ROCC General Meeting Draft Minutes

Thursday, March 16, 2017

Ridgway Community Center

Kate Kellogg, Vice President, brought the meeting to order at 6:00 pm.

1. Announcements - Kate Kellogg and Scott Williams

a. The Colorado Plateau Mountain Bike Trail Association will host an open house from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., Thursday, April 6, 2017, in the Centennial Meeting Room adjacent to City Hall, 433 South 1st Street, in Montrose, to discuss and take comments on a multi-use, non-motorized trail system proposed for the BLM Dry Creek Travel Management Planning area west of Montrose.

b. Great Old Broads will have a presentation on "How to Protect Bears" at the Ridgway Library Meeting Room at 9:00 am on Monday, April 3.

c. UWP, Trout Unlimited and Rigs Fly Shop will be holding a Fly Fishing Film Festival this Saturday March 18 at the Sherbino Theatre in Ridgway starting at 6:00 pm. Tickets are going fast.

d. Kate introduced Cyndi Holman, who is a new ROCC member.

2. Adoption of January 19, 2017 Meeting Minutes

Rein Van West made a motion to adopt the minutes. Rich Niemeier seconded the motion. Motion passed.

3. Treasurer's Report - Scott Williams

see attached report below

4. Old Business

a. 2017 Spaghetti Dinner Report - Chris Pike and Dudley Case

In part because of the good weather and Roland McCook as a good keynote speaker we had a very good turnout for the dinner, approximately 210 people attended the dinner.

Also, as Scott, reported in his Treasurer's Report this year's dinner was a financial success. And we also had many younger people turn out for the dinner this year.

Chris suggested that we might get an even better turnout if we moved the dinner date to late March or April. We also need to start the dinner planning farther in advance of the dinner in order to find speakers and/or musical talent. And publicity, especially distribution of posters, could be improved.

Chris would also like a Spaghetti Dinner Committee formed for next year's dinner.

Dudley also reported that this was a really good dinner from the perspective of membership. We gained 18 new individual and family memberships at the dinner and 6 memberships were also renewed. If you count the membership increase on an individual person basis we actually gained 26 new individual members. This is more than double the new memberships we have gained at each of the Spaghetti Dinners over the past few years.

It was suggested that we might want to have a sheet at the dinner payment table for people to check off how they heard about the dinner, such as radio newspapers, posters, etc.

5. Committee Reports

a. Grants Committee - Chris Pike and Scott Williams

This year the Grants Committee has a budget of $1,500 and last year the Grants Committee spent about $1,250.

Scott said that the UWP is asking that ROCC do a music sponsorship for UWP's River Fest in the amount of $600. River Fest will be Saturday, June 24 this year. ROCC also has a tent each year at River Fest to hand out promotional andeducational literature. As part of the ROCC's music sponsorship ROCC's logo will be put on all the River Fest recyclable plastic cups.

Scott mentioned that UWP is focused on water quality and mine remediation projects. And the annual Ouray hydro dam pond water release will take place this coming Sunday, March 19 at about 6:00 pm, and UWP will be conducting water quality sampling before, during and after the water release.

Rich Niemeier made a motion that ROCC make a $600 musical sponsorship to UWP's River Fest. Jim Stephenson seconded the motion. Motion passed.

b. Social Justice Committee - Kate Kellogg (for Chair Vicki Huggins)

see attached written report

The Ouray County Housing Authority has $6,500 in their budget, which was provided by the three Ouray County governments.

Robyn Cascade is working on Immigrant rights with CIRC and the Hispanic Affairs Project.

c. Clean Energy Committee Report - Rein Van West

seeattached report below

The level three electric charging stations use about 80 amps and the level 2 charging stations use about 30 amps.

Since converting from compact fluorescent lights to LEDs the Ridgway School System is saving about $1,200 per month in energy costs. And the payback time for the money the school district put into the project was about 8 months.

The Norwood 200 kilowatt IQ Solar Farm is now up and running.

d. ROCC Talks - Kate Kellogg

On Thursday, April 20 there will be a talk on Protecting Public Lands in the New Political Climate.

Don Swartz has set up a talk with Greg Hobbs, former Colorado Supreme Court Justice, on Sunday, May 14 at the Ridgway Community Center.

e. WCC Public Lands Committee - Jim Stephenson

Jim said he took part in a San Juan Wilderness Bill strategy session. And he believes that Senator Cory Gardiner may end up supporting this bill.

Greg Larson has been sworn in as the new director of the BLM in Montrose and he has a good background in public lands. People think that he will be able to handle conflicts with the new Trump administration.

Scott Armentrout is the GMUG supervisor. And for information and maps about GMUG you can go to

Jim suggested that each ROCC member select a GMUG area you feel strongly about that should be protected under the new GMUG plan and write a short piece on why you feel it should be protected.

f. Membership Committee - Kate Kellogg (for Chair Roze Evans)

see attached report below

It was suggested that new ROCC members be assigned a mentor.

g. WCC Report - Rein van West

The largest WCC legislative-lobbying group in recent memory went to the state capitol to speak with legislators on bills of interest to WCC members. With the astute help of WCC's legislative liaison, Sol Malick, the 19-member delegation was able to arrange meetings with legislative members of both chambers to discuss bills dealing with Clean Energy, Oil and Gas, Energy Efficiency, Rural Economic Development, and more.

Senator Cory Gardner may be the swing vote on whether or not the Methane Rule is repealed. So please call his office and encourage him to oppose repeal of this rule.

Ben Tisdel, Ouray County Commissioner, is in Washington, D.C. lobbying Cory Gardner on this and other issues.

6. New Business

a. Adopt-a-Street - Kathy and Tom Heffernan

They said it would make sense for HOAs to adopt streets rather than individual homeowners.

The Ridgway Parks Department will be handling this program.

b. ROCC Parking Lot Sale - Rich Niemeier

Rich said we need volunteers for the parking lot sale on May 20th. Please sign up on the volunteer sheet that Rich has.

The parking lot sale will again be in the 4-H Events Center parking lots.

The Love Your Valley Festival will again be on that same day.

c. D3 Indivisible - Dudley Case

This is a new 501(c)(3) organization in Ridgway which will be focusing on calling federal, state and local legislators on various issues, such as environmental protection, healthcare reform, women's rights, educational reform, etc.

They are trying to set up a public meeting with Senator Cory Gardner in Ridgway in April.