How Colorado condos end up on the mortgage “blacklist” 

Daffodils and tulips are blooming, there are buds on the trees and resort snow has turned to sloppy mashed potatoes. There’s also a dampness in the air that made yesterday morning’s fog one of the weirdest weather things I’ve seen lately.

We drove up to Winter Park, beginning on C-470 in the misty, edge-of-turning-green foothills that made me imagine being in Ireland. By the time we reached Genesee, we were in the thick of the fog. On the other side was a winter scene under a gray sky, where thick snow clung to the evergreens and the landscape was made entirely of shades of blue-gray. The “spaceship house” looked particularly eerie.

Blue skies and sunshine that made the snow sparkle were next in this drive that felt like it went through more than one weather continuum. Colorado needed the moisture, as we’re required to say whenever it rains. Read on for the latest on the Colorado River, along with “unsellable” condos and putting age restrictions on porn sites.

Jennifer Brown

Reporter

THE NEWS

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

Colorado lawmakers send Jared Polis bill that would ban manufacture, drastically limit sale of many semiautomatic guns

Senate Bill 3 would prohibit people from buying many semiautomatic rifles and some semiautomatic pistols and shotguns that use detachable magazines — unless they are vetted by their county’s sheriff and complete up to a dozen hours of training. And as Jesse Paul reports, the bill is now just a signature away from becoming law.

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• Colorado lawmakers want to loop PERA into a plan to pay for policing. Here’s how it would work. The Joint Budget Committee last week finalized its budget package without deciding what to do about Proposition 130, the voter-approved requirement that the state spend $350 million to support law enforcement. Brian Eason digs into the complicated series of transactions that the JBC is proposing to satisfy that requirement without spending an extra dime of taxpayer money.
• Brita Horn, former county treasurer, elected to replace Dave Williams as Colorado GOP chair. Horn replaces Chairman Dave Williams, whose two-year term leading Republicans in Colorado was marked by controversy after controversy.

TECHNOLOGY

Many states require porn sites to verify their users’ age. Colorado may be next.

Senate Bill 201 would require websites with pornographic content to verify users are at least 18 years old either by sharing photo ID or using photo scanning software screened by artificial intelligence. Jesse Paul reports that free speech advocates say bills like this don’t work and push kids to less regulated parts of the internet, while privacy hawks (including the governor) are skeptical of the ability to keep users’ data safe.

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HOUSING

Why there is a growing number of unsellable condos in Colorado

As home insurance continues to spike, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage rules require policies insuring condo communities to have a deductible no higher than 5%. Tamara Chuang digs into how these insurance negotiations and things like deferred maintenance render many condos unsellable.

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• What’s Working: Denver chamber winds down diversity tool that just didn’t do the job. The business community hoped to move low-wage workers into higher paid jobs with the Prosper Compass tool launched in 2019, but the Chamber of Commerce says a lack of shared data kept adoption by members too low to be useful.

MORE NEWS

• Seven Colorado River states have mere weeks to reach water agreement after long impasse. A united agreement would clearly show how the Colorado River states want to manage their water future. But as Shannon Mullane reports, deep divides remain.
• Immigrant rights activist Jeanette Vizguerra was retaliated against in violation of free speech, her attorney says. Vizguerra’s case received its first hearing Friday in Denver federal court, where her attorneys are seeking to block her deportation.
• Fact Brief ☀️ Is Denver Health mostly funded through taxpayer dollars? Yes. Nearly 60% of Denver Health’s $1.5 billion in revenue comes from public funding through Medicare and Medicaid.

COLORADO SUNDAY

How one Colorado man turned his Parkinson’s diagnosis into a ranch life worth fighting for

For many people, a diagnosis like the one Brian Guhl received can cause crushing depression. But as Don Emmert writes and captures in some beautiful photos, Guhl gave up life as a contractor on the Front Range and has been single-handedly taking care of a remote ranch in the high country — while using both nature and modern medical advances to stay in balance.

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Section by Eric Lubbers | CTO & Newsletter Wrangler

THE COLORADO REPORT

🔑 = source has article meter or paywall

• Deion Sanders gets five-year, $54 million contract with Colorado. Here’s a sentence I wish I could go back in time to share with my middle school self in the ’90s: In the year 2025, Neon Deion Sanders will become the highest paid employee of the state of Colorado.
  — NBC Sports
• Colorado wildlife officer shoots wolf with bean bag to haze it away from ranch house. For the first time since the reintroduction of wolves, a Colorado Parks and Wildlife officer shot one of the endangered predators with a nonlethal bean bag projectile after it was seen entering a Jackson County ranch yard.
  — Coloradoan 🔑
• Colorado law that made possession of small amounts of fentanyl a felony didn’t reduce overdose deaths, study finds. A study of House Bill 1326 showed that increased punishments for fentanyl possession had almost no effect on overdose deaths and may have actually discouraged people from sticking to treatment for opioid addiction.
  — The Denver Post 🔑
• “A community isn’t really a community without a coffee shop.” It’s been more than a decade since Dillon had a real coffee bar, but with the opening of Dillon Coffee Lab & Espresso bar, the town’s caffeine addicts have a new, local option.
  — Summit Daily
• Denver’s poorest neighborhoods have more stink-producing factories, new study finds. The poorer a neighborhood of Denver is, the greater the chance that it has odor-producing factories that could stink it up — and unsurprisingly, many of the factories in question are located within the “inverted L” of the Denver map that represents other forms of historic inequality.
  — Denverite
• Standley Lake athletic trainer spies rare condition in Gators athlete. After years of experiencing sharp pain in his legs — think shin splints, but more intense — Standley Lake star Liam Graham finally got a diagnosis of compartment syndrome after the Gators’ trainer Mercedes Steidley, herself a sufferer of the rare condition, spotted the symptoms.
  — Westminster Window

Section by Eric Lubbers | CTO & Newsletter Wrangler

THE OPINION PAGE

COLUMNS

• Trump cuts to health care threaten to reverse overdose reductions made under Biden. By cutting $12 billion from health care, including $250 million in Colorado, Trump has cut off resources to those fighting addiction.
  — Mario Nicolais
  
• Snatch-and-grab arrests, official prison propaganda videos: Is it too late for Americans to be the good guys again? Remember when Americans were the good guys? Now see the video of the terrifying ICE arrest in Massachusetts or the Kristi Noem prisoner porn.
  — Mike Littwin
  

COMMUNITY

• Municipal courts in Colorado reflect safety as a community priority. The bill being considered in the Colorado Senate does not respect the local control afforded to municipalities by the constitution.
  — Kevin Bommer, executive director of the Colorado Municipal League

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.

Let’s all hope for April showers this week.

— Jennifer and the whole staff of The Sun

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