“Antiquated election equipment, glitches and an expensive printing mistake added up to Montrose County’s primary election night turning into election week,” reports The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. “Teams of judges continued to tally votes by hand Wednesday after a fiasco with ballot printing made it impossible to complete the primary election by machine Tuesday night.”
“The day after the primary election, when many politicos are breathing a sigh of relief, Weld County Democratic Party Chairman Jerad Sutton was in his office making phone calls,” reports The Greeley Tribune. “That might sound boring to people who have always had offices — not the case for the Weld County Democratic Party. In a phone interview Wednesday, Sutton’s excitement was palpable. He’s got 10 local candidates running for office in November, the most in his time as chairman and more than any time since at least 2010.”
“Longmont has launched a project to evaluate the effectiveness of three types of bike lanes on city streets and is inviting comments about each,” reports The Longmont Times-Call. “‘The goal of the bike lane trial project is to test different types of bike lane facilities and solicit feedback from bicyclists, drivers’ and the city’s street maintenance workers, said Micah Zogorski, the project engineer for the experiment.”
‘If you had started the 1996 film ‘Twister’ at the moment when a tornado touched down about eight miles southwest of Clark on Sunday morning, you’d barely be done with the opening credits before the tornado was over,” reports The Steamboat Pilot. “The tornado, a EF-0 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, caused no damage, according to the National Weather Service in Grand Junction. It touched down at 10:18 a.m. and lasted two minutes. Its path was about 30 yards wide and about one-third of a mile long. Winds in the storm reached about 65 miles per hour. The funnel cloud associated with the storm existed for about 10 minutes.”
“It was the election where Colorado’s unaffiliated voters were going to make their muscle felt,” reports The Pueblo Chieftain. “But when the ballots were counted Tuesday, it seemed to be an election where the best-known, best-financed candidates carried the day. Republican state Treasurer Walker Stapleton has been considered the front-runner in the GOP primary for governor for most of the past year and he prevailed fairly easily, with 48 percent of the vote over businessman Victor Mitchell (30 percent), former Parker Mayor Greg Lopez (13 percent) and retired investment banker Doug Robinson (9 percent).”
“The Loveland City Council voted Tuesday in favor of spending about $628,000 more in order to complete the downtown Foundry project,” reports The Loveland Reporter-Herald. “But, contrary to the report prepared for council by city staff, the project’s developer told council the additional costs are not as much due to increasing costs of construction as they are about a widening scope of the project. The intention is to “keep the Foundry feel” while staying in budget, said Brinkman president Jay Hardy.”
“Vail native Mike Johnston will not be Colorado’s next governor, but said he is proud that he helped point us back toward the light,” reports Vail Daily. “Johnston was the first candidate in the Colorado governor’s race, shortly after the 2016 presidential campaign and its contentious aftermath — riots and demonstrations, confrontations, charges of racism — the list is long and unpleasant. When we did not withdraw, we lashed out at each other, Johnston said. “We doubted the goodness of our neighbors. We gave up on the idea of a nation, indivisible,” Johnston said in a letter Wednesday afternoon, June 27, to his supporters.”
“Voter turnout in Colorado’s primary election is unlike anything the Centennial State has seen in its recent history,” reports The Coloradoan in Fort Collins. “And that’s before you get to the fact that voters who are unaffiliated with a party were able to vote in the Democratic and Republican contests for the first time. More than 877,000 Registered Democrats and Republicans voted in Tuesday’s races, which is more than 100,000 more ballots than the previous highest turnout for a primary, per unofficial results from Wednesday morning.”
“Boulder County may ask voters in November to authorize collections of a 0.185 percent sales and use tax to fund improvements to the Boulder County Jail and construction of a new alternative-sentencing facility near the jail,” reports The Boulder Daily Camera. “The Board of County Commissioners has not yet formally discussed the possible tax question during one of its regular meetings but is tentatively set to consider in August whether to advance such a proposal to the fall ballot, according to Michelle Krezek, the commissioners’ staff deputy. No decisions have been made yet, Krezek said Wednesday. However, public discussion of the idea may start as soon as Thursday evening, when the possibility of such a county-wide ballot issue is on the agenda during a county commissioners’ annual dinner meeting with Longmont’s City Council.”
“Former Fremont County Sheriff’s Office Detective Robert Dodd took the stand on the third day of his jury trial Wednesday,” reports The Cañon City Daily Record. “He is accused of storing murder evidence in a personal storage unit that later was sold at auction when his payment defaulted. Dodd said he had no evil motives for holding the found property, which had “no value” to him. He faces charges of second-degree official misconduct, abuse of public records and criminal possession of an identification document. The charges stem from the December 2016 discovery of evidence in the storage locker found by Cañon City resident Rick Ratzlaff, who purchased the unit. The items allegedly are connected to the Aug. 15, 2006, murder of 17-year-old Candace Hiltz in the Copper Gulch area.”
“Colorado could finally be shedding its reputation as a state that eschews childhood vaccinations,” reports The Denver Post. “New figures from the health department show, for the second school year in a row, that more than 90 percent of students got their required shots. The shots are being administered at levels that officials say is needed to protect children against diseases such as diphtheria, tetanus, hepatitis B and polio. Prevention of the spread of viruses also is protecting kids who don’t get vaccinated. “This builds up protections for all kids — even those who can’t, for some reason, get immunized,” Tony Cappello, director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s disease control and environmental epidemiology division.”
