Now that 2024 is (barely) in the rearview mirror, the news of 2025 has already begun to take shape.
Although much of the year’s news cannot be predicted, there are some stories for which the groundwork has already been laid.
Voters in House District 59 have a new representative under the Gold Dome in Denver, as Democrat Katie Stewart starts a four-year term this month to which she was elected in November. The county will start to unfold its plans for the newly reallocated lodgers tax revenue, as city officials move to take Visit Durango under the umbrella of Durango city government. Durango School District 9-R has found itself dragged to front lines of the nation’s culture war, and is likely to remain in that fight into the New Year.
New businesses are likely to rise from the ashes of the old; new infrastructure will be built; and new opportunities for recreation and cultural exploration will emerge.
No crystal ball will predict what is going to happen this year. But here’s a look at some of the stories readers are likely to see in 2025.
The city of Durango and Durango Police Department are in need of a new city hall and downtown police station, and come April, voters will have the opportunity to accept or reject the extension of a half-cent sales tax, first approved in 2005, that would fund construction.
Specifically, reauthorizing the sales tax would extend it at its current rate for 30 years until it sunsets in 2056. Half the tax revenues would be spent on parks and trails maintenance and operations as they currently are. The other half, which voters originally approved in 2005 to fund a new public library and road improvements, would fund the construction of a new joint city hall and police station.
The city originally planned to pose the sales tax extension question on the November 2024 ballot. But councilors, fearful the extension would compete for attention with a La Plata County lodgers tax question and a $150 million school district bond question, decided to withhold the question from the November ballot.
Councilors also voiced concern about misinformation and disinformation circulating on social media about the sales tax, including the incorrect notion that sales tax revenues would be used to fund Downtown’s Next Step or the sales tax rate would actually increase if approved. Saving the sales tax ballot question for April would give the city more time to address residents’ unfounded concerns, the city said.
After a forensic audit revealed incorrect or flawed financial processes and procedures at Visit Durango, the destination management nonprofit funded primarily with taxpayer dollars, the organization’s leadership proposed a merger with the city of Durango.
Many details of how exactly the merger will shake out still need to be determined. But the city will take over management responsibilities of the Durango Welcome Center on Main Avenue where Visit Durango’s headquarters reside.
Durango Prosperity Officer Mike French was hired by the city to lead the way in housing, tourism and economic development. One of his first priorities is modernizing the Welcome Center, according to a news release.
“We want to embrace technology to make the center more interactive and engaging for residents and tourists alike,” he said in the release.
Ten years after Durango resident Marc Katz purchased Durango Mesa Park, formerly known as Ewing Mesa, his dream of preserving the park while giving back to the community is getting closer to being realized.
The city of Durango completed its annexation of the 1,928-acre park in 2024, clearing the way for major developments to unfold in 2025.
Described enthusiastically by Durango cyclist and former Iron Horse Bicycle Classic Director Gaige Sippy as the soon-to-be site of a world-class bike park, Durango Mesa Park started taking shape last year with downhill demonstration trails.
This year, heavy construction will connect the Meadow Hub, a centralized area, to future trails, which is expected to be completed in 2026. Soon enough, parking lots, grading, trails and infrastructure will gradually manifest at the park, which has been described as an events center and bike park with something for everyone in Durango and abroad.
The 6th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, which covers Archuleta, San Juan and La Plata counties, has about a dozen active homicide cases awaiting adjudication.
Some of those cases are likely to go to trial or be resolved by plea agreements in 2025.
Three of those homicide cases involve an ambush-style shooting Oct. 23, 2023, at Santa Rita Park in Durango. Three teens, including a 19-year-old and two 17-year-olds, are suspected of showing up at the park about 9:30 p.m. in anticipation of a fist fight. Instead, the trio allegedly brought guns to the melee, and as soon as they exited the vehicle, gunfire erupted.
Rodney D. Bellino, 47, died from his gunshot wounds, and three other teenagers survived their gunshot wounds.
Durango School District 9-R will consider adopting a policy regarding the display of the Black Lives Matter and progress pride flags in schools.
The school district first banned the Black Lives Matter and a variation of the LGBTQ pride flag in October in response to a parental complaint. The 9-R board of education overturned the policy a week later after it received backlash from the community.
The school district is likely to consider adopting a formal policy in 2025 that would allow district employees to display those flags without opening the door to all political symbols.
A $40 million school is set to be built at Three Spring after the passing of Ballot Issue 4A in November.
With funding secured for a new school in Three Springs, the district will be able to relocate the bus depot from Colorado Highway 3 to Florida Mesa Elementary School. Florida Mesa would then close, with its students transferring to the new school in Three Springs.
In November, Petersen told The Durango Herald that the district’s next step is to establish an independent bond oversight committee to monitor bond spending. He also noted that the district will continue collaborating with community partners to create affordable housing solutions for staff members.
The school district is likely to develop a formal timeline for the project in 2025.
A $1.25 million purchase of the lot at 1043 Main Ave. in downtown Durango was finalized in July, paving the way for a new four-story apartment and commercial complex, “Risdon Durango.”
But the building comes at the cost of tearing down Studio & Gallery in downtown Durango, a well-respected art gallery. The artists in charge of the gallery are hearing out offers from the Risdon Group, a Florida-based company developing the property, which said it intends to work with the gallery.
Will this be the end of the gallery in downtown Durango or will they come to an agreement?
In August, the popular Gem Village bar, The Billy Goat Saloon, permanently closed after facing trademark litigation and difficulties securing insurance following a tragic 2022 DUI crash, for which the business was never found liable.
The price of insuring The Goat has quadrupled and liquor liability rates have multiplied by 12 over the last year, owner Ashleigh Tarkington said in July.
Tarkington hopes someone will buy the bar and preserve The Billy Goat Saloon’s legacy with a new name and branding. Will a new owner step in to maintain the spirit of this beloved watering hole for Bayfield and Durango residents?
La Plata County has trimmed the fat, officials say, and even sliced into the muscle in the 2025 budget.
The document outlines $136 million in spending – a 25% decrease compared with the 2024 budget (although a $7 million increase from what is estimated to actually have been spent in 2024). According to county commissioners, budget pains are being inflicted by state lawmakers and the governor who, in an attempt to lower skyrocketing property taxes, began tinkering with the taxing formulas.
This year’s budget contains few capital projects, minimal increases to staffing and a 2% raise for county employees. As the 2026 budget process kicks off, officials will be looking to see where they can once again trim spending – and where cuts are causing serious declines in services to the public.
The first revenues from the recently reallocated county lodgers tax will begin to arrive in 2025, after voters overwhelmingly opted in November to direct 70% of the revenue – an estimated $700,000 this year – away from Visit Durango.
Instead, the county will use the money to address affordable housing and child care needs related to the impacts of tourism.
Just because funds arrive in 2025 does not mean they will be spent the same year. County officials are still sorting out how they will determine where the money will go and when. Commissioner Marsha Porter-Norton has pledged transparency in that process, and said the county is looking at how best to strategically use the funding to support enduring solutions.
The Metallic Minerals La Plata Project is likely to make news again in 2025 – and perhaps for many years to come.
The Canada-based mining company has found an estimated 1.2 billion pounds of relatively low-grade copper, in addition to 30,000 ounces to 50,000 ounces of platinum and palladium, in rock on the west side of La Plata Canyon. Although the company is just exploring – any actual mining would be conducted years from now by whoever buys the mining claims – neighbors are already organizing an opposition movement.
“You might prove there’s a resource there, and then we’ll never be left alone, and it won’t be you guys doing the mining,” said one angry attendee at a public event in November.
The company drilled for cores in 2022 and 2023, but did not have funding to continue the subterranean exploration in 2024.
Colorado’s Natural Resource Trustees visited Durango and Silverton in May 2024 to talk about how the state could spend $7 million meant to address natural resource damages to the Animas River watershed stemming from the Gold King Mine spill.
In 2025, it will become somewhat clearer how those funds will be used.
Proposals for how to use the first half of the funding are due May 31, although no decisions will be made likely until early 2026.
Unlike the federally managed Superfund cleanup occurring around Silverton, which is intended to remediate the impacts of historic mining, the damages compensation is intended to restore the natural environment.
“This is not Superfund, this is not cleanup, it’s restoration of natural resources,” said Jason King, a lawyer in the Colorado Attorney General’s office during the May visit. “It is not punitive, it is compensatory.”
Discontent from residents is bubbling over entering 2025.
Mayor pro tem Alexis Hartz faces criminal harassment charges on suspicion of confronting a resident who signed a petition calling on her resignation.
And despite a Jan. 7 work session being scheduled to help fill an interim town manager vacancy, there’s a chance the search could extend beyond that time frame.
Work on the underground infrastructure is slated to begin in spring 2025, and the project is expected to be completed by or before summer 2026. Using capital project funding dollars, roughly 800 to 900 Forest Lakes addresses will be connected to high-speed fiber internet.
As part of that expansion, Clearnetworx will upgrade and install fiber north to Vallecito and west on Florida Road (County Road 240) to just outside the Edgemont Ranch subdivision northeast of Durango.
Casey Irving, Clearnetworx’s director of business development, told The Durango Herald on Nov. 20 that a second route for fiber connectivity between Durango and Bayfield can be used so that the whole town doesn’t find itself without internet.
Although the exact time frame still needs to be sorted out, the department looks to ensure construction document specifications are as solid as possible, all while preventing any expensive change orders that could delay the process.
As of mid-December 2024, initial construction plans are about 70% complete and slated to be finalized around mid-January. Once those documents are released, Upper Pine Fire will spend a couple of months reviewing them to make sure everything is on the up and up.
Upper Pine Fire looks to put the project out for bid with contractors this spring. The estimated building cost is around $18 million.
