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Kids run the booths at two Front Range markets this month
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Local, Top Stories

Kids run the booths at two Front Range markets this month

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Pricing a product. Pitching a stranger. Making change and counting the take at the end of the night. It is the kind of thing that rattles plenty of adults, and this month Colorado kids will line up to do it on purpose. Two Front Range markets give them the chance. The first runs Friday, Aug. 14, from 6 to 9 p.m. at Piney Creek Hollow Park on South Tower Road in Centennial. A second follows Saturday, Aug. 22, from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Douglas County Fairgrounds in Castle Rock, set up next to the Castle Rock Farmers Market. Both are open to young vendors ages 5 to 17. They are run by Kids Markets, the program formerly known as the Children's Entrepreneur Market. The pitch is simple. Kids build a real business and ...
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Weiser’s Blueprint: More offices, in the name of streamlining
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Weiser’s Blueprint: More offices, in the name of streamlining

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Phil Weiser's plan for Colorado runs 109 pages. It promises, throughout the document, to make state government simpler, faster, and less tangled in its own rules. It also proposes a new set of offices, officers, and coordinating teams to carry it out. The Colorado Blueprint, the platform Weiser is running on for governor, tells voters he will cut red tape and streamline how the state operates.  Alongside those promises, he would appoint a Chief Innovation Officer, a Chief Housing Officer, a Chief Resilience Officer, a Director of Rural Affairs and Collaboration, and a new Office for Safe Communities to coordinate the agencies that already handle public safety.  Reading the document, the same theme shows up...
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Colorado law already protects Douglas County teachers. Why a union contract?
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, Local

Colorado law already protects Douglas County teachers. Why a union contract?

By Martha Carver | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice You may be aware that the Douglas County Federation (DCF), the teachers’ union, is asking the Douglas County School District to engage in Collective Bargaining.  Before making a major shift in school governance, district leaders should recognize the protections already in place and require clear support from a majority of teachers.  But the most important question is what does this proposal actually mean for teachers? Collective bargaining agreements (CBA) are contracts between the union and administrators that cover teacher pay, benefits, seniority rules, transfer rights, evaluations, and grievance procedures.  Currently, teachers have the option to join the union, and this will not change if the S...
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Denver ballot measure would drop citizenship rule for police-fire oversight board
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Local, Top Stories

Denver ballot measure would drop citizenship rule for police-fire oversight board

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice This November, Denver voters will decide whether to change the city charter with a ballot question that never mentions the word "citizenship." The question they'll see asks whether the charter should be "amended to modernize the Civil Service Commission and Department of Safety by removing outdated language, giving City Council the ability to add duties via code, and providing for an extension of probation when required for medical, military, or other approved leave." Nothing in that sentence tells a voter that one of the things being removed is the requirement that the people who oversee the hiring of every Denver police officer and firefighter be United States citizens. But that is what the measure does. What the ...
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Colorado utilities said a regional grid would strengthen reliability. July 20 tested it.
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Colorado utilities said a regional grid would strengthen reliability. July 20 tested it.

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice On April 1, Colorado Springs Utilities and Platte River Power Authority, two of the utilities that initiated SPP's western expansion effort, joined other Colorado utilities in the Southwest Power Pool, a regional grid operator headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas. Neither utility was legally required to join. Both chose to. Jason Frisbie, Platte River's general manager and CEO, said the move would help his utility "maintain the reliability and affordability that our communities and their customers expect." One hundred and ten days later, Frisbie was asking those same communities to hold off on running their dishwashers. "We are monitoring conditions and working closely with SPP regarding this emergency alert," Fri...
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Denver’s chief security officer quit July 2, alleging punishment for raising concerns
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Local, Top Stories

Denver’s chief security officer quit July 2, alleging punishment for raising concerns

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice The chief security officer of the Denver Security Office sent a resignation email to more than a dozen recipients at 12:57 p.m. on July 2 — the day after his seven-year anniversary with the city — and used the letter to accuse General Services leaders of punishing him for raising concerns. The letter was posted publicly on X by Do Better Denver, an anonymous account that publishes material about Denver city government. His name is redacted in the posted images. Rocky Mountain Voice has not independently authenticated the letter, and the city declined to confirm the resignation. In the letter, he described being written up for speaking about layoffs, furloughs, frozen raises, increased workloads, and changes to CSA Rule...
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A union pipeline DSA built on college campuses
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Rocky Mountain Voice, National, Top Stories

A union pipeline DSA built on college campuses

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice DSA's youth section trains students to organize on campus. What happens after graduation is its own story, one its own members describe directly. "YDSA's job is to train socialists on campus and create a pipeline into DSA," Dare Cima, a University of Louisville YDSA member, said at the organization's national conference this spring. "We should be preparing members to enter strategic sectors of the labor movement after college. That means encouraging people to become teachers, nurses, engineers, logistics workers, and preparing them to organize in those fields." More than 400 people attended that conference.  Gerica Noerdinger, cochair of YDSA's Youth Labor Committee, said more than 65 percent of them signed ple...
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Two measures. Two opposite answers. One Colorado income tax rate.
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Two measures. Two opposite answers. One Colorado income tax rate.

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Colorado voters may face a choice in November between two measures that couldn't disagree more about the state income tax. One would replace the flat rate with a graduated system and raise close to $2 billion a year. The other would make it illegal to raise the rate at all. Neither one is a new idea. And the differences between them go deeper than the rate. What each one does Colorado's income tax has been flat since 1987, meaning everyone pays the same percentage regardless of what they earn. The rate is currently 4.40 percent. Initiative 195, backed by a coalition led by the Bell Policy Center, would replace that with six brackets.  The Legislative Council Staff, which produces nonpartisan fiscal analys...
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The Initiative Weapon: Look Up!
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, Top Stories

The Initiative Weapon: Look Up!

By Drake Hunter | Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice We've spent a lot of time with nursery rhymes lately. Today, let's trade Mother Goose for a swimsuit. Have you ever done something wonderfully weird? Nearly 14 years ago, while celebrating our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, Sherrie and I traveled to Cozumel, Mexico. One morning we signed up for a snorkeling excursion in the beautiful Caribbean Sea. Our guide took us by boat to a coral reef two miles offshore, and before long we were floating above one of the most breathtaking displays of God's creation I have ever seen. It felt like swimming through the world's largest saltwater aquarium. Schools of tropical fish glided effortlessly through brilliant coral formations while strange sea plants danced with the rhythm of ...
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Colorado’s new insurance fee enterprise can lower or stop collecting to stay under Proposition 117
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Colorado’s new insurance fee enterprise can lower or stop collecting to stay under Proposition 117

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice The signed law says the enterprise will collect less than $100 million in five years. The Legislature's fiscal note puts the figure at $99.6 million. New Colorado enterprises that want to collect more than $100 million in their first five fiscal years have to ask voters first. That's what voters approved in 2020 with Proposition 117. One created this year is projected to collect $99.6 million. The fee that funds it gets cut by more than half after the first year. Premiums grow every year in the state's own projection. The rate drops anyway. Gov. Jared Polis signed SB26-155 into law on June 4. The measure creates the Strengthen Colorado Homes Enterprise within the Division of Insurance and takes effect Aug. 12. Sens. Kyle Mullica...
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