NEWS: Gunnison County updates wildfire plan, A13
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VOL. 143 NO. 31 | THURSDAY, AUGUST 1, 2024 | $1.00
Hospital seeks half a million from city for new EMS station Council to consider request this fall during budgeting Abby Harrison Times Staff Writer
Last week, Gunnison Valley Health (GVH) requested $500,000 from the City of Gunnison to help pay for its new EMS station. The $12 million facility is designed to improve response times and offer paramedics more space to train EMS station A6
INSIDE
TODAY NEWS: City traffic calming program off to slow start, A10 COMMUNITY: CB summit hike celebrates 25 years, B1
SPORTS: Gymnastics competes at state, B8
OBITUARIES A3 OPINION A4 CLASSIFIEDS A14-A17 SPORTS B68 ONLINE GUNNISONTIMES.COM
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TURN UP THE LIGHTS: The Beastie Boys tribute band, Sabotage, lit up the stage with an electric 90s hip-hop show at the I Bar Ranch on July 26. For more, see A12. (Photo by Mariel Wiley)
Zebra mussels Spallone, Wesco discovered in settle in Gunnison Rising lawsuit Colorado River Outstanding NPS to install self-serve cleaning stations along Blue Mesa tributaries Bella Biondini Times Editor
The recent discover y of zebra mussels in the Colorado River has aquatic invasive species managers on high alert across the region. If they were to spread, the mussels could wreak havoc in watersheds like
the Gunnison Basin. In early July, Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) found zebra mussel veligers in the Colorado River and Government Highline Canal near Grand Junction after routine testing. A veliger is the free-floating, larval stage of the invasive mussel and can only be seen under a microscope. No adult mussels have been found yet. Zebra mussels, finger-nail sized mollusks, were originally introduced into the Great Lakes region in the late 1980s. Since then, they have spread significantly in the eastern half of the country through the large rivers of the Mississippi River Basin. They have also been found Mussels A6
claims against GVP still at least $3.4 million Abby Harrison Times Staff Writer
Two of the three contractors alleging that Gunnison Rising developers did not pay for construction work settled with the company managing the project, Gunnison Valley Properties (GVP), in mid-July. The agreements resolved nearly $500,000 of the project’s financial liability. Gunnison Rising is a 630-
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acre housing and commercial development planned for just east of town. It stretches along both sides of Hwy. 50, and the project’s investors — longtime Gunnison local Dick Bratton and Denver-based real estate lawyer Byron Chrisman — envision it to offer entire neighborhoods, affordable housing units and a business district. Construction crews broke ground on the site in 2021, laying plumbing equipment and preparing the site for other utilities. But in 2023, GVP ran out of money. Within a matter of months, several local construction companies hired to install utilities and do preliminary road work sued GVP, alleging they were owed millions.
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Lawsuit A8