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VOL. 143 NO. 41 | THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2024 | $1.00
County approves Whetstone plan Gates offers to take on project at a discount Abby Harrison Times Staff Writer
SADDLE UP: The Gunnison Elementary School Mustangs showed up to the Gunnison High School homecoming parade in Cowboy gear on Oct. 4. For more, see A9. (Photo by Mariel Wiley)
Whetstone A6
DAs office seeks Gunnison’s first sober living home record budget
INSIDE
TODAY NEWS: Bear attack in Lake City, A11
Office needs evidence technicians
COMMUNITY: Tales from the end of the road, B1
Abby Harrison Times Staff Writer
District attorney offices around the Western Slope are contending with considerable caseloads and high turnover. To offset the workload, the 7th Judicial District Attorney’s Office is seeking two full-time evidence technicians to help the office deal with a glut of digital evidence, and keep diverting work from overburdened attorneys. Each year, the 7th Judicial District Attorney’s Office (which includes Delta, Gunnison, Hinsdale, Montrose, Ouray and San Miguel counties) makes a
SPORTS: Zummach takes fifth at state golf, B6
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36% $359
budget request of each of the six constituent counties. The office’s total request, made at the start of September, is 13% higher than last year and its largest in history at just over $3.8 million. In an annual budget request, District Attorney S e t h Ry a n ( w h o re c e n t l y announced his resignation) cited a continuing preponderance of digital evidence from bodycams, salary increases, rising health insurance premiums and diminishing funding for victim services as factors for the high request. The office is funded primarily by the counties it serves, and each monetary share is decided by population count, not overall case number. Gunnison County has the third-highest population in the district — at just over 17,000 — falling behind DA budget A6
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a success so far Community foundation offers crowdsourcing Abby Harrison Times Staff Writer
At the start of the year, the basement of a dark blue Gunnison-area home in the northwest corner of town was practically barren, threaded with exposed wire and a fatigued carpet. Just six months later, the space has been transformed, offering new rooms for Gunnison’s sober living home residents. The city’s first sober living home, which offers a support-
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ive environment for those seeking sobriety from drugs and alcohol, opened at the start of 2024. Since then, the home has added capacity with new bedrooms, and owners continue to renovate the space. The home’s financial model, using rents to pay the mortgage, is proving successful. Now, nonprofit owner Gunnison Sanctuary Housing is considering another sober living home for women in coming years. The home is the result of years of work by local advocates and couple Mary Beth and Scott Kelley, who lost their son to an overdose in 2019. The couple owns the home under the nonprofit, but day-to-day operation is taken up by Oxford House, a sober living organization that
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In the vision of Gunnison County planners, Whetstone is a pressure relief valve for local workers: offering affordable, secure housing as early as 2027 for those facing limited rental stock and astronomical home prices. Amidst ongoing critique about the project’s affordability, the project’s design was finalized as Gunnison County Planning Commission and the Board of County C o m m i s s i o n e r s a p p rov e d Whetstone’s final plan on Oct. 8. After the joint public hearing,
the commission recommended approval of the $130 million design, followed by county commissioners in a subsequent meeting — minus Laura Puckett Daniels, who recused herself. Whetstone aims to offer just over 250 residential units with 476 bedrooms, primarily for the local workforce. Income restrictions range from 120% area median income or less to 170% or less, with some free market units. It offers a mixture of studio apartments, and oneto three-bedroom units. Many buildings will offer single-car garages and storage lockers. This summer, county planners and their development partners cleared a number of hurdles for the $130 million housing project. Earlier this summer, the county received
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