RIDGWAY – While foreclosures in Ouray County continue to be filed at a high rate, a speck of encouraging news came out of Treasurer Jeannie Casolari’s report to the Ouray County Commissioners on Monday.

Casolari’s second quarter foreclosure statistics indicate that foreclosure filings from April 1 to June 20, 2010 remain high at 18. But this number indicates a small drop from 22 filings in the same time period in 2009.

The good news in the report is the number of foreclosure sales that have occurred this year: 11. This is significantly up from the same time period in 2009, when there were only three sales.

Cures in foreclosures this year were also up from the previous year from zero to three.

“It is progress, and we haven’t seen that in the past [year],” Casolari said.

As of June 30, 2010 Ouray County had 34 new foreclosures since January.

Casolari said the number of foreclosures this year is erratic.

“There were a couple of weeks that there were no foreclosures and then last week I got four new ones,” she said. “Just when you think there is a breather, they come in all at once. The numbers that are coming in right now are in line with what we had last year.”

Vandalism Becoming an Issue on Historic Mining Structures

With vandalism occurring on historic mining structures near the Camp Bird Road, the Ouray County Commissioners at their meeting on July 26 agreed that a meeting should be held sometime in the near future to discuss moving the road away from the structures.

In the past, Ouray County officials have wanted to move the road away from the structures but the owner of the land has not wanted to do that. The historic mining structures in the area had functioning doors and glass windows but in the midst of this summer’s vehicle traffic, those windows have recently been broken by vandals.

“It is unfortunate that the general public has to suffer because a few people can’t control themselves,” Commissioner Heidi Albritton said.

All three commissioners agreed that a discussion should be held with the land owner, the Ouray County Historical Society, and the Western Slope 4-Wheelers club to discuss possible remedies that might discourage the vandalism.

“The Historical Society may have some different ideas on what should be done,” Commissioner Keith Meinert said. "I think it would be helpful to set this as an agenda item [at a future meeting] and have all these groups here to discuss these issues.”