staging.rockymountainvoice.com

Menu

The Colorado Sun

Colorado voters will decide whether to overhaul election system, adopt statewide ranked choice voting
No Comments
State, The Colorado Sun

Colorado voters will decide whether to overhaul election system, adopt statewide ranked choice voting

By Jesse Paul | Colorado Sun Colorado voters will decide in November whether to make a series of major changes to the state’s election system.  Initiative 310, which qualified Thursday to be on the November ballot, would change most of Colorado’s primaries so candidates from all parties run against each other, followed by a ranked choice voting general election.  The supporters of the measure, led by Kent Thiry, the wealthy former CEO of Denver-based dialysis giant DaVita, needed to collect more than 125,000 voter signatures to get the initiative on the ballot.  READ THE FULL STORY AT THE COLORADO SUN
Read More
Should Colorado’s constitution protect school choice? Voters will decide in November.
No Comments
State, The Colorado Sun

Should Colorado’s constitution protect school choice? Voters will decide in November.

By Erica Breunlin | The Colorado Sun Colorado voters will decide whether they want to protect the right to school choice in the state constitution in November after a measure with that goal qualified for the ballot Friday. Put forth by conservative political nonprofit Advance Colorado Action, Initiative 138 sets out to reinforce parents’ ability to send their children to any public school, charter school, private school or homeschooling program they want. But some education advocates and policy experts see it as a stepping stone toward a state voucher program in disguise. Voucher programs give parents public dollars to enroll their kids in private schools, including those with a religious affiliation. READ THE FULL STORY AT THE COLORADO SUN
Read More
Closed meetings and backroom deals: Could Colorado’s special session test SB 157, lawmakers?
No Comments
State, The Colorado Sun

Closed meetings and backroom deals: Could Colorado’s special session test SB 157, lawmakers?

By Brian Eason | The Colorado Sun When Colorado lawmakers in March made the first major changes to the state’s open meetings law since the 1990s, top Democrats promised it wouldn’t reduce government transparency. “This bill is not attempting to create less transparency than we have today,” Senate President Steve Fenberg, a Boulder Democrat who sponsored the measure, said at the first committee hearing for Senate Bill 157. But open government advocates say legislative Democrats earlier this month used the new law to do just that, barring news outlets from two caucus meetings where lawmakers discussed the prospect of a special session to reduce property taxes. READ THE FULL STORY AT THE COLORADO SUN
Read More
Study: In Colorado public schools, 1 in 4 students misses at least 10% of school days
No Comments
State, The Colorado Sun

Study: In Colorado public schools, 1 in 4 students misses at least 10% of school days

By Erica Breunlin | The Colorado Sun More Colorado students regularly showed up to class last school year following record rates of absences during the pandemic, but attendance rates were still higher before COVID, data released Thursday morning by the Colorado Department of Education shows. The latest numbers signal schools are headed in the right direction following efforts among the state education department and districts to double down on getting kids to come to class every day. The majority of Colorado school districts and Boards of Cooperative Educational Services — groups of districts that pool resources — saw improvements in their attendance rates last year, but the progress doesn’t necessarily translate to a giant turnaround. READ THE FULL STORY AT THE COLORADO SUN
Read More
Clear Creek Canyon wildfire grows to 200 acres overnight west of Golden, closes U.S. 6
No Comments
Local, The Colorado Sun

Clear Creek Canyon wildfire grows to 200 acres overnight west of Golden, closes U.S. 6

By The Colorado Sun The Goltra fire burning in Jefferson County west of Golden “grew significantly” overnight to more than 200 acres after starting Tuesday afternoon. Clear Creek Canyon remains closed.  The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office said Wednesday morning the Goltra fire slowed down Monday afternoon, but then grew overnight fueled by down-canyon winds, which continued to be an issue Wednesday. More support and resources have been ordered, and U.S. 6 remains closed west of Golden to Colorado 119. Tuesday evening, the sheriff’s office said the fire was about 10 acres and burning near tunnel 1 in Clear Creek Canyon. The cause of the fire has not been identified. No structures are in danger.  READ THE FULL STORY AT THE COLORADO SUN
Read More
New state law automatically seals more than 100,000 criminal records from background checks
No Comments
State, The Colorado Sun

New state law automatically seals more than 100,000 criminal records from background checks

By Jennifer Brown | The Colorado Sun Colorado is sealing more than 100,000 court records, the result of a new law that applies to nonviolent offenses and is intended to help people with criminal pasts pass background checks for jobs and housing. Most of the crimes are misdemeanors and petty offenses, and many involved drugs or theft.  Colorado for years has allowed people to petition to seal their arrests and convictions, a process that requires legal guidance and possibly a hearing before a judge. But the new Clean the Slate Act directs the state judicial system to automatically seal records that are eligible. READ THE FULL STORY AT THE COLORADO SUN
Read More
As classroom cellphone disruptions increase, students and educators spar over bans in schools
No Comments
State, The Colorado Sun

As classroom cellphone disruptions increase, students and educators spar over bans in schools

By Erica Breunlin | Colorado Sun In the last years of Jill Haffley’s teaching career, her lessons were increasingly punctuated by the buzz of a text message, sometimes even a “cacophony of noises” as students’ cellphones erupted with rings and dings. Those weren’t the only disruptions or distractions in her classes. Some of her students would tune into a Netflix show or YouTube videos. Others played video games. All on their cellphones, heads bent down. She also remembers teens who would ask to go to the bathroom during class, where they would meet a friend to record TikTok videos. READ THE FULL STORY AT THE COLORADO SUN
Read More
Three wolf pups caught on video confirmed to be part of Grand County pack
No Comments
State, The Colorado Sun

Three wolf pups caught on video confirmed to be part of Grand County pack

By Tracy Ross | The Colorado Sun Colorado’s first introduced wolf pack has three confirmed puppies with at least one weighing in the 30- to 40-pound range.    The news comes after Mike Usalavage posted a video on social media Aug. 17 of the lanky pups playing in a rain puddle and wrestling on a dirt road in an undisclosed location. A few minutes into the video, Usalavage’s passenger says he spots the mother, which CPW confirms was with them.  Two small dogs sitting inside the vehicle begin to whine and bark as they watch the gray-and-white pups splashing in the water. But the wolves appear completely unaware of the vehicle and its passengers or at least unbothered by it.  READ THE FULL STORY AT THE COLORADO SUN
Read More
Colorado received close to $12M in pandemic-era funding to help food banks buy local produce, but the money is running low
No Comments
State, The Colorado Sun

Colorado received close to $12M in pandemic-era funding to help food banks buy local produce, but the money is running low

By Parker Yamasaki | The Colorado Sun On Wednesday evenings at the edge of a wide parking lot in Aurora, there is a forest green pop-up tent with five large, scraped-up coolers stacked nearby. The coolers hold 27 bags of fresh produce, harvested that morning at Switch Gears Farm in Longmont.  The arugula gets picked first, Vanita Patel, co-founder and co-owner of Switch Gears explained. The farmers chop the spicy leaves down early in the morning while the air is still cool, soak them in cold water for an hour then spin them dry, rinse again and bag it all up. The potatoes and shallots are pulled straight out of the ground and thrown into the bags — the dirt on their skin helps them keep fresh longer. There are heirloom tomatoes and two shades of beets. There are also a couple of...
Read More
No human cases of rabies so far as second puppy from Colorado adoption event tests positive
No Comments
Local, The Colorado Sun

No human cases of rabies so far as second puppy from Colorado adoption event tests positive

By John Ingold | The Colorado Sun More than 35 people have been referred for rabies post-exposure treatment following last week’s announcement about a rabid puppy at a rescue adoption event. But Colorado has so far identified no human cases as a result of the event, as state health officials continue to plead with those who were at the event to come forward for screening. Rabies is almost universally fatal once symptoms appear, making this perhaps the most urgent public health response in Colorado since the early days of the COVID pandemic. The disease can be prevented after exposure if those exposed are treated before symptoms occur. A spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said Wednesday that the state has assessed more than 115 people to d...
Read More