The mountain area’s newspaper since 1958
WEEK OF DECEMBER 12, 2024
VOLUME 66 | ISSUE 4
$2
Morrison votes to disband its police department Town says $1.6 million budget is unsustainable, plans to contract with Jeffco Sheriff’s Office for services BY JANE REUTER JREUTER@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
The McDaniel family including from left Maria Harrison, Maryann McDaniel, Phil McDaniel, Hannah McDaniel, Theodore Braman and Evan HarPHOTO BY JANE REUTER rison, chose to celebrate Thanksgiving at the Morrison Holiday Bar.
Community Dinner returns to Morrison Holiday Bar Long-standing tradition that was waylaid by pandemic resumes BY JANE REUTER JREUTER@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
Five years ago, the McDaniel family came from Chicago to visit their Englewood family at Thanksgiving. The day before, they stopped in at the Morrison Holiday Bar.
“We couldn’t find a reservation; we couldn’t cook,” Maryann McDaniel said. “We said, ‘We’re looking for a place to eat.’” The bar staff invited them to come back the next day for the Holiday Bar’s annual Thanksgiving Community Dinner. The staff was welcoming, the food tasty and abundant and the atmosphere warm, Phil McDaniel remembers. “It was like a family,” he said. This year, the McDaniel family, including their two daughters and sons-in-law, came back for the holiday feast. “This is what we wanted to do; this is
VOICES: 10 | LIFE: 12 | LIFESTYLES: 14 | SPORTS: 22 | PUZZLES: 27
our family Thanksgiving,” Phil McDaniel said. The Holiday Bar first introduced its community dinners in 2007, holding them annually on Thanksgiving, Christmas Day and Easter Sunday until 2019. But when the pandemic shut down the world in early 2020, the community dinners disappeared with it. This fall, owner Dave Killingsworth revived the tradition. He and his staff spent hours in the days before Thanksgiving cooking eight turkeys and four hams,
The Morrison Town Board voted Dec. 3 to disband its police department, saying it is not financially sustainable. The motion also calls for contracting for full-time town law enforcement services with the Jefferson County Sheriff ’s Office. The change will happen with the start of the new year, Morrison Town Manager Mallory Nassau said. The department, which includes nine fulltime officers, an administrative assistant and some part-time staff, operated at an estimated $1.2 million deficit in 2024, according to town attorney Austin Flanagan. The town had budgeted $1.6 million for its police department in 2025. That’s almost 40% of the expected $4.046 million in anticipated 2025 general fund expenditures, a number too steep for town leaders. “I think the time is now,” said Town Trustee Sean Forey, who made the motion at the end of the 2025 budget hearing. “The town has a lot of obligations coming its way. It’s time to try this.” The motion included setting aside a maximum of $900,000 to make severance payments to current officers and honor other contractual obligations, and pay the sheriff ’s office for taking over town law enforcement in 2025. Nassau said she emailed the town’s officers SEE MORRISON, P5
SUPPORT LOCAL NEWS SEE PAGE 8 TO LEARN MORE
SEE DINNER, P4
CANYONCOURIER.COM • A PUBLICATION OF COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA