News

• The State of Crime in Telluride
• Town Council Pauses Housing Waitlist Policy
• Building with Cob

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The State of Crime in Telluride

Arrests in Telluride increased in 2025 compared with the previous year, according to Telluride Chief Marshal Josh Comte.

The Telluride Marshal’s Department arrested 55 individuals last year, up from 41 the year prior.

Animal-related issues saw a slight increase, while disturbing-the-peace incidents remained about the same. Theft declined from 56 incidents in 2024 to 54 in 2025.

Fraud cases, however, increased.

“We see a lot of those with real estate frauds where people are posting or responding to an Airbnb that doesn’t exist and showing up once they’ve already made a deposit,” Comte said. “We’re seeing romance scams. We’re seeing a lot of bank scams, too.”

Comte said the rise in fraud reflects a national trend and urged community members to verify suspicious calls.

“We’ve been seeing a lot, between our department and the sheriff’s department, where people are being called saying they have warrants out for their arrest, and they demand x amount of dollars,” Comte said. “I would hang up, call the marshals department, call the sheriff’s department and confirm. Our names are public on our website, so people can go down our website, go down see our name and say ‘hey I’m Josh Comte. If you don’t show up, I’m going to arrest you for a warrant.’ Obviously, that can be scary, but I would hang up, call us back. If we are legitimately calling you and you hang up on us, we won’t be offended, we’ll just call you back.”

Trespassing incidents increased by one in 2025, and harassment saw a slight uptick.

There were two robberies in 2025, compared with none the previous year. Burglaries decreased from six to three.

“I will caution on the burglaries, last year’s numbers, all six of those were attributed to one individual, whereas this year, the three have all been separate incidents,” Comte said.

There were 12 assaults in 2025, as well as one rape case.

“I would like to highlight, in our robbery, burglary, and rape we had suspects in custody within 24 hours,” Comte said. “It went from unknown assailants to having somebody in custody with search warrants being executed within 24 hours.”

Officers reported four uses of force in 2025.

“Three of those involved weapons, or pointing our department-issued handguns at suspects, one was hands-on where we had to take somebody to the ground,” Comte said. “Two of those incidents with weapons occurred on the same incident with each officer drawing their firearm.”

Comte said the department remains committed to de-escalation and other training to help “better serve the community.”

Staffing continues to be a challenge. The department is hiring for two positions: a sergeant and a deputy marshal.

“Hopefully by July we’ll be back fully staffed. Fingers crossed,” Comte said. “It seems like a reoccurring issue, but right now I’m very happy with the team we have. Everyone is the utmost professional, they enjoy being here, they want to be here. I think we’ve finally got the right people in place to police our community.”

In addition to patrols and responding to calls, the Marshal’s Department continues community engagement efforts, including ride-alongs, the Cafecito con un policia program, a school resource officer, mentorships and collaboration with the Communities That Care Coalition, Comte said.

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Town Council Pauses Housing Waitlist Policy

The Telluride Housing Authority is suspending its waitlist as the town works to fill vacancies in town-owned rental units.

Under the town’s rental housing guidelines, administrators filled units by contacting the next person on the waitlist when a unit became available, alternating between a transfer waitlist — for residents already in the program seeking a different unit — and a traditional waitlist for those trying to enter the program.

Assistant Town Attorney Allie Slaton said the policy was adopted to clarify how people get on and off the waitlist and how long they remain on it.

“Through the policies, what we wanted to do was provide clarity to those who might still be on the waitlist,” Slaton said. “As well as provide direction to housing administrators to make sure that list was being treated fairly.”

That process, however, proved ineffective, with units sitting vacant between tenant move-outs and move-ins. Dozens of units remain empty across town-owned properties, including Sunnyside, Shandoka, Virginia Placer and Voodoo.

On Tuesday, the town officially suspended the housing waitlist to fill those vacancies as quickly as possible.

“With the current vacancies that we have, we were provided direction to as expeditiously as possible, fill those units with qualified tenants,” Slaton said. “Which has led to this necessity of suspending, temporarily, the current waitlist treatment policies of the guidelines.”

Slaton said she expects the waitlist system to function effectively once vacancy rates stabilize.

“In normal times, of normal vacancy, where we’re not seeing so many empty units, this policy of switching off between offering units between the transfer waitlist and the waiting waitlist is pretty effective,” Slaton said. “When we have normal notice by existing tenants — normal notice being 60 days to vacate — we can anticipate when those vacancies are going to occur and start using that waitlist. In normal times, these waitlist policies do operate as intended, and it’s a good and fair way to make sure that we’re both transferring existing tenants to more appropriate units, while also offering units to those who have been waiting for, sometimes, a decade for housing.”

Town Council voted to suspend the waitlist policy through July 2026 to allow staff to fill currently vacant units in town-owned rental properties.

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Building with Cob

Story beings at 6:10.

Driving down valley, as you pass the Sawpit Mercantile, if you look to the right, you may — or may not — spot a house camouflaging into the cliffside.

The house is made of cob.

“Cob building is made with sand and clay and straw and subsoil. You stomp it all together, and you can build very freeform styles,” said Mark Dresie aka the Flying Fero on KOTO.

“You can have many archways. If you look in your left speaker, you’ll be able to see the arches that we put over the windows. There’s a big arch over the spiral stairway that goes up to the second floor. You can put faces on it. I made a little Ullr there.”

The cob house in Sawpit doesn’t belong to Dresie, but he helped build it. Over the course of five years in the late ’90s, from April to October, he — along with the home’s owners — slowly built up the walls to create a structure.

Building with cob isn’t a complicated process, but it requires work and patience.

“You’re theoretically only allowed to go up about 16 inches per day, because of the weight, you don’t want it to bulge out anywhere. Also, there’s enough square footage that it’s easy to build up 16 inches in one place and then move to another place.”

With his wealth of cob knowledge, this offseason and into summer, Dresie is in Canada as a featured speaker and instructor at a cob-building workshop.

“If you have windows or doors that are going in, you want to take the wood framing and really porcupine it with nails. The nails really attach everything to the cob. As the cob sticks around those porcupine row of nails it becomes really solidified so the windows won’t rattle. Nothing will rattle.”

Once the ratio of ingredients is perfected and the material is ready to go, Dresie says the sky is the limit.

“Some people have accused me of being artistic because of things like this. I really enjoy building arches and curves. You don’t have to go with a square box, like most people live in boxes. You can have any shape you want. You can build a cob house in a circle, a triangle, a trapezoid, any shape you want, you can build with cob. It’s up to your imagination.”

With materials abounding in the natural environment, the opportunity for cob is everywhere. All you need is to stomp on clay and sand and straw and subsoil, and have the imagination to do it.

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Telski Talks Bike Park

The Telluride Bike Park will not open for the summer season.

Telski’s Steve Swenson gave more details on the decision at Telluride Town Council on Tuesday. Reading a statement from Telski’s communications team, Swenson said the decision to close the park was not an easy one.

“But it was the right and necessary one in order to ensure the continued operation of Lift 4,” Swenson said.

Swenson said the upgrades on Lift 4 this summer will be similar to mechanical work the resort completed on Lifts 5 and 12 last summer.

“One thing we did learn with that operation is that, as with all mountain construction, things happen and things take longer than you anticipate. Our historic effort doesn’t support always getting done on the timeline that somebody has projected, and it’s a hopeful timeline. So, that’s where we are with the bike park,” Swenson said.

While Swenson said the reason for the bike park closure this summer is Lift 4, he added the park does not make money and the resort needs to continue discussions on its future.

“I’ll be honest with you; we lose money on the bike park. We’re a private business. We have to make good business decisions for us and the community both, we understand that. It’s hard right now because we could build a lot of trails and have the same rider and just up our costs even higher. The bottom line is we don’t know the answers. There’s not hard decision made at this point, but there needs to be more discussion,” Swenson said.

Swenson noted trails on U.S. Forest Service land will remain open and free for bikers.

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“My Son Pinocchio” Comes to the Opera House

Pinocchio is one of the most classic and iconic wooden puppet-becomes-real-boy stories.

In “My Son Pinocchio,” the classic tale is turned on its head and told from the perspective of Geppetto — Pinocchio’s maker and father.

This weekend, the Sheridan Opera House’s Young People’s Theatre will bring the musical to the stage, featuring 30 students in third through fifth grade.

The production features iconic songs, including “When You Wish Upon a Star” and “I’ve Got No Strings.” After Pinocchio runs away to become a star in a puppet show, the story follows Geppetto as he navigates adventures and comedic encounters to find him.

The Young People’s Theatre production of “My Son Pinocchio Jr.” will take place Friday, May 1, through Sunday, May 3, with performances at 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 4 p.m. Sunday.

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Colorado River District Plans Water Releases Amid Drought Concerns

In the face of record-breaking drought, one Colorado water conservancy district is making plans to bolster water supplies this summer.

The Colorado River District, which operates in 15 counties on the Western Slope, is planning to release water into rivers and streams throughout the spring and summer to keep water steadily flowing.

It owns two reservoirs — one near Craig in Moffat County and one near Kremmling in Grand County — as well as water rights in Ruedi Reservoir on the Fryingpan River.

Sam Calahan, a water resources specialist with the River District who manages its reservoirs, said the effort requires coordination with multiple partners.

He said the district works with municipal providers, agricultural irrigators and federal agencies, including the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“When do they need water? How much do they need when, how can we maybe adjust timing in a year like this to ensure that not only do they get as much of their needs met as possible, but how can we meet, you know, upstream users’ needs at the same time to the extent that we can meet everybody’s needs?” Calahan said.

He said it is not yet clear what the exact schedule for the releases will look like, but the district is anticipating greater water demand much earlier in the year than usual.

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Colorado GOP Seeks to Block Unaffiliated Voters from Primary

Colorado Republicans are asking a federal judge to block unaffiliated voters from casting ballots in this year’s primary election.

As KUNC’s Kyle McKinnon reports for the Colorado Capitol News Alliance, the request comes after a recent court ruling found a key part of Colorado’s primary law unconstitutional — a rule requiring 75% of a party’s central committee to approve opting out of the open primary.

The state GOP is now asking a judge to block unaffiliated voters from this year’s June 30 primary, arguing the current system violates the party’s rights.

State election officials oppose the move, warning it could create confusion just weeks before ballots are set to go out.

Unaffiliated voters make up the largest share of Colorado’s active registered electorate. They have been allowed to vote in primaries since 2018.

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Experts say Loneliness Remains Growing Public Health Crisis

The U.S. Surgeon General officially declared loneliness an epidemic in 2023, identifying it as a growing public health crisis.

Roughly half of American adults report experiencing loneliness, and the COVID-19 pandemic deepened a problem that had already been taking hold across the country.

Dr. Natalie Pennington, an assistant professor of communication studies at Colorado State University and co-leader of the American Friendship Project, has studied loneliness and how people can build stronger social connections.

For Rocky Mountain Community Radio, KGNU’s Lorraine Healey, a senior at the University of Colorado Boulder, spoke with Pennington about how loneliness affects young people, especially college students navigating major life transitions, and what it takes to overcome it.

Story beings at 14:10.