Burt immediately deferred to Manager Lapora for the Badger Hill Report. She explained that for “numerous winters whenever we’ve had any kind of a major snow storm…it’s a mess.”

Lapora stated last year, CRR Road Superintendent Jordan Jones and a

“team member ended up spending 8 hours, in the snow, in a driving snow storm, trying to deal with that issue and that’s not a one off, that happens on a fairly regular basis on Badger Hill.”

“One of the things that Jordan came to me awhile back, he said for the safety of everybody, including staff, feels it would be prudent to do what we do on Hill Road and when we have increment weather that makes it hazardous to traverse that road, to go ahead and close it…”

Lapora added, “He (Jordan) has tried on different occasions to do that (close the road), but people move the barricades and they go around them. When he was out there over that 8 hour period, he actually had people, he was standing there with a stop sign and people blew by him and went anyway.

SOMEBODY’S GOING TO GET KILLED ON THAT ROAD IF WE’RE NOT CAREFUL.”

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Lapora went on and explained that Jordan is asking to gate both the top and bottom of Badger Road.

President Burt commented, “Jordan and I don’t know who, Cliff, was down at the bottom and Jordan was at the top, or the other way around and they’re standing out there in the cold for 8 hours fighting traffic. THAT’S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN AGAIN-WE’RE NOT GOING TO EXPOSE OUR PEOPLE…”

Burt further stated, the decision to close Badger would be left to Jordan based on his assessment of the road conditions. He also added, the Ranch would announce on “all of the social media spots we’ve got, the Phase Reps, whatever, NextDoor, the Chat Group, Hey, Badger Road is closed.”

Lapora suggested posting on the Ranch website an announcement or a “Special Place on the website that alerts people that they can do a quick trip-check…”

President Burt stated he would like the gates to be installed by the first of May 2022.

Interestingly, while the Board was discussing the installation of gates sometime next spring the National Weather Service was warning the public of an impending serious cold winter storm and stressed being prepared. They stated in part, “We cannot stress enough how important it is to be fully prepared for this winter storm.”

The National Weather Services stressed the need to be prepared for this winter storm and provided ample warning. However, Ranch Officials apparently ignored the warning and all their talk about Badger Hill Safety Issues, was just that, TALK.

On the evening of December 26, a Jefferson County deputy was dispatched to the Badger Hill area regarding serious and dangerous road conditions. While on scene, the deputy made multiple attempts to contact Ranch Officials to no avail and his Patrol Vehicle Was Hit and luckily he wasn’t.

The deputy was advising dispatch that Badger Hill needed to be closed and was frustrated with the lack of a timely response from the Ranch.

“SOMEBODY’S GOING TO KILLED ON THAT ROAD…”

Today, Ranch Matters contacted Jefferson County Sheriff Marc Heckathorn regarding the Badger Hill Event. He confirmed his deputy, David Poole made “numerous calls” looking for any Ranch Official to respond. Heckathorn wants to know the reasons behind the delayed response and plans on contacting Judy Lapora.

Sheriff Heckathorn confirmed it took approximately 2 hours for his deputy to get some assistance from the Ranch. About 10:00 PM Jordan Jones along with Cliff Swiney showed up and officially closed Badger.

Ranch Matters Staff