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CAR ACCIDENT

An 89 year old woman survived a scare when her car was broadsided by an SUV in Craig this morning.  The accident happened in front of the Centennial Mall, where the woman was trying to cross from the K-mart driveway to the mall parking lot.  The SUV was driven by a man traveling from Loveland to Vernal.  The impact was on the passenger side of the woman’s car.  EMTs on scene say there were no serious injuries.

 

FIRE AT TRI-STATE CRAIG STATION

A fire forced the shut down of one of Tri-State Generation and Transmission’s units in Craig yesterday.  The fire was in an air duct, but it’s not clear how it got started.  By the time firefighters were ready to take it on, it had snuffed itself out.  Until the unit is repaired it will stay shut down, but that won’t affect operations much.  Nobody was hurt in the incident.

 

HICKENLOOPER IN HAYDEN FRIDAY

Governor John Hickenlooper will be in Northwest Colorado tomorrow.  The governor will visit Hayden tomorrow afternoon to talk about the “Colorado Blueprint: A bottom-up approach to economic development”.  The blueprint aims to improve the state’s economy by approaching it from the local level first.  Communities have submitted to the governor’s office the best economic scenarios for their areas.  The office will then take all plans and merge them into one that will work for the state.  At 3 tomorrow afternoon, Hickenlooper will be at Yampa Valley Feeds to talk with residents about the plan.

 

OAK CREEK POLICE

The embattled Oak Creek Police Department may get some financial help from its citizens.  The town board is considering a sales tax hike to increase funding for the department.  The rate of the tax would raise from 3% to 4% under the proposal.  The town has had a hard time keeping officers, but money hasn’t always been the problem.  The town’s former chief had said when he quit that he wasn’t able to perform his duties without interference from other town officials.  The tax question is expected to be on this year’s ballot.

 

RIVER OPEN FOR TUBING IN STEAMBOAT

The Yampa River is open for tubing in Steamboat.  Water flows finally receded to under 800 cubic feet per second yesterday.  It was expected the tubing ban would be lifted earlier this week, but it wasn’t until yesterday that law enforcement was happy with the flow rate.  However, they caution that people should still be alert when playing in the river.  Always wear a life jacket, and understand that the water is still very cold.

 

TRUCKER FOUND DEAD

A Nevada truck driver was found dead in his truck on I-80 about 15 miles east of Rock Springs.  66-year old Harry Orcutt became the subject of a search when he was logged overdue.  Sweetwater County Deputies found his truck on the side of the interstate.  When they opened up the truck, they found Orcutt slumped over the wheel.  Authorities say he had a heart condition, and no foul play is suspected.

 

WHITE NOSE KEEPS CAVES CLOSED

The US Forest Service is not ready to let people walk through caves on forest land just yet.  The Forest Service closed all caves and abandoned mines last year due to the threat of spreading White Nose Syndrome in bats.  Now, a 12-month extension has just been signed to keep people out.  While the forest service says significant progress has been made in better understanding the disease, they still don’t know enough to open the caves back up.  White Nose Syndrome has killed more than a million hybernating bats across North America.  It creates a white fungus on the nose, ears, wings and feet of the bats and typically kills them before they wake up from hybernation.

 

SCHOOL DISCIPLINE

The Colorado School Discipline Task Force had its first meeting yesterday.  The task force is charged with coming up with common sense solutions to school discipline problems.  The state says last year there were over 63,000 out-of-school suspensions, and over 2,200 expulsions across Colorado.  They say zero-tolerance policies focus too much on long term solutions for violations.  Most of the infractions are minor offenses that should require simply a visit to the principal’s office or a call home.  The task force will meet again next month.

 

ROAD WORK

Those planning on traveling south of Craig on Highway 13 next week, will see delays north of Rifle.  The Colorado Department of Transportation will be repaving part of the highway to repair damage from heavy traffic.  Traffic will be slower through the work area, and will be reduced to a single lane at times.  Delays could be up to 15 minutes.  The work will be done Monday and Tuesday from 8 to 4.