Valentine's Day

Third District Congressman Scott Tipton has reintroduced legislation to streamline the process and reduce administrative costs for small hydropower development at the Bureau of Reclamation’s facilities.  Tipton's bill has bipartisan support and backing from three senators who will introduce the measure in the Senate.  Tipton says the measure supports renewable hydropower and jobs that would create.

The Governor's Forum on Colorado Agriculture gets underway in Denver today from outgoing Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. The forum is a daylong conference focusing on the critical role of innovation to the future of U.S. Salazar is stepping down as Interior Secretary to return to Colorado where he was formerly State Attorney General before being elected to the US Senate and ultimately named Secretary of the Interior in President Obama's first term.

The state Senate has passed a bill to expand the state's use of alternative fuel fleet vehicles. Senate Bill-70 directs departments throughout the state to work toward converting vehicle fleets to utilize alternative fuels and requires the state to work toward developing the infrastructure necessary to support the use of alternative fuel vehicles in the state's fleet.

A bill that would've combined county offices of Treasurer and Public Trustee has died in a House Committee.  Grand Junction Representative Ray Scott says his bill was an attempt to reform the office of the public trustee and restore it's accountability. He says counties would have saved money by consolidating common functions including mailings, notices and real estate database management.

Mesa County Sheriff's investigators are looking into a shooting in Clifton.  It happened at a home on Delicious Drive around 5:30 yesterday.  Deputies were dispatched on a report of a suicidal man, heard a gunshot, and two people stumbled outside with apparent gunshot wounds. The injuries were apparently non-life threatening.

A Clifton man and woman taken to the hospital after 9-1-1 reports of a suicidal man.  Mesa County Sheriff's Deputies responded to a home on Delicious Drive around 5:30 yesterday and found the two with apparently non- life-threatening injuries.  Sheriff's spokeswoman Heather Benjamin says two children and another adult in the home were not injured.

Police in Montrose are planning beefed up security as a man and his dog appear in court for sentencing.  Jeremiah Aguilar was cited for owning a vicious/dangerous dog after the dog reportedly attacked and bit a woman trying to break up a fight with another dog.  The woman has racked up $24,000 in medical bills, and the dog, Dutch, has since gained a following on Facebook.  Police Chief Tom Chinn tells the Montrose Daily Press extra police officers will be on hand, and the city's borrowed a metal detector from the county for court. Dutch could be ordered euthanized and Aguilar could be fined or jailed.

The woman who's been heading up the BLM's Grand Junction Field Office is taking the position full-time. The Daily Sentinel says 32 year old Katie Stevens arrived in Grand Junction from Montana four years ago and too charge of the McInnis Canyons Conservation area, then the Dominguez-Escalante area when it was established.

You might not know it, but you're in C-DOT's Region Three. And is just so happens Region 3 is number one in the state.  C-DOT executive Director Don Hunt singles out one region every year for the Director's Cup and this year it goes to Region 3.  Bridge repair, fixing that huge sink hole on US Highway 24 near Leadville last summer, and working with the City of Grand Junction on the new Diverging Diamond interchange at I-70 and Highway 6&50 all played into the award.