NEWS: BLM adopts regionwide sage-grouse plan, A10
VOL. 143 NO. 48 | THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2024 | $1.00
LMD will fund more workforce housing in 2025 Should lodging revenues pay for child care? Abby Harrison Times Staff Writer
With a newfound freedom to alter what they spend lodging tax dollars on, some Gunnison County Commissioners wish to see the money spent on more Lodging tax A6
INSIDE
TODAY NEWS: Avalanche danger high over holiday weekend, A8 COMMUNITY: Head over heels, B1
POWDER PAWS: A pair of huskies raced around town with their human companions in tow during a snowstorm in Gunnison on Nov. 26. (Photo by Mariel Wiley)
RTA and city eye MetRec will again bus stop designs count TV users district-wide Construction won’t begin until 2026
Bella Biondini Times Editor
SPORTS: Mountaineer football advances in playoffs, B6 OBITUARIES A2 OPINION A4 CLASSIFIEDS A15-A17 SPORTS B6 ONLINE GUNNISONTIMES.COM
P l a n n i n g f o r t h e Ru ra l Transportation Authority’s (RTA) new upgraded bus stop near Safeway, meant to act as the Gunnison version of the Crested Butte 4-Way Stop, is well underway. The RTA’s free commuter bus service has been growing rapidly, and is expected to carry as many as 400,000 passengers in 2025. In comparison, the bus system carried roughly half that amount in 2019. The RTA will run 41 round trips per day this winter, which is about 2,800 miles, or the distance from
Gunnison to Juneau, Alaska. As the number of stops and frequency of trips have grown, the transportation agency has installed new bus shelters and added to its fleet. For years, the RTA searched for a place where Gunnison passengers could wait inside out of the cold and snow, and have access to restrooms and lost and found, RTA Executive Director S cott Tr uex told Gunnison city councilors during a joint session on Nov. 19. This is all available at the 4-Way Stop at the entryway to Elk Avenue, in addition to an adjacent parking lot and bike racks. The popular northbound stop funnels passengers downtown and to Crested Butte Mountain Resort year-round. Over the summer, the RTA Bus stop A3
Marshall, Nehrenberg exploring ways to keep TV Abby Harrison Times Staff Writer
Solutions are limited, and expensive, for the Gunnison County Metropolitan Recreation District (MetRec) as it considers repairing an aging, over-the-air TV grid. MetRec is a special district that collects property taxes for recreation and free, over-theair TV service. As the district’s budget for recreation grows and multi-million dollar projects
wait in the wings, its decadesold TV system has deteriorated. Facing mounting repair costs, soaring land lease prices for remote towers and service changes from corporate provider Comcast, the board voted unanimously to enter phase one of its TV operations policy — which could result in districtwide decommissioning of the system — at a meeting on Nov. 20. The first of the two-phase process initiates community outreach to count the TV system’s users. The district is also cataloging system repair costs to compare those prices to just how many people benefit from a particular tower, an exercise most telling for its more remote, MetRec A6