News

Commission signs contracts worth over $300,000 in January meeting

Navajo Mountain was the location of the January 21 meeting of the San Juan County Commission. It was the first such meeting in the isolated community, which is 200 miles from the San Juan County Courthouse in Monticello. After being welcomed by Navajo Mountain Chapter President Hank Stevens, the...

Kelly Pehrson to serve as interim manager of Utah Department of Agriculture and Food

Kelly Pehrson is the new interim manager of the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food (UDAF). Pehrson was appointed by Utah Governor Gary Herbert on January 14. Commissioner Kerry Gibson stepped down from his position at the head of the department and announced that he was running for Congress...

Blanding City Council changes water rate structure, standardizes info request code

by Alene Laney Contributing writer The Blanding City Council started their meetings for 2020 on January 14. Councilmembers Logan Shumway, Logan Monson, and KD Perkins took the oath of office. As the only candidates on the ballot, Monson, Shumway, and Perkins were re-elected for another term. In...

Monticello Council swears in new members

Three City Council members were sworn in during the first Monticello City Council meeting of the year on January 14. Ronald Skinner, Kim Henderson, and Nathan Chamberlain swore to support, obey, and defend the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the State of Utah, and to...

Love is in the air this weekend at 22nd annual Bluff Balloon Festival

Love is in the air when 22 hot air balloons take flight at the 22nd annual International Bluff Balloon Festival. Flights take to the air on Friday through Sunday, January 17-19 in and around Bluff. Sponsored by the Business Owners of Bluff (BOB), this annual event attracts balloons, pilots, and...

Unaffiilated voters can participate in March 3 Super Tuesday primary

March 3 is the day that Utahns will participate in the Super Tuesday Primary election in the race for President of the United States. San Juan County Clerk John David Nielson has sent letters to the 2,564 voters in the county who are not affiliated with a specific party, informing them how they can...

County Commission hears BLM reports

Amber Johnson, Acting Field Manager for the Monticello office of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), provided a lengthy update to the San Juan County Commission on January 7 about local activities of the federal land agency. The report included a discussion of the anticipated Record of Decision on...

The news that clicked in 2019

We use a new measure this year as we look back on 2019 to determine the biggest stories of the year. Instead of using our in-house judgement to determine the biggest stories of the year, we decided to look at simply how many views each story received at the San Juan Record website at sjrnews.com....

Tuberculosis in the Wild West

You probably don’t think about Tuberculosis all that often. You probably don’t think about San Juan County all that often either. Out of site is out of mind, so they say. I never thought much about San Juan County until I brought my family here a few years ago. Even for a guy who grew up in...

Christmas Tree decor goes from Whitehorse to the White House

A total of 24 handmade ornaments made their way from Montezuma Creek to the White House this winter as part of the America Celebrates display, as first reported by Kate Groetzinger of KUER. The display includes the towering National Christmas Tree and 56 smaller trees representing every U.S....