustee Sandy Banta has chosen not to run. Three town residents have also picked up packets to run for Trustees: Barney Dreistadt, James Kerr and Manny Vasquez. So far only John O’Brien has turned in his packet.

Three hour closure Monday, February 24 for blasting on US Highway 36 between Lyons and Estes Park Detour routes in place; major delays expected

Information from the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) Redstone Review

Town Board action– Currently the Lyons Town staff and the BOT are still struggling to find enough money to pay the debt incurred from the flood devastation. Town residents apparently are aware of the crushing debt hanging over the town because when the town decided to raise electric rates by 12.8 percent, no one showed up to complain during the public hearing and the motion to raise the electric rates along with a temporary $5 surcharge to the base rate passed without a hitch or even a comment. The surcharge is designated to only last one year. The flood is expected to cost the town about $60 million with Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, paying the lion’s share. This figure has jumped by $10 million since last month now that new assessments have been made. Even though the Federal Emergency Management Agency pays 75 percent of the cost to repair public works projects, the town is unable to come up with the remaining 25 percent of the cost. The Colorado Department of Local Affairs is offering up 12.5 percent, but the town is still in a bind for the rest. Some other form of help is coming from the state to lower the cost for repairs. The town was already in the process of rebuilding the sewer plant when the flood hit. The cost of the waste water plant was

BOULDER, LARIMER COUNTIES — The Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) and the Federal Highway Administration – Central Federal Lands Highway Division (CFLHD) have scheduled the second of 20 different three-hour blasting operations for noon to 3 p.m., Monday, February 24, at mile marker 17.6. Timing of this blasting event was determined to ensure passage for afternoon school bus routes. The blasting is part of the US 36 Emergency Flood Reconstruction project between Lyons and Estes Park. The blasting will require full stops of both directions of traffic for three hours near mile marker (MM) 17.6, which is also west of Pinewood Springs and southeast of Estes Park. Motorists will need to use alternate routes, especially via State Highway 7 between Lyons and Estes Park, as no through traffic will be allowed through during the closure and major delays are expected. During blasting activities, crews will be loosening sections of the mountainside and then removing the loosened materials from the roadway. On average, the highway will be moved inland away from the river 20

Continue Town News on Page 11

Continue US 36 on Page 14


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