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KSJD Newscast - October 23rd, 2015

  • Montezuma County Planning and Zoning Commission decides more study is needed on two complex proposals.
  • Federal judge denies San Juan County Utah Commissioner Phil Lyman a new trial on trespass conviction.

Montezuma County’s Planning and Zoning Commission has decided more study is needed for two complex and potentially controversial proposals. On Thursday night, the board considered a draft ordinance to regulate one-time-only outdoor events such as this summer’s failed “Bong-a-Thon”, which  would have brought a thousand people to the Dolores River Valley for two days of competitive cannabis-smoking. The county commissioners used a court injunction to shut down the event after organizers threatened to hold it without a permit. But on Thursday, P&Z’s Michael Gaddy asked if the lengthy ordinance was “just a knee-jerk reaction” to the Bong-a-Thon and questioned how it would have helped in that situation anyway. The second proposal before P&Z involved the possible use of a state law to protect the Phil’s World bicycle-trail system from energy-drilling impacts. Called HB 1041, the law lets counties regulate certain areas, but its use to protect recreation would be unusual. P&Z scheduled a workshop on November 12th and another on December 3rd to study the proposals separately.   

A federal judge has denied San Juan County, Utah, Commissioner Phil Lyman a new trial. Lyman and Monticello blogger Monte Wells were convicted in May of two misdemeanors for their part in a protest ride through the BLM’s Recapture Canyon the year before. Lyman had sought a new trial on the grounds that the government had failed to disclose a 1979 map indicating the Recapture road might be a “public highway” under a statute known as RS 2477 and thus could not be closed. But on Thursday, U.S. District Judge David Nuffer ruled the map was not admissible because it had been established at Lyman’s trial that the BLM had the right to close the road. Nuffer said when no RS 2477 claim has been adjudicated for a road, “a presumption in favor of the Government applies”.

Gail Binkly is a career journalist who has worked for the Colorado Springs Gazette and Cortez Journal, and was the editor of the Four Corners Free Press, based in Cortez.
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