Up Bear Creek / 13apr25012

A million dollar County surplus?

OR BUDGET WOES? … While a recent Daily Planet story may have given the impression San Miguel County is afloat in money, “San Miguel County Ends 2011 With $1 Million Over Projections,” it’s important to put that accurately reported fact into perspective … We are all in a major downturn, both the private and the public sectors. Have been since 2008. But because of the state-mandated way counties are required to assess and collect property tax (our main source of income in San Miguel County), the effect on county revenues has been delayed. Property taxes actually went up for many people after the 2008 recession. Without going into the details, it’s only now that the full effect of the downturn is starting to hit the county. And projections suggest we will be losing revenue (even as demand for services and the cost of providing them grows) for the next four or five years … So, the county has been tightening its belt, deferring raises, forgoing cost of living salary adjustments – that’s part of why we saw about $600,000 more in revenues and $400,000 less in expenditures than our budget estimates for 2011. That and a big help from the Feds, in the form of a Payment-In-Lieu-of-Taxes (PILT) payment larger than we’d expected … And while a 192% increase in interest earnings for 2011 sounds impressive, that only amounted to $22,980 more than projected in actual dollars for county coffers. Plus, as the story noted, property taxes – our main source of income – was down even lower than projections (a worrisome indicator, since our finance staff likes to budget conservatively) … Both the Towns of Telluride and the Mountain Village had to lay off workers. Resort counties like La Plata and Summit have seen layoffs in the double digits. Happily, San Miguel County has been able to avoid laying anyone off, although we’ve let a number of positions go vacant after employees have retired … We’ve built up a year’s operating reserve that we’re going to be drawing on in 2012 and subsequent years to keep the county operating in a reduced but functional mode, while we all try to climb back out of the depression hole – thanks to the housing mortgage scandal and the cost of multiple foreign wars. So, while it might have sounded like the county was bucking the deficit tide most governments are experiencing, that’s not the case. It’s just that our county has prepared well for this rainy day, and the many rainy days to come … Let’s hope we can all go back to regular raises, hiring the five sheriff deputies and two county road workers we’re down, and the slow but sustained growth that is the mark of an economically healthy community.

SEAN MCNAMERA … I’ve long been a fan of “The View”. Like Peter Shelton, another of the region’s sterling columnists, Sean writes about his life here in the mountains or about his travels, and his stories are delightfully written, full of good sense and humor, and invariably captivating … A recent piece, “Hitchhike to glory,” reminded me of how I too, at 66, still hitchhike around the region -- when a car is being fixed, or at other odd times. I actually treasure those moments. Time to touch base with folks I wouldn’t meet otherwise. Stories I wouldn’t otherwise hear … When I was a young hippie, hitching was my main mode of transit. I was only marginally in the money economy. These days I’m part of the economic mainstream. But I still appreciate the generosity of drivers who share their big cars with a stranger (or a friend). And writers like McNamera who write about it so gracefully.

Co-chair Bill Bartlett and Telluride's John Wontrobski at the Green Party State Convention in Carbondale (photo by Goodtimes)

GREEN PARTY … Green Party delegates from eight chapters around Colorado assembled in Carbondale’s Third Street Center for the annual State Convention to cheer on Dr. Jill Stein and six state candidates, including a unanimous endorsement of my own candidacy for re-election. Two new chapters were accepted – one in the Pike’s Peak Region and another in Douglas County (there are currently 9 active chapters in the state currently, including the San Miguel Greens in this county and the Southwest Colorado Greens in Montezuma County … Other candidates affirmed at the convention include Steve Schecter for County Commissioner (Dist. 1) in Gunnison County, vying for Dem. Paula Swenson’s seat; Karyna Lemus running for El Paso County Commissioner (Dist. 2); Brad Harris for El Paso County Commissioner (Dist. 4); Victor Forsythe for Denver’s State House District 5; Misha Luzov for U.S. Congressional Seat in district 5, Susan Hall for U.S. Congressional Seat in District 2; and Gary Swing for U.S. Congressional District 1, held by Dem. Diana DeGette … Bill Bartlett of Greeley and I were re-elected state co-chairs for this election year, and Greens agreed to move from a listserve to a forum for Council deliberations and other business between state party meetings.

DR. JILL STEIN … Massachusetts physician turned Green politician is finally speaking truth to power in this country. You may not have heard her name, but you will recognize her New Deal platform ... Makes more plain sense, from what I’ve heard, than any Repub or Demdat … Reagan, Clinton, Bush, Obama -- the two-party see-saw makes the lifeboat bankers more secure, as it cuts loose the Titanic’s safety nets … Let’s do more than just hope for change. This time let’s put a woman in the White House who gets it and has a plan … According to Stein, the 1980s began 30 years of what she called "The Stolen Decades" in which the real wages and purchasing power of the average American worker began to flatline, and the wages of corporate CEOs shot up dramatically. "We need major policy changes to bring economic security to the working people of America," Stein asserted. "The fundamental flaws of an economic policy dictated by Wall Street are apparent, even if they have sometimes been masked by periods of apparent growth that were actually financed by unsustainable credit card and housing debt. Wealth that should be invested in our local economy to create jobs is being put in the hands of the super rich who build factories abroad instead. Families disintegrate while the income of the richest few surges upward. This is changing America in a way that we must not accept."

THE TALKING GOURD

Dear God,

I want

not to want.

How do I ask for that?

-Patrick Curry

Carbondale

Up Bear Creek / 6apr25012

Responding to Hellman and Nusser

[Ed. Note: In response to my UBC column in the Telluride Watch Mar. 15th -- "Taking a hard look at nuclear energy", both Jeremy Hellman of Ouray and Rachel Nusser of Naturita wrote rebuttals. This week's column is my response.]

NUCLEAR … Given Jeremy Hellman’s almost 40 years as a nuclear engineer and manager, it’s no wonder he takes issue with my critical view of an industry that has given us, not energy “too cheap to meter”, as promised, but disasters too catastrophic to measure. Of course, in his mind, Chernobyl isn’t “relevant”. But for those in Belarus who still are living with the many-thousand-year effects of that “black swan” event (or Fukushima) as well as those of us wondering where the atomic nightmare will strike again, the incredible cost of nuclear power gone awry (not once but multiple times) should give all citizens pause … Hellman dismisses the Price-Anderson Act as “hypothetical”, because taxpayers haven’t had to make good on its unlimited-pay-out insurance policy (thank the goddess). But without Price-Anderson, there would be no nuclear industry in this country. The atom’s dirty little secret is that nuclear power produces energy too expensive to insure. Forget that 60 years of technological advance has yet to solve its malingering waste problem. Ignore its reactors’ inherent vulnerability to terrorist attack … 

Radioactive Waste Buried At Idaho Labs (1969)

Decades after it began, the industry still hasn’t cleaned up its proliferation of past radioactive waste sites around the country, as the recent New York Times piece -- on the 683 abandoned mine sites on the Navajo reservation alone -- documented. “Two days of exposure at the Cameron site would expose a person to more external radiation than the Nuclear Regulatory Commission considers safe for an entire year,” writes Leslie MacMillan. But as yet there are no warning signs or even fencing at the Cameron site – a situation duplicated all over the West and another hidden cost of an industry unwilling to face up to its dark underbelly. So far the Department of Energy has paid out $60 million on assessment and cleanup, but cleaning up all the sites would cost “hundreds of millions of dollars” according to Clancy Tenley, a senior Environmental Protection Agency official … Nor does Hellman mention the $1.5 billion taxpayers have paid out to 23,408 former uranium miners (or their families) who weren’t apprised of the dangers of mining uranium and perished prematurely to cancer and related illnesses. These are all costs that need to be calculated into any true cost accounting of the nuclear energy option … Hellman may say renewable energy is “wonderful to think about” but deeply flawed to meet the increasing demands of the modern world, but I believe it’s the only way into the future, if we expect our species to survive for seven more generations. Renewables, efficiency and reduction of use – those are the keys to a resilient future energy policy … 

And as for Rachel Nusser’s commentary, I realize Nucla and Naturita have bet all their chips on a new uranium mill. We know the hard times our West End neighbors have endured, as long as I’ve lived here, and we want to root for their economic success. But Nusser lost me in the second sentence when she wrote, “The energy consumed by man is created by non-renewable sources such as oil, gas, nuclear, and renewable resources [sic]” … Yes, it’s true “Up Bear Creek” is an opinion column, not an environmental impact statement, sagely weighing the pros and cons. Those have been done. I’ve read them. And what I present here is the conclusion I’ve come to, as a Green Party elected official, after 40 years of investigating this industry … And yes, it’s also true all energy production has impacts. The point is, when weighed apples to apples, the nuclear risk and its harm to the environment and to the human race – men and women -- is clearly the most dangerous and expensive of all energy alternatives.

Uche Ogbuji reading at the Karen Chamberlain Poetry Fest

KAREN CHAMBERLAIN … Folks from all across the Western Slope flocked to Carbondale’s Thunder River Theatre Company last weekend, where Valerie Haugen and Lon Winston organized the second annual Karen Chamberlain Poetry Festival. Bards from all over the Western Slope dazzled audiences with riveting performances by Aaron Abeyta of the San Luis Valley and Bob King of Greeley’s Colorado Poets Center, Pike’s Peak Poet Laureate Jim Ciletti, Seth & Collette of Denver with their “Triangle Man”, the soft-spoken warrior Janice Gould, the well-played David Rothman, Grand Junction’s Wendy Videlock, Fruita’s Danny Rosen, the incomparable Jack Mueller of Log Hill Village, Uche Ogbuji, Kit Muldoon, Stewart Warren, Chris Ransick, David Mason, Carol Bell, Debbi Brody, Rachel Kellum, Julie Cummings, Eric Walter, Hildegard Guttendorfer, Western State’s WordHorde, Francie Jacober, Kit Hedman, Kim Nuzzo, John Macker, Celeste Labadie, Peter Anderson, L. Luis Lopez, Sandy Munro, the River City Nomads and more.

ADRIENNE RICH … Last week the nation lost one of its great poets. Rich’s Diving into the Wreck (1973) was one of the seminal poem sequences of modern America. As a young man, I was deeply moved by this book. In the section titled, “From the Prison House,” speaking of violence against women, Rich wrote, “underneath my lids another eye has opened” and this eye sees “the violence embedded in silence …”

THE TALKING GOURD

This eye

is not for weeping

Its vision

must be unblurred

though tears

are on my face

Its intent is clarity

It must forget nothing…

-Adrienne Rich

-from Diving into the Wreck

Up Bear Creek / 29mar25012

Learning to respect Indigenous wisdom

SCOTT ORTMAN … The Tewa-speaking pueblos near Santa Fe have always claimed ancestry from the ancient peoples the Apache called “Anasazi” – those ancient ones who vanished rather abruptly from Mesa Verde and Chaco around 800 years ago. It’s taken careful work by Dr. Scott Ortman to sort through the web of conflicting anthropological theories, disjunctive material artifacts and complex linguistic, cultural and genetic clues to find a scientific validation for what the indigenous Tewa people have been telling us all along about their ethnogenesis, i.e. where they came from … His Telluride Unearthed lecture at the Telluride Historical Museum last week laid out his case quite elegantly. And his prize-winning new book (derived from his Ph. D. thesis) assembles all the intricate details – Winds from the North: Tewa Origins and Historical Anthropology (Univ. of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, 2012) … 

For years anthropologists were mystified because, although there was a sudden population increase in the Rio Grande region right around the time Mesa Verde was depopulated, none of the cultural artifacts from Mesa Verde culture (pottery styles, architectural styles, etc.) appeared in Rio Grande culture. Ortman painstakingly delves into the concepts of inheritance and ethnic groups, synthesizing methods and data from the four subgroups of anthropology – ethnography, linguistics, archaeology and physical anthropology. He untangles the presuppositions of previous scholars and brilliantly weaves a landmark story of migration and social transformation, and in the process rewrites our understanding of the history of this place … And in the end, it’s the mythic tales of the Tewa that prove the central clues to solving one of the long-standing mysteries of Southwestern studies … If you missed the lecture and have any interest in the culture that preceded us here in the Four Corners, get a copy of the book. It’s not cheap, nor light reading. But Ortman is one of those new breed of scientists who write clearly and convincingly, so that both lay readers and specialists can follow his crafted arguments and startling hypotheses. Winds from the North is sure to become a Southwestern classic.

DAVID GLYNN … Kudos to “Indian” for calling the bluff of Denver prosecutor Marley Bordovsky, who had to apologetically dismiss the case against him for his stepping in when police attacked an Occupy encampment in Denver recently. It’s just like the Ophir resident and long-time Tellurider to stand up for civil justice. We should be proud to have citizens like Glynn in our midst, unafraid to speak truth to power.

STEERS QUEERS … And Everything In Between … That was the name for the rollicking benefit for Tami Graham at the Mancos Opera House last weekend. And a grand old time it was. A regional music promoter and cultural powerhouse, Graham developed cancer last fall, and found – like so many condemned by politicians to inadequate insurance (or none at all) – that even though she’s recovered, her bill for treatment was far beyond her means to pay. So, given her large community of friends, people started donating things and a big party was held to raise funds to help offset the debt … I was honored to be asked to emcee. A silent auction with tables and tables of donated goods filled the edges of the worn but impressive old hall, and kickass music and rowdy folks of all shapes, sizes and orientations danced their hearts out to the music of AfroBeat Minons, Diabolical Sound Platoon, the Lindells, John Thomas and DJ Dr. Doom. Probably the high point of the night was the dazzling performance by the Salt Fire Circus and Bare Bones Burlesque – a risqué combo of juggling, dancing, gypsy fiddle, mime, costumery and seduction … Let me say, those Mancos folks really know how to party.

EUPHEMISM … The government is always good at substituting misleading phrases for words that have a harsh ring to them. So, when I was a Vista volunteer in the Sixties, if they kicked you out of the training program (as they did several kids), you were “deselected” … I always found that pretty disingenuous … Well, Colorado State Government has invented a great neologism to describe what happens when they give you a sum of state money for Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) and then decide to take it back mid-year. It’s called a “Negative Supplemental” … Yeah, right!

WEEKLY QUOTA … “The task of a novelist is to deepen mystery, and mystery is a great embarrassment to the modern mind.” –Flannery O’Connor

THE TALKING GOURD

Taking Leave

-for Charlie Richmond,

well-loved GMUG Forest Supervisor

bumped up to D.C.

Too soon

for the San Miguel

Canyon narrowleaf

to put on flesh

So we start with

the bare-bone grays

of the Gambel oak

& the sunbleached

Cottonwoods

Their antlers tinged

with a touch of auburn

Enjoying the willows

fiery riverbottom flush

before climbing Dallas Divide

to the evergreens

Spruce Piñon Ponderosa

Hard choices

even for transplants

taking leave of

the Uncompahgre’s

mountains & streams

Up Bear Creek / 22mar25012

Remembering the rain

San Francisco (artwork by Tom Killian)

SAN FRANCISCO … It’s been a delight to be back in the City of my birth, hanging out with my street poet friend, Kush. I’m with a film crew from the Czech Republic, thanks to the interest and generosity of Pam and John Lifton-Zoline. We are beginning to film a documentary with a very express purpose. We want to find a home for Kush’s incredible archive of videotaped poetry performances in the Bay Area over the last 40 years, plus a more than generous helping of rare books and literary artifacts. It’s an incredible collection. Weighty tomes and ephemeral broadsides, most signed by the authors – Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsburg, Michael McClure, Phil Whalen, Kenneth Rexroth, Diana DiPrima. And one-of-a-kind tapes of poetry readings, including the voices of long dead masters – Lew Welch, Bob Kaufman, Jack Kerouac, Lenore Kandel. It’s more extensive than any university archive. And precariously located in a second-floor flat in a seedy part of town, stacked floor to ceiling, the paint peeling from the fire-scorched walls … If any record of America’s literary past deserves preservation, this collection does. 

Kush in the Cloud House on Franklin St.

But Kush has refused to sell out his treasure for fortune or fame. He has a vision of a living museum of exhibits and installations that will make these seminal works come to life. And so far he hasn’t been able to connect with any group willing to make that happen … So, a few of the friends of Cloud House – as he calls his visionary endeavor – have been working to see if we can help that happen before disaster strikes and the collection is lost. The urgency is all the stronger hearing of what happened to psychedelic guru Terence McKenna’s books and papers – all lost in a fire in Santa Cruz just last year … So, I flew out to meet Austrian Alexander “Sascha” Stipsits and Bosian Ćazim Dervišević – intrepid filmmakers -- to see if we could coax a moving story out of Kush and his invaluable collection. Working with visionaries is no easy task. But it’s been a lovely wild ride. Participating in a “cultural occupy” demonstration in front of MOMA – San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art. Hanging out and doing film interviews in Vesuvio’s legendary bar in North Beach. Spending hours talking and looking through the apartment-turned-warehouse where Kush lives with him 90+-year-old mother and a collection that takes up all but a small path between bed, bathroom and kitchen … 

Filming a "Cultural Occupy" demo at the Yerba Buena Center downtown

There’s no room for visitors at Kush’s place and our budget is tight, so the filmmakers found a cheap hotel nearby and I’ve been couch-surfing. Which has really been a blessing. I’ve been able to connect with many old friends from different periods of my life – seminary buddies, old lovers, poetry colleagues and newer mushroom festival friends. And free of the automobile, I’ve been using public transit, which in San Francisco is marvelous. BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) whisks one back and forth across the Bay and down to the Peninsula. MUNI (the City’s Municipal Railway) gets one conveniently from one neighborhood to another. And being a senior, I ride the Muni for a mere 75 cents (wonderful to finally take advantage of being an oldster). Plus, for a City, the downtown is very compact and walking from Chinatown to North Beach to Polk Gulch has been enjoyable and fascinating (just the energy and sights are invigorating) … 

Filming Kush on Corona Heights

Only one thing has marred the experience. The rain. Just our luck, it seems Pacific storms have been hitting the coast non-stop after a long dry spell, and it’s rained almost every day we’ve been here … As wonderful as the City is, as intriguing the culture and connections, the weather reminds me why I moved to Colorado and why it’s unlikely I would ever move back to the coast … I hope we can find Kush’s archive a home. I’m glad to be part of this endeavor, but I have to admit – I can’t wait to get back to the sunshine of Lone Cone and the Wilson Range.

Sunshine on the San Juans

SAN JUAN COUNTY … Following in our footsteps of limiting development in the fragile high country, Commissioner Pete McKay was able to convince his two conservative colleagues into adopting new land use regulations that limit cabin sizes to 750 square feet above 11,000 feet, with the possibility of an additional 250 sq. ft., if they can meet viewshed, materials, height and siting criteria. The new rule addresses the 3000 patented mining claims in the alpine area of their county that could be developed, although only about 1,100 are actually buildable, due to geology, avalanches and other hazards … However, a more ambitious limitation that would have downsized house sizes below 11,000 feet to 2000 square feet maximum snagged multiple objections, in spite of a unanimous endorsement by the county planning commission. Both Commissioners Ernie Kuhlman and Terry Rhoades weren’t comfortable with that regulation, and so it didn’t pass … But San Juan County’s new cabin size limitations in the high county, like our own San Miguel County regs, are a great start for preventing the other side of our alpine region from being heavily developed with outsize trophy homes.

Velocity Basin in San Juan County (Photo by Pete McKay)

POSTCARD POEMS … Here’s a delightful retro practice for those of you old enough to remember the correspond-dance of snail mail (as it’s now diminutively known in the Cyber Era). This week’s Talking Gourd is from a poet friend who sends me postcards with little poems on them. And, tag – it’s my turn to reply in kind.

THE TALKING GOURD

Dear Wild

If only I, too, could get out into that

awesome wilderness more. Winter is

stealing my breath & making me small.

I need to heave off this backpack of

great sadness – it’s too big for snow.

But then, that too melts with little kiss

promises, & golden sun bits, & patches

of green light in my thick fur – it’s still

the time of cold waiting

-Galaxy Earth Dancer

Crestone

Ophir's season of cold waiting (Kandee DeGraw photo)

Letter to the Editor / 23mar25012

Striking the best balance

Published: Thursday, March 22, 2012 6:08 AM CDT

Dear Editor,

I was a bit surprised to read Wilson Mesa homeowner and mushroom festival compadre John Sir Jesse’s premature letter castigating county government for trying to take away property rights.

Without going into all the legal complexities, the county is discussing the problematic, resort-community issue of short term rentals and we have decided to review the current policies for the Telluride Region and possibly the entire R-1 School District. To that end we’ll be adding this matter as an agenda item to a future regular public meeting (usually scheduled on Wednesdays) in the Miramonte Building west of the courthouse. Public input is a right government reserves to the people, who are the ones who really hold power in a representative democracy.

Prohibitions are a possibility. The commissioners have discussed the results of a preliminary staff survey of homeowner associations, which appear to be unanimously opposed to allowing short-term rentals.

Personally, in this down economy, I’m worried and want to give homeowners as many options as possible to pay off their mortgages. So I sympathize, some, with Sir Jesse’s rant. But we have to weigh both the individual homeowner benefits with overall community impacts. And then see what balance is best to strike for the county’s east end.

Neither the county planning department nor your county commissioners have made up our minds on what policy to pursue. If you want to weigh in on short-term rentals and find out when the hearing will be scheduled, please contact 970.728.3844.

Home from San Francisco,

Art Goodtimes in Norwood

Copyright © 2012 - Telluride Daily Planet

Up Bear Creek / 15mar25012

Taking a hard look 

at nuclear energy

Moab, Utah  (photo by Goodtimes)

PIÑON RIDGE … Sheep Mountain Alliance’s Jennifer Thurston is right. The $11.6 million bond the state has set for the new Canadian-based Energy Fuels mill cleanup in Paradox Valley is way too low. What are state regulators thinking? Have they already forgotten the state’s financial disaster with insufficient bonding at Summitville? … The old uranium mill-site downstream of Naturita cost $86 million to clean up (taxpayers footing most of that). The Slick Rock mill-site cleanup, in our own county, cost $50 million. And Grand Junction’s mill-site cost $500 million … 

Paradox Valley (photo by Sue Williamson)

 There’s a hidden subsidy for you, all to the benefit of the One Percent’s uranium industry (whose production in Paradox will be sent overseas as export, not for our domestic energy needs). Imagine if we put just the cost of just those three cleanups into solar or wind? We’d have alternative energy for the whole Western Slope … And we’re just talking mill-sites. The hundreds of mines and adits still leaking radioactive elements into our watersheds would take many, many billions more to clean up … Which is why I’m so fried with the Democrats. They’re advocating subsidies for the uranium industry, just like the Republicans. And we haven’t cleaned up the messes from the last uranium boom … Want a campaign issue? Ask Obama and Udall and Bennett when they’re going to get off the “safe nukes” bandwagon, and stop making bundles of money for the likes of the Blues Brothers and their General Atomic investors.

New "Safe" Confinement structure under construction at Chernobyl

CHERNOBYL … And the true costs of the nuclear industry are never taken into account for “black swan” events, like Chernobyl, Fukushima or Three Mile Island … Lebanese-American risk management expert Nassim Nicholas Taleb identified a “black swan event” as one that is very rare, comes as a surprise to the observer, has massive impacts and is only rationalized as possible after the fact … 

Cover of Taleb's book

Right now in the Belaurus, French construction company Novarka is building the world’s largest movable structure – a steel rainbow taller than the Statue of Liberty – to slide over Chernobyl Power Plant’s Reactor #4. The temporary sarcophagus placed over the ruins of the reactor after it exploded in April of 1986 is falling apart. The new structure, designed in part by the Battelle Memorial Institute at the cost of $2.1 billion, is only expected to last 100 years. It’s needed to clean up the highly radioactive dust that is still contained within the deteriorating sarcophagus … Some 29 countries are paying for this new steel rainbow. While Belaurus estimates the black swan event at Chernobyl has cost that country $235 billion. But in the U.S., should such a black swan event happen at any of the 104 existing nuclear reactors located at 65 nuclear power plants (not including the two new Japanese reactors being built near Atlanta, Georgia, recently awarded an $8.3 billion loan guarantee by the Obama administration), the lion’s share of the liability for the event would be covered by U.S. taxpayers. Companies actually responsible for the disaster would only be liable for the first $12.6 billion, thanks to the Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Liability Act (renewed for 20 years in 2005). After that, it’s up to Congress to come up with the money. And you know that this august body, dominated by industry lobbyists, will force U.S. taxpayers to pay the nuclear piper – one of the many “hidden subsidies” for nuclear power that’s rarely discussed in comparing the costs of nuclear energy versus other energy sources … In speaking of black swan events, we’re not even talking about “routine” accidents that you rarely hear about in the U.S. media, like radioactive tritium leaking into groundwater as happened at the Vermont Yankee plant two years ago last month at a cost of $700 million in property damage. According to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 43 of the 65 nuclear plants have already leaked radioactive tritium into groundwater, inflicting billions of dollars in property damage … It’s hard to fight against jobs for folks in the West End of Montrose County who only see value in a renewed uranium industry. But when looked at critically on a world stage, nuclear power is very dangerous game that’s likely to cost our children’s children trillions of dollars in property damage and untold suffering and illness. Is the nuclear industry’s so-called “clean energy” really worth it?

SHORT TERM RENTALS… Some folks outside the Telluride Region were concerned that the discussion of imposing some new county rule limiting short-term rentals would apply to them. If we’re talking about the Wright’s Mesa and West End Zone Districts, the answer is no. I made sure of that before we even started the discussion a couple weeks ago at the county … However, if you live Downvalley or on the Mesas, the answer is maybe. A number of homeowner associations have said they do NOT want short term rentals happening in their subdivisions. I think we have to respect that … At the same time, as I argued in the county’s initial discussions on this issue, these are hard times. Within this capitalist system, every private property owner ought to have as many tools as possible made available to prevent further foreclosures – and I see short-term rentals as one of those possible tools … Short-term rentals will definitely be available in Norwood and our West End, but they may not be in Placerville and elsewhere in the R-1 School District. So, whichever way you come down on this issue, it’s important that your voice is heard at the county in the next couple months.

THE TALKING GOURD

Photo by B. Thomas

Moss Spring

Imagine

billowing clouds of cumulus

backlit in the moonlight

Jupiter chasing Venus

across a star-struck

sky

Cloud Acre’s eye meal

of amaryllis

takes the breath away

So we talk more

this world and I

Blackbirds newly back

to Wright’s Mesa

The storm wind’s hurl & spin

flapping plastic

Six of us

hungry for bon mots

& lyric chatter

Inhaling margaritas

& sunshine

around a winter table

Up Bear Creek / 8mar25012

 Evan Greene at Barthell shrine with V. St. John  (Martin)

Hollywood comes to Telluride

to do a film, not just watch ‘em

THE LABOR TROUBLES … Smoke from a tramway bunkhouse still billows into the Bullion Tunnel. Shouts, hot embers and buckets of water spill across the sloped snowy ground, as miners struggle to douse the spreading flames. Nov. 20^th, 1901, and Western Federation of Miners Local 63 President Vincent St. John has just made it up Tomboy Road from town. He dashes into the Smuggler-Union mine portal, heedless of his own safety, and starts helping pull men out … Just the summer before St. John had raced up Tomboy Road to almost single-handedly broker a cease-fire after a deadly skirmish at the mine. Union member John Barthell, unarmed and just 24 years old, had been shot down by the Smuggler-Union’s armed guards in Marshall Basin when armed union members came up the hill looking for scab workers …

Tensions were still high, although the WFM Local 63’s first strike had been settled favorably for the union. The tragic fire that fall -- a direct result of the Smuggler-Union’s new Boston-based owners’ failure to install iron doors like “the majority of mine entrances and tunnels” had – left deep wounds among workers and a number of widowed families … 

Stories like these are what first intrigued Recording Academy executive (the Grammys) and screenwriter Evan Greene. “I fell in love with Telluride as a student at CU Boulder 20 years ago,” said Greene. “And I’ve dreamed of respectfully bringing Telluride’s amazing story alive ever since” … 

St. John jailed unjustly

One Bluegrass he let his friend drive home alone and he took the dog and a tent and lived up on Firecracker Hill, back when camping was an allowed forest use in these parts. Five years ago he brought his family to the 4^th of July Parade and “bought every book I could find” about Telluride’s history. Three years ago he let historian MaryJoy Martin of Montrose take him on a tour of the region and its historical sites. “The more I learned the deeper I got into the project,” he explained … 

Greene bought the screen rights to Martin’s The CorpseOn Boomerang Road (Western Reflections, Montrose, 2004) and her manuscript Undesirable Citizen: A Biography of Vincent St. John. Then he wrote a script for a full-length feature film. “It’s a great story about humanity,” Greene said. “It’s almost a perfect good versus evil story. A wealthy industrialist hires his son-in-law who’s failed at everything to take over a mine. An iron fist is the only kind of management Bulkeley Wells knows” … 

Finally, after years of research and preparation, Greene has partnered with Elbow Grease Pictures, a Hollywood film and television production company, to tell Telluride’s labor tale -- about the struggle between the workers and the capitalists, between the Western Federation of Miners and the Mine Owners Association, between Vincent St. John and Bulkeley Wells. They’ve laid out a $11.6 million dollar production package, and are planning on doing a companion documentary, suitable for television, to stir interest. The partners are raising production funding, and are open to involvement from the Colorado investment community …

 “The story of the fight between U.S. workers and their employers that Evan Greene has discovered yearns to be told,” said Elbow Grease producer Marcus Avery. “He has crafted a magnificent depiction of the triumph of the human spirit in the face of almost insurmountable adversity that will captivate audiences everywhere” … Greene himself is just as upbeat about the film they are calling Undesirable Citizens. “Given the issues that are prominent in our cultural dialogue right now (union relevance, mining accidents, the battles between workers and management, the greed of big business), “ he said, “this subject – especially since it drove labor relations forward and gave birth to many of the worker protection laws we now take for granted – could not be more topical and timely” … 

Telluride's own "Stuntman", Tim Territo

If all goes according to plan, Telluride will gain more than just publicity from the movie. According to Greene, “The partners feel strongly that the film should be shot in Telluride and Colorado.” They’ve contacted Colorado Film Commissioner Donald Zuckerman, and they’ve engaged as director Michael Schroeder, who has shot a feature film and several commercials in Telluride already. To Tim Territo of the Telluride Film Commission, this was good news. “People from the whole area will benefit from this project,” he noted. Actors, carpenters, extras – there should be plenty of jobs to go around once production gets underway.

Lone Cone (photo by Megan Kozey)

DONALD MCKEEVER … Another Norwood legend slips away. “Popcorn” was such a gentleman. Tolerated us newcomers. Even enjoyed visiting with us, on occasion. Always good for a story or a joke ... His bones had been hurting a bunch as he moved into his eighties. Made him a little grumpy, although he’d still make you laugh in front of the post office … Didn’t like government much. But he let us pols put our lawn signs up on his lovely main street property. One of Norwood’s best community folks, to my mind. He leaves us all sad and missing his laugh … Requiescat in pace

THE TALKING GOURD

Green Politics 101

Toss your hat

not far left of the ring

but into the radical

middle