[420 Girl]

Ophir is in trouble.

The tiny town south of Telluride is scrambling to keep from going broke. Solvency may lie in an old greenhouse next to town hall.

Townsfolk will decide Oct. 20 whether to study the possibility of becoming Colorado's first municipality to grow medical marijuana. As proposed, Ophir would use the profits from a town-owned pot dispensary to make up for lost tax revenues.

"When half your budget disappears overnight, you think about getting creative," says town manager Jason Wells who, as it happens, knows a thing or two about growing pot.

Ophir sits in a stunning canyon east of the scenic byway between Telluride's ski mountain and Rico. It was incorporated as a mining town in 1881, but mostly abandoned by the 1950s after several avalanches.

Now a bunch of young professionals have settled in, intent on raising their families in a quiet valley with no car alarms or traffic. They keep their doors unlocked and keys in their cars. The most pressing call made to the San Miguel County Sheriff's Office this year involved a leak found in a propane tank.

Winters, families sled through the avalanche field separating East Ophir from West Ophir. Summers, kids leave their dirt bikes in the park after being called in for bedtime.

For a certain type of backcountry- loving, compost-saving, public radio- listening folks, the town is nirvana. It's the kind of place that just might be perfect to run a humble little pot dispensary. You know, strictly for medicinal use.

"It might get us through hard times in a liberal town," Mayor Randy Barnes says. "But I don't want to target our community as being crazy."

Ophir relies on real estate transfer taxes for about half its $206,351 budget. Those revenues froze since the economy crashed and homes stopped selling. In November, voters will consider a steep mill levy to steady the town's budget. If it fails, the town will need another way to replenish the $40,000 drained from reserves this year.

That's why Sue Beresford started eyeing the old greenhouse as it's being renovated by a local group for the purpose of growing vegetables.

"I'm thinking forget the veggies, let's do a dispensary," says Beresford, one of the most-active participants in a town that's run by a general assembly in which any adult who shows up may vote in monthly meetings.

Beresford, 78, serves as the planning and zoning chairwoman. She doesn't use pot. But as she sees it, Ophir should be able to profit from Colorado's medical marijuana boom just like private growers, dispensaries and so-called caregivers.

Going into the pot business would bring big changes to a community that has no commercial enterprises. The closest Ophir comes to a business is the tiny post office that sits just outside the town limits. The postmistress uses an outhouse across the street that she has to shovel her way into during snowstorms.

A greenhouse and dispensary might require changing the city's zoning code and installing security measures that could crimp Ophir's laid-back lifestyle. Traffic also could increase, especially near the greenhouse, which sits next to the playground.

In the absence of opinion polling of Ophir's 163 residents (plus 30 dogs and 15 cats, as the town sign boasts), there's no telling whether residents will go for the plan.

There's also no telling how law enforcers might react should it pass. It would be a risk. Just liking living in an avalanche zone.

Muses Beresford: "A town can dream, can't it?"



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