Estes Valley Voice Podcast

David Hernandez

Estes Park news recap podcast in Spanish (27 de Octubre)

Each week, David Hernandez provides a Spanish language recap of the Estes Valley Voice for members of our community.  Let us know how we’re doing? Do you have ideas for stories about stories we nee to be covering? We want to hear from you.

Our Spanish language podcasts are accessible on Buzzsprout, Spotify, and Apple, the same channels as our English-language podcasts, which are produced by Brett Wilson.

The Estes Valley Voice would like to find a podcast sponsor to support this work. If you, your business, or organization is interested, please contact our newsroom at [email protected] or 970-586-1888.

Visit Estesvalleyvoice.com

David Hernandez

Listen to the Estes Valley Voice podcast presented by David Hernandez, who recaps the latest community news in Spanish each week.

If you have stories that you think the Estes Valley Voice needs to report, please reach out to us at our newsdesk or email David at [email protected]. We want to hear from our readers and listeners.

Visit Estesvalleyvoice.com

Listen to the Estes Valley Voice podcast presented by David Hernandez, who recaps the latest community news in Spanish each week.

If you have stories that you think the Estes Valley Voice needs to report, please reach out to us at our newsdesk or email David at [email protected]. We want to hear from our readers and listeners.

Visit Estesvalleyvoice.com

La Voz del Valle de Estes 5 Octubre

Historia de David Hernandez

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Escucha el último pódcast de noticias de Estes Valley Voice en español con David Hernández.

Listen to the latest Estes Valley Voice news podcast in Spanish with David Hernandez

Visit Estesvalleyvoice.com

Story by Elisabeth Sherwin

The garden is a metaphor for many things in Prof. Camille Dungy’s life.

In 2013, it represented the beginning of a guerrilla war with her Homeowners Association.

Spoiler: She won.

When she and her family moved from Oakland, Calif., to Fort Collins in 2013, they moved into an established, traditional suburban neighborhood with well-maintained grass lawns.

Not good.

Dungy wanted a prairie garden to attract butterflies and bees. She wanted a garden that could thrive in the natural environment of Northern Colorado. She wanted a drought-tolerant garden with lots of native plants. And a pesticide-free garden.

In hindsight, all these things seem so reasonable, so desirable. The HOA should have given her a medal.

Instead, in the early years, a woman walked around the neighborhood with a ruler, measuring too-tall grass and weedy vegetation to report violators to the board.

What was a rebel gardener to do?

“They did not love my garden,” Dungy told the audience earlier this month at the Estes Valley Library.

“But my first patch was small,” she said. She and her husband, Ray, had to bring in quantities of soil, railroad ties, and river rocks for landscaping, which could not be done overnight.

The idea was to start small and reclaim sections of the yard as time and the seasons allowed.

As the years went by, neighbors admired their work. Now, she said, everyone in the neighborhood uses railroad ties for landscaping, and many neighbors trade native plants.

“I was right,” she said. “I was going to move slow so (the HOA) could catch up with me.”

Dungy writes about her garden in her 2023 book, “Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden,” which is about gardening, yes, and much more. She is also an essayist, poet, and professor of English at Colorado State University.

She writes about Black history and recent politics, and again, her garden becomes a metaphor for a heterogeneous environment.

And, oh by the way, the HOA eliminated its rule against “non-standard landscaping.”

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The Estes Valley Voice wants to help bridge the gap and lower the height of the silos between the English and Spanish-speaking communities in the Estes Valley by making the news we publish accessible to non-native English speakers whose first language is Spanish. According to data from the 2023 American Community Survey and the U.S. Census Bureau, it is estimated that 12% of the residents of the Estes Valley speak Spanish at home.

Toward that end, this summer, we installed an English-Spanish translator toggle button on our website. And this week, the Estes Valley Voice is introducing a Spanish-language news podcast, which will review the week’s top news stories with podcast host David Hernandez.

The podcast will be accessible on Buzzsprout, Spotify, and Apple, the same channels as our English-language podcasts, which are produced by Brett Wilson.

The Estes Valley Voice is seeking a podcast sponsor to support this work. If you, your business, or organization is interested, please contact our newsroom at [email protected] or 970-586-1888.

Visit Estesvalleyvoice.com

Story by Elisabeth Sherwin

Glen Haven resident Sibyl Gardner is a self-confessed writer. She writes everything from screenplays to novels, memoirs to essays. 

In a recent talk at the Estes Valley Library, Gardner described her three decades in TV, working in New York and Hollywood, on projects as diverse as MTV music video production in the 1980s to screenwriting for “Law and Order” and “Nashville” in the 2000s. 

She moved to Los Angeles in 1988 to make movies. While that didn’t happen, she’s still not ruling it out. She’s the kind of person who has a screenplay under her pillow. 

What did happen in L.A. was a series of jobs on various TV shows like “Frank’s Place,” “Law and Order,” and “Saving Grace.”

“I wanted to do it all,” she said. “Movies, dramas, comedies, novels.” 

Gardner said her career was full of ups and downs. But she managed to make a living. You could join the Writers’ Guild and make money off residuals when the episodes you wrote were rebroadcast. She had a friend who signed a million-dollar deal as a writer for “E.R.”

Previously, networks had to appeal to broad audiences. Shows couldn’t be too edgy.

Then came cable TV, then HBO, then streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and YouTube came along. 

Now, writers can be very edgy, if you can find the work. 

In the land of TV and movies, Gardner knows one thing is true.

“There would be nothing without the writers,” she said. “Actors can’t come up with it.” 

She recalled once having to rewrite an episode of “Nashville” on a plane flight.  

That’s the kind of pressure that writers occasionally have to face. She also stressed the need for sparse writing that goes into a TV script.

At the library meeting, Gardner read a descriptive paragraph from Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises.” 

“You couldn’t get that information into a script,” she said.

She said the best job she ever had was writing for a friend’s TV show, “Any Day Now.”  The plot followed a group of black and white kids, and she described it as way ahead of its time. 

“You can see it on YouTube,” she said. 

But she would hesitate to recommend a young person head out to Hollywood to chase down a writing career.

“Writers are not making the money they used to in salary or residuals,” she said. 

Still, Gardner knew she would always return to family property in Colorado. She left Hollywood 11 years ago but hasn’t given up on her many projects. 

She’s writing a novel called “Old Moms” and a time-travel novel. She has a comedy set in Boulder. She self-published her memoir, “Sibyl Rights.” 

Who knows what will happen next? 

Perhaps her novel, “Old Moms,” about new mothers in their 40s, will be made into a movie. 

“Heck, it’s worth a try,” she said. 

“I can’t stop writing,” she added. “I’m a writer.” 

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The skies over Estes Park have been filled with smoke, and the air quality has been poor due to several fires on Colorado’s western slope, including the Lee, Elk, and Twelve Fires west and south of Steamboat Springs, and the Windy Gap Fire near Granby, involving some 75,000 acres.

Particulates in the air can cause eye, nose, and throat irritation, and those with asthma and other respiratory conditions are especially susceptible to the adverse effects of poor air quality. People with breathing issues have been advised to stay indoors, wear a filtering mask, and run their air conditioners.

According to an email from Stacey Sutherland, the Estes Valley Fire Protection District interim fire chief, “due to continued dry conditions, the danger of wildland fire, forest, and grass fires is still high in the Estes Valley, and to stay consistent with the Stage 1 Restrictions in unincorporated Larimer County above 6000’ and Rocky Mountain National Park, we are enacting the following: Pursuant to International Fire Code Section 307.1.1, I hereby issue an open burning RESTRICTION (Stage 1) within the Estes Valley Fire Protection District effective 13:00, Aug.7, 2025.”

The EVFPD recommends that people living in the Estes Valley learn about preparing their property for the risk of wildfire and be aware of the current fire restrictions.  

The Larimer County Commissioners today voted unanimously to adopt fire restrictions in unincorporated Larimer County. Due to above-normal temperatures, lightning strikes, and windy, dry conditions, the danger of wildfires, forest fires, and grass fires is great.

The restrictions on open fires in the unincorporated portions of Larimer County will remain in effect until 11:59 p.m. on September 2, 2025. 

Restrictions on the use of fireworks, combustible devices, public fireworks displays, and incendiary devices are also in effect.

This is not a fire ban, and the restriction only applies to unincorporated Larimer County over 6,000 feet.

Larimer County has implemented a zoned approach to restrictions to address fire risk while still accounting for different climate areas. The county is divided into three zones: below 6,000 feet, 6,000–9,000 feet, and above 9,000 feet.

To view a real-time, interactive map of the restriction area, click here.

Current restrictions include:

• uncontained open fires
• smoking in the open is prohibited, including on trails, parks, and open spaces.
• fireworks or firework displays
• incendiary devices, including sky lanterns, exploding ammunition, exploding targets, and tracer ammunition
• welding

What is allowed:

• fireplaces or wood stoves located inside a residence
• gas-fueled fires, including grills and camping stoves
• camping and cooking fires in developed camping areas
• fires in permanently constructed masonry fire pits

Any person who knowingly violates the restrictions can be fined. Click here to read the Ordinance for the Regulation of Open Burning in Unincorporated Larimer County.

EVV Emergency Information Directory

The Estes Valley Voice’s Emergency Information Directory can always be found on our website’s homepage.

Read full story here:

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Story by Patti Brown & Barb Boyer Buck

The Estes Park Police have secured three arrest warrants for David Anthony Morales, wanted for allegedly providing alcohol to minors at a closed business and offenses relating to sex offender registration.

In February 2025, the Estes Park Police Department received a report of a party hosted by Morales at the Twisted Griffin Pub and Restaurant, located at 247 W. Elkhorn Ave, where alcohol was allegedly served to minors by Morales.

The warrants are for two counts of failure to register as a sex offender, a class 5 felony; nine counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a first-degree misdemeanor; and five counts of unlawful acts, a second-degree misdemeanor.

When the alleged incident occurred, the Twisted Griffin had just permanently closed. It had been owned by David Bard. Bards also owned and operated the Hyland Bard gift shop and the Griffin’s Nest Coffee and Tea Pub in Estes Park.

According to EPPD, a total of fourteen underage victims were identified and interviewed. During the investigation, it was discovered that Morales failed to register as a sex offender as required by Colorado State Law upon moving out of Estes Park following this incident.

In 2010, Weld District Court Judge Thomas Quammen sentenced Morales to 12 years in prison, followed by 10 years of sex-offender specific intensive supervised probation.

According to court records, Morales was initially charged with sex assault, overcoming a victim’s will, and sexual assault against a victim who was incapable of appraising conditions for an attack in 2008, according to court records. As part of a plea agreement, he pleaded guilty to second-degree assault and attempted sexual assault.

Estes Park Police believe that Morales is currently living in the Denver area. They ask the public to contact local law enforcement immediately with any information that could lead to his arrest. Morales’ most recent sex offender registration photo is attached.

According to EPPD Chief Ian Stewart, “This was a complex investigation requiring many interviews, hours of evidence review, and working non-stop to eventually secure the appropriate arrest warrants to bring the case to a successful conclusion. I am very proud of the work our team has done.”

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