Garfield County voters navigate ballot pitfalls amid manual highway cleanup

The intersection of Highway 133 and Highway 82 is a death trap. It swallows cars. It swallows pride. Yet, two men with a truck, a trailer, and zero safety vests just fixed it.

Mary James noticed. She noticed they weren’t CDOT crews. They weren’t wearing high-vis vests. They weren’t directing traffic. They just swept, scraped, and shoveled the debris, weeds, and sand off the island, then hauled it away.

"You did a great job," James wrote. "You had no traffic control or even safety vests on so I prayed for your safety."

That’s the story of Garfield County right now. We get our infrastructure done by folks who risk their necks because the official channels are slow, or absent. The intersection is dangerous. The cleanup was manual. The result was visible.

Meanwhile, the political machinery is grinding through the same old gears. The Garfield County sheriff’s race is a two-horse sprint. Dan Loya versus Brent Baker. No Democrats. Just Republicans and unaffiliated voters trying to figure out which ballot to pick.

The warning for unaffiliated voters is specific. You get two ballots. One for the Democrats. One for the Republicans. You vote both? Neither counts. Your choices vanish.

It sounds simple. It’s not. If you pick the "R" ballot, you get the sheriff. If you pick the "D" ballot, you get the up-ballot candidates who move to the general election. Pick both. Invalidate everything.

The voter registration deadline is June 22 for mail-in voting. June 23 for in-person or drop-off. The county is split almost evenly between Democrats, Republicans, and unaffiliated. That third slice decides everything.

Resources are available. Loya and Baker have websites. There’s a Spanish-language interview with Loya on Facebook. A 90-minute archived forum from the CO River Valley Chamber sits online. You can watch it. You can compare. Or you can ignore it.

Over in Glenwood Springs, Mountain Valley Developmental Services is expanding its Special Olympics partnership. They’re welcoming any athlete. Disabilities or not. Previous affiliation isn’t required. They’re gathering more athletes. Playing sports. Building friendships.

Contact March Petzinger, the senior manager, for details. mpetzinger@specialolympicsco.org. 720-359-3124.

It’s a nice story. A clean one. It doesn’t involve a dangerous intersection or a complex voting ballot. It involves people helping people.

But look at the bigger picture. The same county that needs two men to manually clear a highway island because the department didn’t show up is also managing a sheriff’s race where a single misstep on a ballot invalidates your vote. We’re dealing with precision errors and manual labor.

The Cavern Springs concerns mentioned in the letter title aren’t detailed in the source text, but they’re there. Waiting.

James thanked the cleanup crew. She didn’t thank CDOT. She didn’t thank the county commissioners. She thanked the guys with the truck.

That’s the local angle. The official line is often a press release. The reality is a scraped knee and a full trailer.

The sheriff’s race will decide who holds the badge for four years. The Special Olympics partnership determines who gets to play. The intersection will dictate who gets hit next time it rains.

Pick your ballot. Watch the video. Thank the guy with the shovel.