9-R names superintendent finalists
The NCAA may be down to the Final Four, but School District 9-R has made it to the final three.
The NCAA may be down to the Final Four, but School District 9-R has made it to the final three.
On Tuesday, the district’s Board of Education announced the three finalists for the superintendent position. The finalists were whittled from a pool of 25 candidates and include:
- Jody Mimmack, executive director of instructional support for Mesa County Valley School District #D51 in Grand Junction;
- Daniel Snowberger, assistant superintendent in the Harrison School District in Colorado Springs; and
- Shannon Goodsell, Superintendent of Tahlequah Public Schools in Tahlequah, Okla.
The three candidates will be interviewed April 2, 3 and 5, respectively. There will be two community forums each of the days, at12:15-1:15 p.m. and 5:30-6:15 p.m. in the 9-R Administration Building, 201 E. 12th St.
After three years at the helm, former Superintendent Keith Owen resigned last August to take a post at the Colorado Department of Education. Bill Esterbrook has been serving as interim superintendent.
Wilderness bill moves forward
After several stops and starts, the San Juan Mountains Wilderness Act appears to be gaining traction again.
Last Thursday, the bill, which was reintroduced last September, got its first hearing in front of the joint Public Lands and Forests Subcommittee.
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DestinationDenver: The Durango Montessori Destination Imagination team, from bottom, l to r: Aubrey Hirst, Ryan Colley, Sten Joyner, Cecilia Compton, Amaya Holliday and Irie Sentner, placed 1st in last week’s regionals, held in Durango. The team will compete in the state competition April 14 in Denver./Photo by Stephen Eginoire
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Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., who co-sponsored the bill with Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., stressed to subcommittee members the crucial role wilderness plays in the state, from creating jobs and drawing tourists to protecting landscapes, watersheds and recreation.
“The out-of-doors is an important part of our way of life in Colorado. And, for many outfitters and small business owners, preservation of our state’s majestic mountains and valleys is critical for their livelihoods and vital to their ability to create jobs,” Udall said. “Wilderness is one of our state’s great economic engines.”
The bill would declare roughly 61,000 acres in Southwest Colorado as wilderness or special management areas. It would include 33,000 new acres of wilderness in San Miguel, Ouray and San Juan counties. Most of this would be expansions of the Lizard Head and Mt. Sneffels wilderness areas, but it would also include the mid-elevation McKenna Peak Wilderness Area in western San Miguel County. The bill would also establish the Sheep Mountain area between San Miguel and San Juan counties as a special management area, which provides wilderness protection but allows for use by Telluride’s HeliTrax heli-skiing operation. The act also gives special protection to 6,600 acres in Naturita Canyon, making it off limits to oil and gas leasing.
The bill was first introduced in 2009 by former U.S. Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo. When Salazar lost his seat to Cortez Republican Scott Tipton during the last election cycle, the cause was picked up by Udall and Bennet. Tipton has not taken a stance on the bill. He did hold a series of “public meetings” last fall in which he was accused of stacking the odds in favor of bill opponents.
The bill has also won wide support locally, including endorsements from San Miguel, San Juan and Ouray counties as well as the towns of Ouray and Ridgway, Telluride, Ophir and Mountain Village.
The bill now awaits a committee markup and passage; Udall vowed to keep pushing it through the process, according to a press release from his office.