After three months of desperately dry Colorado weather, there’s finally good news. ENSO-neutral conditions are now present and favored from April-June (80% chance). “From May-July 2026, El Niño is lik...

Dear Editor: Our electric cooperative, San Miguel Power Association, will be conducting an election in June for the board of director position representing Ridgway area and Log Hill Mesa. As we know, ...

Dear Editor: There is a need to acknowledge the recent revelations at the special Ouray County Board of Commissioners meeting March 30, where Commissioner Lynn Padgett first denied, then admitted to s...

Dear Editor: I read with concern and consternation the lead article in the April 2-9 edition of the Plaindealer relating to the March 30 public Board of County Commissioners meeting that resulted in t...

Dear Editor: The full page ad in the April 9-15 edition was interesting to me. In very large print we were given the town manager's email address, and told he and the Ridgway Town Council are out of l...

Dear Editor: Free recycling? That’s funny right there. We live on Log Hill and have Bruin Waste for trash and recycling curbside pickup. We don’t always have a lot of material to recycle each week. So...

Dear Editor: About two months ago, I reported to the Colorado Department of Transportation my concerns about the three-lane area on U.S. Highway 550 that connects the Pa-Co-Chu-Puk entrance to Ridgway...

Dear Editor: Phil Weiser has been an outstanding attorney general for Coloradans. Weiser has stated: “My track record means I can hit the ground running on day one, stand up to bullies like Trump and ...

Editor’s note: The Plaindealer mistakenly published a previous letter to the editor from Ellie Kehmeier in last week’s edition. We are publishing the letter she most recently submitted in this week’s ...

This week marks our seventh anniversary of owning the Plaindealer. I always remember the date because of April Fool's Day. We were careful to avoid April 1 as our closing date for purchasing the paper...

Dear Editor: I appreciate the Plaindealer’s coverage and article on the Board of County Commissioners' meeting about the blocked access to the Greyhound Road. The article correctly stated that there w...

Dear Editor: As an advocate for responsible remote work, I disagree with the sentiment expressed in the “City: No to more remote governance” article published in your March 5-11 edition. This is not a...

Dear Editor: I was very surprised to see in the March 19-25 edition of the Plaindealer a full-page advertisement, paid for by The Wilderness Society, thanking Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd saying, “R...

Early this month, spring 2026 seemed to be yet another hot, droughty season across the West. Since then, March has been abysmally dry and scarily warm, thanks to a highly unusual heat dome parked over...

Dear Editor: Not only is a burn pit a good idea, it is a necessity, but not in the way described. Times and codes are changing. The new fire and construction codes will require more area to be cleared...

Dear Editor: Today is a rare day. Snow capped mountains with a cloudless sky are not rare, but when the air is also clear, that is rare, because too often smoke fills the Ouray and Ridgway valleys. Th...

Dear Editor: In none of the large, taxpayer-funded infrastructure projects in the city over the past years — the school, the courthouse complex, the pool, the water plant and the sewer treatment plant...

Wyatt Earp wasn’t born a legend. He was an opportunist, a man with a keen eye for the next horizon and a knack for finding — or perhaps stirring up — chaos wherever he set his boots. While history boo...

Dear Editor: I saved last year’s July 10-16 edition of the Plaindealer because its coverage of the city of Ouray’s Independence Day parade reminded me that it marked the beginning of what would be a y...

Dear Editor: We all know how lucky we are to live in Ouray, but most of us do not know how fortunate we are to have Michelle Metteer as our city administrator. She is a soft-spoken person so I would l...