KDNK's Local Newscast airs weekday mornings at 6:41 and 7:41 during Morning Edition.
The Town of Basalt meets tonight at 6 and they’re expected to approve the appointment of interim town manager Ron Miller. There are some high profile resolutions on the agenda as well. They are expected to approve a pre-application agreement with Habitat for Humanity regarding Habitat’s RE-1 School District housing proposal on Basalt High School property. Also up for discussion will be approving a process for The Arts Campus at Willits to develop an arts campus on the town-owned Willits Performing Arts parcel of property.
Town of Carbondale trustees meet tonight at 6. Local businesswoman Heather Henry will be sworn in as a trustee at the start of the meeting. Heather is a local landscape architect, who is being appointed to replace recently departed trustee AJ Hobbs. She has served on Planning and Zoning commission as well as the Parks and Recreation commission. Heather’s first major order of business as a trustee will be to participate in the budgeting process. Carbondale is facing shortfalls in the next budget cycle. Garfield County slashed the tax rate for the road and bridge fund so the annual payment to the town from the county, expected to be around one hundred seventy five thousand dollars, is now projected to be more like 95 thousand for 2017. Funds from the oil and gas industry will also be down from last budget, while health insurance costs will be up.
The Colorado Division of Insurance is hosting a public forum today in the wake of health insurance premiums skyrocketing for people who buy health insurance on the state’s individual market. Bente Birkeland reports. In the Roaring Fork Valley, individuals buying health insurance on the exchange are facing average premium increases of 35 percent in 2017. Anthem will be the only carrier left and they are discontinuing PPO plans, so the only available plans will be HMOs, which limit choice of physicians and specialists. Analysts predict many Coloradans will go uninsured, opting instead to pay a tax penalty.
Colorado’s third congressional district spans from Craig to Grand Junction and Durango to Pueblo. It includes resort communities such as Aspen and Telluride. Plus working class towns such as Rifle and New Castle. In this year’s election, Republican incumbent Scott Tipton of Cortez faces former state senator Gail Schwartz, a Democrat from Crested Butte for the chance to represent us in DC. Earlier this month, a group of western Colorado counties known of Club 20 hosted a debate between the two candidates. In this clip, they talk social security and student loans.
The world may have hit a climate-change ceiling in fossil-fuel production, and smart money could be headed toward renewables. Eric Galatas reports.
