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Lauren Boebert’s son arrested in western Colorado in connection with string of vehicle break-ins
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State, The Colorado Sun

Lauren Boebert’s son arrested in western Colorado in connection with string of vehicle break-ins

By The Colorado Sun The oldest son of U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert was in a western Colorado jail on Wednesday after being arrested in connection with a recent string of vehicle break-ins and property thefts. Tyler Jay Boebert, 18, was arrested Tuesday afternoon and is facing possible felony charges of criminal possession of identification documents involving multiple victims and conspiracy to commit a felony, the Rifle Police Department said in a statement. He also faces over 15 additional misdemeanor and petty offenses, it said. Jail records say other charges he is being held on include theft of less than $300, criminal possession of a financial device and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. READ THE FULL STORY AT THE COLORADO SUN
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Colorado conservatives want a property tax cap. The state’s bipartisan tax commission hates the idea.
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State, The Colorado Sun

Colorado conservatives want a property tax cap. The state’s bipartisan tax commission hates the idea.

By Brian Eason | Colorado Sun In late January, Colorado’s bipartisan tax commission took an informal poll among its 19 members to gauge support for the dozen or so ideas they’d been discussing to deliver tax relief to homeowners. One emerged as a clear loser: a cap on property tax revenue growth. The concept — backed by influential conservative and business groups outside the Capitol — ranked among the lowest of any proposal among the committee’s members, garnering strong opposition from Republicans and Democrats alike. “Hard caps are a terrible idea,” Sen. Chris Hansen, a Denver Democrat and chair of the commission, told The Colorado Sun in an interview. READ THE FULL STORY AT THE COLORADO SUN
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Weld Commissioner James exits GOP primary in 8th Congressional District, making Evans more likely to be nominee
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Local, Northern Colorado, The Colorado Sun

Weld Commissioner James exits GOP primary in 8th Congressional District, making Evans more likely to be nominee

By Jesse Paul | Colorado Sun Weld County Commissioner Scott James on Tuesday abruptly exited the Republican primary in Colorado’s highly competitive 8th Congressional District, making it more likely that state Rep. Gabe Evans will be the GOP nominee in the toss-up district come November.  “I decided I could best be of service and have the highest degree of impact by staying at home in Johnstown, continuing to serve and lift my voice for the people I love in the county and state that I love,” James wrote in a Facebook post announcing his decision. Whoever wins the June 25 primary in the 8th District, which stretches from Denver’s northeast suburbs along U.S. 85 into Greeley, will face Democratic U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo of Thornton in November. Republicans ...
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Nikki Haley came to Colorado in her quest to defeat Donald Trump. Here’s how her visit went.
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State, The Colorado Sun

Nikki Haley came to Colorado in her quest to defeat Donald Trump. Here’s how her visit went.

By Sandra Fish | Colorado Sun Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley took aim at former President Donald Trump during a rally in Colorado Tuesday, one week before the state’s presidential primary election. “No Republican statewide has gotten more than 45% statewide since Donald Trump became president,” Haley said of Colorado’s elections. “Everywhere he goes, chaos follows him.” The former U.N. ambassador criticized Trump, her former boss, over big spending and higher national debt during his administration, as well as his recent opposition to a congressional bill that would have spent billions to strengthen border security. She blended in criticism of President Joe Biden along the way, saying she has a better chance of beating the Democrat than Trump does. READ THE FULL ...
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Surprise. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. isn’t on the ballot in Colorado and here’s why.
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State, The Colorado Sun

Surprise. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. isn’t on the ballot in Colorado and here’s why.

By Sandra Fish | Colorado Sun Reader question: I am an unaffiliated voter and plan to vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Why isn’t he on the presidential primary ballot? Answer: Kennedy initially announced his run for president as a Democratic candidate, then switched in October to run as an independent.  Colorado holds presidential primary elections only for Democratic and Republican candidates, and only candidates who are approved by their respective parties can appear on the ballot. READ THE FULL STORY AT THE COLORADO SUN
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Under Prop. 123, Colorado has allocated millions in funds this year to governments and housing organizations
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State, The Colorado Sun

Under Prop. 123, Colorado has allocated millions in funds this year to governments and housing organizations

By Tatiana Flowers | Colorado Sun State leaders have already distributed millions of dollars this year to dozens of local governments and housing organizations that have pledged to build affordable units across Colorado in the coming years. The state departments of local affairs and economic development and the Colorado Housing Finance Authority, for example, have awarded nearly $80 million to local governments and housing organizations that plan to build affordable units using funds solely from Proposition 123. Voters approved the ballot measure in November 2022 and it requires participating local governments to plan to build at least 3% more affordable housing every year for the next three years.  READ THE FULL STORY AT THE COLORADO SUN
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Colorado’s public defenders say they need 200 more attorneys to provide effective counsel
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State, The Colorado Sun

Colorado’s public defenders say they need 200 more attorneys to provide effective counsel

By Brian Eason | Colorado Sun Colorado needs three times the number of public defenders it employs today to meet new workload standards for criminal defense, according to a national study backed by the American Bar Association. For next budget year, which starts July 1, Colorado’s Office of the State Public Defender is asking for 70 more attorneys and 58 new support staff, including paralegals and investigators, at a total cost of $14.7 million. That’s still far less than 230 new attorneys the office says it needs — let alone the 700-plus hires it would take to triple current staffing levels to meet the study’s recommendations. But even the partial request was enough to shock members of Colorado’s Joint Budget Committee. READ THE FULL STORY AT THE COLORADO SUN...
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Postal Service floats idea of driving Western Slope mail to Denver and back before delivery
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Local, The Colorado Sun, Western Slope

Postal Service floats idea of driving Western Slope mail to Denver and back before delivery

By Nancy Lofholm | The Colorado Sun The U.S. Postal Service faced a rowdy, critical crowd Thursday in Grand Junction, a city that has yet to suffer the same delivery problems that have bedeviled smaller towns across Colorado. The crowd, packed into a too-small meeting room at Colorado Mesa University, hooted, hollered and guffawed as Postal Service officials laid out a plan to change the Western Slope’s largest city from a regional to a local mail processing center. The crowd whistled and clapped when speaker after speaker took the microphone to criticize the plan. The crowd had made its way to the meeting room in spite of the fact that Postal Service notices announcing the meeting had gone out with a wrong address for the meeting location. READ THE FULL STORY AT THE COLORADO S...
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A new — and much gentler — property tax hike is proposed for Colorado short-term rental properties
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State, The Colorado Sun

A new — and much gentler — property tax hike is proposed for Colorado short-term rental properties

By Jason Blevins and Jesse Paul | Colorado Sun A proposed property tax hike on Colorado short-term rental owners would only kick in for people with three or more homes under new legislation proposed as a gentler alternative to a further-reaching measure also being debated at the state Capitol this year.  State Rep. Shannon Bird, a Democrat from Westminster, hopes her House Bill 1299 will work as a compromise to slow the growth of short-term rentals that is pinching the housing supply, especially for local workers.  Her legislation would impose the state’s much higher commercial property tax rate on properties offered as short-term rentals when they belong to a person or business that owns at least two other homes.  READ THE FULL STORY AT THE COLORADO SUN
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Parents of medically fragile kids can’t find nurses because the pay is so low. They want Colorado lawmakers to step in. 
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State, The Colorado Sun

Parents of medically fragile kids can’t find nurses because the pay is so low. They want Colorado lawmakers to step in. 

By Jennifer Brown | Colorado Sun Nurses willing to care for medically fragile children and adults — including patients who use feeding tubes, can’t walk or speak, and rarely leave their homes — are hard to find in Colorado.  Amid a statewide nursing shortage so dire that even state mental institutions offer $14,000 signing bonuses, the lowest-paying nursing positions are going unfilled. That means many parents who have relied on “private duty nurses” for in-home care for their children and adult children are getting no help.  Colorado’s Medicaid program reimburses the agencies that employ these in-home nurses at some of the lowest rates in the nation, according to the Home Care and Hospice Association of Colorado. The rate for registered nurses in Colorado is $...
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