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Should Steamboat build 2,264 homes for 6,000 workers? Voters get a say on Tuesday.
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Approved, The Colorado Sun, Western Slope

Should Steamboat build 2,264 homes for 6,000 workers? Voters get a say on Tuesday.

By Jason Blevins | The Colorado Sun Voters in Steamboat Springs on Tuesday will decide on the city’s plan to annex 420 acres to build a community of affordable housing for more than 6,000 workers.  The Brown Ranch plan illustrates the challenges with building affordable housing in Colorado’s high country as communities grapple with the scope and cost of building homes for workers who cannot afford living in mountain towns. The vote in Steamboat Springs will decide if the city of 13,000 can move forward on a plan to spend hundreds of millions on a new community that could grow the city’s population by nearly half.  READ THE FULL STORY AT THE COLORADO SUN
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This Colorado rancher sees a world where conservation can turn a profit
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Approved, State, The Colorado Sun

This Colorado rancher sees a world where conservation can turn a profit

By Tracy Ross | Colorado Sun Their hoofprints fan out in four directions but the elk that overwinter here have scattered. The snow is changing to ice and a brisk wind scours the ground. Maybe the gusts chased them off. Or a memory, stored deep in their DNA, of an elk caught in a barbed wire fence with a coyote eating it. That’s a slow, horrifying death, even though it’s just nature at work. Except it isn’t, says Dave Gottenborg, because of the fence.  Dave and his wife, Jean, bought the 3,000-acre Eagle Rock Ranch in Park County in 2012. But when they introduce themselves, they say they “manage” it.  That’s because Dave doesn’t like the idea of “owning” ground that’s been around millions of years longer than he has. In fact, he just worked with Colorado State University’...
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Colorado environmental groups file three ballot measures to limit oil and gas industry 
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Approved, State, The Colorado Sun

Colorado environmental groups file three ballot measures to limit oil and gas industry 

By Michael Booth | Colorado Sun The truce is off. Let the negotiations begin again. Leading Colorado environmental groups filed language Thursday for three sweeping ballot measures aimed at limiting the oil and gas industry in the state, openly declaring them a blocking effort to as many as a half-dozen equally sweeping proposals supported by oil interests.  The potential ballot battle, alongside a number of anti-oil and gas bills still under debate in the legislature this year, is a renewal of the election year games of chicken from 2018, 2020 and 2022. In some past elections, environmental groups and oil and gas representatives agreed to take competing measures off the table so long as it was a bilateral disarmament. READ THE FULL STORY IN THE COLORADO SUN
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Colorado panel finalizes budget plan that boosts K-12, higher education and health care. Here’s what’s in it.
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Approved, State, The Colorado Sun

Colorado panel finalizes budget plan that boosts K-12, higher education and health care. Here’s what’s in it.

By Brian Eason | Colorado Sun Colorado’s state budget panel early Friday morning approved a spending plan for next fiscal year that would invest heavily in state workers and medical services, eliminate Colorado’s K-12 funding shortfall and limit college tuition increases to 3% for in-state students. But it took a lot of cutting — and some creative accounting maneuvers — to get there. Facing a potential $170 million shortfall at the start of the week, lawmakers on the Joint Budget Committee dipped deeply into various state cash funds in order to balance the budget, pulling money out of a number of programs to cover the spending gap. READ THE FULL STORY AT THE COLORADO SUN
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Colorado is at odds with the feds over prescription drug importation, documents show
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Approved, State, The Colorado Sun

Colorado is at odds with the feds over prescription drug importation, documents show

By John Ingold | Colorado Sun Colorado’s attempts to import lower-priced prescription drugs from Canada appear to have hit a significant roadblock, according to state documents. Late last month, Colorado submitted an amended application to the federal government for the program, which lawmakers established in 2019. “We are one step closer to launching our Drug Importation Program,” Gov. Jared Polis, who has championed the program as part of his agenda to lower health care costs, said in a statement accompanying the announcement. READ THE FULL STORY AT THE COLORADO SUN
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Studies show Colorado property taxes are ‘extremely low.’ So why do they feel so high?
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Approved, State, The Colorado Sun

Studies show Colorado property taxes are ‘extremely low.’ So why do they feel so high?

By Brian Eason | Colorado Sun Over the past year, property taxes have dominated Colorado’s state politics like rarely before. Public outcry over a 40% jump in homes’ taxable values spawned a multi-million dollar ballot fight, a special legislative session and a bipartisan commission to study tax relief for homeowners. And there’s more to come, with a number of property tax measures vying for voter approval on the November 2024 ballot.  There’s just one detail that’s difficult to square with the political panic: Study after study from researchers across the political spectrum shows that Colorado’s property taxes aren’t all that high. In reality, they’re close to the lowest in the entire country. READ THE FULL STORY AT THE COLORADO SUN...
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New Colorado stop sign: Buc-ee’s, the big, beloved convenience store opening its first location
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Approved, Northern Colorado, The Colorado Sun

New Colorado stop sign: Buc-ee’s, the big, beloved convenience store opening its first location

By Parker Yamasaki | The Colorado Sun JOHNSTOWN — As a kid, Randy Pauly’s favorite barbecue in Texas was served out of a window. He’d order a brisket sandwich, step back and wait for a hand to slide a plate out in front of him. He never saw what he called “the action.” The chopping, slicing, saucing and slamming it all together. When Pauly became the full-time pitmaster for Buc-ee’s, a Texas-based gas station known for its fresh-cut brisket sandwiches and buck-toothed beaver mascot, he wanted to turn the sandwich assembly into a show.  “Freeeeeeeshhhh brisket on the board!!!” a man in a red polo shirt, denim apron and fake tattered cowboy hat yells out from the Buc-ee’s butcher block. “Fresh brisket on the board!” The other deli counter employees around him echo, with va...
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Thanks to TABOR, $2B in refunds likely headed back Colorado taxpayers.
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Approved, State, The Colorado Sun

Thanks to TABOR, $2B in refunds likely headed back Colorado taxpayers.

By Brian Eason | The Colorado Sun Colorado budget writers may be headed back to the drawing board. Slower population growth and rising fee revenue could trigger upwards of $300 million more state taxpayer refunds than expected in the current budget year, under economic forecasts presented to the Joint Budget Committee on Friday. The latest forecasts leave top lawmakers well short of what they expected to be able to spend in next year’s budget, with less than a week left to finalize the 2024-25 spending plan before it has to be submitted to the General Assembly for consideration. READ THE FULL STORY AT THE COLORADO SUN
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Why is Ken Buck really resigning? 
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Approved, State, The Colorado Sun

Why is Ken Buck really resigning? 

By Jesse Paul | The Colorado Sun U.S. Rep. Ken Buck vehemently denied Thursday that his decision to resign from Congress before the end of his term was aimed at making it harder for Lauren Boebert to take over his 4th Congressional District seat as she and others have suggested.  “It’s ridiculous,” Buck, a Windsor Republican, told The Colorado Sun.  Boebert said in a written statement after Buck announced Tuesday that he would leave Congress on March 22 that the five-term congressman’s resignation was a “gift to the uniparty” and  “a swampy backroom deal to try to rig an election.” Republicans aligned with Donald Trump often use the “uniparty” label to insult members of the party they think aren’t conservative enough or work too closely...
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The wine and brownies are gone: 50 women trapped on ski bus for 16 hours — and counting — after major Colorado snowstorm
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Approved, The Colorado Sun, Western Slope

The wine and brownies are gone: 50 women trapped on ski bus for 16 hours — and counting — after major Colorado snowstorm

By Jennifer Brown | Colorado Sun Amassive snowstorm that buried Colorado and shut down Interstate 70 stranded travelers overnight, including a ski bus filled with 50 women who were out of water and food after being stuck 16 hours and counting.  “We’re in good spirits,” Mary Wagner, one of the skiers on the bus, told The Colorado Sun on Thursday morning. “But we’re done now.”  For years, the women, many retired or moms with kids in school, have taken the ski bus on Wednesdays. This week, they spent the day at Vail, then got back on the bus at 3:30 p.m. for the ride home. Within 10 minutes, as the snow started to fall, they were stopped on Vail Pass because of a stalled car. When they were able to move again, the uphill climb overheated the transmission on the bus, so they...
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