Posted on: January 30th, 2023

GHTM Minutes of 12-12-22

Next Gold Hill Town Meeting February 13. 2023, 7:00 p.m. by Zoom

The meeting was called to order on Zoom by Chair Marcus Moench at 19:05. 16 people attended:

David Brigham, Bear Carlson, Member at Large Elisabeth Caspari, Poppy Copeland, Val Crist, Secretary Gretchen Diefenderfer, Erich Gundlach, Leslie Finn, Rich Lopez, Treasurer Chrissy Maedke, Vice Chair Dan Maedke, Austin Miller, Chair Marcus Moench, Marybeth Neal, Virginia Schultz, Maggie Simms.

1. Previous Minutes – The minutes for the October Town Meeting were approved.

2. Introduction by new Chair, Marcus Moench –
a. What the GHTM is and is not: Because the GHTM has fielded demands at several points during the last year to take action that is beyond our scope, Marcus highlighted a few key points:
i. The GHTM is legally structured as a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation.
ii. The legal framework does not provide the GHTM with any authority or power to itself regulate behavior or formally authorize activities. The recent filming is an example where, as an organization, the GHTM has no formal authority.
iii. The legal framework does, however, give the GHTM substantial capacity to raise funds and implement projects that benefit the community. It also has the ability to convene discussions within the community and to support courses of action to meet community needs or address concerns. This can be through involvement in larger forums (such as the IMA), communication with county and state officials or through programs the GHTM implements itself or in collaboration with other organizations.
iv. Because the GHTM largely reflects those who show up and vote in meetings, it cannot be seen as fully “representing” the community of Gold Hill.

b. Accomplishments over the last year:

i. Marcus highlighted the town cleanup and forestry mitigation project that he and others (notably Virginia Schultz and The Boulder Watershed Collective with Maya MacHamer) were closely involved with. With that, in addition to the mitigation itself, we weed-whacked the edge of the meadow and the perimeter of many houses, plus creating gravel, fire resistant house perimeters and removed many dumpsters of slash. He added that, through the museum, the presentation of the town’s connection with the Sand Creek Massacre was an important event and achievement.
ii. Chrissy highlighted that we kept the “social” alive post pandemic. Enjoyed getting the Gold Rush up and running again; the Harvest party was fun and successful; looking forward to the upcoming holiday (cookie) party. Looking forward to more of the same in the coming year. She also noted that she has created a more comprehensive list of achievements that may be shared with the town soon.

3. Treasurer (Chrissy Maedke)

a. Report

Starting date: 11/3/22
Opening Balances Bank Account ref # Amount
General 3449 $10,842.98
Grants 7018 NA
Savings 7000 NA
Total Opening Balances: $10,842.98

Income General 3449 Gold Rush 3449 $1,485.00
Harvest Party 3449 $1,052.00
Misc. Donation 3449 $25.00
Total $2,562.00

Grants 7018 Community Foundation 7018 $1,000.00
Total $1,000.00

Savings 7000 Transfer from General Fund 7000 $200.00
Total $200.00

Total Income: $3,762.00

Expenses General 3449
Tax Exempt Filing 3449 $750.00
Safe Deposit Box 3449 $56.40
Liability Insurance 3449 $315.00
Relief Checks 3449 $1,000.00
Transfer to savings 3449 $200.00
Total $2,321.40

Grants 7018
Slash Burning 7018 $500.00
Total $500.00

Savings 7000
NA
Total $0.00

Total Expenses: $2,821.40

Ending Balances General 3449 $11,083.58
Grants 7018 $500.00
Savings 7000 $200.00
Total Closing Balances: $11,783.58

b. Budget for Approval.
It is customary for the Board to have a budget available for approval at the December meeting. A budget was prepared and discussed, but the screen sharing function of Zoom was not working. The budget will again be presented at the February meeting. Marcus and Chrissy outlined the Board’s thinking so far, indicating three areas of focus in the coming year: address immediate and urgent needs (e.g. emergency assistance); support getting together as a community and having fun; organize and fund activities that benefit the community as a whole such as slash collection. Chrissy added that the Board is looking at fundraising events throughout the year in order to be able to do more this year and to have our expenses covered for 2024. She wants to see a forward looking budget. At the end of the town meeting, Chrissy also stated that this Board is interested in creating fun events that bring the community together. Although these events are not seen primarily as fundraising events, the Board’s intention is to have options available to donate to the GHTM at these events so that community members are able to make contributions to keep the fun events going and also to support the other activities the GHTM is taking on.

4. Committee Reports

a. AirLink (Mark and Dina Elder) – There was no official report. Chrissy had communicated with Mark and Dina and reported that they are willing to remain the leaders in the program, but are hoping to engage a group of people from the younger generation in town. They’re in a “maintaining” place, wishing to pass on the torch. (MM commented: We don’t want to wait until the next emergency)

b. Cemetery (Maggie Simms) –
Cemetery Committee Report for the year 2022
Town Clean up July 23, 2022
Sank 2 new fenceposts
Restored 2 headstones that had fallen or been pushed over
Repaired fencing
Picked up slash and took down low branches on trees, dragged to entrance for disposal Cut junipers at entrance
Painted handrail and several benches
Pulled weeds
Costs: Dustin Geesaman Slash removal: $250; Swift Brothers for Juniper cutting: $30
Donations: As many as 10 Gold Hill citizens donated 2 – 6 hours free labor on July 23, 22.
Chellee Courtney faithfully logs information into her database of burial and urn/plaques and registers this information into the National Cemetery Registration.
Bob Walter has shadowed me for the last few years, as I take on more and more of the tasks involved in being the “Cemetery Matron.” He’s a hard act to follow: by his capacity to listen, care and do right by our cemetery community.
David Brigham and Maggie Simms donated (in addition to labor oversight on July 23,) three trips to Nederland sort yard to dispose of the refuse collected and deposited at the entrance. Also dug 2 plots and assisted with the establishment of one headstone.
Requested/Received plot donations of $100/ea: 12 Plots dug: 2

Burials: 3

Note: The job of “Cemetery Matron” is delicate. It is for this reason; I’ve not listed the people who have purchased plots or have been buried. I think it’s important to place a kind of HIPPA confidentiality surrounding people’s choices in death. I have walked the cemetery numerous times in the last year to help people decide on where to be buried, or where to bury their loved ones. I have received checks and given them to the treasurer for eventual deposit. People not only trust me with their money, but they trust me with their stories of their loved ones and their fears and hopes for their own futures. I have officiated 2 memorials in 2022.
I have requested that the town cut checks for two laborers to further our upkeep of the cemetery goals.
In addition, David and I have done our best to make the cemetery a place of peaceful welcoming refuge. The ceremonies of love and loss in the past year have been quite powerful.
Respectfully submitted, Maggie Simms
Erich requested the committee to establish some dates further in advance to enhance participation. In response to that Chrissy also said she’s interested in creating a 12 month town calendar that would include such events. Maggie stated that the cleanup generally happens in June or July as early in the morning as possible to avoid really hot days.

There was a brief discussion of a rain barrel that’s in the storage shed and the plan to harvest rainwater from the roof of the shed. Maggie would be interested in some brainstorming to create better access to water beyond just the eventual use of the existing rain barrel.

c. Community Planning and Fundraising (Dan Maedke) –Dan reported that the Gold Rush had been a success and funds are deposited. He’s exploring better ways to sell merchandise online (order what you want online and have it shipped to your house). He has talked to the school, the museum and other Gold Hill organizations to see if maybe that would be something we could/should join forces on. We will be working on logistics for this project. In conjunction with this Chrissy and Marcus reiterated the idea of creating fun events and called for ideas and energy from the community. Marcus brought up the idea of holding a town sledding party in the meadow that several others had floated before. We recognized that we’d have to wait for the right conditions for that, so have it pre-planned and also spontaneous.

d. Forestry and Forest Management (Virginia Schultz)
• A lot of money is beginning to flow to all kinds of forest management in the county
• Chris Dirolf and others are working on the Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) with four of our neighboring fire protection districts. Making the county proud!
• Maya MacHamer & Boulder Watershed Collective are continuing to look at options for the future
• Have not applied for another Community Foundation grant- more will become available in the new year.
• Got some good publicity in an article by Tom Drugan at the Boulder Reporting Lab
• Maya is still looking for an additional about 45 acres to do forest mitigation on to connect with other larger pieces of property that are being mitigated in close proximity to Gold Hill in order to have larger connected mitigated areas. (Marcus added that there’s follow-up on this and on continued slash collection)
• Teens Inc.: Wildfire Partners gave up their access to the help from Teens Inc. so that Gold Hill could get its mitigation work done. A really good collaboration across the county.
• If you know of teens who would like to do this kind of work, Teens, Inc is recruiting for this summer. contact Teens, Inc. (ages 16 to 21).
• They are also looking for housing for their staff. Contact them if you have available housing in the summer
• Slash burning is taking place in the county in the coming weeks. A link was sent out on that via Gretchen.

e. Gold Hill School (Chrissy and Dan Maedke)
Dear GHTM,

Things at the Gold Hill School have been busy as ever!

Since our last meeting, we hired a new Office Manager, Eva Ramey. Eva lives here in Gold Hill on Pine Street with Luke Finn. Eva has been working incredibly hard to learn the ropes at both the school and the district. She’s doing an amazing job, and we couldn’t be happier.

The Gold Hill School is benefitting this year from a grant by the Science and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD) Collaborative. Thanks to this grant, we’ve been able to participate in some new field trips and bring in some interesting guests to our school. We had a couple artists from the Lakewood Cultural Center come and do some Mexican Day of the Dead artwork with our students. From the Aurora Cultural Center, we had an incredible flamenco guitarist, El Javi come and play a concert for us. SCFD also sponsored us to go to the Clyfford Still Museum and the Denver Art Museum where we participated in some great, interactive educational programs. Next month, the students are going to see a performance by the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra, and in preparation for that, we had visits from the orchestra’s Maestro, who taught the kids a bit about directing, as well as a beautiful Boulder Phil string quartet who taught the kids a bit about the science of sound. Several community members were able to come and enjoy these performances. We’ll continue to make you aware of events and hope you will come and participate.

On Halloween afternoon, the Gold Hill School students were able to participate in the filming of Elevation here in Gold Hill. They had a small extras role, each receiving their very first paychecks! As a thank you, the Film wrote a check to the school for $2000 to put towards the purchase of a new stage for our theater program.

To close out this coming week, the students will be baking cookies for the Town’s Cookie Exchange. They’ll be making wreathes with Joanne Cole, Becky Martinek and friends, to be sold at the Store’s Holiday Market on Saturday. And on Friday, we’re going to the Denver Center of Performing Arts to see the play, Little Red.

The return of the Fall Fiesta was incredibly successful. Jojo just sent out a thank you to all the town today via Gretchen for all your never-ending support. We especially wanted to thank the Finns. Without their generosity, none of this would be possible. Together, we were able to raise $14,000 to support the school. To keep the school fully staffed and supplied and continue the experientiall programming our special little school is known for, we rely on your support. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

The teachers have been working hard to access funding outside of the community as well. This fall we secured two grants and one award/grant. We received a $1000 grant from Impact on Education to support students in need of tutoring. We received a $1000 grant from Toshiba to support the on-going honeybee program. And we received a $2000 Unsung Hero Award and grant from Voya, also in support of the honeybee program.

Looking ahead, we will be hiring for a new Principal for next year, as our current fabulous principal, Scott Boesel will be retiring. Scott is principal for Gold Hill, Jamestown and Flatirons, so the district hiring committee will be looking to find a principal for all three schools.

Next school year will be our 150th in operation. To celebrate, we are planning activities for Labor Day Weekend. We hope to get details out soon.

This is Open Enrollment time at the district. This is where people can apply to attend schools outside their Home School. Historically, Gold Hill has attracted students from all over the mountain communities, as well as Boulder. If you know someone who may be interested in the school, please connect them with our staff. We’d be happy to give them a tour and tell them about our programming. Local students are also asked to enroll by March so schools can make appropriate staffing decisions.
Warm Regards,

Chrissy, Jojo, Eva & Dan
Gold Hill School Staff
Goldhillschool.com | Christine.maedke@nullbvsd.org

f. Historical Zoning (Bear Carlson) – nothing to report

g. IMA (Marybeth Neal presented Pam Sherman’s report) –
Cloud-Seeding Project
Scott Griebling, Water Resources Engineer from the St. Vrain & Lefthand Water Conservancy District gave a presentation at our last meeting on the Cloud Seeding Project. They are excited to implement in the Lefthand area (the area to be covered is to the north of Lefthand Creek. but no one ever said weather obeys boundaries.) The consultants implementing this project are in Utah; and so they will monitor our area digitally. They have done this in CA.
A question was asked of the presenter: ‘Per the science, this has not worked very well in CA; what makes you think it will work well here?’.
The answer was: ‘we have confidence in our consultants.’
…. There are projects like this on the Western Slope….. So we will see how it goes here.

In three days we will have an update from BoCo Public Health; BoCo is a high transmission county for the trifecta of respiratory diseases making the rounds: RSV, flu, covid.

Marcus Moench to present and lead discussion at the January 19 Meeting
People across the mountains have noticed lowered water levels. There is no scientific monitoring of this from the county or anyone else, but everyone’s wanting to talk about it. At the January meeting, our very own GHTM Chair, Marcus Moench, will present and lead the discussion on water well insufficiency: what might be going on, why and how to monitor.
After Marybeth’s report there was some discussion about the cloud seeding project. Apparently, it is intended to increase snowfall. Marybeth suggested the best place to get answers to questions and to make comments might be the Boulder and St. Vrain Water Conservancies. Marybeth did not know if the project had been approved.

h. Mountain Stewards

Marcus summarized the work of the Mountain Stewards over the last year. This involved two major activities:

The first involved collaborative implementation of the fire mitigation grant from the Boulder Community Foundation with the Boulder Watershed Collective. This has already been covered by Virginia under the Forest Management section. The Boulder Reporting lab wrote a detailed article on this project. See: https://boulderreportinglab.org/2022/11/29/boulder-countys-gold-hill-is-finding-a-new-model-to-empower-its-mountain-community-to-prepare-for-wildfires/
The second major activity undertaken by the Mountain Stewards was support for passage of the mill-levy increase for the Gold Hill Fire Protection District. This involved coordination of supporters and community education. The mill levy increase passed with support from 80% of the residents.

i. Museum (Marcus for Debra Yeager)
1 We lost two Board members and gained 5 more. We are now a team of 10 people and are expecting to interview two more for two additional member-at-large positions for 2023.
2 Thanks to Jenna Gann, one of our Board members, we have an updated and organized website: www.goldhillhistorymuseum.com. It is constantly being added to and updated. You will ultimately find copies of the Community Outreach events here along with information about the museum. Check it out!
3 We hosted Rick Williams on the subject of the Sand Creek Massacre for our Community Outreach, had 60 attendees, and donated $500 to The People of the Sacred Land Scholarship fund.
4 We updated the outside of the museum and bell tower with a new coat or two of stain and maintenance on the decking. In the summer of 2023 we will stain and paint the shed to match the museum.
5 We now offer credit card payments, Venmo, cash, and checks. We also have a donate button on the website and received our first ever Colorado Gives Donation this year on Tuesday, December 6th.
6 We created a video which will debut in 2023 about the exhibits that we house at the museum. Our intention is to use this as a fundraising activity and a means for educating our community and others to our rich history. Stay tuned!
7 Joan continues to teach the Board to curate our exhibits and information and we are constantly updating our files with current activities as well as earlier ones. If you have any imagery or photos of events from 2022, including but not limited to items from the filming, please send them to deb@nullmountainvisions.net.

Currently we are working on exhibits for 2023, creating a calendar for 2024, and are discussing our Community Outreach for Gold Hill. We wish to thank you for your contributions this year. Because of our donation to the Scholarship Fund we are lower on funds than usual but hopeful that all of our calendars (less than 50 remain) will sell along with our other items being offered in the last holiday bazaar at the Pub, December 17th, including a new set of mugs created for us by Kathleen at the Red Store. If you would like to donate to the museum, you are welcome to donate through the website, or by any means mentioned above. Please contact Debra Yeager with any questions and thanks for thinking of us with your year-end donations.

j. SafeLink/NeighborhoodLink (Debra Yeager and Dina Elder)- Deb reported: “I spoke with Chrissy regarding updating her on the structure and current status of NeighborLink. Thanks to Sarah [O’Brien Bennet], we have our information in a format that makes it easier to share it with each new Town Council. Information for members of the community and alerts are in place. We are checking in with Dina to see how she wants to proceed with her responsibilities to the western part of the Gold Hill area.”

k. Weed Management – no report

5. GHFPD (Fire Department)
a. Board report (Rich Lopez)
Rich reported that the GHFPD residents voted about 80% in favor of the mill levy and thanked citizens for that vote. This will double the budget and allow the fire department to do much more. In the November meeting the Board was able to amend the budget.
He gave a “big shoutout” to Marcus, Virginia and the many others who campaigned for this mill levy, saying Board members could not do that, so town members needed to and did step in.
He also reported that training of volunteers has taken place in the use of the new UTV that was acquired with a grant from the Community Foundation this year. Weather has set in now, however, and more trainings won’t be possible in the coming months.
As a result of the fire mitigation project managed by the Boulder Watershed Collective (Maya MacHamer) firewood from the Ashram was made available to members of the community. On a November weekend volunteers cut and prepped logs and helped load many truck and car loads of firewood. They were planning a second weekend of distribution, but weather has now stopped that.

b. Recent Training and other activities (Leslie Finn)
• The focus of officers of the fire department is work on an official document of qualifications for various positions in the department. They have always had this: it’s based on education, basically the more classes you take the more qualified you are within the system. This will include the bare minimum required to be on the department (officer, firefighter, etc.). The department is also looking to define some other positions such as possibly food crews, cleaning, truck maintenance who want to be part of it, but may not have the same level of skills. New assistant chief, Whitey DeBroux, is working hard and coming up with some different ideas (including bringing more people into the station and connected). They’re hoping to have that figured out by January.
• With more money, the fire department can outfit more folks with newer gear.

• Working on a banner asking for volunteers. It will be tasteful with the logo and wording.
The area behind the station is being prepared for a Tuff Shed to house the new UTV
• Work is continuing on the CWPP. It is integral to being able to secure grants. Group grants look like the wave of the future in part because restrictions will be lower when it’s in place. Also, reporting requirements will be less demanding.
• Chris Dirolf is working on a radio grant.
• Car fire training took place on the top of Horsfal on December 10th and was a great success bringing Fourmile, Sunshine and Gold Hill Fire Departments together. The training included approaching the burning car with full breathing apparatus on. Val Crist reported that over 50% of the 30 plus volunteers present were from Gold Hill. This training hadn’t happened in a number of years because of COVID and/or too much wind. The fire department is hoping to host this training regularly and is looking for two cars to burn. They are seeking car donations.
• Marcus pointed out that circumstances are changing along with the energy transition: there is a growth in the number of electric cars and with it magnesium heads that burn very hot and require different strategies in their response. (Leslie: Can’t put water on these fires, they just have to burn out)

6. Other Town news (open). Nothing reported.

7. Future Business: upcoming meetings, activities and topics
• December 15th: Cookies and latkes event at the school
• A winter sledding event is “planned” for late January/early February, depending on weather.
• Land acknowledgment: Partly as a result of the museum’s presentation on the Sand Creek Massacre there has been interest in having a land acknowledgment integrated into our town meetings. Marcus indicated that this Board would like to go beyond that and be able to do something more tangible and direct (not just lip service). He suggested maybe doing something with the museum and how we approach our history or possibly how we approach our forest management activities. There will be further discussion on this. Marcus invited anyone who’s interested to get involved.
• The Board is considering a website update.
• Chrissy talked about social events and fundraising. The two successful fundraisers we’ve had recently have helped cover annual expenses (the Gold Rush) and the community relief fund (Harvest Soup Party). As we do these small get-togethers she would like to see a small fundraising component incorporated into it via something as simple as a donation jar, for example. We need to make sure we have enough funds to meet our basic expenses and then target specific projects that we want to raise funds for.
• Chrissy also talked about the use of the school for community events. The school administration is very supportive of the school connecting with the community. She also reminded us that Chrissy and Jojo are excellent party organizers and encouraged Gold Hill residents to suggest ideas for fun events.
• Marcus ended the meeting with a comment that he had heard of many requests for more access to firewood and fuel.

This meeting was adjourned at 20:21.

Next Gold Hill Town Meeting is at 7:00 on Monday, February 13th, 2023

Respectfully submitted, Elisabeth Caspari, Member at Large (on behalf of Gretchen Diefenderfer, Secretary)