Broomfield has joined a swelling wave of Colorado communities sharply limiting thirsty turf grass in new development, with more communities about to follow, while other cities and parks departments are starting to rip out useless grass in medians and rights of way for replacement with water-wise landscapes.  State water officials, meanwhile, have closed out the first year of $1.5 million in local turf removal grants with nearly 40 applications for the money, and water resource experts hope to use the momentum from the anti-turf evolution to create a bigger state-funded buyback next year ..read more

Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from Out West Books in Grand Junction recommends three volumes on our great outdoors. Brave the Wild River By Melissa L. Sevigny Morton $30 May 2023 Purchase From the publisher: In the summer of 1938, botanists Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter set off to run the Colorado River, accompanied by an ambitious and entrepreneurial expedition leader, a zoologist, and two amateur boatmen. With its churning waters and treacherous boulders, the Colorado w ..read more

GRAND JUNCTION — Put your hand right here, says Kok Bou, holding out a 12-inch square of insulated fabric that will soon be part of a Wiggy’s sleeping bag.  “It’s hot, isn’t it?” he asks. This story first appeared in The Outsider, the premium outdoor newsletter by Jason Blevins. In it, he covers the industry from the inside out, plus the fun side of being outdoors in our beautiful state. SUBSCRIBE In 1988, Jerry Wigutow, the founder of Wiggy’s, held out a piece of his Lamilite Climashield continuous filament fiber and asked Bou to put his hand on it. He wanted to hire Bou, who fled h ..read more

Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, staff from Out West Books in Grand Junction recommends some age-centered murder mysteries. Killers of a Certain Age By Deanna Raybourne Penguin $17 September 2022 Purchase From the publisher: Billie, Mary Alice, Helen, and Natalie have worked for the Museum, an elite network of assassins, for 40 years. Now their talents are considered old-school and no one appreciates what they have to offer in an age that relies more on technology than people skills ..read more

Can you imagine setting out to leave your Colorado hometown multiple times, but then coming back after every attempt? Leaving for college, completing your degree, and then reluctantly moving back home? From a young age, my generation of Grand Junction friends watched as the seniors would graduate, make a life plan — and then struggle to leave the invisible grasp that the Grand Valley had on them. Some managed to leave for college only to return at the completion of their degree. Sure, you could blame the worsening economy, the difficulty finding jobs, or the esoteric art history degree that s ..read more

For the first time in recent memory, the median price of a house in metro Denver is less than it was a year ago.  And for some who make a living selling houses, there’s a sense of relief. “Every single month in 2021 and the first half of 2022, everybody in our (real estate) community went, ‘Oh my goodness. How much more can this go? What will buyers put up with?’ I mean having to pay a penny over the appraised value is just bonkers to me,”  said Matt Leprino, CEO of Denver-based real estate brokerage Remingo.  Now, he said, “It’s calm, it’s a very tepid pool right now. It’s not ..read more

GRAND JUNCTION — More than 30 friends and relatives of the victim of a grisly murder two years ago crowded into a Grand Junction courtroom Monday morning to witness the sentencing of his killer, a young man who told investigators he chose a homeless victim because no one would notice his disappearance. The victim, Warren Barnes, was known around downtown Grand Junction as “the reading man” because he so often sat behind a bridal shop absorbed in paperbacks when he wasn’t helping store owners move boxes or doing odd jobs through a temporary agency. “He was valued. He was loved. … He is missed ..read more

Paula Black realized what a sad state her local Steamboat Springs post office was in when she started seeing junk mail piles avalanching to the floor from tables in the lobby. She noticed cobwebs draping corners, dust coating everything, and parts hanging off old heaters. So, she called on some friends to meet her at the post office with brooms, dust rags and trash bags last Saturday afternoon when the counter was closed and mailbox traffic minimal. They spiffed up the lobby so that it no longer looked like a place that had been without custodial services for months. “I took a teeny, tiny nib ..read more

BERLIN — A Grand Junction-based company that helped build a huge aquarium in Berlin says it is sending a team to investigate the rupture of the tank, which sent a wave of debris, water and tropical fish crashing through the hotel lobby it was located in and onto the street outside. Reynolds Polymer Technology, which says it manufactured and installed the cylinder component of the AquaDom tank 20 years ago, said in an emailed statement that “at this point, it is too early to determine the factor or factors that would produce such a failure.” Police have said they found no evidence of a malicio ..read more

Western Slope voters last week overwhelmingly approved new and additional taxes on short-term rentals to generate money for affordable housing.  Voters in Aspen, Carbondale, Dillon, Durango, Glenwood Springs, Salida, Snowmass Village and Steamboat Springs approved new or additional taxes on vacation rentals. So did voters in Chaffee, Eagle, Gunnison and Summit counties. Together the new taxes from vacation rentals could direct about $40 million a year toward affordable housing in those communities. Voters in Grand Junction and Park County bucked the higher-taxes-for-housing trend. Short ..read more