Estes Valley Voice Podcast

Story by Patti Brown

Estes Park’s Town Hall is scheduled to reopen Friday morning after being shut down due to power and phone service outages that began Wednesday disrupting the ability of employees to conduct the Town’s business.

What began with sporadic disruptions in the morning persisted throughout the day and backup power systems began to fail in the late afternoon, according to Public Information Officer Kate Miller in an email exchange with the Estes Valley Voice.

According to press releases sent out Wednesday and Thursday announcing the phone and electrical outages, while Town administration offices located in the Town Hall were impacted, there was no disruption to the 911 phone system or to police services.

Town offices not located in Town Hall were not affected. Many Town administrative officials who are officed in the Town Hall building worked remotely Thursday and relied on email and cell phones.

According to Miller, an electrical contractor and the Town’s facilities staff determined that the closure of Town Hall was necessary until a reason for the outages could be identified.

“There was a risk of one of the electric phases melting somewhere in the building, which could cause a fire,” explained Miller. “Since then, the specific issue was identified, and the team is working to stabilize the situation, so it is safe to reopen Town Hall.”

Miller said that a short-term solution would allow Town Hall to resume operations as a long-term solution was found.

Asked if there was any connection between the outages and the public restroom renovation project underway at Town Hall, Miller responded, “a professional electric contractor has determined the electric capacity in Town Hall was overloaded well beyond its capacity. The total electric usage in the building has been significant. That would include the use of power tools for the remodel, specifically last week, though all indications are that the system was overloaded even before that work began and has been overloaded for some time.”

Miller said factors contributing to the problem include the age of the building, the capacity and condition of its current electrical system, and extreme winter weather.

“It is important to note the significant strain on the building’s central heating systems, which have been supplemented by numerous personal space heaters drawing extra electricity. The bottom line is that we have learned that Town Hall does not have adequate electric capacity, and it must be upgraded,” said Miller.

The Town Hall building is 90 years old and was originally constructed as a school building.

Miller denied that the construction crew working on the restroom project had done anything directly to cause the problem, but the added strain of power tools being used may have been a contributing factor.

“The continuation of the restroom remodel will be dependent on the full functionality of Town Hall’s operations and the system’s ability to support the use of power tools, or the ability to provide alternate power to the project,” said Miller.

Readers reached out to the Estes Valley Voice Thursday to inquire about a rumor circulating about the community that Town Hall had been shut down because surveillance bugs had been found in several offices and law enforcement was conducting a sweep to locate them. Miller denied that there was any truth to the rumor. “There is no basis for any rumors about listening devices at Town Hall,” she said.

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Story by Patti Brown

The Estes Park Town Hall was closed Wednesday afternoon due to a power outage in the building. Additionally, a phone service outage was also reported.

Press releases about both situations did not provide a reason for the service disruptions but Public Information Officer Kate Miller responded to an inquiry by the Estes Valley Voice to deny that the utility outages were related to the public restroom remodeling project that is taking place in Town Hall.

Wednesday Estes Park Health announced that its Jan. 29 board meeting will be conducted online and not in person in the boardroom at Town Hall due to a threat that has been reported to law enforcement.

In an email to the Estes Valley Voice this afternoon, Miller reported that the Estes Park Police Department was only informed by Estes Park Health of an internal personnel matter that recently occurred which raised security concerns for them internally.

After learning of the details of the matter from EPH leadership, the ESPD determined from a law enforcement perspective that the information EPH relayed to the Town did not contain evidence of a threat or any potential criminal activity and therefore would not lead to an investigation.

EPH requested that the EPPD conduct extra police patrols at this time. This is being done at this time.

Miller said that extra patrols are a common request from Estes Park businesses and residents and a service we provide routinely.”

The EPPD did not recommend additional security measures beyond what is standard on the EPH campus and the EPPD did not take part in EPH’s decision to move its board meeting from an in person to an online format.

According to Miller, “this is an isolated matter only within EPH, and we have no evidence of any security threats in our community.”

Individuals interested in registering to attend the Jan. 29 EPH board meeting online can click here. A confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting online will be sent to registrants.

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Story by Terry Rustin

Estes Park Health has a new Chief of the Medical Staff, Dr. Jennifer McLellan. McLellan will serve as the voice of the doctors in advocating for quality medical care at the hospital.

“I’m really looking forward to working with all of our medical staff here, our physicians and our advanced practice providers,” she said.

McLellan, a general surgeon, has been with EPH since 2019. Although qualified to perform several advanced procedures that require sophisticated technology, she prefers to serve patients with common medical problems. “My passion is caring for patients in rural communities,” she said.” I grew up in a rural community, I like living in a rural community.”  

From an early age, McLellan was drawn to the practice of medicine. She even worked as a nurse’s aide before going to medical school. She also liked to fix things and was good with her hands. Surgery was clearly the right field for her.

The success of a surgical procedure depends on more than the skill of the surgeon. Support staff inside the operating room, in the recovery room and on the hospital floor must work as an efficient team.

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals across the country struggled to keep up with the crisis, and EPH had to cope with staff shortages by employing temporary staff. “We’ve come to a point where we have a very stable staff,” said McLellan. “I’m very comfortable and confident with their skills.”

The Chief of Staff is the representative of the doctors, not an administrator, and does not make administrative decisions. However, EPH does not have a Medical Director or Chief Medical Officer. Therefore, it will be up to McLellan to work with the hospital administrators and to keep the Park Hospital District Board of Directors informed on medical staff issues.

A report to the Board by the medical staff typically includes measures of quality in medical and surgical care, such as the rate of infections acquired in the hospital, and complications following surgery. Those metrics have been looking very good, according to McLellan. “We perform safe, quality care here,” she said, “and that is our top priority, in surgery, and in all aspects of hospital care.”

One of the most important decisions the doctors at EPH must make is whether to treat a patient at EPH or to transfer the patient to a larger facility. “Some of the more complex surgeries shouldn’t be done at a small hospital,” McLellan said.” We refer those patients out.”

Surgeries routinely performed at EPH include appendectomies, gall bladder resections, and hernia repairs. Most of these procedures are done with the laparoscope, not by open surgery.

Certain medical services at EPH have been scaled back or eliminated in recent years. Perhaps most relevant to residents of Estes Park have been reductions in services for the elderly, including skilled nursing home care, hospice services and end of life care. McLellan and the other doctors at EPH have strived to provide those services on an individual basis.

“We have done our best as a physician group to make sure our patients are getting the care they need,” she said.

The Board of Directors of the Park Hospital District has been exploring an arrangement with a larger medical care system for several years. EPH has told the Estes Valley Voice that we ought to see those efforts produce results later this year. When that affiliation takes place, McLellan will face a new set of challenges. She will be ready for them.

The next meeting of the EPH board of directors is set for Jan. 29 at 5:30 p.m. in the Town Hall Board Room, 170 MacGregor Ave. The meeting is open to the public. To attend on the internet you must register, click here.

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Story by Cathy Creagh

How do we retire, grow older every year, and avoid living the stereotypical life of a senior citizen: decline, disengagement, and disappointment? How do we cope with common fears of old age: isolation, irrelevance, and invisibility? Author, researcher, and practitioner Ron Pevny has done decades of work to answer those questions and more in his book “Conscious Living, Conscious Aging.” 

What if we could live our lives with purpose and continued growth all the way to the end? What if we could reconcile with our past – regret, resentment, grief, and emotional wounds – to create positive energy that moves us into productive, rewarding futures for the rest of our days?

Pevny will be addressing all these issues in an interactive presentation Tuesday, Feb. 11 from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m in the main dining room at the Good Samaritan Society- Estes Village, 1901 Ptarmigan Trail in Estes Park.

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Story by Hank Lacey

Congress gave the American people a long-sought gift before the holidays: a new law that dramatically improves access to public lands recreation.

The Expanding Public Lands Outdoor Recreation Experiences (EXPLORE) Act includes numerous provisions aimed at modernizing recreational facilities and infrastructure, reduce paperwork burdens associated with outdoor play on federal lands and waters, and take on inconveniences associated with outdoor diversion that include housing shortages, and parking availability.

“It’s as simple as this – in Colorado, the preservation of our public lands and the strength of our outdoor recreation economy is not only integral to the spirit of our state but to the success of our people,” U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, who represents Estes Park in Congress, said after the Senate passed the bill in December.

Among other objectives, the EXPLORE Act will modernize and harmonize permitting processes run by different land management agencies, facilitate the construction of trails for individuals with disabilities, and establish a set of rules for rock climbing in units of the National Wilderness Preservation System.

Additionally, the act will give priority to investment in outdoor natural areas in geographic areas that have not had equitable access to them, identify and facilitate construction of ten long distance biking trails, allow for shooting ranges, and promote use of public lands and waters by armed forces veterans and active duty military members.

Children will benefit from the law’s extension of the popular Every Kid Outdoors program, which provides free national park passes to fourth graders and their families.

So will aficionados of YouTube, since the EXPLORE Act will now allow groups of fewer than six people to use hand-held devices to film on public lands without a permit if they do not obstruct uses by other visitors.

Because the new law commands improvement of Internet access and cellular telephone service in national parks, those videos could even possibly be uploaded even before leaving the place of play.

Other parts of the law mandate construction of electrical vehicle charging stations at recreation area parking facilities and additional electricity-ready campsites. And tribal nations will now have a pathway to obtain conservation funding from the federal government.

Even housing is impacted by the law, which authorizes the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service to lease unneeded administrative sites for affordable housing needs.

Chris Winter, the executive director at the University of Colorado Law School’s Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment emphasized that, for all of the EXPLORE Act’s capacity to improve recreational access to public lands, it will not negatively affect protection of environmental qualities.

“The EXPLORE Act does a lot of things for recreation on public lands, but it really doesn’t change any of the foundational laws like the Wilderness Act or the organic acts for the land management agencies,” Winter said.

He also explained that the National Park Service will continue to have the capability to assure natural values in designated wilderness within Rocky Mountain National Park.

“There’s a couple of different provisions that could potentially affect the way that the Park Service is managing activities in Wilderness Areas, but it certainly doesn’t lessen the protections for wilderness,” he said. “It doesn’t limit the ability of the park service to set appropriate use levels to protect wilderness character.”

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Story by Patti Brown

What do you get when you mix cowboys, horses, skis, snow, and speed? It’s called skijoring, a crazy and wild competitive sport that will debut on the campus of the Estes Park Fairground Jan. 24 to 26.

Think waterskiing, only replace the water with snow and then switch out the speedboat with a horse. Add in some images of a rodeo. Now you have the picture – a person on skis being towed by a horse and rider. There are some versions of skijoring done with dogs, similar to dogsledding with a team of dogs, and others with motorized vehicles, but the event in Estes will be strictly equestrian skijoring.

If skijoring had a theme song it might be a combination of “Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins and the Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson tune, “Mama Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys.” It’s all about the speed, the thrill, and throwing caution totally to the wind.

It’s definitely the kind of thing your mom would tell you not to do, but skijoring is fast becoming one of the most popular extreme winter sports attracting both thrill seekers and spectators with three dozen communities hosting competitive skijor events in the U.S. and Canada, and several in Europe.

The word skijor comes from a Norwegian term meaning ski driving. Originating in what was historically known as Lapland by nomadic people from Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the Kola Peninsula in Russia, skijoring with reindeer may have been a mode of transportation across snowy landscapes.

The first known skijor event in the U.S. took place in Lake Placid, NY in 1915 and it was an exhibition sport at the Winter Olympics in St. Moritz in 1928. The event gained popularity and it has been adopted by many mountain communities in the West.

And while it is winter, the Estes Valley sits on the eastern slope of the Rockies and it does not get a ton of snow, so is there enough of the white stuff?

“I don’t need Mother Nature,” said Kevin Benes with Running Wild Events, one of the event organizers. “I bought two big snow machines from a ski resort in Ohio, and I’m plugged into a hydrant at the fairgrounds, and I am making snow as we talk.”

Benes has been living in his camper at the fairgrounds for the last week producing clean snow which he says needs to be free from any debris to make sure a racing horse does not step on a hidden rock or something else that could instantly cause injury.

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Feature by Barb Boyer Buck

This is a first in a series of profiles the Estes Valley Voice will publish on the individuals who serve as Estes Park Town Trustees.

Outspoken and inquisitive, Trustee Mark Igel didn’t run for Town Board to rubber stamp every new idea the Town of Estes Park brings forward.

Nor did he join to try to please the other board members. As a 35-year resident, volunteer fire fighter, and downtown business owner, Igel was against the Loop and the paid parking program, thinks Estes Park has too many events, and laments the “good old days” of the community, especially the loss of its small-town feel.

“Estes Park is becoming an event center,” he said in an interview with the Estes Valley Voice, referring to myriads of weekend events, which he laments all seem to feature alcohol these days.

Visitors used to be “enticed by the sights and smells of a small town” and stayed a while after their trip into Rocky Mountain National Park to explore the shops and get a bite to eat, said Igel who thinks developments in Estes Park are happening too fast and without proper consideration these days.

That’s why after decades of living, working, and raising a family of seven children in Estes Park, four of whom he adopted from China, he decided to run for Town board. He is currently serving his first, four-year term after being elected in April of 2024.

The planning for the Loop which created new one-way streets and roundabouts in and near the downtown Estes Park corridor, began decades ago. Paid parking was developed and implemented before Igel took office, but he questions if these types of developments, and upcoming discussions about stormwater engineering, aren’t just “trendy subjects in the engineering world.”

“We have a track record in Estes Park of creating problems, identifying solutions, and then hiring the people to be involved in that process,” said Igel. “It feels to me like we maybe need to have somebody from the outside take a look at how our process is run, right?”

Igel first moved to Estes Park in 1988 to run what was originally named the Stanley Village Cinemas for Stan Pratt who owned theaters all over Colorado.

While he was still in high school, Igel worked at Pratt’s Conifer location. When the opportunity to manage the Estes Park location came up a year after he graduated, Igel decided to take it while also going to school in Denver three days a week in a criminal justice program. “Then, I discovered that maybe being an EMT was more up my alley, so I got into an EMT class, and then went to paramedic school.”

Igel worked as a paramedic from 1989 to 2009. During that time, the opportunity arose to buy the movie theater he had worked at when he first came to town. He owned it from 2003 until 2010 before selling to a local family.

The following year, he and his former wife took a year off with their children to travel the country in a tour bus.

He also owned and operated Signs of Life, a local sign shop, from 1992 to 2019.

Additionally, since 2014, Igel has owned The Taffy Shop downtown and has run it the same way it has been run for almost 90 years.

The quaint storefront and service counter belies the much larger operation in the back, where orders for its famous and award-winning taffy are packaged and shipped all over the country. He decided to maintain the tradition of the store, using the same recipe and process. This has paid off. In May of last year, The Taffy Shop was named the “best candy store in the country” through a national reader’s poll in USA Today.

Taffy and the Town Board are what take up most of his time these days. He also fills in on the ambulance crew when needed.

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Story by Patti Brown

The Estes Park Salud Clinic is facing a looming funding crisis that threatens its future. If a solution is not found for the projected $1 million operating shortfall, the clinic may close May 31, said John Santistevan the president and CEO of Salud Family Health in an interview last week with the Estes Valley Voice.

The dire financial situation is due in large part to significant cuts in eligibility for Medicaid beneficiaries as a result of what the government is calling the post-Covid “unwinding” and “disenrollment.”

Colorado is one of 10 states that has been especially hard hit by the Medicaid disenrollment due to administrative rules about the continuous coverage mandate that went into effect during the COVID-19 public health emergency which officially ended May 11, 2023. Since then, some 575,000 individuals—33% of all people who were receiving Medicaid in the state—have been disenrolled.

In addition, flat Congressional funding for the past 12 years coupled with increases in health care costs—including salaries, equipment, and general inflation—have strained the clinic’s budget to the breaking point said Doug Frisbie, the president of the Estes Park Salud Foundation.

Santistevan will make a presentation about the local Estes Park clinic’s finances on Tuesday night at 7 p.m. during the Town of Estes Park’s board meeting and to explain an aggressive fundraising plan in an effort to buy some time.

The impending fiscal crisis has been of concern for months. In September, Salud invited a constituent advocate from the Ft. Collins’ office of Rep. Joe Neguse and Estes Park Town Administrator Travis Machalek to a roundtable discussion about the clinics concerns.

Since November, the Estes Park Salud Foundation has been working with Jennifer Morse, the vice president of development for the Salud Family Health Centers, to raise $1 million needed to keep the Estes Park clinic open beyond May 31, 2025.

Since the start of the campaign in late December the Estes Park Salud Foundation has received two separate matching fund donations, one for $50,000 and another for $100,000. As of last week, the Foundation has received donations and pledges totaling $200,000. With just a little over four months to go, the clinic hopes it can raise the additional $800,000 needed to keep its doors open.

Other than for the capital fund drive to build the clinic in 2007, Salud has not asked the community for money, said Frisbie, but in light of the current situation, the clinic has no choice, he added.

The Estes Park Salud Clinic provides primary medical care, behavioral health services, dental care, and pharmacy services to some 2,000 medically underserved individuals in the Estes Valley who have limited access to health care.

The loss of the clinic will have a profound impact on the people and the businesses in the community, said Frisbie who hopes the Estes Valley can rally to plug the hole in the dike for 2025. However, a long-term solution must be found to ensure that people who can least afford medical care are not cut off from the primary care safety net, he added.

Salud operates 13 clinics in Colorado in addition to 10 school sites and one mobile unit. While all of the Salud Clinics are dealing with the impact of the Medicaid disenrollment, the larger clinics plan to cut staff and serve fewer individuals in order to remain open and still provide services.

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Story by Hank Lacey

Update, Jan. 13, 2025, 6:25 pm

The Colorado General Assembly welcomed 25 new members in the past week. They include five new senators and about two dozen new representatives, including District 49’s Lesley Smith.

Senators making their first appearance in the upper chamber are Scott Bright of District 13, elected to replace term-limited Kevin Priola; Lisa Frizell of District 2; Matt Ball, a former aide to Denver mayor Mike Johnston, to represent District 31; former University of Colorado regent John Carson, who will represent District 30; and Iman Jodeh, who will serve District 29.

Ball, Carson, and Jodeh, a former state representative, were chosen by vacancy committees. Bright and Frizell are Republicans; the others are Democrats.

In the House the Democratic newcomers include immigration lawyer Cecelia Espenoza, U.S. Air Force veteran and attorney Sean Camacho, former congressional staff member Lindsay Gilchrist, software engineer and product manager Amy Paschal, USAF veteran Lisa Feret, Lakewood City Council member Rebekah Stewart, lawyer Jacque Phillips, Aurora Public Schools governing board member Michael Carter, Littleton City Council member Gretchen Rydin, Larimer County chief deputy assessor Yara Zokaie, and Durango school board member Katie Stewart.

New Republican representatives are engineer and U.S. Navy veteran Rebecca Keltie, former legislative aide and USAF veteran Jarvis Caldwell, Castle Rock Town Council member Max Brooks, Fort Lupton City Council member Carlos Barron, Ryan Gonzales of Greeley, Elbert County commissioner Chris Richardson, retired firefighter Larry Suckla, former Morgan County GOP chair Dusty Johnson, and educator Lori Garcia Sander.

The GOP’s Dan Woog, who previously represented District 19 for a single term before losing a reelection bid in 2022 and is not new to the General Assembly, won the seat again and has also returned.

Update: Jan. 13, 2025, 5:00 pm

Welcome to a new Estes Valley Voice feature aimed at keeping readers informed about the work of our state government. Turn here to learn about the debates in the General Assembly, the significant actions of the governor and state agencies, and the work of the attorney general, secretary of state, and treasurer.

We will update this feature regularly with relatively short dispatches.

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Story by Patti Brown

Over the past seven decades, Buel Porter’s holiday displays have charmed Estes Park. It began with a display of Santa in a helicopter which he created for his own home in 1955.

The first one created for the Town of Estes Park was Santa and his reindeer which came in 1957. He created several whimsical ones—Christmas in Bugville, the Old Woman who Lived in a Shoe, and Santa’s Xmas Card Studio.

He also created religious ones including an elaborate nativity diorama with a manger shepherds, wise men, and animals in 1958 that was originally displayed in Bond Park.

That was followed in 1960 by larger-than-life images of the shepherds who were 23-feet tall, their sheep that were six-feet tall, along with a star that was five and a half feet from point to point.

The following year he created Three Wise Men on camels, and he also created a 22-foot-tall display of the Risen Jesus crowned with a six-foot wide halo that was originally displayed at Easter but eventually became a part of the Town’s Christmas decorations.

This year, several readers asked why two of the extant yuletide displays—the nativity and the Old Woman who Lived in a Shoe—were not erected.

The Town paid him about $300 per display which roughly covered the cost of the wood and paint.

After nearly 70 years, the plywood substrates on which the displays were painted are showing their age. In many cases the wood has deteriorating. Holes the size of quarters drilled over the years to allow bolts to be attached to bracing frames have allowed water to seep into the wood and weaken it.

Out of an abundance of caution, both the nativity, which is stored and cared for by Our Lady of the Mountains Catholic Church, and the Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe, which is cared for by the Town of Estes, were kept in storage. A spokesperson at Our Lady of the Mountains said the church custodian is planning to build a new backing for the historic display.

Local sign maker Kent Smith, who owns and operates Smith Sign Studios, said he can help to repaint the signs with the proper kind of sign enamel paint, and he can even match the vintage colors, but he is concerned that the wood panels they are painted on are frail and in many cases degrading due to weather and age.

The laminating glues that were used in manufacturing plywood in the 1950s are not proving to hold up over time. When the displays were first created it was expected they would have a lifespan of only 10 years. The last display was created in the mid-1960s.

Porter, a sign painter from Kansas City moved to Estes Park in 1951 and bought Estes Park Signs from Morey Cameron. Before arriving in Estes he had painted billboards, including images of the Coca-Cola Santa.

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