Monday, April 12, 2010

We had the pleasure of hosting Senator Mark Udall Saturday, April 3 at the Water Treatment Plant site. Included were Andy Poirot from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, Curt Thompson from Merrick Engineers, Tony Krempin from local TopKnot Engineering, Brock Southwick from Garney, Mayor Hershal Deputy and most of the town staff. The Senator was well versed in ARRA/Stimulus infrastructure projects in general and, we were pleased to hear, he was quite familiar with our ToHSS project in particular. Seems his Staffer Matt Sugar has been quietly helping us along for some time.

Discussion ranged from the difficulty small towns have improving infrastructure to the complex planning and permitting process and the unique challenges of this kind of work in the Colorado high country. Fire Chief Brad White was able to discuss mountain pine beetle wildfire mitigation and how our Stimulus project will improve fire-fighting capabilities. We were also pleased to outline our project history starting with the Pioneer Park acquisition and river-corridor master planning funded by Great Outdoors Colorado. It was great to see Senator Udall show so much interest in our small town project!