Mancos

Check out local happenings this weekend in the Four Corners! From documentaries and live music to potlucks and community gatherings, there's something for everyone.

Today’s news includes widespread precipitation, the recovery of a missing girl in Arizona, Colorado immigration bill progress, Arizona vetoes, support for public media funding, and local infrastructure updates.

Catch local band Horizon at Mancos Brewing this Friday, followed by a screening of Secret Mall Apartment. Enjoy a weekend of art, music, and community events in Cortez and Mancos. More at KSJD.org.

Governor Polis signs a bill to protect educators from pressure to remove books from school libraries, while Cortez renews its Urban Forestry program. Other updates include health-related resignations in Arizona, a proposed tobacco tax delay in the Navajo Nation, and wildfire mitigation efforts across the West.

Governor Polis signs the budget with temporary fixes, local events for National Hospital Week and Mancos construction, plus efforts against invasive species and Utah's collective bargaining referendum.

Some 45 people turned out at Thursday night’s meeting of the Montezuma County Planning and Zoning Commission to voice opposition to a proposed “glamping” development near Mancos. At the end of the two-and-a-half-hour hearing on the proposal, the commission voted 3 to 2 to recommend denial.

The man accused of killing a 7-year-old Towaoc boy in December has been indicted by a federal grand jury. And the group that claims it owns 1,460 acres of national-forest land near Mancos has filed a response to a lawsuit filed against its members by the U.S. government.

A chunk of a controversial barbed-wire fence around some 1,400 acres on the San Juan National Forest north of Mancos was taken down Thursday afternoon.

Farmers, landowners and local government agencies will come together on Wednesday in Towaoc for the latest listening session on a plan to protect and manage the Mancos River. The group behind the plan is made up of municipalities and organizations that lie along the river, like Mesa Verde National Park, the Mancos Conservation District and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, that have voluntarily joined together to coordinate on management. The listening session is intended for tribal members and ag producers who rely on the river to give feedback on a new watershed stream management plan. It’ll serve as a guide for communities to better use and conserve water resources, and could include voluntary or compensated changes to irrigation rules during drier years. More outreach sessions will take place starting this spring and summer for feedback on the first draft. And the Bureau of Land Management says it plans to remove roughly 91 wild burros from rangelands near Canyonlands National Park.

A Mancos resident is investigating the Indigenous history of the Dolores River in southwest Colorado. Amorina Lee-Martinez completed her PhD on water management around the Dolores River at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She’ll be speaking at the Dolores Public Library on Thursday. The talk will cover the history of Indigenous peoples in the Four Corners, and then turn to the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and the origins of McPhee Reservoir. Lee-Martinez says the reservoir is a rare example of a tribal community negotiating for and successfully receiving at least part of their share of water rights in the Colorado River basin. The discussion is open to the public, and will start at 6 p.m.