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Lawmakers Face Public Backlash After Violent Suspect Freed Under New Incompetency Law
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Colorado Politics, Approved, Local

Lawmakers Face Public Backlash After Violent Suspect Freed Under New Incompetency Law

By Marissa Ventrelli | Colorado Politics A high-profile case out of Weld County involving an attempted murder has renewed debate about the state’s competency laws and public safety. The case arose from an incident last spring, in which a group of men led by 21-year-old Debisa Ephraim allegedly attacked a man and his friends in downtown Greeley. After Ephraim was found incompetent to stand trial, his charges, which included attempted murder, were dropped, and he was released from the Weld County Jail earlier this month. The office of Weld County Sheriff Steve Reams posted a video of the Greeley attack on X, saying Ephraim had been released under a 2024 law that, he said, required individuals declared incompetent and unlikely to be restored to be released from jail. “The state le...
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Shutdown Impact in Colorado Small for Now But Storm Clouds Gather
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Shutdown Impact in Colorado Small for Now But Storm Clouds Gather

By Marianne Goodland | Colorado Politics Colorado officials do not not expect to see major impacts on Colorado-run programs or its workforce for the first week of the federal shutdown, though the state stands to feel the strain, particularly if the stoppage goes into the second week or longer. Like other states, a big chunk of spending in Colorado is paid for with federal dollars. The state expects to receive approximately $14 billion in federal funding for the 2025-26 budget and almost every state agency sees some of that money. Indeed, numerous state programs heavily rely on federal funding. Already, the state has had to provide stopgap funding for one of them. Colorado lawmakers on Tuesday approved a one-month funding allocation of $7.5 million to cover the cost of con...
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USDA move to Fort Collins could add 6,000 jobs and $1B in output, study finds
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

USDA move to Fort Collins could add 6,000 jobs and $1B in output, study finds

By Marissa Ventrelli | Colorado Politics The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s planned relocation of up to 2,600 employees to Fort Collins could bring more than $1 billion in new business output and over 6,000 new jobs to the area by the end of next year, according to a study by the think tank Common Sense Institute. In July, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced that the department would be relocating up to 2,600 personnel and operations to five new hubs, including Fort Collins. According to CSI study authors Dr. Caitlin McKennie and Cooper Pollard, the move is expected to “stimulate job creation, bolster local businesses, and enhance collaboration with Colorado State University,” which ranks 23rd in the nation for agricultural sciences. Agriculture plays a “vital role...
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Front Range Water Providers Clash Over Shoshone Rights
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Front Range Water Providers Clash Over Shoshone Rights

By Marianne Goodland | Colorado Politics A million acre-feet of water in the Colorado River — and the efforts by Western Slope water partners to keep it there — became the subject of a recent two-day hearing that could decide just who gets water and how much. One of the major points of tension is the objection by several water providers — not to the deal, per se, between a subsidiary of Xcel Energy and the Colorado River Water Conservation District and its 32 partners — to keep the water in the river that flows through the Public Service Company of Colorado’s Shoshone hydropower plant six miles east of Glenwood Springs in the Colorado River. Public Service Company of Colorado (PSCo), the Xcel subsidiary, would still retain lease rights for that water, according to the deal. Rat...
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House Minority Leader Caldwell rebukes Democrats’ online comments about Charlie Kirk, urges post deletion
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

House Minority Leader Caldwell rebukes Democrats’ online comments about Charlie Kirk, urges post deletion

By Marissa Ventrelli | Colorado Politics The new Republican leader of the Colorado House sharply criticized Democrats over recent comments about conversative activist Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated earlier this month during an event at a university in Utah. In a letter to the House speaker and the majority leader, Jarvis Caldwell, R-Colorado Springs, asked that the chamber reaffirm its commitment to “non-violent civil discourse” and condemn “demeaning characterization of private citizens, especially following a tragic death.” Caldwell also asked House Speaker Julie McCluskie and Majority Leader Monica Duran to direct certain Democrats to remove their posts on social media and notify a state employee’s supervisors to determine whether the person’s conduct is allowed under the s...
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Joint Budget Committee approves $2.8M in supplemental funding to address prison overcrowding
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Joint Budget Committee approves $2.8M in supplemental funding to address prison overcrowding

By Marissa Ventrelli | Colorado Politics The General Assembly’s Joint Budget Committee has approved nearly $3 million in supplemental funding for the Colorado Department of Corrections to cover the cost of additional prison beds amid an ongoing crisis of prison overcrowding. Last month, DOC facilities reached a vacancy level of 3% for 30 consecutive days, prompting the governor to implement the Prison Population Management Measures established by a 2018 law. The measures include requiring the state’s parole board to compile a list of inmates with low-level offenses who are eligible for parole and can be released from DOC facilities to bring population numbers back down to more manageable levels. The issue of overcrowding in state prisons has been a growing concern f...
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Colorado Turns Sports Betting Into Major Water-Project Funding
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Colorado Turns Sports Betting Into Major Water-Project Funding

By Marianne Goodland | Colorado Politics Funding for the state’s 2015 water plan started as a trickle. But sports gaming revenue has now turned that trickle into a steady stream. The Colorado Division of Gaming announced this week that nearly $33.8 million from 2024-25 will be allocated to the Colorado Water Conservation Board to support the state’s water plan, with distribution to water projects set to begin in July 2026. Estimates of the following year’s revenues are even better: a forecast of nearly $39 million that could help fund hundreds of projects throughout the state. It’s a far cry from when the water plan got underway in 2015. Back then, the expectation was that the state would need to invest approximately $100 million per year for 30 years between 2020 and 2050, ...
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Colorado House Republicans elect Jarvis Caldwell as minority leader after Pugliese resignation
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Colorado House Republicans elect Jarvis Caldwell as minority leader after Pugliese resignation

By Marianne Goodland | Colorado Politics The Colorado House Republican caucus on Saturday chose Rep. Jarvis Caldwell of Monument as its next minority leader. Caldwell succeeds former Rep. Rose Pugliese of Colorado Springs, who resigned on Sept. 15. Caldwell won 12 out of the 20 votes cast. Two other nominees – Reps. Ken DeGraaf of Colorado Springs and Larry Don Suckla of Cortez, both received four votes each. The caucus meeting showed the angst over what happened in the recent special session is far from over. Caldwell began by thanking Pugliese for her leadership. But “we’re in a moment we may never see again,” he told the caucus. This is a turning point in the state of Colorado, Caldwell said, with Democratic approval ratings underwater and Democrats in the House aud...
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Law tied sheriff’s hands as violent suspect walked free in Weld County
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Colorado Politics, Approved, Local

Law tied sheriff’s hands as violent suspect walked free in Weld County

By Marissa Ventrelli | Colorado Politics eld County Sheriff Steve Reams says a 2024 law required him to release a man who had been charged with attempted murder stemming from an incident in Greeley earlier this year. According to Reams, 21-year-old Debisa Ephraim was arrested in April and charged with second-degree attempted murder following an altercation between him and another man that had been captured on video. The victim suffered a brain injury and spent a “substantial” amount of time in the hospital and rehabilitation, but Reams says he is now mostly recovered. Ephraim, a refugee from Tanzania who had a previous record of violent behavior, had been detained in the Weld County Jail for several months when his defense team asked the court to determine whether he was compet...
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Mass Shooters Who Transitioned Raise Questions Not Answers
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National, Approved, Colorado Politics, Commentary

Mass Shooters Who Transitioned Raise Questions Not Answers

By Jon Caldara | Commentary, Colorado Politics The 23-year-old shooter of Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis was born male. He identified as a woman and legally changed his name before he killed two and injured 18. The shooter of the Nashville Covenant School in March 2023 was born female. She identified as a man and killed six. So was the shooter at a Rite Aid in Maryland, female identifying as male. She killed three and injured three more. And in our backyard, the 22-year-old who killed five and injured 19 at Club Q in Colorado Springs was born male but declared himself nonbinary. The 16-year-old shooter at STEM School in Highlands Ranch was female identifying as a boy. She murdered Kendrick Castillo, the hero who died saving his classmates. Is there a connection ...
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