Posted on: November 16th, 2019

GOLD HILL TOWN MEETING NEWSLETTER

Minutes of the October 14, 2019, Town Meeting

Next Town Meeting will be Monday, December 9, 2019, 7:00 P.M. at the Community Center

 The meeting was called to order by Chair Marielle Sidell.  Fifteen people attended: Chris Dirolf, Vice Chair Emma Salmon, Treasurer Martha Knapp, Chair Marielle (Mari), Josh Kravetz, Cat Russell, Ota Lutz, Tony Vrba, Maya MacHamer and Cat Price with the Fourmile Watershed Coalition, Bear Carlson, Poppy Copeland, Member at Large Dan Maedke, Dina Elder and Secretary Gretchen Diefenderfer.

Minutes – were approved as published. 

Treasurer’s Report – Martha reports – At the previous regular Town Meeting in August 2019 our bank balance was $12,347.78. Our current total cash assets are $11,147.78.

 Revenue Summary: Cemetery fund donations of $400. 

Expense Summary: $600 advance for pint glass order; $1000 advance for Gold Rush event.

 Fund transfers: none

 Current fund totals:  General Fund $14.19; Cemetery $6,339.85; Safe Link (combined funds for SafeSite, AirLink, NeighborLink projects) $2,466.79; Community Planning/Fundraising $0 (zero;) Forest Management $0 (zero;) Community Relief $2,326.95.

           The General Fund only has $14.19 left because she hasn’t received the Gold Rush funds yet.

Sunset Trail Running Festival – Maya MacHamer, Coordinator of the Fourmile Watershed Coalition, attended to update us on the Sunset Trail Running Festival held on September 22. Their Coalition was organized in 2015 around flood recovery in Gold Run and Fourmile canyons.  They are not incorporated and operate under the fiscal auspices of the Fourmile FD.  Much of that flood recovery work is now done and they are transitioning to watershed health on a larger, wholistic scale, including resiliency, forest health, and wildfire mitigation, in parts of Sugarloaf, Fourmile, Gold Hill, and Sunshine.  They are part of the Boulder County Collaborative composed of lots of fire districts, USFS, State Forest Service, Boulder County and the City of Boulder.  There has been a lot of cooperation and collaboration and they are now looking to bring all agencies together to identify projects and find funding.

            So, the Race!  The original race was a fundraiser for the Fourmile Fire Department.  It felt like a good opportunity for education and to create an intersection between the fire departments and the recreation community.  For this year, Maya contacted Joe Grant, a racer in Gold Hill, and he knew Lee Troop, an Olympic runner and race organizer.  Both donated their time and an incredible volunteer effort was organized.

            The race generated $3,500.00 for Forest Restoration, and included 180 runners in five different races, including a race for the Gold Hill School kids.  50 volunteers helped from the 4 fire departments.  The logistics went pretty well. They tried to offset the parking limitations with shuttles, AMR donated a bus, permits were waived by BoCo and the FS. The runners loved it and by all accounts the volunteers did, too.  The 4 districts and the Ham radio operators used it for training and communications.  They hope to have this event every year.

            They would like to put the funds into Gold Hill, as the HQ of the race, if there is an identified project.  They figure to double the $3500 with grants.  Dina suggested a soil health component.  She has been doing research and it fosters forest health, watershed preservation and lessens wildfires and erosion.

            Maya suggested that we proceed to identify a project by getting representatives from the 4 districts: Fourmile, Gold Hill, Sugarloaf, and Sunshine.  Tony pointed out that Virginia Schultz has been working on a big project on Gold Hill’s north slope involving her 40 acres, Caroline Ashley’s 150 acres and the Ashram’s 130 acres.  Chad has been doing work for them evaluating effective mitigation plans and goals for individual landowners which will help them as well as protect the town.  Both Gretchen and Bear and others supported the idea of supporting a north slope project – we’ve known for years of the danger to the community of fire on that slope. 

            Maya has also looked at our old, somewhat outdated CWPP (Community Wildfire Protection Plan).  She suggested something that fits into that.

            Tony added that the Sustainability/Resiliency Committee pushed for more community members getting wildfire hazard and mitigation assessments from Wildfire Partners and possibly we could help people do the work to meet the requirements to get certified.

            Martha reported that the Fourmile Fire was so intense that the soil was sterilized and wondered what we could do to help it recover.

            Maya again stressed that we need to come up with representatives to meet and plan a project.  Grant application times are coming up and would help us generate more money.  Sunshine and Fourmile both have a mill levy dedicated to mitigation, but we do not.

            Dina suggested we have a test site in the burn area to see what helps.  With that it was agreed that Dina and Virginia be our representatives.

            Dan heard from some community members that they had an issue about not enough information in advance – logistics – roads closed, couldn’t get to their houses, etc.  Tony said that the County issues permits, they contact Chris Finn and he notifies GHFPD people.  The coalition sent letters, put up signs and a town email went out – no one is sure what more can be done.  Dina suggested maybe we should conduct a town survey to see how it could be better handled.  Chris added that, if it’s an annual event then people would be more prepared and Bear concurred.

 

Future Bike Rally – Josh Kravetz has three kids at the Gold Hill School and organized the bike rally through Gold Hill in 2016.  He has been talking to Dan Maedke about possibly combining the Gold Rush town fundraiser with a bike rally to raise more money.  He has a company called Adventure Fit and spoke about multiple ways to raise funds. His idea is to create a fall event with perhaps the school and the town as beneficiaries.  This generated a huge discussion.

            Dan said that he doesn’t feel like we’re getting as much benefit as we could from the Gold Rush for the amount of effort that we put into it.  If we could lower the list of expenses and make more money, we could do more things for the community.  We would need to figure out how the town feels about events and the impacts vs benefits.  Josh said that the cause needs to be something that people can get behind.  Josh thinks it could be a huge benefit and that cyclists and runners would support it.

            Martha pointed out that the Gold Rush is a community event that townspeople participate in and she wouldn’t want that to get lost. She sees it as a socialization event, with so much of the community working together, that benefits us all. 

            Dan thinks the two events could exist side by side – keep the small event, plus a bigger event to bring more people.  Josh thinks the Gold Rush should continue plus the bike rally and maybe an old-fashioned hootenanny – close a section of Main Street.

            Chris, who is a forest/wildfire mitigation person, and worked on the big mitigation project at Betasso, and said money is a real factor.  If we are hoping to mitigate the North Slope, we would probably need helicopters and they cost.  Also, we should consider this asap – you never know when the next fire will occur.

            Bear added that the Gold Rush is our main fundraiser for the Gold Hill Town Meeting and then if we try to make it so much bigger with a bike rally – it seems like a conflict – such a separate thing.  Also, someone pointed out that there are only so many volunteers to help run events and it takes quite a few just to run the Gold Rush/Bake/Rummage/Craft Sale.

Another consideration is that the running race was close to the same time as the Gold Rush and then to add another event…?

Gretchen added that the idea of closing Main Street has not been a popular one.  Josh will put out a summary to send to the town.  We need to find out how the community feels.

 

COMMITTEE REPORTS

Gold Rush – Dan presented a report comparing expenses and profits for 2018 and 2019.  Several people noted that there didn’t seem to be as many people this year as last.  Martha wondered why we spent almost twice as much on food this year as last, but made so much less, and Dan added that there was a lot of food left over. 

He again expressed his feeling that we need to make some changes – that it’s frustrating that we don’t make much for the amount of effort we put in. 

 

 

 

 

 

Gold Hill School – Dan reported that the Fall Fiesta will be November 13^th.  Also, Janos Wilder and Dave Query are teaming up as chefs for a dinner at the Inn on October 22^nd.  Archery and gardening are over now and they are starting to work on the school play.

 

Historic Gold Hill/Museum update – Deb Yeager emailed her report – We had a very successful summer at the museum which included the community outreach event on Tellurium with Ed Raines as our presenter.  Additionally, we hosted the ANFRM meeting, the Colorado Association of Front Range Museums, plus an ice cream social in the Gold Hill Inn Beer Garden and a tour of our cemetery hosted by Chellee Courtney.  Currently we are in the process of constructing an 8’ x 12’ shed which will house our lawn equipment and supplies as well as and most importantly, make us compliant with the ADA by adding a compostable toilet kindly donated to us by Shirley and Larry Hannert.  We are thrilled to finally be able to accommodate disabled guests and those museum visitors who need a facility. We will continue to have off street parking and we will not have to compromise the bell tower so all is well in the world of the museum.  We will be working this winter on the creation of our 2020 exhibits, our 2021 calendar, and training the museum board on how to record artifacts and appropriately log our museum treasures for perpetuity.  Additionally, we are continuing to enhance our ‘friends of the museum’ format and are looking forward to reaching out to the newest members of our community for positions on our board and finalizing our community outreach for 2020.  We are constantly looking for more items for the calendar including but not limited to photos, poetry, recipes, oral history and histories of properties, old artifacts, and papers that you may find in the recesses of your attic.  Please remember us when you come across those old things.  Gretchen added that we would love to have more people on the calendar committee, too.  Contact Gretchen or Marie if you would like to join us.

 

Bear said he’d heard rumors about resurrecting the old Gold Hill bus.  Gretchen reported that an old White chassis (maybe not the original, but from the same period), that Tim Walter used to drive the Bluebirds up to Gold Hill in has been living in the Weaver’s garage. Marcus and Elisabeth would now like to use the garage and the Museum board wants to restore it to something like its original grandeur (!) and possible give tours in?  We vacillate between thinking how wonderful that would be to how are we going to accomplish this and where are we going to house it.  Several people have volunteered to work on it and Tony added that she thought Bobby would help.

 

Mountain Stewards (formerly Climate/Sustainability Committee) – Tony reported that their prior mission was more about surviving emergencies, including sustainability and resiliency.  They applied for a grant last year to study where to go forward with sustainability and resiliency, particularly in the face of climate change.  There is a copy of the report at the Gold Hill Store and we’re working to link to it on the town website (goldhilltown.com).  They are now working on a more complete mission statement to include mountain stewardship more broadly.  They are meeting regularly now on the third Monday of the month at 6 pm. The next meeting will be October 21 at Tony’s house.  They have put in for a solar assessment grant through the County (since we are not an incorporated town) to make us more independent, but haven’t heard yet.  They have also been focusing on water supply and water testing and have applied for a grant for $2000 to test peoples’ water. 

            Dina made a motion that the GHTM support this grant application and administer the $2000 for water testing.  Ota seconded and it passed unanimously. Bear added that we have a bizarre water situation in Gold Hill with at least 5 different aquifers, so especially in our community it would be good to have a way to test it.  Dina said that safe, abundant water is our goal.

            Tony reported that we now have a beautiful logo designed by a local artist.  Our focus is making a better community for the future.  We began by learning how climate change will affect Gold Hill and now will focus on resiliency and sustainability in the face of it.

            Dina reported that Deb Yeager was working in the Museum one day when Todd Moses, a geomorphologist who went to CU and loves Gold Hill, visited.  He wants to make GH his pro bono project for the year – to evaluate at our overall water situation up here for us. He also has an amazing record for helping raise grant money – he writes the technical part.

 

Declaration of Climate Emergency – Cat Russell brought a Climate Action Resilience Map – a visual representation of all the subjects they have been addressing on how to develop our resources up here for a better future.  She reported that Boulder, as well as Aspen and other communities in the US, have declared a Climate Emergency and she went to the launch party in Boulder.  She would like to have an event here to invite the community to organize together, to look at climate change and ways to reduce our impact to head off our contributions to it as well as how to adapt to it and maybe make our own declaration.  Looking at fundraising, some things are free or not very expensive.  For instance, it only costs about $10 a month to support wind energy with Excel Energy.  Also, we could support the Climb by all riding the going to a sports bar or something together. 

Dan would like more information on climate change. Cat has trained as a climate reality trainer with Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project so she would be happy to make a presentation.  All over the country on Wednesday, November 20, there are events happening so this could fit right into that.  She feels that in the face of government inaction we need to reorganize ourselves as tighter communities to take the lead for ourselves. We have so many resources.  She has been teaching climatology for 17 years and Ota works with federal agencies (NASA) gathering data so together they have a lot of information useful to us.

So, the plan is to have the presentation in November and the GHTM can take a vote at the December 9^th town meeting on whether we want to go on record as declaring a Climate Emergency.  More information to follow.

 

CSA (the food share group) – Mari reports that it will be continuing next year although they are looking into a different provider. Nine families split 3 shares this year.  Contact Deb or Mari if you are interested.

 

SafeLink/NeighborLink/AirLink – Dina still has the GoTenna devices and she and Ota have been testing locations.  At their weekly meetings they have been discussing how the community would be able to communicate during a disaster – not just the Hams, but a majority of the community.  These are tiny radio devices that, paired with a smart phone, enable text messages to hop from one to another and create a community web.  They need to be located within 20’ of each other or line of sight.  They cost $70-$80.  She is not sure what the next step is.

 

Historical Zoning – Bear reports that there are three projects coming up.  At 671 Main Street, Paul and Anya want to put in solar panels. The HZ position on solar panels is that of course they aren’t historical, but they are environmental so they support them as long as they are flush with the roof.  The second one is Boyd Brown’s project at 775 Pine Street.  And the third one is Mari and Ian’s at 541 College.  The general process is for projects to start at HZ first, but in this case the County has issued permits before HZ was done with their process, although there are still some to go.  Bear will pursue this with the County. Plans for the projects are at the Gold Hill Store for public inspection.

 

Fire Department – Gretchen would like to point out that minutes of the Gold Hill Fire Protection District Board of Directors are on the GHFPD website –  goldhillfire.org

 

NEW BUSINESS

Holiday Potluck – Mari would like to reinstate our holiday potluck.  She will work on a date and location, but sometime in December

            Also, bring your own cups to town meetings and Mari will bring water.

 

Respectfully submitted, Gretchen Diefenderfer, Secretary