Posted inGrowth, News, Outsider

Colorado mountain towns feel more crowded than ever. But census data shows the population has barely changed.

Mick Ireland knows Pitkin County’s streets. The former Aspen mayor and 30-year politico has knocked on thousands of his neighbors’ doors over the years, promoting candidates and ballot issues as well as helping to register voters.  So when the 2020 census report showed entire blocks in Pitkin County — not city blocks but the small […]

Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns

Opinion: 12 years is too long to let the Comanche 3 coal-fired electricity plant keep running

As mayors who represent Coloradans in Xcel Energy’s service territory, we urge the Public Utilities Commission to reconsider Xcel’s settlement decision that would keep the state’s largest climate-polluting coal plant open until 2035, and instead ensure that the coal plant is replaced by cleaner, more affordable electricity before 2030. The climate crisis weighs heavy on […]

Posted inClimate, Energy, Environment, Equity, Housing, News

This is the first net-zero affordable housing project in Colorado’s high country. It certainly won’t be the last.

Jeremy Duncan enjoys scrolling through apps and websites regularly to check his family’s energy consumption at his home in Basalt.  “Holy Cross shows you how much you are saving, and SolarEdge has a feature where you can look at solar panels and see which panels are used most,” Duncan said. “You can break it down […]

Posted inColoradans, Crime and Courts, Health, News

How fake blue pills killed people on the Western Slope and led to Colorado’s first counterfeit opioid death conviction

The pill was light blue and stamped with “30” and “M,” just like a real 30mg oxycodone. Except it was a counterfeit, cooked up in an illegal Mexican lab rather than precisely measured in a pharmaceutical factory. The fentanyl it contained was potent enough to kill Jonathan Ellington in a matter of seconds. He died […]

Posted inBusiness, Climate, Coloradans, Environment, Growth, Health, Wildfire

The high cost of climate change is already straining the budgets of Colorado towns

The Grizzly Creek fire still is smoldering, but Glenwood Springs is already contemplating the challenges it will leave behind: severe damage to the forest drainages the Western Slope city depends upon for its drinking water. “We are concerned about a lot of mud and ash coming down the creek,” said  Shelly Kaup, the city’s mayor […]

Posted inColoradans, News, Politics and Government

Supreme Court ruling on DACA brings more time, but no less uncertainty for Coloradans

As of the end of last year, Colorado was home to 14,640 DACA recipients. They have always known their freedom runs on a clock. Thursday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the Trump administration cannot summarily shut down the program does not change the precariousness of their legal status in this country, but it buys more […]