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The debate began when several Niwot business owners and residents opposed a scheduled wage hike. Following pushback, the county rolled back the increase to $16.82 for 2026, implementing a 3% annual increase through 2030. Supporters of incorporation view this compromise as clear evidence that Niwot requires greater local autonomy.

Leading the campaign to incorporate is Niwot resident Nick Little, alongside a dozen other residents who formed the Niwot Incorporation Committee. The group has raised $150,000 to support the effort.

According to their website, incorporation offers Niwot a permanent choice. “Municipal corporations would create a local government elected by and accountable to Niwot residents with authority over the local decisions that shape daily life here,” the site states.

Little told the Left Hand Valley Courier that becoming a municipality would grant the town direct control over matters such as the minimum wage, planning and zoning, and emergency services. Committee materials emphasize that an elected local government would also secure Niwot a seat at the table during regional decision-making.

“The real question is, do we want to have a direct voice in how we are governed as a town?” Little told Yellow Scene Magazine. “We want to be able to control what downtown looks like, we want to be able to fix the roads, and we might have to raise taxes to do that. Incorporation, in our view, is the cheapest way to do that.”

The committee aims to empower Niwot to set its own policies and address infrastructure issues more effectively. Despite opposition rooted in a fear of change, organizers see this as the most practical solution. The incorporation process requires electing charter commissioners and passing a referendum this November, with the goal of achieving town status by next year.

A map of Boulder County highlighting the unincorporated area of Niwot (red). Credit: Arkyan, via Wikimedia Commons (GFDL)

“It feels like a solution looking for a problem,” said Niwot resident Ari Adler.

In an interview with Yellow Scene Magazine, residents Ari Adler and Michael Delalla outlined their concerns regarding the proposed municipal plans. Adler launched the “Neighbors for Niwot” campaign to advocate for a “no” vote. The campaign challenges the pro-incorporation narrative by highlighting financial risks, including high administrative costs and the potential for municipal debt.

“Creating a municipal government is very expensive,” Adler said. “Home charter committees and municipalities have a lot of power. They can spend money on citizen’s behalf, they can rack up debt on our behalf. Across the country, there are a lot of towns that have a municipality that are struggling to pay their bills.”

Adler and Delalla both argue that Niwot’s infrastructure issues, particularly the roads, should be addressed from the ground up through a community-wide process that engages different neighborhoods and focuses on practical, equitable solutions. According to Adler, a Public Improvement District (PID) offers a more direct mechanism to fund road repairs because the revenue is tied to a specific issue. Incorporation, by contrast, would introduce a new layer of government with competing priorities.

“Niwot’s unincorporated status has forced residents to be more creative and resilient; I worry that incorporation could shift power towards developers, at the expense of the volunteers’ spirit that defines the community,” Adler said.

Delalla echoed the need to evaluate what would genuinely improve community life, suggesting that Niwot should pursue practical, affordable solutions that support local businesses rather than assuming incorporation is a cure-all.

Conversely, Little argued that a PID is too narrow a tool because it only addresses roads, leaving other municipal challenges unresolved. He noted that a recent PID initiative failed after a proposed $12 million tax increase sparked backlash. For Little, relying on separate neighborhood PIDs is inefficient and lacks economies of scale. He added that incorporation would allow accountable local leaders to manage roads, land use, and permits collectively, rather than forcing community volunteers to fight individual issues one by one.

Meanwhile, unofficial resident polling indicates strong resistance to the measure, with one survey suggesting that 91% of respondents oppose incorporation. While not an official or scientific measure, the data reflects the intensity of opposition regarding costs, bureaucracy, and potential shifts in Niwot’s character. The survey suggests opponents have been highly effective in framing the public discussion.

Ultimately, both sides share a common objective: a community capable of solving its own problems and preserving the distinct character of Niwot. Underneath the policy debates lies a unified belief that Niwot’s future should be shaped by the people who call it home.

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This piece is part of Yellow Scene Magazine’s Opinion section. The views expressed here are those of the author in their role as Associate Editor, and do not represent a reported news position. At Yellow Scene, opinion pieces speak freely, challenge assumptions, and say the quiet parts out loud.

Today is America’s 250th birthday, and the country is changing right under our feet. Just a few weeks ago, a stunned Democratic establishment struggled to grapple with sweeping primary wins in New York City by candidates backed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani. All three are democratic socialists, pro-Palestine candidates pushing populist economic ideas. Among them is Darializa Avila Chevalier, the newly minted nominee for New York’s 13th district. Her victory in the general election would make her perhaps the most left-leaning person ever elected to Congress.

In the wake of these political reckonings, many establishment figures tried to dismiss the results as a specific New York City anomaly. They argue that New York politics do not represent what the broader public wants. While there is truth to the statement that the metropolitan core is not a perfect reflection of all America, there is also a deep condescension hidden in that rhetoric. It assumes that those of us who live outside of the major coastal hubs cannot also want change. It implies we do not want to see politics done differently.

They are wrong. Last Tuesday, Melat Kiros defeated 15-term incumbent Diana DeGette in the Democratic primary right here in Colorado. Kiros is a former attorney who was fired after writing and refusing to take down a letter defending students protesting for Palestine. Now a democratic socialist candidate, she boasts a campaign platform promising to abolish ICE, end military aid to Israel, institute universal child and eldercare, and fully fund a transition to a zero-emissions energy grid.

Many of these positions are the exact types of things we have been told are impossible or not worth pursuing. Yet, they are what won her the race. As we face oppressive heatwaves and a punishing affordability crisis, it should not surprise us that voters chose a candidate who says they will fight for workers and make a substantive dent in the climate crisis.

In our editorial room at Yellow Scene Magazine, as we debated endorsements, I must admit there was initial skepticism toward Kiros and her ambitions. But I advocated for her to get our endorsement because I am sick and tired of settling for politicians who tell us what we cannot do. The rhetoric around Democratic primaries from the establishment has become toxic. Too much of it is centered on giving up before we even try. They offer no real vision beyond not being Donald Trump, or simply offering more of the same. Yellow Scene Magazine endorsed Kiros because we prefer candidates who would rather try and fail to fight for change than do nothing at all.

Kiros represents a type of leadership unlike anything we have seen before in Colorado. If you were surprised by her victory, it is only because you were not paying attention. Coloradans hunger for change too. As an associate editor, I see this reality day after day. I see it through the interns I mentor. The young people who write for us talk constantly about the protests they have attended and how they took up journalism because they see a media and political landscape that fails to reflect them. I see it in residents holding their city councils accountable, and in neighbors who are exhausted by an America that increasingly does not work for them.

Voters want more. Polling from Pew Research reveals that US adults view both the Democratic and Republican parties unfavorably. This is a stark data point. It means that what people are looking for is not a simple swing from red to blue, especially not in a strong blue state like Colorado. People want real change. They do not want old, well-connected politicians who are out of touch and have no fight left in them, nor do they want technocrats who simply tinker at the edges of broken systems.

Yellow Scene Magazine remains committed to covering this shift from our home in Boulder County and the north metro. Denver politics is not Boulder County politics, in the exact same way New York City politics is not all of America’s politics. Boulder tends to be a quieter district where centrists win more often and dramatic shake-ups happen less frequently. But it would be a mistake to count out Boulder County. The heavy presence at local No Kings rallies continues, and our cities are full of residents who are profoundly dissatisfied with local affordability and unrepresented by politicians who get nothing done.

Melat Kiros’s victory opens the door for all of us to see that a completely different type of politics is possible, even here.

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 Last September, Kevin Matisheck, tired of the constant distractions of his phone and social media, switched to a flip phone.

“I definitely wanted to fix my screen time and screen addiction because I felt like all of the time I spent on Instagram was sucking energy out of me and it was active time that I could be using on other stuff,” he told me. “I was really busy this past semester so I was like, I think I could be a lot happier if I cut that out. And for a while I did cut that out.”

Many young people, including Matisheck, a student at Lewis and Clark University, feel they spend too much time on their phones, and have joined a growing trend among Gen Zers to ditch their smart phones and go old school. 

“I don’t like spending a lot of time on social media, but it just happens when I’m bored,” Amelia Bretz, a graduate student at the University of Colorado, said as we sat in her car. “I just feel unproductive when I’m on my phone a lot.” 

She isn’t alone. In 2022, the Los Angeles Times reported that Gen Z spends an average of 7.2 hours a day watching videos on their phones, while a Stanford study from the same year revealed that most children receive their first smartphone around age 12.

These habits carry subtle consequences. “Phones can have small, often hidden, costs for well-being that can nonetheless add up over time,” Kostadin Kushlev, an assistant professor of psychology at Georgetown University, told the university’s online publication in February. “There’s an emerging literature around digital detox. There is evidence that disconnecting from technology can work in the short term, but what we lack is evidence on how to help people build sustainable digital habits that work in the long term.

To see if this generation is finding a path toward those sustainable habits, I spoke to several college students. Every student interviewed expressed a desire to switch to a flip phone, yet each cited an overwhelming dependency on modern tech as the primary barrier.

“I use it for everything,” said Simon Jones, a recent graduate from The New School in New York. “You kind of need it all the time. It would be a disadvantage to not have it at this point.”

Bretz faces the same dilemma. “I don’t want to be on my phone as much as I am,” she said. “But modern life requires it, whether it’s scanning a QR code menu or just going out to eat.

Matisheck, who had previously switched to a flip phone, but then switched back after it broke, described his experience to be transformative.

“There was a week and a half where I had no phone,” he said. “I did the thing where I was constantly grabbing for my phone and I didn’t have it. But eventually I felt way, way more human. I became a lot more focused. Focusing was easy for me. It’s like I had gained a new ability. If I wanted to do homework or read a book, I could just do it. And it wasn’t difficult for me at all.

Matisheck explained that navigating without Google Maps actually made traveling easier. “It forces you to pay attention to where you’re going and memorize directions,” he said. “It forces you to pay attention to where you’re going and actually memorize directions. […] I went to this one cafe and I noticed there’s a theater right next to it.  And then that theater was playing this band I like. And so I went out to a show that I would not have gone to if I was not thinking and paying attention to the road.” 

But, after his flip phone broke he returned to the smartphone. This time an iPhone SE instead of his old iPhone 15.When asked how he maintained his old minimalist habits, he admitted he couldn’t.

“When I got the iPhone SE, I felt that pull again just because the screen itself is so interactive,” Matisheck said.

“I wasn’t on Instagram, but my friends would make fun of me because I would literally be scrolling on Google Maps. I would look up something on YouTube and then find myself on Shorts. That screen really pulled me back in.

Despite his initial discipline, the friction of modern connectivity eventually won out. 

“The truth of the matter is that I was originally very strict about I’m not gonna download or touch Facebook or Instagram on my iPhone. I think that lasted about two weeks,” Matischeck said. “It’s like, okay, whatever. I’ll just do it for a day. And ever since then I feel like I’ve lost that ability where I can just instantly focus. Life was easier. I felt more in control of my motion. And I think I’ve lost an ability.” 

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This past month, Yellow Scene Magazine published our endorsements for the upcoming primary election. What haunted much of our coverage was the specter of dark money: who has it, who does not, which donors we viewed as disqualifying, and which we did not. Particularly in a post-Mamdani electoral landscape, a candidate’s financial connections are beginning to resonate deeply with everyday voters.

Candidates have learned to capitalize on this shift, weaponizing their opponents’ financial ties against them to sell themselves as grassroots alternatives. Whether pointing out candidate Heidi Henkel’s ties to One Main Street or the hundreds of thousands accepted from AIPAC by Senator Michael Bennet, opposing campaigns are leveraging these relationships to paint themselves as the true champions of the common person. At the same time, there is far more nuance here than what is typically expressed during the mudslinging and political shots taken in debates. How did we get here, how should we understand the mechanics of dark money, and most importantly, if almost everyone agrees its influence on elections is undesirable, which candidates are actually willing to curb it? Yellow Scene Magazine reached out to candidates and conducted our own digging to tackle these questions.

To understand the current crisis, it is necessary to first separate how political campaigns are financed. Campaigns are expensive, and spending correlates strongly to winning. Traditional election spending, or “hard money,” comes directly from campaign fundraising. Hard money features strictly disclosed donors and legal limits to individual donations, and includes standard Political Action Committees (PACs). On the other hand, outside or “soft money” comes from external corporations and nonprofits, which can under certain conditions accept unlimited amounts of money from individuals, corporations, or unions. Outside groups that are not required to disclose their original sources of funding are what we define as dark money groups.

As a nation, we arrived at this point in 2010, when five conservative Supreme Court justices hampered campaign finance laws by overruling four liberal appointees in the landmark Citizens United case. The Court ruled that a ban on independent expenditures from corporations violated free speech under the First Amendment, allowing corporations and nonprofits to spend unlimited amounts on political races. In the following years, the Courts have reversed even more legal precedents, allowing entities to use their treasuries for electioneering expenses and independent expenditures directly for political candidates. Later in 2010, the Court ruled that PACs could accept unlimited money as long as they did not coordinate with campaigns, which prompted the creation of independent expenditure committees, commonly known as Super PACs. These decisions granted outsized political power to these organizations and facilitated the spread of dark money.

According to Colorado law, independent expenditures are contributions made “without the support of or coordination with a candidate, candidate committee, or candidate’s agent”. Independent Expenditure Committees (IECs) in Colorado are required to disclose the occupation and employer information for any donations exceeding $250. In theory, IECs must legally function without candidate coordination. In practice, this boundary is incredibly difficult to enforce.

This dynamic creates a scenario where a candidate can be running a completely clean, grassroots race, only for a wealthy, moneyed interest to decide to throw its financial weight behind them unprompted. Conversely, other candidates deliberately cater their platforms to court these financial windfalls. Because of how IECs operate, it is challenging for voters to distinguish one from the other and know exactly when a candidate should be held accountable for the outside groups bolstering their campaign.

Furthermore, nonprofits and shell companies can give unlimited money to these PACs, effectively turning them into dark money outlets when the original donations cannot be traced. IECs thus give the appearance of being transparent while potentially operating as conduits for dark money. Nonprofits funding these PACs are legally required to spend less than half their money on political activity, but these organizations routinely skirt the rules by funneling money back and forth between different entities.

Dark money has become rampant across federal and state elections. Yellow Scene Magazine published a deep dive last year detailing how anti-public school billionaire Reed Hastings routinely funded pro-charter school candidates, essentially buying access to educational boards over the course of several years. We have also reported on moneyed interest groups popping up across Boulder County over the last five years, exerting influence in Louisville, Erie, Broomfield, and beyond.

Television ads, online ads, and mailers constitute the bulk of dark money spending, representing the front-facing result of outside money that Colorado voters see the most. Kenny Nguyen, running for re-election in House District 33, noted that voters are tired of the “bombardment of advertising” during campaigns.

Nguyen stated that reporting rules for donations are too loose to track, and repercussions are far too few. 

“Colorado is a complaint-based system, and as a grassroots campaign we don’t have an army of attorneys to file complaints,” Nguyen wrote.

Mapping the paper trail of dark money remains the most difficult hurdle for anyone hoping to understand who is spending on whom. With shell companies, LLCs registered in other states, and creative funneling methods, the trail is often too convoluted for an informed voter to follow.

Anil Pesaramelli, a candidate for House District 19, echoed these concerns. 

“Most voters do not have the time, expertise, or resources to trace money through layers of Independent Expenditure Committees, nonprofit organizations, political committees, and pass-through entities.”

Junie Joseph, running for House District 10, agreed that tracing IEC money “often requires significant time, expertise, and resources”. She added that “transparency should be meaningful and accessible, not something only political insiders can understand”.

Even if a voter could excavate all the outside money in a given election, they would be forced to make voting decisions based on which organizations are deemed “good” or “bad”. Nguyen made a point to note that all IECs are not the same, acknowledging that his own campaign is a recipient of financial support from union backed IECs. He argued that groups like the Colorado AFL-CIO identify themselves transparently when spending, whereas corporate special interests like oil and gas or private prisons do their absolute best to hide who they are behind nonprofits before dumping cash into an IEC. Cervantes noted that labor and conservation groups, organizations considered by some to be defensive IECs, are often created in direct retaliation to those built by major corporations. This ethical proposition introduces a heavy moral obligation, leaving voters wondering if certain financial connections are strong enough to mar a candidate’s credibility, or if certain links are tenuous enough to forgive. 

Even though IECs are barred from coordinating with campaigns, politicians have found ways to dodge these rules with few repercussions. A prominent example includes a retreat at a Vail hotel last October between Colorado lawmakers and lobbyists, which ultimately spawned an ethics complaint. The retreat was hosted by the nonprofit Colorado Opportunity Caucus. One Main Street, a group heavily invested in Democratic primaries in recent years, maintains financial connections to that nonprofit. This May, lawmakers backed by the caucus struck down legislation that would have required caucuses like themselves to disclose their funding.

The systemic nature of the problem is acknowledged even by those within the majority party. Junie Joseph wrote that money’s “influence can be used not only between political parties but also within parties to reward allies, punish opponents, and shape political outcomes”. She noted, “The difficult truth is that many people in positions of power, including Democrats in a state like Colorado, where we hold a trifecta, understand the power of money and are often reluctant to give up tools that can be used to maintain influence.” 

Kenny Nguyen reinforced this reality, writing simply, “Dark Money is truly all over Colorado”.

Because political gridlock at the federal level has prevented changes to campaign finance laws, the responsibility has fallen to individual states to corral unregulated spending. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) experiences its own partisan gridlock and rarely reprimands organizations, citing the protection of free speech in line with Citizens United.

The newest effort to nullify Citizens United comes from Montana. Former state officials created “The Montana Plan,” which uses state corporation law to strip corporations of their political spending power. Under this framework, out-of-state entities are only allowed the same rights as in-state corporations, effectively ending outside corporate spending in state elections. The Montana Plan will be a ballot initiative in that state this year, and reform organizations are attempting to adopt it state-by-state. The Transparent Election Initiative is currently working to get a similar ballot initiative on the Colorado ballot in 2026 or 2028.

Attorney General Phil Weiser

Local support at the highest levels of state government has already begun to crystallize. In a 2025 op-ed, current Colorado Attorney General and candidate for Governor Phil Weiser wrote in favor of Colorado joining The Montana Plan. In a televised debate in June, Weiser stated, “I’ll be the candidate who overturns Citizens United in Colorado”.

When we turn to individual platforms, the candidates who identify campaign finance laws as a major issue have devised a variety of local and state-level solutions.

Jillaire McMillan noted that the systemic issues in Colorado intensified when maximum contribution limits to individual campaigns were capped at $450, while unaffiliated groups were left free to give unlimited sums. The low limit “requires a lot of work to raise the amount of money needed for mailers, cards to leave when knocking doors, online ads, staff salaries, and the other necessary expenses of a campaign,” McMillan wrote. She added that this framework creates a strong incentive for wealthy individuals to self-fund their campaigns, which has no legal limit.

To improve transparency, McMillan suggested investing in a comprehensive overhaul of the Secretary of State’s online Tracer system to create a streamlined, user-friendly portal to track finances. However, she remained candid about voter priorities, noting that while candidates obsess over campaign finance, her potential constituency has other concerns. 

“As I knock doors and connect with voters, they talk to me about affordable housing, the cost of child care, losing their jobs to AI, and their worries about water and clean air,” McMillan wrote.

Anil Pesaramelli wrote that “democracy works best when voters can evaluate messages knowing exactly who is paying for them.”

He stated he would support state-level legislation that reduces outside money “while respecting constitutional protections for political speech”. Specifically, Pesaramelli advocates for the real-time disclosure of major expenditures, clear identification of the original funding sources behind IECs, stronger anti-coordination rules, and clearer disclaimers on political advertisements. If elected, he committed to actively sponsoring or co-sponsoring these transparency reforms as a legislative priority.

Junie Joseph proposed implementing lower contribution limits, faster reporting of political expenditures, and a public matching funds system to amplify small donations. Acknowledging the financial constraints imposed by Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR), Joseph suggested a creative workaround. She proposed exploring a state enterprise “funded through a dedicated fee on a service, or a voluntary donation during a government transaction such as a license plate renewal, that could support a public matching fund for elections”. Such public financing has already been successful at the local level through existing municipal fund matching programs in Denver and Boulder. Joseph noted that public financing would empower ordinary working-class individuals and first-time candidates to run for office without needing access to wealthy networks.

Gabriel Cervantes took a direct regulatory stance against outside groups. “I will champion legislation that revokes a corporation’s ability to spend in elections and ban IECs,” Cervantes wrote, describing the execution of this legislation as top of mind. When asked how he would handle a hypothetical $1 million expenditure on his behalf by an IEC, Cervantes admitted his response would depend entirely on the source. Pointing to his own race, he wrote, “over $100,000 has been spent in my district supporting Rep. Phillips and viciously attacking me, so if a labor backed or conservation backed organization were to spend that level of money, it would be responsitory [sic] to the dark money already being spent here”. He stated explicit plans to run legislation modeling the reforms in Montana and Hawaii.

Heidi Henkel in her response to Yellow Scene Magazine focused heavily on reducing ballot barriers, reforming endorsement incentives, and increasing lobbyist transparency. She noted that the high cost of ballot access forces candidates to rely heavily on professional signature gatherers who can charge up to $17 per signature. 

“I’ve often wondered whether candidates could instead collect signatures directly at county offices, reducing reliance on professional signature gatherers,” Henkel wrote.

Henkel also criticized the existing endorsement system, stating that “too often, endorsements function as a form of political currency” where elected officials offer endorsements while simultaneously seeking commitments on future legislative votes. She called for greater transparency by making endorsement questionnaires and responses publicly available, and advocated for stronger disclosure requirements for lobbyists. “Currently, candidates can claim they are not receiving contributions from industries such as oil and gas while accepting donations through lobbyists whose clients are not immediately apparent to the public,” Henkel wrote.

Kenny Nguyen emphasized that the spending by IECs now completely dwarfs the actual spending of grassroots campaigns, turning overnight organizations into multi-million dollar startups that vanish after three weeks. He committed to sponsoring legislation to address dark money, noting his past support for SB26 -168, the legislative caucus transparency bill that died in committee earlier this year. Nguyen argued that, at minimum, IECs should be legally required to publish major donor reports within 24 hours just as individual candidates do, and should be barred from accepting money from nonprofits that do not report their own original donors.

With a federal system locked in partisan gridlock, states like Colorado must work to end the spread of outside money in local elections. Whether through transparency portals, public matching systems, or structural overhauls like the Montana Plan, the future of local corporate influence rests entirely on the willingness of state lawmakers to reform the very systems that put them in power.

John Hickenlooper, Julie Gonzales, Michael Bennet, Melat Kiros, Wanda James, Diana DeGette, Shannon Bird, Manny Rutinel, and Jacque Phillips did not respond to Yellow Scene Magazine’s requests for comment.

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At a June 9 Thornton City Council meeting, council members unanimously advanced an ordinance to rezone almost 29 acres of land to make way for a new apartment complex. The land, on East 112th Avenue and York Street, is vacant. City council has long been searching for a way to fill it, especially as the nearby RTD rail station sees a decline in ridership. 

Hillpointe, a developer managing more than 12,000 units across over 10 states, hopes to build a new residential space geared towards providing affordable housing for what it calls the “missing middle,”  those who earn too much to qualify for subsidized housing but too little to comfortably afford luxury apartments . The development would feature a three-story complex, 508 units, and amenities ranging from fiber internet and a 24-hour fitness center, to a dog spa and pickleball courtsHowever, the idea is being met with stiff opposition from locals. Prior to the meeting, seven petitions had been created with nearly 600 signatures in opposition. Of the 13 individuals who participated in the meeting’s public input portion, all opposed the project. Concerns were wide-ranging, but residents’ biggest beef revolved around traffic impacts, crime and safety, and wildlife. The city used an independent traffic consultant, Westminster-based SM Rocha, to conduct a study to determine how traffic might intensify.

The study found that York Avenue’s current capacity supports up to 10,800 daily drivers while 112th Avenue can carry 28,800. If the development were to move forward, projections into 2045 show traffic volume would only rise to 7,880 vehicles on York Ave. and 17,930 vehicles on 112th Ave. However, several residents disputed the veracity of the study, which was done last April. 

Though council members shared many of the same concerns with the public, they believe Hillpointe’s intentions represent an opportunity too valuable to forego.

“For years, we have been working to figure out what to do in this area,” Mayor Jan Kulmann said. She emphasized concerns won’t go unaddressed and moved to direct city staff to develop a comprehensive plan for community outreach related to the project. 

Representatives from Hillpointe were fervent in their intention to address these issues, stating that the project will include constructing improvements to the area’s walkability and lighting. 

Per city rules, at least one more community meeting is required. Hillpointe representatives reassured the city council they will attend as many meetings as needed.

“If there’s developers trying to hide, I can understand how it breeds that fear. I commit to any meeting,” Marcus Wiedower, Hillpointe’s vice president of external affairs, said.

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When Jacob Giron graduated high school, he was shocked by the price of student housing  and tuition at the University of Colorado Boulder. Giron, like many prospective students in Boulder and East County, initially desired to attend CU Boulder. But CU and other public universities in Colorado enforce on campus housing during a student’s freshman year. So when Giron saw the tuition and housing costs that the University would require, he instead opted to attend Front Range Community College. 

The price for residence housing at Boulder ranges from $8,000-$10,000 per semester on top of tuition. “I remember looking at the prices of (living on campus), it became very inaccessible to me,” said Giron. “When I live close enough to drive to campus, why should I have to pay for a dorm?” 

Although Giron is satisfied with his university choice from a financial perspective, he has found that Front Range has not brought the same sense of community as a four-year university would. Lacking on-campus housing, a football team, and a vast range of clubs that would otherwise be found at CU, Giron finds Front Range missing that crucial experience in student involvement and social dynamics. 

“I want to go to a school with a lot of people. It makes it easier to find your niche, something that interests you,” he said. 

At Boulder, students are afforded more accessible student life opportunities, extracurriculars, and a surplus of amenities. For Giron, life at CU Boulder seemed to be a perfect fit. Yet financial barriers have increasingly made CU out of reach for Giron and many of other students.

  CU’s tuition has steadily increased seven years in a row. In 2026, incoming undergraduate students will face a 3% increase in their already substantial tuition. On top of that, students are charged fees for on-campus services such as recreation, transportation, educational resources, and athletics. For students, education at a large public university like CU Boulder comes with a looming financial burden: loans and student debt. Now, some are wondering if tuition and cost increases actually lead to improvements in education and the well-being of students. 

Max Harte, an out-of-state CU Boulder student from Texas, was aware of CU’s high tuition cost. For students who live outside of Colorado, tuition is approximately double the in-state rate. Nevertheless, hundreds of out of state students still find themselves drawn to the CU system.

Harte is grateful for the opportunity to study psychology at CU Boulder. They make an effort to attend all of their classes, noting the financial costs that their family has incurred for them to study. Nonetheless, Harte acknowledges a public university system that has become unattainable for many students purely due to cost. 

Buckingham Hall undergraduate student housing dorm at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) campus in Boulder, Colorado, with the Flatirons in the distance.

“The value of education isn’t valued as highly because it is so difficult, financially, to attain,” said Harte. “I have several friends (back home) that don’t go to college simply because they can’t afford to, not even for in-state schools, let alone out-of-state ones.”

Despite the increase in tuition for new students, Harte has not seen renovations within their department. Harte notes a lack of investment in student research opportunities that are crucial to secure an undergraduate psychology degree. The lack of investment has left some students struggling to secure them. Harte acknowledges that these students are missing out on a key component of attaining an undergraduate psychology degree from the school. On top of the disadvantaged students, Harte themselves have never been paid for any of the research which they have conducted. Some students, like Harte, are fortunate enough to still land a research opportunity. Nonetheless, they feel that the school should be utilizing students’ expensive tuition to ensure research success within the psychology department. 

“It shows what the university cares about, where they put their money, and it’s not toward the psychology department,” said Harte. 

The contrast between Harte’s tuition and the educational struggles within their department are stark. While they value their education in Boulder, Harte wishes that they could feel the impact of their hefty tuition bill in their day-to-day education. 

Giron and Harte’s experience with university tuition are not remotely unique to CU Boulder. Nearly every public university in the U.S. has steadily increased tuition over the last two decades. Understandably, these universities face increasing development costs and payroll for already underpaid educators. Nonetheless, these financial burdens are often offloaded onto students through a raised tuition and increased fees. Instead of incurring these costs, some Colorado students have opted for a different path in life. 

In Colorado, the popularity of community college is rapidly growing. From 2024 to 2025, data from the National Student Clearinghouse Project saw a 3.9% increase of enrolled students into community college. At the same time, the number of incoming freshmen at big universities in Colorado has fallen. The state’s public universities have experienced an enrollment drop of 0.5%, while private ones saw a drop of almost 9%. For some, tuition is expensive enough to rule out college altogether. For others, the high cost means sacrificing their top choices for whichever institution offers the best financial aid package. Many of Colorado’s student population simply take what they can get.

Mooji Boldbaatar graduated from the University of Denver in 2017. She mainly relied on scholarships to pay her way through college because, although she had lived in the U.S. since she was 10 years old, Boldbaatar was still classified as an international student from Mongolia. Due to her status, she was not able to receive adequate financial aid from a public university despite consistent academic success. The University of Denver, a private institution, offered her scholarships, and she ended up studying there instead. Originally, she wanted to attend Colorado School of Mines to study chemical engineering.

“I got into Mines, and then I couldn’t attend because I couldn’t afford it,” said Boldbaatar. “The lack of finances dictated which school I could go to.” 

A lack of aid was not the only barrier for Boldbaatar in obtaining her college education. Out-of-state tuition was worse. She researched and applied to out-of-state universities and, similar to DU, she was able to receive financial aid from some of the schools. But it wasn’t enough; the financial burden of an out-of-state school wasn’t worth the acceptance. 

“I really wanted to study elsewhere, but in order to save on living expenses, I had to stay in Colorado. It was another difficulty for me,” said Boldbaatar. 

Boldbaatar, like numerous other students, finished her degree from the University of Denver while working almost full-time hours. There was also the cost of room and board at the University; the high costs forced Boldbaatar to live with family off-campus. The result was a daily commute of about an hour and 20 minutes. For her, it was the only way to financially sustain herself while pursuing her education. 

After she graduated, Boldbaatar used her college degree to kickstart a professional career working with other young students. She is now a program manager with the Mongolian School of Colorado. While not directly related to her studies, she values the knowledge and experience that her education gave her. Boldbaatar credits higher education for her work ethic and time management. 

“Getting my education opened up doors that I had never really thought about,” said Boldbaatar. “The most valuable part (of my education) was the mindset that I got from it.”

But for many other young Coloradans, a college degree isn’t always attainable or valued. Are tuition, student loans, and lifetime debt worth it for the degree? While people like Max Harte have the incredible opportunity to attend a four-year public university, for others like Jacob Giron, a community college degree was the only option. Academically, Giron has been happy with his experience studying at Front Range Community College. But as a whole, he was looking for something more out of his college education—and, due to the increasingly unaffordable tuition bills at prominent state universities, Giron can’t help but feel that he may have missed out on a valuable experience. 

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Saturday, June 20, the Town of Erie made an announcement that Councilmember Brian O’Connor had reconsidered the mineral rights deal and was bringing the motion back to a vote on June 23. On June 16, the vote failed in a 3-3 tie, with Councilmember Dan Hoback absent and O’Connor opposing the deal. 

Tonight, 47 residents spoke in public comment regarding the deal, with 35 in opposition. Residents also submitted over 428 pages of comments online, with analyses showing over 90% of the letters submitted in opposition. Those efforts also included a letter to the council with 227 signatures requesting that council vote no. O’Connor appeared to hesitate in his closing speech, but his position was clear in his verbiage throughout the meeting.

Consistent with previous votes, which had been controversial among residents (such as Redtail Ranch, pride flag policy and Executive Session transparency), the council chose to vote 4-3 in favor of Erie selling its mineral rights. Councilmembers Anil Pesamarelli, Emily Baer, and Dan Hoback voted against, while Mayor Andrew Moore,  Mayor Pro Tem Brandon Bell, and Councilmembers O’Connor and John Mortellaro were in favor.

While supporters emphasized the purported safety measures and fiduciary benefits, the opposition scrutinized the processes of the deal itself, raising legal and ethical concerns that have escalated over the past months.

These include violation of town procurement policies when hiring the consultant firm Alameda Mineral Advisors, improper use of confidential Executive Session meetings, possible violations of Alameda’s contract with the town, and lobbying from Alameda CEO Matthew Owens for residents to contact O’Connor and ask him to reconsider his no vote.

Mayor Moore stated that town staff in charge of the procurement process did not follow town guidelines, and that none of the councilmembers were aware of this breach of policy. Hoback stated it differently. “As for not following the town procurement process, to my knowledge, that process was never passed to town staff. Town council was in complete control of the vendor selection process.”

He continued to say, “This deal, since the beginning, has had valuations all over the place.”

Bell spoke for over 24 minutes, as he did at the June 16 meeting. His comments focused on the inevitability of the Draco Pad, the estimated 30 to 44 million dollars of the deal and advice to his critics, whose comments he characterized as “not even worthy of discussion.”

The evening ran long, but after three hours, the council voted 4-3 in favor of selling the mineral rights. Selling mineral or water rights is a permanent, high-stakes financial decision, and one that should not be taken lightly.

The post Rocky mineral rights deal passes in 4-3 vote in spite of opposition appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Driving down Public road in Lafayette, you may notice black tall cameras, adorned with a solar panel, taking continuous snapshots of vehicles’ rear license plates. These Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) Flock AI-cameras from Flock Safety have  centered in community discourse due to growing concerns surrounding surveillance and risk of misuse by police and federal agents.

30 cameras were installed in 2022 by the Lafayette Police Department (PD) around the city, with no more installed since. Community interest for discussion around the cameras was not high at first, but Detective Commander Scott Emerson noticed more concern after an influx of social media posts and alleged “misinformation” around Flock, said Emerson.

Perhaps due to this growing interest, on June 17th, more than a dozen Lafayette community members settled into a dimly lit room in the Lafayette PD building as three officers and two Flock camera spokespeople put on “Cop Talks #2: Facts About Flock Safety Cameras.”

The Cop Talk, part of a series of presentations held by the Lafayette PD meant for conversations within the community, began with a presentation given by Detective Sergeant Jason Thompson. The PD began searching for a “law enforcement force multiplier” after a spike in car-related crimes in 2020.

According to the Colorado Department of Public Safety May 2026 Newsletter, in Lafayette, auto thefts skyrocketed from 61 in 2020 to 120 in 2022, an increase of 64%. In Colorado overall, auto theft rates dropped from 18,450 in 2022 to 7,480 in 2025. Detective Thompson said this large drop can be attributed to the Flock cameras. Chart is courtesy of coloradocrimestats.state.co.us/tops

These cameras are different from the Blissway speeding cameras on Diagonal Highway. Unlike the speeding cameras in Boulder, Flock cameras are fixed, motion-activated ALPRs meant to investigate crimes and wanted persons. The PD originally hoped to use the cameras for traffic enforcement as well. Flock’s speeding cameras would require photos with identifying features in them. The public was concerned with the possibility of discriminatory policing based on these photos, as well as worries that these cameras would be abused by the department to profit from speeding tickets. Lafayette PD scrapped the idea after the backlash.

The current Lafayette AI Flock Safety system has two primary components: The hotlist and audits. According to the PD, Flock cameras can provide police officers with near real time alerts as well a hotlist, or a database of license plates and vehicle descriptors associated with the wanted car and photos of the rear of the vehicle. 

Officers also have to click a legal agreement before signing into the Flock Safety system, pressing a small button saying “Accept and Continue” below a compliance message. In accordance with Colorado law, “We are not using this for unauthorized purposes,” said Thompson, “we’re not using it for immigration enforcement or reproductive care.” He said the legal agreement before sign-in is “an important accountability piece.”

An example of a hotlist on the Flock Safety website, narrowed down to a specific timeframe. Flock provides a photo of the vehicle’s rear, the color/make/style/other notable descriptors of the vehicle, the date and time the image was captured, and the direction of travel. The Lafayette PD says this data is “common practice” to have. Photo courtesy of Finn Feldman

While these statements regarding how Lafayette intends to use Flock are important, their practical application faces a hard legal reality. As Yellow Scene Magazine has previously reported, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) emphasizes that local data protection claims are essentially hollow; regardless of what a city government promises, the federal government can demand access to their citizen data at any time, for any purpose, because state and federal laws prevent cities from withholding that information.

Lafayette PD says they looked at 9 different major ALPR systems and settled on Flock primarily for its proclaimed privacy concern considerations. Flock claims that it deletes photos taken after 30-days and that the company does not sell customer data. Flock also boasts that it has not had cloud data breaches. Contrary to these claims, local news reports demonstrate flock camera feeds have been exposed in an internet data breach, and their data on license plates have been accessed through search engines.  Denver removed all its Flock cameras after it was found federal agencies have bypassed ICE/DHS restrictions by having PDs run searches for them. A blog post by Flock says “ICE does not have direct access to Flock cameras, systems, or data, unless the agencies that control their data expressly and deliberately allow it.” 

Flock Safety Public Affairs Officers Bia Campbell (left) next to Jalen Johnson (right) answered a few questions at the Cop Talk, ending off by promoting themselves as an honest company whose clients are both the PD and the community. Courtesy of Finn Feldman

Unlike many of its neighbors, the city of Lafayette currently has a five year contract with Flock that started in 2022 after four community meetings and a city council workshop. The Lafayette PD argues that departments such as Fort Collins, Denver, and Louisville will fall behind with their abandonment of Flock cameras after widespread criticism of surveillance and AI caused these cities to end contracts. With the use of AI in Flock’s vehicle search system, Lafayette PD says officers must check to see if the AI correctly got the license plate—for example, to make sure Flock’s AI doesn’t read a 0 (zero) as an O on the plate. Another alleged “safeguard” is Flock’s AI auditing system, used to track if any suspicious activity is occurring with officers’ searches. Flagged audit reports are then sent to a team of four Lafayette PD administrators to review, and then an audit completion report to Emerson.

Chris Anderson, a community member who works in IT, has concerns over the AI camera use and auditing practices, saying “AI is foulable right now.” Anderson pressed the PD to have an external group check their reports, worried about how “their own system is auditing it.”

The PD in their presentation said these twice monthly searches are being done internally and externally, but later during community discussion said only the four administrators are checking the AI flagged/human created audits. Emerson said after his main take away is to look into how other PDs may be using an external auditing system for “best practice.”

Lafayette City Councilor Annemarie Jensen confirmed an external auditing system was brought up at past town meetings, but says “Lafayette is a small town with a small budget” and thinks it may not be worth the cost.

Anderson also questioned the PD around controversies surrounding Flock, including 404 Media’s reporting of ICE agents using the cameras for immigration enforcement and alleged improper storage of data, asking “How are you holding Flock accountable?” 

Emerson responded, “I have done my due diligence in looking into the matter,” and said all the claims were not verified. Spokesman Johnson responded as well, stating “these [allegations] are not verifiable.” 

Despite these refutations, local advocates and residents continue to challenge the police department’s stance. Among them is Will Freeman, founder of the anti-ALPR website DeFlock, who has filed a class-action lawsuit against the neighboring city of Boulder over its use of the technology. Freeman and another Boulder resident, Gwen Steel, are currently awaiting a court order for class certification, signaling that community pushback against automated surveillance remains a growing legal hurdle for local governments.

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The post Lafayette Police hosts talk amid concerns around Flock cameras appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Less than a week after the Erie Town Council’s deadlocked vote rejected a proposed mineral rights agreement tied to the Draco Pad, Councilmember Brian O’Connor has called for a reconsideration of the decision. The council is scheduled to revisit the topic on June 23, reopening one of the most divisive debates facing the town.

The request for a revote followed a social media post by Matthew Owens, CEO of Alameda Mineral Advisors, the firm hired by the town to negotiate the deal. In the original version of his LinkedIn post, Owens explicitly urged O’Connor to call for a reconsideration of his vote, a directive that was later edited out.

The original June 21 social media post by Matthew Owens, which explicitly urged Councilmember Brian O’Connor to reconsider his vote.

The edited version of the same post published later on June 21, with the direct appeal to O’Connor removed

Beyond the immediate political maneuvering, Owens’ public defense disclosed specific details from confidential Executive Sessions regarding bids, valuations, and negotiations. Residents were repeatedly denied this exact information prior to the vote under the guise of executive session confidentiality. While Owens released these details publicly to defend the merits of the deal, he did so without providing the underlying documentation. Furthermore, several of his assertions directly contradict the public record.

In his post, Owens outlined several key figures regarding the negotiations:

• Marketing Reach: Alameda solicited bids from 25 companies, 19 of which declined to submit offers.

• Competing Bids: The highest competing offer was approximately $5.5 million.

• Internal Valuations: SM Energy (formerly Civitas) internally valued the mineral rights between $54.7 million and $71.1 million. Unsolicited offers implied a baseline valuation of roughly $43 million.

• Contract Changes: Alterations made to the final agreement after Alameda’s active involvement ended allegedly reduced the deal’s total value by roughly $8 million.

Owens’ claim that Alameda actively solicited competitive bids directly contradicts his own previous statements. In a prior council study session, before being cut off by the Town Attorney, Owens told council members and a Yellow Scene reporter that he was “instructed not to” conduct a competitive bidding process by “the people who hired [him].”

Shown Matthew Owens at Counsel Hearing

When pressed in the comments of his post regarding competitive bidding, his editing choices, and SM Energy’s track record, Owens sidestepped the questions. Instead, he engaged critics with generalized political arguments and personal character attacks.

A public records analysis reveals that these claims vary significantly in their verifiability, falling into three distinct categories:

• Claims Supported by Public Records:

  • The Draco Pad project has already received state approval and is highly likely to proceed regardless of Erie’s decision on its mineral rights. The Town of Erie lacks the legal authority to revoke those state approvals.

• Claims Relying Heavily on Projections:

  • Alameda’s estimate asserts the agreement could generate up to $465 million in total value to Erie, projecting that transferred land could eventually generate hundreds of millions in future tax revenue. Conversely, the firm estimated that retaining the mineral rights would yield only $2.7 million to $4 million in royalty revenue over roughly 30 years.

• Claims Lacking Independent Verification:

  • Because no official documentation accompanied Owens’ post and the underlying materials remain shielded by executive session privacy, the public cannot verify the number of companies contacted, the actual value of competing offers, SM Energy’s internal valuation figures, or the alleged $8 million reduction caused by contract changes

The lack of transparency throughout this entire negotiation process has now drawn state scrutiny. The Colorado Attorney General’s office is currently reviewing a formal complaint filed by resident Steve Drew. The complaint alleges a pattern of procedural irregularities, including the lack of a Request for Proposal (RFP) process when hiring Alameda Mineral Advisors, a lack of competitive bidding during negotiations, the potential misuse of Executive Session confidentiality, and conflict of interest concerns.

This sequence of events has intensified the local debate over municipal transparency. The core issue is not whether local governments have the legal right to use executive sessions; Colorado law explicitly permits closed sessions to protect a municipality’s bargaining position during active negotiations. Rather, the controversy centers on whether Erie officials used confidentiality appropriately to safeguard a sensitive transaction, or whether they unnecessarily kept residents in the dark regarding the true mechanics and consequences of the deal.

Information that residents consistently requested during public meetings—including bidder participation, competing offers, and valuation ranges—was withheld from the citizenry only to be made public by a third-party contractor after the vote had occurred.

“The making of this deal is cloaked in secrecy of executive session,” resident Emily Brecht told the council on June 16. “We, the people of Erie, have valid questions. If people here are misinformed about the deal, it appears to be by design.”

The state’s review will proceed independently, but local action moves forward immediately. The Erie Town Council will reconvene to take a definitive vote on the mineral rights agreement on Tuesday, June 23, at 6:30 p.m

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Longmont has long prided itself on being ahead of the curve. It was the first city in Colorado to offer municipal broadband, provides the majority of public utilities, and has been a community that has never shied away from embracing what comes next. But in December, residents packed city council chambers and forced a reckoning over surveillance cameras, pushing out one ALPR vendor in Flock and setting off three months of hard conversations about privacy, data and power. Now a new vendor is in, 15 cameras are headed back up, and Longmont finds itself with a chance to prove that being ahead of the curve means more than just adopting technology first: it also means governing it well. 

To understand what that actually looks like, I spoke with two anti-surveillance activists, two city council members and the police department’s leadership.

Andrew Palmer has been a fixture at the public comment stand in recent months. Raised by two educators, he was drawn to science and technology from a young age, eventually becoming a systems engineer at Advanced Space. He has spent his career studying complex systems, and pertinently, how they fail. 

Andrew Palmer

“Sometimes failures are an unknown consequence of actions that you couldn’t possibly have foreseen,” he said, citing his work on Boeing 737s.

That lens brought him to city council meetings. “The most complex and most important systems in our lives are the ones made up of both technology and people,” he told me. 

“Failures in those systems are critical and catastrophic and can affect people’s lives, even be life and death.” 

Palmer stressed the importance of “systems thinking” and believes the city should be applying it to the surveillance conversation. He is not alone. His efforts to raise the alarm about risks to citizen privacy led him to the Visible Government League, an activist group whose mission is to “encourage caution, transparency, and public oversight regarding government use of surveillance and other emerging technologies.”

For Palmer, the central ask is not necessarily the removal of cameras, it’s sequencing.

“By the time these technologies are implemented and part of city strategy, it’s often too late to do much about it,” he said. 

In his view, an emerging technologies advisory board is a prerequisite for smart policy. A board seated before the next technology arrives means the city can evaluate it on the front end, with civil rights lawyers and technical experts at the table, rather than scrambling to catch up after the fact. 

“If we can’t satisfy certain requirements for this technology,” he said, “we shouldn’t have it.”

He wants residents who aren’t following this closely to understand what’s at stake:

 “These are not simply CCTV cameras. These are networked and capturing personal information of everyone entering and leaving the city.” 

And he has a message for anyone who thinks one voice doesn’t matter. “I have found that I’ve had a much greater impact than I thought I would,” he said. “One visit with a city council member, one email, one time attending one of these meetings can be hugely impactful.”

Palmer sees Longmont’s response to surveillance pushback as an opportunity for broader influence. “Denver watches us. All the cities around us watch us. And then the nation watches Denver and the Front Range,” he said. “I want Longmont to continue being the leader in what good use of technology looks like for other cities.”

Council member Matthew Popkin also considers himself a systems thinker. With a day job at Rocky Mountain Institute, this is not his first rodeo when it comes to approaching new technology on a municipal scale. He tracks emerging technologies across the energy, sustainability and municipal functions spaces, and one thing he keeps seeing is how much data management and data protection matter regardless of the sector.

Matthew Popkin

“We manage a lot of data,” he told me. 

“How we manage that matters, and how we protect that data is critical.” 

Popkin pointed out that ALPR technology reduces the number of direct interactions between officers and the public, because if a camera can determine whether a vehicle is even relevant to a case, an officer doesn’t need to make that stop.

“You can have a black Subaru with this license plate and suddenly you’re no longer concerned with all the rest of the black Subarus,” he said. “It allows our officers to focus just on that, and go into those situations more prepared.”

Kellen Lask, a local software engineer and member of Visible Government League, sees that differently. For Lask, a safer community isn’t built by officers surveilling it from a distance but rather from officers embedded in it, connecting with the people they serve. Lask is not reflexively anti-technology. In fact, he was the kid programming games on his graphing calculator in school and describes himself as fascinated with technology. 

Kellen Lask

Even so, he has doubts that the efficiency that comes with this surveillance technology will equate to safety.

As a fourth-generation Longmonter, former legislative staffer and teacher, Councilmember Jake Marsing comes at this from a different angle. He campaigned on fighting for working families, and when I asked him how that shapes his view on surveillance, you could tell the question carried real weight for him. He was also the one to make the motion to terminate the city’s contract with Flock during the December council meeting. Popkin seconded it.

Marsing considers the surveillance topic akin to issues like housing affordability in the sense that it begs the question: “What kind of governance are we doing, and what kind of community are we leaving our kids?” He expressed the desire to do everything he can to protect citizens’ privacy in an era where that is increasingly difficult. At a minimum, he believes, the city should ensure resident’s data is protected and not accessible to other jurisdictions except in active investigations. 

Lask echoed this sentiment, but frames the stakes more broadly. “What kind of community are we building?” he asked. 

“An automated eye in the sky tracking every single person? That feels like a very paranoid and distrustful community. That doesn’t feel like a happy, ‘I go help my neighbor’ kind of community.” 

If people assume the cameras are watching, he argues, they may stop watching out for each other. “We’re offloading the responsibility to our community to keep an eye out for each other” Lask maintains “Like ‘Oh the cameras will do that.’” 

A more disconnected community, Lask fears, could be one of the quieter, unintended consequences of building a future around this technology. He also worries about the impact on expression itself, and that perhaps the persistent awareness of being tracked suppresses behavior in ways that go beyond what any policy intends, leaving people less comfortable simply being out in the world. 

During his conversation with Yellow Scene Magazine, Council member Marsing spoke frankly about the fine balance a councilmember must strike. 

Jake Marsing

“We sit in this cross section of legislative branch policymaking and executive branch oversight, where we are also obligated to support our public safety department, to make sure the public safety team has the resources they need.” 

That tension is personal for him. His father was a Longmont officer for 14 years, retiring in 2010. The department’s headcount hasn’t grown meaningfully since, even as the population has increased by approximately 16%. “So when our public safety chief says, ‘If you’re going to take away these cameras, I need more bodies, I agree with them.”

When I asked Marsing about his vote to approve the Axon contract, which struck some community members as a hasty decision, he was direct. 

“It’s not that my thinking changed at all. It’s that my understanding of the reality here on the ground maybe shifted. I did not believe it was going to be possible for us to get cameras fully removed from the city. But what is possible is for us to work with a vendor that has significantly stronger data protection and does not involve a national data sharing model.” 

He has heard the argument that Axon and Flock are the same thing. 

“They’re not the same thing. Yes, the core camera tech is similar, but the back-end data sharing policies, the way that Axon has operated as a company for 20-plus years, do not have the same kind of data sharing practices that made me significantly more uncomfortable with Flock.”

Lask, who is particularly interested in trying to understand Axon’s architecture, agrees that the distinction matters, but stresses that the picture remains frustratingly incomplete. The questions he keeps returning to are technical and specific: when the data is transferred, is it encrypted? What encryption standard applies once it lands on a server? Who has access at that point? How much more secure is Azure Government than Azure?

“The details are just so deep and difficult to explore, even as a technical person,” he said.

One grey area  Lask pointed out is the possible use of an Axon platform called Fusus, marketed as a cloud-based, real-time crime center (RTCC) designed to unify public safety and community intelligence. The platform would allow the city to integrate privately owned cameras, including residential doorbell cameras such as Ring, into the Axon system when camera owners grant access. 

It has not been determined whether Longmont Public Safety will opt-in to this feature. 

Both Council members Marsing and Popkin kept coming back to one distinction above all others: the difference between Flock’s opt-out data sharing model and Axon’s opt-in. With Flock, Longmont’s data was visible to any partnering agency by default unless the city actively shut them out. That, Popkin told me, is how data ends up shared without anyone consciously deciding to share it. 

“That’s an operational default,” he said. “And that’s what other departments across the country are also realizing “‘hey, we didn’t even think to check that setting.’” 

With Axon, the starting point is zero. Longmont has to explicitly grant access agency by agency. 

“We’re keeping it tight,” Popkin said. “And that was part of the direction coming out of December.”

For residents whose anxiety centers on federal immigration enforcement, of which there are many, Popkin was measured but clear. The city cooperates with federal authorities on criminal warrants and active investigations. It does not enforce civil immigration violations. “It’s not Longmont’s role to enforce federal immigration law.” The default settings of the vendor, he argued, matter fundamentally to whether that policy holds in practice. It should be noted, however, that according to the Electronic Frontier Foun

dation (EFF), any resolution that claims to protect local data is null when the state and federal government do not allow cities to withhold data.

There are two other distinctions Popkin raised that have gotten less airtime. The first is that unlike Flock, Axon does not sell or share aggregated data collected through the platform. The second is that Axon does not use Longmont’s data to train AI.

The second distinction involves a platform Longmont already knows. All ALPR data through Axon is stored on Evidence.com, the same platform the department has used for seven years to store body camera footage. Popkin noted the significance of that. Body camera footage captures some of the most sensitive, private moments imaginable: officers entering homes during domestic violence calls, medical emergencies, moments of crisis. 

“That is some of the most personal, sensitive, and private information that we might have on someone,” he said. The department has trusted Axon with that material for nearly a decade. 

The ALPR data, by comparison, Popkin believes, is far less intimate. He notes that this is a photograph of a license plate, and nothing more.

Lask argues that this information, though simple in nature, can still portray an intimate picture of one’s life when aggregated. “Innocuous data adds up to a very personal picture,” he asserted, “your life is small bits of data that in isolation mean nothing, but across time it adds up to context.” The question of who holds that context, and what they can do with it, is where his concern lives. 

I wanted to hear what this conversation looks like from inside the Public Safety Department. I sat down with Police Chief David Moore and Assistant Chief Phil Piotrowski, the people  who are now navigating one of the most scrutinized technology decisions in the city’s recent memory.

Moore stepped into the chief role in October 2025, walking straight into the Flock controversy. He described the moment the Loveland data-sharing scandal broke that summer: “As soon as we found out about it, we took steps to assure that that wouldn’t happen with us.”

There is also a data misconception both officers were eager to address. When an ALPR camera captures a hit, all that exists in Axon’s system is a photograph of the rear of a vehicle and its license plate. No image of the driver. No personal information. Everything else, including the individual’s name, address and the details that make a plate number mean something, comes from NCIC and CCIC, national and state law enforcement databases that have existed for decades and operate entirely independently of any ALPR platform. Officers must verify a plate hit against those databases before making a stop. 

“That’s really important,” Piotrowski said, “because in anything that we do, especially with technology, it’s having that human in the loop to verify and make sure that information is correct, because if we’re not doing that, that’s how we get in trouble.”

At the same time, the national record gives some reason for pause. An 2016 Associated Press investigation found that between 2013 and 2015, more than 325 officers across the country were fired, resigned or suspended for unauthorized database queries, using law enforcement systems to stalk ex-partners, surveil neighbors and dig up dirt on journalists. A decade later, this threat has evolved into a coordinated targeting of constitutional rights. EFF datasets from 2025 reveal that over 50 law enforcement agencies have weaponized ALPRs to physically track protesters and reporters at demonstrations. By bypassing traditional warrant requirements to log hundreds of searches, police are effectively penalizing public assembly and dissenting speech through retroactive surveillance. For some police departments across the country, the human in the loop has been a source of abuse. 

Moore isn’t interested in framing ALPR as a replacement for officers. 

“It will never be a replacement for an officer doing the work,” he told Yellow Scene Magazine. But the math cuts both ways for Moore. “I can’t have someone standing on a corner, or in our case, in 15 different locations in the city, constantly watching for a stolen vehicle to pass or a homicide suspect to pass, and then alerting their fellow officers that, hey, I just saw that car go by,” Moore said, “It’s just not practical, we can’t do that 24/7.” 

The department has 15 cameras, positioned deliberately on main thoroughfares coming in and out of the city, not in residential neighborhoods. 

“We want to know if there’s a wanted felon, a stolen vehicle, a missing person- if they’re leaving or entering the city,” Moore said. “That’s really the use case for us[…]It’s just an invaluable tool when used the right way,” he said.

That phrase “used the right way” is exactly where the community’s anxiety lives, and Moore knows it. The department requires individual logins, dual authentication and a mandatory case justification for every search, backed by annual audit trail reviews. An officer can’t run a plate without logging a reason. “If there’s one mistake you can’t make, it’s an integrity issue,” Moore said plainly. 

Lask respects the intent but questions the scale. Other municipalities have reported query volumes upwards of 20,000 per month. 

“Are we really to believe that, in addition to everything else public safety is doing, someone is going to sit down and read every single entry in an access log and match it to the case and the officer?” 

When asked about alternative methods for secure access, Lask brought up his preference for the warrant system. “If you want to query someone’s phone records, you have to convince a judge it serves the public interest. You could build something similar here- some procedural, documented way to get sign-off from someone with no stake in the case. That keeps with the American tradition of following a process rather than just having unlimited access.” 

The voice you rarely hear in these council chambers, Moore noted, is the victim. This could be the person whose stolen car was recovered, whose case was closed, whose family got an answer. “What I think is lost in these conversations is bringing closure to victims.” Moore emphasized that community engagement is his No. 1 priority, and that the trusting relationship the department has built with city council is too important to jeopardize, especially over a piece of technology.

City council’s oversight measures reflect that same balancing act. The Axon approval came with a one-year review, regular audits and a transparency portal where the public will be able to see what communities Longmont is sharing data with at any given time, which was never possible with Flock. 

Perhaps the most anticipated development is the Technology Policy Advisory Board. Per the draft ordinance presented at the City Council Pre-Session on May 12, 2026, the board will serve to give technology policy recommendations to the council with no administrative or operational authority. Its responsibilities cover three key areas: resident data privacy rights, AI and algorithmic transparency, and camera and surveillance technologies. It will periodically review and update those policies as technology and laws evolve, deliver an annual report with recommendations and weigh in on high-impact technology issues when referred by council.

What surprised me most was learning that the Technology Policy Advisory Board, one of the central demands from the Visible Government League, was something the department itself helped set in motion. “We are not the experts at technology,” Moore said. “What we want are experts in technology that can bring an objective view on what the technology has to offer, what some potholes might be.” 

The board is expected to be seated Jan. 1, 2027.

“This board is going to be able to access and look at the back end of our data in a way that other boards can’t,” Marsing said, “and that’s on purpose, because I want them to be able to get the best possible expertise that they can.” Applications are expected to open in November 2026.

For Palmer, the board is the most meaningful outcome of this entire saga as it will allow the city to intelligently respond to emerging technology and its risks. 

For Lask, his focus  is more personal. As a queer person, he’s acutely aware that the populations most vulnerable to surveillance aren’t always the ones visible in these conversations. “Gender ideology has been declared terrorism-adjacent at the federal level,” he said. “I have friends who are much more vulnerable than I am.” A national network of cameras that can share data across jurisdictions, even informally, is not an abstract threat from where he stands. Recent public records show that when guardrails are weak, local police have used these networks to target specific identities rather than actual crimes. Between 2024 and 2025, over 80 law enforcement agencies across the country used the system to run sweeping searches targeting the Romani community based entirely on racial slurs and stereotypes. For Lask, the worry is how easily a local system can be weaponized against marginalized groups when oversight is left up to the departments themselves.

It’s a reminder that these conversations, however technical they become, are ultimately about the people. While the Axon contract is still being finalized, the advisory board has yet to convene, and privately owned ALPRs continue to operate without the restrictions the city is working to codify, one thing is clear: Longmonters from all walks of life are coming to the table and asking hard questions about the kind of city they want to live in. 

Marsing put it simply: “I remain really impressed by the engagement in our community and the care that folks put into our city, because that is what makes Longmont so special.”

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Residents in Lafayette are pushing back against a proposed self-storage facility, arguing that the project would bring an oversized, industrial building to a site that does not fit the surrounding neighborhood.

1784 Capital Holdings LLC is proposing to develop a new 89,592-square-foot, climate-controlled self-storage building, with a caretaker dwelling unit, at 685 Aspen Ridge Drive. According to a Planning Commission memo, the project requires a Special Use Review (SUR) and a Site Plan and Architectural Review (SPAR). Staff analysis notes that SUR criteria include municipal code compliance, environmental impacts, and compatibility with the character of the surrounding area, hours of intrusion, and noise levels. Several residents, like Megan Rast and Christy Clarke, complain that this proposed unit fails to meet these criteria.

This friction stems from the fact that self-storage facilities do not fit neatly into residential or mixed-use districts, meaning developers need special approvals where the use is conditional. Compatibility concerns are the most consistently documented issue, and distance measurements between the building and adjacent homes remain disputed. Because planners increasingly view these facilities as “low-value” land that creates “dead zones” instead of contributing to active, walkable development, cities like Arvada and Denver have enacted moratoriums specifically prohibiting storage facilities in key growth areas.

Beyond land-use compatibility, neighborhood opposition is also driven by pressing safety concerns, particularly regarding fire risk. Colorado has seen multiple self-storage fires in recent years, demonstrating that even with modern construction, these facilities can pose challenges. Across the US, self-storage fires have resulted in major structural damage, destroying dozens to hundreds of units. A study released by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) in December 2025 found that these buildings present challenges to fire services due to “compartmentalization and unknown content loads.” The NFPA study argues that modern buildings are larger, more complex, and harder to access than older ones, concluding that departments and owners need to plan together before construction.

Mockup of site plan courtesy of the city

While the Lafayette Comprehensive Plan emphasizes a “connected, vibrant and walkable community” to guide future development, city officials ultimately determined the project met local requirements. In a statement to Yellow Scene Magazine, Lafayette officials said the city council carefully reviewed both the SPAR and SUR criteria before approving the application by a 5-2 vote with conditions. The city emphasized that the decision turned on the evidence in the record and the council’s discretion, particularly its finding that the proposed use was compatible with the surrounding area. Officials also noted that Black Diamond, where the property is located, was zoned industrial in the 1980s, while Anna’s Farm was approved for residential development in 2002–2003 with the acknowledgement that it bordered industrial land.

“City staff believes that the self-storage special use is less impactful to the neighbors than other industrial uses, which can be developed by-right in Black Diamond. Staff’s review was also influenced by the fact that another self-storage facility exists within the Black Diamond subdivision and was previously found to be compatible with the area. The fact that the by-right industrial uses would be more impactful to residents and were found to be compatible in 2002-2003 when residential development associated with the Anna’s Farm subdivision was approved could have been explicitly stated in the staff memo.”

This local dispute reflects a broader pattern for 1784 Capital Holdings, a Denver-based private equity firm that buys industrial and self-storage properties across the West. Its role in Lafayette sits within a larger, national conversation about how investor-driven development occurs on historically and culturally sensitive land. In Maryland, the Bethesda African Cemetery Coalition (BACC) has been struggling since 2017 to protect Moses Macedonia African Cemetery from what it terms “desecration” after 1784 Capital Holdings bought land covering the cemetery to build a multi-level self-storage facility.

“The Bethesda area has extraordinary demographics and extraordinary market fundamentals,” the company’s CEO said in a press release at the time.

“It is a significantly undersupplied market with three times the national average for rent. We chose the site because it’s one of the last zoned and developable parcels of land for self-storage in Bethesda.”

A statement by Kelly McKone of Capital Holdings said that the BACC is “spreading misinformation about the project,” but the coalition maintains that the site is historically significant and may contain human remains. A 2017 independent review by The Ottery Group found that the area was used as a burial ground, though it said more investigation was needed, and the company found evidence that the land was used as a cemetery beginning in 1911.

Capital Holdings did not respond to request to comment.

Back in Lafayette, residents worry that the city is prioritizing developer-driven industrial and storage uses over the day-to-day quality of life in nearby neighborhoods. Christy Clarke discussed this tension in an interview with Yellow Scene Magazine.

“One of the things that I am increasingly considering important is like, if not this situation, then when does public input really matter?” Clarke said. She noted that the bigger question is when public input actually matters if it does not seem to change the outcome, pointing to a perceived fear of litigation. “There seems to be a fear of litigation, with city decisions seemingly driven by the concern that a developer might sue. While legal risk does matter, it shouldn’t outweigh everything else in a planning decision.”

Despite the setback, residents maintain that organizing the opposition brought the community closer together. Clarke emphasized that even if residents ultimately lose this fight, the process has still been worth it if it strengthens community ties and helps future neighborhoods challenge questionable proposals more effectively. Their efforts have already brought people together, and she believes the message should not be that the efforts were wasted, but that residents participated in the democratic process, got to know their neighbors, and perhaps helped set a better precedent for what happens next.

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The post Lafayette Approves Disputed Self-Storage Facility in 5-2 Vote appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

After the Erie Town Council voted 4-2 to stay with the Northern Integrated Supply Project (NISP) on May 26, some might view the decision as a simple $3 million expenditure. However, the vote represents a deeper commitment to a water strategy marked by rising costs and declining participation, yet defended by supporters as a critical hedge against Colorado’s growing water scarcity.

To reach this decision, the council spent over an hour weighing financial risks against future development needs. Supporters argued that abandoning the project would waste approximately $30 million invested over two decades. Conversely, opponents questioned the wisdom of exposing the town to further financial risk as other communities scale back or withdraw entirely.

Erie remains committed to NISP, which involves diverting high spring flows from the Cache la Poudre River into the planned Glade and Galeton reservoirs. After years of environmental reviews and litigation, the regional project is now nearing major construction. For Erie, NISP is a massive long-term investment originally projected to provide 6,500 acre-feet of water annually—enough for roughly 13,000 households.

Despite its history, council members are increasingly questioning the project’s value. Updated modeling discussed this week suggests a lower participation level of 4,500 acre-feet, prompting concerns that the current economics no longer align with original assumptions. This shift is exacerbated by the departure of participants like the Fort Collins-Loveland Water District, which cited rising costs as a reason for withdrawal.

As other partners have stepped away, Erie’s responsibility has grown. Mayor Andrew Moore noted that the town’s share of the project has climbed from 16% to 23%, increasing its financial exposure. Staff projections indicate Erie could face a $6.44 million contribution in 2027, with water costs estimated between $85,000 and $95,000 per acre-foot—figures that some members noted are higher than Colorado-Big Thompson water shares.

The financial debate is fueled by NISP’s total cost projections, which have jumped from $2 billion to nearly $2.7 billion. While critics point to withdrawals as evidence of a failing model, staff emphasized that Erie lacks a comparable replacement source for such a high volume of water. Proponents further argue that current costs are secondary to the larger issue of long-term resilience.

This decision comes as Colorado faces some of its poorest snowpack levels in recent history, with federal forecasts indicating runoff in parts of the Colorado River Basin could fall below 30% of average. Supporters warned that if NISP fails, competition for existing supplies will intensify, potentially driving water prices even higher.

The divide on council centered on whether NISP is the most responsible way to handle this uncertainty. Mayor Moore framed the project as a question of equity, arguing that current residents should not subsidize infrastructure for new development. Others viewed it as a necessary investment in town-wide water security, noting that leaving would mean forfeiting decades of investment and a future water yield.

Ultimately, the vote to stay does not provide immediate water or lower utility rates; it merely preserves Erie’s stake and its $30 million investment. Mayor Pro Tem Bell and council members Baer, Hoback, and Pesamarrelli carried the motion, while Moore and Council Member Mortellaro voted in opposition.

The decision is far from final, as significantly larger financial commitments are expected by 2027. For now, Erie remains tied to a project that began as a tool for growth but is now a high-stakes gamble on an increasingly dry future.

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More than 100 Erie residents are now asking Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser to review the town’s controversial mineral rights process, and a Boulder attorney has formally challenged the town’s handling of consultant contracts and procurement procedures.

The twin actions come less than a week before Erie Town Council is scheduled to vote on a proposed mineral rights agreement with SM Energy, a deal that a minority of supporters say would provide significant financial benefits and operational protections for the town.

For many residents, however, the debate is no longer focused solely on the merits of the proposed agreement. Instead, concerns have shifted toward the process used to negotiate it. 

Over the past several months, residents have raised questions about the town’s selection of Alameda Mineral Advisors, the extensive use of executive sessions during negotiations and the role of consultant Matthew Owens, who acknowledged during a June 2 study session that he did not complete the competitive bid solicitation process outlined in his contract with the town. Owens later said he had been instructed not to do so.

When asked who provided that instruction, Owens said it came from “the people that hired me.”  Because Owens was hired specifically to evaluate and market the town’s mineral assets, his admission became central to the legal and ethical criticism against the process. 

Pictured Owens being questioned regarding competitive bidding process

Town officials have acknowledged that discussions surrounding the proposed mineral rights transaction began as early as September 2025. However, details of those negotiations remained largely out of public view until February 2026, when the issue first came to broader public attention through Yellow Scene reporting on an offer for the town’s mineral rights.

Those unanswered questions (and the months-long gap between private discussions and public disclosure) prompted Erie resident Steven Drew to seek outside review.

Drew said he spent months attending meetings, reviewing contracts and attempting to obtain information about the mineral rights negotiations before concluding that residents had exhausted their options at the local level.

“The short answer from the town was we had no rights in this process,” Drew said.

“So where I ended up was in a void where this behavior had no recourse except for those two areas, and that is the attorney general and the civil process.”

On June 11, Drew and more than 100 residents signed a letter asking the Colorado Attorney General’s Office to review the mineral rights process before council votes on the proposed agreement. The signatories include current and former Erie residents, former public officials and professionals with backgrounds in transportation, environmental protection and public administration. The letter alleges that town officials bypassed competitive procurement requirements, failed to conduct required bid solicitations and relied heavily on executive-session discussions during negotiations.

Drew said the goal is not to prevent council from making a decision, but to ensure residents can trust the process that produced it. If the Attorney General’s Office chooses to review the allegations, it could provide the first outside examination of the mineral rights process. 

The same day, Louisville attorney Darren O’Connor, representing Drew, sent a formal demand letter to the town seeking records and explanations related to the mineral rights negotiations. The letter challenges both the consultant procurement process and Owens’ failure to perform the bid solicitation work described in his contract. It also requests documentation showing who instructed Owens not to complete that work and asks the town to delay final action on the proposed agreement until those questions are resolved.

The issue surfaced publicly again during Tuesday night’s council meeting when a motion to enter executive session failed on a 4-3 vote. Councilmembers Emily Baer, Dan Hoback and Anil Pesamarelli voted against entering the closed-door session, citing concerns about transparency and the amount of public business being discussed outside public view. The disagreement led to a tense exchange among council members over issues that have emerged throughout the mineral rights debate. In an interview with Yellow Scene following the meeting, Councilmember Dan Hoback said he was unaware of any public vote, council consensus or contract amendment authorizing a change to Owens’ responsibilities.

“We never went to a straw vote or a poll … certainly not consensus,” Hoback said. “I’m quite sure [council as a whole] never consented to anything of that nature.”

Hoback said that if Owens was instructed not to complete the competitive solicitation process required by his contract, he does not know who gave that instruction.

“If we went behind those doors and modified that contract, well, we broke the law”,Hoback said.

Hoback added that he was unaware of any communication authorizing such a change. “I was not a part of any emails and texts,” he said. “I’m wondering where [Moore] got that.”

Mayor Andrew Moore and Mayor Pro Tem Brandon Bell have defended the use of executive sessions, arguing that certain negotiations and real-estate matters cannot be conducted publicly without undermining the town’s position. A few supporters of the SM Energy agreement have also argued that the deal secures valuable concessions, protections and financial benefits for Erie.

Whether the Attorney General’s Office takes action before the June 16 vote remains unclear. What is clear is that the controversy has expanded beyond the proposed agreement itself. For a growing number of residents, the central question is no longer whether the deal is good or bad, but whether the process used to reach it followed the town’s own rules.

Yellow Scene reached out to each town council member for comment and did not receive a response.

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The post Erie residents demand answers before pivotal mineral rights vote appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The following is a letter from Erie residents that was sent to Yellow Scene Magazine. We are publishing it in pursuit of community transparency and public accountability. Signed by over 100 community members, the letter calls on the Colorado Attorney General to intervene in the ongoing, controversial sale of local mineral rights.

Dear Attorney General Weiser,

This letter is from Erie residents related to the Town of Erie and the potential sale of Town-owned mineral rights and real estate assets to SM Energy (Civitas). This is a legal and ethical matter where there is no recourse for these issues at the Town level. 

We are reaching out to you for State assistance to investigate and hopefully resolve these matters on behalf of residents of the Town of Erie. Please note that I have been in correspondence with your office prior, but the situation has grown more urgent. 

The Council is set to vote on the sale of these mineral rights Tuesday, June 16th. In open meetings and during the Study Session on June 2nd it was revealed that several important and legal steps were not completed in this process including:

1. The Town Council signed a Consultant contract involving a bid and solicitation process that was ignored in favor of a single-source agreement with SM Energy; and
2. Town of Erie policy required the issuance of an RFP to select the Consultant in a $4.5 million contract and, instead, the Consultant was sole-sourced without vetting.

The Town of Erie Town Council has placed a significant amount of information related to this transaction within Executive Sessions. Please note that this timeline and information are based on what has been made publicly available to-date.

MINERAL RIGHTS SALE TIMELINE

In December 2025, four Town Council Members led by Mayor Andrew Moore approved the hire of Alameda Minerals Partners as a sole-source $4.5 million contract to represent the Town of Erie in the potential sale of Town-owned mineral rights. However, this was done behind closed doors, of which the public did not learn of the discussions that had been occurring for over a year until Feb 2026 when local reporting revealed it. 

• Alameda Minerals Partners CEO is Matthew Owens, a founder of Civitas Energy (now SM Energy) who owned the Draco Pad at that time. The Town Council did not vet Owens for financial conflicts of interest and, at a later date, Mayor Moore advised that he knew Owens had ongoing financial interests with Civitas.
• When asked why the Town did not issue an RFP for this $4.5 million contract, Town employee David Frank is on record stating they did not seek any other consultants, and that “they didn’t know any other consultants.” Not knowing is a core reason as to why RFPs are conducted.
• There are three versions of how Owens and the Town of Erie started working together. The Mayor stating he had a conversation, then others stating Owens came to the Town. Regardless, it appears that the Mayor was in talks with Owens for 6 months before the council was aware. 
• This was a sole-sourced contract without an RFP. The Town Interim Manager advised the Council during a June 2nd Study Session that this violated Town procurement policy. 
• Per the Contract with the Town, Alameda Minerals Partners was required to run a competitive bid and solicitation process and to provide those results to the Town Council. The public learned during the June 2nd Town of Erie Study Session that Owens did not run this process and that Town Council members have not seen competitive bids.
• Owens indicated during the meeting and stated specifically to a reporter after the meeting that he was advised by certain Town Council members to not run a competitive bid and procurement process.
• The public has limited information about discussions, processes and details around this potential transaction as Mayor Moore has held both confidential and traditionally non-confidential information within rolling Executive Sessions. This includes inappropriate direction from the Town Council to Owens to breach his Contract and not conduct competitive bid and solicitations.
• The process run by Owens resulted in a single offer from SM Energy (Civitas), his former company. There is no record that Owens reached out to competitors, confirmed by the acting Town Administrator and Town Attorney, as well as Owens himself
• The Town Council was advised by Erie residents during the June 9th Town Council open session about this breach of contract and how this violates Town Council’s role in that contract as well as Town Council fiduciary duty.
• The contract from SM Energy appears to be significantly one-sided in favor of SM Energy. The Town’s financial and negotiation representation through Owens and his conflicts of interest may have had a significant impact on the terms of agreement and the value of the Town’s assets.
• Mayor Moore set a vote for June 16th to approve the offer from SM Energy. Per Moore’s voting block of four Town Council members, residents expect this contract to be approved in a 4-3 vote.

Residents are clearly against this decision and have been showing up and speaking out in large numbers since learning about it. What adds another layer is that SM Energy has a timeline to meet per the ECMC and Erie holding onto their mineral rights requires them to work around that location. With ownership it opens up their access considerably. Mayor Moore has been meeting in secret for months, and rushing the process without proper vetting and without following proper RFP procedures. Mayor Moore is placing this single-source contract with SM Energy up for vote on June 16th knowing that a competitive bid and solicitation process was required, but not completed. 

For these reasons we believe the Attorney General should step in to ensure this process is meeting the legal standards at the State level, set in the Consultant contract and the Town Charter. 

TOWN OF ERIE RESIDENTS

The following Town of Erie residents agreed to be part of this letter and are asking for direct assistance from the Office of The Attorney General.

• Steven Drew

• Deborah Cameron

• Leah Burns

• Tim Burns

• Selena Maranjian

• Kelli Bercovitch

• Maria Veronica Drew

• Amy Mitchell

• Bill Rigler

• Chelsea Campbell

• Sunshine Axlund

• Eric Axlund 

• Tiffany Breaux Pritchett 

• Mari Hobkirk 

• Neha Pesaramelli 

• DeWayne D. Drummond

• Karen Drummond

• Rosy Maranjian 

• John McAllister

• Gloria Pearlstein

• Ann Manette Ansay

• Tonia Sharp

• Martha Dasovic

• Barbara Nichols 

• William Geithman

• Donna Geithman 

• Helen Hoekstra

• Barb Benner 

• Diana Middleton

• Luanne Lee

• Forrest Johnson

• Nancy Cacy 

• Sharleen Bakeman, Retired Colorado DOT & USDOT

• Dr. Mark E. Bakeman, Retired Washington State DOT

• Carol Campbell, Retired Assistant Regional Administrator, Office of Ecosystems Protection and Remediation, US EPA Region 8Marifay Makssour

• Elaine Patriquin

• Colleen Dame

• Laurel Warner 

• Jennifer Herrin

• Amanda Tuominen 

• Gerry Wright

• Jim McGlashan

• Suzy Swanson 

• Steve Swanson 

• Barbara Kusinitz 

• Chanel K. Adams

• Ryan C. Adams

• Cheryl Kelso 

• Charlene Kam

• Steve Kelso

• Louise Hannahoe 

• Kim Hannahoe 

• John Ghumm

• Shavonne Blades 

• Emily Brecht 

• Robert de Jong

• Donna Lasater

• James Salvaggio

• Peg Salvaggio

• Barb Mejer

• Nancy Loehr

• Danny Loehr

• Jackie Connor 

• Penny T. Landis

• Debbie Shinn

• Frank Landis

• Rabbi Frederick Greene 

• Deborah Greene

• James Stull

• Penny Stull

• Donna Thumma

• John Thumma

• Robin Berlin 

• Karyn Lankford 

• Sharon Matayus

• Lindsey Terranova

• Adam Terranova

• Winfried Reichelt 

• Mari Hobkirk

• Rebecca Robb

• Bob Braudes

• Cherry Landen

• Cammie Arneson

• Jeanne DeVries

• Donna Smith

• Elaine Green 

• Donna Canode 

• Patricia Reed

• Wyncia Clute

• Larry Kinney

• Lauren Fulton

• Sharon Schuessler

• Ann Cohrs

• Steve Nelson

• Jacquelynn Sigl

• Laura Schmid

• Brian Schmid

• Justin Brooks

• Ashlee White

• Montgomery White

• Samanth Julie Hosmer

• Julie Gleason

• Kelly Wagner-Grull

• Amy Wagner-Grull

• Lenore Kingston 

• Michiko Elizabeth Mackanin 

• Christiaan van Woudenberg

• Kristen Moore

• Robyn Levey

• Aaron Levey

• Leticia Clendenen

• Krystyn Mitchell

• Heather Sabo

• Derek Webb

• Jenni Glomb

• Lyle Brecht

• Lorrie McAllister 

• Meghan Hughes 

• Josh Gaffga 
• Beth Gaffga

The post Over 100 Erie Residents Sign Letter To Attorney General appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

NEWS FLASH

A routine Erie Town Council meeting took an unexpected turn tonight, June 9, when three council members voted against entering executive session, halting a planned closed-door discussion related to airport negotiations and triggering a heated exchange on the dais.

Much of the evening focused on routine business, including Juneteenth and Loving Day proclamations, updates from the Erie Chamber of Commerce and We Love Erie Business Collective, and approval of landscaping code changes intended to promote water conservation. But the meeting’s final minutes quickly overshadowed those discussions. Councilmembers Emily Baer, Dan Hoback and Anil Pesaramelli voted against entering executive session. When asked by Andrew Moore to explain his vote, Hoback said the item had been added to the agenda without sufficient explanation and argued that residents were increasingly uneasy about closed-door discussions. “I think we need to bring more transparency into it, as to what these are for,” he said.

Mayor Pro Tem Brandon Bell pushed back, saying council members had received information about the topic in advance and that executive sessions are routinely used when negotiating real estate transactions. Bell said concerns that the session was intended to discuss the town’s controversial mineral rights negotiations were unfounded and called it “a little disingenuous” to suggest council was attempting to hide information from the public. 

After Bell urged one of the three council members to reconsider the motion, Hoback responded that he did not appreciate “once again, time and time again, being called disingenuous.” As Mayor Moore attempted to regain control of the discussion, Hoback interrupted, telling the mayor, “You let him get away with his crap, Mayor. I’m tired of it.” Moore adjourned the meeting moments later. The clash comes one week before council is scheduled to vote on a proposed agreement with SM Energy regarding the sale of the town’s mineral rights, a decision that has generated months of public debate and scrutiny. 

This is a developing story. A more detailed account of the executive session dispute and the pending mineral rights vote will follow.

2:00:00 Moore’s closing comments followed by the vote to decline Executive Session

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The post Erie Council Clash Erupts After Three Members Vote Against Executive Session appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

With the June 16 vote on a proposed agreement selling the town’s mineral rights approaching, debate in Erie is shifting from fracking itself to the process behind the deal. In particular, residents and some council members are asking whether the negotiations followed the expectations laid out in the town’s contract and purchasing policies.

The proposed agreement is tied to the Draco oil and gas project, a state-approved development operated by SM Energy, formerly Civitas. The project would drill 26 horizontal wells extending roughly five miles underground beneath portions of Erie. In exchange for selling town-owned mineral rights that lie in the path of the project, officials say Erie would receive a package of cash, royalties, land and environmental concessions from SM Energy, while critics continue to press for details on both the value of the deal and the process used to negotiate it. 

Residents crowded into a June 2 public study session seeking answers about well locations, groundwater impacts, wastewater disposal and what a mineral-rights sale could mean for the town’s future development. 

Beyond the drilling itself, the agreement could shape how Erie grows in the coming years. In exchange for its mineral interests, the town would receive a package of cash, royalties, land and other concessions that officials say could support future development. Some residents, however, remain concerned about potential environmental and public health impacts, as well as whether selling town-owned mineral rights outright is preferable to retaining or leasing those assets for future revenue. 

Mayor Andrew Moore has consistently framed the mineral-rights agreement as an economic-development opportunity rather than solely an oil and gas debate. In his April State of the Town meeting, Moore argued that Erie’s infrastructure and growth needs were going to outpace available capital funding and portrayed the deal as an important source of future revenue. However, previous Yellow Scene reporting found that Erie’s capital reserves and projected revenues appeared stronger than suggested during those discussions, raising questions about how essential the agreement is to the town’s long-term financial plans. 

Moore reiterated that argument during the June 2 study session.

“Yeah, I guess the way I look at this is the first offer was $2.85 million, which is that land. And now we’re up to roughly $35 million plus the value of the land going forward, which goes to over $200 million,” Moore said. “And so, yeah, maybe this isn’t the best deal we can get, but maybe it is by far the best deal we can get.”

Town officials repeatedly emphasized that rejecting the agreement would not necessarily stop the Draco project. During the June 2 study session, Environmental Services Director David Frank said the town’s unsold mineral rights would have to be “avoided,” but what that means in practice remains uncertain. “It could be that the overall direction of those laterals changes to avoid physically contacting those areas,” Frank said. “It’s also possible that they may drill right through our mineral rights and simply not perforate and frack those sections of the casing.” Later in the discussion, Frank acknowledged that the state has not provided a definitive answer on how such a scenario would be handled. “It’s highly unlikely that Draco, which is a $1.5 billion operation, is going to go away,” he said. “Their attorneys told me that they will go forward without the town’s minerals.” 

Toward the end of nearly two hours of discussion, however, council members began asking whether the consultant hired by the town to assist with the negotiations had fulfilled a contractual requirement to solicit bids and whether the town’s purchasing guidelines had been followed when he was hired. Discussion focused heavily on uncertainties about the process itself alongside the specifics of the proposed agreement. 

Currently, council is considering an agreement with SM Energy that town officials have described as one of the largest mineral-rights transactions in Erie’s history. According to information presented during the negotiations, the wellbores would be the longest ever proposed in Colorado and would be drilled beneath an established suburban community rather than a remote oil and gas field, which has been a cause for concern for many residents.

The proposed deal would involve the town selling mineral interests associated with the approved Draco Pad development in exchange for a package of cash payments, production revenue, land transfers, additional monitoring provisions and commitments to plug aging wells. While officials have argued that the agreement would provide significant benefits to the community, residents and council members alike have continued to ask how the town determined that this proposal represented the best available option.

The town’s selection of Alameda Mineral Advisors has itself become a subject of scrutiny, as public explanations of how the firm was identified and brought into the process have shifted over time.

During a March 10 council meeting, Mayor Andrew Moore said Alameda had been recommended by town staff and that council had not played a role in identifying the firm.

“With Alameda Minerals … they were recommended to us by staff and that’s how that contract came about,” Moore said. “There is nobody that personally advocated for them … nobody on council … that was brought to us by staff.”

A different account emerged during an April 21 discussion. Responding to a question from Councilmember Emily Baer about how Owens became involved, Director of Environmental Services David Frank said Moore had provided Owens’ contact information to town staff.

“Mayor Moore sent me an email and said, ‘here’s some contact information from a gentleman. I think it would be a good idea to reach out to him and hear him out,'” Frank said. “I gave him a call. He gave me his pitch…”

Moore offered another explanation during the June 2 study session, describing Owens as someone uniquely positioned to help the town negotiate with Civitas because of his previous experience inside the company.

“Matt was brought in for his unique knowledge of knowing the inside workings of a Civitas,” Moore said. “If you’re negotiating, you always want to have information from those you’re negotiating against.”

Those explanations are not necessarily contradictory, but they describe different accounts of how Alameda entered the process, ranging from a staff recommendation to a referral that originated with the mayor. 

When asked about the hiring process for Alameda Mineral Advisors, Town Attorney Breena N. Meng focused on the town’s procurement policy.

“There is a requirement that was adopted in a purchasing policy that was approved by council to conduct RFPs or solicitations for services like this,” Meng said. “That did not happen.”

In other words, Erie’s purchasing policy requires a public Request for Proposal, where the town publicizes the need for services and companies can submit proposals explaining how they would perform the work in hopes of being selected for the contract. The town is then supposed to choose the best proposal for the services needed.

The admission means Alameda was hired outside the process the town’s purchasing policy requires.

Scrutiny of how Alameda entered the process was compounded by a second issue raised during the June 2 study session: whether the firm completed a key responsibility outlined in its contract with the town. 

Matthew Owens of Alameda Mineral Advisors

At the center of the discussion is the scope of work agreed upon when Erie hired Matthew Owens of Alameda Mineral Advisors in December 2025. The contract’s scope of work states that the consultant shall solicit bids for the sale of town-owned mineral rights and property with comparative analyses of upfront proceeds versus projected cash flows.

The contract language requires more than finding a buyer. It requires that Alameda Mineral Advisors reaches out to a variety of companies that might be interested in buying the mineral rights. Then, all of the offers have to be presented to the town with comparisons of up-front profits, future royalties, and other non-monetary terms. 

That requirement became the focus of a tense exchange between Councilmember Hoback and Owens.

“How did you actually solicit bids?” Hoback asked. (1:19:23)

Owens responded by describing work he had performed before being hired by the town. 

“Before you guys hired me, I worked for a client in this unit, who had a whole bunch of minerals at the end of last year,” Owens said. “So I solicited a whole bunch of bids for him to lease or to monetize them. I followed up in early January and got back to the same folks to ask them about their bids and if they were still in the same range… it was substantially lower than what this deal would be. And so at that point, I was determined to just focus on this deal, since the value discrepancy was so great.”

Hoback immediately questioned whether that satisfied the contract’s requirements.

“That does not sound like a competitive bid to me,” he said.

He continued pressing the issue.

“It’s one thing to have, you know, prior discussions, going back to them. That still is not a competitive bidding process. And your scope of work says you’ll complete a competitive bidding process.”

Owens began to respond. (1:19:30)

“It does, that is why in that Executive Session, we had been specifically asked…”

Before he could finish, Town Attorney Breena N. Meng interrupted him, saying the answer would pertain to matters discussed in executive session.

The topic resurfaced later in the meeting when Councilmember Emily Baer attempted to revisit it. Mayor Pro Tem Brandon Bell objected.

“I want to make a point of order… we cannot talk about what was talked about in an executive session. I feel this line of questioning is completely disingenuous because you all know what you heard.”

Baer disputed that characterization.

“I have never heard another offer from any other entity… That’s good that we can’t talk about executive session things because that is not something we’ve ever talked about.”

After the study session adjourned, Owens was again asked whether he had completed the solicitation of competitive bids described in his contract.

“I was instructed not to… by the people who hired me,” Owens said. Owens did not identify who gave the instruction.

The statement prompted council members to discuss whether the town’s procurement practices had been followed and whether the contract’s scope of work had been fulfilled.

Councilmember Baer said she wasn’t sure whether the consultant had met the contract’s expectations.

“I do have concerns that the contract, scope of work for the contract hasn’t been met with a competitive bid,” she said. “I would like to understand more about that. Was that a violation of our expected scope of work of the contract that we signed? That’s what people in the community are asking me.”

The issue raised during the study session was not whether the town ultimately received a favorable offer, but whether the process outlined in the contract was completed in the manner council expected when it approved the agreement. 

The discussion continued when Mayor Andrew Moore suggested that auditors review the issue. Interim Town Manager Meredyth Muth responded that auditors had already identified it.

“[Auditors] have noted it as a finding or possible finding,” Muth said. Neither Muth nor other officials elaborated during the study session on the nature of the finding or whether it related specifically to procurement procedures, contract administration or another aspect of the process. 

None of the officials suggested rejecting the proposed agreement because of these discrepancies. 

Town officials continued to argue that the agreement would provide substantial value to the community. According to information presented by the town, Erie owns approximately 183 acres of mineral rights associated with the Draco area. Of that total, roughly 103 acres remain unleased while about 80 acres are already subject to existing leases. Officials repeatedly emphasized that the town’s unleased mineral interests represent only a small percentage of the overall drilling unit and argued that recent changes in Colorado law increased the town’s negotiating leverage by limiting the circumstances under which municipal mineral interests can be pooled into development without the town’s consent.

Officials also argued that the proposed agreement would convert that leverage into tangible benefits for residents. According to town presentations, the package includes a multimillion-dollar upfront payment, future royalty revenue, approximately 158 acres of land along County Line Road, commitments to plug additional wells and inspection access at the Draco facility. 

Representatives of the negotiating team argued that the town would forgo significant benefits if it rejected the agreement. They also noted that the Draco project has already been approved by the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission, meaning the debate before council is no longer whether the project will be drilled, but whether Erie should seek compensation and concessions tied to that development.

Not everyone on council accepted the negotiating team’s assessment of the town’s leverage. Throughout the study session, questions surfaced about whether Erie had adequately tested the market, whether other operators may have been interested and whether the town’s mineral position provided more bargaining power than officials suggested. 

For many residents, however, the conversation extended beyond the financial terms of the deal. Residents repeatedly focused on where water used for hydraulic fracturing would come from, how wastewater would be handled, whether groundwater resources could be affected and what authority Erie would have if environmental problems occurred in the future.

Officials acknowledged that while the town negotiated monitoring and inspection provisions, much of the regulatory authority over drilling operations remains with state agencies. Residents also asked whether the proposed land parcels are worth as much as stated and how much of the transferred acreage could realistically be developed.

Several residents noted that council is expected to vote on the agreement only weeks after the first major public discussion of its details, which they noted as a major issue they wanted addressed.

Those continuing worries come after months of criticism regarding how much of the process occurred in executive session and how little information was publicly available before the proposed agreement reached council. During the June 2 discussion, questions surrounding executive session matters were redirected, renewing the public’s concern about the confidentiality of the negotiations.

Council is scheduled to vote on the proposed agreement June 16. 

By the conclusion of the meeting, many of the concerns raised by residents remained unresolved. Alongside issues of water, drilling and future development, council members found themselves conflicted over procurement, transparency and accountability.

The post Town Council to Vote on Mineral Rights Sale June 16; Bidding Process Draws Scrutiny appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Correction: An earlier version of Yellow Scene’s 2026 Primary Election Endorsements incorrectly identified Heidi Henkel as the incumbent in House District 33. The incumbent is Rep. Kenny Nguyen. The error was corrected shortly after publication.

Editorial endorsements are a longstanding function of journalism. Yet as media has consolidated and nonprofit restrictions have reshaped the industry, fewer newsrooms continue the practice.

Yellow Scene believes election endorsements remain an important public service. Our editorial board debates the issues, examines policy and records in depth, and does not lightly arrive at endorsement decisions, particularly in closely contested races. This guide focuses on races within Yellow Scene’s Boulder County and North Metro coverage region rather than attempting to cover every contest statewide. Over 26 years, Yellow Scene’s Election Guide has received multiple journalism awards, including three first-place honors, and earned a reputation for asking difficult questions and examining candidates beyond campaign slogans.

U.S. Senate

John Hickenlooper v. Julie Gonzales

The Pick: Julie Gonzales

Julie Gonzales

John Hickenlooper

State Democrats deemed this the most contested statewide race this spring. At the state assembly, activist turned politician Julie Gonzales took home nearly 75% of the delegate share. Gonzales, who has been working in the Colorado Senate since 2018, will face incumbent US Senator John Hickenlooper. While the Hickenlooper campaign leans into terms like “grassroots” and “independent perspective,” his lengthy résumé as the former mayor of Denver, Colorado governor, and current senator tells a different story.

Having taken over $500,000 in AIPAC money, Hickenlooper’s narrative conflicts with his status as a political insider. Some argue Hickenlooper has been unable to meet the political moment, voting with Trump 11% of the time in his first term and saying Democrats need to “select our battles.” In 2020, an ethics committee ruled he violated state law by flying in a donor’s private plane.

Gonzales has decried the war in Gaza, pledged to back antitrust enforcement to break up monopolies, and supported Medicare for all, positions that demonstrate she has the energy and fresh perspectives the party needs.

Governorship

Michael Bennett v. Phil Weiser

The Pick: Phil Weiser

Phil Weiser

This race features two prominent Colorado politicians vying for higher office, starting with Michael Bennet, a former school superintendent turned U.S. senator. During his years in Washington, Bennet has drawn criticism for confirming eight of Donald Trump’s nominees and for his extensive campaign support from major donors and political action committees.

Michael Bennet

He has accepted over $300,000 in AIPAC funds and holds a significant edge in super PAC support. In fact, a May report showed Bennet tallying over $4 million, including substantial “dark money” from undisclosed donors, compared to Weiser’s just over $1 million. Policy-wise, Bennet’s affordability platform caps housing costs at 30% of household income, and he champions a public Medicare option alongside childcare tax credits. However, these are proposals that some progressive Colorado Democrats might view as lukewarm or tepid at best.

In contrast, Phil Weiser enters the race as the state’s former attorney general and one of the few Colorado leaders boasting a rising approval rating. As AG, Weiser built a reputation as a consistent fighter during the Trump administration, taking the federal government to court when it threatened funding for hospitals, Social Security, and Medicare. He has also leaned heavily into consumer protection, returning millions of dollars to Coloradans by taking on corporate landlords, fraudsters, and major pharmaceutical companies.

Attorney General

Hetal Doshi v. Michael Dougherty v. Jena Griswold v. David Seligman

The Pick: David Seligman

David Seligman

Jena Griswold

Jena Griswold, current CO Secretary of State, has leveraged internal polling to claim her campaign is running away with this race. Griswold claims a lack of familiarity with the other candidates is solidifying her position among voters. In her time in office, she attempted to remove Trump from the 2024 ballot and urged the Supreme Court to remove him as president. She is hoping her name recognition and history of standing up to the administration will win her the race.

Michael Dougherty has perhaps the most impressive experience of these candidates. He has a string of high-profile, Colorado DA endorsements. In Manhattan, he led the sex crimes unit at the DA’s office. In Colorado, he developed a DV response team and a vehicular response team. He prosecuted the King Soopers mass shooting and the Boulder Pearl street firebombing.

Michael Dougherty

Dougherty, however, has a lackluster vision for AI, vaguely promising to enact “smart policies” at a time when data centers are contaminating water in states facing droughts. Dougherty has faced harsh criticism for his decision to neither press charges nor launch a criminal investigation into the death of Jeanette Alatorre. Furthermore, he remained silent when the city moved to illegally block access to the body camera footage. While his extensive experience is undeniable, Dougherty’s platform ultimately plays it too safe and misses the vision Colorado needs.

Hetal Doshi

Hetal Doshi is a first-generation American who has been an assistant attorney in CO and a Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division. Her career has focused on breaking up big tech monopolies and protecting Colorado from Trump’s funding cuts. In Colorado, though she supports investing in “entrepreneurs working in tech,” a position at odds with her previous work against monopolies. Doshi also maintains a stance against oligarchs, a group Seligman has promised to go after. Whereas Seligman’s proposals are comprehensive, Doshi’s are vague.

David Seligman is the director of the nonprofit Towards Justice, which he built to support labor rights. He was the Supreme Court Chair of the Harvard Law Review. Seligman is more of an outsider than the other candidates, and it shows in his policy proposals. He’s focusing on breaking up tech monopolies and holding corporations that exploit workers and drive up housing and healthcare costs accountable, and drive up housing and healthcare costs. Affordability is one of the biggest political issues facing Coloradans, and people need elected officials who will fight for it fiercely.

For that reason, we think that Seligman’s ambition makes him the strongest candidate.

Secretary of State

Jessie Danielson v. Amanda Gonzales

The Pick: Jessie Danielson

Jessie Danielson

As the first Latina and openly queer recorder in Jefferson County, Amanda Gonzalez would certainly bring a fresh voice to the state office. However, in contrast to Danielson, her experience is underwhelming.

Amanda Gonzalez

At her nonprofit, Jessie Danielson helped develop the bills that would become voter modernization acts in Colorado. Appointed by the governor at the time, she expanded mail-in ballots and access for those with disabilities. She also helped codify abortion into Colorado law.

Her track record makes her the best option for Democrats in this race.

Congressional District 1

Diana Degette v. Wanda James v. Melat Kiros

The Pick: Melat Kiros

Melat Kiros

Diana DeGette

This district features three candidates. Diana DeGette, the incumbent, has a great track record on climate but has come under fire for tiptoeing around the war in Gaza, as well as taking corporate money. 

Wanda James

On the other hand, Wanda James built the first Black-owned dispensary in Colorado and serves on the CU Board of Regents. Her campaign focuses heavily on serving Black and Brown communities and peaceful foreign policy. She is, however, in favor of “smart, technology-driven” border security, which is linguistic cover for technologies that harvest biometrics and drive racial profiling. She has a weaker position on combating ICE and supports entrepreneurs like herself. Her withdrawal from assembly and switch to petition also signal a lack of local support.

Melat Kiros is the Democratic Socialist candidate. She is championing the types of policies that have won the mayoral election in New York and have launched Graham Platner into political stardom in Maine. She supports federally subsidizing 30% of all long-term house developments, universal childcare, an end to military aid to Israel, and a zero-emissions US grid.

Democrats who want to see the continued growth of a bolder party with a clear vision for the future should vote for Kiros.

Congressional District 8

Shannon Bird v. Evan Munsing v. Manny Rutinel

The Pick: Shannon Bird

Shannon Bird

Manny Rutinel, a rising star in the party, tore through the assembly process, garnering over 90% of the delegate vote. He is a fresh, young voice whose background as an economist for the Army Corps of Engineers promises to combat Colorado voters’ most important issue: affordability.

Manny Rutinel

Evan Munsing

Evan Munsing also has a military background. The former Marine’s bare-bones platform and lack of vision on immigration suggest that the candidate’s plans may be under-conceived.

Incumbent from the 29th District, Bird was ranked the most effective Colorado lawmaker in the ‘23-’24 term by the independent organization, Center for Effective Lawmaking. She is now running to face off the Gabe Evans, the incumbent in District 8. That effectiveness is reflected in the detailed, clear proposals Bird has made central to her campaign. Of particular note are her detailed pragmatic proposals for restraining ICE. In the same study, Rutinel was ranked 45th out of 50. Bird sponsored 104 bills in 2025, passing bills supporting affordable housing, workers’ rights, and education, among others. Bird was one of 17 subjects of an ethics complaint related to a dark-money-funded 2024 retreat connected to the Opportunity Caucus. The complaint was ultimately dismissed, however, and Bird was neither part of the caucus at the time nor did she attend the event.

Her record makes Bird the choice.

State House District 19

Jillaire McMillan v. Anil Pesaramelli v. Colton Jonjak Plahn

The Pick: Anil Pesaramelli

Anil Pesaramelli

Anil Pesaramelli has taken the traditional approach in this election; he knocked on 4,000 doors, gathering local support and listening to the community about local issues. He is an immigrant and former engineer. He has stood firm during several closely divided 4–3 Erie Town Council votes, challenging the council majority on issues including mineral rights negotiations tied to Draco, housing affordability, and support for local nonprofits and community organizations.

Colton Jonjak Plahn

Colton Jonjak Plahn was a late addition to the ballot in this district. At 25, he would be the youngest state legislator in Colorado. While his idealism and separation from political money and machinery make him an exciting voice, his limited experience weighs heavily in our consideration.

Jillaire McMillan

Jillaire McMillan, a small business owner and community leader, is no slouch either: she ran in 2024 when the incumbent dropped out with only 89 days left and only lost by 110 votes. Her experiences in legislation are limited, and while she states civic engagement, it is Pesaramelli who is hitting the streets.

Pesaramelli’s support for universal healthcare and stronger unions align him more with what the electorate in Colorado desires. McMillan has establishment endorsements without a stronghold of local support.

Pesaramelli is the pick. 

State House District 31

Gabriel Cervantes v. Jacque Phillips

The Pick: Gabriel Cervantes

Gabriel Cervantes

Gabriel Cervantes, a nonprofit cofounder, places a large emphasis on affordable housing, specifically blocking private equity and corporate entities from buying single-family homes. His campaign also promises to explore avenues to prosecute ICE agents overstepping their authority. He supports grants and tax credits for Colorado’s growing senior population, an under-discussed issue in this election. Cervantes also has an endorsement from Julie Gonzales.

Jacque Phillips

Incumbent Jacque Phillips’ platform offers no plan on immigration, vague promises on climate change, and broad references to “high-quality jobs and vocational training.” While her voting record is okay, she is an establishment, smaller-scope candidate whose vision pales beside Cervantes’ ambition.

Our choice is Gabriel Cervantes.

State House District 33

Heidi Henkel v. Kenny Nguyen

The Pick: Heidi Henkel

Heidi Henkel

Henkel has been working for Broomfield since 2007, where she was a teacher and a math tutor. She worked on the Broomfield Resettlement Task Force, helping refugees from Ukraine and Afghanistan. Henkel supported Senate Bill 181, legislation born from years of advocacy that returned greater local control over oil and gas development near homes and schools. Henkel also garnered over 60% of the delegate share at assembly.

Incumbent Kenny Nguyen has worked for nonprofits as well as the lieutenant governor in recent years. However, Nguyen brings less experience and a less developed policy platform than Henkel in this district. His platform on climate and workers’ rights lacks specificity, and while his platform mentions immigration, it makes no reference to ICE.

With her focus on affordability, Democrats should be excited to see what Henkel can do in this term.

The post 2026 Colorado Primary Election Endorsements appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The Erie Town Council will hold a public informational meeting on the Draco Well Pad and the selling of the town’s mineral rights on June 2 at 6 p.m. in Council Chambers at Town Hall.

The meeting follows months of discussion over whether Erie should sell or lease town-owned mineral rights associated with the state-approved Draco oil and gas development. The issue has generated significant public interest, with residents and council members debating questions of transparency, local control and the town’s potential financial return. 

According to a Town of Erie Facebook post, the meeting is intended for discussion and information sharing only. No decisions will be made, and public comment will not be accepted. If a final agreement regarding the town’s mineral rights is reached in the future, officials say a separate public hearing will be scheduled with an opportunity for residents to provide feedback. The meeting can be found on the town’s calendar.

Yellow Scene first broke the news about the potential sale on February 24. Prior to this, discussions were being conducted in Executive Session outside of public view. Previous reporting has included concerns about negotiations occurring largely outside public view, questions about the town’s leverage over the project, and divisions among council members regarding the potential sale or lease of mineral assets.

For readers looking to catch up on the issue, see Yellow Scene’s previous reporting:

• Erie Mineral Rights Deal Advances Largely Out of Public View, Raising Concerns Over Transparency and Conflicts (March 23)
• Erie’s Mineral Rights: What’s at Stake (April 18)
• Erie Mineral Rights Hearing Divides Council Over Control, Transparency and Who Decides (April 24)

Meeting materials and a livestream link are expected to be available through the Town of Erie’s public calendar before the meeting.

The meeting begins at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, June 2, at Erie Town Hall.

A group of concerned citizens have stated they will be gathering on the lawn ahead of the meeting starting at 5:15 PM.

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The post Erie Council to Hold June 2 Public Hearing on Sale of Town Mineral Rights and Draco Impacts appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Following Erie citizens’ approval of home rule in 2023, supporters argued that moving to the new system would empower Erie with better decision-making ability as the town continued to grow rapidly. However, less than two years after this historic vote, Erie continues to make crucial decisions in which the town’s future increasingly becomes defined by a stable four-member coalition on the Town Council that has consistently banded together on several of Erie’s major controversies.

These voting patterns have been observed on multiple occasions. Mayor Moore, Mayor Pro Tem Bell, and Town Council Members O’Connor and Mortellaro vote in favor; Town Council Members Pesaramelli, Baer and Hoback vote against the motions. During debates over Pride Flag policy, community grant programs, urban renewal financing, marijuana regulations, board reconfiguration, sustainability plans, annexation agreements, and redevelopment tools, the pattern is consistent.

Not all council decisions pit the two factions against each other, especially on issues related to the town’s physical development. Erie’s council has routinely agreed on road construction, water utility infrastructure upgrades, flood management initiatives, policing services, and even some development applications. It is primarily on issues relating to governance, civic identity, administrative structure and financing initiatives that these opposing factions tend to form.

Erie’s post-home-rule Town Council is clearly showing two sides when it comes to the future of the fast-growing town. The four-member majority seems to support policies that facilitate institutional expansion, structured governance, and regional cooperation, while a three-member minority consistently opposes these types of initiatives. The disagreements extend beyond headline-making issues like Pride Flag policy and marijuana legalization to other lesser-known policies such as board reconfigurations, grant oversight, metro district management and redevelopment tools.

Erie’s council appears committed to increasing the town’s use of urban renewal authorities, tax increment financing, redevelopment districts, and urban planning agreements as tools for long-term growth planning.

For instance, the council unanimously approved the town’s urban renewal plan for Erie Town Center and related tax increment financing agreements with Boulder County, the St. Vrain Valley School District, the Mountain View Fire Protection District and other entities. The plan officially designated certain areas of Erie Town Center as redevelopment areas and allowed for financing arrangements where any increase in tax revenue can be used for those purposes.

This represents another in a string of initiatives that use urban renewal and tax increment financing as tools to finance infrastructure and redevelopment efforts. The year prior, Erie Town Council had already approved a comparable urban renewal plan and associated tax increment financing mechanism for the Erie Gateway. Supporters believe these are necessary tools for the town to remain competitive with neighboring communities along the Front Range.

However, critics increasingly wonder how much oversight is possible once these complicated financing districts are created.

Some of these debates emerged over annexation and development agreements.

For example, during March 2024, the Town Council approved an annexation and zoning agreement for the controversial multi-family housing project proposed by Thompson Thrift for 111th Street and Arapahoe Road after widespread opposition over concerns about density, flooding, increased traffic congestion, and strained infrastructure systems resulting from rapid growth. Despite the opposition, the council voted to approve the annexation of the parcel.

The vote illustrated the lack of perfect ideological consistency when it came to growth.

Dan Hoback often aligns himself with the council minority on governance and civic-policy disputes but was supportive of this annexation, which shows Erie Town Council doesn’t have exact ideological consistency regarding growth policies and initiatives.

However, in general, what seems more apparent in these voting patterns is that the Town Council is divided regarding governance and civic philosophies rather than over the topic of growth.

Indeed, the recurring majority seems to be united behind one particular vision for the town – one that sees Erie transitioning into a metropolitan-style community.

This vision has appeared throughout multiple discussions involving sustainability planning, transportation coordination and administrative governance reformation.

The council adopted Erie’s Climate and Sustainability Action Plan Agreement in January 2025 and went on to adopt initiatives related to beneficial electrification, air quality agreements, and floating solar energy systems at the Erie water reclamation facilities. The council also unanimously approved a range of agreements related to regional transportation coordination.

These include an RTD inclusion plan, the launch of Erie Flex Ride Transit Service, and Southwest Weld County Transportation Coordination.

On top of all of this, the majority has also repeatedly supported procedural and governance changes within town government.

An example of this appeared during the September 2025 special council meeting when the council decided by a vote of 4-3 to reduce board and commission terms. This happened following the restructuring of the entire municipal governance framework after home rule approval.

The vote occurred after a heated discussion between Council Member Emily Baer and the rest of the council in which she argued the initiative showed disrespect toward volunteers serving on the town’s various boards and commissions. 

Nevertheless, the council decided to go through with the reorganization as directed by staff. In addition to this governance reform, the majority has approved tightening the rules for Erie’s community grant programs and non-profits.

After adopting more detailed procedures in August 2025, opponents expressed concerns that the town will burden local cultural events with unnecessary bureaucratic requirements. The council, on the other hand, believes that these are necessary measures to ensure accountability among taxpayer programs.

Many of these debates around accountability and governance were brought to head during one of the most divisive council meetings in 2025 – the Pride Flag Policy meeting.

As the crowd packed the chambers, Council Member Emily Baer introduced a motion to add a discussion regarding the installation of Pride Flags at Town Hall to the meeting agenda. This was quickly approved by the council in a 6-1 vote where the Mayor alone voted against adding the motion.

However, the issue of what should be done regarding Pride flags was left unresolved.

In response, Mayor Andrew Moore introduced the motion to direct the Town Attorney to draft policies regarding these Pride flags. The measure received 4-3 support from the council, with Andew Moore, Brandon Bell, Brian O’Connor and John Mortellaro approving the direction to staff while the minority trio opposed the motion.

This vote echoed an earlier disagreement over marijuana policy in September 2024. The council passed regulations related to marijuana land use and licensing after months of deliberation, with council members Sawusch and Bell opposing the policy. 

The marijuana policy discussion highlighted yet again the fluid nature of alliances based on policy. However, it also illustrated the fact that the topics of civic identity and governance seem to generate the sharpest divisions.

Moreover, Erie’s most ambitious redevelopment projects continue to receive broad support from the council majority.

The council unanimously approved multiple agreements tied to Erie’s Town Center Development Strategy, including amendments to development agreements with Evergreen-County Line & Erie Parkway LLC. Council members also approved additional agreements related to Colliers Hill urban renewal financing, flood-control infrastructure, roadway feasibility studies and redevelopment-related land acquisitions. 

Most of the aforementioned votes were unanimously approved by the council, however, their cumulative effect amounts to multi-million dollar commitments to infrastructure development and redevelopment.

This combination of ambitious redevelopment projects coupled with divisive political debates reflects the very nature of Erie’s political transformation.

Erie is no longer just a semi-rural town governed locally.

Rather, it’s a growing municipality that makes decisions involving regional transportation agreements, urban renewal districts, annexations, sustainability strategies, regional water infrastructure coordination, and multi-million dollar redevelopment financing projects.

The political question, therefore, is no longer whether Erie should undergo development.

Erie is developing.

What needs to be addressed instead is how Erie’s growth priorities are shaped, who controls those decisions, and how those projects are financed.

The majority faction at the council appears comfortable facilitating Erie’s transition to a more metropolitan-style community using the new home-rule powers.

The minority faction, however, opposes moves toward increasing government complexity, suggesting that Erie risks losing transparency and its traditional character in the process.

This struggle will define the next phase of Erie politics. As redevelopment projects begin, annexation fights escalate, and more sophisticated financing tools are used, Erie residents will be called upon to trust more than just developers – they’ll also have to trust their elected representatives in directing Erie’s future.

Journalism That Answers To Readers

The post The 4–3 Split: How Rapid Growth is Fracturing Erie’s Politics appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

This piece is part of Yellow Scene Magazine’s Opinion section. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent a reported news position. At Yellow Scene, opinion pieces speak freely, challenge assumptions, and say the quiet parts out loud.

Guest Contributor: Bernard Douthit

I wanted to thank Mike Broemmel for posting a thoughtful commentary about Governor Jared Polis and the broader question of political leadership in Colorado. I took some time to underscore Mike’s argument with some important details.

Like John Hickenlooper before him, Jared Polis has remained personally popular for much of his time in office. But popularity and branding are not the same as transformational leadership.

On some of Colorado’s most pressing challenges — healthcare costs, tax policy, housing affordability, and environmental justice — Polis often governed like a cautious purple-state technocrat rather than the leader of a state that has repeatedly shown a willingness to embrace ambitious public policy.

Colorado is not Mississippi or Alabama. This is a state that:

• Put single-payer healthcare on the ballot — 150,000+ signatures
• Repeatedly approved large transit expansions
• Legalized marijuana early
• Rejected hosting the Olympics
• Regularly supports local tax increases for schools, parks, and infrastructure

Yet Polis governed as though bold structural reform was politically impossible.

Healthcare is perhaps the clearest example.

Colorado Democrats repeatedly described healthcare affordability as an emergency, yet avoided the kind of political confrontation that real cost containment would require.

Instead of aggressively confronting hospital monopolies and market concentration, the state often relied on commissions, task forces, transparency measures, and heavily branded “public option” reforms that produced incremental change while leaving the underlying system largely intact.

According to multiple studies, including research from the RAND Corporation, Colorado still has some of the highest hospital prices and some of the most profitable hospital systems in the country. Polis governed more like a manager of the healthcare marketplace than a reformer willing to challenge entrenched economic power.

And contrary to the claim that Colorado is too moderate for ambitious healthcare reform, more than 150,000 Coloradans signed petitions to place single-payer healthcare on the ballot through Amendment 69. The measure ultimately failed, but it was also outspent by the healthcare industry by roughly 8-to-1. That history matters.

Tax policy presents a similar story.

Polis consistently opposed more progressive approaches to taxation and largely embraced Colorado’s libertarian tax culture rather than challenging it. Yet during the same period, homeowners across Colorado experienced dramatic increases in property taxes following the repeal of the Gallagher Amendment and the rapid rise in home values.

While Polis and legislators eventually passed relief measures, many homeowners still saw property tax increases far beyond what those policies offset. The response often felt technocratic and incremental rather than structural. And many Coloradans are still asking a simple question: with property values and tax collections rising so dramatically over the last decade, where exactly did all of that additional revenue go?

The same pattern appears with Suncor.

Colorado markets itself as environmentally conscious and climate-forward, yet one of the metro area’s largest and most controversial industrial polluters continues operating near densely populated communities. For decades, residents of north Denver and Commerce City have raised concerns about emissions, odors, and public health impacts, while Suncor has repeatedly faced fines and violations.

Why was there never a truly ambitious long-term plan to relocate, phase down, or fundamentally transform one of the region’s most problematic industrial facilities?

Important things are worth fighting for. Clean air for millions of residents should have been one of them.

The contrast between Polis and other Democratic governors is striking.

Tim Walz pushed universal school meals and labor protections in Minnesota. Gavin Newsom moved California toward state-supported insulin manufacturing and aggressive climate initiatives. Gretchen Whitmer repealed right-to-work laws and advanced major infrastructure investments in Michigan. Jay Inslee built one of the country’s most ambitious state climate agendas in Washington.

Compared with many Democratic peers in similar political conditions, Polis often appeared more focused on political positioning, branding, and technocratic moderation than on pursuing defining structural reforms.

I voted for Jared Polis twice. Like many Coloradans, I hoped he would govern with more courage and ambition than he ultimately did.

Competence matters. But at a time when healthcare affordability, housing costs, environmental risks, and economic inequality are worsening, competence alone is not enough. Colorado needed leadership willing to confront entrenched interests and pursue solutions equal to the scale of the problems we face.

Jared Polis Once Sold Colorado (and the Nation) a Shimmering Emerald City

Original article by Mike Broemmel

He was the libertarian-minded tech governor. The “different kind” of Democrat. The wealthy entrepreneur who promised efficiency over ideology, innovation over inertia, and a fresh political vocabulary that supposedly transcended the stale battles of the past. For a time, many bought the performance. The curtain stayed firmly closed.

But eventually, in politics as in The Wizard of Oz, the machinery begins to sputter. The smoke thins. The booming voice loses resonance. And somewhere in the back of the chamber, Toto pulls at the curtain.

What remains is not the great and powerful wizard. What remains is merely a man frantically working levers.

The Leader Who Never Was

History is crowded with political figures who mistook branding for leadership.

There was Ron DeSantis, once marketed as the inevitable heir to Trumpism before collapsing beneath the weight of his own synthetic persona. There was Michael Dukakis, whose technocratic competence could never ignite genuine public trust. There was British Prime Minister Liz Truss, whose ideological theater imploded in real time before the world’s financial markets.

And now there is Jared Polis.

The tragedy — or perhaps the farce — of Polis is not simply that his governorship appears to be collapsing. It is that the collapse reveals something darker: there may never have been much substance there to begin with.

Polis governed like a man permanently auditioning for a future role. A presidential run. A national media identity. A carefully focus-grouped brand called “reasonable futurism.” He floated above conflict, avoided moral clarity whenever possible, and cultivated the image of being smarter than the room without ever proving capable of leading it.

Colorado increasingly became a state managed through vibes, branding campaigns, and social media aesthetics rather than coherent civic vision. And eventually, voters notice.

The Emerald City Illusion

For years, Polis benefited from Colorado’s broader economic and demographic momentum. The state grew. Wealth poured in. Tech money expanded. Denver transformed into a glossy urban postcard marketed to affluent transplants.

But underneath the emerald glow sat worsening affordability, deepening housing crises, visible urban deterioration, and growing public frustration about safety, infrastructure, and basic governmental competence. The contradiction became impossible to ignore.

Polis often seemed less interested in governing Colorado than in narrating Colorado — endlessly promoting an image of innovation while ordinary residents confronted a state increasingly unaffordable to live in.

The Wizard projected grandeur on the giant screen. Behind the curtain? Panic. Improvisation. Hollow performance. The problem with governing as branding is that eventually reality insists on participating.

The Politics of Evasion

Great leaders absorb political risk when principle demands it. Polis perfected the opposite instinct.

Again and again, he positioned himself slightly outside the emotional center of consequential debates, forever triangulating, forever calculating. During moments requiring moral force, he often defaulted to managerial language and carefully sterilized ambiguity.

That instinct has now reached its grotesque culmination in the Tina Peters clemency debacle.

The decision to commute the sentence of the former Mesa County clerk convicted in an election security breach tied to 2020 election conspiracy theories detonated across Colorado’s political landscape. Even members of Polis’s own party reacted with fury and disbelief. Critics argued the move rewarded election denialism while signaling weakness in the face of pressure from Donald Trump and his allies.

Polis defended the clemency as a response to sentencing disparity concerns after an appeals court questioned aspects of Peters’s sentencing. But politically — symbolically — the damage may already be irreversible.

Because the issue is no longer merely Tina Peters. The issue is collapse.

The Final Flame in the Inferno

Every failed governing regime has its final defining image:

For Richard Nixon, it was the helicopter departure from the White House lawn.
For Rudy Giuliani, it was Four Seasons Total Landscaping.

For Jared Polis, it may well be the moment he chose clemency for Tina Peters.

Not because the legal arguments are entirely frivolous. Reasonable debate exists over sentencing severity. But leadership is not merely legal interpretation. Leadership is moral comprehension. It is understanding the symbolic weight of decisions within historical context.

And this decision landed like gasoline on an already raging fire.

At precisely the moment democratic institutions remain under sustained assault by election conspiracists, Polis handed one of the movement’s most celebrated figures a political victory. Trumpworld rejoiced. Election deniers claimed vindication. Colorado Democrats openly revolted. The wizard’s machinery exploded in plain view.

Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain

That line from The Wizard of Oz endures because it captures an eternal political truth: power often depends upon performance more than substance.

Jared Polis mastered performance politics. But performances cannot govern forever.

Eventually citizens ask harder questions. What did this administration actually build? What moral vision did it defend? What crises did it truly solve? What courage did it display when courage became expensive?

And increasingly, the answers feel uncomfortably thin.

The great irony is that Polis spent years cultivating the image of the pragmatic adult in the room — the sophisticated governor above partisan hysteria. Yet his governorship may ultimately be remembered for collapsing into exactly the kind of muddled opportunism he once implied he transcended.

The Emerald City flickers. The smoke machine dies. And standing behind the curtain is not a visionary statesman. Just another politician desperately pulling levers while the audience finally sees the truth.

—————————
From: Politix INK
https://mikebroemmel.com/politix-ink

The post Guest Opinion: Why Jared Polis has disappointed us appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The Erie Town Council is discussing a proposal for a north-south connector road near Erie Municipal Airport. The proposal became controversial following the release of feasibility study on May 5 that found the project would cost roughly $50 million, face major environmental and regulatory hurdles, and save drivers only about 2 minutes of travel time.

The plan l, known as the Airpark North-South Connectivity Study, would connect County Line Road to Colorado Highway 7 through or near airport property south of Vista Parkway. 

At Erie’s April 2 State of the Town event, Mayor Andrew Moore described the proposal as an exploratory effort intended to relieve congestion on Vista Parkway while potentially unlocking economic development opportunities near the airport.

“This is a thought and I just want to stress this is a thought,” Moore said during the event. “This is not a done deal. We’re waiting for the feasibility study to come back.”

Mayor Moore explaining the project to residents at the State of the Town Meeting, April 2.

Moore argued that a new connection to Highway 7 could divert traffic away from Vista Parkway, which experienced increased traffic after County Line Road was rerouted westward as part of Erie’s settlement with Lafayette. He also emphasized the possibility of future commercial growth.

“If you can get the road there, all of a sudden land on both sides of that road becomes economically viable where it isn’t as viable today for economic reasons,” Moore said. “Businesses that could come in there.”

But the feasibility study presented to council May 5 painted a far more complicated picture.

According to town staff and consultants, both proposed roadway alternatives would cost between $49 million and $50 million before right-of-way acquisition costs. 

Alternate routes of the Airpark North-South Connectivity project, presented by town staff on May 5.The study found the routes would provide only about two minutes of travel-time savings compared to existing routes via Coal Creek Boulevard.

The report also concluded that both alternatives scored below 0.50 on benefit-cost analysis metrics commonly used for federal transportation funding competitiveness, making outside funding uncertain.

Staff presentations identified several “high risk” barriers to the project, including floodplain impacts, complications involving a Highway 7 signalized connection requiring Colorado Department of Transportation approval, and impacts to already entitled land uses. Environmental approvals were labeled a “moderate risk.”

Jason Neumeyer Director of Survey Research speaks about feasibility study

The project corridor crosses Coal Creek floodplain areas that would require FEMA review and approval, according to the presentation.

Perhaps most notably, the study’s feasibility findings showed that the staff did not recommend moving forward with either major connector alternative. Instead, staff recommended continued buildout of Coal Creek Boulevard, improvements to Vista Parkway, and developer-funded Airport Drive signal enhancements.

Those conclusions fueled sharp disagreement during the May 5 study session.

Councilmember Dan Hoback argued the project should end immediately, calling the proposal “a solution to nothing.” He also criticized the design concept as unsafe and inconsistent with Erie’s standards. “That’s not a gateway. That’s an alleyway and it’s unsafe for pedestrians and bikes at a horrific cost.” 

Another point of contention centered on whether the road would meaningfully reduce traffic congestion at all. The feasibility study’s traffic redistribution estimates showed only modest reductions in traffic volumes on Vista Parkway and surrounding roads.

Still, Moore resisted fully abandoning the concept, instead advocating for keeping future options open while gathering additional traffic data and exploring whether alternate alignments or developer participation could reduce costs.

During the meeting, developers connected to nearby projects warned that prolonged uncertainty surrounding the roadway could affect planning timelines and investments already underway. Councilmembers also discussed whether continued staff work on the project would take resources away from existing priorities.

At one point, officials acknowledged the connector project is not currently part of Erie’s active work plan.

The contrast between the State of the Town presentation and the May feasibility study discussion shows gaps in public discussion of issues. While the April presentation emphasized congestion relief and economic potential, the May study session focused heavily on floodplain permitting, multimillion-dollar bridge costs, weak funding potential and uncertainty over whether the road would substantially improve traffic conditions at all.

For now,the council  has given no formal direction to proceed or terminate the proposal. Instead, officials appeared split between those who see the concept as a long-term economic and transportation opportunity and those who view it as an expensive, high-risk project searching for a problem to solve.

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The post Erie’s airport connector road faces scrutiny after feasibility study appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

This piece is part of Yellow Scene Magazine’s Satire and Opinion section. It employs parody, irony, and fictionalized scenarios for comedic effect; as such, it should not be interpreted as a factual news report. At Yellow Scene, our opinion pieces speak freely, challenge assumptions, and say the quiet parts out loud (sometimes with a dose of irony).

Americans breathed a collective sigh of relief last Tuesday after the latest CPI report showed inflation was increasing only because of soaring energy prices, war in the Middle East, collapsing supply chains, and a slowly unraveling global economy.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, consumer prices rose 0.6% in April and 3.8% year over year, marking the highest inflation reading since 2023 as gasoline prices, airfare, shelter costs, and basic consumer goods continued climbing.

“Honestly, this is the best-case scenario,” said one visibly exhausted Federal Reserve economist while pouring lighter fluid directly onto a stack of economic forecasts. “At least inflation isn’t being driven by something scary like strong consumer demand or wage growth. This is just geopolitical instability, oil shocks, and broad-based pricing pressure spreading through the entire economy.”

Markets initially fell following the report before rebounding slightly after investors remembered there is no alternative to pretending everything is fine.

Economists noted that gasoline prices surged more than 28% year over year as oil prices remained elevated amid continued tensions involving Iran and the Strait of Hormuz.

“This is temporary,” explained one Wall Street strategist. “And by temporary, I mean until the next temporary inflation event happens.”

Meanwhile, Americans reported adapting to higher prices through a variety of practical measures, including canceling vacations, driving 11 fewer miles per week, replacing beef with despair, and pretending eggs are now a luxury item similar to caviar.

At press time, the Federal Reserve was reportedly debating whether to hold interest rates steady, raise rates again, or simply walk into the ocean.

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The post Americans Relieved Inflation Rising Due to Civilizational Collapse appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

For years, Colorado’s Front Range passenger rail proposal, a long-running effort to create a rail alternative along the heavily congested Interstate 25 corridor, has existed as one of the state’s most persistent transportation ambitions. Now branded the Colorado Connector, or “CoCo,” the project is shifting from concept to early-stage development, bringing renewed scrutiny over cost, funding structure, environmental claims, and long-term viability.

Supporters describe the proposed system as a long-overdue investment in regional mobility that could reduce traffic congestion, improve transportation access, and support economic growth across one of the fastest-growing corridors in the western United States. Critics, however, argue the project carries financial risks and operational uncertainties that could leave taxpayers absorbing long-term subsidies without guaranteed ridership returns.

At the center of the debate is a core question: can Colorado build a passenger rail system that is both functional and financially sustainable?

The Front Range Passenger Rail District envisions a phased rail system connecting Fort Collins, Denver, Colorado Springs, and eventually Pueblo.,The current focus is an initial starter service between Fort Collins and Denver, which planners describe as the most viable first step due to existing infrastructure and population density along the northern Front Range. Recent regional funding actions include approximately $332 million in approved support through RTD and the Colorado Infrastructure Office for early-stage development tied to the starter corridor.

Sal Pace pictured

According to Sal Pace, General Manager of the Front Range Passenger Rail District, the starter service is designed to begin operations in 2029, with three daily round trips between Fort Collins and Denver.

“The initial starter service for the Colorado Connector is estimated at approximately $330 million and will deliver round-trip service between Fort Collins and Denver three times daily beginning in 2029,” Pace said in a statement provided to Yellow Scene. “What makes this approach different is that Colorado is leveraging existing rail infrastructure and partnering directly with freight rail operators, rather than building an entirely new rail corridor from scratch.”

Pace added that the long-term vision includes expansion southward toward Colorado Springs and Pueblo, with potential service extensions targeted around 2032. The phased approach is central to the project’s funding and political strategy, allowing officials to demonstrate early service viability before committing to full corridor buildout. However, the broader financial structure of the project continues to generate debate. Depending on infrastructure requirements, service frequency, station development, and long-term corridor improvements, publicly discussed estimates for the Colorado Connector range from hundreds of millions for initial service to multi-billion-dollar projections for full Front Range expansion. Transportation infrastructure projects of this scale routinely require long-term public investment, but critics argue passenger rail presents unique financial exposure because operating costs continue indefinitely after construction is complete. These costs include staffing, maintenance, fuel or power supply, equipment replacement, insurance, and ongoing infrastructure upkeep.

Drafted path for proposed Railway.

One of the most contested concerns is the potential long-term subsidy required per rider. Some critics have pointed to analyses suggesting costs could approach or exceed $1 per passenger mile depending on final ridership performance and operational conditions. While not an official projection from the district, the figure has become a focal point in broader public debate about rail efficiency compared to other transportation modes. Critics argue that when full lifecycle costs are considered — including infrastructure, operations, and maintenance — passenger rail systems can become significantly more expensive per traveler than driving or commercial air travel on a per-mile basis, particularly if ridership falls below projections. Supporters counter that such comparisons often ignore the broader context of transportation funding in the United States. Highways, airports, and roadway systems also rely heavily on public investment and ongoing subsidies, even if those costs are less visible in fare structures.

According to Pace, the Colorado Connector is designed as a cost-conscious model that prioritizes existing infrastructure to reduce upfront construction costs and accelerate delivery timelines.

“What makes the Colorado Connector notable is that we have intentionally structured it as a cost-conscious public-private partnership that leverages existing infrastructure rather than pursuing far more expensive new rail construction,” Pace said.

He added that all major transportation systems require sustained public investment and that passenger rail should not be evaluated differently in that regard.

The debate ultimately reflects a broader policy question: whether transportation systems should be evaluated by direct cost recovery or by broader impacts such as congestion relief, mobility access, environmental benefit, and long-term economic development.

Colorado’s Front Range corridor continues to experience significant population growth, placing increasing pressure on Interstate 25 and surrounding road networks. Commuters regularly experience variable travel times between Fort Collins, Denver, and Colorado Springs, with congestion driven by population growth, tourism, construction, and accident-related delays. Rail supporters argue that highway expansion alone cannot sustainably accommodate future demand. However, operational challenges remain central to skepticism towards the Colorado Connector as a solution.

The Colorado Connector is expected to rely heavily on existing freight rail corridors during its initial phases, rather than constructing dedicated passenger rail lines. While this approach reduces construction costs significantly, it also introduces limitations related to scheduling coordination, freight priority, travel speeds, and service frequency. Passenger trains operating on shared freight corridors must often navigate dispatch constraints that can affect reliability and consistency compared to dedicated passenger systems Critics argue these constraints may reduce the system’s competitiveness against driving, particularly if service frequency or travel times do not meet public expectations.

Environmental considerations are also a major part of the project’s public messaging. Passenger rail is generally promoted as a lower-emission alternative to single-occupancy vehicle travel, and Colorado Connector has been framed as aligned with broader state efforts to reduce transportation emissions. However, the planned use of diesel or diesel-hybrid equipment during early operations has drawn scrutiny. At the time of publication, the Front Range Passenger Rail District had not provided additional comment from Tara Trujillo regarding the diesel implementation phase. District leadership has stated that diesel-hybrid equipment is intended to provide operational flexibility across existing freight infrastructure while reducing startup costs and allowing service to launch more quickly.

Though Pace noted, that future technological improvements in rail propulsion may allow for cleaner operating systems down the line. 

The tension between long-term environmental goals and near-term operational realities remains one of the most closely watched aspects of the project.

As Colorado moves toward potential implementation, the success of the Colorado Connector will likely depend less on initial branding and more on execution — including ridership levels, service reliability, and long-term financial performance. For now, the project remains suspended between vision and verification, with its ultimate outcome still uncertain. Whether it becomes a defining transportation investment or a costly lesson in infrastructure ambition will depend on whether projected benefits align with real-world performance once service begins.

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The post The Colorado Connector: Visionary Transit or Costly Gamble? appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Update to include the Democratic Party of Denver statement.

Former Mesa County clerk and prominent election denier to be released after months of pressure from Trump and allies.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis has commuted the prison sentence of former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, ordering her release on parole effective June 1.

Peters, a former Mesa County clerk who became one of the nation’s most prominent election deniers, was convicted in 2024 for allowing unauthorized access to election equipment after promoting false claims that the 2020 election had been stolen from Donald Trump. She was sentenced to nearly nine years in prison.

Polis said Friday that Peters committed a crime and deserved prison time, but argued her sentence was too harsh and may have improperly considered her protected speech. The Colorado Court of Appeals upheld Peters’ conviction in April but ordered that she be resentenced, finding concerns with how the original sentence was reached.

However, the decision also comes after months of sustained pressure from President Donald Trump and his allies, who repeatedly called for Peters’ release and portrayed her as a political prisoner. Trump publicly praised Peters and launched a barrage of criticism and political pressure directed at Colorado and Gov. Jared Polis over her imprisonment. Polis’ commutation effectively cuts her sentence to four years and four and a half months.

Polis repeatedly emphasized that the action was not a pardon.

“She’s a convicted felon. She deserves to be a convicted felon. She will remain a convicted felon,” Polis said.

Trump’s push for Peters’ release extended far beyond social media posts. Following his return to office, Colorado officials increasingly argued that Peters’ case had become intertwined with broader political retaliation against the state. State leaders pointed to disputes involving federal funding, proposed cuts and policy actions affecting Colorado, including fights over disaster aid, environmental transportation grants, efforts to dismantle NCAR in Boulder, SNAP requirements and the relocation of U.S. Space Command. Critics argued Peters had become a recurring flashpoint in broader political battles between Trump and Colorado.

Peters’ case also unfolded amid years of attacks on Colorado’s election system from Trump and election denial advocates. Trump repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that Colorado’s mail-in voting system and election process were vulnerable to widespread fraud or manipulation. Election officials across the political spectrum have pushed back on those claims, noting that Colorado’s system has long been regarded as one of the nation’s strongest and most secure. The state’s election process includes paper ballots, signature verification, ballot tracking and post-election audits, and repeated reviews have found no evidence of widespread election fraud.

The reaction across Colorado was immediate. Election officials, Democratic leaders and many residents flooded social media and political channels with criticism, with some calling the decision reckless and others accusing Polis of capitulating to pressure from Trump allies. The controversy places the governor at odds with many within his own political coalition during the final year of his administration.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser called the commutation “mind-boggling and wrong,” arguing that Peters was convicted by a jury for tampering with election equipment and undermining public trust in elections. Weiser warned that “caving to this president will only lead to more abuse from the bullying Trump administration.”

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold also sharply criticized the decision, calling the commutation “an affront to our democracy, the people of Colorado, and election officials across the country.” Griswold warned the move could “validate and embolden the election denial movement” and leave “a dark, dangerous imprint on American democracy for years to come.”

Griswold also pointed to the real-world impact of Peters’ actions. According to the Secretary of State’s office, the Mesa County voting equipment breach forced the county to replace nearly $1 million in election equipment and led Colorado to adopt new protections against insider threats involving election systems.

Matt Crane, executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association and a Republican, warned that the decision sends a dangerous message to election workers. The organization accused Polis of “bending the knee” to political forces undermining confidence in elections and said county clerks felt abandoned by the governor’s decision.

Polis said Peters privately admitted wrongdoing in her clemency application, writing: “I made mistakes four years ago. I misled the Secretary of State when allowing a person to gain access to county voting equipment. That was wrong.”

Peters later thanked Polis publicly and said she plans to continue supporting what she describes as election integrity efforts and prison reform after her release.

A larger question may now follow the commutation: if months of pressure surrounding Tina Peters included threats, funding disputes and public attacks directed at Colorado, what happens next? Critics repeatedly argued that granting clemency would not halt broader political pressure from Trump or his administration. If those pressures continue after Peters’ release, the debate around Polis’ decision may shift from whether it was politically costly to whether it changed anything at all.

Democratic Party of Denver Statement:

The post Polis Commutes Election Denier Tina Peters’ Sentence, Orders June 1 Parole appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Correction (5/13): A previous version of this article incorrectly referenced Rachel Friend in connection with Laura Gonzales; that reference has been removed.

A Boulder resident is being targeted with criminal charges for protesting Israel and their occupation of Gaza. Her attorneys argue the prosecution is a direct violation of her right to free speech. 

A Boulder resident since 2011, Laura Gonzalez has spent the last three years as a prominent advocate for Palestine at city council meetings. Her activism is rooted in a complex personal history: she is the youngest of ten children, the first American born to undocumented immigrants, and the child of a survivor of the Guatemalan genocide. Gonzalez, who is Indigenous with Mayan ancestry, views her vocalism as a direct resistance to the erasure of marginalized people.

“Silence is erasure,” Gonzalez said. “We have 500 years of white-washed history in the United States and I don’t want that to happen to Palestine.”

Gonzalez now faces multiple legal hurdles, including a felony charge following an incident with council member Matt Benjamin. Police arrested her at her home the day after that encounter. She also faces a misdemeanor and a separate accusation of graffiti.

Represented by attorneys Cameron Bedard and Andy McNulty, Gonzalez noted that rules of decorum changed quickly before she was hit with charges like “harassment of a public official.” She maintains the legal action is targeted. “I’m being used as a scapegoat,” Gonzalez stated. “But this is all about Palestine.”

Gonzalez was referencing Boulder’s $35 million dollar portfolio holdings in corporations profiting from Israeli military occupation. Boulder’s portfolio includes Microsoft, which has supported the Israeli military and settlement’s technological needs, and Caterpillar, which supplied bulldozers used in Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza that allegedly buried wounded civilians alive. 

“Boulder is more focused on investments and corporations than it used to be,” Gonzalez emphasized. 

Cameron Bedard, Gonzalez’ defense attorney, also expressed disappointment in Boulder’s shifting priorities. “This fits a growing trend nationally using the legal system to discourage activism,” Bedard remarked. “Boulder is a seemingly progressive bastion, but when over a hundred other progressive cities like Atlanta, San Francisco, and Detroit passed a symbolic ceasefire, Boulder refused to do so.” 

Gonzalez, among other Boulderites, publicly protested the council’s decision, and for three instances of protest she is facing legal retaliation. Andy McNulty is Gonzalez’ civil rights attorney for a charge of “graffiti” for writing “Boulder City Council invests $30m/yr in genocide and ecocide in Palestine” in washable chalk on Pearl Street Mall. McNulty explained, “Freedom of speech violations are broad, but 1st Amendment violations are much narrower [to claim]” 

In a direct response to pro-Palestinian’s protests and increased intensity at city council meetings following the June 1st Pearl Street attack targeting Jewish community members, rules for public comment changed: the time for each speaker was reduced from three minutes to two, the visual component of recording speakers was removed, and a randomization system to pick 20 speakers from the public comment list was put in place. Removing visual components from speakers made it so protestors couldn’t use signs to convey their messages, or fly Palestinian flags, as noted by Gonzalez. 

The randomization system does not have a transparency statement on the city of Boulder’s website, but the city clerk did provide details on the process upon request, including the use of Formstack and Excel’s randomization formula. City Clerk Elesha Johnson said, “The data is sorted after community members that were selected to speak at the last meeting are removed in accordance with our Council Rules of Procedures that prohibits speakers to be selected for 2 consecutive meetings.” 

McNulty, responding to the changes made to public comment, stated “There are no First Amendment violations in changing the rules of public comment. There is no First Amendment reason that city councils have to have a public comment portion at all.” Places like Weld County have removed public comment from their board meetings altogether. He continued, “But what is a first amendment violation: that Laura is banned for a year from city council meetings for speaking out against Israel. That is viewpoint discrimination.” 

One of the incidents for which Gonzalez faces charges, she asked a council member over a megaphone whether “the hundreds of thousands of children that are dead because of your money” mattered. This amongst other pointed questions were cited as “true threats” or “fighting words”, and begs the question of what the line is between dissent and harassment. 

Gonzalez responded to claims of harassment from elected officials, saying “The difference between [the council member’s fear] and my anger is that my anger comes from pain and trauma, and their fear comes from the fear that [pro-Palestinians and Indigenous] are going to do to them what their ancestors did to us, which is not true. All we want is freedom.”

While free speech is being threatened nationwide, Gonzalez’s lawyer Cameron Bedard supports her and others’ right to be politically outspoken, stating, “This is a righteous case. A state institution prosecuting apparatus targeting a person for voicing their concerns and speaking out against genocide is wrong.” He continued, “I don’t care which side of the equation you’re on – if you are pro Zionism or anti-Zionism. The First amendment doesn’t care.” 

As Boulder leaders and residents navigate the legal and social fallout of these cases, the focus remains on the intersection of municipal law and constitutional rights. Gonzalez and her legal team argue that the prosecution serves as an attempt to silence opposition to the city’s financial and political ties to the conflict in Gaza. They contend that the outcome of her case carries implications for all Boulder citizens, regardless of their political stance on international issues.

“They don’t have to like me, or my tone, or my opinions,” Gonzalez said. “I’m still fighting for their rights [to free speech] and if they don’t fight with me and I go down, they’re going to go down too.”

While the city maintains that the charges are a matter of public decorum and safety, the defense insists the criminalization of these protests sets a dangerous precedent. The proceedings continue to draw attention to the boundaries of protected speech within local government chambers.

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The post Is Free Speech legal in Boulder? The Case for 1 Protestor appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

This piece is part of Yellow Scene Magazine’s Satire and Opinion section. It employs parody, irony, and fictionalized scenarios for comedic effect; as such, it should not be interpreted as a factual news report. At Yellow Scene, our opinion pieces speak freely, challenge assumptions, and say the quiet parts out loud (sometimes with a dose of irony).

In a bold reaffirmation that physics, geopolitics, and basic economic gravity are all optional concepts, luxury automaker Ferrari (NYSE: RACE) announced it will maintain full-year guidance despite a rapidly unraveling global situation, confidently betting that enough extremely rich people will remain standing to keep buying $400,000 toys.

Executives at Ferrari reassured investors that while wars, market volatility, and general societal unease may impact “normal companies,” Ferrari operates in what it described as a “completely different dimension where consequences are largely theoretical.”

“Normality is abnormality,” said CEO Benedetto Vigna, which analysts later confirmed is also what happens when your customer base is so wealthy that recessions are mostly something they read about in newsletters.

Despite a drop in shipments in regions affected by geopolitical tensions, Ferrari calmly noted that it simply shipped more cars somewhere else, like a luxury game of global musical chairs played exclusively by oligarchs and hedge fund managers.

It’s all about strategy

Market observers say the strategy hinges on a simple but time-tested assumption: when the world starts falling apart, the rich actually get richer, and more importantly, bored.

“Historically, economic collapse has been very bullish for people who already own everything,” said one analyst. “Once you’ve cornered commodities, housing, and the concept of money itself, what’s left? A limited-edition V12.”

Ferrari’s guidance implies that even if the global economy begins to resemble a slow-motion implosion, there will still be a robust pipeline of ultra-wealthy buyers eager to commemorate the end times with custom leather interiors.

“Sure, supply chains may break, currencies may destabilize, and entire regions may become un-investable,” the company reportedly explained. “But have you considered that someone, somewhere, still needs a hand-stitched dashboard?”

Middle East?  Never heard of it!

Investors initially expressed concern that escalating conflict in the Middle East might impact demand. Ferrari quickly clarified that while war may disrupt logistics, it does not materially impact the purchasing habits of individuals whose net worth exceeds the GDP of small nations.

The company also highlighted growing demand for customization, a segment in which clients pay additional sums to ensure their Ferrari is subtly different from the other 12 Ferraris they already own.

At press time, Ferrari was reportedly exploring new strategic opportunities, including a “Post-Apocalypse Edition” model featuring reinforced suspension, gold-plated cup holders, and a glove compartment large enough to store multiple offshore account documents.

Analysts say the biggest risk to Ferrari’s outlook is not war, inflation, or financial instability, but the unlikely scenario in which rich people stop existing.

“Look, if billionaires disappear, Ferrari has a problem,” one strategist admitted. “But until then, the thesis is simple: the worse things get, the more someone, somewhere, will want to celebrate surviving it – with a Ferrari.”

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House Bill 26-1337 moved through fiscal revision this morning, advancing a legislative effort to expand Colorado’s nuclear energy footprint. The bill establishes an ambitious state policy to begin construction on at least one nuclear project by 2040. To streamline development, the measure designates the Colorado Energy Office as the central permitting coordinator, providing a single point of contact to help developers navigate complex regulatory hurdles. The bill also incentivizes utility participation by allowing companies to recoup up to $20 million in expenditures for necessary siting and design studies.

The recent fiscal revision transforms these policy goals into an operational framework by creating the “Advanced Nuclear Energy and Technical Assistance Office.” This office will be staffed by a dedicated state nuclear engineer and a project manager. Rather than drawing from general tax dollars, the office will be self-funded through an annual fee of up to $1.15 million charged to developing utilities.

HB26-1337 passed the House Energy & Environment Committee last week with a narrow 7–6 vote. While all Republican committee members supported the measure, Democrats were split. High-profile party members like Representative Junie Joseph voted against it, while Democrats Alex Valdez (a co-sponsor), Amy Paschal, and Manny Rutinel joined Republicans to advance the bill. Ty Winter, a co-sponsor, described the legislation as a “meaningful step for nuclear energy and Colorado’s energy future.” He also praised nuclear power for providing “reliable base load power, good-paying blue-collar jobs and stability for energy-producing communities.”

Valdez and Winter did not respond to requests for further comment by the time of publication.

Despite this support, the bill faces intense opposition from grassroots organizations. The Colorado Renewable Energy Society (CRES) issued a formal letter of opposition, arguing that “nuclear is the exact opposite of clean” because it produces waste that remains “dangerously radioactive for tens of thousands of years.” CRES also highlighted the economic risks, citing Georgia’s Vogtle Units 3 and 4 as a warning. Those reactors were completed seven years behind schedule at a cost of $36.8 billion, leading to a 23.7% increase in ratepayer bills. Opponents further argued that the 15-year timeline for nuclear construction is too slow compared to the one-to-two-year window for wind and solar projects.

Ean Tafoya of Colorado GreenLatinos told the Colorado Sun that the bill is a “tone-deaf […] betrayal” of environmental justice. Critics also raised concerns regarding the high water-usage rates required for nuclear facilities, a sensitive issue as many Colorado cities face chronic droughts.

The bill’s future remains uncertain as it faces a deadline of May 13, 2026, when the General Assembly adjourns. To become law, it must pass second and third readings in the House before moving through the Senate. CRES has already begun mobilizing opposition by releasing a voter toolkit to help citizens vocalize their concerns to lawmakers.

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This piece is part of Yellow Scene Magazine’s Satire and Opinion section. It employs parody, irony, and fictionalized scenarios for comedic effect; as such, it should not be interpreted as a factual news report. At Yellow Scene, our opinion pieces speak freely, challenge assumptions, and say the quiet parts out loud (sometimes with a dose of irony).

In a development economists are calling “technically concerning but spiritually very on brand,” the United States confirmed this week that its national debt has officially surpassed the size of its entire economy, reaching just over 100% of GDP for the first time since World War II.

At a press conference, Treasury representatives emphasized that the government remains fully committed to fiscal responsibility, noting that it currently spends $1.33 for every $1 it collects, a ratio they described as “aggressive, but not technically illegal.”

Government Confident Debt Will Fix Itself Eventually

Lawmakers acknowledged the growing debt but stressed that meaningful action would require “difficult choices,” which they confirmed will continue to be postponed indefinitely.

“We absolutely have a plan,” one senator said. “Step one is continued borrowing. Step two is hoping interest rates remain friendly. Step three is retiring before step one stops working.”

Despite the milestone, markets remained largely stable, with investors expressing confidence that the U.S. will continue to meet its obligations, given the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency.

“Sure, the debt is high,” one investor said. “But where else are we going to put our money? Europe? Japan? We all agreed years ago that this was a group project.”

Still, some economists warned that persistently high debt could eventually lead to higher interest rates, reduced private investment, and slower long-term growth. Though officials were quick to clarify that these risks remain theoretical until they become unavoidable.

Nation Reassured That Everything Is Fine, Probably

At press time, policymakers confirmed that, while the debt situation may appear concerning, it remains fully under control, provided that deficits continue, borrowing remains cheap, and no one demands immediate accountability.

“Look, we’ve crossed 100%,” one official said. “But it’s not like we’re going to 110%.”

He then paused, reviewed updated projections, and added:

“Okay, but we’re definitely not going to 175%.”

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Senate Bill 26-097, a Colorado bill that would have decriminalized commercial sexual activity throughout the state, was dropped a few weeks ago just hours before it was set to come up for a first vote in the state Capitol. The legislation sought to repeal state criminal offenses related to sex work, including soliciting, patronizing, and owning or controlling a place for such activity. While the bill would have maintained penalties for pandering involving intimidation, its primary goal was to replace the term “prostitution” with “commercial sexual activity” to distinguish consensual work from exploitation.

This distinction is central to the argument for reform, as supporters suggest that current law conflates consensual adult sex work with human trafficking. While trafficking relies on force, fraud, or coercion, sex work involves consensual activity between adults. Proponents argue that removing criminal penalties is not an endorsement of the industry but a recognition that criminalization pushes the trade further underground. This displacement makes it harder for law enforcement to identify genuine trafficking victims and harder for those victims to seek help.

State Senator Nick Hinrichsen, sponsor of the stalled SB 26-097, photographed in 2022. Photo from Jeffrey Beall

Despite these arguments, the bill failed to gain the political momentum necessary for a hearing. State Senator Nick Hinrichsen, a lead sponsor, confirmed that the measure lacked the votes to clear the Senate Judiciary Committee. Rather than advancing the bill to a contentious hearing where sex workers feared public exposure and harassment, Hinrichsen chose to postpone the legislation indefinitely. “Without the votes to get the bill out of committee, it was not worth the risk,” he told Colorado Politics. Though he is not running for re-election, Hinrichsen noted that the effort was a significant step in educating the public on why the current system fails.

The safety concerns cited by Colorado supporters are mirrored in other jurisdictions and research. In Maine, selling sex has been decriminalized to make reporting crimes easier, and research from New Zealand suggests that decriminalization allows workers to feel more able to refuse dangerous clients. Pasha Ripley, founder of Parasol Patrol and executive director of Red Light Sources International, argues that criminalization creates a “perceived institutional impunity” for those who commit violence against workers. As Ripley told Yellow Scene Magazine, “Criminalizing sex work does not end exploitation, it just makes it more dangerous.”

Beyond local laws, federal actions like SESTA-FOSTA have further complicated the safety landscape for sex workers. While intended to stop trafficking, these laws shut down websites that workers used to vet clients and negotiate safety. Researcher Danielle Blunt notes that these policy failures often stem from a lack of direct engagement with the community.

Advocates in London demand legal protection and decriminalization outside the Houses of Parliament in 2019. Similar global movements for safety and autonomy informed the arguments behind Colorado’s stalled Senate Bill 26-097.
Photo from Koca Vehbi

“They’re coming at it from an academic standpoint with no real experience. And a lot of what they’re asking about is based on stereotypes,” Blunt told WHYY.

This disconnect suggests that media portrayals and academic research often ignore the violent crimes and safety issues workers face due to their legal status.

The failure of Senate Bill 97 highlights a persistent gap in how society regulates sexual activity and addresses exploitation. For many advocates, the exclusion of sex workers’ voices is the primary reason for their ongoing vulnerability. Any successful future policy will likely require lawmakers to center the voices of those most affected by the law to ensure it provides meaningful protection rather than further marginalization.

While the bill is stalled for now, the debate over autonomy and harm reduction remains active in the state Capitol. Hinrichsen remains hopeful that the conversation will eventually lead to a policy that prioritizes the safety of all involved. As he told Yellow Scene, “big changes do not often happen on the first attempt. Some policies can be a major shift, and they can take time.”

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The post Why Colorado’s Sex Work Decriminalization Bill Vanished appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

At recent public meetings in Erie, Colorado, residents have pressed town officials on whether growth can be slowed, citing concerns about water supply, traffic and infrastructure capacity.

But town officials may have their hands tied.

A review of town planning documents, development agreements and recent approvals shows that a substantial portion of Erie’s future housing, land use and infrastructure commitments is already locked in through legally binding entitlements, limiting how much current leaders can change.

Several of Erie’s largest developments illustrate how much growth it has already committed to.

The Redtail Ranch project, located north of Baseline Road and west of Interstate 25, is one of the clearest examples. The development includes more than 500 homes and spans roughly 300 acres. It moved forward in 2025 after the town settled a lawsuit with the developer, despite earlier attempts by the council to block it.

As part of that process, the developer invested more than $10 million in environmental remediation over several years . Once a project reaches a certain stage, denying it can expose the town to significant financial liability. Town officials indicated that continuing the legal fight could have cost Erie tens of millions of dollars, a risk the town ultimately chose to avoid.

Erie Highlands Open space Courtesy of the Town of Erie

Another major project, Spring Hill, is embedded in long-term approvals. Town records show the development includes 632 residential lots across approximately 301.89 acres south of Highway 52 and west of County Road 3.

Additional filings across the town reinforce the scale of already-approved growth. Summerfield includes multiple phases totaling hundreds of homes, including 300 single-family lots and 195 townhome units on more than 295 combined acres.

Parkdale, another development area, includes at least 141.55 acres of planned residential construction.

Together, these projects alone represent well over 1,000 housing units that have already received approval and are progressing through final platting and construction phases.

Town planning records show that large portions of Erie’s remaining developable land are already designated for residential or mixed-use development through planned developments and annexations.

• The Spring Hill project covers more than 300 acres.
• The Redtail Ranch site spans roughly 300 acres.
• The North Station planned development amendment encompasses approximately 597 acres near Weld County roads 7, 10 and 12 and Interstate 25.

In addition, proposed and ongoing annexations continue to expand the town’s development footprint. A 2026 application for the Front Range Landfill area includes annexation of 159 acres and rezoning of a total 630-acre site along Weld County Road 5. These figures point to several square miles of land, much of it already entitled or in active planning stages,being committed to future development.

The financial structure behind these developments further limits the town’s flexibility.

In Redtail Ranch, more than $10 million has already been spent by the developer on cleanup and site preparation.

Development agreements across Erie also typically require developers to provide financial guarantees for infrastructure improvements, such as roads, utilities and drainage systems. A 2016 Vista Ridge development agreement, for example, included formal acceptance of financial guarantees tied to required improvements, a common structure for infrastructure funding.

Vista Ridge neighborhood Photo courtesy of Erie Protectors

Those guarantees are tied to approved plans, meaning that once agreements are executed, both the town and developers have financial stakes in seeing projects move forward.

At the same time, municipal finances are often structured around anticipated growth. Impact fees, property taxes and future retail activity tied to new housing are incorporated into long-term planning assumptions. While exact revenue totals vary by project and phase, the town’s willingness to settle litigation in Redtail Ranch highlights how financial exposure can restrict future decisions.

Even before full buildout, development generates revenue streams for the town.

These include building permit fees, impact fees and property tax revenue as homes are completed and occupied. Infrastructure built by developers—such as roads, water systems and public improvements—is often transferred to the town, reducing the need for direct municipal capital spending. Once a development is completed that was paid for using town bonds, the sales tax from that property is used to pay back the initial investment and for future developments.

However, those revenues are phased over time and are often offset by the cost of providing services to new residents. That dynamic is one reason growth is frequently built into long-term fiscal planning, making it difficult to abruptly halt projects without financial consequences.

The legal framework surrounding these projects is a key factor in why they continue moving forward.

Once development agreements are approved and vested rights are established, municipalities face limits on their ability to impose new restrictions. In the case of Redtail Ranch, approval of the settlement and preliminary plat effectively established the project’s entitlement framework, reducing the town’s ability to add new substantive conditions without reopening litigation.

That pattern applies more broadly across Erie’s development landscape. Projects that have progressed through annexation, zoning and preliminary plat stages are often legally protected, leaving current officials with limited options beyond managing how those developments are implemented.

For many residents, the scale of already-approved development is not immediately visible.

Public debate often centers on whether growth should continue at its current pace. But planning documents show that much of that growth has already been approved in earlier years, under different assumptions about infrastructure, water supply and community priorities.

The result is a disconnect between what residents believe can still be changed and what is already contractually obligated.

Despite those constraints, not all land in Erie is fully vested. The town still has authority over future annexations, zoning decisions on unentitled land and aspects of design and infrastructure timing.

Understanding how much of that growth is already set in motion may be essential to understanding what choices remain for the citizens of Erie.

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The Erie Town Council considered a major residential development and heard concerns from residents about new event permitting requirements during its April 14 meeting.

Council members held a public hearing on the Spring Hill preliminary plat, a proposed residential development north of Morgan Hill that would bring 632 housing units to roughly 300 acres.

Town staff said the project includes a mix of single-family homes, duplexes and townhomes, along with open space, trails and a future school site.

“The project area is designated […] as low density residential,” said senior planner Harry Brennan, noting the proposal aligns with the town’s comprehensive plan and falls within expected density ranges.

Plans for the development include approximately 35 acres of public open space, additional private open space and trail connections throughout the site.

Planning Diagram Courtesy of the City

The project also requires continued remediation of at least one former oil and gas site before final approvals can be granted.

“The town would not be able to approve a final plat […] until the point where that cleanup is completed,” Brennan said.

The applicant, represented by PCS Group, emphasized that oil and gas operations would be removed from the property as part of the project.

“There will be no more oil and gas operations on this property,” said planner John Preswitch.

Following the hearing, council is expected to consider the proposal as it moves through the approval process.

Earlier in the meeting, council members approved a consent agenda that included a series of routine but wide-ranging municipal actions.

Items approved included intergovernmental agreements, infrastructure-related contracts and updates to town code, along with appointments and administrative approvals tied to ongoing town operations. The consent agenda also covered agreements related to public works and utilities, reflecting continued investment in infrastructure and maintenance as the town grows.

Council additionally adopted proclamations recognizing community initiatives and observances, continuing a pattern of formal recognition for local programs and national awareness efforts.

The approvals were passed unanimously without separate discussion, a common practice for items considered non-controversial or administrative in nature.

During public comment, several residents raised concerns about new permitting requirements affecting community events, particularly the Erie High School senior parade.

Residents said they were recently informed of a 90-day permit requirement and changes to support from town departments, creating uncertainty for an event that has traditionally been organized by volunteers.

“We’re just asking for that to be waived so we can meet the requirements for the new permit,” said Adrienne Hillary, who is helping organize the parade.

Kate Arnold, vice president of the Erie High School Booster Club, said the changes have strained relationships between volunteers and town staff.

Kate Arnold addressing the council.

“The relationship between our town administration and the volunteers […] has become unnecessarily adversarial,” Arnold said.

Arnold added that increased requirements risk discouraging community participation.

“It feels very much like we are effectively being discouraged from building the community ties that keep our youth engaged,” she said.

Jessica Ferman, who is organizing the school’s after-prom event, said communication about the new requirements has been inconsistent.

“If you put these kind of processes in place, you need to advertise it and you need to let us know,” Ferman said.

Other speakers urged the council to waive the 90-day requirement for this year’s parade and provide clearer guidance for future events.

Additional public comment addressed broader concerns, including communication with diverse communities and the importance of multilingual outreach in the face of ICE presence in the community.

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By Larry Lagarto

Featured photo: The Strait of Extortion

The Toddler-Boss Framework

To understand current U.S. foreign policy, abandon the idea of “geopolitical strategy” and look instead to the logic of the “transactional bully.” The Trump doctrine is a three-headed monster: a toddler’s need to “make things go boom” to feel tough, a mob boss’s view of every interaction as a shakedown, and a bottomless greed that sees the world as its personal gold mine and views stability as an obstacle to profit.

When you look past the daily rhetoric, a chillingly consistent pattern emerges. From the seizure of South American assets to the attacks on Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the goal isn’t “democracy” or “stability”—it’s the creation of a global energy cartel where the U.S. President sits as the primary broker.

Profit Through Chaos: The $100+ Barrel Strategy

For years, conventional wisdom suggested that high gas prices hurt presidents. Trump has flipped that script by leaning into the U.S. position as a net exporter. On March 12, 2026, he laid the cards on the table in a Truth Social post:

“The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money.”

– Washington Times

By heightening tensions in the Middle East, he created a “Chaos Premium.” On March 23, standing on a tarmac before his flight to Mar-a-Lago, he revealed his vision for the Strait of Hormuz—not as an international waterway, but as a joint venture, essentially as a tollbooth for the world’s economy:

[The Strait will be jointly controlled by]
“Maybe me. Me and the Ayatollah, whoever the next one is.”

– NY Times

This isn’t a joke. It’s a confession. By threatening to “decimate” Iran one day and offering “joint control” the next, he keeps the market in a state of permanent whiplash, ensuring that oil prices remain high enough to enrich his “preferred” domestic producers while extraction costs remain stagnant.

The Venezuela “Acquisition”

The most concrete example of this resource imperialism is the ongoing occupation of Venezuela. Following the January 2026 “Decapitate and Delegate” operation that saw the capture of Nicolás Maduro, Trump has been explicit about the spoils.

On January 7, he announced that the U.S. would seize up to 50 million barrels of Venezuelan oil to be sold at market rates, with the proceeds managed by the U.S. Treasury (Al Jazeera). He essentially told the world, “We have so much oil we don’t know what to do with it,” while simultaneously telling allies, “You should buy it from us.” (whitehouse.gov)

By putting Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in charge of “running” the country, he has transformed a sovereign nation into a wholly-owned subsidiary of the U.S. Executive Branch.

And Now, What? The Ceasefire as a Shakedown

As of this writing (mid-morning, April 8, 2026), a fragile two-week ceasefire has been reached. Oil prices have dipped to $92 a barrel, but this is not a return to normalcy. It is a strategic pivot. Here is what we can expect next:

• The “security surcharge”: The ceasefire terms allow for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, but with “technical limitations” and “coordination” with the U.S.-backed forces. This is the “Tollbooth” phase. Expect “favored” tankers to pass freely, while others are hit with “protection fees” or forced to buy American-sourced LNG.
• Energy loyalty pacts: Trump’s rhetoric to allies—”Go get your own oil”—is a threat, not a suggestion. He is forcing Europe and Asia into 20-year contracts for U.S. and Venezuelan oil at inflated prices, using the threat of a renewed blockade as the primary negotiation tool.
• The privatization kickback: In Venezuela, look for the “temporary favors” to become permanent. The administration has already begun issuing licenses to specific U.S. oil giants while blocking others. This creates a “pay-to-play” system where corporate loyalty to the administration is rewarded with exclusive access to the world’s largest oil reserves.
• Escalation to renew profit: When the cast of favored oil companies changes, when one executive or oligarch outbids another for his favor, look for military escalations to bump the price back up until the new players are in place to profit.

Conclusion

The flip-flopping and chaos may be signs of incompetence, but they are also the strategy. By maintaining just enough violence to keep prices high, and just enough “ceasefire” to keep the oil flowing into the hands of his allies, the President has realized the ultimate mob boss dream: he isn’t just part of the market; he is the market.

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The post The Hormuz Tollbooth: Resource Imperialism in the Second Trump Term appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

On June 30, Democrats in Colorado will decide who makes the midterm ballot in November. It is another in a string of high-stakes elections in which voters feel their agency diminished. While the process may feel opaque, the state’s unique process offers various ways for candidates and locals to participate.

There are two ways for prospective candidates to reach the democratic primary ballot: assembly and petition. 

Shad Murib

“What I like about Colorado is we give myriad options for candidates,” said Shad Murib, chair of Colorado Democrats, “Colorado increases options to get on the ballot for everybody.” 

Candidates can build a grassroots following during the caucus and assembly process. 

“If you’re someone who is not well known or doesn’t have an established base,” said Carol Burkhart, on her 54th year working at Weld County Democrats, “going through the assembly process is where you develop a name, you pick up volunteers, you pick up donors.” Candidates partaking in assembly must receive more than 30% of the delegate share at each assembly to advance.

Caucuses are the first of three gatherings in the assembly cycle. Any registered democrat can turn up to the precinct caucus in their area. Typically of smaller attendance, delegates are selected based on their views and the candidates they say they will vote for at the assemblies. Delegates advance from precinct caucus to county assembly and then state assembly, where their votes determine which candidates advance to the primary ballot.

In 2022, Colorado Democrats changed the caucus process. Traditionally, Democrats voted in a preference poll at caucus, electing delegates to go on to assembly for key races. Preference polls now occur at county assembly, seemingly stripping the caucus of its utility. 

“It was to make it easier on counties to have fewer items to keep track of throughout the process and kind of winnow down the delegate field,” Murib said. “It’s not necessarily a decision that I supported.” 

The state party chooses the highest-contested race to poll for. In 2026, it was the state Senate race in which Julie Gonzalez received overwhelming support.

Without polling, the work at the caucus seems paltry to some Dems. Calls abound for shedding the caucus altogether, in favor of a leaner system straight to the primary, a structure many states have already adopted. 

Murib, however, values Colorado’s rare setup, “I maintain that our hybrid model is worth defending because it builds strong and resilient campaigns for the general election.” 

Without a caucus, essential democratic work, deciding who will be a delegate, electing judges and precinct organizers, gathering ideas for the party platform, would vanish.

Additionally, some have floated ending the caucus for what they view as an inherently exclusionary structure. It is conducted in person, on the weekend, in March and April. They argue that the system by nature, alienates those working weekends, full-time caregivers, and others unable to travel to be in person.

Petition candidates can acquire verified signatures from their constituents, between 500 and 1500 per congressional district. They then only need 10% of the delegate vote at the assembly to make the ballot. Some speculate that candidates will pivot to petition due to fear of their delegate turnout at the assembly. This is how incumbent senator John Hickenlooper will appear in 2026, after dropping out of the assembly process on March 13. Theoretically, candidates acquire signatures by knocking on doors, but some petitioners hire private firms to do it for them, with costs estimated anywhere from $15-$60 per signature.

This year, many incumbents have relied on the petition method, using their wealth and established support for a method requiring fewer delegate votes to advance. Meanwhile upstart, political outsiders have exercised the assembly process, condemning the establishment’s status quo and weaponizing populist sentiment.

“I always say the best campaigns are the ones who both go through the caucus process and the petition process,” Murib said, “you can build the strongest campaign that’s ready to win when you go through both.”

In counties like Boulder, at the caucus, Democrats choose who will represent them as delegates in the further assemblies. In Weld, everyone who wants to be a delegate gets to go to the county assembly. These policies belie the criticisms that the process is only for political “insiders.” Of people who cry foul that the process is only for elites, Murib said “join us and help us make it better.”

Ansel Barnes, an electrician in Erie, participated in his first caucus this year, continuing to garner votes that sent him all the way to the state assembly, where he fulfilled his promise to those who sent him there: voting for progressives. “I will be going to push out incumbents,” he said, “to put in new people who run clean campaigns.” He described himself as a “populist” and said that his youth (he’s 30) inspired support amongst the typically aging demographic patronizing local politics.

Barnes recalled that at the state assembly on March 28, there were 127 delegates from Boulder County. He said some delegates went in with an uncommitted designation for races, opting to choose on the day from candidate presentations. Delegate fidelity remains an open-ended aspect of the process.

“There’s no guarantee that they’re going to vote for the person they pledged to,” said Andrew Nicla, communications manager at Colorado State Dems.

Barnes was particularly interested in the race for State House District 19 between Anil Pesaramelli and Jillaire McMillan. The race exemplified a perceived fissure in the party. To Barnes, McMillan’s endorsements from establishment Dems raised concern. Pesaramelli, on the other hand, represented “people who are actually doing the work.” At the state assembly, both received above the 30% vote threshold and will be on the ballot in June.

Some counties, like Weld, hosted their first in-person assemblies since 2018. Burkhart said the supply of local Dems hoping to be delegates has never been higher, “it is a happy problem to have when you have more people who want to run as delegates to higher assemblies than you have places for them.” Colorado Democrats used AirTable, a digital voting platform, for the first time, which crashed under the weight of traffic at Weld. The new system overloaded at their March 21st assembly, resulting in the county having to email ballots out, delaying the results until the following Monday.

Like many things of our electoral system, Colorado’s is a process whose structure sometimes obscures the will of its participants. Evidence of its inconvenience confirms to some what they have long suspected, a belief that’s infiltrated much of modern politics: that the system is unfair, that it benefits the ruling class, that the odds are stacked against real people. They cite the weakening of the caucus, cumbersome steps, and feeling like the process is only for those who already have a seat at the table.

Inconvenience, however, does not equate to malice. The mixture of candidates and the party platform is as progressive as it’s ever been. Many candidates have arrived on the ballot from the ground up. A publicly-funded healthcare system being a highlight, the party has leaned into other popular progressive policies like establishing a Department of Economic Justice to redistribute wealth. Colorado Democrats say “justice is the destination,” of their platform.

While the party may be at what Murib described as a “crossroads,” the themes liberals care about remain the same. Equitable taxation, humane immigration policy, and preserving democracy unite Democrats in Colorado. “I don’t think it’s actually that divided,” Murib said, “we all care about the same things.” The party said they doubled total turnout and tripled youth turnout this year. One in four delegates, they said, were under forty. 

The evolution of the Colorado Democratic party mirrors that of the party writ-large, one desperate for new leadership and running out of time in their fight against a surging authoritarian right. A split between career politicians and populist outsiders has furthered an identity crisis some argue the awkward nature of Colorado’s system exacerbates. This same system, however, will have as many progressives on the ballot as in recent memory, and hasn’t cushioned incumbents. Colorado’s structure still values local beginnings, with a clear path for neighborhood democrats, whether they be candidates or delegates, to work their way from caucus all the way up to the primary ballot. 

In today’s corporate world, finding true, honest journalism is getting harder, and that includes local news, too. From corporate takeovers to the nonprofit industry, finding reporters willing to ask the hard questions seems like a thing of the past.

Which is why Yellow Scene remains fiercely independent and never, ever accepts quid pro quo. We are only beholden to our readers, not funders.

The truth is, we really cannot do this without you. If you value our journalism, become a sustaining supporter for $8 a month. Your support keeps honest reporting alive and gets the hard copy delivered to your home.

The post The Primary Filter: Colorado’s Shifting Caucus System appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

On April 6, Weld County Commissioners approved a county code that will define data centers and where they can be developed. The ordinance (2026?01) updates Chapter 23 of Weld County Code by adding language about data centers, and guidelines on where they can be built. While not specific to one data center project, it adds parameters to what future projects can look like. 

The ordinance applies to the entire unincorporated Weld County, and is not specific to one particular site. 

The new code clarifies data centers as, “A building or buildings used to house information technology or telecommunications equipment with which digital information is processed, transferred, and/or stored, with no limitation on peak electrical load.” 

This definition was amended following discussions and public comment during the April 6 Board of Commissioners meeting. 

The code adds that data centers can “include associated ancillary structures, including but not limited to offices, security buildings, cooling water tanks, and backup power systems with a total generation of less than fifty megawatts.”

Commissioners clarified during the board meeting that the 50 watt limitation is just for backup power, and does not limit the total power of the project. 

Several Weld County residents spoke during the public comment to share concerns about the possible impacts of AI data centers. Concerns they pointed out were possible noise pollution, water usage, and electric consumption. Several spoke out and asked the board to pause their decision. 

“Put on the brakes a little bit,” one resident said. 

A Loveland resident highlighted the current drought in Colorado,  as a reason to delay moving forward with the new Code Ordinance. 

“We understand well how precious water is in the world, but especially here in Colorado for our farms and ranchers,” she shared.

Another resident was more blunt in their reservations , “We don’t have the water for these things.”

Weld County Board of Commissioners discuss Code Ordinance 2026-01 with the Department of Planning Services.

A.I. data centers across the country consumed around 17 billion gallons of water in 2023, according to the Association for Cleaning and Facility Solutions. Data centers are projected to be using approximately 68 billion gallons of water by 2028. Globally, they are expected to consume anywhere from 4.2 to 6.6 billion cubic meters of water in 2027, according to a 2023 study published by Cornell University.

David Eisenbraun, the director of Weld County’s Department of Planning and Development Services, told Yellow Scene Magazine that Colorado is familiar with water scarcity as a semi-arid state. Future developments could utilize dry cooling or closed loop systems, which rely on less water than some of the systems currently being used by data centers. 

“However, we did not choose to mandate or specify a particular type of technology because in the data center world, technology is changing so rapidly, that was something we advised them [the board of commissioners] to not try and dictate,” Eisenbraun said.

As of April 7, over 40% of Weld County was in a severe drought, and around 38% was in an extreme drought. Just under 20% of the county was in a moderate drought. 

Despite the worry some people shared, other residents were in support of the ordinance. One Weld County citizen felt it would “level the playing field,” while another stated the county needs to “keep moving forward.” 

Code Ordinance 2026-01 was approved with a 4-1 vote, following around 3 hours of public comment from more than 25 residents. April 6 was the third reading of the ordinance, and each one included public comment. 

Scott James was the “no” vote. 

The Board of Commissioners first read the code in January. Since that time, board members have investigated data centers already in Colorado, and other parts of the country. They identified what worked well and what didn’t, according to the board members. 

In addition to defining data centers, this ordinance also lays out where they can be built. With approval from a Use by Special Review (USR), they can be built in the I-1 (Light Industrial) zone. Centers can also be built in other Industrial Zone districts after being approved by an administrative Site Plan Review. The Use by Special Reviews are required to hold a public hearing in front of the Planning Commission and Board of County Commissioners. 

The approved code ordinance also prohibits data centers being built on agricultural land, requires  “Will Serve” letters for electricity, and implements dBA noise regulations. 

Weld County is not the only place in Colorado where residents are vocal about opposing data center developments. 

Tensions are on the rise in Colorado Springs due to a proposed data center near the Garden of the Gods, KOAA News5 reported. The crowd at a recent public forum was large enough to warrant two meetings, with a third one to be scheduled in the future. The debate got heated at times, according to KOAA, as several in attendance were clear about their opposition to the project. 

There are currently more than 50 data centers across 5 markets in Colorado, according to Data Center Map. The markets are Loveland, Walsenberg, Fort Collins, Denver, and Colorado Springs. Denver is the largest market, with 46 total data centers. 

In February, Denver City Council announced that they would file a moratorium on new data centers. It will last for several months, if approved, but will not stop current projects. The pause will allow city officials to go over guardrails and review regulations regarding new data center developments in the city, according to Mayor Mike Johnston. Projects that were already permitted or are already underway might be expected to follow any new regulations. 

Eisenbraun told Yellow Scene that the Department of Planning Services is not concerned about the environmental impacts of developing data centers in Weld County.

“We have good state agencies who can regulate the air quality permitting side,” Eisenbraun said. “We have a great county environmental health department who’s very good at managing wastewater, septic permits, things like that.”

Eisenbraun hopes that in the future, residents can see the potential benefits of data centers in Weld County.

“With these data centers being large property tax producers and then low infrastructure impacts, minimal impact on roads and traffic and things like that, I do think people are going to see the benefit of these when they’re done in the correct zone districts and properly mitigated,” he said.

A handful of data center projects have expressed interest in Weld County as a development site, according to Eisenbraun. However, no plans have been approved yet. 

In today’s corporate world, finding true, honest journalism is getting harder, and that includes local news, too. From corporate takeovers to the nonprofit industry, finding reporters willing to ask the hard questions seems like a thing of the past.

Which is why Yellow Scene remains fiercely independent and never, ever accepts quid pro quo. We are only beholden to our readers, not funders.

The truth is, we really cannot do this without you. If you value our journalism, become a sustaining supporter for $8 a month. Your support keeps honest reporting alive and gets the hard copy delivered to your home.

The post Weld County Adds Data Centers to County Code During Drought appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Erie officials outlined an ambitious vision for the town’s future last Thursday during a State of the Town presentation,  yet much of the evening left out key details that would determine whether that growth is financially and environmentally sustainable.

Colton Jonjak Plahn and Jillaire McMillan, candidates for state House District 19, attended to hear from residents. Councilmembers Baer, O’Connor, and Pesaramelli were in attendance, as well as Mayor Pro Tem Brandon Bell. Mayor Andrew Moore delivered a wide-ranging presentation covering development, infrastructure, water supply and economic planning before opening the floor to the audience. 

The audience’s questions, particularly around water supply, mineral rights, and infrastructure funding, quickly became the focus of the discussion, as residents pressed officials on decisions that could shape the town’s long-term trajectory. 

Outside the event, roughly 25 residents gathered beforehand, some holding signs, protesting the lack of transparency surrounding mineral rights, recent land use decisions, and the firing of Town Manager Malcolm Fleming.

The meeting was undergirded with tension as the town faces differing visions on how to continue to develop. 

Erie’s Growth and Home-Rule Governance

Many of the issues discussed at the State of the Town meeting  were driven by Erie’s growth.

Erie’s population has grown rapidly over two decades. The town had roughly 1,200 residents in 1990 and about 8,000 by 2000, before expanding to more than 40,000 today.

Much of Erie’s current growth is tied to development agreements and approvals dating back years or decades, including large-scale projects such as Vista Ridge and Redtail Ranch. These “vested” contracts can legally constrain the town’s decisions on current and future development.

The town is now in its first full year operating under home rule, which expands local authority by allowing towns to create a charter, which is a local constitution. A home rule municipality can pass its own ordinances and determine governmental structure without needing state legislature to determine taxation, land use, and local regulations. Under home rule, council members are elected by district, while the mayor is elected town-wide.

However, home rule does not extend to key constraints shaping Erie’s future. Oil and gas operations remain largely regulated at the state level, while water rights are governed by Colorado law.

During the town hall, Mayor Andrew Moore cited the town’s recent community survey as justification for his approach to affordable housing, saying residents support it only under limited conditions. 

“Affordable housing is important to us — so long as you don’t use Erie taxpayer money to subsidize it,” Moore said, adding that residents are open to projects funded through state or federal sources rather than local revenue. He framed the survey as a key tool guiding his decisions, describing it as evidence that town leadership is acting in alignment with public sentiment.

Former Mayor Justin Brooks disputed Moore’s interpretation.

 “He made it sound like the survey results said that the town of Erie supports affordable housing as long as it doesn’t use taxpayer money. That’s not what the survey said at all,” Brooks said. 

As previously reported and as seen in the survey, residents ranked affordable housing as among the town’s top priority.

Brooks added that this is not the first time that Moore has minimized or misframed what the survey demonstrated about a resident’s priorities.

Brooks noted, “Housing affordability is a top issue.”

Throughout the meeting, Moore’s perspective on growth was clarified as he argued that reaching a “critical mass”  was key to attracting businesses and services.

“In a community, you’re really either growing or you’re dying,” he said.

Some residents questioned whether that approach is sustainable given infrastructure demands and resource limits, particularly water.

Mayor Claims Capital Needs Outpace Funding

One of the clearest claims made during the presentation was financial: that Erie lacks sufficient capital funding to meet projected infrastructure needs.

Mayor Andrew Moore told residents the town “doesn’t have enough money going in to expand our facilities to keep up with the growth” and warned Erie could struggle to “keep the niceties and the services” as it expands.

However, public budget records show a more complex picture. Erie’s adopted 2026 budget totals approximately $393 million, and the town maintains tens of millions in the capital improvement fund with a financial plan projected to remain structurally balanced through 2030.

Former Mayor Justin Brooks said the presentation of Erie’s capital improvement outlook overstated financial strain by omitting key context.  According to Brooks, the town’s capital improvement fund has recently received significant investment, and the chart shown at the town hall did not account for millions in grant funding outside of the capital improvement funds that typically support large infrastructure projects. 

He also said some of the projects included in the projection were not formally adopted capital plans but preliminary or aspirational ideas, which could give residents the impression that the town is facing a larger funding gap than it actually is. 

“I think it was misleading. He showed capital projects that are not officially in the plan. They’re just ideas,” Brooks said. 

The funding challenges Moore presents might stem not from a lack of shovels,  but from trying to dig too big a hole. While incoming revenue has remained consistent, the scale of planned developments has accelerated alongside the booming population. The big question is: Does Erie have the resources to sustain this rapid growth? Capital planning documents outline years of major projects, including water, transportation and public facilities, with hundreds of millions of dollars in costs that extend well beyond a yearly budget and must be funded over time through a combination of reserves, taxes, and development-related financing.

Another pressure stems from how growth is being financed. New development can generate long-term tax revenue but requires significant upfront investment in infrastructure. When developments fall short of covering their own costs, the difference is typically absorbed through public funding. In some cases, that investment reaches tens of millions of dollars — including up to $21.3 million in public support for the Erie Town Center project.

With this in mind, the town must be selective in which developments receive funding. Moore mentioned an idea for a new north–south roadway connection linking County Line Road to Airport Drive. The current road is a narrow residential street, surrounded by development and difficult to expand. 

 “What he’s describing is a $20 million road,” Brooks said, saying that it could cost millions to save only marginal travel time for a subset of drivers. With the risk of the costs falling on the taxpayer, developments receive significant public scrutiny.

Mayor Moore pointed to a gap between infrastructure needs and available funding, particularly for roads, public facilities, and recreation. What remains unresolved is how those costs will ultimately be distributed. Whether through taxes, existing revenue, or funds processed through the Urban Renewal Authority, the financial burden of growth may fall on residents, future development, or both.

Water Scarcity  

Water supply remains one of the most pressing issues facing the town. 

Erie’s primary water source is Lake Granby through the Colorado-Big Thompson system. While it currently meets demand, future supply remains uncertain as Colorado faces long-term drought conditions.

Two major projects intended to expand supply — Chimney Hollow Reservoir and the Northern Integrated Supply Project (NISP) — are part of large-scale regional water projects costing hundreds of millions of dollars, requiring participating municipalities to commit to long-term infrastructure and delivery costs. These costs are typically passed on through utility rates, development fees or other public funding mechanisms.

Residents repeatedly pressed officials on how continued growth aligns with water uncertainty. 

“If there’s a water concern, why are we still building out?” one resident asked. 

Moore responded, “I can say with all honesty, I don’t have a full answer.”

That admission leaves a central issue unresolved: whether sufficient water exists to support the town’s long-term growth plans, which has been a rising concern as Erie, along with the rest of Colorado, implement water restrictions.

Additional audience comments focused on groundwater impacts, private well users, and water use tied to oil and gas operations. 

“I’m not prepared tonight to talk about wells in our town,” Moore stated.

As growth decisions continue, the town’s long-term water availability remains unsure, limiting the public’s ability to assess risk.

Mineral Rights and Transparency 

The most contentious issue of the evening centered on the town’s mineral rights and ongoing negotiations tied to the Draco well site in Weld County. Previous reporting found discussions involving the mayor and outside parties had been underway since December 2025 before being disclosed publicly. These discussions included an offer from Civitas Resources, the same company operating the Draco pad.

While the Draco project itself has already been approved at the state level, Erie retains ownership over certain municipal mineral rights, which give the town leverage over how future oil & gas development proceeds.

While the town may not be able to stop the Draco Pad, Erie is not required to sell the mineral rights it still owns, which would open the door to more drilling in the future.

That leverage is at the center of the current debate within the Town Council. The mayor is exploring whether to sell or lease those rights, a move that could generate revenue but also eliminate the town’s ability to influence future drilling activity.

Residents also raised concerns about the town’s consultant, Matthew Owens of Alameda Mineral Advisors, who was the COO of Civitas Resources until 2023. Alameda Mineral Advisors’ compensation depends on completing a deal. Under the agreement, the firm is responsible for conducting market analysis, running a competitive bidding process, and negotiating deal terms. The contract allows for up to $4.5 million in compensation, including payments tied to the value of any resulting transaction. That creates a financial incentive for Alameda Mineral Advisors to complete a deal regardless of whether it’s in the town’s best interest.

Public safety was another hotly debated topic. Former Erie mayor Justin Brooks, speaking as a resident who lives near the proposed Draco site, challenged the assumption that negotiating with operators would improve safety. 

Drawing on his experience in office, he said the town has limited input once drilling begins, noting that during his tenure “there were multiple […] spills, industrial accidents in town,” and that when they occur “there is very little that the town can do about shutting down the operations.”

Erie Resident: “Then what are you selling?”
Moore had just clarified that he possessed “zero maps” for public disclosure.

Brooks warned that relying on cooperation from operators may not meaningfully reduce risk, calling the idea that the town could gain leverage over safety through a deal “a dangerous line of thinking.” He added that even when issues are identified, “it could be weeks before they fix it… it doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re going to be any safer.”

Oil and gas incidents remain relatively common across major producing regions. A 2024 analysis of state-reported data found at least 2,709 oil and gas spills across Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming in a single year, totaling roughly 7 million gallons of liquid released into the environment. 

In response, Mayor Moore said, “The reality is it’s about safety, and it’s about compensation. I cannot say anything more than that at this point.”

Former Mayor Justin Brooks strongly disputed that framing after the fact, arguing that selling or leasing additional mineral rights would not increase safety and could instead reduce the town’s control over oil and gas operations.

Brooks pushed back on Moore’s suggestion that negotiations could improve outcomes for residents, arguing that making concessions only benefits the operators. 

“To clear the way for their drilling only helps them. It does not protect us,” he said.

He noted that the town’s regulatory authority is severely limited regardless of any agreement. 

“The highest potential penalty we […] can impose for an industrial accident… is $1,000 a day,” Brooks explained, emphasizing that Erie lacks the power to shut down operations or prevent drilling directly. He concluded that “selling or leasing additional mineral rights will inherently make the town less safe.”

The town is expected to receive approximately $4 million from existing mineral leases once drilling begins, according to Moore, though details about timing and conditions were not fully disclosed.

Residents also expressed misgivings about transparency, particularly after Moore said the town does not have maps showing the extent of its mineral holdings.

“Then what are you selling?” one resident asked.

Residents repeatedly pressed for basic information, including valuation, deal structure, and whether the agreement would involve a lease or outright sale. Mayor Moore remained noncommittal on the details of the valuation and agreement structure

A public hearing is tentatively scheduled for April 21, though residents are concerned that a vote will be called without further input.

St. Scholastica and the Page property

Conversations surrounding the lack of transparency extended beyond mineral rights to the Page property near Coal Creek.

The timeline of how a proposed land swap involving St. Scholastica Catholic Church emerged has drawn scrutiny, particularly after reporting found discussions involving the mayor and outside parties had been underway for months without the knowledge of most of the Town Council. This information was acquired via a Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) request of the mayor’s emails, and Yellow Scene’s reporting of the issue was the first that other councilmembers had heard of a potential deal.

The property was purchased using a combination of open space tax revenue and federal pandemic relief funds through the American Rescue Plan Act, making it a publicly funded asset. Town officials initially indicated that ARPA funds used to purchase part of the site would need to be allocated toward affordable housing. That interpretation later shifted, with the mayor stating the funds could be used more broadly.

One resident, a nurse, questioned whether such a proposal would comply with federal restrictions on ARPA funds, saying she was “aware that ARPA monies […] cannot support religious and or religious-based anything,” and asking how the town could move forward if those funds were involved.

The mayor responded that any agreement would likely involve reimbursement or a land exchange rather than direct use of federal funds, but acknowledged the legal details had not been fully resolved.

A proposal introduced by Moore and state Rep. Dan Woog (whose name elicited booing from the audience) would relocate the church and partner with Catholic Charities to build affordable housing on the site.

Moore defended the process, describing the discussions as preliminary.

“Every idea starts somewhere,” he said, adding that proposals are often explored informally before being shared more broadly.

The situation has also exposed divisions within the Town Council, where several recent decisions related to development and mineral rights have split along a 4-3 vote.

Officials said any final agreement would need to comply with federal rules governing ARPA funds, though details remain unclear.

Elections and Planning Updates

Erie is preparing for municipal elections, with several council seats, including those held by Mayor Pro Tem Brandon Bell and councilmembers John Mortellaro and Brian O’Connor, up in November.

The town is also revisiting its comprehensive plan and Unified Development Code, which are the two primary documents that determine what can be built, where, and at what density.  Back in October of 2024, Erie greenlit a new “Ellevate Erie” Comprehensive plan after a multi-year process. The plan increased allowable density and laid out a long-term vision for accommodating significant population growth, potentially doubling the number of homes over the coming decades.

Now a year and a half later, the council has already begun reconsidering aspects of those density assumptions and how they align with infrastructure, water supply, and community priorities. At the same time, the Unified Development Code, which governs what developers can    actually build, has not yet been fully aligned with the 2024 plan, creating a gap between policy goals and enforceable regulations.

That combination of a newly adopted plan, ongoing reconsideration of its key elements, and an out-of-sync development code has introduced uncertainty about the town’s long-term strategy and what standards developers will ultimately be held to.

The mayor said the updates aim to align policy with long-term goals.

Looking forward

The meeting left Erie’s most significant decisions unresolved and obfuscated. By moving forward without disclosing vital financial and environmental data, the town is forcing a choice: residents must either accept the plans blindly or demand a more transparent process before the deals are finalized.

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The post Erie faces tough questions on water, mineral rights and growth appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Storyshare provided by Jeffrey A. Roberts, Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition

April 9, 2026

By Jeffrey A. Roberts
CFOIC Executive Director

Colorado’s Law Enforcement Integrity Act does not permit agencies to charge fees as a condition of releasing body-worn camera footage depicting possible misconduct by police officers, the Colorado Court of Appeals decided Thursday.

Affirming a 2024 district court ruling, a three-judge appellate panel said the “conspicuous absence of a fee provision in the Integrity Act is telling.”

“After all, the General Assembly knows how to include a fee provision if it intends one because the CCJRA [Colorado Criminal Justice Records Act] plainly allows a criminal justice agency discretion to charge reasonable fees to review and produce criminal justice records.”

The underlying lawsuit concerns the shooting and killing of 51-year-old Jeanette Alatorre by Boulder police in 2023. The city required Yellow Scene Magazine to pay $2,857.50 before it would release bodycam footage of the incident, arguing that the video is still a criminal justice record subject to the CCJRA’s fee provision.

But the disclosure of footage under the Law Enforcement Integrity Act is mandatory when there is a complaint of police misconduct, the appellate judges noted. “The command is clear, plain, and unconditioned on the payment of fees.”

“We’ve set a state precedent,” Yellow Scene publisher Shavonne Blades told the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition. “Municipalities can’t hide behind these fees any more to protect police misconduct. My hope is that there will be a domino effect in other states.”

“Today’s ruling reaffirms what should have been obvious to Boulder when this lawsuit was filed two years ago — police departments can’t use exorbitant fees to hide their officers’ misconduct behind a paywall,” said Matt Simonsen, the magazine’s attorney, in an emailed statement. Simonsen represents Yellow Scene along with attorneys Dan Williams and Ashlyn Hare.

Enacted in 2020 following the police killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Elijah McClain in Aurora, the Law Enforcement Integrity Act is separate from the CCJRA, which governs the release of most other criminal justice records.

Under the statute, all unedited video and audio recordings of incidents “in which there is a complaint of peace officer misconduct … through notice to the law enforcement agency involved in the alleged misconduct” must be released to the public no later than 21 days after a request is made. An agency can delay the release of video until 45 days from the date of an allegation of misconduct if the video “would substantially interfere with or jeopardize an active or ongoing investigation.”

The fee provision in the CCJRA doesn’t apply to the Integrity Act, Thursday’s opinion says, because the CCJRA limits the charging of fees to criminal justice records “requested pursuant to” the CCJRA. “Had the General Assembly intended for a fee provision to apply to any request for criminal justice records,” Judge Stephanie Dunn wrote for court, “it would not have amended the CCJRA in 2008 to expressly limit the fee provision to requests made under ‘this part 3’ in the statutes.”

“Because ‘this part 3’ refers only to the CCJRA, the fee provision on its face restricts its application to those requests for criminal justice records made under the CCJRA.”

The appeals court also rejected Boulder’s argument that that not allowing fees for footage under the Integrity Act would go against a 1991 law that makes state mandates optional unless the state reimburses local governments for their costs.

“[W]e don’t agree with Boulder that the unfunded mandate statute trumps the Integrity Act, rendering the mandatory obligation to produce requested recordings entirely optional,” Dunn wrote. “The opposite is true. That’s because the assumed lack of funding leaves the two statutes in irreconcilable conflict. This is so because the Integrity Act plainly requires disclosure of requested recordings, while the unfunded mandate statute says that compliance is optional when such a requirement is imposed without an accompanying state appropriation.”

“When faced with such an impasse, the Integrity Act — the more recent and specific of the two statutes — prevails over the older and more general unfunded mandate statute.”

The Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition and the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado had submitted an amicus brief last July asking the Court of Appeals to affirm the district court’s ruling.

Follow the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition on X and Bluesky. Like CFOIC’s Facebook page. Do you appreciate the information and resources provided by CFOIC? Please consider making a tax-deductible donation.

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Key Lime Air, boasted as the #1 air charter in the world, is based out of Colorado’s very own Centennial Airport in Englewood.  What was once a point of pride for Coloradans took a sour turn for many in September 2025, when organizations Human Rights First and Colorado Newsline confirmed that Key Lime Air is part of a loose network of deportation contractors called ICE Air. Data from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) shows that Key Lime Air has been running flights for deportation and detention transfers, accounting for 11% of ICE’s total. This knowledge sparked an uproar at Colorado University of Boulder, as the university has held a contract with Key Lime Air since 2011 for transporting their men’s and women’s basketball teams. Protestors have been putting pressure on CU to take a stance against ICE and cut the contract with Key Lime.  At their March 17th meeting, students and outraged community members rallied for change, but CU’s board of regents ultimately declined to end their contract. During a conversation with Yellow Scene Magazine, an active member of the overall resistance of ICE activity in Colorado conveyed strongly that the fight at CU is far from over. In fact, it is continuing with a tailored approach: from the angle of airline safety. 

The White House has depicted deportations as highly militaristic affairs, with social media posts showing deportees filing into Air Force C-17s. However, the reality is that 85% of  flights transporting detainees as of March 21 have been on charter planes like Key Lime. Dana Miller, a former flight attendant for almost 30 years, now co-lead of Denver Immigrants Partnership Team  has joined the fight at CU  

“Flight attendants are trained to evacuate a certain way in case of emergencies,” Miller shared, “but how do you safely evacuate an airplane where everyone on ICE Air flights are shackled at the waist, hands, and feet?” 

It’s standard that full shackles and chains are used to restrain individuals being deported or relocated to another ICE prison. 

Miller said, “Flights like this existed before the Trump administration, but the difference now is there is no due process. Everyone is assumed guilty.” 

Aside from the visceral display of dehumanization, the shackles are a safety concern for several reasons. One reason is their hindrance to evacuations. The FAA has a “90 second rule” for emergency evacuations, and the majority of recorded ICE flights have exceeded that time limit, one of which took over 7 minutes to evacuate 115 passengers. 

Miller explained , “Seven minutes may not seem like a lot of time, but think about if the plane was on fire […] It’s a disaster waiting to happen.” 

Another safety concern expressed by Miller was cabin decompressions. “If a plane loses altitude, oxygen masks are supposed to drop from the ceiling for passengers to put on, but the detainees were not able to reach their oxygen masks because their hands were restrained.” Cabin decompressions result in the thinning of breathable air, and even 30 seconds in this atmospheric condition struggling against chains to reach for a mask can cause hypoxia. 

Flagging the health and safety of detainees on ICE flights will not convince those who do not view detainees as human. Trump has long used racist and animalizing language when talking about immigrants, convincing his followers that the majority are dangerous criminals. Upon the launch of his first presidential bid in 2015, Trump claimed, “They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people. But I speak to border guards and they’re telling us what we’re getting,” and in 2024 he stated that Mexican migrants “are not humans. They’re animals.” Pivoting from morals to include public safety concerns – with specific airline industry knowledge – was a strategic choice made by the ICE opposition at CU. 

Dana Miller said, “My organization [Denver IPT] has a three page document of safety concerns with Key Lime, including those for staff.” 

Former pilots and other staff have also expressed safety concerns for Key Lime at large. 

“There seems to be quite a bit of disrespect for Key Lime in public pilot forums, often referring to them as ‘Key Slime’.” 

This  sentiment was echoed by five pilots who had quit Key Lime in 2025. The pilots told 13 Investigates that they’ve “experienced problems with landing gear, GPS, or the autopilot system that should have kept Key Lime Airplanes on the ground, but didn’t.” Documentation shows that one pilot was told to “reset circuit breakers on an airplane mid-flight to resolve a critical issue with the autopilot function.” The company responded to these and several other claims of Key Lime compromising both staff and customer safety with the following statement:

“Key Lime Air has an impeccable safety record during its 27 years serving destinations throughout Colorado, the United States, and Canada. The company is dedicated to safety as its single highest priority, including strict pilot training and stringent operational and maintenance programs. The allegations recently raised by some pilots are an attempt to avoid their contracts with Key Lime Air. Key Lime Air looks forward to proving its case in court against these pilots.”

Miller explained the resistance to ICE at CU is made up of two arms – one dedicated to convincing CU’s board of regents to end the contract and the other dedicated to Key Lime’s accountability. Aurora Unidos CSO, a grassroots organization fighting for immigrant rights and Chicano liberation, have led the efforts of the latter arm, including a car rally at Centennial Airport with Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition to apply pressure on Key Lime. Miller, from the contract side of the fight said, “Every week I sent the board of regents emails and each week they were about different things: what actually goes on on ICE charters, documented safety concerns at Key Lime, corporate culture at the airline, what’s happening to CU’s reputation in the community, and so on.” Denver Immigrant Partnership additionally compiled a four page safety analysis, including fatal and non-fatal incidents upon Key Lime Air.

In a February 24th letter, however, the board of regents dismissed the public’s concerns: 

“(We) spent additional time gathering information on that issue and are satisfied that the airline has a strong safety record for its passenger division, which is the arm of the airline that flies people to and from destinations.” 

Additionally, the CEO of Key Lime Air, Cliff Honeycutt, has refused requests for conversation with movement leaders, and Key Lime has provided only the following statement in response:

“Key Lime Air respects the right of all individuals to peacefully protest and share their opinions. As a matter of policy, we are unable to discuss our charter operations. Our focus remains on conducting ALL Key Lime Air flights in accordance with the highest federally mandated safety standards. We kindly ask that any demonstrations remain peaceful and that the safety of all participants, employees, and members of the public be maintained at all times.”

Key Lime Air has confirmed that they work under a subcontract for CSI Aviation,  one of the largest federal contractors for ICE flights. CSI Aviation holds an approximately $563 million contract with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. 

As of now, CU’s board of regents plan to see their agreement with Key Lime through to the end of 2028, but Miller and other protestors are not deterred. 

“In the 1980s, CU divested from apartheid in South Africa. It took a year or two of consistent effort to get them to move, but eventually they did.” Miller also felt there was reason to believe that “a couple members” of the nine-seated board are on the movement’s side, and that there is sway occurring behind the confidential doors of executive sessions.  

In the call to end the litany of horrors being inflicted upon immigrants, those suspected of immigrant status, and dissenters alike, pleas for humanity have not changed the direction of some Colorado leaders. As demonstrated by CU’s protestors illuminating the hazardous faults in Key Lime and ICE Air’s safety practices, when the emotional facts are not enough to change hearts or minds, resistance can adapt and take a more precise aim.

To find out more about CU’s contract with Key Lime and the efforts to end it, email organizers at notokeylime@gmail.com. 

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The post Fighting ICE from the Sky: Behind the CU Key Lime Air Protests appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The Erie Town Council appointed three new members to the town’s Planning Commission during a special meeting April 7, selecting a slate of candidates that did not include current commissioner Tim Burns.

Council voted to appoint Alex Schatz, Sherri Booth and Paul Leath to fill three open seats following a round of candidate interviews conducted during the meeting.

Burns, who has served on the Planning Commission for four years and reapplied for another term, was among five finalists interviewed but was not selected as part of the final vote.

The appointments came after council reviewed a pool of 11 applicants, later narrowed to six and ultimately five candidates who participated in interviews during the meeting.

Prior to the vote, council members briefly discussed the strength of the applicant pool.

“I think we had some quality candidates that presented here,” councilmember Hoback said, thanking residents for applying and participating in the process.

During his interview, Burns emphasized continuity and ongoing work tied to the town’s comprehensive plan, which was adopted in 2024. He pointed to the commission’s role in shaping long-term growth and said he was interested in continuing efforts to align development regulations with the plan.

“I think that we have done some pretty good work here,” Burns said. “I still think that there’s more to be done.”

Burns also highlighted the need to revisit and refine elements of the comprehensive plan over time, describing it as a “dynamic document” that should evolve alongside the town’s growth.

Other candidates brought a range of professional backgrounds, including planning, engineering, finance and land use law, and spoke about priorities such as infrastructure capacity, affordable housing, and managing future development.

Schatz, a landscape architect and attorney, said he was motivated to apply after becoming more engaged in local land use decisions and emphasized the importance of strengthening the public record in planning cases.

Booth, a retired planner, said she hoped to contribute her experience while becoming more involved in the community, while Leath pointed to continued implementation of the comprehensive plan and alignment with development code updates as key priorities.

The Planning Commission serves as an advisory body to the Town Council on land use and development matters, including reviewing site plans, rezonings and updates to the town’s Unified Development Code.

Following interviews, council members cast paper ballots selecting their top three candidates. The votes were tallied by staff, and the three candidates receiving the most support were appointed without further debate.

The meeting concluded shortly after the appointments were approved.

The post Erie council selects new planning commissioners, incumbent not reappointed appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

This is a selection of social media posts following the No Kings 3 event hosted in Boulder, Colorado, on March 28th, 2026.

Boulder Democratic Socialists of Colorado, Facebook post, Mar. 31st, 2026, at 8:30 a.m.

Boulder DSA at No Kings on Saturday. 9500 of our neighbors turned out to demonstrate against the tyrannical Trump regime, and we showed up to help our community get organized and turn anger into sustained action. No kings to rule us; no bombs to kill in our name; no billionaires to steal the fruit of our labor. A better world is possible, and together we can build it.

Natalie Longhini, Facebook post, Mar. 28th, 2026 at 8:05 p.m.

Huge turnout today in Boulder for No Kings. All of us clearly paid agitators and domestic terrorists. (Snark)

Young and old – lots of folks got out there to express themselves in a peaceful and constitutionally legal way.

Colorado 411, Facebook post, Mar. 28th, 2026 at 5:41 p.m.

Hey, everyone.

Wow, many protesters showed up in Boulder, Colorado, today for the NO KINGS protest.

Chris Goodwin (desrowVISUALS.com), Facebook post, Apr. 2nd, 2026, 2:51 p.m.

Here are a few shots from last Saturday’s fantastic “No Kings” protest here in Boulder. Co., where thousands gathered, then marched through downtown in conjunction with “No Kings” demonstrations that drew millions of protesters around the country and the world.

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Article and Photos by Kenneth Wajda

They say the third time’s the charm. After two large protests in summer 2025, the No Kings protest returned to downtown Longmont, Colorado, on Saturday, March 28, 2026, to send a message to those in office that protesters stand behind the U.S. Constitution and not behind an administration that acts like it’s run by a monarchy as it carries out ICE raids and starts foreign wars without Congressional approval.

Colorado Congressman Joe Neguse led off the event by offering positive words to encourage change during remarks to the large crowd that was gathered at noon at Roosevelt Park. After his comments and several other speakers, protesters left the park and marched to Main Street. Once there, they lined both sides of the street, plus the center median, from Longs Peak Avenue down to 4th Street.

Colorado Congressman Joe Neguse speaks to the crowd at Roosevelt Park.

Among the signs there were ones that read, “Orange Lies Matter,” “Men of Quality Don’t Fear Equality,” Fund Healthcare Not Warfare,” “Draft Bannon,” and “Get Money Out of Politics.”

Kathryn Whitt, of Longmont, said she found the experience very hopeful. “It was good to be around a lot of kind people supporting each other and seeing many people come out and saying what’s happening isn’t normal, and it’s not acceptable,” she said. “And it gives me a lot of hope that people will show up at the polls and that the votes will reflect a lot of what we saw today.”

Cars slowly made their way up and down Main Street to an almost non-stop cacophony of horns and gestures of thumbs up and waves between drivers and protesters. Some drivers carried signs of their own.

Erin Woltkamp and Kathryn Whitt, both of Longmont, with their signs.

Erin Woltkamp, of Longmont, said, “It was very uplifting to see so many people out here and using their voice and speaking out against something that is wrong. And I was really excited because I’m a teacher and I saw a lot of fellow teachers, and I saw a student of mine out here, just really neat to see all the generations, all the people coming out to speak up.”

The crowd size was estimated at between 6000-7000. One of last summer’s protests had an estimated 5000 people in attendance, and several people today commented that this one appeared to be a larger turnout than the past events.

No Kings rallies were held across the U.S today.

One protester created a stir and faced some backlash with a sign that read, “Jesus created two genders. Abortion is murder.” But the rest of the signs were in solidarity, protesting the actions of the current White House administration, and the event was peaceful overall.

Nancy Johnson, of Longmont, said as she was leaving the rally, “I’m here today because I’m seeking unity with all the other people who are against this administration. I think it was a great turnout. Way to go, Longmont.”

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The post No Kings Rally: Longmont, Colorado, 03.28.26 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Three months after Longmont residents packed city council chambers to push back against Flock Security Systems, the city has a new surveillance technology vendor, but many of the same questions remain unanswered.

During Tuesday night’s council meeting, the Longmont Police Department presented Axon as its preferred alternative for automated license plate recognition (ALPR) technology. Public Safety Chief Zach Ardis and his team spoke on Axon’s data encryption processes and superior security protocols as compared to Flock. Assistant Chief Phil Piotrowski highlighted the department’s longstanding relationship with Axon. He noted that the 25-year partnership began when taser technology was first implemented in 2000 and has grown to be a trusted vendor for the department.

Public Safety Chief, Zach Ardis, describing Axon’s data encryption technology.

“They’ve been integral in police operations throughout that time” Piotrowski explained, “They’ve built their product in a way that they understand what we need for security from them.” He added that Axon operations align with Longmont Police Department’s best practices.

Council voted shortly after to move forward with the contract, a decision that landed quickly enough to catch many residents off guard. The pivot followed a December 2025 meeting in which council voted 5-1 to reject any expansion of its contract with Flock, responding to hours of public testimony about privacy violations, data misuse, and concerns about mass surveillance. Since then, DeFlock Longmont, a local movement opposing the city’s use of Flock Safety, has remained active in organizing around surveillance issues in the city.

Though many residents welcomed the departure from Flock, several said the council should have allowed more public comment before approving the new contract. Andrew Palmer, a member of DeFlock Longmont, said he was disappointed that residents had no opportunity to rebut the Axon proposal before the vote was called. He also supports some form of technology oversight, which was discussed in the December meeting, but did not factor into the council’s deliberations that evening. “The police did not present much of a case for why they need this technology,” Palmer said, adding that he would have preferred the council to wait at least one additional session before voting.

Kellen Lesk, a software engineer who also spoke at the December meeting, returned with pointed questions about Axon’s technical architecture. He noted that Axon operates on Azure Government, a cloud environment built for U.S. government compliance, but said the structure of that system still raises concerns for him. “In order to make updates to the system, they need access to the system,” Lesk said. He expressed concern that terms like “encrypted data” and “access” can become slippery in practice, and that important questions about metadata and system configuration were never put to the company during the presentation. He explained that he had hoped council members would press harder on those specifics before voting.

A recurring theme in public comment was the need for a formal city framework to evaluate AI-powered tools before they are adopted. Emily Astranova took issue with Axon Draft One, an AI tool that generates police report narratives from body camera audio, arguing that it removes human judgment from a process that requires it.

Resident Emily Astranova

She also cautioned against treating “AI” as a catch-all term. Large language models, machine vision, facial recognition, and optical character recognition are distinct technologies with distinct risks, she said, and city policy should reflect that. Another DeFlock member called for an oversight body that puts community interests ahead of vendor relationships.

Those calls may be gaining traction, as Council members Popkin and Marsing both indicated openness to forming a technology oversight or advisory committee to help council navigate AI-related decisions going forward. Marsing was candid in his closing remarks. “I have deep-seated concerns, as I think most of the community does, about the existence of ALPR tech, generally,” he said. He acknowledged residents’ frustration with the pace of the decision and encouraged the community to stay engaged, drawing on the technical expertise that has shown up repeatedly in public comment. “The conversation is not over,” he said.

The post Longmont Swaps ALPR Vendor to Axon Amid AI Oversight Calls appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Mayor Andrew Moore will host a State of the Town event on Thursday, April 2, from 6–8 p.m. at Town Hall, 645 Holbrook Street. The event will include a presentation from the mayor and town leadership on current projects and policy issues, followed by a question-and-answer session with residents. Participation will be available both in person and via livestream.

According to a post published on the mayor’s Facebook page, the event will begin with a 30–45 minute presentation before moving into a moderated question-and-answer session. Questions submitted in advance are expected to be addressed first, with additional questions taken from attendees if time allows.

Moore said the presentation will cover a range of topics, including recent population growth, new business openings, the town’s transition to voting districts, and the search for Erie’s next town manager.

The mayor also said the event will include updates on infrastructure projects such as the Erie Bee on-demand transit program, expansion of police facilities, and preliminary work connecting County Line Road to Airport Drive. Other topics expected to be discussed include the Draco oil and gas project, water supply challenges, development of the Page Property, and future capital improvement planning.

Residents are encouraged to submit questions ahead of the event by emailing amoore@erieco.gov. Questions will also be taken during the meeting, time permitting.

The livestream link and additional details about the meeting are posted at www.erieco.gov/StateoftheTown. 

A gathering of concerned citizens is meeting at 5 p.m. at Town Hall to discuss their concerns about the direction the town is moving.

Among the issues cited by residents since Mayor Andrew Moore took office are:

• Several major decisions have been approved on 4–3 council votes, with Mayor Andrew Moore joined by Mayor Pro Tem Brandon Bell and councilmembers Brian O’Connor and John Mortellaro forming the majority voting bloc.
• The removal of Pride and Juneteenth flags from town facilities after the council majority voted to limit flags flown on town property to the U.S. flag.
• Approval of a $70,000 community survey contract, an amount residents say was roughly double the typical cost of similar municipal surveys.
• Revisions to the town’s Comprehensive Plan that removed provisions allowing developers to more easily incorporate mixed-use housing.
• The termination of the Town Administrator, which became public after three councilmembers declined to enter executive session, requiring the discussion to occur in open session.
• Communications between the mayor and St. Scholastica Church regarding a potential land swap involving property previously identified for affordable housing. The discussions came to light through public records requests, and some councilmembers have said they were unaware of the talks at the time they occurred.
• Negotiations related to the potential sale of the town’s mineral rights, which residents say have largely taken place in executive session without public discussion. The town has also hired a consultant who previously served as COO of Civitas Resources to facilitate negotiations, with a reported contract valued at $4.5 million.
• Approval of the Redtail Ranch settlement and preliminary plat, allowing residential development to move forward on land that includes a restricted environmental area and active oil and gas wells within and adjacent to the project site.

The post Erie State of the Town Scheduled for April 2 as Residents Plan Gathering appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

On March 24, Erie Town Council advanced drought planning and cut fire sprinkler mandates, amid heated public debate over immigration and mineral rights transparency.

Public comment dominated the meeting, with roughly six speakers raising concerns about immigration enforcement and a similar number addressing the town’s handling of a potential mineral rights sale.

Multiple residents described a growing climate of fear among local families, particularly  children. Erie resident Anna Clark told the council that her daughter had wept at the thought of ICE taking her classmates. ”

Clark urged the council and local leaders to respond, calling the fear “real” .

Other speakers echoed  her concerns and called for more visible leadership. Shannon Milikin said recent outreach from council members was a step in the right direction but emphasized the need for clearer public action., 

“Families of color in your community are living with real fear because of ICE activity,” She pointed out.

Several speakers  identified a nearby federal immigration facility in Frederick as an area of interest. The Frederick site is part of a network of short-term federal holding facilities that have drawn scrutiny over conditions and transparency, according to reporting from KUNC.

Laurel O criticized the facility’s detentions.

Laurel O speaking about ICE.

“Less than 10 miles from where you are sitting now, a man was held in the Frederick, Colorado ICE ERO location for 34 days. The youngest person detained at the Frederick Ice ERO location was 6 years old […] These spaces are designed to be temporary, short-term. They frequently lack beds and access to showers.”

Residents repeatedly asked council to issue a formal statement acknowledging the impact of ICE on the community and to take a more proactive approach to community safety.

A second major theme of public comment focused on the town’s consideration of a potential municipal mineral rights sale.

Residents said they have been unable to access key information about the proposal, including its scope, intent and potential impacts. One speaker said “there have been no dedicated meetings to this topic” and questioned why information has not been made publicly available.

Others criticized the prevalence of executive sessions, arguing that  they limit transparency. Speakers called for public hearings, impact studies to evaluate which properties would be affected and what the sale would mean for property values, environmental damage, and public health, and a commitment not to move forward with any agreement before broader community engagement.

Tonia Sharp, an Erie resident, said “The Draco Pad, as I understand it now, is an unprecedented project. A lot of what they’re doing in the drilling has not been done in Colorado before. Five miles of drilling, and everything else. I would hate for our mineral rights to give them an even bigger reason to expand it.”

Several residents also questioned potential environmental and financial impacts, including effects on home values, public health and future development.

Resident Tonia Sharp, speaking about mineral rights.

The debate follows ongoing reporting on the town’s mineral rights discussions, including concerns about transparency and potential conflicts tied to negotiations with oil and gas operators.

Later in the session, the Council  received a drought and water supply update under Resolution 2026-2022.

Town staff outlined pressure on Erie’s water system following an unusually dry winter and historically low snowpack along the Front Range. Officials reported limited seasonal reserves and an early spike in demand driven by warm weather and irrigation use, conditions that have strained system capacity earlier than typical.

The town is encouraging residents to begin conserving water early, including adopting a voluntary two-day-per-week watering schedule, and warned that additional restrictions could be put in place if conditions worsen. The discussion follows earlier reporting that Erie implemented some of the region’s earliest irrigation limitations amid drought conditions.

Council also approved changes to the town’s building code removing a requirement for fire sprinklers in new residential construction (Item 2026-185).

The decision came despite opposition from fire officials, who raised concerns about increased safety risks. The discussion reflected broader tensions between development costs and public safety standards as Erie continues to grow.

Earlier in the evening, the Erie Urban Renewal Authority approved Resolution 26-007, a supplemental budget request to carry forward funding for several incomplete 2025 projects, including the Colliers Hill pedestrian bridge, pedestrian safety improvements and historic Old Town upgrades. Officials said the request does not include any budget increases and that some projects may come in under budget.

During the council meeting, members also approved Resolution 2026-214, recognizing Dave Sullivan of the Erie High School Education Foundation as the town’s Outstanding Resident of the Year, and a proclamation designating April as a month honoring Olympian Jaccob Slavin for his achievements as a part of the 2026 U.S. Men’s Hockey Team.

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The post Erie Council Tackles ICE, Drought, and Sprinklers appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Employees at Boulder Public Library announced their plans to form a union in September and months later, they are nearing a resolution. The process has been slow, but staff members are hopeful the outcome will restore their collective bargaining rights, and strengthen their voice. If the Boulder Library District grants bargaining rights, it will be voluntarily recognizing the library’s union.  

The campaign to form a union with AFSCME Colorado was announced by library workers in September 2025. Since then, the employees have organized and collected signatures in preparation for the administration’s decision. 

In February, the Boulder Public Library District Board of Trustees tabled a vote on the collective bargaining policy, moving the decision to March 10.

Doug Hamilton, a member of the Boulder Public Library District Board of Trustees, spoke to Yellow Scene Magazine ahead of the March 10 board meeting. He did not expect a final vote would be made, especially if the draft policy was amended in any way. 

“They just wanted a union, is what they tell us,” Hamilton said. “They have publicly stated it’s not an issue of pay or benefits, although I’m sure that’s part of it. They said in today’s environment, they want the protection of a union to feel like safer employees.” 

He did not see any potential downsides to library workers being unionized. He also notes that he views union’s formation as not motivated by intense grievances or poor working conditions.

“The library board has attempted to, and always, tried to make the library an employer of choice. That’s been our goal since the district was formed,” Hamilton said. “I believe our library staff is some of the highest paid, and has some of the best benefits, of all library workers in the state. We have a genuine respect and admiration for the library staff. We are just trying to maintain a great relationship with them and with their union representative.”

Hamilton added that the board also wants to act in the best interest of the library district. He is hopeful that moving forward, library workers and board members will continue working together with mutual respect. 

The shift to a library district model fundamentally altered the professional landscape for Boulder’s library staff. Previously, as city employees, workers held collective bargaining rights; however, the separation transitioned them to at-will status. For many, like custodian Michael Serrano, unionizing is about reclaiming that lost leverage.

What that reclaiming that leverage would look likes is a different for every worker.

For Serrano having a union is important “restores our voice and a seat at the table” regarding decisions that directly impact the essential services provided to the community.

AFSCME notes that many employees want the job security that a union will provide.

And for employees like volunteer program coordinator Christine Burke, the move is an effort to “democratize” the workplace. Burke has emphasized that protecting the library’s future requires protecting its workers first. This sentiment is echoed in the union’s primary objectives, which focus on increasing worker retention, fostering better communication with administration, and maintaining a legacy of inclusion as the District grows.

To guide future discussions, the Boulder Public Library District has drafted a Collective Bargaining Policy built on five core principles: Good Faith, Mission Alignment, Continuity of Service, Fiscal Sustainability, and Equity & Inclusion. This framework aims to ensure that services remain uninterrupted and negotiations remain unbiased.

Under the current draft, the district will negotiate on:

• Wages and salaries

• Working conditions and benefits

• Evaluation and grievance procedures

However, certain operational elements, such as budget adoption, hours of operation, and organizational structure, will remain outside the scope of bargaining. To ensure the policy remains relevant, it will undergo a formal review every three years.

The energy for unionization was palpable at the March 10 board meeting, where staff and community members, many sporting AFSCME shirts, urged the board to refine the current policy. Key suggestions included expanding the union to include IT and finance departments and establishing a formal process for resolving negotiation deadlocks.

While a final vote was not held in March, the board is currently revising the draft to include potential amendments. Both board members and staff agreed that a special session was unnecessary, opting instead to hold the decisive vote on the collective bargaining policy during the April 21 meeting.

The post Boulder Library Workers Want to Unionize appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

In the high prairie of southern Wyoming, just west of Cheyenne, a glass-fronted building houses one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers. Named “Derecho” by a Wyoming middle schooler, this house-sized machine can process every document in the Library of Congress faster than a human can blink.

Derecho “thinks” at a rate of twenty quadrillion calculations per second. But Derecho isn’t reading books in the Library of Congress. It has a more specific mission. Derecho is there to help us understand and predict the Earth’s weather and climate, taking in and analyzing massive volumes of input data from the Earth’s many weather-influencing systems and events. 

For instance, it could  calculate how smoke particles from a fire in western Colorado may interact with ice crystals in a Front Range thunderstorm to determine the likelihood of a hailstorm. It can analyze and visualize the patterns of “sub meso-scale” ocean eddies (little swirls in the ocean just a few kilometers wide) across the entire Pacific Ocean to simulate rates of oceanic carbon absorption. 

Derecho is just one part of the scientific infrastructure overseen by the Boulder-based National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Recently, the Trump administration has signaled the possible dismantling or relocating of NCAR. The center is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), an independent federal agency that reports directly to the Executive Office of the President.

While the political motivations behind such a move warrant their own investigation, this article delves into NCAR’s inherent value in its current form and the impracticality of its relocation.

“Science thrives when politicians, Democrat or Republican, stay out of it,” said Dr. Roger Pielke, Professor Emeritus at the University of Colorado at Boulder. 

Dr. Pielke is a former NCAR scientist, founder of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research (CSTPR), and a longtime Fellow at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES). He took the time to speak with me while traveling in Australia. 

As Dr. Pielke explained, while NCAR is primarily funded by the NSF, it is managed by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), a consortium of about 130 North American colleges and Universities. Two of those universities sit at NCAR’s doorstep: the University of Colorado Boulder (CU) and Colorado State University (CSU) in Fort Collins. Both universities are among the best in the nation for weather related research. 

The Trump administration has argued that research institutions like NCAR should be relocated from “elite” coastal or mountain locations to the “industrial heartland.” But NCAR didn’t land in Boulder arbitrarily. It sits at the center of one of the densest concentrations of atmospheric and environmental science in the country — and moving it would sever those connections entirely.

Within a roughly 50-mile radius, NCAR neighbors:

• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Boulder
• The Earth System Research Laboratories (ESRL) in Boulder. They monitor global carbon dioxide levels    
• Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) in Boulder. They are the nation’s source for alerts on solar flares and magnetic storms     
• Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) in Boulder in partnership with CU  
• Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA) in Fort Collins in partnership with CSU
• National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden
• National Wind Technology Center (NWTC) just south of Boulder

Furthermore, the combination of top universities and infrastructure means that the Front Range  arguably harbors the highest concentration of atmospheric science talent in the world. 

NCAR employs over 800 people in the Boulder area, many of whom would likely choose not to relocate to an “industrial heartland,” due to the likely smaller  talent pool for this kind of specialized knowledge . Consequently, moving NCAR’s headquarters would likely trigger a major “brain drain” in a highly complex, data-heavy discipline.

There is precedent for this. In 2019 two U.S. Department of Agriculture agencies were moved from Washington D.C. to Kansas City. In that instance approximately 75% of the impacted workforce chose to resign or retire rather than move. While the reduction in staff through “forced attrition” may have been part of the goal, the result was a substantial set-back to the progress and effectiveness of these agencies. 

One of the reasons why it’s important that NCAR remains on the leading edge of global atmospheric research is because of international competition in the sciences. “There is a need in the U.S.,” said Dr. Pielke “to ‘up the game’ in weather prediction.” Attempting to decommission or relocate NCAR would substantially reduce America’s global competitiveness in weather and climate science precisely at a time when accelerating scientific advancements are most needed. “The view from thirty-thousand feet is that any scientific institution can be improved upon,” said Dr. Pielke, “but what the Trump Administration is doing is not helping that.” 

National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, Colorado. Designed by architect I. M. Pei with landscaping by Dan Kiley. Photo: Daderot, September 2005 (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Furthermore, the combination of top universities and infrastructure means that the Front Range  arguably harbors the highest concentration of atmospheric science talent in the world. 

NCAR employs over 800 people in the Boulder area, many of whom would likely choose not to relocate to an “industrial heartland,” due to the likely smaller  talent pool for this kind of specialized knowledge . Consequently, moving NCAR’s headquarters would likely trigger a major “brain drain” in a highly complex, data-heavy discipline.

There is precedent for this. In 2019 two U.S. Department of Agriculture agencies were moved from Washington D.C. to Kansas City. In that instance approximately 75% of the impacted workforce chose to resign or retire rather than move. While the reduction in staff through “forced attrition” may have been part of the goal, the result was a substantial set-back to the progress and effectiveness of these agencies. 

One of the reasons why it’s important that NCAR remains on the leading edge of global atmospheric research is because of international competition in the sciences. “There is a need in the U.S.,” said Dr. Pielke “to ‘up the game’ in weather prediction.” Attempting to decommission or relocate NCAR would substantially reduce America’s global competitiveness in weather and climate science precisely at a time when accelerating scientific advancements are most needed. “The view from thirty-thousand feet is that any scientific institution can be improved upon,” said Dr. Pielke, “but what the Trump Administration is doing is not helping that.” 

The competition is, in fact, strong. In Europe, NCAR’s equivalent is the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). It is an intergovernmental organization supported by 35 nations and widely considered the leader in global numeric weather prediction. 

The Europeans utilize a multinational cluster of supercomputers that is more scalable and powerful than Derecho or the operational U.S. forecasting systems, Cactus and Dogwood, which operate out of Arizona and Virginia, respectively. When fully utilized, the European supercomputers can outpace Derecho, Cactus, and Dogwood multiple times over, partly by leveraging Finland’s LUMI system. LUMI by itself is currently the world’s fifth most powerful supercomputer with a peak performance of 380 sustained petaflops (compared to Derecho’s 20 petaflops). 

LUMI is being utilized for the European Commission’s Destination Earth (or DestinE) Initiative, an ambitious plan to create a complete digital twin of the Earth and all of its “systems” by 2030. Europe’s digital twin Earth will bring the scale of their geographic modeling down to 1 kilometer which will allow for the real-time simulation of individual clouds and urban heat islands among other very granular weather features. 

On the other side of the planet lies China and its own very ambitious equivalent to NCAR, the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP), a division of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). China’s equivalent to NCAR and ECMWF is their Earth System Numerical Simulator Facility, or EarthLab, opened in Beijing in 2021. Its goal is similar to Europe’s DestinE platform—to simulate the atmosphere, ocean, land, cryosphere (ice), and biosphere of the Earth as a single unit. 

These global competitors are well-organized, highly funded, and poised to race ahead of American atmospheric science innovation should we let politics blow headwinds into our progress. American innovation has long been rooted in world-leading scientific research. Losing our competitive edge in atmospheric science research may shift the focus of innovation to other world regions. Those competing regions will then gain the economic opportunities that always follow scientific discovery and innovation.

What NCAR Means to Those Who Rely On It

Kody Wilson is a Colorado-based independent meteorologist. His Facebook page, Denver & Front Range Weather, now has over a half-million followers, myself included. By going independent, Wilson is able to provide the depth and nuance to weather forecasting that traditional news station meteorologists just can’t match with a 5-minute weather segment on the evening news. Wilson’s large local following is a testament to his work ethic and the simultaneously entertaining and educational ways he presents our complicated weather. 

It’s also a testament to the fact that people love to talk about the weather. A weather event is often at the center of extraordinary life experiences—both good and bad. Perhaps it was the Christmas Eve Blizzard of ’82, or the Limon tornado, or Hurricane Andrew, or some other weather experience, but just about everyone can point to a weather-related event in their lives that impacted them in a major way. 

For some of us, these weather-related experiences lead to a lifetime career in meteorology. Wilson explained to me how, as a middle school aged kid, “a powerful microburst hit our home and farm in eastern Oregon. The damage was so intense we initially thought a tornado had come through. One hundred-year-old cottonwood trees were ripped out of the ground. The roof of our calving shed was torn off and thrown across the yard. Two by fours were driven into a storage freezer in our shop.” 

“Moments like those didn’t scare me away from the weather,” Wilson said “They deepened my curiosity and strengthened the path I already felt called to follow.” 

NCAR has been instrumental in Wilson’s career. “Many of the models, datasets, and forecasting tools I rely on, including advancements in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) system, originate from NCAR’s research,” Wilson said. “Their work turns complex atmospheric science into usable guidance, and my role is to translate that guidance into clear, real-time information that helps communities make decisions… In that sense, NCAR provides part of the scientific backbone, and I carry that science across the finish line into the real world where it protects lives and supports local communities.” 

I asked Wilson what he thinks NCAR’s value is to Colorado: “NCAR isn’t just a building in Boulder, it’s one of the engines behind the tools meteorologists rely on every day to help protect lives [and] property… across Colorado and beyond,” Wilson said. “It also supports major research investment into the state, making it a tangible asset for Colorado taxpayers. Dismantling NCAR would be a costly step backward, not just for science, but for public safety, economic resilience, and the future of weather preparedness in the West.” 

Climate researchers from the NCAR preparing for the ARCTAS mission.

As I write this, Dr. Scott Denning, Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University, is on a ship somewhere in the Indian Ocean teaching undergrads in a “Semester at Sea” program. He was kind enough to take the time to answer my questions about NCAR and how it relates to his life work. 

Early in his career, Dr. Denning worked closely with the late Dr. William Gray, CSU’s pioneering hurricane scientist. The fact that the world’s foremost hurricane scientist operated from a university about as far as one can get from the ocean is a testament to the value of CSU’s proximity to the atmospheric research facilities in Colorado’s Front Range, like NCAR. 

“He was a warm, funny, brilliant man,” said Dr. Denning of Dr. Gray. “And he was my friend and neighbor.” According to Dr. Denning, Dr. Gray had “worked out the structure and function of these storms based on his own personal field work before anybody had ever seen a satellite image of a hurricane!” Dr. Gray’s pioneering pencil-and-paper theoretical work was complemented by NCAR’s tools in data and airborne instrument measurements to create a legacy of hurricane forecasting and modeling that persists to this day. 

Dr. Denning, of course, has his own long history in working with NCAR. “I’ve worked closely with both land-surface modeling and biogeochemistry groups [at NCAR] for decades,” said Dr. Denning. “It’s been just fantastic to collaborate ‘right down the road’ for all these years! Great people, great facilities, and a concentration of expertise that’s just unmatched anywhere in the world.” 

“The new frontiers [at NCAR],” said Dr. Denning, “include fusion of satellite remote sensing, numerical modeling, and AI. I’m especially interested in how these new tools relate to the study of the fate and transport of atmospheric CO2.” I asked Dr. Denning why Colorado’s Front Range is the ideal location for NCAR, and his response reinforces my research: “The Front Range is a great place for NCAR and its work because of the tremendous concentration of scientific work here: NOAA, the USDA, the USGS, and our great universities and people.” 

Show more 11:46 PM View of Boulder, Colorado from the NCAR mesa, southwest of the city. Photo: Laurascudder, December 1999 (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Clearly there is a passionate community here in Colorado and around the world for atmospheric science. But, some of it can seem a little abstract. The idea of creating an Earth digital twin or the ability to simulate a single cloud may not seem like they have much everyday use. But NCAR’s historical value has often been found in common-sense solutions to big problems. 

“Climate change is important,” said Dr. Pielke, “but it’s really a small part of NCAR’s portfolio. Much of what NCAR does has practical applications.” 

Improvements to Air Travel Safety 

These days we don’t hear much about airplane crashes caused by strong winds, but that wasn’t always the case. Prior to the 1990s, low-level wind events—specifically wind shear and microbursts–were the leading cause of major U.S. airline accidents, including a Delta flight in 1985 that crashed while attempting to land in Dallas due to a sudden microburst, killing 137 people. 

This and other weather-related crashes prompted NCAR scientists to lead field studies that resulted in the creation of new detection systems like the Low Level Wind Sheer Alert System (LLWAS). As a result of this work, airports around the world now have a perimeter of low-level wind detection devices and specialized radar systems that detect surface-level winds and immediately alert cockpits to threats. Since 1995 there have been zero major U.S. airline crashes caused by microbursts, and only one (Little Rock, 1999) where wind shear was a contributing factor. These NCAR-led solutions have saved thousands of lives and made air travel substantially safer in recent years. 

NCAR’s work towards aviation safety continues today as they are currently working with the airline industry and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to outfit aircraft with turbulence-detection devices that automatically report and feed into air traffic control alert and communication systems. Without this solution, pilots are asked to voluntarily report turbulence to air traffic controllers, a slow and ineffective system. The new automated detection system for turbulence will utilize the “big data” of thousands of simultaneous airborne flights to model flight path turbulence risk, giving air crews better real-time information on turbulence and alternative flight paths to find smoother air. This could save the aviation industry tens of millions of dollars annually by avoiding turbulence-related damage, injuries, and delays. 

Climate researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and several universities install and perform functional checkouts of a variety of sensitive atmospheric instruments on NASA’s DC-8 airborne laboratory prior to beginning the ARCTAS mission.

Innovations in Wildfire Detection and Mitigation 

The practical contributions of NCAR go well beyond low level wind detection. In the early 2000s, NCAR developed the Coupled Atmosphere Wildland Fire Environment (CAWFE). Large wildfires create their own weather. This model allows meteorologists and on-location firefighting agencies to better predict fire behavior, improving firefighting strategies and public safety measures. This technology contributes to the smoke forecasting we’ve seen in recent years where forest fires in Canada, for example, create bad air quality in New York. 

A visitor to the NCAR facility in Wyoming, where Derecho resides, offers the opportunity to see first-hand the wildfire modeling that massive supercomputing can accomplish. Right there in the visitor area you can watch a precise simulation of the behavior of the December 2021 Marshall Fire as it jumped and spread into the northern Denver metro suburbs by hurricane-force chinook winds. 

The future of fire weather science through NCAR involves AI applications that can accelerate mitigation and firefighting responses through real-time simulations of fire behavior that take into account micro-scale inputs like low-level winds, urban street topology, and the impact of “ember storms” that can ignite new spot fires across highways and fields. 

Agriculture

Two of the most compelling recent initiatives from NCAR combine weather and climate science with tangential interests like agriculture and disease prevention. For agriculture, NCAR is working on a program called CropSmart, a digital twin solution presented pragmatically as a decision-making tool for sustainable agriculture. The modest nature of that description hides a very sophisticated technology-centered solution for vastly improving the efficiency and sustainability of agricultural production, one of the planet’s most impactful systems on climate and the human condition. 

CropSmart will provide growers with an end-to-end application and web-based tool for planning and decision making based on the digital simulation of their land combined with the inputs of local precipitation, soil conditions, and irrigation flows. 

Disease Prevention 

The mosquito is the deadliest animal on Earth. It kills almost a million people every year by transmitting disease. The prevalence and spread of disease-bearing mosquitos is heavily influenced by climate and weather patterns. 

NCAR has helped pioneer modeling systems that predict where and to what extent mosquito outbreaks will occur so that public health officials and municipalities can proactively mitigate or reduce the risk to their communities, saving lives and improving overall public health.

Balloon launch at Super Science Saturday, Mesa Lab, NCAR. Photo: C. Calvin / UCAR, November 2018 (CC BY-NC 4.0)

These are just a few examples of the practical value that NCAR has produced over the last several decades. Rapidly advancing power in raw computing combined with near-term opportunities to apply AI-based solutions, has created an opportunity for the atmospheric sciences to have an enormous positive impact on the future of humanity and the Earth in the coming years and decades. 

Relocating or dismantling NCAR would fracture the powerful scientific brain trust built in Colorado over the last several decades. Such fragmentation would stifle American innovation, ceding our competitive advantage to Europe and China while degrading the safety and resilience of our local communities.

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The post Why NCAR is in Colorado and Why It Must Stay appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The Erie Town Council approved supplemental budget appropriations, heard resident concerns about the potential sale of municipal mineral rights, and adopted several proclamations during its regular meeting.

Council members unanimously approved a resolution authorizing supplemental appropriations for the 2026 budget year. The adjustments primarily allow departments to roll over unspent funds from 2025 to continue ongoing projects and multi-year initiatives.

Finance Director Sarah Hancock and Budget and Fiscal Manager Cassie Bethune presented the update, noting that most of the requests involve projects already approved in the prior year. Departments requested funds for infrastructure, water and wastewater improvements, transportation projects and capital maintenance. Among the largest rollovers are utility and public works projects, including water transmission infrastructure, Erie Lake dam repairs, the Schofield Farm project and roundabout construction. Other items include streetlight acquisition and conversion to LED systems, trail construction and solar installation at the North Water Reclamation Facility. Town officials said the rollover process is typical early in the year, though the town split the requests into separate categories this year to distinguish routine project rollovers from budget increases caused by unforeseen circumstances.

Updated projections also showed Erie’s general fund beginning balance increased by roughly $10 million compared with earlier estimates, though finance staff cautioned that year-end accounting is still in progress and final numbers will be confirmed later this spring.

During discussion, Mayor Andrew Moore said the town’s long-term capital improvement plan could include expanding the Erie Community Center or building a second recreation center.

“Our capital improvement is showing that we don’t have the funds to do all the things we’ll need to do five years down the road, include things like expansion of the rec center or a second rec center or the Leon A. Wurl Public Service Center,” Moore said, noting the town may survey residents about potential support for a sales tax to fund recreation facilities.

The council opened and closed the required public hearing on the supplemental appropriations without public comment before approving the resolution unanimously.

Several residents used the meeting’s public comment period to raise concerns about the town’s potential sale or lease of municipal mineral rights, an issue that has drawn increasing attention in recent weeks.

Steve Drew, a Colliers Hill resident with experience in the energy industry, urged the council to slow the process and examine the broader financial implications for homeowners before moving forward.

Steve Drew, a Colliers Hill resident, urges the Erie Town Council to consider a slower, more transparent approach to the sale of the town’s mineral rights.

“I think the key here is that’s going to have a negative impact, anybody that lives in Erie that owns a house,” Drew said, adding that potential oil and gas development tied to those rights could negatively impact property values.

He recommended the town hold a public meeting to review the proposal and evaluate the potential financial and environmental impacts on the community.

Amy Becker, an Erie Commons resident attending her first council meeting, also called for greater transparency in the mineral rights discussion and expressed concerns about decisions being discussed in executive session.

“I would ask that we have meetings where we are all able to express our concerns,” Becker said.

“I’m very concerned that decisions regarding the selling of Erie’s minerals have been made in executive sessions and not in public sessions, and that’s a problem,” she added.

Becker said she intends to remain engaged in local government decisions and encouraged the council to allow more public discussion before considering any agreement related to the mineral rights.

Another resident, Kaycee Headrick, asked how the appraisal process for the mineral rights is progressing and whether retaining those rights could affect the proposed Draco oil and gas development project.

Kaycee Headrick discusses concerns about the consequences of selling the town’s mineral rights, particularly pertaining to the health issues caused by drilling.

“There’s conversations about leaving Erie because we don’t want to be part of this potential health or environmental risk,” Headrick said.

Hedrick said some residents fear potential health or environmental risks and are seeking clarity on how council decisions could influence drilling activity.

Moore responded that if the council decides to move forward with any action regarding the mineral rights, the matter would require a public hearing before a final decision is made.

In other business, the council approved two proclamations recognizing community initiatives and observances.

Council members proclaimed March 2026 as “March for Meals Month” in recognition of Coal Creek Meals on Wheels, which has served the region since 1972. According to the organization, more than 77,000 meals were delivered across its service area in 2025, including more than 8,700 meals to Erie residents. The program provides meals to seniors, people with disabilities and others experiencing food insecurity, and also offers additional services such as post-hospital meal delivery and expanded food access for children during school breaks.

The council also proclaimed March as Women’s History Month, recognizing the contributions of women to civic life, business, education and community leadership.

Following regular business, council members discussed the process for filling three open seats on the Erie Planning Commission. Eleven residents applied, and council members selected six finalists who will be interviewed at a special meeting April 7.

During council reports, Council members Emily Baer and Dan Hoback said the town should consider holding a public town hall or listening session to allow residents to discuss the town’s mineral rights before any decision is made.

“I think it’s not wrong for us to hold a public listening session or some kind of town hall meeting where folks can come and learn more about that,” Baer said.

Council members also highlighted upcoming community events, including an April blood drive at the Erie Community Center and an upcoming town recognition of Olympic gold medalist Jacob Slavin, an Erie native and member of the U.S. men’s hockey team.

The meeting concluded with the council entering executive session to discuss water supply strategy and negotiations related to town property matters.

The post Erie approves budget, hears concerns over mineral rights appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Bike safety and public murals dominated Superior’s February 9 town meeting.

Public Works and Utilities Director Brannon Richards briefed Town Council on bike and pedestrian safety along 88th Street, the main access route to Monarch K-8 and Monarch High School for residents of Rock Creek and parts of downtown Superior. The corridor becomes heavily congested at the start and end of the school day, and cars illegally occupying bike lanes have resulted in injuries to cyclists and pedestrians.

A map of 88th Street. Promenade Drive is on the south side, and its terminus at Dillon Road is on the north side. Monarch K-8 and Monarch High are on the east side, near the center.

Richards presented video footage showing students riding on sidewalks and against traffic. “[Students] don’t want to cross 88th Street by the school,” he said. “They have to wait for the signal […]. There’s no sidewalk on 88th Street on the Louisville side.”

Staff recommendations included extending the 20 MPH school zone into Superior and adding a protected, two-lane bike lane on the east side. Richards noted the flex posts protecting the lane would not interfere with snow plowing. He closed his presentation with a blunt assessment: “[The] current situation is the most dangerous: if we do nothing.”

Mayor Mark Lacis praised the video evidence. “You can drive 88th Street every day, but if you’re not capturing it at […] school drop-off time, you’re going to miss the heart of the problem.” He added that the Council was “on board with staff’s recommendations.”

The meeting’s second major item drew sharper debate. Council considered a resolution to partner with Boulder nonprofit Streetwise Arts on a mural festival planned for October. Proposed locations included the amphitheater, concrete benches along Main Street, the Marshall Road underpass, public restrooms, and a dumpster enclosure, with a total budget of $74,000, including $10,000 drawn from the Art & History department.

Mayor Pro-Tem Jason Serbu didn’t hide his skepticism. “This whole thing was supposed to be big murals. I get the underpass, I get the breezeway, but… park benches? A garbage thing? And, forgive my language, but… a shitter?”

Liza McKenzie, vice-chair of the Cultural Arts and Public Spaces Advisory Committee, pushed back. “Those little pieces of art here and there, […] they’re integrated into places we want people to be. A public bathroom? I know it sounds silly, but people use them. That’s where the community is.”

Council members Jenn Kaaoush and Stephanie Miller backed the proposal. “I love the benches,” said Miller. “I’m okay moving funds into this, knowing it creates more of a sense of place.”

Art & History Supervisor Jennifer Garner acknowledged the budget impact plainly: “It’s workable, but it will absolutely take away from museum programming, public art maintenance, and other smaller programs.”

Mayor Lacis offered a closing argument in favor. “The one thing I’ve never heard from any resident, ever, is ‘You guys are spending too much on art.'”

The Council voted 5-2 to approve the resolution. Council member Foster and Mayor Pro-Tem Serbu voted against.

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The post Superior Town Council Tackles Bike Safety and Public Art appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Editor’s Note: In the interest of public transparency and community dialogue, Yellow Scene Magazine is publishing this response to address recent criticisms of our investigative reporting. We remain committed to the facts as documented in the public record.

We appreciate the response from Mayor Pro Tem Brandon Bell regarding our recent investigative article. However, his response was also unfortunately inaccurate regarding the nature of our reporting. It is necessary to address his criticisms with the clarity that the public record demands.

Firstly, to address the claim that this reporting is an attack on faith: at no point does the article claim that either council member is a parishioner of St. Scholastica. In fact, the only claim made regarding Mr. Bell is that he was included in email chains and involved in specific discussions. Mr. Bell actually confirms this in his own response as he recounts conversations he had with staff, the church, and Mayor Moore. Furthermore, we have explicitly reported twice that there is no evidence Mayor Moore attends this church. His personal religious background is irrelevant to our reporting. Our work is driven by his own words, both in council meetings and in emails obtained through the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA). To frame this as a question of faith, rather than a matter of bureaucratic transparency, appears to be an attempt to politicize a standard investigative process.

Secondly, Mr. Bell asserts that he was accused of “backdoor dealings.” No such language appears in our article. Our reporting described the planning as being “privately underway” or “quietly pursued.” These descriptions are based on the following established facts:

“The CORA records reveal that a planning process involving St. Scholastica, Catholic Charities, a project management firm, the Mayor, and other Erie figures had been privately underway for at least five months before Moore raised it at the November council meeting. Aside from Pro Tem Brandon Bell, no other council members were included in the conversations Yellow Scene Magazine obtained.”

Our central point is that this planning process occurred for months without the knowledge of the broader Town Council or project managers. Mr. Bell does not attempt to refute this. In fact, he extends the timeline of these discussions by stating he participated in early talks about this plan as far back as “2022 or 2023”. Our statement that the majority of the council was left out of the loop was substantiated by two of Mr. Bell’s own colleagues on the council.

Thirdly, Mr. Bell criticizes our reporting for misrepresenting the consultants involved, stating, “These consultants were parishioners volunteering their time—not individuals hired by the Town.”

At no point did our article claim they were hired by the town. We stated they were involved in the planning and discussions, and we quoted their emails directly. Whether they are volunteers or people of faith is irrelevant to the fact that they were participating in government-level planning. Mr. Bell seems to be attempting to turn a systemic critique into a personal one.

In his response, Mr. Bell also admits to his misgivings about the further subsidization of affordable housing.

“[…] providing additional subsidies for affordable housing could lead to similar outcomes: vacant units that remain too expensive for those who need them and insufficient demand among those who can afford them.”

While this may be a valid policy position, it adds weight to our reporting regarding his and Mayor Moore’s potential opposition to using funds specifically intended for affordable housing for their original purpose. While Mr. Bell describes the legal room for ARPA funds to be used otherwise, that is a separate matter from the original intention of the funding or the needs expressed by the Erie community through last year’s survey.

Finally, I will address the allegation that our article is “purely hearsay.” If by hearsay Mr. Bell means that the article quotes the individuals involved and references their own emails obtained by process of CORA, then we have provided exactly that. Any allegations made regarding the actions of the involved parties are supported by their own words on the public record for any citizen to see.

It is telling that despite Mr. Bell’s framing, he fundamentally agrees with our primary claims. He, Mayor Moore, the church, and others began considering a project to relocate the church for several months and did not communicate these plans with the full council. In November, Mayor Moore framed the project as a new thought he was ‘tossing around,’ despite having discussed it extensively for months.

Yellow Scene Magazine holds a deep respect for all religious individuals and backgrounds. This is not a matter of partisan division, but a matter of transparency. Our article aims to start a dialogue about processes from which the community and other council members were excluded. Before publication of our article, we reached out to Mayor Moore and the church for comment and they declined to respond. We would still welcome their voices. We hold our reporting to the highest standards, and every claim we have made is backed by evidence.

Thank you, Mr. Bell, for continuing the conversation our reporting has started.

The post Facts are Not Partisan: A Response to Mayor Pro Tem Brandon Bell appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

There is a small, noble campaign centered in Boulder that seeks Refuser Protection (RP), legislation meant to protect those who refuse to follow illegal orders. RP laws would prohibit  retaliation or punishment of any person who refuses to follow any order or instruction that violates the Constitution, statute or any relevant regulations .

This campaign is led by Matt Nicodemus, founder of Sworn to Refuse (StR). Nicodemus has been engaged in this work for more than a decade and has drawn a few encouraging responses, but no definitive results, from legislators including Congressman Joe Neguse and Maryland colleague Jamie Raskin.

Niciodemus’s efforts gained elevated relevance as a result of the Trump administration’s unsuccessful attempt to indict a group of lawmakers, including Colorado Congressman Jason Crow, for making a video reminding the world that one can – must – refuse to follow illegal orders. The impetus for the video was, seemingly , the arguably illegal deployments of active military to American cities and the illegal actions of ICE agents that took place afterwards .

Rep. Jason Crow visits Buckley Space Force Base in Aurora, Colorado. (Photo: U.S. Space Force)

The lawmakers’ arguments included a broad claim that all members of the military are  already trained to know not to follow illegal commands. Congressman Crow went as far as to cite his own experience as an Army Ranger:

But let’s be really clear. The man (Trump) has never served a day in his life in uniform. I went three times to war for this country in Iraq and Afghanistan. I was a paratrooper and I was an Army Ranger. From my first day of boot camp, we were taught about the law of war. We were taught about the Constitution. Before we ever deployed, I sat my men down, my soldiers, my paratroopers, and I taught them about their obligations under the law and the Constitution. This is ingrained in service.

The video was more a publicity stunt than a selfless public service. While I support the lawmakers, it is baldly contradictory to claim that all members of the military are routinely reminded of this obligation and then say the video was to inform the military folks of their rights and obligations.

Crow’s statement is also not reflective of my experience.

I was drafted in 1966 at the height of the war in Vietnam. On my first day in boot camp we were not “taught about the law of war.” We did pushups and were taught to keep our mouths shut. For the next year I did pushups and tried to keep my mouth shut through boot camp, advanced individual training (AIT) and Officer Candidate School (OCS). In a year of training to potentially serve in an immoral war, I can’t recall a single mention of the Constitution. We were, instead, conditioned to dehumanize the enemy by using ethnic slurs (gook) and shoving bayonets through dummies painted with slanted eyes. I was lucky and served in Georgia and Thailand, not Vietnam.

Although the horrific slaughter of 504 women, children and elderly men in the My Lai massacre is emblematic of illegal military cruelty, we Americans killed as many as 2,000,000 innocent Vietnamese in our indiscriminate ignition of hellfire during the war. 

In his book, Vietnam: A War Lost and Won, prolific British author Nigel Cawthorne wrote:

“But what the Viet Cong and NVA feared most was the B-52 strikes.  They called them the ‘whispering death’ because the first they knew of the presence of the bombers high above the jungle canopy and the clouds was the whistling of the bomb.  Aerial bombardments could go on for days or weeks at a time. Even the most battle-hardened veterans lost control of their bodily functions, soiling their pants and shaking uncontrollably.  Some went mad and no one who survived could ever be cured of the abject terror a B-52 strike inspired.   A B-52 mission could drop up to 54,000 pounds of bombs on a single target . . . Tran Thi Truyen, a sixteen year-old nurse who served in a field hospital in southern Laos, recalled how intense American bombing denuded the jungle and there was no place to hide.  During her month-long march down the (Ho Chi Min) trail, she carried a rifle, a sixty-pound knapsack, and a shovel.  When American planes came overhead, her group would disperse and dig foxholes.  After the bombing had stopped, she said she could not focus her eyes and her head ached for hours.  Wounded Vietnamese soldiers were brought up the trail for her to treat in her underground hospital.   Most were so badly wounded, nothing could be done for them.”

I watched those B-52s take off from a Thai airbase, heavy with bombs, and return to the base in time for happy hour at the Officers Club. It was nauseating.

All these years later, I read with fresh horror of our slaughter of innocent Iranian schoolchildren – collateral damage on a smaller scale than our role in the genocide in Gaza, where 75,000 Palestinians are dead by way of our complicity in Netanyahu’s bloodlust.

While protecting the rare refuser is an important ethical obligation, what is needed is a broad reckoning of who we really are.

We refuse to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) because, to paraphrase our national narcissism, “Nobody can tell us what we can do!”

In a  frantic flailing after 9/11, we avenged 2,977 deaths by killing several hundred thousand innocent Iraqis, who had nothing to do with 9/11.

In Gaza, the ongoing slaughter and starvation of 75,000 Palestinians is retribution for the – admittedly horrific – deaths of 1,195 in Israel on October 7th.

In Iran, the deaths of schoolchildren and many other innocents are retribution for, perhaps, the attempts to expose the president’s involvement with Jeffrey Epstein’s international child sex ring. 

Most soldiers would be hard-pressed to distinguish between legal and illegal orders. They, like their corrupt and incompetent commander-in-chief, are not well-versed in the Constitution or other legal or regulatory matters. A careful reading of proposed Refuser Protection legislation reveals good, but overly broad and overreaching, intentions. RP laws as suggested would encourage and protect those who refuse to do anything that appears to violate a law, a statutory clause, a pledge or oath, a rule or a workplace regulation. Given the predilections of many folks to litigate, I can imagine chaos ensuing as grievances proliferate.

I doubt that Nicodemus’s efforts will spark ethical legislation in a Congress that can’t reign in an absurdly incompetent, grandiose authoritarian wannabe. While useful to look after the rights of conscientious objectors, what we must do is focus on those who issue illegal orders, defy the Constitution, and possess the power to unleash mayhem within and outside our borders.

We don’t have to protect the powerless if we hold the powerful to account. 

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The post Right to Refuse Laws Sound Good. One Veteran Isn’t So Sure. appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Erie is currently committed to increasing its affordable housing stock to 12% by 2035, and no project looms larger in that effort than the Village at Coal Creek, a 46-acre property near Old Town that the town purchased in 2023 for $6.9 million. The money came from federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) dollars and the town’s TNACC, Trails, Natural Areas and Community Character fund, and the land was initially promoted as a future mixed-income neighborhood with trails, parks, and workforce-level housing. In practice, the project has been mired in uncertainty and bureaucratic delay that has been driven in part by Mayor Andrew Moore, who has repeatedly urged the council to slow down on decisions about the property’s future. Last April, Moore questioned whether the land would be better served as a park. By November, he was floating something else entirely.

At the November 17th Town Council meeting, Moore proposed that the Coal Creek land be used to relocate St. Scholastica, an Erie Catholic Church currently located on Highway 52. 

“Does it make more sense to put a place of worship, possibly St. Scholastica, on this property?” he asked, before adding that Catholic Charities might be a resource for incorporating affordable housing into such a plan. “[…] that’s really as far as the thought got.”

Council members Anil Peseramelli and Dan Hoback were both caught off guard. Hoback told Yellow Scene the proposition was “sprung on the council” without warning. Peseramelli said, “I would have expected to hear this before. We did study sessions on [Coal Creek Property] and it never came up in those sessions.”

But emails obtained through the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) tell a different story. The idea had gone considerably further than Moore’s “thought” framing suggested.

The CORA records reveal that a planning process involving St. Scholastica, Catholic Charities, a project management firm, the Mayor, and other Erie figures had been privately underway for at least five months before Moore raised it at the November council meeting. Aside from Pro Tem Brandon Bell, no other council members were included in the conversations Yellow Scene Magazine obtained.

One notable email is dated June 20th and was sent by Don Fitzmartin, President and CEO of Fitzmartin Consulting. Its language references prior meetings, suggesting the process was already in motion. Fitzmartin laid out two tracks: continuing development on a 10-acre parcel St. Scholastica had purchased near Highway 52 in 2020, or pursuing a land swap that would give the church a foothold at Coal Creek instead. The email also floated a “first right of refusal” on the balance of the Coal Creek property meaning the church could claim additional portions ahead of any other use, including affordable housing. That provision doesn’t reappear in later emails, but the land swap remains central to two more emails and a meeting agenda in the CORA records.

A June 27th meeting agenda for a gathering between “St. Scholastica, the Town of Erie, & Catholic Charities” makes clear how much the church had riding on Coal Creek. The agenda outlines what the church hoped to build at Coal Creek: a new church for 800 to 1,000 parishioners, a parish hall and administrative offices, and a possible future grade school. The scale of St. Scholastica’s Coal Creek ambitions represents a striking departure from where the church’s priorities appeared to be just four years ago. In a January 2021 newsletter, Development Committee Chair Mike Crader wrote that the Highway 52 property the church had just purchased would “provide for the community for the next 100 to 150 years”. By 2024, that property appears in the CORA records only as a bargaining chip in a land swap. What St. Scholastica now intends to do with Highway 52 is unclear, and the church did not respond to Yellow Scene’s Magazine’s request for comment about the shift.

Moore’s portion of the June 27th agenda focuses entirely on the land swap. It references the town-wide survey planned for July 2025, noting that if results showed public support for affordable housing, the Coal Creek property “becomes a place for real conversation and a partnership”, and frames Dig Studio’s ongoing land-use analysis as relevant due diligence for the St. Scholastica plan. That analysis eventually produced five options for Coal Creek, varying the balance between housing and open space. None includes a church. Aly Burkhalter, the Villages at Coal Creek project manager and Dig Studio Senior Planner, does not appear anywhere in the five months of emails.

The July survey did show affordable housing and open space as top priorities for Erie residents — neither of which a church development cleanly satisfies. The fact that Mayor Moore may have been privately advancing an alternative plan while that survey was being conducted and processed strikes some council members as potentially problematic.

 “One, it’s about respecting people’s opinions,” council member Peseramelli told Yellow Scene. “Two, it’s about transparency, because it is taxpayers’ money [going toward the project].”

Moore’s own emails are telling. On June 22nd, he wrote: “The town likely won’t swap land. However, the Paige property is already paid for with ARPA (federal) and Open Space funds and is designated for affordable housing […] My hope is that we can find a partnership where the town provides land for Catholic Charities to build the affordable housing, helping meet our goals while also creating a new opportunity for a new church site.”

Moore had publicly opposed affordable housing at Coal Creek, so his willingness to quietly carve out an exception for a church did not go unnoticed by colleagues. 

“[The potential of the St. Scholastica project including 150 affordable housing units] has been held out as a carrot to the council,” Hoback said. “Erie committed to become 12% affordable housing, and we are currently at 1%. The 150 units in the St. Scholastica plan would be a drop in the bucket.”

What’s Next

The plan now faces a significant obstacle. The Open Space and Trails Advisory Board reviewed St. Scholastica’s pre-application on February 9th and sent a letter to the Council recommending denial. OSTAB’s reasoning was direct:

 “The St. Scholastica development would destroy the attributes of the property for which it was purchased to preserve. The plan does not accommodate open space, natural areas, irrigated agriculture, a healthy riparian area, wildlife and bird habitat, floodplain buffering, viewshed protection, or a tranquil outdoor experience.”

Hoback noted that even when the town first purchased the Coal Creek property, there were concerns about its suitability. 

“The buildable portions didn’t lend an ideal splitting of affordable housing and open space,” he said. 

At a November 19th study session, the Council discussed whether the ARPA funding could be refunded or reallocated if affordable housing was not included in the final Coal Creek plan. Notably absent from that discussion was any mention of what would happen to  TNACC’s contribution if the land were designated solely for affordable housing.

For Paranelli, none of the procedural maneuvering changes what’s at stake.

 “I see it through the lens of how hard it is to be in a home, build equity, and build a family around it. It’s so easy to become homeless in Colorado. Two-to-three months without salary,” he said. 

He continued reflecting on his own background: “I grew up in a one-room home in India and the roof was leaky every monsoon season. There was no yard for my brother and I to play. These affordable houses are a perfect place for families starting. Two bedrooms and a small yard. And when those families are ready for the next step, other families starting out have somewhere to live.”

Whether the Council ultimately approves or rejects the St. Scholastica application, the CORA emails have already altered the political landscape around Coal Creek. The Mayor’s office alongside a church and a consulting firm, carried out at least five months of planning without the knowledge of most of the Council and the project’s manager. For a piece of land purchased with public funds to address one of Erie’s most pressing needs, the process raises questions that won’t be settled by any single vote.

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