CITY COUNCIL APPROVES MAJOR WEST GLENWOOD RETAIL PROJECT
Glenwood Springs–The Glenwood Springs City Council happily approved a major retial development project for a West Glenwood corner that has long been an eyesore. The old Tomahawk truck stop at Highway 6 and Mel Ray Road will be razed and transformed into a new truck, stop, restaurant, storage facility and convenience store owned by Loco of Grand Junction.
GLENWOOD SOLAR INVESTMENTS PUT ON HOLD FOR OTHER PROJECTS
Glenwood Springs–The city of Glenwood Springs is leaning toward funneling this year’s 200 thousand dollar contribution for solar energy investments to a street light project. That’s the reccomendation from City Manager Jeff Hecksel.
ASPEN ATM BANK THIEF SOUGHT
Aspen–Some people in Aspen say all their money was stolen by a crafty thief who used a skimming device at a local bank’s ATM. Aspen police are looking for the suspect who made off with thousands of dollars between December 22nd and the 29th. Police say the skimmers are small electronic devices that can copy bank card information insterted into ATMs or other automatic pay stations. The copied information can then be used to make a duplicate credit card or ATM card.
SANDWICH BOARD ADVERTISIING NO LONGER FREE IN ASPEN
Aspen–The city of Aspen is now charging all businesses with outdoor sandwich-board signs an annual $65 permit fee. Some businesses have been allowed to have permanent sandwich board signs in city rights-of-way for free if a storefront is not easy to find. City officials say businesses are being charged for the time it takes to process the permits.
COLORADO UNEMPLOYMENT FIGURES
DENVER (AP) – The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment says private sector jobs dropped by 2,500 from November to December, while the number of government employees increased by 100 during the month-long period. The department says the number of people employed held relatively steady at 2.3 million people.
The department says the state’s unemployment rate dropped one tenth of one percentage point over the month to 7.6 percent. Those figures are in line with national unemployment rates. Locally, with the exception of Garfield County, more people found jobs in the valley. Garfield County’s jobless rate went up from 7.4 to 7.6 percent. However in neighboring counties Pitkin and Eagle, the numbers were much improved. Unemployment dropped almost four full percentage points from 10.4 to 6.7 while the jobless rate in Eagle County dropped two full points from 8.7 to 6.7 percent.
