By Julie Van Domelen, Mayor

Redstone Review

LYONS – The new Lyons Board of Trustees will be sworn in on April 19^th. I want to first acknowledge the outgoing members.

Juli Waugh and Tina Schooler decided not to run again due to work commitments. Their contributions over the last two years are noteworthy. Juli has been instrumental in developing Lyons’ sustainability policies and programs and has been working to identify our options to improve the library.

Tina has been a strong advocate for businesses and worked closely with the senior groups in town. The other two trustees were term-limited and their contributions over the last six years are too long to list.

Peter Baumgartner has been a champion for trails, improved bus service and bike lanes, not to mention his participation in the Economic Development Council and many other working groups of the BOT. Peter has shared his wit and humor on town issues through his writings in this paper.

Brian Donnell, the current mayor pro tem, provided leadership to the BOT during his five-month term as acting mayor. Brian spearheaded the new ethics policy, supported development of the town website, and has been a great mentor to this newbie, helping ensure continuity and a smooth process on the board.  Lyons has been lucky to have had people of such caliber working on its behalf.

The new BOT is comprised of myself as mayor and Trustees Kirk Udovich, Kathy Carroll, Sandy Banta, Kathy Jacobsen, Lavern Johnson and Ed Bruder. A few days after the election, Administrator Simonsen and town staff organized a one-day orientation for the new BOT. We learned about the responsibilities of each department and toured town infrastructure. This is a great way for the new board to hit the ground running and better understand the workings of local government.

The visits to our electricity, water and wastewater treatment facilities were particularly interesting to me. Like most people, I really don’t give it much thought when I flick on the switch, turn on the tap or flush. But behind all that there is a complex set of infrastructure that town owns, operates and maintains. We visited the Lyons electric substation on Colorado Highway 66 several miles east of Lyons where our town-owned electric utility takes power from the main grid lines and redistributes it through Lyons. Running that system includes routinely checking on all of those green boxes along the north side of 66. One staff member jokingly said she thought seeing the public works trucks always heading over to Longmont meant they were going for Carl’s Jr. burgers, not realizing all of the work that goes on to run and maintain those systems.

Also out on Colorado Highway 66 at 53^rd Street is a Longmont water tank and a Lyons-owned red metal structure that houses some pretty big pumps and pipes that take the water we get from Longmont, make sure it is treated and then pump it way across town up to the big storage tank at the end of Apple Valley, and then out to our homes and businesses. I guess I always thought that since we get our water from Longmont it just came to my house through Longmont’s system. I did not realize the daily monitoring of pressure, flow, and quality as well keeping pipes and pumps in good working order that is required. The wastewater treatment plant processes all of our ‘stuff’ and has excellent quality ratings on the effluent it puts back into the St. Vrain River. We get a lot of technical help from our contracted services (N-Line Electric and Alberts Water and Wastewater Services) but our public works and administrative staff make sure things work when you turn them on at home.

It’s easy to take utilities for granted. But there are still about 1.5 billion people, or a quarter of the world’s population, without electric power. Only a little over half of the world’s population gets its water piped into their homes. If I lived somewhere where I had to go fetch it, almost always a woman’s job, I would spend between ten to 20 hours per week collecting water and would probably not send my daughter to school so she could help. There are 2.4 billion people in the world lacking access to improved sanitation facilities (everything from public sewerage systems and septic tanks to latrines). Even for those that have more modern systems, nearly 80 percent of sewage around the globe is flushed, untreated, directly into lakes, rivers, and oceans.

The BOT will be working with staff to make sure our rates are as low as possible and service quality is maintained, but for now I’m headed to the kitchen for a glass of water and a silent thanks to all of those who make that possible.

Sincerely,

Mayor Julie Van Domelen

juliev@townoflyons.com

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