The Colorado State Fair is finalizing preparations for its late August opening. The theme of this year’s 11-day expo is “Horsin’ Around in Pueblo since 1869,” and celebrates 150 years since the fair’s first horse shows.

In a kick-off event Wednesday, Colorado Springs community leaders including Mayor John Suthers and City Council President Richard Skorman announced preparations for the city’s 150th birthday.

The Bureau of Land Management Royal Gorge Field Office is seeking public comment on a draft management plan for 658,000 acres of public lands in Eastern Colorado, including land along the Arkansas River.

After a four-year effort to acquire a 280-acre parcel from a private property owner, Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument is set to expand on the park’s west side. The monument can now accept the land from the private donor after a bill granted federal approval.

The City of Colorado Springs is beginning construction on a stormwater detention and sediment collection facility in the far northeast corner of Garden of the Gods Park.

On June 8, The Crystal Park, Upper Skyway, and Crystal Hills neighborhoods will participate in a wildfire evacuation drill. The City of Colorado Springs, City of Manitou Springs and El Paso County will host the exercise through the Pikes Peak Regional Office of Emergency Management.

El Paso County Commissioners are holding another public meeting on plans to expand I-25 between Monument and Castle Rock.

A report on the health of Colorado’s forests centers on dealing with dead trees as a result of beetles. Roughly one-fifth of Colorado’s forestland has seen the effects of widespread tree mortality over the past two decades due to infestation, according to the state forest service.

The Colorado Department of Transportation is hosting a series of meetings in Colorado Springs and Monument on the I-25 Gap project, as well as two telephone town halls.

Parkside resident Mike Finkbiner was a roofing contractor during the original construction of the Colorado Springs subdivision, and says Mountain Shadows as a whole was “pretty well planned” when it was built in the 1980s.  It wasn’t until 2002 that he moved into the community, and then to a different home in Parkside in 2005.

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Carla Albers and her family moved into their Mountain Shadows home in 1990.  They’d always loved the westside and figured it would be a starter home, but ended up loving the neighborhood and the area.