The meeting first scheduled for the Elks Lodge moved at the last hour to a private room above a storefront on Yampa Avenue — a venue change Ticon Recon flagged within minutes of the calendar update hitting a shared county scheduling system.

Cross-referencing parking lot activity with Secretary of State LLC filings, Ticon Recon identified three of the seven sealed trust beneficiaries: Empire Valley Holdings LLC, Continental Yampa Partners LLC, and Westgate Mineral Trust. All three filed in the same 11-day window last winter. All three list the same registered agent.

Four beneficiaries remain sealed. The Gazette has filed for the underlying trust documents. We expect resistance.

Craig, Colo. — Parcels adjacent to the three newly unsealed entities' holdings saw property tax reassessments timed within weeks of the water rights transfers reported in Issue 001. Ticon Recon's metadata audit of county assessor PDFs shows reassessment notices generated on the same server cluster, in the same batch window, six days before the public filing date.

That is not, on its own, evidence of wrongdoing. It is evidence of coordination — and coordination is the thing nobody at the county will explain on the record.

Meanwhile, at City Hall, a proposal quietly circulated this week to cut public comment at council meetings from five minutes to two. No public notice. No agenda line item. The Gazette will have more next Friday.