Powers discussed the possibility of the city and county working together to curb opioid overdoses.<\/em>He referenced a Jan. 28 story published by The Journal with the headline, \u201cState looks to expand opioid treatment centers, but not in Southwest Colorado.\u201d<\/p>\nHe said the two local entities could work together to address mental health and substance use disorders.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the state\u2019s not going to do anything about it, except for try to confiscate personal property from law-abiding citizens, maybe the city and the county need to team up and do something without the state,\u201d Powers said.<\/p>\n
Ertel asked city leaders for an update on the Cortez fiber-optic public-private partnership. Dougherty said Cortez is in negotiations with telecom company Allo.<\/em>Ertel asked whether Allo would monopolize broadband in Cortez, leaving Zumacom and Farmers Telecommunications left out.<\/p>\nDougherty said Allo has told him the network will be open access, meaning it would allow other companies to use the fiber infrastructure. He said Allo is not concerned about competition, stating the company will be competitors on price.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then once they beat them down, they follow the golden rule, right?\u201d Ertel said. \u201cThe man who has the gold makes the rules.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he\u2019s seen in other industries that companies destroy competition and then raise prices. Sheek said the existing competition has poor service and high prices.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe things that you say you fear by having another company coming in and \u2026 maybe taking over the lion\u2019s share of the market, we\u2019ve got that here right now,\u201d Sheek said.<\/p>\n
She said the city has worked on the fiber project for years and the dream was originally to make a broadband partnership countywide. She said fiber is vital for economic development. But, Ertel said, the city\u2019s fiber program has been a very costly and unsuccessful venture.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour business model is a failure,\u201d Ertel said.<\/p>\n
Sheek said the city has made an investment and has found a company that thinks differently than other telecom providers. Just because someone chooses to live in rural Colorado, doesn\u2019t mean they deserve fewer services, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re just now beginning to reach a point where we are beginning to have a voice, and more power to us, I say,\u201d Sheek said.<\/p>\n
Infrastructure needs<\/div>\n
Candelaria discussed interest in connection Sligo Street in Cortez east to County Road 27, south of Montezuma-Cortez High School. Ertel said that\u2019s a busy intersection and most of the easements and right of ways are established.<\/em>\u201cI would like for Council to maybe revisit that, see if that\u2019s something that you would go into a partnership with us on building that extension and alleviating some of that heavy traffic,\u201d Ertel said.<\/p>\nCandelaria said it would be safer and easier for school buses.<\/p>\n
The two commissioners expressed interest in purchasing or renting a tire chipper at the landfill. Ertel said the county can\u2019t afford to buy a chipper, but even a temporary rental in conjunction with a countywide cleanup effort would be great.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re all tired of seeing tires in arroyas, just kind of everywhere,\u201d Candelaria said. \u201cIt affects us all, and it cleans our whole county, our whole community up.\u201d<\/p>\n
With spring on the way, Candelaria discussed improvements to the parking lot at the Sand Canyon Trail at Canyons of the Ancients National Monument.<\/em>Candelaria said the Bureau of Land Management is moving slowly, but the county will move forward on improving the parking area.<\/p>\nJames Dietrich, federal lands planner for Montezuma County, said the county has enough right of way to bring in machinery one day to level off the area. He said engineering could be done on the fly. Once it\u2019s graded off, the county could level it off with gravel.<\/p>\n
Candelaria said it\u2019s the first place people want to hike in the spring because it dries out early.<\/p>\n
Sheek brought up the issue of water conservation. Cortez adopted a water conservation plan in November that seeks to reduce per capita water consumption from 200 gallons per day to 180 gallons per day. The plan calls for metering all water users and rebates for water-efficient appliances.<\/em>Regardless of anyone\u2019s feelings about climate change, she said Montezuma County has been in a drought for a long time.<\/p>\n\u201cIf push comes to shove and we have very little water, we\u2019re going to have to figure out ways to decide how we\u2019re going to use that,\u201d Sheek said.<\/p>\n
Ertel said the Colorado River has been in decline since the 1990s and has been downhill ever since. \u201cWater will be the liquid gold of the West,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Candelaria said he will do everything he can to promote xeriscaping to save water for farms.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur agricultural community is going to face a lot of trouble,\u201d Candelaria said.<\/p>\n
sdolan@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Commissioners concerned about statehouse, water, infrastructure<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":63536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,13,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-63535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63535","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=63535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63535"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=63535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}