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DELTA COUNTY
FEBRUARY 20, 2013 VOL. 130, NO. 8
75¢
INDEPENDENT
www.deltacountyindependent.com
Black takes leave of absence from DMEA BY HANK LOHMEYER Staff Writer
Glen Black is on voluntary leave of absence from his elected position with the DMEA board of directors. The leave is through March. In addition, Black told the DCI last week that he has informed other board members he will resign his post as the board’s president. Black is the community development director for the City of Delta. He has absented himself from DMEA board duties because of an electric service dispute between DMEA and the city, which also sells electricity to customers. Black is not accused of any wrongdoing. “It looked like this could be a long, drawnout issue. That’s why I took the leave of absence,” Black told the DCI last week. The immediate problem facing DMEA board members during a special meeting held last week on Feb. 13 is whether Black qualifies to serve on the DMEA board under current bylaws. He was elected under DMEA bylaws which state, “No person shall be eligible to become or remain a director of the cooperative who ... is in any way employed by or financially interested in
a competing enterprise, or a business selling electric energy, or is a major supplier to the cooperative ... .” The fact that Black’s employer, the City of Delta, sells electric energy was not seen as a bylaws conflict when Black ran and won election in 2011. If Black’s candidacy for DMEA board was not a potential bylaws problem in 2011, it became one when the City of Delta bid against DMEA for electric service to the new Maverik fuel stop in Delta. DMEA had been the electric supplier when the site was occupied by Bruton’s, and DMEA had expectations of renewing a substantial stream of revenue from the site’s line load of pumps, refrigeration and lights running 24/7. But the City of Delta won the electric business by offering attractive rates. Also, the city’s lower cost of installing electric service was an important factor in Maverik’s decision to go with Delta as electric supplier, noted Steve Glammeyer, Delta’s utilities director. If there hadn’t been a clear bylaws conflict with Black sitting on the DMEA board before Maverik, now there clearly is. That is the view of DMEA attorney Larry Beckner who
Vision schools change direction BY PAT SUNDERLAND Managing Editor
After 12 years, the Vision Home & Community Program is changing direction. The program, which has operated as a contract school under Delta County Joint School District #50, is now taking the first steps toward attaining charter status. The change is largely administrative, and should not impact students’ ability to develop individualized learning plans based on their own unique interests, the hallmark of the Vision program. Since it was established, enrollment has grown from 65 to over 600. Kimborlee Etter, chairman of the Vision Board of Stewards, was homeschooling her children when the program was first introduced. She quickly recognized the value of an alternative educational program which would provide some oversight to help keep her and her three kids on track. She also liked the fact the curriculum she’d chosen could be funded with tax dollars. In the intervening years, she’s not only seen her own kids succeed, she’s seen many other students graduate and become citizens “we can be proud of.” For that reason, she stayed involved with the Vision program after her three children graduated. She was one of several
Vision representatives who recently met with the Delta County Board of Education to determine the program’s future. That future is being dictated, in part, by the Colorado Department of Education (CDE), which has clarified its stance on Vision’s instructors. If Vision remains a contract school, all teachers will have to be highly qualified. The way Vision is currently set up, instruction is provided by a combination of licensed teachers, independent contractors, mentors and parents. If that instructional model doesn’t change to one where all teachers are highly qualified, the school district, and Vision, run the risk of losing some state funding, school board member Tammy Smith explained. But if the school switches to a charter, things can basically stay the way they are, she said. Etter said the board of stewards is now completing a short application to be submitted to the school board — the sole chartering authority in Delta County — in March. Between March and June, a steering committee will determine how the Delta, Surface Creek and North Fork Vision programs can be merged into a single charter school with three campuses. By June, Etter hopes a contract with Delta County Joint School District #50 can be ratified and the charter VISION TO A3
said that the Maverik deal turned the City of Delta into a “competing enterprise” under the DMEA bylaws. “We’ve never competed before,” he said. During the Feb. 13 special DMEA board meeting in Montrose, the eight attending DMEA board members listened as Beckner shouldered full responsibility for vetting and approving Black’s eligibility to run for and serve on the DMEA board. Beckner also accepted blame for his bylaws interpretation that qualified Black as eligible because the
City of Delta, though a seller of electric energy, had not been a competitor to DMEA. “The facts changed,” Beckner said. Olathe resident Ray Schmalz questioned Beckner’s assessment. Schmalz, a candidate for DMEA board in 2011, was told by DMEA staff that if elected he would not be eligible to serve under the same bylaws provision that Black had been given a pass on. That is because at the time DMEA was in contract negotiations with Uncompahgre Valley Water Users Association on the South Canal proj-
ect. The contract, which was eventually signed, would disqualify Schmalz from DMEA board service because the South Canal project made UVWUA “a business selling electric energy,” just like the city of Delta, and Schamlz was a director on the UVWUA board. “They (DMEA board) are not following the bylaws,” on Black’s eligibility, Schmalz told the DCI. Schmalz went ahead and ran in 2011 against now term-limited Nancy Hovde after Schmalz promised to DMEA TO A3
Photo by Hank Lohmeyer
When the Maverik fuel stop in Delta opened with the city as its electric supplier at a location that had been previously served by DMEA, a cascade of events began that has included worries about competition, a board of directors bylaws crisis, and questions about the eligibility of Delta’s Glen Black to continue serving on DMEA’s board of directors.
Yager sentenced to 42 years for wife’s murder BY PAT SUNDERLAND Managing Editor
No prison sentence can cure the loss being experienced by the family and friends of Melinda Tackett Yager, Judge Charles Greenacre acknowledged during a sentencing hearing Friday. But after weighing all the circumstances, he ordered Nathan Yager to serve a 42 years in the Colorado Department of Corrections in the death of Melinda, his estranged wife. In November, a jury of 12 took less than two hours to convict Yager of second degree murder. There were never any other suspects in the brutal stabbing which took place in Paonia on Jan. 7, 2011. The defense initially attempted to prove Nathan was in a “disassociative” state when he committed the murder; later public defender Stephan Schweissing tried to prove the act was the result of “provoked passion.” Jurors rejected that theory. During the sentencing hearing, both Melinda’s father and her twin brother Matthew pleaded for justice. Advocating the maximum sentence, Matthew spoke harshly of Nathan’s “failure, failure, failure” as a man, as a husband
INDEX
Garden sites available
Accent ........................... A4 Activities ......................A11 Agriculture .....................B6 Back Page ................. D10 Church ............................B7 Classifieds .................. D1-2 Editorial ......................... A2 FFA Week ................. A8-9 Health & Fitness ........ A6-7 Legals ......................... D3-6 North Fork Times ........B1-4 Obituaries ....................A10 School Zone .................. A5 Sports ..........................C4-8 Surface Creek News ...C1-3 TV Listings ................. D7-8
Community garden applications are now being taken by the City of Delta Parks Department. The garden plots are 10x20 feet with water at the site. Lots are not organic due to previous land practice, but spraying and commercial fertilizers are prohibited. Natural compost is encouraged. Lots are $25 each (non refundable). For more information, contact Paul Suppes at 874-7973 between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. MondayFriday. Garden sites will be available May 13, Suppes said. The community garden is located on Garnet Mesa, just off 7th Street.
and as a father. Matthew sat through most of the lengthy trial. He said he was not prepared for the images of his deceased sister enlarged on a TV screen, “all but decapitated,” but he was glad the jury could see what Nathan was capable of. “I obscured my view, but I could see the color red,” he said. “It was her blood . . . my blood too.” He said he is ready to let his anger go and do what Nathan Yager should have done — focus on the future and focus on raising Callie, Melinda and Nathan’s daughter. “We promise to continue to devote our lives to Callie, but we need the court’s help,” he said, asking that the current protection order remain in place. That order prohibits contact between Callie and her father. He wrapped up a heartwrenching statement by reading words from Melinda’s journal, including an entry that would become her last words to her daughter. Matthew riffled through the empty pages remaining in the journal, silent testimony to a life cut short. Assistant district attorney Kerri Yoder read a state-
ment from Melinda’s two close friends, Corey Stroud and Andrea Reedy, who lamented the transformation of Paonia from a small, safe town to a place where murder takes place on the railroad tracks. Nathan’s parents, Ray and Julie Yager, also addressed the court. Ray Yager said the entire family went on trial Jan. 7, 2011, and has been subject to ridicule, lies, humiliation and slander ever since. He described Melinda’s friends first as “vigilantes,” then as her “lieutenants” and congratulated them for orchestrating a sucessful “pincer movement” in the alley behind the house where the murder occurred. Nathan and Melinda’s divorce and child custody hearings spiraled out of control as the end of 2010 approached. Looking back, Julie Yager said, it is apparent the family court system is broken. The children should be the first priority in every divorce case, she said; the goal should never be for one parent “to win at all costs.” She pointed fingers at the magistrate, the attorneys on both sides, the judge in county court, Officer Sanchez of the YAGER TO A3
Pilots look for safety devices On Feb. 14, the Delta County Commissioners approved a letter to Tri-State Generation and Transmission seeking a response to the FAA’s requirement for safety marking devices on Tri-State’s new power lines north of Blake Field. “Specifically,” states the county’s letter, “the (FAA) conditions cited require the installation of synchronized flashing red lights with catenary (hanging, round) marker balls on seven line support structures ... the BOCC would appreciate a response from Tri-State so
that it may be passed on to the Airport Advisory Board and other local pilots who have inquired as to the status of the work.” At the same meeting, the commissioners received an operations report from the Blake Field FBO, Smiling Aviation, noting that total operations for 2012 were up 24.3 percent compared with the previous year. An expenditure of $2,123 was approved for a fueling station card reader at the North Fork Airport.