The Steamboat Institute brought U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke to town for the organization's annual Freedom Conference on Friday, and citizens in the Steamboat Springs and Routt County area took advantage of his visit to gather in support of public lands.

Steamboat Springs City Council began discussions last week that could pave the way toward placing a property tax issue on the November ballot to fund the downtown improvement district, which was formed in 2007 but has never been funded after tax proposals failed in 2014 and 2016.

Smartwool announced new leadership at the end of last month with Jen McClaren stepping into the role of president after former company president Travis Campbell was promoted to vice president and general manager of The North Face, Americas.

Depending upon your perspective, the completion of traffic and pedestrian improvements on Yampa Street have either been four — or 34 — years in the making. Now, that it’s done, we think the re-birth of Yampa Street is worth celebrating throughout Independence Day week.

The light rain that fell across Routt County June 17 and 18 took some of the edge off the wildfire danger here. But it wasn't significant enough to warrant complacency so soon after an event like the Buffalo Mountain Fire that threatened homes in Silverthorne last week.

The Steamboat Springs City Council is currently in the process of hammering out an annexation agreement with Brynn Grey, the development company that is proposing to build 400 homes in the city over a 20-year period on a 150-acre tract of land on the city’s west side.

When Cory Christensen was named police chief of the Steamboat Springs Police Department in November 2015, he was tasked with changing the culture of an agency that had been the focus of an outside investigation, which found evidence the city's former top cops presided over a hostile work environment. In particular, the investigation revealed instances of hazing, bullying and gender-based harassment that likely occurred for more than a decade.

Living in a mountain resort community like Steamboat Springs, we can sometimes fall into the trap of thinking life here is all powder days and bike rides up Emerald Mountain, when in reality, our community suffers from many of the same ills that affect towns all across the country. And one of those issues — the need for foster care families — has come to light this past week.

With wildfire season upon us, we were pleased to learn that Routt County has a new weapon in its arsenal of firefighting tools.

There is nothing more heartbreaking than the death of a young child, unless it's a death resulting from child abuse.