“When Colorado Springs created its strong-mayor style of government in 2011, it included a provision that said members of City Council needed to give up their seats to run for the mayor’s job,” reports The Cañon City Daily Record. “That happened most recently in 2015, when a council member resigned for an unsuccessful run in a seven-candidate contest that John Suthers ultimately won. The drafters of Pueblo’s mayor plan didn’t consider the no-council-member rule when they were writing their ballot measure a year ago. Nick Gradisar, an elected member of the Pueblo Board of Water Works and a mayoral candidate, led the mayor campaign that city voters endorsed in November. ‘We had past and current council members participating in our discussions, and it wasn’t mentioned as a potential problem,’ Gradisar said last week. Well, it’s getting discussed now. Probably because there are 25 candidates running for mayor with two council members in the crowd and a likely third to join next week.”
“The Animas River has received a barrage of incidents over the past week, but Durango’s rafting industry remains undeterred,” reports The Durango Herald. “The biggest problem the rafting industry faces isn’t the incidents themselves – which include mudslides to the north and sewage spills to the south – but the perception that the river is unusable despite the opposite being true. “It’s really a perception problem that we’ve been dealing with all summer,” said David Moler, owner of Durango Rivertrippers and Adventure Tours. “If the perception is that the river is contaminated, well then the river is contaminated.” Mudslides that occurred last Tuesday turned the Animas River into a murky brownish river filled with debris. However, discolorization is a normal indicator of higher water levels, which the river has desperately needed this summer. When runoff from the snowpack reaches the river, it changes color, Moler said.”
“Responding to the call from Colorado Springs city leaders to shelter more homeless people, the Springs Rescue Mission is seeking to add 150 shelter beds and increase the nightly population of people at its campus to more than 550,” reports The Gazette in Colorado Springs. “In the process, they hope to breathe new life into several stalled projects handicapped by a yearlong slowdown in new donations and other funding. That juggling act — answer the city’s latest plea for help while salvaging key aspects of its all-encompassing service hub — represents the latest challenge for Springs Rescue Mission, which has taken a lead in addressing homelessness in Colorado Springs when few other nonprofits could or would.”
“It was a new day last summer when Boulder announced it had hired Renata Robinson, the city’s first-ever diversity officer, to lead efforts to make Boulder more welcoming and inclusive,” reports The Boulder Daily Camera. “The problem long had plagued the area, with survey results consistently showing that ethnic minorities faced a barrage of low-level and overt racism. Attempts to right the ship had been underway in various forms for decades, including, recently, the City Council’s creation in 2015 of the Human Relations Commission. Employees long had been tasked with ‘diversity initiatives,’ the city said in its news release touting Robinson’s hiring, but bringing a dedicated position online put ‘diversity and inclusion efforts in the forefront.'”
“Colorado health officials scrambled to determine whether a man who recently worked with sick people in eastern Congo and became ill Sunday in Denver had contracted the deadly Ebola virus — and doctors also isolated an ambulance crew for testing and were looking for another person in metro Denver who may have had contact with the man,” reports The Denver Post. “Denver Health and Hospitals officials Sunday night were waiting for test results from a state health lab but said that, based on an initial test in a special isolated unit, they do not believe the man has Ebola. A Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) bulletin late Sunday said testing “is negative for Ebola.” The man had been working with sick and dead people in an area of eastern Congo where a recent outbreak of Ebola had largely dissipated with no new Ebola cases reported over the past 45 days. On Sunday morning, he reported sudden severe symptoms at his residence in Denver, Denver Health chief medical officer Connie Price said.”
“A Rocky Mountain National Park ranger discovered a body Saturday in steep terrain northwest of the summit of Mount Meeker that is believed to be that of Brian Perri, the 38-year-old Fort Collins man who went missing after reaching the peak of the 13,911-foot mountain on June 30,” reports The Longmont Times-Call. “Park officials announced the discovery early Sunday morning, and said that while the Boulder County Coroner’s Office won’t release an official identification until after an autopsy is completed, the body is believed to be that of Perri.”
“The Thompson School District Board of Education will discuss ballot language for a $149 million bond and $14 million mill levy override to pay for backlogged maintenance, facilities, safety upgrades and technology as well as to keep current class sizes and boost salaries,” reports The Loveland Reporter-Herald. “The school board meets at 6 p.m. Wednesday — the first meeting with the new superintendent, Dr. Marc Schaffer — and will dig into specific ballot language for the two tax increases that will be put to voters this November, though a vote on the language will come at a future meeting.”
“Two of Steamboat Springs’ tastiest eateries, a man dedicated to creating affordable housing and a successful property management executive have been named the winners of this year’s Navigator Awards,” reports The Steamboat Pilot. “The Navigator Awards have been awarded to business community members for 20 years by the Steamboat Springs Chamber Resort Association and Steamboat Pilot and Today.”
“Garfield County commissioners have decided to join a class-action lawsuit with the goal of recovering underpayments by the federal government under its Payment in Lieu of Taxes program, while Mesa County is still considering the matter,” reports The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. “Garfield’s decision means it could recover an estimated $122,000 minus attorney fees potentially amounting to about a third of that amount. The recovery also is still subject to potential appeal by the federal government.”
“Usually, with sibling rivalries, it is the older sibling that gets the best of the younger one, but in the case of the French family, it has been the opposite,” reports The Cañon City Daily Record. “What started when Macy was 10 and her sister, Lyndsey, was 8 has favored Lyndsey, who has placed higher in senior English showmanship through the years at the Fremont County Fair.”
“The cake judging tent was adorned in all things purple on Sunday at the Carbondale Mountain Fair. Purple was the favorite color of Maureen Nuckols, a longtime cake judge who died from cancer earlier this year,” reports The Glenwood Springs Post-Independent. “Despite losing their friend, the cake judges were all giggles and costumes, as per usual, as they carried on Nuckols’ love of joy, life and cake. “She was so wonderful,” Felicia “Flash” Trevor Gallo said of Nuckols. “It’s bittersweet. She was so strong and healthy the last cake contest.”
“When a severe thunderstorm dropped golf ball-sized hail on a large swath of Greeley on Sunday, two dozen people at Bittersweet Park had one place to go,” reports The Greeley Tribune. “The pavilion on the west side of the park usually shelters picnic tables. On Sunday, it was a group of kids and parents taking part in a youth barbecue with Christ Community Church. Youth Pastor Stetson Beaman said he was checking his phone regularly, and had the kids under the pavilion about 10 minutes before the massive hailstorm hit. “It was pretty deafening underneath the metal roof,” Beaman said, adding that it was probably the largest hail he had seen.”
I’ve always found you can tell the true state of the economy by the number of candidates running for office.
The worse the economy, the more candidates you often have.