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More Than Colorado: How Friendship and Faith Are Expanding the Rocky Mountain Voice
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

More Than Colorado: How Friendship and Faith Are Expanding the Rocky Mountain Voice

By Drake Hunter | Commentary, RMV NE CO Newsroom, Rocky Mountain Voice Let me tell you about a longtime friend of mine—and now a dear friend of Rocky Mountain Voice—Joe Cherry, CEO and Founder of Exectras in Houston, Texas. As I write this, I’m sitting in his remarkable home in Houston, Texas. My wife, Sherrie, continues her fight against Glioblastoma Stage 4 Brain Cancer, and we’re working with the team at MD Anderson to handle this relentless disease. During this difficult time, Joe insisted that Sherrie and I stay with him in his home—a gesture filled with love, hope, and faith, in other words, life-changing. Some partnerships are written on paper; others are written on the heart. This one began long before Rocky Mountain Voice ever published its first story or Exectras (short ...
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How Did Compact Negotiators Split the Colorado River’s Flow in 1922?
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

How Did Compact Negotiators Split the Colorado River’s Flow in 1922?

By Steve Harris | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice For my third installment in our discussion of the 100-year anniversary of the Colorado River Compact in 1922, I’ll describe how the states negotiated their respective share of the annual flow of the Colorado River. Though I was not in attendance in 1922, the minutes of the negotiations are very thorough. A few definitions before we start: “WY” is short for the federal water year from October 1st to September 30th. Colorado water years are November to October. AF is acre-feet or 325,851 gallons or 43,560 cubic feet. MAF is million acre-feet. Actual Colorado River flows in 1922: At the first Colorado River Compact Commission (CRCC) meeting on January 30, 1922, data on the flow of the Colorado River at various l...
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Fix It or Fund It: Inside the $361 million standoff over Colorado’s unfunded mandates
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Fix It or Fund It: Inside the $361 million standoff over Colorado’s unfunded mandates

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Colorado counties say they’re done footing the bill for laws they didn’t fund. Citing a 1991 statute and more than $361 million in unfunded mandates, the Fix It or Fund It coalition is asserting that if the state won’t pay, local governments won’t comply. Mesa County Commissioner Bobbie Daniel didn’t set out to launch a statewide revolt. Two years ago, she created a spreadsheet to track state mandates that came without funding. The goal was to help department heads navigate budgeting headaches. But that quiet act of accounting has since grown into something far louder—a bipartisan movement spanning more than 36 counties, with local governments now invoking state law to declare state mandates “optional.” “We started this whole unfunded mandate...
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Is Rep. Marshall’s narrow 2024 win now at risk in Douglas County?
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Is Rep. Marshall’s narrow 2024 win now at risk in Douglas County?

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Rep. Bob Marshall (D-HD43) represents one of Colorado’s most politically mixed suburban districts, covering parts of Highlands Ranch and Littleton. The area is built around families, good schools, and a long-standing belief in local control and fiscal restraint. Marshall often calls himself a centrist Democrat and a retired Marine who puts people before politics. But his voting record at the Capitol tells a different story.  Marshall once appealed to a wide mix of voters. Whether that still holds is an open question, especially given how much the mood in Douglas County has changed. Prices have climbed. Crime feels closer. And faith in state leaders is wearing thin. Out of Douglas County’s 323,000 regist...
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Colorado: Where Criminals Come to Stay and Play
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Colorado: Where Criminals Come to Stay and Play

By Mike O’Donnell | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice The FBI recently released detailed data on more than 14 million criminal offenses from calendar year 2024, reported to the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program by participating law enforcement agencies. More than 16,000 state, county, city, university, college, and tribal agencies, covering around 95.6% of the population of the United States, submitted data to the UCR Program through the National Incident-Based Reporting System and the Summary Reporting System. By overlaying Census Bureau population estimates on the FBI data for individual states and territories, a curious party (like yours truly) can see how many violent or property crimes occur per 100,000 people—and thus see how crime rates vary between states. Because th...
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“This is too important to improvise”: D49 superintendent says sports lawsuit seeks clarity
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Local, Top Stories

“This is too important to improvise”: D49 superintendent says sports lawsuit seeks clarity

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Superintendent Peter Hilts says protecting girls' athletic opportunity—and preventing boys from lifelong regret—is only part of the story. It's also about fixing incoherent policies and standing in the gap as adults. Colorado Springs’ School District 49 made headlines in May when it filed a federal lawsuit challenging the state’s anti-discrimination law and CHSAA’s transgender athlete policy. “We wanted to get in front of the coming legal conflict,” he explained in an interview with RMV. “We think this is too important to improvise.” The district’s enacted policy separates sports, locker rooms and team travel by biological sex—a direct clash with the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA) and Colorado High School Activities Association (C...
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The Sword of the Spirit – Transformative Power
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, Devotional, Top Stories

The Sword of the Spirit – Transformative Power

By Pastor Drake Hunter | Commentary, Elevating Life Church “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” ~ 2 Corinthians 5:17 ~ When I was younger, I was fascinated with Disneyland in Anaheim, California. My dad had worked there, and my mom had books on Walt Disney—how he dreamed up new worlds, turned them into concepts, and then made them a reality. We’d watch shows about the planning, the struggles, and the breakthroughs. Then we’d stand in the park itself, surrounded by castles, rides, and lands that once existed only in his imagination. What struck me most was how a vision didn’t just stay in one man’s head—it became a place his family and millions of others could experience and enjoy. That’s the kind of transformation...
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TABOR Didn’t Build the Potholes
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Substack, Top Stories

TABOR Didn’t Build the Potholes

By Michael Hancock | Commentary, Undercurrent Substack Bureaucracy and pet projects did — and it’s time to realign our priorities. Colorado’s roads crumble, our classrooms overflow, and every budget cycle we hear the same refrain: “It’s TABOR’s fault.” Critics of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights insist that this constitutional guardrail has starved government of the resources it needs to educate children, maintain infrastructure, and keep the state running. But what if the potholes and crowded classrooms aren’t a symptom of too little revenue, but of misplaced priorities? The truth is, Colorado’s budget has grown steadily for years. Billions more flow into the state’s coffers than a decade ago. Yet the very areas citizens rely on most—roads, schools, public safety—continue to lag. TA...
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Classroom or campaign: NEA handbook sparks questions in Mesa County
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The Business Times, Commentary, Local, Top Stories

Classroom or campaign: NEA handbook sparks questions in Mesa County

By Austin DeWitt | Commentary, The Business Times In the last two months, the National Education Association (NEA) released its 2025 Handbook, the document that sets the goals and priorities for the nation’s largest teachers’ union for the coming year. And then, just as quickly, it was gone. Within 24 hours, the handbook was quietly removed from its website. Why? What was so controversial that it had to be scrubbed from public view? Fortunately, a copy was preserved before it disappeared, and what it contains should give every educator, parent and taxpayer pause. What the NEA Is Promoting The handbook calls for “racial quotas over merit” – a direct rejection of merit-based advancement – and instructs that “all educators must acknowledge the existence of white supremacy culture ...
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