30 years ago – November 22, 1985
The Gilpin County RE-1 school board reached a $10,000 settlement agreement with the school’s former librarian, Carolyn Hansen, on November 14. Hansen was the school librarian for five years until she was terminated at the end of the school year in 1984. According to Superintendent Fred Meyers, she was a tenured teacher. He said the tenure law states that a teacher has a contract to teach at a school after three years. Last year, Meyers recommended to the school board that Hansen be fired. The reasons why she was fired were not disclosed. This week, Meyers said school officials believed that Hansen was not meeting her job responsibilities, and Dan Ryan, school principal, had observed her not meeting those responsibilities. Additional terms of the agreement are that the board agrees to withdraw its challenge to unemployment compensation. Meyers said Hansen applied for unemployment after she was terminated and the board was challenging her request. The board’s decision to withdraw now gives Hansen the opportunity to collect unemployment, Meyers said. The settlement agreement also stipulates that the school will verify only the date Hansen was employed at the school, rate of pay and that her performance was satisfactory in regard to employment inquiries. Hansen, in turn, agrees to resign from her position and agrees to not pursue any further legal action. Meyers said Hansen was represented by an attorney from the Colorado Education Association. She is a member of the association and, therefore, has legal recourse through it, he said.
It was frightening to think that anyone might have been inside a house in Pinecliffe when it caught fire Tuesday, but that is exactly what the Gilpin County Sheriff’s Department first suspected. The dispatcher on duty Tuesday morning at 8:20 a.m. received a call that a house in Pinecliffe was on fire. Before the High Country Volunteer Fire Department arrived on scene, which was only in a matter of minutes, the house was engulfed in flames. Undersheriff David Martinez at first thought the owner of the house, William Harman, might be inside it. Harman’s pickup was parked only a short distance away and as far as anyone knew, he was inside the house. After questioning several neighbors, Martinez found out that Harman had left the house with a friend about 7:00 a.m. that morning. Later Tuesday, a friend of Harman’s notified the sheriff’s department that Harman had been in Boulder and was fine. After the fire was extinguished, little remained of the house or the possessions inside. High winds and the cold temperature caused the water used to extinguish the blaze to turn to icicles in only a short time. Martinez said Wednesday that Harman lived alone in the house. He said the cause of the fire was probably due to a top-loading wood stove in the house. Martinez did not know if the house was insured or not. The fire is still under investigation by the Gilpin County Sheriff’s Department.
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