Nearly a dozen Mancos residents spoke up April 8 at the Mancos Town meeting about everything from water, farm animals in town, marijuana and ongoing dust and debris.<\/p>\n
Vicky Maestes, a neighbor to Western Excelsior, told the board that she is concerned about the ongoing problem of debris and particulates coming from the manufacturing company.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s important we start to clean up Mancos,\u201d Maestes said.<\/p>\n
Tom Nunn passed out black sheets of fabric he had put outside his home.<\/p>\n
They were all covered in dust and debris.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome days are worse than others, but the overall problem is serious,\u201d Nunn said.<\/p>\n
Trustees told the residents that they are aware of the problems at Western Excelsior and encouraged those who spoke out about the company to take their case to the Montezuma County commissioners because most of Western Excelsior is outside Mancos city limits.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf anything is going to happen, it will have to be an effort between us and the county,\u201d trustee Michelle Black said.<\/p>\n
Water concerns<\/p>\n
Mancos resident Bob Becker told the board they need to get busy and start talking about water problems.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis year is not going to be good firewise again,\u201d Becker said. \u201cI think it\u2019s time the town board got off their butts and did something about conserving water.\u201d<\/p>\n
Water conservation is the key, Becker said, especially since Jackson Reservoir is about 46 percent full, with little snowpack left to melt.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we don\u2019t get summer rains, we are going to be hurting,\u201d Becker said.<\/p>\n
Trustee Will Stone reminded Becker that the town recently contracted with a company that will come in and find leaks in the water system. Currently, the town estimates a loss of about 30 percent of its treated water.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a big number and will help a lot,\u201d Stone said.<\/p>\n
Becker told the town they need to come up with a plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis town is looking to grow,\u201d he said. \u201cYou need to look at water rights and look at how much more growth you can sustain.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marijuana talk<\/p>\n
Once again, board members said they needed more time to look at the 38-page marijuana code and its changes.<\/p>\n
Trustee Matthew Baskin agreed that the town needed to increase fees.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think our fees are awfully low,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Phillips told trustees they needed to start thinking about what they wanted Mancos to look like.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is potential for more shops coming in,\u201d she said. \u201cDo we want to set a limit on how many marijuana shops Mancos has?\u201d<\/p>\n
The town board decided to look at the marijuana code during an in-depth workshop on May 6.<\/p>\n
Board members also approved the ownership license transfer from The Shop to Green Kiwi LLC. The previous owner of The Shop, Nate Fete, had nothing but good things to say about Green Kiwi, a large marijuana business based out of Denver.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is probably one of the No. 1 companies as far as compliance and how they treat employees,\u201d Fete said.<\/p>\n
The company offers employees free health benefits and because it is such a large company, allows for promotion.<\/p>\n
\u201cGreen Kiwi 5 is a very reputable company,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Backyard farming<\/p>\n
And once again, the town of Mancos will discuss backyard farming. In 2013, a survey was sent out, and in the end, the town board voted to keep everything the way it is, and that means, not to regulate farm animals at all within city limits.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur code currently does not have any restrictions on the number or types of animals,\u201d Phillips said.<\/p>\n
Phillips asked trustees if they wanted to move forward and set some restrictions, possibly regulating noise, odor and setbacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really hope you are going to do something this time. Quit kicking the can down the road,\u201d said James Justice. \u201cCan you have six chickens or 60? If you do allow livestock in town, let\u2019s regulate it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Randy Smith said he was in favor of setbacks for neighbors with chickens.<\/p>\n
Also \u2026<\/p>\n
Town Administrator Andrea Phillips said the town staff was able to purchase a water truck on an online auction for $6,000. The water truck is old, but runs better and is a little newer than the nearly 40-year-old the truck has now.<\/p>\n
Board members also voted 5-0 to pass the changes made to the historic preservation code. Trustee Todd Kearns was absent. The changes, for the most part, created a separate historic preservation board. In the end, the board decided to make structures that qualify meet a minimum of 50 years old, not 30 as proposed last month.<\/p>\n
Board members also read a proclamation recognizing April 17 as Arbor Day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Residents speak out on backyard farms, Excelsior<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6371],"tags":[13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-113228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mt-news","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113228\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113228"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=113228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}