Today's News

The Evergreen Public Library will reopen on Mondays under the proposed 2012 budget, but the hours of operation will be cut as part of a system-wide cost-cutting effort to shave $2 million off operating expenses.

The mixed forecast was disconcerting news to about 50 people who showed up at the Evergreen Public Library on the evening of Oct. 19 for a presentation on the library system's financial condition presented by the library staff and Pam Nissler, interim executive director.

The Jefferson County commissioners are poised to begin charging the public for access to public records, with a consent-agenda resolution scheduled to be passed Tuesday.

If approved, the measure would allow the county to charge $25 per hour for open-records requests taking more than an hour to complete.

The public information office, whose employees are tasked with fulfilling such requests, would have the option of not charging the public for its staff time, though language in the proposed resolution would allow charges at the office’s discretion.

Anyone who listens to Denver talk radio has heard that our two Jeffco school board races represent an apocalyptic face-off between radical union-backed leftists and far-right free-market fanatics who will stop at nothing to reduce district spending.

At the final election forum Oct. 18 in Evergreen, the candidates sounded more like a gaggle of elderly British ladies disagreeing about whether the shade of the curtains matched the colors in the divan.

Elk Creek Fire Protection District board president Tim Biglen has until Monday to resign or face a recall election.

A certification of sufficiency was provided Wednesday to the committee that initiated the recall. The committee turned in 482 signatures. Of those, 379 were determined to be valid, and 103 were rejected. The petition needed 300 valid signatures to force the recall election, according to Larry Hauser, recall effort spokesman.

Biglen would not comment on the development.