Saying Good-bye to 2024

Mailbox Explosion and Armed Robbery Assault

The 2024 New Year literally started out with a bang as police got reports of residents hearing an explosion south of Florissant and west of Evergreen Station. When police arrived to the scene, they noticed a mail parcel box destroyed by what appeared to be a bomb or some type of explosive. The Teller County Sheriff’s Office, a bomb squad team and federal postal service investigators launched an investigation into what happened. A suspect was never found and no new information was released.

Shortly after the explosion, Teller residents were rattled once again when a report of an armed robbery in Woodland Park came in on January 6. A suspect entered the Microtel Hotel in Woodland Park and pulled out a gun before fleeing the scene with an undisclosed amount of cash. The next day, police learned who the suspect was and on January 10, he was spotted in Cripple Creek leaving a casino. Cripple Creek Police attempted to pull over the suspect, but he rammed their vehicles and fled.

Teller County deputies found the suspect’s empty car parked in a rural area east of Cripple and launched a manhunt on foot. After tracking the suspect over multiple miles of rough terrain, deputies arrested 38-year-old Kyle Jamison on multiple felony charges.

Molly Kathleen Mine Tragedy

Teller County once again hit the national spotlight regarding a fatal tragedy at one of its most renowned tourist attractions. At around noon on October 10, Teller deputies received a call from the Molly Kathleen Mine in Cripple Creek saying that the elevator malfunctioned and they needed assistance. When deputies had arrived, they learned that the mine’s tour guide, Patrick Weier of Victor, had died in a tragic accident when the elevator door malfunctioned.

The group of 12 people (including some children) who were inside the elevator during the fatal accident were treated by medical staff and rescued. However, the accident forced 12 people who were on an earlier tour to be stuck at the bottom of the mine 1,000 feet underground.

Mine safety experts were called out from all over the state to ensure the elevator was in working order and safe to bring the stranded tourists up. The stranded tourists were eventually rescued after spending around seven hours trapped underground.

The investigation as to what exactly happened is still ongoing. The mine did receive a cease and desist order forcing them to halt operations of the mine until the investigation is complete. Recently, state authorities announced that an ongoing investigation is proceeding with much intensity, but didn’t release any definite conclusions.  These will undoubtedly release sometime next year.  A heavily emotional tribute was  held for Weier at the city park that attracted hundreds of residents, along with many family members.

Divide Area Under Siege by Wildfire

On October 28, Divide residents were shocked when a house seemed to explode in the Highland Lakes subdivision just northwest of town. The structure fire was then fueled by high-speed winds, which quickly spreading it to nearly 100 acres in a matter of hours.

Around 700 homes were evacuated for two days. In the end, the evacuations were released a couple of days later once the 166-acre fire was 80 percent contained.

Later it was reported by local news agencies, that the owner of the house had just lost the property to foreclosure around the time it went up in flames. Authorities have still not located the possible suspect.

Property Crimes Strike with a Vengeance

Throughout the entire year, Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell held town hall meetings and frequently stressed the fact that serious crimes have been on the rise. At one point, county officials and staff from the City of Cripple Creek held a meeting to address a rise in property crimes in the Southern Teller County region.

The property crime surge infiltrated Woodland Park in November when the police department responded to multiple calls in a short period dealing with theft reports like ATVs and cars being stolen while parked in front of houses.

Police also had to respond to a theft at the Walmart in Woodland Park in November. As soon as the police tried to pull over the suspect’s vehicle, it fled down the pass at speeds exceeding 100 MPH.

Black Friday Tragedy

Teller County, which in the past has reported a tame and uneventful “Black Friday” shopping day, didn’t experience the same scenario in 2024. The day after Thanksgiving, Teller County got hit with its first fatal shooting in some time. A single shot rang in Woodland Park at around 5 p.m. on the famous Black Friday shopping holiday. One victim succumbed from his wounds the next day and passed away as a result of his injuries sustained from the shooting.

A few days later, police reported that the shooting occurred in the aftermath of a physical altercation that started during a child custody exchange. Police said that the mother’s boyfriend shot the father of the child after being threatened.

Police are still investigating the incident and said that self-defense could be a factor. The shooter cooperated with police and has not yet been charged with a crime.  The incident sparked an explosion of comments and arm-chair quarterbacking on social media, as it marked the first fatal shooting in Teller County that wasn’t self-inflicted, in years.

Part Two

Political Upheaval on the Mountain

Woodland Park

Battle Escalates Over Sales Tax Hike

With the beginning of 2024, months of inactivity on the political front quickly changed, resulting in an all-out war between the WP council and the RE-2 School Board. A group of citizens who supported Woodland Park School Board candidates who had just lost in the November 2023 election by close margins, started conducting private meetings. They wanted to create more transparency regarding how the RE-2 district was spending tax money formerly approved by the voters of Woodland Park. The group lobbied four candidates, some of whom ran on the fact that they staunchly opposed the agenda of the current school board.

During the city’s municipal election in April, four candidates who promised to not let the conservative faction in the county take over the town, won by a landslide. The group immediately went to work at how a voter-approved city sales tax increase was being spent.

After several meetings, some members of city council were still not satisfied with the information they were being given from the district. At first, some city council members fought to have the council vote to axe the sales tax. When this effort failed, the council then agreed by a close 4-3 vote to put the issue on the ballot in November 2024 during the much-anticipated presidential election. But a group of citizens, backed by high profile business leaders, launched a concerted effort to urge Woodland Park voters to vote no on the ballot measure that would remove the tax.

In the end, voters went against the ballot measure by a  strong margin.  This vote essentially kept the 1.09 percent sales tax increase for the school district in place indefinitely. Voters also approved another measure that raised the sales tax by another one percent to aid the local ambulance service.

Besides the school district versus the council fight, another big legal controversy occurred when a group of citizens, including top realtors in the area, filed a lawsuit against the short-term rental ordinance passed by the voters. These ordinance banned these properties in residential neighborhoods, unless they were owner-occupied.  Those against the STR ordinance argued that the new law violates their constitutional rights to assemble and their property rights.

Woodland Park School Board

School Closures Announced; Conservative Agenda Continues

After the conservative slate of school board candidates narrowly retained their seats after the November 2023 election, most speculated that not much would change within the district. Those predictions were quickly proven wrong. Shortly after the election, the school district started making even more controversial announcements that critics believe could threaten the district’s public schools.

After making the decision to move sixth grade students out of the middle school and put them back into elementary schools, the district announced that they would be moving the entire middle school into the high school building in order to make more room for the Merit Academy charter school. Starting in fall ’23, seventh and eighth graders joined the high schoolers.

The school district then announced later that spring that they would be shutting down Gateway Elementary for what officials called a “cooling off period.” Starting last fall all students — kindergarten through sixth grade — had to go to either Columbine Elementary in Woodland Park or Summit Elementary in Divide. Rumors have circulated that the building is secretly being remodeled, but nobody knows its intended purpose for the future. During the summer and fall seasons, the school board then spent most of its time fighting with city council and trying desperately to get them to not eliminate the sales tax increase. Leading up to the election, the school board members spoke out often about how stripping money from the district would only harm its students.

Teller County

Commissioners Continue to Duke it Out With State Lawmakers

During the beginning of 2024, the Teller County  commissioner spent a lot of time patting themselves on the back for the efforts they made in seeking to lower property taxes, resulting from soaring assessments done the previous year. They played a key role in working with state lawmakers in crafting a property tax relief package.

But once the state legislative session started, the commissioners put on their boxing gloves and went to battle at the state capitol multiple times a week.

In fact, most of the county commissioner meetings were filled with the commissioners outlining their latest battles against state Democratic lawmakers, which maintained a huge majority in the state House and Senate, and the ongoing rift between rural and urban interests. Whenever a state legislator brought up anything to do with law enforcement, immigration or guns, county officials went racing up to Denver to wave their fists in contempt. After they fought against many gun control bills, most of them ended up watered down with language changed from its original form. One bill that was passed prompted commissioners to pass an ordinance to ignore the new state law within county lines and allow guns inside county buildings. The elections of 2024, though, had county Republican leaders waving a victory flag with more GOP lawmakers getting elected at the state level.

Besides these political battles, the county commissioners also had to deal with a fair share of disasters including a fire, a vicious snowstorm and a tragic incident at a historic mining attraction.  County Commissioner Dan Williams even experienced a natural disaster up close and person when a rare occurrence of a tornado came ripping through his ranch that’s located at nearly 10,000 feet in elevation.

Part Three