Rocky Mountain Voice

Menu

The Colorado Sun

101 bills debated by the Colorado legislature in 2024 that you need to know about
No Comments
Approved, State, The Colorado Sun

101 bills debated by the Colorado legislature in 2024 that you need to know about

By Jesse Paul and Brian Eason | The Colorado Sun The Colorado legislature debated more than 700 bills in the lawmaking term that ended Wednesday.  The Colorado Sun pored through the measures to highlight the ones that passed — and some that failed — that you need to know about. Gov. Jared Polis has a June 7 deadline to sign or veto bills, or let them become law without his signature. READ THE FULL STORY AT THE COLORADO SUN
Read More
Colorado lawmakers reach last-minute bipartisan property tax deal that averts cuts to K-12 funding
No Comments
Approved, State, The Colorado Sun

Colorado lawmakers reach last-minute bipartisan property tax deal that averts cuts to K-12 funding

By Jesse Paul and Brian Eason | The Colorado Sun Colorado’s property tax code would be reimagined — with long-term rate cuts for homeowners and businesses and a local revenue cap — under a fiercely negotiated, last-minute bipartisan bill introduced in the legislature Monday that aims to provide tax relief while protecting funding for K-12 schools.  The measure, Senate Bill 233, comes with just three days left in Colorado’s 2024 legislative session — the minimum amount of time needed to pass a bill. And it was the product of negotiations with Colorado Concern, a nonprofit representing CEOs in the state that was working on a plan to ask voters on the November ballot for an even bigger property tax break.  Lawmakers, Gov. Jared Polis’ office and interest groups we...
Read More
Bill to ban purchase, sale and transfer of so-called assault weapons in Colorado will be shelved
No Comments
Approved, State, The Colorado Sun

Bill to ban purchase, sale and transfer of so-called assault weapons in Colorado will be shelved

By Jesse Paul | Colorado Sun A Colorado bill that would have banned the purchase, sale and transfer of a broad swath of semiautomatic firearms, defined in the measure as assault weapons, will be shelved at the request of one of its main sponsors. Sen. Julie Gonzales, a Denver Democrat and one of the lead sponsors of House Bill 1292, announced Monday that she would ask for the measure to be killed Tuesday in the Senate State, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee. “After thoughtful conversations with my Senate colleagues, I decided that more conversations need to take place outside of the pressure cooker of the Capitol during the last weeks of the legislative session,” Gonzales said in a written statement. “In that spirit, I look forward to renewing and continuing those disc...
Read More
Palisade High School releases its thousandth endangered razorback into the Colorado River
No Comments
Approved, Local, The Colorado Sun

Palisade High School releases its thousandth endangered razorback into the Colorado River

By Shannon Mullane | The Colorado Sun With squeals, shrieks and plenty of peer pressure, Palisade High School students lined up to release endangered razorback suckers — with a kiss for good luck — into the Colorado River. “Grab a fish, kiss it, put it in the river,” Charlotte Allen, 18, a senior at the high school, told amped up students as they prepared to hold the slippery fish.  The school’s endangered fish hatchery, which began in 2020, released its thousandth razorback sucker Friday during its annual release celebration. The program is part of a greater effort to restore populations of the native fish — an effort that helps pull water west in Colorado to benefit ecosystems, farmers, communities and industries along the Colorado River.  READ THE FULL STORY AT THE COLO...
Read More
New charges filed against Littleton bus aide, revealing more incidents of alleged abuse to nonverbal students
No Comments
Approved, Local, The Colorado Sun

New charges filed against Littleton bus aide, revealing more incidents of alleged abuse to nonverbal students

By Olivia Prentzel | The Colorado Sun Prosecutors filed additional charges this week against a former Littleton Public Schools bus aide accused of beating two nonverbal students, revealing more incidents of alleged abuse on their way to and from school. Kiarra Jones, 29, now faces nine counts of third-degree assault, a felony, and two counts of knowingly and reckless child abuse, a misdemeanor, according to court documents filed in the 18th Judicial District Court. Jones is scheduled to appear in court Friday afternoon. The alleged abuse began in January and continued for nearly three months, before a police officer reviewed footage from an on-bus camera showing Jones assaulting two boys on bus rides to and from The Joshua School, a school for kids ages 3 through 21 with developme...
Read More
Former Adams County sheriff pleads guilty to felony forgery, sentenced to probation
No Comments
Approved, The Colorado Sun

Former Adams County sheriff pleads guilty to felony forgery, sentenced to probation

By Olivia Prentzel | The Colorado Sun A former Adams County sheriff pleaded guilty to felony and misdemeanor charges Thursday in Denver District Court in a scheme to falsify records to lie about the number of state-mandated training hours that he completed.  Rick Reigenborn pleaded guilty to felony forgery and two counts of second-degree forgery and first-degree official misconduct, the Colorado Attorney General’s Office said. The former sheriff received a 12-month probation for the charges. If he stays out of trouble during that period, his felony will be wiped from his record.  As part of his plea agreement, Reigenborn will no longer be eligible to serve as a peace officer in Colorado and he must write an apology letter to the employees of the Adams County Sheriff’s Office. R...
Read More
Colorado GOP leader angers candidates, county leaders with primary endorsements
No Comments
Approved, State, The Colorado Sun

Colorado GOP leader angers candidates, county leaders with primary endorsements

By Sandra Fish | The Colorado Sun Colorado Republican candidates and local party officials are objecting to a plan by statewide GOP leaders to endorse candidates in the June 25 primary, a break from the party’s decades-long tradition of staying neutral. The GOP on Tuesday sent a three-page questionnaire to Republican congressional and state legislative candidates nominated at assemblies quizzing them on a range of issues, including whether they support “President Trump’s populist, America-first agenda.” Three congressional candidates have denounced the plan to endorse candidates in the primary. And party leaders in two of the state’s eight congressional districts — the 3rd and 8th, both of which are competitive — told The Colorado Sun they won’t participate by refusing t...
Read More
Colorado owes taxpayers $34M in refunds it never sent. That means trouble for the state budget. 
No Comments
Approved, State, The Colorado Sun

Colorado owes taxpayers $34M in refunds it never sent. That means trouble for the state budget. 

By Brian Eason | The Colorado Sun The state government owes Colorado taxpayers an extra $34 million in refunds it should have sent out years ago, legislative budget staff told lawmakers Friday, blowing a hole in the state’s budget with just days left in the 2024 legislative session. The error was first uncovered by a state audit released in February. State officials had planned to come up with a solution by June, but after conferring with the Colorado Attorney General’s Office, Joint Budget Committee staff members say the matter can’t wait until after the session. “We really don’t have any choice,” JBC Director Craig Harper told the budget writing committee Friday. “That’s an under-refund from prior years and will need to be refunded at the earliest available opportunity.” ...
Read More
Democrats make deal with governor to redirect TABOR refunds to low-income families
No Comments
Approved, State, The Colorado Sun

Democrats make deal with governor to redirect TABOR refunds to low-income families

By Brian Eason and Jesse Paul | The Colorado Sun Democrats in the Colorado legislature on Tuesday announced a deal with Gov. Jared Polis to make sweeping changes to the state tax code that reduce income taxes and redirect hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer refunds to low-income parents and the middle class. The tax package, spread across a handful of different bills in the final days of this year’s lawmaking term, represents an escalation of the legislature’s recent efforts to reimagine the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights — a darling of the conservative movement — as a vehicle for progressive policy. Under the TABOR amendment, the government must refund money to taxpayers when revenue rises faster than the combined rate of inflation and population growth. This fiscal year, it’s...
Read More
A billionaire’s fence is the latest fault line in a 150-year-old San Luis Valley land war
No Comments
Approved, The Colorado Sun, Western Slope

A billionaire’s fence is the latest fault line in a 150-year-old San Luis Valley land war

By Jennifer Brown | The Colorado Sun  For more than 150 years, going back to when this high desert of sandy arroyos and snow-capped peaks was ceded by Mexico, they have gone to “the mountain” as part of their survival. Like their ancestors who settled in the San Luis Valley before it was even Colorado, the descendants still gather firewood and graze their livestock on what they call “La Sierra” — more than 100 square miles of juniper and piñon pine forest rising to a 20-mile stretch of the saw-toothed Sangre de Cristo range.  That was the deal made when the valley was subdivided in the mid-1800s. The settlers each got a plot of desert with access to an acequia irrigation ditch, and they were allowed to go into the high country to harvest timber, hunt deer and elk, and graze t...
Read More