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Tag: Western Slope

Colorado Ballot Measure Seeks To Lock Transportation Taxes Into Road Funding
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Complete Colorado, Approved, State

Colorado Ballot Measure Seeks To Lock Transportation Taxes Into Road Funding

By Sherrie Peif | Complete Colorado DENVER – Colorado voters are one step closer to ensuring revenue intended for building and maintaining Colorado’s highways actually goes to fixing the roads.  A proposed ballot measure seeks to reinstate a prior funding mechanism, repealed by the legislature decades ago after the lawmaker it was named for retired. This time, however, the method would be enshrined in the state’s constitution, if passed. The secretary of state’s office has okayed Initiative 175 for signature gathering, and if it makes it onto the November ballot, Colorado’s roads and highways may finally begin to see the much-needed repairs that, according to critics, have been pushed aside to satisfy progressive leaders’ desire for things such as mass transit....
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Food Shaming Concerns Delay Colorado Plan to Ban Soda Purchases With Food Stamps
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The Colorado Sun, Approved, State

Food Shaming Concerns Delay Colorado Plan to Ban Soda Purchases With Food Stamps

By: Jennifer Brown | The Colorado Sun The SNAP rule change was delayed by a state board after a 7-hour hearing including fierce opposition from the governor’s fellow Democrats, Hunger Free Colorado and Save the Children. A plan to prohibit Coloradans from using food-assistance benefits to buy soda and sugary fruit juices was stalled Friday by a state board after opponents argued it was an overreach that could harm the dignity and autonomy of low-income families. The rule would ban the use of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, called SNAP, to buy soda as well as juices with added sugars or artificial sweeteners. Gov. Jared Polis won approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the “healthy choice” rule in August, but needed...
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Bennet Signals Support for Suspending Colorado Wolf Reintroduction Program
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Bennet Signals Support for Suspending Colorado Wolf Reintroduction Program

By Marianne Goodland | Colorado Politics U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, who is running for governor, told a newspaper this month that he favors suspending Colorado’s wolf reintroduction program, though he sounded less certain in another interview a few days later. “I think it’s right to suspend it for now and to try to see whether there’s any way to get back to a place where we’re implementing the original plan with fidelity,” he told the Durango Herald’s editorial board on Feb. 13. “But if we’re not able to implement with fidelity, then we shouldn’t continue.” Just three days later, Bennet appeared a little less certain in an interview with the Steamboat Pilot. “Asked about the reintroduction of wolves — one of the most contentious issues in Northwest C...
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CMU student leaders press governor hopefuls on taxes, energy and rural control
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

CMU student leaders press governor hopefuls on taxes, energy and rural control

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice TPUSA chapter leaders from Colorado Mesa University opened Monday night’s gubernatorial forum with a question more typical of a legislative hearing than a campaign rally. Instead of easing into the forum, they went straight to TABOR. “How would you approach balancing Colorado’s budget while complying with TABOR? And what are your priorities when it comes to taxes, refunds and state spending during periods of surplus and economic stagnation?” Six candidates were at the forum that evening. Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer told the crowd she almost didn’t make the trip, saying she rearranged her Joint Budget Committee schedule and decided to “head on over to Grand Junction” when the weather held. Rep. Scott Bottoms of Colorado Springs share...
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The road to nowhere: When planners decide how people should live and travel
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GregWalcher.com, Approved, Commentary, State

The road to nowhere: When planners decide how people should live and travel

By Greg Walcher | Commentary, GregWalcher.com At Club 20 in the 1990s, we often fought against diverting highway funds for non-highway purposes, such as mass transit. We reminded national officials that “there will never be a Japanese bullet train from Slick Rock to Egnar.” They had never heard of either place, of course, so it was a succinct way to explain that what might work in Boston and New York can never work in Colorado, or anywhere in the West, where cities evolved around the automobile. People here do not live 20 floors above their offices. Even in Denver, hundreds of thousands of people live in single family homes strung out one after another, mile after mile, and workers commute great distances along the Front Range every day. Suburban commuters in Jefferson, Arapa...
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Wolf Reintroduction Costs Mount as Colorado Faces Another Budget Shortfall
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Approved, Aspen Times, State

Wolf Reintroduction Costs Mount as Colorado Faces Another Budget Shortfall

By: Ali Longwell | The Aspen Times A Joint Budget Committee briefing looked at how Parks and Wildlife has spent general fund allocations on wolves. To implement Colorado's voter-mandated reintroduction of gray wolves, the state legislature annually allocates $2.1 million as well as additional funds for compensating ranchers for wolf-related livestock losses. Colorado Parks and Wildlife/Courtesy Photo Colorado lawmakers continue to raise questions about the cost of the state’s wolf reintroduction during the early phases of the annual budgeting process for 2026. On Tuesday, Dec. 9, the Joint Budget Committee was briefed by committee staff on the 2026 budget for the Department of Natural Resources, which includes Colorado Parks and Wildlife.  It’s the second step in th...
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Copper Creek Wolves Linked to Another Livestock Killing in Gunnison County
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The Denver Gazette, Approved, Local

Copper Creek Wolves Linked to Another Livestock Killing in Gunnison County

By Marianne Goodland | The Denver Gazette A heifer found dead in eastern Gunnison County on Nov. 22 was killed by one of the yearlings from the Copper Creek wolf pack, according to a rancher, who did not want to be identified. It’s the fourth livestock death in November attributed to wolves. Two calves and a ewe were also killed by wolves in November in Routt, Pitkin and Rio Blanco counties, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife. The Copper Creek pack is believed to be responsible for numerous livestock deaths in Pitkin, Gunnison and Grand counties. One of the yearlings was killed by Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) staff in May in Pitkin County after a weekend of livestock killings; a second was shot by wildlife officers in Rio Blanco County in September after it killed si...
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Colorado Cannot Afford to Leave Its Pioneering Communities Behind
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Colorado Cannot Afford to Leave Its Pioneering Communities Behind

By Tiffany Dickenson | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Colorado was built by pioneers. That pioneering spirit still defines the rural communities that grow our food, produce our energy, protect our water, and carry the transportation and natural resource backbone of this state. These communities have never asked for special treatment. They have always done the hard work without complaint and have carried Colorado through every major challenge for generations.  Today, they are being asked to carry far more than their share.  A wave of overlapping state mandates, rising costs, and policy decisions made on the Front Range is hitting rural Colorado all at once. These challenges are reshaping the economic landscape of the Western Slope and other rural regions. If Colorado’s...
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SBA brings disaster loan support to counties hit hardest by Elk and Lee fires
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

SBA brings disaster loan support to counties hit hardest by Elk and Lee fires

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Small businesses on the Western Slope are still digging out from the economic fallout of the Lee and Elk Fires—and the mudslides and debris flows that followed in August. The Lee Fire grew at a pace that stunned fire officials, blowing past 100,000 acres in about a week and briefly becoming the fourth-largest wildfire in Colorado history before later mapping placed it as the fifth-largest. Federal disaster loans are now available to help cover those losses, and the declaration extends across Garfield, Moffat, Rio Blanco and Routt counties, plus Utah’s Uintah County. Rio Blanco County—where the SBA will place its Business Recovery Center—has some of the highest exposure in the region. Local officials estimate more than 80 percent of the county...
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