As we reflect on the work ahead, we are reminded of a quote by John Gardner, educator, activist, and author of "On Leadership," one of the most influencial books on the topic, who once said,

"What we have before us are some breathtaking opportunities disguised as insoluble problems."

Here's to seeing the opportunities in 2007 and new ways to think and act to embrace them.

The city's housing program requires developers of subdivisions and multifamily housing projects to provide 15 percent of their units as housing that will be sold at below-market rates or pay an in-lieu fee into a city fund for affordable housing.

The city has two new eligibility categories: one for families earning 100% of the area median income ($44,200 for a one-person household to $63,200 for a four-person household) and 120% AMI ($52,040 to $75,840).

Townhouses on the lottery are priced at $200,842 and $245,368. Each is a 1,128-square-foot, three- bedroom, two-bath unit, with a one-car garage. A comparable free-market in the area is currently being advertised for sale for $329,000.

Application are due Feb. 5. For more information and to apply, contact City Planner Jill Peterson at 384- 6407 or Garfield County Housing Authority Executive Director Geneva Powell at 384-6446 or 625-3589.

Ridership on Roaring Fork Transportation Authority buses grew by double digits last year and topped the 4 million mark.

RFTA usually budgets for an annual increase of a couple of percentage points, but ridership surged 11.5 percent year-to-date through November and will be over 4 million riders for the balance of 2006.

RFTA CEO Dan Blankenship believes several factors contributed to the increase:

• The strength of the economy; the valley seems to be near full employment, requiring many workers to commute;
• Gas prices soaringfor part of 2006, making travel by private vehicle more expensive; and
• Expanded bus service in the Glenwood Springs and Carbondale area from only once per hour to once every half-hour.

The ridership increase came despite an increase in many fares in 2006.
 

A diverse group of agencies and nonprofit organizations is undertaking the first comprehensive watershed plan for the Roaring Fork Valley.

The Ruedi Water and Power Authority is sponsoring the effort, but it is the result of two years of work by such entities as The Nature Conservancy, Roaring Fork Conservancy and Colorado River Water Conservation District. They have been working together as a planning and information-sharing group called the Watershed Collaborative.

An initial phase of the planning process entails creating a State of the Watershed Report. It will pull together information from several dozen studies and create a comprehensive picture of the watershed's current condition.

The Roaring Fork Conservancy to take the lead on the planning effort. The watershed report is scheduled for completion in November, and the final plan a year later.

Learn more about the Watershed Collaborative.

Finding affordable housing in mountain communities is a tough job, but it comes in a close second to creating public policies to create affordable housing.

Witness the scene in the Vail Municipal Building this month as the Vail Town Council took comments on a new employee housing proposal. More than 100 people packed the room to protest the adoption of the new regulations.

The current proposal includes the following components:

• 30 percent of homes in a new development would have to be deed-restricted employee housing. Developers could satisfy the requirement on site or elsewhere in Vail or they could also pay a fee of $315 per square foot.
• New stores would have to build housing for 20 percent of the jobs they create.

Vail currently imports 70% of its workforce and is looking for ways to keep at least 30 percent of its workers living in town.

Meanwhile, a several miles downvalley, Avon is faced with similar housing affordability challenges.

A recent study highlights the dramatic surge in home prices over the past few years. Since 2000, the median housing price in Avon has almost doubled (81%) to $430,000, while median family income has increased a paltry 17.5%.

Since only 29% of Avon's worforce lives in town, one solution suggested in the report is adopting inclusionary zoning policies - a policy similar to what Vail is considering.

Despite complaints over affordable housing requirements, such policies have become rather common in mountain communities outside of the Eagle Valley and across the U.S. In fact, The Town of Basalt, which is in the Roaring Fork Valley portion of Eagle County, has had a 20% inclusionary zoing requirements for several years. Other jurisdictions with inclusioinary zoning requirements include:

• Aspen/Pitkin County: 60%
• Boulder: 20%
• Carbondale: 15%
• Garfield County: 10%
• Glenwood Springs: 15%
• Longmont: 10%
• San Miguel County: 15%
• Steamboat Springs: 15%

A panel of land use and housing experts convened by the Urban Land Institute in December also encouraged Eagle County residents to ramp up their affordable housing efforts.
 

The Colorado Court of Appeals have ruled that Colorado counties can regulate oil and gas development as long as their rules do not conflict with state policies.

The unanimous opinion will enable counties to make sure that oil and gas exploration doesn't adversely affect wildlife, water quality, livestock and recreation. The ruling enables the counties to also regulate oil and gas exploration on federal lands within their counties.

The court battle erupted after an oil and gas operator, Gunnison Energy Corp., violated Gunnison County regulations by refusing to obtain an oil and gas permit from the county before beginning operations.

Gunnison filed suit, but a trial judge ruled that almost all of the county's rules were pre-empted by state law and Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission regulations.

But the appellate court ruled that if the local regulations can be harmonized with the state laws, the counties can regulate the development. The local regulation is invalid if it "would materially impede or destroy the state interest," the court said.

Read the court's full decision

The City if Glenwood Springs Council voted 4-3 to have Mayor Bruce Christensen sign the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. The mayors agreement, signed on to by the leaders of more than 330 cities, supports the Kyoto Protocol goal of reducing global warming pollution to 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

Council's action came at the urging of a group of local residents promoting a "Cool Communities" initiative to fight global warming. One of its members is Dave Scruby, an executive with Alpine Bank.

He pointed to Alpine Bank's own effort to conserve energy and reduce the carbon emissions that are believed to contribute to global warming. He said the bank knows the undertaking will produce savings for shareholders in the long run, and urged council not to get too concerned about what costs the city might face.

The Cool Communities group is urging the city to conduct that assessment, and is recommending that a citizens panel be appointed to develop and implement a climate action plan.

Glenwood Springs is the latest of a number of local jursdictions and organizations in the Roaring Fork Valley taking action on energy and climate issues.

For example, last month Garfield County Commissioners approved $125,490 for the third year of a three-year air monitoring study conducted by Colorado State University.

CSU has analyzed air samples from 15 stations around the county. It is intended to evaluate the condition of the county's air quality and, secondarily, to determine if increased oil and gas activity has an impact.

Part of the scope of work for 2007 will be to hold community meetings and present a second report, which is due to be published in April.

Commissioners also agreed to Williams Production's temporary worker housing proposal. The Commissioners approved the building of a temporary employee housing camp in the Piceance Basin 55 miles north of Rifle.

While the camp and adjacent drilling area are only about 20 miles as the crow flies from the company's headquarters in Parachute, no roads lead there directly. Rather, workers must travel about an hour and a half - east to Rifle, northwest on Highway 13, and west on the Piceance Creek Road - to access the area.

The Roaring Fork School District approved a proposal to implement a Dual Language program at Crystal River Elementary School. Dual-language instruction will begin this fall in one kindergarten and one 1st grade class and potentially expanding to one to two classes in each grade of the K-4 elementary school.

The dual language proposal came out of a school committee that has researched the idea over the last several months. The committee included parents, teachers, CRES Principal Karen Olson and RE-1 Superintendent Judy Haptonstall.

More information on the Dual Language proposal is on a wiki site http://cres.pbwiki.com

The tougher rules fall into two groups: those that apply to the metro area and Larimer and Weld counties, and those that apply to the rest of the state.

Five counties, including Pitkin, and six towns, including Glenwood Springs, Rifle and Silt, had urged Front Range protections be extended to the Western Slope, but regulators limited the new restrictions to the Front Range.

The statewide rules are the first mandatory emissions restrictions for the Colorado oil and gas industry outside the metro area and require companies to put pollution controls on the biggest polluting tanks.

The metro-area rules are especially important as the Denver region sits dangerously close to violating federal air pollution standards. The regulations must still be approved by the state legislature.

Two weeks ago, the council majority rejected the Roaring Fork Club's expansion proposal for 32 cabins, 18 single-family homes and 36 affordable housing units.

In both cases, the council majority decided it was more important to adhere to the land-use master plan the town crafted in 1999 with widespread citizen involvement. That plan establishes an urban growth boundary - or an area deemed appropriate for growth.

Sopris Chase included 115 residences - 28 free-market units and 87 of affordable housing. Some of the affordable housing would represent replacement housing for residents of the Roaring Fork Mobile Home Park in Basalt, also owned by the developer and slated for redevelopment.

The council majority said their reluctance to annex the Sopris Chase site didn't necessarily mean they were opposed to the application, per se.

The Basalt town government has been working on an update of its master plan for two years. It is supposed to be completed in 2007.

Almost 26 percent of Eagle County residents don’t have health insurance.

That’s higher than the state average, at 17 percent, according to the county’s Health and Human Services.

The reasons behind that number vary, but more and more local businesses aren’t offering health insurance to employees, more are reducing the type of coverage they are offering or are dramatically increasing the health insurance premiums their employees must pay every month. And leaves more uninsured residents could find themselves in financial trouble when a medical disaster hits.

The state of Colorado reports that only 18.3 percent of Eagle County residents are uninsured – still higher than the state average, but much lower than the county’s numbers. Jill Hunsaker, the public health director for the county, says the state’s numbers under-represent the Spanish-speaking community here.

“We’re over 25-percent Hispanic and that’s the group least likely to have health insurance,” Hunsaker said. Recent immigrants especially so; about 68 percent of Spanish-speaking respondents said that someone in their home does not have health insurance, according to the county’s health assessment study, which was completed in 2006.

The National Housing Institute has published a new report by John Davis of Burlington Associates examining the programs and performance of community land trusts, limited equity cooperatives, and deed-restricted houses and condominiums. It also looks at state and municipal policies that support -- or impede -- the expansion of these innovative models of housing tenure.

The report is entitled Shared Equity Homeownership: the Changing Landscape of Resale- Restricted, Owner-occupied Housing.