News

• A Mountain Munchkins Update
• General Assembly Heads Into Final Month

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Remembering Todd Kunkel

Telluride lost a member of its community last week.

Todd Kunkel died Friday morning after a five-year battle with prostate cancer. He was 62.

The San Miguel County Coroner’s Office said Kunkel was a handy man who could fix nearly anything. He moved to Telluride more than five years ago with a love of skiing, fishing and mountain life.

Kindred Spirits Hospice cared for Kunkel. Crippin Funeral Home is handling arrangements.

Kunkel is survived by his daughter, Bridget; his stepsons, Tyler and Trent; and his wife, Patty.

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A Mountain Munchkins Update

Childcare and early childhood education can be fundamental for the development of a young person, but the cost can be a major burden for families and providers.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, families in the United States spend roughly 9% to 16% of their income annually on childcare.

“The average annual cost for tuition for an infant this year is about $41,500,” said Lizbeth Lemley, director of finance for Mountain Village, which owns and operates Mountain Munchkins.

Mountain Village does not charge that full amount for tuition. A Mountain Village resident sending an infant to Mountain Munchkins pays about $20,000 per year.

“Meaning that $22,000 per infant needs to be subsidized through grant funding, through the town, or fundraising,” Lemley said.

Lemley, along with Mountain Village Director of Childcare Chambers Squier, provided an update on Mountain Munchkins at a recent Mountain Village Town Council meeting.

According to Lemley, the infant program requires the largest subsidy, with annual subsidies for the toddler room and preschool room at roughly $113,000 and $128,000, respectively.

Squier said Mountain Munchkins’ mission is to provide sustainable, affordable and quality childcare for the town of Mountain Village and San Miguel County.

“The program philosophy is play-based learning. We are very much focused on social and emotional development. It is my true philosophy that we’re trying to raise good, tiny humans right now. All the academics will come later on. Right now, we’re working on social emotional regulation and expansion,” Squier said.

Mountain Munchkins currently has 38 students across four classrooms — the infant room, wobbler room, toddler room and preschool — and an equal or larger number on the waitlist.

“COVID did a little dip on our waitlist. We weren’t seeing families having as many children, but we’re back on a baby boom and the waitlist is growing weekly. It’s great for our community, but a little daunting for Munchkins,” Squier said.

Mountain Munchkins is currently the only childcare provider in the county offering care five days a week, and the only provider on the east end offering infant care. Prime Time in Norwood also provides infant care. It is also the only private provider — outside of the school district — to provide individual learning plans, or ILPs, for students with additional learning needs.

In addition to a long waitlist, Squier said staffing is another challenge.

“I think it’s a combination of lack of flexibility in scheduling and a really high-demanding job,” Squier said.

Mountain Munchkins currently has 10 full-time employees but needs 12 to be fully staffed.

As a town-run program, Mountain Munchkins relies on tuition, grants, fundraising and Mountain Village-allocated dollars to operate.

During discussion, Town Council expressed strong support for Munchkins, Squier and staff but said the financial cost of the program still appears unsustainable. Mountain Village Town Council member Dan Jansen said:

“This is unsettling. I want to be clear: I am pro-baby. I am huge into early childhood education. When you look at federal funding and return on investment, it is very clear when you put money into young children it has the greatest ROI. It gets them fed, it gets them safe, it gets them on track for education. I am the last guy who is going to cut funding,” Jansen said.

But he said the region needs to crack the code on how to make the funding work.

“None of this is being critical of [Mountain Munchkins]. It’s probably pointing at ourselves more. Ten years ago, when we had a $100,000 subsidy, we said it’s worth it. But this has reached $500,000 to $600,000 and sounds like it’s about to get worse. When you have 28 infants on a waitlist, it’s an oxymoron. By the time they get off the waitlist, they’re not an infant anymore. I think we need to do something here.”

The town of Mountain Village aims to create a 501(c)(3) nonprofit for Mountain Munchkins to expand fundraising and donation opportunities.

The town also plans to engage with other regional governments, organizations and foundations to discuss early childhood education funding in the area.

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General Assembly Heads Into Final Month

Lawmakers in Denver are nearing the end of the 2026 General Assembly, but there’s still a lot to get done. In this installment of Capitol Conversation, statehouse reporter Lucas Brady Woods shares the latest.

Story beings at 5:45.

Julia Caulfield (JC): The General Assembly is moving into its last month of session, which we’re going to touch on in a minute. But first, I wanted to talk with you about several bills, and the first one has to do with utilities and how much Coloradans can or should pay for those.

Lucas Brady Woods (LBW): This bill is about utilities, which is a topic that’s very much on the minds of lawmakers – rising utility costs, clean energy is a concern, and also how utilities interact with disasters like wildfires. So this particular bill deals with potential costs of utilities.
it started out a little bit different than it currently is, that’s because it went through a significant amendment. As it was first introduced, this bill would have created “first allotment of residential electricity programs”. What the program would do was offer sort of the minimum amount of electricity to power basic needs of a household for a marginal cost to low-income customers.
Now, all that to say, the lawmakers, the sponsors of this bill amended out that and they replaced that with a different program that utilities would offer called a percentage of income payment plan – that’s also called a PIPP plan – and what the pip plan would do is it would require that utility companies charge no more than a certain percentage of a low income customers income so the bill wouldn’t go above a certain affordable amount for individuals.
this bill is really about making sure that lower-income Coloradans can afford their bills and that utility companies won’t overcharge or can’t overcharge low-income customers on their utility bills.

JC: The next bill I wanted to touch on has to do with a strategy when it comes to homelessness across the state. What is this?

LBW: Advocates for the unhoused have been really calling on more regional collaboration and state leadership when it comes to strategies to reduce homelessness.
Advocates say there’s this really sort of scattered and fragmented approach to homelessness in Colorado. they’ve been calling on more of this regional collaboration and statewide strategy to advance our efforts to the next step. This bill has come out of that.
What it does is it will allow local governments, a combination of local governments, to form an intergovernmental agreement to coordinate their efforts to reduce and prevent homelessness. Advocates say, you know, homelessness does not stop at city and county borders, right? It moves across regions, it moves across municipalities. so the approach really has to address homelessness on a regional level.

JC: The final bill I want to chat with you about is maybe a relatively small change, but involves a topic that is very relevant in southwest Colorado in our region. What would this do?

LBW: Yes, his bear bill. Like you said, it might not seem that significant to some, but I know in a lot of communities, bear-human interactions are a big deal and they happen a lot.
this bill is about people negligently leaving out food or trash and luring bears with those things.
On a third offense, if you keep leaving food out and luring bears and you’re warned and warned, and on the third offense, you can be fined. currently that fine caps at $2,000. This bill would raise that fine to $5,000.

So it would just increase penalties for people who repeatedly lure bears with food that’s left out or trash and other things.

JC: It’s a good reminder to make sure that you’re locking up your trash cans so we don’t get bears in our town.

JC: Lucas, as we spoke about at the beginning, lawmakers have about one month left until they adjourn for the rest of the year. What does that month look like? What are lawmakers doing? What is the energy around the Capitol as we kind of near the finish line?

LBW: We’re getting close, but we still have a way to go. And it is, I think, really worth noting that the lawmakers are still working on passing the budget and that’s happening later than usual this year which means after the budget passes there’s still more work to do – still more things that lawmakers want to get done so with just one month left it doesn’t give a lot of time for these lawmakers to get their other policies through. So the longer the budget takes, the more rushed the rest of session will be. But after the budget happens, I think we’ll start to see some more bigger bills work their way through and try to hit that finish line in time for the end of session.

JC: It’s going to be a bit of a mad dash to get to the end.

LBW: It could be, and it often is. It often is.

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Off-Season Settles In

Spring has sprung, and offseason is underway.

The off-season means a number of restaurants around Telluride and Mountain Village are closing. Some dining options, however, will remain open.

Restaurants staying open through the off-season include Cornerhouse, El Rhino, Spirits at Mountain Village, Kazahana, Smugglers, The Telluride Company, Uno Dos Tres and West End Bistro.

Telluride Brewing Kitchen and Pizza in Lawson Hill, Crazy Elk Pizza, Kettle Coffee, Munchie Mansion in Placerville, Brown Dog, Butcher & Baker, Caravan, Coffee Cowboy, Floradora, La Cocina, Liz, Sheridan Chop House, Stronghouse, Telluride Truffle, The National, The Tunnel Supper Club and Van Atta will close for several weeks during the offseason. Days and hours may vary, so visitors are encouraged to check ahead.

At the same time, Telluride Ski Resort has opened uphill traffic on the mountain.

Mountain Operations has cleared the resort for recreation. However, the resort said sledding, snowmobiling and other motorized vehicles are not allowed.

The terrain is considered backcountry, and anyone using the mountain should check the forecast and carry a beacon, probe and shovel.

The Lift 4 area will remain closed, including the bike park, which will not open this summer. The resort said the closure is due to lift upgrades.

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Environmentalists See Opportunity in Reservoir Release

A massive amount of water will likely have to be sent downstream this spring from reservoirs in the upper Colorado River basin to help save Lake Powell from drying up.

As Scott Franz reports, environmentalists see an opportunity.

If the releases are timed correctly and they’re stretched out for months, conservationists say the movement of lots of water could sustain flows and help endangered fish.

John Berrgren is with the environmental group Western Resource Advocates.

“you hear pretty much nothing but bad news about this year’s hydrology and snow pack and reservoirs and everything’s crashing. And it’s, it’s awful, but this is actually an opportunity to see some real good.”

There could be some resistance though.

Berrgren says downstream states will want the water to reach Powell as quickly as possible during this year of drought.

Meanwhile, governors from Colorado and the other three states where the water will be drawn from are urging the feds not to take too much, and replenish what they take.