A collision Sunday afternoon sent a car into the Colorado Workforce Center at the corner of State Avenue and Fourth Street in Alamosa. One person was transported from the accident via ambulance.

Residents in the neighborhood near the Cattails Golf Course in Alamosa report an invasion of the woolly bear caterpillar here in warm October. The significance is that according to weather folklore, the woolly bear can tell us a lot about the upcoming winter. “The longer the woolly bear’s black bands, the longer, colder, snowier and more severe the winter will be.

Similarly, the wider the middle brown band is associated with a milder upcoming winter.” Judge the woolly bears at Cattails for yourself. In the meantime, here’s more to get the week started:

1. 2024 and the year of water trials

Colorado Division 3 Water Court in Alamosa is on course to hear two significant water court cases in 2024. The Rio Grande Water Conservation District Subdistrict 1 Plan of Water Management and an alternate augmentation plan filed by a group of irrigators in Subdistrict 1 under the name Sustainable Water Augmentation Group have been filed in state water court. For the Sustainable Water Augmentation Group plan, it’s a second go-round after the group of irrigators withdrew their initial court filing in July following a loss of a key water source it had counted in its first plan. The expectation among state and local water managers is that the Subdistrict 1 Plan of Water Management gets a trial hearing first before Chief Water Judge Michael Gonzales, and the SWAG court case be set following the outcome of the Subdistrict 1 case. These are two intertwined cases – both complicated, detailed, and critically important to how the ag-rich Subdistrict 1 covering Alamosa, Rio Grande and Saguache counties operates in future years. Pretty much every irrigator in the San Luis Valley and along the Rio Grande Basin will be watching both trials. Next year will tell a lot about the Valley’s efforts to restore the Rio Grande Basin.

Crop Circles From Above – San Luis Valley, Colorado USA.

2. The Douglas County Future Fund

The claims made by Renewable Water Resources and its Douglas County Future Fund newsletter were so outrageous we felt they deserved a response from the state Division of Water Resources. One so-called statement of fact was this: “The San Luis Valley has 1.02 billion acres of unused water, because it sits over the second-largest aquifer in the United States.” For starters, nobody measures water in acres. Rather, the measurement is acre-feet. But try telling that or presenting any coherent information on the state of the Rio Grande Basin and irrigators in the San Luis Valley to the RWR and DFFF group and you’ll run into the same stared look that you would get from a room of  zombies.

3. Monte Vista kids get connected

Monte Vista Kids Connection out-of-school program is teaming up with AT&T and the AT&T Foundation to launch a “Tech Connection Learning Lab” for K-12 after-school programming. The city of Monte Vista, Kids Connection and AT&T are planning to make a splash of an announcement on Wednesday when 50 computers will be given to students and families in the Monte Vista School District. “The future of technology is ever changing and being able to give our youth a chance to learn at the same pace as the rest of the world is the best feeling,” said Kids Connection director Anika Velasquez. We’ll have more in the coming week.

4. Municipal elections in November

Jackie Vigil and John Adams are vying for a seat on the Alamosa City Council in Ward 3, and Kaylee Gomez and Andria Gay are looking to represent District 1 on the Alamosa Board of Education. We profile each candidate this week as part of Alamosa Citizen’s 2023 Municipal Election coverage. The Nov. 7 ballot has a few but not many contested local city council and school board races in the San Luis Valley, as well as two state proposition ballot measures — Proposition HH and Proposition II. As always, make a plan to vote.

5. The Velhagen Clock: Part Two

A fresh coat of paint can mean a lot. Owen Woods takes us there when the historic Velhagen Clock, with care and attention from its caretakers, receives a sandblast and then a fresh coat of green paint. It’s a wonderful project that speaks to the history of downtown Alamosa. Soon the clock will stand again, but not before it gets a bit more love and attention. Give yourself some time to read The Velhagen Clock: Part Two. And if you missed it, start at the beginning with Part One: The crown jewel of Alamosa gets a new shine.

6. Walsh Hotel remembrance

The Walsh Hotel served Alamosa and the San Luis Valley well for many, many decades. Now it meets its fate when the city of Alamosa tears down the dilapidated structure this week. We went fishing down memory lane and found this gem from Don Robertson who would visit the Valley as a boy from Denver: “My good friend John’s dad was a successful councilman and Republican politician. He used to take John and me on trips to Southern Colorado when he was down there campaigning to the Spanish-speaking populations. That’s how I discovered the Denver & Rio Grande Western narrow gauge trains, still operating between Alamosa and Durango. Man, we always had a great time! We stayed in the Walsh Hotel in Alamosa, in a room that directly overlooked the yards, and I remember the steam locomotives switching the old wooden boxcars on hot July nights, while the pretty Spanish-speaking girls with names like Martinez and Gomez laughed cheerfully in the street below, and the mariachi music drifted from the bar down the street.”

7. On The Valley Pod: Writing the great November novel

Amanda Landgon is the access services and district learning librarian at Adams State. For the month of November, she will also serve as NaNoWriMo coordinator for Alamosa and the San Luis Valley, meaning she will coordinate an effort to help writers pen a novel in the month of November. The Valley Pod conversation with Landgon fills in all the blanks. We’ll revisit the topic as November approaches. In the meantime, what’s the novel in November you’ll write?

8. Look out  for spooky fun

The Citizen and Visit Alamosa are teaming up to bring you the most comprehensive list of Halloween fun. Here’s what’s happening in Alamosa. Got an event?  Submit yours HERE. 

  • Fall Fest & Trunk -or- Treat, Rio Grande Farm Park, Oct. 21, 1- 5 p.m
     
  • Haunted House, 701 San Juan Ave, Alamosa, Oct. 27, 28, 31, 7- 11 p.m.
     
  • Downtown Trick -or- Treating, Downtown, Alamosa, Oct. 28, 1- 4 p.m.
     
  • Día de los Muertos, Welcome Center, Oct. 28, 11 a.m.- 2 p..m.
     
  • Saturday Night Fever Dream, 4th & State, Oct. 28, 5-10 p.m.
     
  • Crawl for a Cause, Downtown Alamosa, Oct. 28, 6 p.m.
     
  • Halloween Party, Knee Knockers Bar & Grill, Oct.28, 6 p.m.
     
  • Halloween Skate Night, Alamosa Ice Rink, Oct. 31, 4 – 8 p.m.  
     
  • 7th Annual Fright Fest, National Guard Armory, Oct. 31, 4- 7 p.m.
     
  • Adams Spooky Days, ASU Campus, Oct. 30- Nov. 3