From the Styx by Peggy Tibbetts

 The April Newspeak Award goes to the military industrial complex for Internet2. The term is somewhat obscure, although it’s been around since 1996. You might be hearing more about it in the near future.

Internet2 is just newspeak for scrapping the internet. Here’s what it’s all about:

Federally Funded Boffins Want To Scrap The Internet
Seeking further funding from Congress for “clean slate” projects
By Steve Watson
 
Researchers funded by the federal government want to shut down the internet and start over, citing the fact that at the moment there are loopholes in the system whereby users cannot be tracked and traced all the time.

Time magazine has reported that several foundations and universities including Rutgers, Stanford, Princeton, Carnegie Mellon and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are pursuing individual projects, along with the Defense Department, in order to wipe out the current internet and replace it with a new network which will satisfy big business and government:

One challenge in any reconstruction, though, will be balancing the interests of various constituencies. The first time around, researchers were able to toil away in their labs quietly. Industry is playing a bigger role this time, and law enforcement is bound to make its needs for wiretapping known.

There’s no evidence they are meddling yet, but once any research looks promising, “a number of people (will) want to be in the drawing room,” said Jonathan Zittrain, a law professor affiliated with Oxford and Harvard universities. “They’ll be wearing coats and ties and spilling out of the venue.”

The projects echo moves we have previously reported on to clamp down on internet neutrality and even to designate a new form of the internet known as Internet2.

This would be a faster, more streamlined elite equivalent of the internet available to users who were willing to pay more for a much improved service. providers may only allow streaming audio and video on your websites if you were eligible for Internet2.

Of course, Internet 2 would be greatly regulated and only “appropriate content” would be accepted by an FCC or government bureau. Everything else would be relegated to the “slow lane” internet, the junkyard as it were. Our techie rulers are all too keen to make us believe that the internet as we know it is “already dead”.

Google is just one of the major companies preparing for Internet2 by setting up hundreds of “server farms” through which eventually all our personal data - emails, documents, photographs, music, movies - will pass and reside.
 
However, experts state that the “clean slate” projects currently being undertaken go even further beyond projects like Internet2 and National LambdaRail, both of which focus primarily on next-generation needs for speed.

In tandem with broad data retention legislation currently being introduced worldwide, such “clean slate” projects may represent a considerable threat to the freedom of the internet as we know it. EU directives and US proposals for data retention may mean that any normal website or blog would have to fall into line with such new rules and suddenly total web regulation would become a reality.

In recent months, a chorus of propaganda intended to demonize the Internet and further lead it down a path of strict control has spewed forth from numerous establishment organs:

* In a display of bi-partisanship, there have recently been calls for all out mandatory ISP snooping on all US citizens by both Democrats and Republicans alike.

* Republican Senator John McCain recently tabled a proposal to introduce legislation that would fine blogs up to $300,000 for offensive statements, photos and videos posted by visitors on comment boards. It is well known that McCain has a distaste for his blogosphere critics, causing a definite conflict of interest where any proposal to restrict blogs on his part is concerned.

* During an appearance with his wife Barbara on Fox News last November, George Bush senior slammed Internet bloggers for creating an “adversarial and ugly climate.”

* The White House’s own recently de-classified strategy for “winning the war on terror” targets Internet conspiracy theories as a recruiting ground for terrorists and threatens to “diminish” their influence.

* The Pentagon recently announced its effort to infiltrate the Internet and propagandize for the war on terror.

* In a speech last October, Homeland Security director Michael Chertoff identified the web as a “terror training camp,” through which “disaffected people living in the United States” are developing “radical ideologies and potentially violent skills.” His solution is “intelligence fusion centers,” staffed by Homeland Security personnel which will go into operation next year.

* The U.S. Government wants to force bloggers and online grassroots activists to register and regularly report their activities to Congress. Criminal charges including a possible jail term of up to one year could be the punishment for non-compliance.

* A landmark legal case on behalf of the Recording Industry Association of America and other global trade organizations seeks to criminalize all Internet file sharing of any kind as copyright infringement, effectively shutting down the world wide web - and their argument is supported by the U.S. government.

* A landmark legal ruling in Sydney goes further than ever before in setting the trap door for the destruction of the Internet as we know it and the end of alternative news websites and blogs by creating the precedent that simply linking to other websites is breach of copyright and piracy.

* The European Union, led by former Stalinist and potential future British Prime Minister John Reid, has also vowed to shut down “terrorists” who use the Internet to spread propaganda.

* The EU data retention bill, passed last year after much controversy and with implementation tabled for late 2007, obliges telephone operators and internet service providers to store information on who called who and who emailed who for at least six months. Under this law, investigators in any EU country, and most bizarrely even in the US, can access EU citizens’ data on phone calls, sms’, emails and instant messaging services.

* The EU also recently proposed legislation that would prevent users from uploading any form of video without a license.

* The US government is also funding research into social networking sites and how to gather and store personal data published on them, according to the New Scientist magazine. “At the same time, US lawmakers are attempting to force the social networking sites themselves to control the amount and kind of information that people, particularly children, can put on the sites.”
 
We are being led to believe that a vast army of maniac pedophiles or terrorists are on the loose and we must do away with all forms of privacy in order to stop them. This is akin to saying that blanket cctv prevents crime. As if to say “if we film everyone all the time, even innocent people, then no one will ever commit any crimes.”

Increasingly we are seeing this in every aspect of our lives. Recording, tracking and retaining our data in the name of keeping us all safe. Everyone is now treated as guilty until proven innocent.

Make no mistake, the internet, one of the greatest outposts of free speech ever created is under constant attack by powerful people who cannot operate within a society where information flows freely and unhindered. Both American and European moves mimic stories we hear every week out of State Controlled Communist China, where the internet is strictly regulated and virtually exists as its own entity away from the rest of the web.

The Internet is freedom’s best friend and the bane of control freaks. Its eradication is one of the short term goals of those that seek to centralize power and subjugate their populations under a surveillance panopticon prison, whether that be in Communist China, Neoconservative America or the Neofascist EU. 

© Copyright Steve Watson , Infowars.net, 2007

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On Monday night, the Board of Trustees passed the River Park Ordinance by a vote of 6 to 1.

And the dogs in Silt are delighted!

I did speak during the hearing part. Here’s what I said:

I collected 81 signatures for the River Park Petition to bring forward this ordinance to designate River Park as a rest area and allow dogs off-leash.

I took on this task because I love River Park and I need a place to walk 200 pounds of dogs. I have been impressed by how much the park means to people. My task was made easier because it was the right thing to do.

Over two thirds of the petition signers contacted me to sign the petition. I only solicited about a third of the 81 signatures. If I could have accepted ANY registered voter’s signature, I would have had over 200 signatures. People from Aspen to Rifle have voiced their support for my petition. There is overwhelming public support to allow dogs off-leash at River Park.

During the ten weeks I spent collecting signatures I talked to hundreds of people. Not everyone I talked to is a dog owner, and not all of the petition signers are dog owners. For many people it’s not just the issue of allowing dogs off-leash at River Park – which has been allowed for generations – people just want the park to stay the way it is. Over and over people said to me: “Tell the Board to just leave it alone.”

I want to address a couple concerns that were brought up at the First Reading. One concern was over the term “rest area” in the ordinance. The thing is, River Park IS a rest area. I go to River Park nearly every day. I’m there for up to an hour at a time. In my observation, there are 3 main uses of River Park.

Number 1 use: Rest area
There is a large parking lot, plus picnic tables, a port-potty, and garbage bins at River Park. Local truck drivers and workers stop there to eat lunch, kill time, whatever. That makes it a rest area.

Number 2 use: Dog walkers

Number 3 use: River access, by rafters and fishermen

Another concern mentioned was about designating park usage for a small group of people.  Silt currently has two soccer parks that are used by a small group of people.

No one is restricted from River Park by this Ordinance. Rafters can still raft, fisherman can still fish, bikers can still bike, resters can still rest, walkers can still walk. And dog owners can still walk their dogs – on leash or off leash.

Even if you don’t like dogs, you can still use the park because there are plenty of times during the day when no one else is there but you.

Once River Park is annexed, it will be the only park in Silt that allows dogs.

Thank you.

Doug Williams said he was in favor of the Ordinance but he wasn’t sure “rest area” was the best language. I explained that the term came from the 2002 Board discussion about dogs at River Park and since dogs were not allowed in Silt parks, the Trustees had chosen another classification for the park.

Both Doug W and Bobby Hayes argued that the term might be confusing since there are state rest areas where dogs cannot be off-leash.

So I asked, “Can’t Silt have its own rest area?”

I didn’t really get an answer.

I was unable to sway Ron Morgan. He voted against the Ordinance. I assume his objection to creating a park for an elite group of a few people still stands. He didn’t say anything.

I didn’t expect any kudos from the Board and by jove I didn’t get any. So there. Although The Mayor sent an email to Tod thanking me for my hard work. But I’m happy. The dogs are happy. After all that’s what it’s really all about. Me and the dogs.

So what did I learn from all this? Legislation by petition – meaning the people make the ordinance and present it to the Board – is a highly effective way to get something done. It only took about 4 months and we accomplished what we set out to do.

And what did we accomplish? I’m a realist so I doubt whether this is the end of the matter of dogs off-leash at River Park. What it does mean is that the Ordinance now exists. Therefore the Board cannot make any changes to the Ordinance without a public hearing.

The thing is, I know Tod voted in favor of the Ordinance because he fully supports it. And I know Ron Morgan voted against it. As for the other 5 Trustees – Jim Voorheis, Mayor Moore, Doug Williams, Meredith Robinson, and Bobby Hayes – I’m not sure if they voted for the Ordinance to avoid the cost of a Special Election or if they really do see the need for and value of the Ordinance. Anyway, the issue has come up before and it will probably come up again. Chalk it up to life in Silt.

What I didn’t get to say last night and what sometimes gets lost in all this is River Park itself. It’s such a beautiful wild place. A natural island in the Colorado River. A couple weeks ago Tod and I spent a few hours there with Zeus and Venus. We brought brush cutters and cleared some of the paths. I realized that it’s because back in our Minnesota days we lived in the country – actually in the woods – so we crave that wild space. Nature is a spiritual thing for us. People need wild places in order to stay connected to the Earth. We must do whatever we can to preserve them.

After getting to know everyone, I’m convinced that the people who use River Park fully appreciate the natural treasure we have here.

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The following alert came out from the Centre for Research on Globalization, a fascinating resource btw to find out what’s really going on in the world. I’m posting the article in its entirety with permission to help spread the word about an upcoming simulated terror attack with a nuclear weapon drill that will be taking place next week. 

On 9/11, the CIA was conducting war games that simulated exactly what happened that day. Read Wargames Were Cover For the Operational Execution of 9/11.

So just in case anything unusual happens next week, consider yourself warned.

Noble Resolve 07: Four days of “simulated” nuclear terrorist scenarios in the US & Europe
by DL Abrahamson
April 20, 2007
False Flag News 

From April, 23 to April 27, the elite echelon of the military are running Noble Resolve 07, a four-day marathon of “simulated” terror attacks across the US and Europe. This includes a simulated detonation of a “loose” ten-kiloton nuclear weapon Virginia harbor, smuggled in by a “foreign nation.”

This week Dick Cheney has also been warning of the “very real” threat of a nuclear attack on an American city. Could the Nobel Resolve drills be used as a screen for a false-flag attack to be blamed on Iran, Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, or sheep-dipped Americans like Adam Gadahn?

The drills are being run by Joint Task Force Command (JTFCOM), Northern Command (NORTHCOM), J9 Joint Innovation and Experimentation Directorate, FEMA’s command bunker, the Department of Homeland Security, and Virginia police.

The US Marines are also running “Emerald Express 07” in Virginia on April 24 as part of their Urban Warrior 07 drill package.

It is important to note the “Nobel Resolve” drills are dominated by NORTHCOM, the branch of “homeland defense” based in Colorado and responsible for shutting down the United States under martial law, as well as ushering in the merger of the US, Canada, and Mexico via the SPP.

Meanwhile the J9 Directorate, formulates various terror scenarios and uses advanced computer modeling to run drills and predict human reactions; Recent articles highlight how they are using virtual environments to create and manage realistic war scenarios with millions of “people.”

Some key quotes from the article:

“He said the scenario of the experiment’s first phase starts with multinational partners and goes down to individual municipalities. It begins with a threat that originates in Europe and travels toward the United States.”

“Kersh said that as the scenario progresses, other agencies and other layers of government become involved.”

“The problem eventually arrives at the commonwealth of Virginia with that threat making it into port and then blowing up. This will cause us to work the consequence management part of the problem”

“The fusion center is in a state police headquarters and it’s collocated with Virginia’s emergency operations center.” (ed: Mount Weather)

“coordinated with DHS, possibly to coincide with one of that department’s major exercises.”

We must remember that CIA agent Philip Giraldi warned the American Conservative magazine that STRATCOM would launch a nuclear attack on Iran in the wake of a new WMD-style attack on American soil.

And the Russian media and former Russian military members continue to warn that an American and Israeli strike on Iran is imminent.

While many drills are run every month, Nobel Resolve 07, with it’s “realistic” scenarios, comes at a time of increased geopolitical tension. It is reminiscent of the drills in 2005, where a ten-kiloton nuclear weapon was “simulated” to explode in South Carolina. Some speculated that four-star Gen. Kevin Byrnes, of the Fort Meade TRADOC command, was fired due to his exposure of the drill.

We should not live in a constant state of panic and fear, or make any irresponsible predictions about Noble Resolve 07. But in the coming days, we can email this information to blogs, media outlets, friends and family. Congressmen, and others to help inoculate against any possibility that rogue “red teams” inside the drills may be activated.

© Copyright DL Abrahamson, False Flag News, 2007

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We’ve got trouble here in the Grand Valley. We’ve got jobs, jobs, jobs – but no place to live.

The teeth gnashing began with an article in the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel last Thursday (4/12):

Cop gap in Rifle worries chief
By Mike McKibbin

RIFLE — A week ago, a Rifle police officer at the scene of a traffic accident received a call about a drunken person lying on the ground at a city park.

“He had to juggle those two calls,” Police Chief Daryl Meisner said, because he was the only officer on duty. “It turned out OK, but a city the size of Rifle should never have just one officer on duty.”

An increasing population, driven by the energy industry and immigration, and not enough officers could turn Rifle into “the next Rock Springs, Wyo.,” when it comes to lawlessness, Meisner recently warned City Council members.

Inadequate salaries are not the main reason the department’s 17-member police force has four vacancies that haven’t been filled since last November. Rifle’s salaries are nearly identical to those in Glenwood Springs, Meisner said Wednesday.

The officers that left those positions did so partly because of a “perception of a lack of advancement” by the department to meet service needs, Meisner said. “Too many times they’re the lone officer on duty,” he said.

Vacations, injuries and illness add to staff workloads, as does time off for training, he said.

“It’s gotten to the point where we lose one officer, and we’re (in trouble),” Meisner said. “We don’t have any depth, and our service suffers as a result.”

Last year, calls for service were up approximately 11 percent over 2005, Meisner said. Rifle officers respond to emergency calls in three or four minutes, he said, while non-emergency calls can take hours.

Glenwood Springs Police Chief Terry Wilson’s 18-patrol-officer department is short two positions, and a third will open next month. Last year, Wilson’s department was short five officers for several months, and the last time he recalled having a fully-staffed department for any length of time was six years ago.

While he hasn’t had times with only one officer on duty, “We have had a ton of overtime or officers pulling double shifts,” Wilson said.

Rifle recruits new officers from police academies and advertises vacancies nationwide and in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico to find bilingual officers, Meisner said. But he called the applicant pool “pitiful.”

“We find the main reason they don’t apply is the lack of housing,” he said. “I interviewed a young man from Grand Junction (Tuesday), and he made it very clear he wasn’t going to move to Rifle. Why should he sell his house for less than what it costs to buy one in Rifle? I think our residents would be surprised to know that about half their police force lives in Battlement Mesa.”

Wilson said his main challenge is the same as Meisner’s: the high cost of living and housing.

Ok. Time out for a reality check. Meisner says inadequate salaries are not the main reason for the lack of qualified police officers because they are paid the same as Glenwood Springs police. But both Glenwood and Rifle’s Chiefs say that lack of affordable housing contributes to why they can’t find officers to fill their staffs.

Lack of affordable housing was an issue when I moved here 11 years ago, and when my daughter moved here 14 years ago. If their police officers can’t afford housing in the area on the salaries they make, THEN THEIR SALARIES ARE TOO LOW. What about that do they not get? I wonder.

Supposedly we are raking in oodles of property taxes from the energy companies – which go to the county. The Garfield County Commissioners are sitting on millions of dollars. Why can’t they subsidize housing for our police officers? Why are they sitting on that money when even they admit we’re at “crisis level”?

Let’s hear from a couple of the Commissioners. The following article appeared in The Paper today:

Grand River bemoans lack of affordable housing
Hospital district having trouble retaining employees
By Donna Gray

Lack of affordable housing in the area is a growing problem for the Grand River Hospital District.

Human resources director Michael Weerts told the Garfield County commissioners Monday that employees are leaving because they can’t find a place to live or rent, and that could affect the organization’s ability to provide quality care.

The district, which employs 300 people in the Grand River Medical Center and E. Dene Moore Nursing Home, has between a 5 and 15 percent vacancy rate at a given time, Weerts said.

“The key to having quality people (is keeping them) over time” so they gain experience, he said. People come to the valley to take jobs offered by the hospital district only to leave because they cannot find an affordable place to own or rent.

“I have to hire temporary employees who travel 100 miles each way each day,” because of the housing problems, he said.

He called on the commissioners “to look at borderline outrageous solutions” to the housing problem in the valley, “because we have an outrageous housing problem.”

Weerts also said the district has five apartments that are used as temporary employee housing and for staff to use on overnight shifts.

“It’s very challenging for an employer to be in the business of property management, especially on Friday and Saturday nights,” he said.

County Commissioner Trési Houpt assured Weerts the commission was well aware of the problem. “The discussion has been going on for a couple of years,” she said. Part of the solution is a partnership between local government and employers. “The onus is on employers as well as” local government, she said.

She means employers are obligated to pay wages in accordance with the cost of living. More on that later.

Roaring Fork School District Re-1 also has the challenge of finding and keeping staff. Human resources director Nikki Jost said despite the fact that the school district has a relatively high base salary it’s still not enough to meet the cost of housing in the valley.

She said the district is looking at building low income housing in Carbondale or Basalt this year for teachers.

“It’s in the works,” she said.

Houpt, who once served on the Re-1 school board, said the district has land it can use for affordable housing projects.

“We’re at a point where we’ve hit a crisis level,” she said.

But there are impediments to providing that housing. While the county requires a certain percentage of new developments have affordable homes in their mix, those projects don’t come close to giving the county the thousands of units it needs to house its workers.

“We can’t have 200-unit subdivisions and create affordable housing that will make an appreciable difference,” said Commissioner Larry McCown. “The challenge is to get things on the ground and get things built. Land, location and money is all it takes.”

Nope you can’t if you don’t try. I can’t even count how many times the Silt P&Z has tried to enforce affordable housing restrictions on developers only to have them resort to loopholes time after time. In one instance a developer had the hare-brained notion to lease the land the house was built on to the landowners, like a trailer park. What a fiasco! Developers aren’t interested in affordable housing. They’re interested in building houses for people who live in them for 2 months out of the year.

The next article was the feature article in The Paper’s Sunday edition:

To fill jobs, businesses get creative
Worker shortage is the mother of invention
By Donna Gray

GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colo. — As the shortage of workers grows in the valley like bindweed in the backyard, so have the creative efforts of local employers to recruit, hire and retain good help.

Newspapers are packed full of Help Wanted ads offering plenty of perks like discounted gas, flexible hours, end-of-season bonuses, sign-on bonuses, even relocation bonuses.

A high cost of living - especially housing - and relatively low wages are driving younger workers away.

In addition, there simply are not enough bodies to fill the jobs.

“Jobs are growing but the population is not keeping pace,” said Joe Winter, senior economist with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment in Denver.

Garfield County has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the state - 2.9 percent in 2006 - the lowest it’s been since 2000, Winter added.

The worker shortage is becoming so critical that employers are getting creative about what they offer and where they go to hire.

One of the largest employers in the area, Garfield County government, with 400 employees, is constantly looking to fill positions. It currently has 13 full-time and two part-time positions in county government open, as well a three full-time positions in the sheriff’s department, said county operations director Dale Hancock.

Some departments have seen so much attrition the county is now looking to hire two people to fill a single position, Hancock said.

The difficulty of hiring and retaining employees has led the county to look at a nontraditional work force. With the baby-boomer generation reaching retirement age, Hancock said they’ve found many aren’t quite ready for the rocking chair on the porch.

“The gray head may say they will work two days a week (for) health insurance,” he said.

Such a scenario unfolded a few years ago when Jesse Smith moved to the area after retirement. He applied for an opening at the county fairgrounds but then Hancock and county manager Ed Green saw his qualifications - “he had a boatload of experience” in upper level management. That’s why Smith is now the assistant county manager. Hancock said they couldn’t ignore his experience and that’s why he was ushered into the assistant manager slot.

Looking elsewhere

Hancock said the county is also looking beyond Garfield County for prospects. The administration has considered recruiting in the Midwest states with depressed economies and high unemployment rates.

However, there’s a housing catch.

“We bring these guys out here for a $16 an hour job, which is a decent wage, but where will they live?” he said.

You know what would be REALLY CREATIVE? Paying workers a living wage.

Sorry, but $16/hour is not a living wage here where just the average home costs between $250,000 and $300,000.

It’s all good and well to recruit workers from the Midwest. But when they sell their homes for $150,000 in Michigan and move here to find the same home for $300,000, not to mention the price of gas ($3.00/gal currently) and groceries, they’re in for a real culture shock. And rentals average $1300/month. So good luck with that.

When I hear about some poor schmuck from Michigan who left his $10/hour job to come here and work for $20/hour I shake my head. Twenty bucks an hour here is like ten bucks an hour in the Midwest.

The only reason Tod and I can afford to live here is because Tod works for a company in Chicago that pays him a living wage. (He supports my writing habit since I lost my job at Writing World last year.) He telecommutes and travels back and forth to Chicago – and his company even provides him with an apartment while he’s there. Believe me he’s tried to find work locally but no one will pay him even close to what he gets in wages and benefits with his current employer.

The problem in this valley is not lack of affordable housing. The problem is that employers don’t pay their employees in line with the cost of living. It really is as simple as that. 

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I didn’t go to the meeting last night. I’m sick as a dog with the flu. Ick.

However, Tod was there and filled me in this morning. A shout out and thank you to John and Andrea Brogan for making it to the meeting and hanging in until 10 p.m. to witness the hearing and the vote. You both have been so supportive throughout. The Ordinance was not at the beginning of the meeting as I had hoped. So you were troopers.

The River Park Ordinance passed the First Reading.

Trustee Doug Williams said he did not like the term “rest area” in the Ordinance. Tod explained that the Board can only pass the Ordinance or let it go to a vote of the people in a Special Election. The Board cannot amend the Ordinance. So the term “rest area” stands. Trustee Williams voted for the Ordinance.

The thing is, River Park IS a rest area. As I’ve mentioned over and over, I go to River Park nearly every day. I’m there for up to an hour at a time. In my observation the top 3 users of River Park are as follows:

1. Rest area: There is a large parking lot, plus picnic tables, a port-potty, and garbage bins at River Park. Local truck drivers and workers stop there to eat lunch, kill time, whatever. That makes it a rest area.
2. Dog walkers
3. River rafters

Trustee Ron Morgan cast the only vote against it. Apparently he doesn’t like the idea of a park use for a small group of people. But that really isn’t the case and I covered that in my own public comments last December. First of all Silt doesn’t allow dogs (on leash or off leash) in any city parks. So that restricts all dog owners from using Silt parks. Silt currently has two soccer parks that are used by a small group of people. 

No one is restricted from River Park by this Ordinance. Rafters can still raft, fisherman can still fish, bikers can still bike, resters can still rest, walkers can still walk. And dog owners can still walk their dogs – on leash or off leash. It’s all good. Everybody’s happy, except the people who don’t like dogs. But they have a half dozen other parks to go to. Dog owners don’t. We have River Park. Period.

I hope the River Park Ordinance will be further up on the Agenda at the Second Reading, which will most likely be April 23. I’ll post more information here.

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This Monday, April 9, the Board of Trustees Meeting will include a Public Hearing for the First Reading of the River Park Ordinance as follows:

6.04.275 – Rest Area Designation:
Areas designated by the town as “rest areas” may be used to walk or exercise dogs off-leash.  River Park is designated as a rest area.

Anyone who wishes will be allowed to speak for 3 minutes.

If the Ordinance passes the First Reading, then there will be a Second Reading at the next Board Meeting, April 23. If the Ordinance doesn’t pass the First Reading it will go to a vote of the people in a Special Election.

The Public Hearing for the Second Reading will also be when the Board will vote on the Ordinance. If the Board passes the Ordinance, it will become effective 30 days after the vote. However River Park has not yet been annexed, therefore the Ordinance would take effect once annexation is complete. In the meantime, Garfield County laws would still apply and there is no leash law.

If the Ordinance does not pass the Second Reading, or if the Board passes the Ordinance and the Mayor vetoes it, the Board must either override the Mayor’s veto or the Ordinance goes to a vote of the people in a Special Election.

The meeting begins at 7:00 p.m. Monday, April 9. The River Park Ordinance will most likely be the near the top of the Agenda. I’ll post it here when I know for sure. If you have any questions, email me: peggyt@siltnet.net

See you all Monday night! Who’s bringing the beer?

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