Posted on: August 3rd, 2014

GOLD HILL TOWN MEETING NEWSLETTER

Minutes of the June 9, 2014, Town Meeting

Next Town Meeting is Monday, August 11, 2014, 7:30 p.m. at the Community Center

ELECTIONS!!

The meeting was called to order by Chair Peter Swift.  Twelve people attended: Peter, John Sand, Karen Simmons, Debra Yeager, Poppy Copeland, Bobby Vrba, Chloe Seibert, Member-at-Large Tony Vrba, Treasurer Martha Knapp, Vice-Chair Bear Carlson, Secretary Gretchen Diefenderfer, and Andrea Riley.  Chloe and Andrea are Tony and Bobby Vrba’s grandchildren.

Minutes – Bobby moved that we approve the minutes, Poppy seconded and the motion passed.

Treasurer’s Report – Martha reports:

At the previous Town Meeting in April our overall balance was 16,803.36. Since then, $9.41 was added and $291.10 disbursed resulting in a new balance of $16,521.67.     Expenses include the following:

• General Fund expenses included $75.00 for website work and $35 for the  safety deposit box. The new balance is $2,128.47.

• Forest Management expenses included $181.10 for the Aspen Tree Project resulting in a new balance of $94.12.

A small PayPal donation added $9.41 to the Community Relief fund that now stands at $10,491.95 with an additional $1,500 being held at the Ward Community Church for disbursement.

All other accounts remained the same: Cemetery $3,110.21; Weed Management $526.70; and Safe Link (formerly known as Safe Site) $170.22. Community Planning, Historic Zone, and Trails accounts remain inactive at “zero” balance.

COMMITTEE REPORTS

Community Planning – Gretchen reported that the IMA (Inter-Mountain Alliance) group, which started out as the MMG (Mountain Mayors Group) after the Fourmile Fire, has grown to include many more communities since The Flood.  We meet monthly and discuss emergency planning, communication issues, and any issue of general interest to our mountain communities.  It’s a great group and MERN (Mountain Emergency Radio Network) has come out of this with much help from BCARES (Boulder County Amateur Radio Emergency Services).   The Ham radio people were a great help during the flood when so many people were cut off.  Several mountain communities now have good networks and Gold Hill is making great progress.

Historical Zoning – Bear reports that that there has been no recent activity.

Forest Management – Martha reported on the Aspen project at the Cemetery.  With a generous donation from a couple that got married here in Gold Hill, Susan Fernalld bought 60 Aspen trees and 4 Spruce.  Many people adopted these trees for the cemetery and those that were left over were donated to 5-6 households whose trees burned.

Karen Simmons added that WildFire Partners is doing great assessments to help homeowners prevent wildfires around their homes.  There is a certain amount of funding provided to those who participate.

Fire Department – Bobby reports that they have been having 9 or 10 people show up for trainings.  Also, he has been checking on Army Surplus portable privies as a possible solution to our restroom needs for the Community Center, but so far the closest ones are in Ft. Riley, KY. He’ll keep checking.

Weed Management – Martha read a letter from Susan Fernalld, our former weed maven: “Because I no longer live in Gold Hill and do not attend town meetings, I relinquish the money now in the weed committee’s budget to go back into the Gold Hill Town Meeting’s general fund.”  Susan still has the Milestone, which helps eradicate the Canada thistle and will be doing some invasive weed management this summer with the aid of some volunteers.  Deb Yeager suggested that thistles are edible and suggested people contact Deb St.Clair. We are looking for someone to take over the Committee and Debra suggested possibly Cheryl Warner, who has been helping.  Gretchen moved that we move the weed committee money into the general fund, Peter seconded and it passed.

Historic Gold Hill – John Sand reported that the Museum opened on Memorial Day and encourages everyone to come see the new exhibits.  It’s open from 11-4 on weekends.  Martha says, “It’s awesome!”  One new exhibit is on the Musicians of Gold Hill.  You can see the little sign on Main Street pointing to the museum when it’s open.  This led to a discussion and general support of putting together a new map similar to the old map of Gold Hill that used to be on the bulletin board on the corner of Main Street near the beer garden.  Tony volunteered to start putting ideas together.

Mining – Gretchen reports, as before, that there is intermittent activity up at the Mill – cars, people cleaning up and so on.  No real information or timetable is available.

Gold Hill School – in the absence of Chrissy McCaul and Mishi Littlefield, we received a letter and a beautiful card from Mishi (aka Natalie).  The 140^th celebration was a great success.  They loved all the participation.  Ongoing projects include planting and tending organic, pollinator friendly plants in our cemetery to support bees and butterflies.

The bee project thanks Kris and Bret Gibson for their wonderful support for hosting a beehive and installing an electric fence at Kris’s house. In collaboration with their STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) grant, they will continue these projects and more.  They are also developing efforts to support creek debris removal and other flood recovery efforts locally.

This coming year they are planning living history days and a Dance-A-Thon to raise funds for flood recovery projects. Email Mishi at Natalie.littlefield@nullbvsd.org. with any questions, ideas, comments or concerns.

We also received a beautiful card from the school kids for our support of the school – see attached.

Tony put together a certificate of appreciation to the Gold Hill School for the plantings in the cemetery and Peter will see that Mishi gets it.

Safesite/Safelink – Deb reports that we now have several trained Ham radio operators: Steve Sherman, Lacey Story, Dina & Mark Elder and John Sand, when he’s here.  They will be part of the MERN effort.  We have applied for weather radios for the Pod Leaders.  The OEM (Office of Emergency Mgmt) will put out emergency notifications as well as weather alerts/warnings, etc., and the radios can be set to just pick up alerts from Boulder County or as wide a network as one would like.  We may have signal problems, depending on where we are.

Our repeater (in the Firebarn) is not in the best location – sort of in a hole radio-wise.  Mark has done propagation studies looking for a location that will work better to link our Ham radio people up with each other and the other mountain communities in the MERN network.

OLD BUSINESS

Community Relief Fund – Tony brought a draft of her form for the group to review.  It was decided that there would be two avenues for requesting funds.  One would be for some kind of natural disaster, which would have a maximum of up to $1,000 per event and the other would be for a family emergency such as lost job, hospitalization, etc. with a maximum of $250 – one household per 12-month period, depending on review by the Town Council.   Martha moved that we approve these guidelines, Bear seconded and it passed.  Tony will do a final revision for us to look at.  Peter thanked her for all her work on this.

Gold Rush – Annual Bake/Rummage/Craft event.  Tony is looking at Sunday, September 13, as the beer garden is available them.  She was reassured that we will all help her make this happen.  Notice to come out soon.

NEW BUSINESS

Cemetery – Karen Simmons brought up that Bill’s grave is starting to cave in around the edges and wondered how to get help with this.  She was advised to contact Bob Walter and Kris Gibson, who are on the Cemetery Committee.

Changing our 501(c)4 status to a 501(c)3 to be a tax deductible organization for donations and grants – Peter is looking into CDBG  (Community Development Block Grants) funds with the idea of applying for perhaps $250,000 to build a Community Center/Safesite building, apart from the Firebarn.  We would have to be a 501(c)3, however.  Peter will talk to Rich Lopez to ask for legal advice on how to go about accomplishing this and may come back to the town meeting with a request for funding for legal expenses.

Storm Drainage in Gold Hill – Peter says some of the damage in the flood was caused by blocked culverts, or, in some cases places where culverts are needed, and less rain will cause damage if these problems are not remedied.  Boulder County says it is not responsible for culverts on private property (the property owner is responsible for culverts on their land) – they only take care of them if the County put in the culvert.  Peter has been dealing with Public Works and the Transportation Department.  Martha suggested that we invite them up for a public meeting to discuss these issues.  Also, Leslie from the County was to give us a report on the speeding issue/study and we could invite her as well.  This would be separate from the Town Meeting, as we would not have enough time to go over all this.

Town Garden – John Sand reported that Cherry, Leslie DeGrassi, and Poppy weeded the town garden at the Firebarn.

Respectfully submitted, Gretchen Diefenderfer, Secretary