The Last Stand
Comments by Scott Wedel
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On Ann Marie Trout: Oak Creek news unfair
August 20, 2008 at 2:32 a.m.
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Another employee of the liquor store also stated that she had customers complain about the police and purchased liquor not in a bag. Would probably take a reporter 20 minutes of asking around Town to find the name of someone that claims they were harassed by the police for having a purchased bottle not in a paper bag. There is zero confidence that a police dept that can find no fault with itself on any of the other issues would find that it did anything wrong in this case.
Pillar of the community Jack Romick complained about Tony bothering him about Jack's driving of a tractor which Jack said was legal according the 1961 farm bill.
And there is no shortage of people that think the paper is being very cautious at what is being printed. The paper asked for a copy of the current OCPD taser policy. That would be the policy approved by the Town Board in 2006. Instead, he faxed a policy dated Jan 1, 2008. The same date on a different Taser policy he gave to the police commissioners that he proposed should be the new OCPD taser policy. Thus, according to his own documents and actions, the Chief on Jan 1, 2008 drafted one new Taser policy which he declared to be the new OCPD taser policy. Also, on Jan 1, 2008 he drafted a new Taser policy which was to become the new OCPD Taser policy after it had been approved by the Police Commissioners and Town Board.
I've been told by those that have seen it that the Jan 1, 2008 Taser policy which the Chief by personal fiat declared to be the new OCPD taser policy removes the protections for passive resistance and no longer requires an EMT medical check. Thus, by remarkable coincidence, on Jan 1, 2008 the Chief by personal fiat declared a new OCPD taser policy, not revealed to the police commissioners or Town Board, which then on July 19th was not violated by Officer Foster when he Tasered Cargo.
And he does not have the power to override OCPD policy set by the Town Board so that is not the new policy. Which also means his review of Officer Foster is fatally flawed because he did not use official OCPD policy when deciding if Officer Foster violated OCPD policy.
And the paper which received this OCPD Taser policy from the Police Chief has not published it yet.
Also, at the August 4th meeting when the topic was prejudicial comments made by the police chief affecting the integrity of his review of Officer Foster's action, the chief said that he was misquoted by the paper. At the August 14th meeting when the Chief was asked what did he say and how was he misquoted, he declined to answer. That didn't make the paper.
On Rob Douglas: Chief Caterinicchio acted unprofessionally
August 19, 2008 at 12:58 a.m.
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The Jan 1 Taser policy sent by the Chief to the SB Pilot did not preserve the protections of the 2006 policy passed by the Town Board which is the official Taser policy until another is approved by the Town Board.
The Taser policy sent by the Chief to the SB Pilot removed the protections in the official Taser policy and thus coincidentally was not violated by Officer Foster when he Tasered Cargo. Officer Foster clearly appears to have violated the official Taser policy by not seeking a medical check for Cargo at the scene (medical check happened hours later in SB) and arguably violated it by using it in response to passive resistance (“cowering and falling away”).
So it appears that the Chief fabricated a document he claimed to be the OCPD Taser policy to cover up violations of the actual OCPD Taser policy by Officer Foster.
On Rob Douglas: Chief Caterinicchio acted unprofessionally
August 15, 2008 at 11:29 p.m.
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So we have two further allegations worth investigating:
1) Chief Russ sent a fabricated Taser policy with a false date to the newspaper claiming it was the current OCPD Taser policy. (The real Jan 1, 2008 proposed Taser policy had been given to the police commissioners to review).
2) Chief Russ stole documents from a reporter and destroyed them.
Why is this Chief still on duty? A police chief fabricating documents and destroying other documents is completely unacceptable. Chief Russ needs to credibly explain himself or resign.
On Rob Douglas: Chief Caterinicchio acted unprofessionally
August 15, 2008 at 11:09 a.m.
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At the Town Board meeting, pillar of the local community Jack Romick stood up and was still agitated that when Jack was driving his tractor down an alley that Code Enforcement Officer Tony had told him that he was lucky the Chief didn't see him doing that. Jack said that 1961 Colorado law states that what he was doing was legal. He then turned to Chief Russ and said “I am not afraid of that man”.
It is as if the OCPD has a list of “Things NOT to do” and is trying to see how many of them can be accomplished. High on that list would be “Tick off Jack Romick”.
Anyone with any common sense would not threaten Jack Romick with a ticket for driving his tractor in town. He has earned a lifetime of respect and if any officer thinks there is anything unsafe about him driving his tractor then they should escort or otherwise help him to make it safer. That would be protecting and serving which have unfortunately become foreign concepts to the OCPD.
And the OCPD can also add stealing documents from a columnist to the list of things done on their “Things NOT to do list”.
And it is sadly no joke that OCPD has a double secret Taser policy. It is literally true that there are two secret Jan 1, 2008 Taser policies and that the Chief thinks one of them is current policy, not the 2006 one discussed in public and approved by the Town Board.
On Railroad linking Steamboat to I-70 studied
August 14, 2008 at 11:30 a.m.
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I'll do that survey for $100K. It is cheaper and more energy efficient to run buses than rail. Rail needs to be competing against congested roads to be viable so it is not viable in this area. Even the I-70 corridor won't be viable because the congestion is in the middle of the drive and the cars fan out to too many final destinations in the mountains and Front Range.
Rail works in big cities where it can link densely populated small cities and suburbs to the center of a big city where car traffic is a mess.
Money please.
It would be neat as purely a tourism scenic adventure if there could be a weekly train.
On Rob Douglas: Rookie chief needs oversight
August 12, 2008 at 7:01 p.m.
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In any other police dept it does not require a complaint to start an internal investigation. It takes evidence of police error.
It is typical that the officer's report will not obviously describe serious errors in police procedure. It usually requires the victim or witnesses to say there were police errors and the officer's report is not accurate. But in this case, Chief Russ's own description of what happened describes serious errors in police procedures. Or do you really believe it is proper police procedure to chase 3 people into a house without backup or radioing dispatch of your location and actions? Or radioing dispatch that you are under attack and failing to radio back that the situation is now under control? Or for the person reviewing the actions of another officer to announce prior to looking at all the evidence the results of the investigation?
And if you believe that things were done correctly then why resist an independent investigation? If things were done right then the independent investigation would show that.
On All-day kindergarten tuition lowered
August 12, 2008 at 1:11 a.m.
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A back story is that as of a month ago I know there was at least one parent that had signed up for full day, was later told the estimated cost, asked to go back to half day and was told there might not be room. And this parent was real upset.
I note that there are still openings in full day so I wonder if part of the cost adjustment was not really a recalculation of costs, but a reevalustion of demand.
On Wood-fired boilers gaining steam
August 10, 2008 at 9:28 p.m.
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Actually, if I can burn wood pellets for close to what coal costs then I'll switch to wood. My coal stoker manufacturer claims that it can also burn wood pellets. (Just change pulley ratio to feed it in much faster than coal and adjust the air flow to get a good burn).
First, I'd need to get wood pellets to the furnace without paying outrageous shipping fees. With Kremmling being 45 miles and a major mountain pass away, it is not obvious to me how to affordably get pellets. Enough wood pellets to last the winter would be such a big pile that the Town would probably find a way to say I am violating some ordinance. The other part is that wood pellets for the same amount as heat take up a lot more room than coal. A full hopper of wood pellets might not last a winter night.
If it can be made to work then I'd rather be burning wood pellets than coal. I do not like coal, but the cost difference between coal and propane is too great. I'd pay that difference if it was $10 or $20 a day, but it is more than that to heat hot water for 11 apartments and a laundromat during the summer.
And I would worry about running out of wood because if wood pellets are so great and cheap then it would make sense to build a biomass plant next to the wood pellet processing plant. Also, if the wood itself is so cheap that it can be profitably burned then someone should be able to figure out how to make it into OSB and floor joists to ship to the developing world.
So I would not spend thousands to convert a house on the expectation that wood pellets would be cheap for 10 years.
On Wood-fired boilers gaining steam
August 10, 2008 at 5:19 p.m.
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If wood fuel is $2.50 per million BTUs while propane is currently about $35 per million BTUs then why wait for a biomass plant and heat pipes?
Why not simply deliver 50 gallon barrels full of wood pellets for $5 per million BTUs and let residents get pellet stoves?
OC infrastructure is so run down that the Town still does not even have water meters on their water system and is repairing asphalt streets with dirt. They have no credibility on being able to install and maintain a modern heat pipes system.
I have an apartment building that using a furnace to heat hot water that then heats the potable hot water and also the apartments via hot water baseboard. These systems are not cheap or simple. The materials needed to retrofit a house would cost between $1,500 and $2,500. The labor cost to install and retrofit should be expected to be no less than $5,000.
That is a major investment with many years to payback. The average homeowner can get far faster payback on investment by better insulating and fixing drafts.
There is also the obvious risk that someone else would build a biomass plant in Kremmling sized to match production capacity and then wood pellets are no longer so cheap 45 miles away in Oak Creek.
So I will ask again - if wood pellets are so great then why not deliver them to OC for use in pellet stoves???
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On Ann Marie Trout: Oak Creek news unfair
August 20, 2008 at 2:44 a.m.
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The paper could be writing articles every day blasting the Chief and Officer Foster and instead is only printing a portion of the critical comments being made at Town Board meetings regarding the Chief and has one columnist that has written 3 articles on the OCPD.
The paper decided not to write any stories about OC residents legally trying to hitch hike to SB being told by the OCPD with no legal justification that they cannot hitch hike in OC.
The paper is not making up this controversy. It is deep and real. Business owners such as Doug Diamond and Virginia Paxton do not lightly criticize their local law enforcement.
And it is not just the police dept. Why in the world was Chan Zwanzig forced to ask approval to use his warehouse to store and show granite slabs to contractors? And then he was questioned about hours of operation which he said was like 8-5. It is a warehouse in a designated commercial zone. Hayden would never have asked a warehouse owner to seek approvals for normal business hours operations of nontoxic materials at the warehouse. That is exactly why SB business owners are not looking at moving to OC. They see that they will be micromanaged by the Town.