Steamboat Pilot & Today

Youth Corps gets $187,000 grant

The Rocky Mountain Youth Corps in Steamboat Springs received a $187,000 grant from AmeriCorps to run year-round programs in Routt County.

The grant makes the Youth Corps here an AmeriCorps site. Six positions will be filled this month for school-based mentors in middle schools throughout the county, said Youth Corps Program Director Avrom Feinberg.

Mentors will have about eight students assigned to them in the county, Feinberg said.

Also, a program director for the AmeriCorps workers will need to be hired. In the the spring, the grant also allows the Youth Corps to hire 20 AmeriCorps conservation corps mentors to work with backcountry trail crews.

Feinberg said the year-round program's future will be dependent on receiving the grant each year. Until now, the Youth Corps was only active from May to October. In 2002, it will be active from January to November.

DOW seeking public's input

The Colorado Division of Wildlife is developing a new Strategic Plan to chart its course over the next five years and the agency wants the public's input.

The Colorado Wildlife Commission agreed earlier this year the previous plan, which was developed in 1994 and called the Long-Range Plan, needed to be re-evaluated. The commission asked the DOW to come up with a new plan, which will be implemented at the end of this year and remain in effect until 2006.

"The demands on wildlife resources have changed dramatically in the past seven years, as has available funding for the Division," said DOW Director Russ George. "The Division has addressed changes as they happen, but a strategic plan would better enable us to establish priorities and would provide a foundation for analysis of policy and regulatory issues that will come up in the future."

The plan will set priorities for allocating DOW resources and give guidance on funding, including possibly broadening and diversifying funding sources beyond hunting and fishing licenses and federal grants.

The DOW and commission welcome public feedback on the draft plan.

The plan is available on the Division of Wildlife's Web site at www.wildlife.state.co.us or in hard-copy format. The public is invited to review the draft and submit their comments to: Colorado Division of Wildlife, Attention: Kim Burgess, 6060 Broadway, Denver 80216. The public can also respond via e-mail at wildlife.strategic@state.co.us. The public can also provide testimony at Commission meetings in Walden on Dec. 6 and 7.