Almost universally, 2020 will be a year folks will be eager to put in the history books, like 1918, the year of the Spanish flu.
Just about every event – not only in Durango, but across the planet – was shaped by the microscopic destroyer known as COVID-19, the novel coronavirus or SARS-CoV2 – the actual name of the virus that causes the disease that preyed most heavily on the elderly or those with pre-existing health conditions.
Isolated and rural La Plata County was fairly unscathed until November, when cases spiked and the pathogen found its way into the Four Corners Health Care Center. So far, 21 deaths at the center have been attributed to the virus.
More than a third of the estimated 326,322 COVID-19-related deaths in the United States have occurred at long-term care facilities and nursing homes, according to the COVID Tracking Project. Unfortunately, that number is even greater in our county, where the 21 deaths from Four Corners Health Care Center alone make up 72% of the 29 deaths among COVID-19 cases.
Even the happiest story of 2020, Durango High School’s first football State Championship since 1954, a 21-14 victory over Roosevelt High School of Johnstown, was colored by COVID-19.
Senior quarterback Jordan Woolverton and senior wide receiver Ben Finneseth missed the final regular season game because they were in quarantine after a close encounter with an athletic trainer who had tested positive. Also COVID-19-related: The final regular season game was played without fans in the stands and the season and playoffs were shortened as efforts were made to limit large social gatherings.
It was that kind of year.
Here’s a look at the stories that shaped 2020, a year in which COVID-19 tinted almost everything:
Business
BusinessPublic health restrictions may have limited COVID-19 transmissions, but they took their toll on Durango restaurants.
Since the pandemic began, several restaurants have closed permanently, at least in part because of lost business caused by restrictions placed on social gatherings in public places. Losses included: Red Snapper, Eno Cocktail Lounge and Wine Bar, the Palace Restaurant, Irish Embassy Pub and Pura Vida in Vallecito.
Bump-outs proved popular as the city moved to find ways to help restaurants through public health restrictions that cut capacity or closed dining rooms. The city and other entities also offered grants funded by the federal government to small businesses hurt by COVID-19 restrictions.
One Durango restaurateur, Jerry Martinez, owner of CJ’s Diner, is questioning the legal rationale forcing restaurants to shutter their dinning rooms.
After being issued a cease-and-desist order and preliminary injunction for keeping his restaurant open to in-person dining after it had been banned for a second time, he’s filed a case challenging the constitutionality of the restrictions on restaurants in court.
On Dec. 6, Martinez told The Durango Herald: “We believe that the health department’s regulations are not right or fair.”
COVID-19 also left its mark on Durango’s commercial office space market.
“We have seen some increased vacancy rates based, obviously, on all this occurring this year as part of the COVID,” said John Wells, owner broker of the Wells Group.
Increased office space vacancy was apparent by summer in Durango, and FIS Worldpay’s decision in October to permanently close its 81,380-square-foot building and allow its Durango employees to telecommute, a trend COVID-19 restrictions accelerated, added even more offices for lease.
It has been a tough year for the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. Because of the pandemic, the D&SNG has either been shut down or forced to operate at limited capacity since March. It became the first year, likely ever, that no trains made it up to Silverton in the summer.
To make matters worse, the D&SNG got into legal battles with the U.S. Forest Service over a fire mitigation project in the San Juan National Forest, as well as a project to repair a bridge near Elk Creek. Also, Purgatory Resort sued the D&SNG for money lost during the 416 Fire.
Cops and courts
Cops and courtsThe trial for Mark Redwine, accused of killing his 13-year-old son, Dylan, in 2012, got off to a promising start after years of delays that postponed the trial since Redwine was arrested in 2017.
A week or so in, however, the trial was derailed after Redwine’s defense attorneys claimed they had symptoms associated with COVID-19. The courts are set to give it another go in January, though court officials remain skeptical about whether it’s going to be possible to pull off a major jury trial amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
In July, the Durango Police Department had its first officer-involved shooting since 2000. Officers were called to O’Reilly Auto Parts in north Durango in the early hours of July 1 for a suspected robbery taking place.
Once at the scene, the suspect, Jason Noble Snow of Pagosa Springs, shot at police. An officer returned fire, striking and killing Snow. The officer was cleared after a lengthy investigation determined Snow fired first.
Authorities found the human remains of a Texas man who went missing in Mesa Verde National Park in 2013. Mitchel Dale Stehling went on a solo hike while visiting the park with family. He was spotted by a few hikers, but soon went missing without a trace.
A hiker in an off-limits area came across the human remains in September and anonymously reported them to authorities. Found at the scene were a driver’s license, credit cards and a Social Security card that had Stehling’s information on them.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused the court system to come to a grinding halt. To adhere to best practices of social distancing and limited gatherings, jury trials were put on hold for most of the year after the pandemic started in March.
Since then, La Plata County was able to pull off one jury trial for a man accused of sexual assault on a child, which resulted in a mistrial. A jury trial was underway for Redwine, but ultimately canceled. It’s unknown what the future holds for jury trials in 2021, but cases mount as the shutdown continues.
Education
Education
Public schools in Durango, Bayfield and Ignacio all were forced to close to in-person learning in March with the advent of the novel coronavirus.
Durango School District 9-R offered three different learning models when school resumed in August. One of those models was full in-person learning, but in November when a second wave of the virus hit La Plata County, 9-R was forced to again go to all at-home, mostly online learning.
COVID-19 had Fort Lewis College following a similar pattern. President Tom Stritikus has said tents provided as outdoor learning platforms have proved so popular, the school is looking at ways to integrate outdoor learning venues as a regular feature of its educational model.
In mid-November, 9-R Superintendent Dan Snowberger announced he will leave as the leader of the district at the end of June 2021.
“As you know, I’ve been here for nine years, and I have valued every moment of my time in leading this amazing district and team of educators and support staff,” he told the board. The average tenure for a school superintendent in Colorado is 2.3 years.
Snowberger leaves as 9-R begins a building spree. The district received overwhelming voter approval to issue $90 million in new bonds to improve security at schools as well as address a backlog of maintenance needs and build two new structures, a new building for Miller Middle School on the current campus and a Career and Technical Education Center probably on the Durango High School campus.
Election
Election
The 2020 general election proved you could color La Plata County a deeper shade of blue.
Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump for the presidency by 57.6% to 39.9% – a bigger margin than Biden’s 55.4% to 41.9% margin victory over Trump statewide.
But perhaps the biggest indicator of La Plata County’s move blue was in the 3rd Congressional District, where retired sociology professor Diane Mitsch Bush of Steamboat Springs took the county convincingly over Rifle restaurant owner Lauren Boebert, 56.7% to 40.1%. Alas for county Democrats, the 3rd Congressional District takes in the entire Western Slope and Pueblo, and districtwide, Boebert prevailed over Mitsch Bush 51.4% to 45.2%.
In the 2020 Senate race, former Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper built on incumbent Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet’s 10-point win in 2016, defeating Republican incumbent Sen. Cory Gardner by more than 14 percentage points, 56% to 41.7%
So, is there any hope Republicans can reverse La Plata County’s blue tide?
Perhaps, Republican ideals proved they could win even in La Plata County. Proposition 116 asking voters to lower the state tax rate from 4.63% to 4.55% passed 53.4% to 46.6% in the county. Statewide the ballot measure passed 57.9% to 42.1%.
Two La Plata County Commission seats were up for grabs as incumbents Gwen Lachelt and Julie Westendorff were term-limited. In the race for District 2, two longtime locals, Marsha Porter-Norton, running as a Democrat, and Jack Turner, running unaffiliated, were pitted against each other. In District 3, Bayfield rancher Charly Minkler, running unaffiliated, went up against former Bayfield Mayor Matt Salka, a Democrat.
In the end, the Democrats pulled away. Salka handily defeated Minkler by 3,335 votes and Porter-Norton claimed her seat, albeit narrowly by a difference of 166 votes.
Whether Republican or Democrat, voters can pat themselves on the back given 35,995 ballots were cast by the county’s 41,296 registered voters – a turnout of 87%.
Environmental news
Environmental newsLongtime Ignacio rancher J. Paul Brown agreed to give up some grazing allotments in the Weminuche Wilderness and reduce his herd of sheep in exchange for a payout from a conservation group.
For years, Brown’s herd has raised controversy as domestic sheep can pass a deadly bacteria to native bighorns. In March, Brown and the National Wildfire Foundation reached an undisclosed agreement for an 11,000-acre allotment, considered a high-risk area for domestic sheep and bighorns to come into contact.
The Bureau of Land Management issued the lease for the expansion of GCC Energy’s King II coal mine in western La Plata County. For years, GCC officials said they were running out of coal, and would need to expand to stay in business. The expansion was largely uncontested by the public and far less controversial than a few years ago when GCC sought a land-use permit with La Plata County. Now, GCC says the life of the mine is likely to be extended 20 years.
In October, a decadeslong effort to restore the Colorado River cutthroat trout to the upper reaches of Hermosa Creek was completed, resulting in the largest continuous stretch of waterway for the native fish species in the state.
Cutthroats were driven to the point of extinction with Western settlement, and efforts to restore the native fish have been happening across the West over the years. Colorado Parks and Wildlife with other partners completed the 23-mile project, a milestone in the restoration effort.
La Plata County
La Plata CountyThe long-awaited, and often-controversial, new land-use code was adopted this year. La Plata County tried for years to update its land-use code, but several attempts failed. County officials say the new set of codes will help better streamline development and expand uses on a property, especially in agricultural areas.
Butch calls itAfter more than four decades working for La Plata County, Butch Knowlton announced his retirement. Knowlton wore several hats for the county over the years, but he is best known for his work at the Office of Emergency Management and the Building Department. Knowlton had seen and assisted in just about every disaster to hit the county over the years.
After his retirement, colleagues lavished praise on Knowlton for his uncanny institutional knowledge about La Plata County. A generally private person, Knowlton retired without much fanfare and has remained silent about what his well-earned days off hold in store.
City of Durango
City of DurangoFacing unpredictable impacts from the pandemic, Durango issued emergency public health orders, lost revenue, deferred or delayed capital improvement projects and partially furloughed employees for about three months.
After the death of George Floyd and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, Durango launched a diversity, equity and inclusion initiative after community members held months of protests and vigils calling for racial justice and police reform. In its first months, the initiative focused on adding translation services, accessing resources for staff member training and allocating $30,700 for DEI efforts in 2021.
Durango’s former finance director, Julie Brown, pleaded guilty in November to embezzling more than $710,000 over 11 years from town coffers.
Brown, 51, resigned in October 2019 amid allegations of fraud, which led to a monthslong investigation by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. She worked in city finances for more than 17 years and became finance director in 2007.
Durango community members and city officials struggled to agree on the location of a new permanent campsite for people experiencing homelessness, ultimately pushing the decision to 2021.
The city committed to finding the new site after the La Plata County government agreed to designate a campsite along La Posta Road (County Road 213) at Purple Cliffs. But residents and business owners near potential sites repeatedly opposed plans put forward by both staff and community members.
In August, City Council hired José Madrigal of Texas to lead the city’s staff and replace former City Manager Ron LeBlanc. The city terminated its contract with LeBlanc in September 2019. Some of Madrigal’s first acts were to hire a new finance director, Cynthia Sneed, and guide the city through the 2021 budget process.
Bayfield
BayfieldIn October, the Bayfield School District loosened its COVID-19 restrictions. It ended the cohorting policy for older students, which placed students in assigned learning groups, and allowed the full student body to learn in-person four days a week at all schools.
The district continued the policy when La Plata County shifted into tighter Level Red restrictions, which recommended remote lessons for high school students.
Frustrated teachers and parents protested, citing concerns about health and safety, while others supported the move, saying it was better for the well-being of students.
As racial justice protests swept the nation, Bayfield and Pine River Valley residents with the Los Pinos Anti-Racism Project held weekly sidewalk demonstrations at Bayfield Town Hall.
The Bayfield Racial Equity Working group, or BREW, also met with the town government to form a town-approved citizens’ group focused on social justice issues, but the effort stalled during the holiday season.
The town government also hired an economic recovery coordinator in response to the coronavirus pandemic to help businesses access COVID-19 recovery resources, including $250,000 in total grant aid offered by the town using federal relief money.
Ignacio
IgnacioFarmers Fresh Market in Ignacio was one of the first businesses in La Plata County to openly violate public health orders related to the coronavirus pandemic. Going against a statewide mandatory mask mandate, the store did not require face coverings for staff members or customers.
The store’s violation tested COVID-19 enforcement capabilities for Ignacio, San Juan Basin Public Health, La Plata County and the 6th Judicial District Attorney’s Office.
During enforcement proceedings, the Ignacio town government realized it did not have the ability to revoke town-issued business licenses, and the Town Board considered a proposed ordinance giving it that ability. The board delayed taking a vote on the ordinance multiple times in response to pushback from the local business community.
The Los Pinos Fire Protection District, based in Ignacio, avoided a financial cliff after voters approved a property tax increase for the fire district. Without the increase, Los Pinos expected to run out of savings within four years, likely turning into an all-volunteer department with no ambulance service.
The town of Ignacio made preliminary plans for a new housing development that will add greater variety to the town’s housing stock with apartments and townhouse units. New construction has been declining since the early 1980s and the average home is about 70 years old.
