NEWS: Donor pays off sober living home, A9
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VOL. 144 NO. 4 | THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2025 | $1.00
City addresses immigration amidst community fear Colorado law grants extra protections Bella Biondini Times Editor
While the City of Gunnison has limited authority when it comes to federal immigration policies, city officials are taking extra steps to reduce the spread of misinformation. Proposed Trump administration policy changes have incited fear within the country’s immigrant communities. According to national reporting this week, President Donald Trump plans to take at least 10 actions related to immigration, including
INSIDE
TODAY NEWS: CPW releases more wolves on Western Slope, A11 COMMUNITY: A rural state of mind, B1
escalating the deportation of migrants who entered the U.S. illegally, and an attempt to end birthright citizenship. Fearing the possibility of family separations, a number of Gunnison residents have asked the city what kind of immigration enforcement they should expect within the valley. According to Raquel LaneArellano of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition (CIRC), the state has some of the strongest immigrant protection laws in the nation, many passed after the first Trump administration. But with federal policy in a state of flux, many Colorado residents fear the prospect of mass deportation. Some concerns have been Immigration A6
School District Native American now certified remains still at Western ‘heart safe’ First in state to designate all its schools Abby Harrison Times Staff Writer
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SUPER SKATERS: Sisters Aria and Enid Kisling lean on each other for balance during a Disney-themed Skate to Lights event at Jorgensen Ice Rink on Jan. 17. For more, see A14. (Photo by Mariel Wiley)
Were an athlete or spectator to collapse at a sporting event within the Gunnison Watershed School District (GWSD), a coach or member of a new medical response team is trained to deliver chest compressions within minutes. Soon after, an AED is onsite and if used quickly, will prolong the victim’s chance of survival. This rapid response is made possible by the district’s recent
Process slow, certification as “heart safe.” The but ongoing title represents years of preparation and planning to train select district staff in each school for severe medical emergencies. Teachers also now have faster access to automated external defibrillators, or AEDS, medical devices that deliver an electric shock to return the heart to a normal rhythm. Each school also has a designated medical emergency response team. These teams are trained in CPR, first aid and also how to coordinate staff and students when emergencies — more serious than the usual lost teeth and scraped elbows — occur. Heart safe A5
Abby Harrison Times Staff Writer
The remains of many Native Amer ican p e ople still sit behind locked doors at Western Colorado University — over a year after the school received federal money to return them to a tribe in the region. Western started the process of returning those remains, known as “repatriation,” in 2023, but was stymied by slow communication with various tribes across the Mountain West. Western is one of several public universities, such as Fort Lewis College and
the University of Colorado Denver, that have disclosed having remains, according to a ProPublica database. This month, David Hyde, Western lecturer and director of the C.T. Hurst Museum, plans to meet with a tribal representative to have the remains returned. “It's frustrating,” Hyde said. “I really want to move the project forward.” Western has a number of skulls, mandibles and other partial remains of at least 25 Native American people in the basement of the C.T. Hurst Museum. It is named the “Peterson Collection,” after the Western graduate who dropped the remains off in 1946 on behalf of his brother, believed Repatriation A6