Fixing a gap in the child welfare system

Good morning, Colorado.

Do you have a favorite bakery or brewery that you feel doesn’t get enough love? Say you live on the Western Slope and there’s a landscape company that you really want to make sure people know about.

Well, Colorado’s Best is your opportunity to shine a light on those businesses. Our Reader’s Choice poll is open to your nominations for the best local businesses, schools and services across every corner of Colorado. Nominations are open through May 22, with voting for the winners among those nominations beginning June 10.

Follow this link, pick your home region and send us some of your nominations.

Here’s today’s news.

Kevin Jeffers

Product Team

THE NEWS

EQUITY

Bad child protection caseworkers can hop from county to county in Colorado undetected. New rules are coming.

Several high-profile examples of caseworkers lying about families are prompting action at the state Child Welfare Division. As Jennifer Brown reports, a gap in the system allows those caseworkers to still get a job in another county, so long as there is no criminal case. But state officials are now working to strengthen a law that has concerned advocates for years. Here are the details.

READ MORE

WATER

Colorado lawmakers passed 10 new water measures this year. These are the biggest ones.

Colorado lawmakers approved 10 water measures this year that will bring millions of dollars in new funding to help protect streams, bring oversight to construction activities in wetlands and rivers, make commercial rainwater harvesting easier and support efforts to restore the clarity of Grand Lake. Larry Morandi and Jerd Smith break down the most impactful water bills from this year’s legislative session.

READ MORE

ENVIRONMENT

Federal land managers are planning Colorado’s next wild horse roundup, ignoring pleas to stop using a helicopter

A BLM plan for rounding up horses in the plateaus of Little Book Cliffs, near Palisade, includes using a low-flying helicopter, which has upset mustang advocates. “We are disappointed in the Bureau of Land Management’s continual reliance on cruel helicopter roundups, especially in areas like Little Book Cliffs,” one spokesman said. Jennifer Brown has more details.

READ MORE

• Xcel may shut off power more often to avoid wildfires. Regulators have 8 questions about how that might work. The state’s largest utility will file a new wildfire mitigation plan next month. The PUC would like it to include how “public safety” shutdowns can cause less pain for customers, reports Mark Jaffe.

CRIME & COURTS

• 2nd teen pleads guilty in Jeffco rock-throwing spree that killed 20-year-old Alexa Bartell. Nicholas Karol-Chik, 19, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the death of Alexa Bartell, and criminal attempt to commit first-degree murder in attacks that targeted nine other people. Olivia Prentzel has more.

Section by Kevin Jeffers | Product Team

THE COLORADO REPORT

• New gondolas in the works for two of Colorado’s most popular ski resorts. Breckenridge and Winter Park are seeking approval from the U.S. Forest Service to build gondolas out of their base areas.
  — The Know 🔑
• Coloradans negotiating lower fees for real estate agents with new law on horizon. The National Association of Realtors settled an antitrust lawsuit that accused it of keeping broker commissions artificially high.
  — CPR News
• Fallout continues from the Miss USA resignations as a runner-up declines the crown, Miss Colorado resigns in solidarity. A string of departures and criticisms has refocused a spotlight on the organization, raising questions about its treatment of its two biggest titleholders and practices in general.
  — NPR
• 15-minute procedure to remove earwax results in $1,800 bill. 9NEWS Investigates sent the details to three medical billing experts. All three agreed the bill was absurd.
  — 9News

🔑 = source has article meter or paywall

Section by Danika Worthington | Presentation Editor

THE OPINION PAGE

COMMUNITY

• Politicians need to embrace the huge voting bloc that is the disabled.  As the election year heats up, the 61 million disabled Americans deserve to be heard and have equal representation
  — Claudia Folska, founder and CEO of All-Access Transit Solutions, a Denver-based company

The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom. Read our ethics policy for more on The Sun’s opinion policy and submit columns, suggest writers or provide feedback at opinion@coloradosun.com.

What’s Happening

Mountainfilm. There are a handful of outdoor-focused film festivals in Colorado, but there’s only one that Jimmy Chin, adventure filmmaker exemplar, credits with helping launch his early career. That festival, Telluride Mountainfilm, starts next Thursday.

Telluride already hosts one of the most prestigious film festivals in the state, the Telluride Film Festival, so it’s no surprise that their annual Mountainfilm, which started in 1979, is full of heavy-hitter guests and speakers — like Olympian Ashima Shiraishi, author Cheryl Strayed, mountaineer Conrad Anker and dozens of others.

An all-access pass with unlimited film screenings will put you out $400, but there are plenty of free ways to bask in the festival’s limelight all weekend long.

Nightly screenings at Telluride Town Park (nicknamed Base Camp for the festival) are free and open to the public, and begin at 8:30 p.m. — bring your own low-backed chairs and blankets. And in Elks Park, The North Face athletes will lead a variety of adventures, including a meditative forest walk, an indoor climbing session, trail runs and various hikes.

In the mornings, free coffee chats are held at various locations, which range from political panels to author discussions to whatever you want to call drag queen Pattie Gonia’s game-show style coffee talk, “Hot or Not?”

Free-$400; May 23-27; Various locations around Telluride

Evans School Open Studios. More than two dozen artists will open their studio doors to the public while an art sale, hosted by Redline Contemporary Art Center, takes place in the historic school’s boiler room. Free; noon-6 p.m., May 18; Evans School, 1115 Acoma St., Denver

Arts and Crafts. Next week the Silverthorne Art Spot celebrates one year of offering classes, workshops and kids camps to the community. This weekend’s classes include family friendly abstract painting, a teen earring-making workshop and an adults-only mug building date night (BYOB!). $30-60; Ongoing; Art Spot Silverthorne Makerspace, 401 Blue River Parkway, Silverthorne

Black Cube Block Party. Black Cube Nomadic Art Museum, the same group that planted a 160-acre earthwork in the San Luis Valley, opens its latest site-specific project in the heart of Denver, in collaboration with the Biennial of the Americas. Tonight, in Plaza of the Americas, the museum is holding an opening reception for “Horizon Drift” by artist Rachel Hayes, on view 24/7 until Oct. 27. Head back to the Plaza tomorrow night for the Biennial’s Party on the Plaza, an evening of performances and Latin American bites. Free; 5-7 p.m., May 16; Plaza of the Americas, 1550 Wewatta St., Denver

Section by Parker Yamasaki | Reporter

See you tomorrow.

— Kevin & the whole staff of The Sun

Corrections & Clarifications

Notice something wrong? The Colorado Sun has an ethical responsibility to fix all factual errors. Request a correction by emailing corrections@coloradosun.com.