- Parts of Mancos lose power on Thursday night after semi truck knocks over utility pole.
- City of Cortez decides not to adopt a noise ordinance.
It was lights-out early for the town of Mancos on Thursday evening when a semi truck maneuvering down an alley ran into a power pole about six p.m. and knocked over a power line. Jason Bell, a chief system operator with Empire Electric, says the accident caused the whole circuit to lose power. Bell says no one was injured, but approximately seven hundred eighty-five customers were affected, including businesses along the town’s main street. Power was restored to all but twenty customers by 8:10 p.m., but the remainder did not have electricity until shortly before one a.m. Friday morning. It was a major event, Bell says, and Empire still has some repairs to make.
And in news from a little farther west, it appears the city of Cortez will not be adopting a noise ordinance in the near future. The city council had been approached by a citizen concerned about traffic noise, especially from vehicles with exhaust systems that have been modified or removed. City Manager Shane Hale tells KSJD the council and staff discussed the issue with Cortez Police but decided the city’s existing disturbing-the-peace ordinance is adequate to handle the problem. Hale says the current ordinance – which can be applied to everything from fistfights to barking dogs – provides latitude for police officers to decide when a noise is too loud. In contrast, a noise ordinance would require taking measurements with a decibel meter at a fixed distance. Hale says although there is plenty of noise along Main Street he doesn’t believe the city is particularly loud throughout, and adopting the ordinance would not put a single extra officer on the street to enforce the rules.
