RIDGWAY – Town planning officials and members of the public viewed a proposed streetscape plan for the Downtown Historic Business District on May 27 that, if approved, would serve to position the Town of Ridgway for economic revitalization. The design features a one-way, concrete-cobbled Clinton Street in a pedestrian-friendly, plaza format. The overall plan is replete with ornate iron benches, rustic mining period street lamps, perennial flower palettes, and tree-lined, paved streets.
Representatives from Durango-based Russell Engineering, Inc., a civil engineering and land planning firm commissioned by the town to design a new storm water system and streetscape, gave a PowerPoint presentation and answered questions from members of the Town Planning Commission during its regular meeting at the Community Center. The airing included a street-by-street cost breakdown, recommended construction phasing schedule, as well as the streescape layout. The scope of the project, however, was reduced due to “anticipated funding limitations,” limiting the streetscape plan to just the north side of Colorado Highway 62 between Laura and Railroad streets, according to Assistant Planner Jennifer Coates.
The cost of the project would be $2.7 million and could take 20-30 years to finance, according to Town Manager Greg Clifton, who noted that any recommendation by the Ridgway Town Council would have to be approved by voters at the polls.
The principal streets included in the renovation would be Railroad, Clinton, Laura, Cora, and Lena. The plan depicts the street layout while accommodating underground utilities; the named streets would be asphalted except Clinton, which would be paved in concrete. Clinton would once again serve as the hub of the Historic District, and could be closed to motor vehicle traffic for special events.
The intersections of the streets would also be paved in an earth-toned concrete color to “keep pedestrian flow,” according to William “Frowny” Frownfelter, who, along with Walker Christensen, Katie Nelson and Drew Chandler of Russell Engineering and THM Design, produced the plan.
The plan includes a lighted intersection at Railroad Street and Hwy. 62, with the last several yards of Railroad being moved westward onto what is now the southern portion of the tennis courts, as mandated by the Colorado Department of Transportation; buried power lines; the removal of the microwave repeater dish now in place at the Qwest Communications station on Clinton; the addition of trees on the named streets; and the utilization of more color and flower “palettes” to make Lena Street a “gateway to the town.”
“The additional trees would keep the character of the architecture,” said Chandler.
Parking would be increased from the current 180 places to 200, according to the design team.
The impact of additional street lighting was a topic of concern for some members in the audience. “I would like to see it a little darker,” commented Ridgway resident Brian Peters.
“If this goes forward, we're still two years off from actual construction,” said Clifton.
Hunter to Replace Rogers on Town Council
The ripple effect of the non-renewal of several Ridgway Secondary School teachers by the board of education on April 17 continues to be felt – most recently with some changes in the composition of Ridgway's planning commission and town council.
Planning commission chair Ellen Hunter informed the Town of Ridgway that she will be accepting an appointment to the Ridgway Town Council, filling the vacancy created by the May 15 resignation of Jonathan Rogers, who taught for four years at Ridgway Secondary School.
Town regulations provide that the runner up candidate be given an opportunity to be appointed by the town. Hunter lost to Rogers by seven votes in the April 1 election.
Rogers will be teaching language arts and journalism at Iowa City High. In his May 15 resignation letter, Rogers thanked citizens for the opportunity to serve: “It has been a pleasure to be part of this community and I look forward to hearing about new roads, festivals, green spaces, affordable housing, future issues of the Demon Press, and a renovated downtown that is sure to make Ridgway even better.”
At their May 27 meeting, planning commission members appointed member Jack Petruccelli chairperson and expressed their intent for the town to aggressively find a replacement for Hunter.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Ridgway Schools Focused on the Future
RIDGWAY – Preparing students for the complexities of the 21st century’s increasingly competitive marketplace was the theme at the Ridgway School Board’s Tuesday, May 27 meeting. As Board President Kara Mueller explained it, the board’s main goal is to discern “what is the mission of our school district as we prepare our students for the 21st century” – a world, she observed, that’s obviously “different from 20, 30 or 50 years ago.”
In an effort to come up with a mission statement that will inspire students, faculty and the community at large to focus on the future, the board spent more than half-an-hour telephone conferencing with Colorado Association of School Boards advisor Vera Dawson about how to involve the public in the process.
“You don’t want to confuse them,” Dawson cautioned the board, regarding public involvement in coming up with a compelling statement, “or cause them to burn out.” Describing the current mission statement as more “slogan” than mission statement, Dawson emphasized the need to come up with a public process that “won’t bore people to death.”
“It’s always a challenge to get people there,” Mueller told Dawson, “and then, once they are there, to get them to feel they are part of the necessary process,” feeling “useful and heard in the process” and “making it worthwhile for them.”
“We are a small mountain community,” emphasized former Board President Howard Butcher, a lifelong Ridgway area resident, who is moving his family to California later this summer, “and it’s kind of isolated.
“Sometimes I feel a certain amount of complacency” on the part of students and parents, Butcher continued, as well as a lack of awareness that students will eventually compete in the workplace with, say, “Korean students who are studying 15 hours a day” right now to increase their eligibility in the job market.
Butcher, who had begun the meeting by declaring that his recent tour of schools in California – of a range of public, charter and private schools – left him impressed by “the talent and capable teaching here and how there is so much going right, going well here, at our schools,” he went on to emphasize that the district’s mission statement – which it is hoped will be completed by the start of the next school year, will “reflect the reality that we’re very serious about this world” today’s students must prepare themselves for.
The board hopes to have a perfect-pitch mission statement in place for the 2008-09 school year.
Budget ‘Looks in Line’
Comparing the end-of-the-school-year wait to balance the books to “a tidal wave,” with “three-quarters of the revenue coming crashing in” now that the school year has ended, Superintendent Douglas Bissonette voiced confidence that, with $500,000 outstanding, “everything still looks in line; now, it’s a matter of waiting” for revenues mostly from property taxes.
Bingo!
“We want to do more than just a turkey dinner and a carnival” on the fund-raising front, Mueller told the board, and to that end, the board is considering bingo gatherings – as a fundraiser as well as “a vehicle for creating community.”
Greenhouse Studies
District resident Heidi Comstock, who has a greenhouse in her home at Log Hill, and has developed greenhouse-curriculum in the past, has offered to work with the district on a greenhouse program for the schools.
A Cool Mission
The Ridgway High School graduating class earned $1,360,700 in committed scholarship money this academic year; the total committed moneys from colleges accepted by students, to date, is $598,120; and 19 students with college offers have accepted.
Staff Comings and Goings
The board voted unanimously to approve recommendations to hire Emma Brockman as secondary principal; Maggie Guscott (high school math teacher); Anne Hilleman (secondary special ed; Mary Ownes (11/12 English teacher); Mary Haskins (6-8 English teacher); Tim Lyons (technology teacher); Nancy Randall (middle school Spanish teacher); Ryan Wilson (high school social studies teacher) and Jessica Kimball (secondary school PE teacher); Robyn Cascade (third grade teacher); Kelly Charrier (elementary Spanish teacher) and Rebecca Hazen (pre-school teacher.” The board accepted resignations from Kelly Hagemeyer (paraprofessional); Beth Costa (librarian); Charlie Jones (athletic director); and Gina Rogers (English teacher).
In an effort to come up with a mission statement that will inspire students, faculty and the community at large to focus on the future, the board spent more than half-an-hour telephone conferencing with Colorado Association of School Boards advisor Vera Dawson about how to involve the public in the process.
“You don’t want to confuse them,” Dawson cautioned the board, regarding public involvement in coming up with a compelling statement, “or cause them to burn out.” Describing the current mission statement as more “slogan” than mission statement, Dawson emphasized the need to come up with a public process that “won’t bore people to death.”
“It’s always a challenge to get people there,” Mueller told Dawson, “and then, once they are there, to get them to feel they are part of the necessary process,” feeling “useful and heard in the process” and “making it worthwhile for them.”
“We are a small mountain community,” emphasized former Board President Howard Butcher, a lifelong Ridgway area resident, who is moving his family to California later this summer, “and it’s kind of isolated.
“Sometimes I feel a certain amount of complacency” on the part of students and parents, Butcher continued, as well as a lack of awareness that students will eventually compete in the workplace with, say, “Korean students who are studying 15 hours a day” right now to increase their eligibility in the job market.
Butcher, who had begun the meeting by declaring that his recent tour of schools in California – of a range of public, charter and private schools – left him impressed by “the talent and capable teaching here and how there is so much going right, going well here, at our schools,” he went on to emphasize that the district’s mission statement – which it is hoped will be completed by the start of the next school year, will “reflect the reality that we’re very serious about this world” today’s students must prepare themselves for.
The board hopes to have a perfect-pitch mission statement in place for the 2008-09 school year.
Budget ‘Looks in Line’
Comparing the end-of-the-school-year wait to balance the books to “a tidal wave,” with “three-quarters of the revenue coming crashing in” now that the school year has ended, Superintendent Douglas Bissonette voiced confidence that, with $500,000 outstanding, “everything still looks in line; now, it’s a matter of waiting” for revenues mostly from property taxes.
Bingo!
“We want to do more than just a turkey dinner and a carnival” on the fund-raising front, Mueller told the board, and to that end, the board is considering bingo gatherings – as a fundraiser as well as “a vehicle for creating community.”
Greenhouse Studies
District resident Heidi Comstock, who has a greenhouse in her home at Log Hill, and has developed greenhouse-curriculum in the past, has offered to work with the district on a greenhouse program for the schools.
A Cool Mission
The Ridgway High School graduating class earned $1,360,700 in committed scholarship money this academic year; the total committed moneys from colleges accepted by students, to date, is $598,120; and 19 students with college offers have accepted.
Staff Comings and Goings
The board voted unanimously to approve recommendations to hire Emma Brockman as secondary principal; Maggie Guscott (high school math teacher); Anne Hilleman (secondary special ed; Mary Ownes (11/12 English teacher); Mary Haskins (6-8 English teacher); Tim Lyons (technology teacher); Nancy Randall (middle school Spanish teacher); Ryan Wilson (high school social studies teacher) and Jessica Kimball (secondary school PE teacher); Robyn Cascade (third grade teacher); Kelly Charrier (elementary Spanish teacher) and Rebecca Hazen (pre-school teacher.” The board accepted resignations from Kelly Hagemeyer (paraprofessional); Beth Costa (librarian); Charlie Jones (athletic director); and Gina Rogers (English teacher).
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