On October 13, mail ballots will be sent to registered voters in Moffat School District #2, (which includes Crestone/Baca area, Moffat, and some surrounding areas). The sole ballot question asks registered voters to support a bond issue for a 12% match on the grant awarded to the Crestone Charter School for building a new school facility. The Colorado Department of Education (CDE) under their school facilities’ grant program called Building Excellent Schools Today (B.E.S.T) authorized $6,054,325 for this project.
In May of 2008, the Colorado Legislature passed HB08-1335—the B.E.S.T. bill. This legislation authorized CDE to leverage income from the School Land trust to fund over $500 million in capital construction for the State’s school buildings.

The current Charter School located in modular buildings along Road T.

In February of this year, the Crestone Charter School put together a detailed Masterplan and application for this B.E.S.T. grant (visit www.thecrestonecharterschool.org to view the full masterplan). In July 2009, the B.E.S.T. governing board recommended that CCS be awarded $6,054,325 contingent upon a 12% match from the community.
The B.E.S.T. grant will provide $5,327,806 and the 12% match comes to $726,519. If the ballot measure fails, CCS will not be able to raise the match and the grant will be forfeited. “This is a rare opportunity for CCS and the District to leverage their match over 8 times”, said Kathryn Brady, Director of the Charter School.
What the bond will cost
The $726,519 matching bond will result in a residential tax increase of $1.66/month per $100,000 of property value and a commercial/agricultural tax impact of $6.06/month per $100,000 of property
value. After 20 years the property tax will sunset.
For this investment, the community will be drawing in over 8 times the amount in grant funding. Longtime Crestone resident Steve Haines says “These funds will boost our local economy and provide us with a long lasting sustainable school building and community asset.”
Why CCS thinks a new school is  necessary
For over 15 years the Crestone Charter School has operated out of rented modular buildings. The CDE and the B.E.S.T. board have stipulated that temporary buildings raise health and safety concerns for students and would be given a high priority when considering grants.
Several of the CCS modulars are over thirty years old and are showing signs of dry rot and mold infestation. Many of the windows are inoperable. The HVAC and plumbing systems are outdated, as well. Poor lighting and air quality compromise the learning environment and the health of the children.
According to CCS Director Brady, “the current school facility also lacks adequate space for multi-age classrooms as well as several other amenities found in most schools.” These include: assembly/performance space, exercise space, standard science lab, adequate storage and closets, office space, administrative reception area, as well as private rooms for counseling, special education and faculty planning.
What does it include?
The new school will be designed to accommodate 75 students (K-12) over several decades. This 50-100 year building will include safe, healthy classrooms for the students as well as the other amenities that make up a functional modern school. A 2500 sq. ft. performance/gathering space will be a strong feature of the new facility. CCS is excited to be able to share this space with the community for gatherings, fundraisers, community meetings and performances.

The total project amount for this new facility takes into account architectural design, land purchase and utility infrastructure in addition to the actual construction costs. It is also slated to include all the technology, equipment, and furniture that is required for an up-to-date school.

High quality environmentally responsible materials and sustainable technologies are also factored into the construction budget. These choices will cost more than their conventional counterparts at first, but will support a sustainable design that is much more affordable to maintain over time, says CCS. The school will be seeking a Gold Certification from the Leadership in Energy and Environmental design (LEED) Green Building Rating System.
This grant is intended only for the building of a new school. It will not be allocated to operating funds, teacher’s salaries or any other school related expenses.
Benefit to Moffat
Residents of Moffat School District will benefit from the rise in property values that naturally will come with a new school that attracts young residents. The entire District and community will benefit from the economic activity generated by the new construction. The operating costs of the new school will in no way negatively affect operations at Moffat School District.
Ms. Brady explains “As a District of educational choice it is imperative to maintain the health and vitality of both our schools. Careful attention was paid to the size and scale of the Charter School in the masterplanning process to ensure that it will never be a facility that will outsize the Moffat School District. It is designed to hold 75 students. After-school options, theatre performances and extra curricular activities are easily shared between students of the two schools as well as the opportunity to use the construction and design of a sustainable school as an ongoing teaching opportunity.”
What’s next? The upcoming election
The future of this project is now in the hands of the voters.  A positive vote will allow the grant to be awarded and the building project to begin.
If you are not registered and would like to participate in this election you need to be registered to vote by 4pm on Oct. 5 at the Saguache County Courthouse. Polls close at 7pm on Nov. 3, and ballots must be received at the courthouse by that time.

by Robert Demko
In June of this year I spent the month journeying in China and Tibet with two separate groups, the first designed to see the sights of eastern China and the second intent on helping schools, villages and clinics in eastern Tibet with financial and physical aid. When I asked Kizzen about submitting something to The Eagle she advised me to keep it short, to the point and personal. So here goes my series of verbal snap shots.

Terracotta warrior

A tenth floor hotel room window. An endless flow of traffic beneath me on a modern eight lane interstate and beyond ranks of concrete buildings stretch away into the glowing orange brown smog. Where am I? LA? Berlin? Ah yes, Beijing! The wailing behind me on the TV is a Chinese opera with something that looks like a flag waving. Another channel—a situation comedy with a laugh track, a nature channel, an incomprehensible talk show. I eat a chicken sandwich from room service and hope to sleep away my jet lag.
Next day. Tour bus. I meet my traveling companions. To my surprise the ten of them are all Chinese expatriots from Brooklyn, NY here to show their kids the old country. One of the girls is a movie editor who has the awesome responsibility of making Meryl Streep look twenty years younger. Leaving the tour bus for the Forbidden City I am immediately lost. Did I mention that I am legally blind? Hitch a ride on the back of a motor bike and wait for the group to find me in the pouring rain. Despite this, grounds packed. Curving tiled roofs, stone and pine gardens. Birds. Dragon statues. Wet, ancient paths and multicolored umbrellas bobbing like living mushrooms. Vast courtyards imitate a Hollywood movie set.

The author in the gardens at the forbidden city. all photos by Robert Demko

Tianeman Square, metal detectors, patted down before entering, the fear of events twenty years ago in their polite movements. Imagine hordes of teenagers camping out under a makeshift statue of liberty, all absorbed into the new Chinese middle class leaving only the picture of a man standing before a tank as a memory. The square aligned to the four directions the remnant of a different age now huge and silent.
The Temple of Heavenly Peace, once the scene of pageants, now a wondrous architectural show place. And the Summer Palace where the dragon empress once held court during the heat, now the realm of families and couples on Sunday picnic. Silver lake surrounding hills. Red lacquered pavilions, curved and floating bridges. Lily pads. A lone flute whispers from beneath a willow tree.
Next day the Great Wall, symbol of China’s age old fear of foreigners, two hours north on a new four lane highway. My vow to climb its beaten, uneven crowning stairs to its top parapet some 1200 feet above in honor of my 62 birthday in a few days. Shared a dumpling lunch with a Chinese family halfway. An Australian bloke took my picture at the top. Jumped up and down like Rocky on the steps of the Philadelphia museum.
Andy, our guide, keeps asking me whether he should defect to America or Canada as well as telling me of his anti-government feelings. Is he a plant attempting to find our how I feel about China? Very likely, as most guides are government trained and his father is a high communist official. I tell him to shut up or he will get us both arrested. By the way most Chinese children receive a Western nick name in elementary school. So many Lucys, Allens and Andys running around, an attempt to move away from ancient Lis and Wongs? To most, history means little besides the imperatives of daily life. One more Beijing image.

The Great Wall of China

The Olympic village. The swimming center. Several thousand Chinese surround me in the stands of this futuristic building. Doing what? Watching the blue water. No one swims. No one dives. Hour after hour. Waiting. Gazing out with pride at a memory.
Wonderful traveling group. The elders though, speaking little English after 17 years in Brooklyn, treat me like a brother and their daughters gab on in a typical American fashion, all of them discretely watching me lest I wander into the merciless Beijing traffic.
Fly to Xian, the ancient capital, end of the Silk Road and home of 8,000 recently excavated terracota warriors. Xian is a ‘medium’ sized city of only twelve million as compared to the 32 million of Beijing with its rank upon rank of modernistic skyscrapers lacking here. Traffic snakes through the ancient doors of the remaining wall which once completely encircled the city. Now it is an industrial center with only remnants of its past glory. A bell and drum tower which once tolled the time, a small part of a once dominant Buddhist Temple with an eight story pagoda, the mound tomb of the barbaric Emperor Chin who became the first to unite China 2,000 years ago, and the terracota figures.
Their story: Chin was about to massacre his army and have them buried with him at his own death until a more thoughtful minister talked him into creating the larger-than-life-sized figures which are much more fun than a pile of grizzly bones. Thank God for clearer heads, as they truly took my breath away. Row after row, archers, generals, charioteers, horses, officers and foot men replicated in exact detail and arranged in the pits in which they were found. A particular figure, the only one with a faint, ironic smile kept off to the side. Him, I would like to share a beer with. So lifelike I could imagine myself marching with them all that time ago.

Wu See Gardens

I could go on and on about the glorious southern lakes and gardens of Wu See where the leaders keep houses, the gondolas and canals of Hang chou and Feng chou formed by thousands of workers diverting a river over centuries, huge Shanghai with the colonial center on the Bundt. But this thing is starting to sound very touristy, a Kizzen no no.
Yet for now I am on a tour, something the government likes, better to keep us under their invisible thumb. But a few more thoughts and images before I head off to Tibet and the true purpose of my trip. A tranquil shrine honoring a general who lived a thousand years ago. Never losing
a battle, he was loved by the people. One day the emperor called him to Xian and demanded that he and his family commit suicide as the general had become more popular than his illustrious leader. How could he say no to such a command? Loyalty and the good of the country. And a woman I ask whether she is happy with only one child as is required by law. She hesitates and turns her head. Now I am, she whispers.
And a few questions. The Chinese government has attempted to divert their people’s attention from their lack of personal freedom by giving them economic success. An SUV in every garage. Indeed one man admitted that he must have an SUV or lose face. Keeping up with the Jones’s? Is this any different from a Bush administration that commands us to just go shopping in the face of questions about the Iraqi war? The vision of hundreds of millions of gas guzzlers fouling the air around the world haunts me.

Beijing temple

Many Chinese still burn incense and pray at temples that are sometimes private and sometimes government owned. In vast modern societies how do we remember our heritage? I love the Chinese people, so much like ourselves in their desires and feelings. Perhaps they are more conservative, more private in the way they show these feelings, a conservatism born in a closed, insulated society only now beginning to open. How do they feel about their government?
The Chinese have seen so many ups and downs in their ancient history, and this is bound to continue. In their rush to modernize will they destroy not only their own culture, but that of Mongolia and Tibet? More on this as I travel on to that ravaged country.

The old capital of Xian

[to be continued next month]

Wu See Gardens

DENVER – Residents in the San Luis Valley and conservation groups today lauded a U.S.
District Court decision to block oil and gas drilling in the Baca National Wildlife Refuge.

U.S. District Court Judge Walker Miller on Thursday issued a preliminary injunction against
Lexam Explorations, a Canadian mining company, barring it from drilling and activities related
to oil and gas exploration on the 79,000-acre refuge in southwest Colorado. Walker wrote in his
decision that “it is undisputed that the Refuge contains unique resources, including sensitive
wetlands, habitat for a variety of wildlife and fish, aquifers that play an important role in the
wetlands and in providing water for the community, clean air, and a large expanse of
undeveloped land with a significant ‘sense of place’ and quiet.”

“When the Baca National Wildlife Refuge was established in 2000, the intent was to protect the
water, wildlife and land within the area,” said Travis Stills, an attorney who represented the
plaintiffs. “Drilling activities posed a huge threat to the refuge and the underlying aquifers. Judge
Miller’s decision brings us one step closer to full protection of this pristine area and its
resources.”

The federal government purchased the refuge in 2000 for the purpose of protecting its “unique
hydrological, biological, educational and recreational values.” However, Lexam owned mineral
rights within the refuge and in 2006 proposed drilling for natural gas there.

Department of Interior officials in the Bush administration approved the plan, determining that
drilling and gas exploration would have no significant impact on the refuge or groundwater, and
that a full environmental impact analysis was not necessary. Records obtained under the
Freedom of Information Act later showed that industry officials helped draft parts of the
government’s analysis.

The San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council and Energy Minerals Law Center, along with the San
Luis Valley Water Protection Coalition, challenged the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decision
in 2007.

In granting the preliminary injunction, Judge Miller affirmed the plaintiffs’ claims that Lexam’s

drilling proposal threatens “irreparable harm” to the refuge and underlying aquifers. He said that
the proposal submitted by Lexam and approved by USFWS did not present sufficient safeguards,
and he questioned “whether the agency really evaluated the efficacy of many of the proposed
safeguards.” Miller also expressed concern about the potential impact of chemicals used in
drilling and about clean-up and mitigation efforts.

The refuge contains more than 15,000 acres of irrigated wetlands and another 10,000 acres of
natural wetlands and playas, considered among the most concentrated, pristine and biologically
diverse wetlands in the southwestern United States. The refuge also is an important recharge area
for San Luis Valley’s Closed Basin groundwater aquifer system.  Lexam was proposing to locate
its test wells in the midst of these sensitive wetlands and potential groundwater recharge areas.

In his order, Judge Miller said the agency’s decision failed to include any meaningful analysis of
what chemicals and other materials might be used during drilling, “what hazards they might
pose, and on what basis the agency has concluded that these will not have significant effect on
the delicate resources of the Refuge, including the aquifers.”

“This decision is a victory for those of us who live and work in the San Luis Valley and who
have fought to protect the refuge and its special sense of place,” said Christine Canaly of the San
Luis Valley Ecosystem Council. “As a region with huge potential for sensible, renewable energy
development, this is a victory for our country and for efforts to move toward new, cleaner energy
sources.”

A diverse group of San Luis Valley residents including ranchers, farmers, teachers, artists,
business owners, faith leaders and scientists, united to oppose the drilling proposal. The
Crestone/Baca community sits adjacent to the Baca NWR and less than a mile from the proposed
drilling sites. It was featured in a US News & World Report story on “sacred places.”

Jillian Klarl, a Crestone real estate broker, said that Judge Miller’s decision will help to secure
the quality of life in the San Luis Valley.

“The economic value of this area is dependent on the protection of sensitive places like the Baca
Refuge,” said Klarl. “Our quality of life depends on clean water, clean air and the recreational
opportunities that surround our communities. Drilling is not compatible with those qualities.”

Based on the evidence presented, Judge Miller said that the San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council
is “likely to prevail on the merits” and labeled the decision to approve the drilling “arbitrary and
capricious.”

The preliminary injunction will be in place until the lawsuit has a ruling.