KDNK's own News Director Marilyn Gleason was interviewed by Rocky Mountain Community Radio's Maeve Conran on the scene of last Saturday's protest.
Maeve Conran: Marilyn Gleason, the news director at KDNK. You are at the No Kings Rally today in Glenwood Springs in Western Colorado. Can you give us a sense of what's happening there, what's going on? Who has come out?
Marilyn Gleason: Sure. Things are just getting started here right now. The idea was that everybody was gonna gather in a rather large, like a large block, square block park in Glenwood Springs. And they're going to walk down Grand Avenue, probably about a mile down to the downtown, cross the street, and come back up the other side. This road is sort of the main street Grand Avenue through Glenwood Springs, but it's also the highway that leads up to Aspen, the famous ski resort. Glenwood Springs is located kind of between Aspen and Vail over on the western slope of Colorado.
So it's a heavily touristed area. It's a fairly rural area, but there's also a lot of gas and oil drilling here in Garfield County. In fact, we're the second biggest county for drilling oil and gas in Colorado. Sort of a mixture of viewpoints here.
MC: Well, what are some of the signs that you're seeing? What are some of the concerns that are being expressed by folks who are showing up?
MG: There are a lot of, um, sort of anti-Trump signs. That's definitely a rallying point. Uh, I saw some signs that said Trump is anti-American, no crown for the clown, liar in chief. There also seems to be quite a bit of attention to more international affairs today.
There's a hands-off sign that keeps filling in more countries, Greenland, Panama, Canada, Venezuela, and now Cuba. And I saw a number of signs that seemed to be paying attention to the international affairs.
MC: You mentioned there your proximity to some of the local ski resorts, and this has been an exceptionally dry and warm winter, and I know that where you are in Colorado, you're living through some of the worst effects of the climate crisis, you're seeing it every day, whether it's wildfires, whether it's less water in the rivers, whether it's less snow on the mountains.
MG: Yeah, Meave, you have really hit the nail on the head. I can't say that I've actually seen any signs out here specifically directed on at that. It's really on everybody's minds.
The temperatures today are supposed to be in the mid seventies as they have been for days. There was an article in the local paper yesterday about how spring or maybe summer is at least four weeks ahead. Right now, trees are going into blossom.
We've got this odd convergence of we're starting to get some fires. There was a little fire in a couple of places near here. Just a couple of days ago, and it's still ski season, so it's ski season and fire season at the same time. People are very concerned about this hot weather we're getting and just very dry conditions this winter. So that's what we're looking at here. Irrigation and, and water is really important. The Colorado River runs right through Glenwood Springs, and that's the river that takes water to 40 million people in the west. So that is top of mind, although I'm not seeing it on the signs here. You know, as far as what people are thinking about, somebody mentioned to me that the international situation really taking up a lot of the oxygen, and kind of forcing itself onto the top of the news and the top of people's minds.
But the other thing that is really getting a lot of attention right now is ICE. Here in Glenwood Springs, there's a field office that has been sort of not really known up until very recently, but it's really jumped onto people's radar screen lately. It turns out that they have been detaining some people here. There's been a bunch of news stories about it. It turns out that their permit from the city of Glenwood Springs, which was issued back in 2003, only allows holds to go on for a maximum of 12 hours. And there have been some violations of that. So it's something that they're talking about at City Council now. There's a lot of pushback from the community. There's articles in the paper. It's just very front of mind right now, this ICE office in Glenwood Springs, and there seems to be a lot of opposition to that.
MC: Well, related to that, I know just a couple of years ago, there was a big influx of Venezuelan asylum seekers into that particular community, and so I know that immigration, even though it's a relatively small rural community, immigration is really a big topic locally.
MG: That's true. We have had a lot of, um, especially a really large Latino community here for many years, they make up a lot of the workers in our, you know, resort, hotels and kitchens and are just very much a part of our communities. We're not apparently seeing a lot of ice activity, although there have been some instances, you know, we are reporting at the station about one person who was recently picked up in Glenwood Springs and you know, another question that's on people's minds and in the newspaper is how much our local authorities, especially the sheriffs, might be cooperating with ICE in a way that they are not supposed to according to Colorado law.
MC: In terms of the size is it comparable to previous Snow Kings rallies? Can you estimate?
MG: Yeah, I, uh, did wanna bring that up? You know, Glenwood is a town of about 10,000. There's maybe 60,000 people in the whole county, and this. Glenwood Springs action tends to draw a lot of people from neighboring communities. But the last No Kings, um, event here, they thought 4,000 people showed up, which is a really lot, it's a very large turnout for a relatively low population area, and they are expecting more people than that today.
MC: Okay. Well, Marilyn Gleason with Katie and Kay. Thank you so much for reporting on what's happening in Western Colorado today.
MG: Yeah, thank you. We are having a good time. The march has just started. People are honking the horns. You're hearing some drumming. They're drumming for democracy, the occasional barking dog. It's definitely a colorful crowd out here today, Maeve.
