OURAY COUNTY

January 31, 1974 – The idea of a domestic rural water system to serve the Uncompahgre Valley between Ridgway and Ouray was put back into play at the annual meeting of Tri-County Water Conservancy District directors here Monday afternoon. Given a dribble by Realtor and subdivision developer Wayne Rowser (formerly of Ouray and now of Montrose), the Ridgway-Ouray domestic rural water system ball began bouncing with momentum during the discussion.

A Tri-County committee was appointed to further study the idea and to meet with interested developers and other interested persons and with Ouray County commissioners to come up with a more definite proposal. A couple of years ago, Tri-County Water had a similar proposal in the mill, carrying a $1.2 million price tag. This died. Tri-County had applied for a change of use and transfer of water rights to Corbett Creek, just north of Ouray, with the idea of supplementary water from Dexter Creek.

40 YEARS AGO

February 2, 1984 – A Ridgway youth, Jerry Gilliam, Jr., 11, was injured on the Ouray ski hill last Saturday. He was taken to Montrose Memorial Hospital by the Ouray Ambulance Service. Gilliam is the son of Jerry and Teri Gilliam. According to his mother, the youth broke his leg after going over one of the jumps on the ski hill. Gilliam is the second youth to be injured on the ski hill jumps this winter.

Steve Russell, 13, of Ouray was knocked unconscious Jan. 27 when he fell while trying to do a ski stunt on the jumps.

30 YEARS AGO

February 3, 1994 – Visiting ice climbers are diverting a water flow across Upper Camp Bird Road to build better climbing areas in the Governor Basin area. Because they are causing the road to ice up and be potentially dangerous for motorists, the climbers soon will face prosecution if they continue to do it, the Ouray County Commission decided at its Jan. 20 meeting. Mountain Top Mine is operating this winter in Governor Basin. Upper Camp Bird Road is being used by Mountain Top employees as well as visitors. A pipe diverts the water under the road, but ice climbers are blocking the pipe at the top and at the road to create good ice climbing. Commissioner Joe Mattivi said that preventing the blockage would be easier to enforce if signs were posted.

20 YEARS AGO

January 30, 2004 – EDITORIAL: There’s still gold in tham thur hills that we see out our Ouray windows, and because of that, we should keep our eyes on a couple of issues that loom on the international and state fronts. First of all, there is the price of gold. Currently, it has risen to a near-term high of about $410 an ounce. (A year ago, it was near $360.) Then there’s the matter of politics around the state involving the controversial use of cyanide in extracting gold from low-grade ore. In heap-leach mining, liquid cyanide soaks through piles of rock ore, chemically separating gold from rock. If mining prices continue to hover, as they have since 1990, between $300 and $400 an ounce, Ouray will probably continue to be a “former” mining town. But just in case precious mineral prices really take off, it wouldn’t hurt for us to keep abreast of the developments and aware of the possible local ramifications. –David Mullings

10 YEARS AGO

January 30, 2014 – Ouray City Council got more than it bargained for when it solicited anonymous public input regarding the city administrator’s annual evaluation. The city received a total of 55 input forms. In addition to the mostly positive remarks about City Administrator Patrick Rondinelli’s performance, some forms took shots at specific city councilors, the council in general and other staff members. Last month when the addition of public input to the process was announced, City Attorney Kathryn Sellars informed council and community members that public comments would remain anonymous and that any signed forms would have the signature removed before being delivered to council members for review. The Plaindealer requested copies pursuant to the Colorado Open Records Act and reviewed all 55 of the public input forms. Since the documents are public record, anyone can review the comments by making an open records request at City Hall. Many of the forms spoke out against the issue of anonymity, which is one reason that councilor Richard Kersen thinks most people filled out the forms in the first place. “They felt this was not the right way to go, and that makes sense,” he said. One respondent contended that anonymous feedback “makes only cowardly complainers respond.” Another suggested that by keeping forms anonymous, it creates a “manhunt” for the individual being evaluated. “Anonymous responses are a very poor way to conduct business.

This should have never happened if the city council would do its job. That job is not to make judgments based on hearsay from anonymous presentations,” one form read.