The Lost Creek Guide Jan. 3, 2024

Have a Safe and Happy 2024!

Volume 17 • Edition 01

January 3, 2024

Delivering to over 18,000 homes & businesses including all of Fort Lupton and Lochbuie.

“Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains taken to bring it to light” George Washington “If we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed” Thomas Jefferson

Natelson: The Good and Bad of the Colorado High Court’s Trump Decision

by Rob Natelson, Complete Colorado Page 2 There were two fundamental flaws in the Colorado Supreme Court’s 4-3 decision removing former President Donald Trump from the Colorado 2024 election ballot. The first was that the justices reversed the lower court without seriously addressing the issue the lower court found decisive.

The second was that the proceeding, like some others against the former President, did not grant him adequate due process.

Before getting deeper into those subjects, let’s examine how the case arose and mention some things the Colorado justices did get right.

Colorado law empowers the secretary of state, as chief elections officer, to decide who has qualified for the ballot. After the secretary of state placed President Trump on the ballot, a group of anti-Trump Republicans and Independents petitioned to have him removed. State law provides an expedited (very fast) procedure for election challenges. This procedure enabled the petitioners to bypass the “standing to sue” problems that have thwarted similar lawsuits in other states, and which I discussed in an earlier column.

The petitioners argued that the expedited procedure could be used to remove a candidate not qualified for the office he seeks. This argument probably was correct.

However, qualification lawsuits usually center on straightforward questions like “Does the candidate live in the district?” and “Does the candidate meet the age requirement?” The issues in the Trump case were far more complicated.

The plaintiffs argued that President Trump had “engaged in insurrection” against the United States, and was thus disqualified by Section 3 of the 14th amendment: That section provides (note the italicized words): “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or Elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office . . . under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”

After expedited proceedings, the trial judge found that President Trump engaged in insurrection during the days leading up to Jan. 6, 2021. But the judge also concluded that the presidency was not covered by Section 3 of the 14th amendment. The judge noted that Section 3 mentions members of Congress and presidential electors but does not mention the President. So the presidency is covered only if it is an “office under the United States.” After examining the Constitution’s text and historical evidence, she concluded that, although the President is an “officer,” he is not an “officer under the United States” as the Constitution uses that phrase.

Thus, the judge denied the petition to strike President Trump from the Colorado ballot. The petitioners thereupon appealed to the state supreme court.

What the Colorado Supreme Court got right On Dec. 19, the Colorado Supreme Court issued its opinion per curiam—that is, ”for the court.” This means no single person was the author. Four of the seven justices signed onto it. They were Justices Monica Márquez, Melissa Hart, Richard Gabriel, and William W. Hood. The three dissenters each wrote separate opinions. They were Chief Justice Brian Boatright, and Justices Carlos Armando Samour and Maria Berkenkotter.

The court had to address quite a few issues, requiring a lengthy opinion (133 pages).

The majority got two of those issues right.

First, the court pointed out that under the U.S. Constitution, presidential elections are subject to state, not federal, control. Although the Constitution gives Congress power to override state congressional election laws, the Constitution does not give Congress similar power to override state presidential election laws. (The principal exception is that Congress may fix the time for choosing the Electoral College and the day on which the Electoral College votes.)

The Supreme Court also got a related issue right. The Trump lawyers—and one of the dissenting justices—argued that Section 3 of the 14th amendment was not “self-executing.” In other words, they argued that it is a dead letter unless Congress defines and enforces it, which Congress has not done. They point to Section 5 of the 14th amendment, which gives Congress power to enforce the amendment by Natelson: The Good and Bad of the Colorado High Court’s Trump Decision continued on page 5...

Fort Lupton Recreation Hosts Annual Senior Twilight Dinner

By Linda Kudrma, Photos by Lost Creek Guide, Photographer Kim Thomsen Fort Lupton Recreation hosted their annual Senior Twilight Dinner. This is a holiday gathering for the Seniors within the community where they have the opportunity for a homemade holiday meal with all the fixing, entertainment, and fellowship.

Monty Schuman, Recreation Director, preps all the food and Linda Kudrna, Senior Coordinator, arranges all the extra details that goes into this special event. There are a lot of extra hands needed for the event and our staff is willing to help make this a special evening with all hands-on deck to serve, prep, and cleanup.

Scott VanBeber from Loveland provided holiday music throughout the evening.

Folks listened and sang along with lots of fellowship shared amongst them.

This is such a special evening for our Seniors, and we are lucky to be able to offer such an event for them. To some, it is their only holiday meal with friends or family, so it means a great deal to them. My favorite part of the evening is singing “Silent Night” all together. It touches everyone’s heart to see and hear everyone engaged at that moment. We had about 140 people in attendance for this year’s gathering.

WHAT’S IN THIS ISSUE

Page 2: Way of the World Page 2: Weld County Council Comment Page 3 & 4: Weld GOP Comments Page 4: History of New Years Page 5: Weld RE3J Newsletter Page 6: State Senator for District 1 Byron Pelton Op Ed on Our County Clerks Page 8 ,9, & 11: 2023 Hudson Holiday Parade Pictures Page 11: Lauren Boebert Running in CD 4 Page 14: Property Tax Opinions

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Lost Creek Guide

Way of the World

by Bob Grand 2023 is over and here comes 2024. It is a shame that the Holiday season seems to end right after the holidays. What a better world we would have if everyone had the holiday spirit all year round. Thinking of others and how we can make the world a better place, rather than an all too common, what is in this for me attitude.

2024 brings the election process complete with the primary battles and all trying to convince the voters they are better equipped to serve them. An interesting thought, as we have seen too often, as soon as the election is over, what can I do to make life better for you becomes how can I make life better for me and my special interest supporters. We have no one to blame but ourselves. Our voter turnout is deplorable.

None of the political parties, Democrats, Republicans or even Libertarians want you to vote. They certainly all have a terrible history in encouraging folks to exercise their right to vote. They just want to maintain control over their dominions and the rest of us, the people they are supposed to work for, be damned.

The past year saw this most obviously in the property tax issue which the Democratic-controlled Colorado State House ignored trying to solve the problem but used it as an opportunity to try and finally kill TABOR. We all saw how well that worked out for them. But let us not let the Republicans go unnoticed in this. Weld County, one of the bastions of liberty and protector of the rights of the people, saw an overwhelming ignoring of reducing of the mill levy rates to help the taxpayer.

Three of the Weld County Commissioners even went before the Weld County Council requesting the approval to maintain the existing levy, or close, rather than abiding by the Weld County Charter which limits the increase that the County can have.

How many of the taxing authorities in Weld County actually attempted to lower the mill levy rate to soften the impact on taxpayers? And how many just saw the 35% increase in valuation as a chance to fatten their reserves? Over the next few months, the Lost Creek Guide and ourtowncolorado.com will examine the municipal taxing authorities’ 2024 budgets in Weld County and disclose what they did or did not do to represent the interests of their taxpayers. It should be an informative analysis, and I believe it will shock you when you look at the forecasted reserves that will be in place at the year end 2024. You can compare it to your individual reserves for your own personal expenses and be the judge.

Joe Biden and Donald Trump, separate from all the legal questions that they both have should not run as their ages are a problem. Mental acuity is important, watching Biden is not confidence inspiring, although Trump appears sharper, for now, who knows what will come in the near term. Egos are tough to manage, and it takes courage, something not in abundant supply.

Many folks are enjoying the legal hurdles Trump is facing but I caution you. If they can do it to Trump, they can do it to you, what stops them? What happened to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, a basic tenet of our legal system?

I believe the Colorado Supreme Court will be reversed by the United States Supreme Court. Even Governor Newsome, of California, is tapping the breaks on efforts to have the same situation proceed in California, not exactly Trump country.

We need to elect people who have the best interests of their constituents, the people, all the people, at heart, not just the continuation of the status quo and its special interest groups. It calls for courage and bravery to fight the deep state.

The Russian Federation “special operation” continues. A massive killing machine with which Vladimir Putin has no concern over. But Russian mothers and wives are beginning to ask where is my family member? Enough to unseat Putin in the upcoming election? I am not sure as the Russian deep state has its own issues, of which worrying about its citizens is not a major concern, just maintaining total control. Have you been watching what is happening to the Russian Federation commercial aircraft fleet. Sanctions are having significant impact on the availability of spare parts resulting in major service interruptions across the Russian Federation in their airline service. Are we seeing a major aircraft disaster in the making?

Our economy is struggling, even in Colorado, and we all are paying more to do anything. As this next year evolves, we will see how soft the economic landing will be. I am afraid there are delusions on this subject as you look at credit card debt, interest rates, student debt repayment, cost of food, job insecurity, crime, illegal immigration, etc. Ask the Jeep UAW employees who went on strike for higher wages only to have the third shift at a major Jeep plant going to be shut down and a third of the workforce being furloughed due to soft demand. The numbers are not supporting a soft landing but who are we, the folks that foot the bill with our taxes, compared to the intellects in Washington who we elect to run our government or the bureaucratic administrative staff who certainly knows so much more than the rest of us. You have to ask, have we allowed this problem to drift down to the state, county, and local government level by not participating more vigorously in the election process? I am afraid, if you are honest with yourself, the answer is yes.

When are we finally going to say enough is enough?

As always, your thoughts and comments are appreciated: publisher@ lostcreekguide.com

The Lost Creek Guide, Llc Bob Grand – Publisher 303-732-4080 publisher@lostcreekguide.com lostcreekguide.com Our deadline is 7 working days before publication

105 Woodward - PO Box 581 Keenesburg, CO 80643

Letters to the Editor are encouraged. Letters may be edited for length, libelous, or inappropriate content. All letter submissions should include name, address, & phone number for verification purposes. Letters are published at the editor or publisher’s discretion. Opinions expressed in letters to the editor do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Lost Creek Guide or staff.

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January 3, 2024

Weld County Council Meeting 12/18/2023

Statement to Weld County Council by Bob Grand, Keenesburg Good Evening: My name is Bob Grand and I live at 105 Woodward Avenue, in Keenesburg, Colorado.

I am one of the approximately 70,000 registered voters in Weld County Commissioner District 3.

Our sitting Weld County Commissioner for District 3, Lori Saine, was removed from her supervisory County Commissioner assignments by a 4 to 1 vote of the County Commissioners. There has been no explanation of this.

Ms. Saine wrote a letter to the Editor for the Lost Creek Guide which I elected not to publish, as it did not contain information that I could verify. Now in twelve years I can count the number of letters to the editor I have refused to publish on one hand. The question is what is the quality of representation District 3 voters have at the County Commissioner table today?

I do not know what Lori Saine did or did not do but whatever it is the people have a right to know. If she did nothing wrong she should be reinstated to her full position responsibilities. Now since the vote was 4 to 1 I suspect there is something at issue.

The voters deserve to know. If in effect it is bad enough to remove her from the supervisory roles she was assigned than maybe she should be asked to resign. Limbo does not seem an appropriate solution.

Reading the County Charter, as revised, however, I do not see a mechanism where the County Council can get involved in this. Am I correct in this in this assumption?

It would appear that only the voters can recall or vote for a replacement at the next general election. To have a recall you must identify the reason why.

If that is the case what is the only mechanism voters have in this case? Wait until the next election? Does not seem like a good option for the voters.

Is the only solution a ballot initiative to revise the County Charter to allow for a review of Commissioner conduct, where appropriate, by a third party group, such as the County Council?

Where can voters go to get relief to maintain their representation? I request a formal reply. Thank you.

Bob Grand, Keenebsurg

Be That Person

by Jackie Smith With the year 2023 firmly in the rear-view mirror, we set our sights on the new year. Some of us watched the ball drop and counted down its arrival. While others rang in 2024 attending a party with family and friends. They raised their glasses in good cheer to wish each other prosperity and good health. All have high hopes that this year will be better than the last.

Most people will evaluate the old year and will try to improve their lives by making a New Year’s resolution. Maybe the goal is to get organized, stop smoking, lose weight, get out of debt, go to church more, or simply to give back to the community through donations and volunteering.

Volunteers don’t just give time, they give the gift of happiness to other people, families, and children. Many will not know how it has impacted an individual or a family, but sometimes you can recognize it through the smiles on their faces, especially the children’s. Someone could be down on their luck and a volunteer may have given assistance that may have helped someone get through the month providing food and shelter. Volunteers are heroes who help their communities and inspire people to make their town a better place to live. Some memories will be created that will be talked about around the kitchen table that will last a lifetime.

At South Platte Valley Historical Society, we are grateful for every volunteer. Simply put we would not exist if it was not the many hours that they donate to the society. It might surprise you, there currently are no paid positions at the park.

Everything from the mowing of the 100-acres to the cleaning of the buildings is done by volunteers. Each giving selflessly to the benefit of the community, and the preservation of history.

Are you that hero? Please consider joining our membership and getting active. Provide that inspiration and happiness to someone here at the park or find one of the many organizations in your town looking for volunteers.

To become a member, visit our website www.spvhs.org or follow us on our Facebook page, South Platte Valley Historical Park. We hope to see you real soon.”

Letter to the Editor: Weld County Must Protect Taxpayers

The recent defeat of Proposition HH by voters was a clear indicator that Coloradans don’t want more taxes.

Unfortunately, the special legislative session called by Gov. Polis ended without any real solution for homeowners facing the impending skyrocketing of property taxes.

That Gov. Polis and the Democratic state legislature refused to consider any solution that capped property tax rates is sadly no surprise but just the latest example of them abdicating their responsibility towards voters.

Unfortunately, even before the defeat of Prop HH, leaders in our own local government here in Weld were shifting to a new scheme against taxpayers.

This scheme from some Weld County Commissioners was a push to hold on to excess taxpayer funds for a specifically designated project that was ‘for the children’.

To top it off, when pressed about the details of their new scheme—that they cooked up behind closed doors—they admitted that the additional money from taxpayers might not even be used for the designated project.

The last thing we need right now, as families struggle in this economy, is a new slush fund of taxpayer money for county bureaucrats.

As a Weld County Commissioner, I take my responsibility to my fellow taxpayers very seriously, and that’s why I’m pushing for local governments to use the authority we have to lower mill levy rates, not raise them.

Please let your voice be heard on this issue. As voters in Weld County you are the boss, and myself and other county commissioners answer to you.

If you would like to sign the petition to the Weld County Board of County Commissioners and local governments to offer immediate property tax relief you can do so by visiting www. saine4weld.com/taxpayer-petition Weld County government must be committed to answering to We the People, and be held accountable to you, the taxpayers.

Commissioner Lori Saine Weld County Commissioner - District 3

January 3, 2024

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Lost Creek Guide 2024 Weld County Lincoln Day Dinner

Statement Concerning The Colorado Supreme Court Decision

Weld County Republican Party Executive Officers’ Statement Concerning the Colorado Supreme Court Ruling Removing Former President Trump from the 2024 Colorado Ballot: Fellow Americans, Earlier this week, you likely saw that the Colorado Supreme Court made a radical and unprecedented move by removing former President Donald J. Trump from the ballot. This decision is a direct attack on our democracy. It is wrong and undemocratic for an unelected body of justices to make decisions that ultimately should be left up to us, we the people. The decision that justices reached in Anderson v. Griswold is wildly dangerous for the future of this nation as the justices have decided to interpret the facts of the case without allowing for due process of the President, as he has not been convicted by any court, of violating his oath of office or violating the United States Constitution. Chief Justice Boatright, a Republican, got it right in his dissent. There is a lack of criminal convictions against the former President; thus, removing him from the ballot is wrong and unfounded. The Weld County Republican Party Executive Officers fully support the Colorado GOP’s move to appeal the decision to the United States Supreme Court. We trust that the US Supreme Court will do the right thing.

Elections have consequences. Supreme Court Justices are appointed by the Governor of Colorado, approved by the State Senate, and then, after serving for two years, are subject to retention on the bench by us Colorado Voters and then again subject to a question of retention after ten years. Democrat Governors Bill Ritter and John Hickenlooper appointed the Justices who voted to keep Trump off the ballot.

Weld County is also responsible for allowing this decision. In 2018, 69% of Weld County voted to retain Justice Richard Gabriel, 62% voted to retain Justice Monica Marquez in 2014, 67% voted to retain Justice Melissa Hart in 2020, and 65% voted to retain Justice William Hood in 2016. Justice Monica Marquez will be up for retention in 2024; let’s ensure Weld County does its part and remove Justice Marquez from the bench. But let’s not just stop there; let’s also ensure we have a State Senate with a Republican majority to prevent more radicals from getting appointed to the court. We have a chance in 2024 to do our part by electing a Republican in Senate District 13.

Did we mention that the wife of current Senate District 13 Senator, Kevin Priola, was one of the plaintiffs who brought the lawsuit?

If you’re just as fired up and angry as we are concerning this decision, don’t just sit back; instead, get involved with the Weld GOP and help take back this state and this country. We have plenty of Precinct Committee Person (PCP) openings and are actively seeking volunteers to help our candidates going into this pivotal election year.

2024 will be a massive year for us in Weld. We have a decision to make. We can either continue living under Democrat-imposed control of vital offices or elect commonsense Conservative Republicans who will stand up for their constituents and Weld County.

To join the Weld GOP and learn more about us, please visit our website: https:// weldcountygop.com/ Let’s come together as a party by doing what we can in 2024 to retake our nation, state, and county.

Your Weld GOP Executive Officers, Tom Van Lone - Chairman Hunter Rivera - 1st Vice Chairman Frederick Mahe - Treasurer Eric Rinard - Secretary Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!

On a much lighter note, the Weld GOP would also like to wish you a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and a Happy Holidays!

2024 will be a big year for us in Weld County, and we look forward to sharing more opportunities and ways for you to get involved with the GOP after the new year begins!

Join the Weld County Republican Party for our Lincoln Day Dinner on February 24th, 2024! Our speaker will be National Broadcaster, Author, and President of Amerisheach, Inc., William J. Federer. William J. Federer is a Senior Fellow at the D. James Kennedy Center for Christian Statesmanship, a ministry of Evangelism Explosion International. A nationally known speaker and best-selling author of over 20 books, his America’s God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations has sold over a half-million copies. A former Congressional candidate, his daily American Minute radio feature and popular Faith in History television program are broadcast nationally.

Along with hearing from our fantastic speaker, our dinner will also feature a silent and live auction, a fantastic dinner, cash bars, great conversations with fellow Weld County Conservatives, and an opportunity to meet with your Weld County Republican Elected Officials and Candidates. Tickets start at $125/person, along with additional options to buy a full table of 8! Table pricing starts at $1250. You may also be interested in our VIP reception, where you will get an opportunity to meet with our keynote speaker!

If you are interested in attending, please visit the following link to purchase your tickets today! https://secure.anedot.com/win2024/d76b6e37-49b8-442a-812c71aefb645fa8 Tickets and tables are limited, so make sure to make your purchase before it’s too late!

If you would like to donate to our silent or live auction or help us set up for this event, please contact 2nd Vice Chair Nila Croll.

If you have any questions about the dinner or would like to learn more about purchasing a ticket or table, please contact 2nd Vice Chair Nila Croll.

Vice Chair Vacancy Last month, at our regularly scheduled executive committee meeting, 2nd Vice Chair Nila Croll resigned from her position. The Weld GOP is extremely grateful and thankful for Nila’s service and dedication to the Weld GOP over the past year.

Nila has spent countless hours working on and planning events for the Weld GOP to ultimately help our candidates in 2024. Though Nila has resigned as vice chair, she will remain in charge of our upcoming Lincoln Day Dinner.

Candidates interested in filling the role of 2nd Vice Chair will be considered at our January meeting. If you are interested in running for 2nd Vice Chair, please contact Chairman Van Lone with a letter of interest and a summary of qualifications. Tvanlone@comcast.net District Captain Vacancies

In Weld County, precincts are organized geographically into fifteen different districts. District Captains (DCs) work with the Precinct Committee People (PCPs) in their district to organize party activities and elect Republicans. It is the very fabric of the grassroots effort in Weld County!

The Weld GOP has vacancies in District F and I. Statement Concerning The Colorado Supreme Court Decision continued on page 4...

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Lost Creek Guide

History of New Year’s

by History.com Editors Civilizations around the world have been celebrating the start of each new year for at least four millennia. Today, most New Year’s festivities begin on December 31 (New Year’s Eve), the last day of the Gregorian calendar, and continue into the early hours of January 1 (New Year’s Day). Common traditions include attending parties, eating special New Year’s foods, making resolutions for the new year and watching fireworks displays.

Ancient New Year’s Celebrations The earliest recorded festivities in honor of a new year’s arrival date back some 4,000 years to ancient Babylon. For the Babylonians, the first new moon following the vernal equinox—the day in late March with an equal amount of sunlight and darkness—heralded the start of a new year. They marked the occasion with a massive religious festival called Akitu (derived from the Sumerian word for barley, which was cut in the spring) that involved a different ritual on each of its 11 days.

In addition to the new year, Atiku celebrated the mythical victory of the Babylonian sky god Marduk over the evil sea goddess Tiamat and served an important political purpose: It was during this time that a new king was crowned or that the current ruler’s divine mandate was symbolically renewed.

Did you know? In order to realign the Roman calendar with the sun, Julius Caesar had to add 90 extra days to the year 46 B.C. when he introduced his new Julian calendar.

Throughout antiquity, civilizations around the world developed increasingly sophisticated calendars, typically pinning the first day of the year to an agricultural or astronomical event. In Egypt, for instance, the year began with the annual flooding of the Nile, which coincided with the rising of the star Sirius. The first day of the Lunar New Year, meanwhile, occurred with the second new moon after the winter solstice.

January 1 Becomes New Year’s Day The early Roman calendar consisted of 10 months and 304 days, with each new year beginning at the vernal equinox; according to tradition, it was created

by Romulus, the founder of Rome, in the eighth century B.C. A later king, Numa Pompilius, is credited with adding the months of Januarius and Februarius.

Over the centuries, the calendar fell out of sync with the sun, and in 46 B.C. Julius Caesar decided to solve the problem by consulting with the most prominent astronomers and mathematicians of his time. He introduced the Julian calendar, which closely resembles the more modern Gregorian calendar that most countries around the world use today.

As part of his reform, Caesar instituted January 1 as the first day of the year, partly to honor the month’s namesake: Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, whose two faces allowed him to look back into the past and forward into the future. Romans celebrated by offering sacrifices to Janus, exchanging gifts with one another, decorating their homes with laurel branches and attending raucous parties.

In medieval Europe, Christian leaders temporarily replaced January 1 as the first of the year with days carrying more religious significance, such as December 25 (the anniversary of Jesus’ birth) and March 25 (the Feast of the Annunciation); Pope Gregory XIII reestablished January 1 as New Year’s Day in 1582.

New Year’s Traditions and Celebrations Around the World In many countries, New Year’s celebrations begin on the evening of December 31—New Year’s Eve—and continue into the early hours of January 1. Revelers often enjoy meals and snacks thought to bestow good luck for the coming year. In Spain and several other Spanish-speaking countries, people bolt down a dozen grapessymbolizing their hopes for the months ahead-right before midnight.

In many parts of the world, traditional New Year’s dishes feature legumes, which are thought to resemble coins and herald future financial success; examples include lentils in Italy and black-eyed peas in the southern United States. Because pigs represent progress and prosperity in some cultures, pork appears on the New Year’s Eve table in Cuba, Austria, Hungary, Portugal and other countries. Ring-shaped cakes and pastries, a sign that the year has come full circle, round out the feast in the Netherlands, Mexico, Greece and elsewhere. In Sweden and Norway, meanwhile, rice pudding with an almond hidden inside is served on New Year’s Eve; it is said that whoever finds the nut can expect 12 months of good fortune.

In the United States, the most iconic New Year’s tradition is the dropping of a giant ball in New York City’s Times Square at the stroke of midnight. Millions of people around the world watch the event, which has taken place almost every year since 1907. Over time, the ball itself has ballooned from a 700-pound iron-andwood orb to a brightly patterned sphere 12 feet in diameter and weighing in at nearly 12,000 pounds. Various towns and cities across America have developed their own versions of the Times Square ritual, organizing public drops of items ranging from pickles (Dillsburg, Pennsylvania) to possums (Tallapoosa, Georgia) at midnight on New Year’s Eve.

January 3, 2024

Statement Concerning The Colorado Supreme Court Decision continued from page 3...

District F includes much of Erie and portions of Longmont, Frederick, and Mead.

The following precincts make up District F: 8236462202 8231962328 2236462260 2171962342 2231962355 2231962356 2231962357 2231962358 8231962327 8231962326 2171962340 2171962341 2171962334 2171962344 2171962343 2171962339 2171962338 2171962335 2171962336 2171962337 District I includes much of Hudson, Keensburg, and Kersey. The following precincts make up District I: 4014862301 4014862302 4014862303 4016362353 4016362354 4016362300 8016362329 8014862310 If you are unsure of what precinct you live in, please visit the Secretary of State’s Website here or contact Vice Chair Hunter Rivera.

As a reminder, a precinct is the smallest political subdivision. It is your neighborhood and your neighbors. Weld’s fifteen District Captains work with the PCPs in their respective precincts to make an impact on Republican candidates and conservative ideas and values.

The District Captain is elected at the County Central Committee meeting, held in February of odd-numbered years. If a District has a vacancy, the Weld Central Committee Vacancy Committee appoints a District Captain to fill the role.

All fifteen Weld District Captains become part of the Weld County Executive Committee, where they have a voice and a vote in managing the activities of the Weld County GOP. District Captains work diligently with the County Officers to form a cohesive team focused on activating Weld’s grassroots and electing Republicans!

If you live within one of the precincts above and would like to serve, please contact Chairman Tom Van Lone and notify him of your intent to apply for the position. Please send a letter of interest and a summary of qualifications to be considered for the position.

The Weld GOP Vacancy Committee will be meeting to interview and appoint candidates before our next regularly scheduled executive committee meeting.

Comments on Lochbuie & Keenesburg Physical Libraries: No Comments Provided.

January 3, 2024

Lost Creek Guide

Natelson: The Good and Bad of the Colorado High Court’s Trump Decision continued from page 1... “appropriate legislation.”

There are several problems with that argument. First, the fact that Congress has power to adopt laws enforcing the amendment does not mean it must do so before the amendment is effective. Second, although the amendment granted Congress power to remove a disability, it pointedly did not grant power to create a disability. Third, Section 5 is what is called an “incidental powers” clause. This means its scope is quite limited.

Congress has passed a law making insurrection a crime (18 U.S.C., Section 2383).

Violation of that law leads to disqualification. It is unclear what portion of the Constitution gives Congress authority to pass such a law, but it probably is not the 14th amendment.

What the Court probably did wrong Several scholars have concluded that Section 3 of the 14th amendment does not apply to the President because (they say) the presidency is not, in the Constitution’s phrase, an “office under the United States.”

They present an impressive amount of evidence suggesting that when the Constitution was ratified, people thought of the President as an officer, but not as an “officer under the United States.” That phrase referred only to an appointed officer, such as the Secretary of the Treasury or the Secretary of the Senate.

The trial judge found the evidence from the ratification era persuasive, but the Colorado Supreme Court largely ignored it. Instead, the majority contended that excluding the President didn’t make sense, because then he would not be covered by the Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause (Article I, Section 9, Clause 8), which prevents officers under the United States from accepting gifts from foreign powers.

However, important evidence shows that the people who ratified the Constitution did not, in fact, consider the President to be covered by the Foreign Emoluments Clause.

The justices ignored that point, too.

What the Court definitely did wrong President Trump repeatedly has been denied due process of law. This happened in the first and second impeachment trials, and at the House of Representatives’ “Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.” (We’ll call it the “Jan. 6 Committee.”)

And it just happened again in Colorado.

President Trump has never been convicted—or even charged—with insurrection.

President Biden’s Justice Department, which has not been reluctant to prosecute political opponents (including President Trump), has never proceeded against him under the federal insurrection statute. The likely reason for this is that the prosecutors know there is not sufficient evidence to obtain a conviction. As I have stated in a previous column, I think there should be a conviction for criminal insurrection before a person is disqualified.

The Colorado trial judge nevertheless allowed the suit to proceed. As a result, she had to determine whether the Jan. 6 riot really was an insurrection—and, if it was, whether Trump knowingly promoted it. These are difficult issues, and they require preparation, tested evidence, and time to resolve.

As the dissenting justices pointed out, disqualification for public office is a drastic punishment that should be inflicted only after compliance with all due process standards: timely notification, disclosure of evidence among the parties, an impartial adjudicator, the right to call witnesses, the right to cross-examine, time to prepare, and—because of the seriousness of the punishment—proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

Expedited proceedings might be fine for determining whether a person meets an age requirement, But they are totally inadequate for trying the complex issue of whether the former president engaged in insurrection. For that reason, the trial judge should have dismissed the case. The correct path for the petitioners would have been to convince a prosecutor to seek a criminal conviction for insurrection or (assuming petitioners have standing) to commence a regular civil proceeding.

Possibly because the expedited-hearing time was so limited, the trial judge compounded her mistake by heavy reliance on “evidence” from the Jan. 6 committee.

The Colorado Supreme Court’s most serious mistake was approving this procedure.

Material from the Jan. 6 committee is hearsay, which means it cannot be crossexamined. True, the Supreme Court pointed out that an exception to the hearsay rule exists for “factual findings resulting from an investigation made pursuant to authority granted by law.” But the Jan. 6 committee’s spectacle was not an “investigation” as that term usually is understood. It was a show trial: All the members of the committee had voted to impeach Trump on the same charges. All Trump supporters were kept off the committee. The Trump team was not permitted to introduce evidence, challenge evidence, or cross-examine witnesses. Evidence was admitted, highlighted, suppressed, or manipulated to achieve pre-determined results.

The committee hearings were staged events designed to destroy a political opponent.

Joe Stalin couldn’t have done it better.

In sum, material from the Jan. 6 committee has no place in a courtroom.

The future If the Colorado Supreme Court decision survives review by the U.S. Supreme Court—and I suspect it will not—we can imagine the future. It will be like this: ▪ If the federal or state establishment opposes a popular political candidate, then Congress or the state legislature will conduct a show trial and issue a report “proving” the candidate is guilty of insurrection.

▪ The candidate’s opponents then will sue in a sympathetic court to remove that politician from the ballot, using the report as “evidence.”

▪ The court will remove the opposing politician from the ballot, and the voters will never be heard.

Is that the future we want?

Robert G. Natelson, a former law professor, taught Constitutional Law and First Amendment. He is the senior fellow in constitutional jurisprudence at the Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver, and author of “The Original Constitution: What It Actually Said and Meant” (3rd ed., 2015). A version of this essay originally appeared in the Epoch Times.

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Four Takeaways from the Rocky Rollout of Colorado’s Popular New Free Preschool Program

by Ann Schimke, Chalkbeat Inside Colorado’s free preschool initiative With its new universal preschool program, Colorado joins a small but growing group of states that offer tuition-free preschool to all 4-year-olds.

So far, the program is popular with families, but there have been lots of bumps in the road, including three lawsuits against the state and the threat of a fourth. Some of the hiccups and headaches are usual new-program fare while others stem from the program’s rushed rollout by a new state agency.

Despite the problems, the $322 million program is a big deal. Funded partly with a nicotine tax that Colorado voters passed easily, it’s cutting preschool tuition costs for thousands of families and helping more Colorado children get ready for kindergarten.

Nearly 50,000 preschoolers are enrolled this year, more than double the number served in the state’s previous smaller preschool program.

Universal preschool has long been one of Gov. Jared Polis’ signature initiatives and its launch last August represents the second and harder half of the governor’s ambitious early childhood agenda. Free full-day kindergarten, which kicked off in 2019, was the other major component.

Here’s a closer look at four key issues that have cropped up during the preschool program’s first six months.

A surge in demand led to tough decisions — and could again More than 38,000 4-year-olds — 60% of that age group in the state — are enrolled in universal preschool this year. That’s about 8,000 more 4-year-olds than the state expected. In addition, the program includes more than 10,000 3-year-olds with risk factors.

The surge in demand meant state officials had to spread the money more thinly than planned. Last summer, just weeks before preschool was set to start, they told thousands of families that their children wouldn’t get free full-day preschool, only half-day, because there wasn’t enough funding. Some of the students who lost out — low-income students and English language learners — are those who stand to benefit the most from extra preschool.

The state has already taken steps to remedy this problem for about 3,000 children next year, specifically those living in poverty. A proposed rule would prioritize those 4-year-olds for full-day classes. At the same time, the state expects even more 4-yearolds — as much as 64% of that group — to enroll in universal preschool next year.

With next year’s state budget not yet set, the possibility of another surge in demand, and a slew of new rules under consideration, it’s unclear how far the money will go.

State leaders promised high-quality preschool. It will take years.

One of the casualties in the race to stand up the new preschool program were rules governing program quality. State officials ran out of time to craft those rules, so they told participating preschools last spring to “keep doing what you’re doing.”

That means preschools are required to meet only basic health and safety standards this year, not other benchmarks of quality, such as small class sizes, highly trained teachers, and strong curriculum. Some participating preschools already embrace high-quality practices, but not all do. That leaves the current universal preschool landscape a mish-mash of superior programs, mediocre programs, and everything in between.

Experts say quality standards matter because when preschool is done well, it can have short- and long-term benefits for children — boosting academic skills, increasing the likelihood of graduating from high school, and even improving adult job and health outcomes.

Colorado officials are planning to adopt some quality rules for the 2024-25 school year and a separate set of rules on preschool staff credentials for the 2025-26 school year. But with some likely to be phased in over time, four or more classes of universal preschoolers may graduate from the program before a binding set of quality requirements take hold.

Colorado faces lawsuits as church-state legal landscape changes Although faith-based preschools make up a tiny fraction of Colorado’s universal preschool providers, they’ve played an outsize role in recent legal challenges over the program’s policies.

Two of three lawsuits the state is facing over universal preschool revolve around a non-discrimination agreement state officials asked participating preschools to sign.

The agreement bans discrimination based on various factors, including religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity, but a Christian preschool in Chaffee County and two Catholic preschools in metro Denver sued over the provision last summer.

In October, a federal judge blocked Colorado from withholding universal preschool funds or disciplining the Chaffee County preschool even though its policies on employee hiring and bathroom and pronoun use appear to violate the nondiscrimination clause.

The lawsuit by the Catholic preschools, which is set to go to trial in early January, is broader. Like the Chaffee County case, it takes issue with the possibility of hiring staff who don’t reflect the schools’ religious tenets, but it also challenges the state’s mandate to accept all children and families regardless of religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity. The schools argue that enrolling all children conflicts with their religious beliefs and mission to provide a Catholic education.

There’s likely another battle over religion on the horizon. That’s because of a proposal to ban religious instruction during universal preschool classes starting next fall. The state intended to put that ban into place from the outset, but didn’t follow through — allowing participating faith-based preschools to incorporate religion however they see fit this year. That omission, set Colorado up for a conspicuous midstream flip-flop. The conservative group Advance Colorado has already threatened to sue if the state goes through with the proposed ban, citing a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing public funding for religious education.

Class size debate is another symptom of funding challenges This year, universal preschool classes can have up to 24 4-year-olds. That’s higher than most early childhood experts recommend, so the state has proposed capping the number at 20 starting next fall. A related rule would require one staff member for every 10 children, down from one per 12 this year.

January 3, 2024

But some participating preschools literally banked on having 24 students per class and 12 students per staff member. (The state pays about $6,000 per child for halfday preschool.) If the proposed changes are adopted, these providers stand to lose tens of thousands of dollars next year and some have said they would pull out of the program altogether.

The class size dilemma, especially in a field known for razor-thin margins and low pay, is another example of the tension between Colorado’s promise of high-quality preschool-for-all and the reality of limited funding. Although universal preschool’s $322 million price tag sounds like a hefty sum, preschool providers, school districts, and lawmakers have questioned whether it’s enough to support the program Colorado leaders envisioned.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Celebrate Our County Clerks Instead of Demonizing Them!

Op-ed by Colorado State Senator Byron H. Pelton, District 1 Colorado has a rich history of being a local-control state. We have numerous elected officials that serve at the local level. Whether it be in a municipality, a county, a school district, or a special district; local governments are the heart of our governmental system here in Colorado.

Over the past few years, particularly in the last few months, our county clerks have come under attack as widespread misinformation has been brought to the people and media of Colorado surrounding election integrity.

In the 2020 election, Donald Trump easily won the counties I represent in the northeast corner of the state. Yet, despite an overwhelming majority of votes for Trump, I constantly heard that the election had been stolen while campaigning for my current office. This fall, after working diligently with my colleagues to make sure proposition HH was defeated throughout the state, once again the election integrity of our county clerks was called into question – this time by Ron Hanks, chair of the Colorado GOP Ballot and Election Security Committee.

After the 2020 election, former Colorado Mesa county clerk Tina Peters filed a recount lawsuit. In talking with most of the clerks in my senate district, which covers seven Colorado counties, not only did the recount not uncover any mistakes, but the final recount ended with the exact same number of votes from the original election results. This November, Ron Hanks encouraged any member of the GOP not to certify the 2023 election results, but offered zero evidence to prove the election integrity issues that he is accusing the county clerks of carrying out.

I know the majority of county clerks in my district very well and they do their absolute best to ensure fair and free elections in their respective counties. They follow procedures and policies closely, taking great care to line up observers and election judges from both sides of the isle. The level of care they take to ensure elections with integrity is exemplary. If you have concerns about the election process in your county, I would encourage you to contact your county clerk and ask questions. Our clerks take a lot of pride in the work they do, and I believe they would be happy to answer your questions and explain the great lengths they take to ensure professional and ethical elections with only the highest level of integrity. The county clerks in my district are often the most trusted elected officials in their county. In Logan County where I served as a County Commissioner, our county clerk earned more votes than any other elected official on the ballot.

The accusations being made against the Colorado county clerks are not only dangerous, but are also perpetrating a fraud in the great state that I live in. If there is irrefutable proof of wrongdoing, then present it now. If not, end this dangerous rhetoric. We cannot continue this narrative that the elections were stolen just because our candidate didn’t win. The current attacks on the county clerks aren’t accomplishing anything except to create division and weakness in the party. We need to move forward and work to prepare for the 2024 elections, instead of remaining in a mire from the 2020 elections in a manner reminiscent of the democrats after Al Gore’s loss to George W. Bush.

To be clear, I’m not saying there aren’t any concerns that need to be addressed. Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s should work better with our local election officials and restore transparency to her office’s election policy. The voter rolls desperately need to be cleaned up and the SOS should do more to clean up those voter rolls and provide guidance on how to audit the ballot signature verification process.

Finally, the state legislature should pass a requirement to provide voter identification at all points in voting.

Our county clerks work very hard doing their jobs to make sure that our elections follow the law, are run efficiently and correctly, all while maintaining the highest integrity. I stand with all seven of the county clerks that I represent, and I appreciate the wonderful job they do to make sure that our Republic has fair and free elections.

State Senator Byron H Pelton Senate District 1

January 3, 2024

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Greeley Superintendent ‘very disappointed’ with Polis’ Call for Local Property Tax Relief

by Sherrie Peif, Complete Colorado Page 2 GREELEY — It appears Gov. Jared Polis’ request to local governments and school districts to lower their mill levies in the wake of nearly a 40 percent increase in home valuations isn’t being applauded by everyone, with one superintendent accusing the governor of placing the burden on the backs of her students.

The superintendent of the state’s 12th largest school district, Greeley-Evans School District 6, with more than 22,000 students sent an email to her board almost immediately following Polis’ email to them.

“I am very disappointed our Governor proposed us lowering property tax burdens on the back of K-12 without any relief for this reduction,” said Deirdre Pilch in an email to the board and her administrative cabinet.

According to the Colorado Department of Education, Greeley currently has the 13th-largest total amount of mills assessed to property owners. A certain amount of a district’s mills cannot be reduced under state law, that is considered the “total program” mills. In Greeley that amounts to 27 of the 51.263 charged to property owners, and another 13.266 mills go toward the payoff of a $395 million bond issue from 2019. However, 10 mills stem from a mill levy override (MLO) voters recently extended for another 10 years. Those mills could be reduced.

Greeley-Evans School Board member Taylor Sullivan and fellow board member Rob Norwood were the only two members of the seven-member board that voted not to send the question to voters in 2022.

Pushing back on Gov. Polis “This recommendation from the Governor, if implemented, could have significant implications for our services to students and support of our staff,” Pilch’s email said. “Measures have already been taken to lower the assessed valuation and to lower the property tax rate. Both of these will decrease revenue to District 6, so this additional ask from the Governor would have additional significant implications for District 6.”

Pilch told Complete Colorado that she is still waiting on the final numbers from the county assessor, but the 2023-24 budget was built on projections from last August, and that will not be realized with the new legislation.

“This is a decrease in projected revenue,” Pilch said. “The backfill the Governor promises is for reduced tax collections statewide. It applies only to funding through the School Finance Act. It would not apply to our local mill levy override and the reduction in local collection.”

Pilch said although many areas of the state saw as much as a 40 percent increase in property valuations, the increase in District 6 “is far less.”

“Our estimated increase is projected to be 9% with the recent legislative changes,” Pilch said. “Due to inflation, our costs for things like services, goods, fuel, and equipment have increased significantly.”

However, Weld County Assessor Brenda Dones told Complete Colorado that for District 6 the 2022 gross assessed value (from a December 2022 Certified Letter) was $2,711,194,710. The 2023 gross assessed value (from an August 2023 Certified Letter) was $3,234,834,820, making the increase of gross assessed value 19.3 percent, more than double Pilch’s estimate.

When the assessor’s office calculated an estimate of what Proposition HH would have done to those values had it passed, the percentage increase dropped to 18.45 percent. Dones said that although her estimate is just an estimate, the legislation enacted during the special session was very similar to HH. “We will send out final data between December 13 and December 15 and that will include all changes to value from the special session and only then will we know an exact percentage change,” Dones said.

Pilch said she is hopeful the governor will hold true to his promise to eliminate what is known as the Budget Stabilization (BS) Factor, which is a formula used by the state to decrease the amount the state is required to give to K-12 education, it’s not promised, and the mills afforded District 6 amount to millions.

“Each mill generates just under $3 million dollars in revenue for the district,” Pilch said. “Projections from August, show that with the changes made in legislation, the additional revenue generated from the 10 mills of our MLO is approximately $2.4 million. The reduction of the MLO by just 1 mill generates less revenue than the year before.”

Local governments offer some relief Ann Terry, executive director of the Special District Association of Colorado, told Colorado Politics that reducing mill levies is common for governments, saying that more than 400 special districts have implemented temporary mill levy reductions over the past decade. “They already know how to reduce or ‘float’ mill levies,” Terry told Colorado Politics. “This is not a new process.”

Several taxing entities have already made the announcement they plan to reduce either mill levy amounts or the assessments.

Colorado Mountain College, which has campuses in Breckenridge, Eagle, Garfield, Lake, Pitkin, Summit, and Routt is reducing its mill levy to keep its revenue growth near the 5.7 percent inflation mark.

Douglas County is reducing assessments by 4 percent while Teller County will cap

its increase somewhere between 4 and 6 percent.

St. Vrain Valley School District spokesperson Kerri McDermid told the Longmont Leader that SVVSD will not be considering a reduction because the district is unable to evaluate its budget without real numbers for assessed valuation, which she said won’t come until 2024.

Pilch plans to have the district’s chief financial officer present budget implications to the board, “very soon,” her email read.

“We will need to have a significant conversation about this and the implications to our students, families, and staff,” Pilch’s email read.

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January 3, 2024

2023 Hudson Holiday Parade & Celebration Pictures by Lost Creek Guide, Photographer: Pat Lentell

Thank You Hudson Parade

[HUDSON, COLORADO, December 27, 2023] The Town of Hudson held its annual Holiday Parade, Town Hall Lighting, and Celebration with Santa on Saturday, December 16th and it appeared like the whole town came out to enjoy the fun and festivities!

The Town had twenty-four floats in the parade this year, more than any year previously! There was also a fantastic array of creativity and variety in the floats! With so many participating in the parade this year, the staging and start of the parade took place at Hudson’s Memorial Park rather than the old staging area at 577 Ash Street.

As the parade began, it snaked its way down Cheery Street to 4th Avenue and then to Beech Street. Arriving at the Town Hall, Mayor Joe Hammock called out the names of the participants on a loudspeaker as they passed by, recognizing their great efforts!

Soon, all the floats passed and parked, and everyone joined in front of the Town Hall for a few words of cheer and thanks from the mayor. Next, Santa counted down the lighting, “ten, nine, eight” … and right on time the Town Hall, and steps, the Hudson Public Library, and all the surrounding bushes and trees lit up simultaneously. A great cheer from the crowd followed, and then everyone went inside to see Santa and have cookies, warm apple cider with a cinnamon stick, and lemonade.

The Parade and Lighting went beautifully, and the Town of Hudson Recreation and Events Department would like to thank the following for everything they did to make this event, and so many of our events happen in 2023: The Town Council (Matt Cole, Zach Reyes, Lisa Marie Buesgens, Sarah Stadler, Candace Nolf, Debra Tygret), Mayor Joe Hammock, Town Manager, Bryce Lange, Judy McGill, Maria Chavez and family, Laci Gregory and family, Sarah Farthing, Jennifer Woods, Kimberly Brown, Natalie Schlidt, Linda Blackston, Chief Scott Sedgwick and the Hudson Police Department, the Hudson Public Works Department, the good people at TBK Bank, The Lost Creek Guide, and Brian Blehm and United Power!

We also want to thank the Hudson and surrounding communities for participating in our events this year! Next year will be even bigger and better, so please check out our calendar of events at: https://www.hudsoncolorado.org/Calendar.aspx.

We look forward to seeing you in the new year! Stephen Snow Culture and Relations Manager Town of Hudson, Colorado

2023 Hudson Holiday Parade & Celebration continued on page 9...

January 3, 2024

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2023 Hudson Holiday Parade & Celebration continued from page 8 Pictures by Lost Creek Guide, Photographer: Pat Lentell

To view 113 More Pictures online (desktop or mobile): Visit ourtowncolorado.com Go to I-76: Hudson News/Events 2023 Hudson Holiday Parade & Celebration continued on page 11...

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Armstrong: Let’s eliminate property taxes in Colorado

by Ari Armstrong, Complete Colorado Page 2 Voters have rejected Preparation HH. The Democrats in the legislature have ignored the voters’ mandate to permanently rein in property taxes without cutting into TABOR refunds, although they did offer some temporary relief. Now, rather than piddle with a broken system, we should fundamentally rethink property taxes.

Indeed, we should eliminate them.

Why have property taxes at all? They mean that no one ever really owns their home or other property. Instead, people have to perpetually pay a sort of rent to the government, on pain of government seizing their property by force. Property taxes are fundamentally at odds with property rights.

Property taxes also require a new layer of bureaucracy to process the taxes, resulting in hugely expensive time sucks for government and property owners alike. The Colorado Sun reports, “Property owners filed at least 308,298 protests with Colorado’s 64 county assessors this year, which compares to an average of 103,000 annual protests in the last three assessment cycles in 2021, 2019 and 2017.”

And challenges represent only part of the compliance costs. All that wasted time is deadweight loss.

Mine is a radical proposal, to be sure. As the Urban Institute points out, “Taxpayers in all 50 states and the District of Columbia pay property taxes,” mostly to local and regional governments, especially school districts. Property taxes provide 16.6 percent of state and local tax revenues, ranging from less than 10 percent (New Mexico) to 34 percent (New Hampshire). In Colorado the figure is 18 percent (this is for 2021).

Democrats need not break out the paper bags just yet. Take deep, slow breaths.

I’m not making the truly radical proposal that government simply cut spending to accommodate the elimination of the property tax. Whether various programs should be cut is beyond the scope of this article. Rather, here, I’m assuming that government will keep spending the same amount of money on the same programs, only it will raise other taxes in a revenue-neutral way.

How might that happen? The two other major types of taxes are on income and sales. (In addition, some cities charge an “occupational privilege tax.”) So what I’m saying is that we should eliminate property taxes and increase income or sales taxes to backfill the missing revenues.

Local and regional governments already collect sales taxes, so it would be no big trick to replace property taxes with higher sales taxes. But I don’t like sales taxes either. Not only do sales taxes entail their own bureaucratic compliance nightmares, they tend to be regressive, meaning they disproportionately hurt the less-well-off.

If I could snap my fingers to change tax policy, then, I’d eliminate both property and sales taxes (including the idiotic “use” taxes) and make up the difference in increases in income taxes. Yes, this would mean shifting to local and regional governments collecting income taxes rather than property or sales taxes. But we’re already locked into the federal income-tax scheme, so piggy-backing on the federal system at the state and local levels at least would minimize compliance costs.

While we’re on the topic, unlike a lot of conservatives, I don’t have a huge problem with a mildly “progressive” income tax. Even though we say we have a “flat” income tax here, in fact, once we account for exemptions, we see that we already have a twotiered system of 0 and 4.4 percent. Converting our two-tiered system to a three- or four-tiered system doesn’t strike me as too big a deal. There’s an economic argument for doing so: For a person of modest means, the next dollar is a lot more precious than it is for a person of wealth.

Nevertheless, for political reasons, I’d keep the “flat” (two-tiered) system, for the simple fact that Democrats would immediately and perpetually seek to abuse a multitiered system to soak the rich. Which means to incentivize the most-productive (or in some cases the most-fortunate) Coloradans to move out of the state and find a new home elsewhere. Remember, some states, including Wyoming, Nevada, Texas, and Florida, have no personal income tax. If we could have permanent tiers of, say, 0, 2, 4, and 6 percent, I’d be okay with that, but Democrats always would want to drive up the higher tiers. We should want high earners to move into Colorado, not move away.

I am aware that some people, including Governor Polis, say they’d like to eliminate state income taxes instead. There are several problems with that idea. For starters, they will never be able to convince the federal government to give up its income tax, so we’d be left with those compliance costs anyway. And then we’d always have to contend with the other two major sorts of taxes too, with their additional bureaucratic headaches and compliance costs.

Polis seems to want to make up the difference with “sin” taxes (as on carbon emissions), but not only would that not raise remotely enough money (again, here assuming revenue neutrality), it gives government a vested interest in encouraging people to “sin” as much as possible so as to maximize tax revenues. The incentives are perverse.

Polis says, correctly, that generally you get less of what you tax. But taxing people with property or sales taxes is just a roundabout way of taxing their income. Whether you tax people coming or going makes little difference.

I know that legislators rarely want to do what makes the most sense, but still a person can dream. The best way to reform the property tax is to get rid of it.

Ari Armstrong writes regularly for Complete Colorado and is the author of books about Ayn Rand, Harry Potter, and classical liberalism. He can be reached at ari@ ariarmstrong.com

January 3, 2024

United Power Announces Jan Kulmann as Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer

Brighton, CO – United Power is pleased to announce the hiring of Jan Kulmann to the position of Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer.

“Now, more than at any time in the cooperative’s history, having the right people in place in our organization is critical, and Jan brings a rich combination of education and experience to this vital leadership position,” said Mark A. Gabriel, United Power President and CEO. “She is the right leader for our operations transition as we step away from our current wholesale power contract.”

Kulmann is a licensed professional engineer who brings nearly 25 years of experience in the energy arena. Her background includes work in the utility industry and the oil and gas sector. She has provided direction and strategic leadership for the development of design and engineering standards and compliance programs for natural gas pipeline and electric infrastructure; the management of drilling, completion, and production facilities; and environmental, health, safety, and regulatory programs as well as strategic technical initiatives related to emissions reduction efforts, electrical power transitions, automation, process safety, and mechanical integrity.

Before joining United Power, Kulmann served as Xcel Energy’s Senior Director of Standards & Compliance Program Development where she was responsible for the comprehensive design and engineering standards in order for the utility to achieve the clean energy transition while balancing risk, system reliability, resource adequacy, and safety.

Kulmann began her electric utility career at CenterPoint Energy in Texas, where she planned, organized, coordinated, and directed the utility’s relay and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) design group, electrical and structural design group, and substation construction design standards and materials group in the design and construction of distribution substation projects across the Houston metro area.”

Kulmann earned a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering, along with a minor in music performance, from Louisiana State University and a Master of Business Administration from Colorado State University. Additionally, she was re-elected to her second term as Mayor of Thornton, CO, in November.

“We are excited to add such an accomplished and talented employee to our leadership team,” stated Gabriel. “Jan’s experience will be critical as the cooperative transitions to a distribution system operator. Establishing this new delivery model will benefit United Power members today and into the future.

Controlling all the components of the power we deliver will help us ensure reliability and stabilize costs for all cooperative members.”

January 3, 2024

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2023 Hudson Holiday Parade & Celebration continued from page 9...

Pictures by Lost Creek Guide, Photographer: Pat Lentell

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Lauren Boebert Will Switch Congressional Districts To Improve Her Chances Of Winning In 2024

Boebert will run in Colorado’s 4th Congressional District next year instead of the 3rd Congressional District. The 4th District is far more favorable to Republicans.

by Jesse Paul, The Colorado Sun U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert announced Wednesday night that she is ditching her reelection bid next year in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District to run instead in the state’s 4th Congressional District, which is on the other side of the state and is far more favorable to Republicans.

Boebert won by just 546 votes last year in the 3rd District, which spans Colorado’s Western Slope into Pueblo and southeastern Colorado. The 4th District is anchored in Douglas County and includes Loveland and the state’s rural Eastern Plains.

The 3rd District leans 9 percentage points in Republicans’ favor while the 4th District leans 27 points toward the GOP, according to a nonpartisan analysis of election results from 2016 to 2020 by staffers for the Colorado legislature. Boebert doesn’t have to live in the 4th District to represent it.

“I did not arrive at this decision easily,” Boebert said in a Facebook video announcing the move. “A lot of prayer, a lot of tough conversations and a lot of perspective convinced me that this is the best way I can continue to fight for Colorado, for the conservative movement and for my children’s future.”

The bombshell news comes as Boebert’s reelection chances in the 3rd District look dim.

Her narrow victory in 2022 was seen as a referendum on her boisterous behavior in Congress — including interrupting President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address in 2022 and making an Islamophobic joke about Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. Her image was further tarnished when she and a male companion were ejected in September from a performance in Denver of the musical “Beetlejuice” for talking loudly, vaping and using her phone.

Surveillance cameras also recorded Boebert and her date apparently groping each other during the musical.

Boebert initially downplayed the incident, denying that she was vaping. But the congresswoman released a mea culpa after the video recording was released and then went on a districtwide apology tour asking her constituents for their trust.

“When it comes to a personal night out,” she said at the Lincoln Day Dinner in Montezuma County, “I hope that you accept my heartfelt apology.”

The “Beetlejuice” incident and the national headlines that followed came as Boebert was trying to moderate her image and focus her campaign message more on her legislative work in Congress.

She passed her first bill — the Pueblo Jobs Act — this year as part of the National Defense Authorization Act and then voted against ousting House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in October, calling the vote a distraction.

“I’m always looking to find common sense legislation to work with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle,” Boebert told The Sun in a recent interview.

But the congresswoman’s switch to run in the 4th District, which was several weeks in the making, is an acknowledgement that Boebert’s attempted shift from a no-holdsbarred, gun-on-her-hip politician to a serious policymaker likely won’t be enough to win reelection to her current seat. She has struggled to fundraise for her 3rd District reelection bid and has lost the support of big-name Republicans in western Colorado.

“Personally,” Boebert said in her video Wednesday, “this announcement is a fresh start following a pretty difficult year for me and my family.”

Boebert, a 37-year-old divorced mother of four boys who is also a grandmother, lives in Garfield County, near the town of Silt, which is hundreds of miles from the 4th District’s boundaries. However, members of Congress don’t have to live in their district — just the state the district is in — so she doesn’t have to move to run in the 4th District.

The congresswoman said in her Facebook video that she would move into the 4th

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District in 2024. She highlighted how the 3rd District and 4th District are similar in their rural makeup.

Boebert had $1.4 million in her 3rd District campaign account at the end of September, money that she can use in her 4th District bid and that will give her a significant advantage over other GOP primary contenders in the district.

Boebert’s decision to run in the 4th District doesn’t come without political risk.

The 4th District is currently represented by U.S. Rep. Ken Buck of Windsor, but he announced Nov. 1 that he wouldn’t run for reelection in 2024, citing the GOP’s embrace of election conspiracies and Congress’ inability to get work done.

There is already a long list of candidates vying to replace Buck, including: • Former state Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg of Sterling. He’s currently a Logan County commissioner.

• State Rep. Richard Holtorf of Akron • Conservative talk radio host Deborah Flora • Former state Sen. Ted Harvey of Highlands Ranch Colorado House Minority Leader Mike Lynch of Wellington is also expected to enter the race in the coming days.

Holtorf, in a written statement, blasted Boebert for her move.

“If you can’t win in your home,” he said, “you can’t win here. She knew she’d lose in her own district and I’ll show her that’ll she’ll lose here too.”

Boebert’s decision to not run for reelection in the 3rd District is likely good news for national Republicans who need the seat to hold onto their narrow majority in the House. Without Boebert running, the GOP likely has a better chance of keeping control of the district.

There’s little evidence to suggest a Democrat can win in the 3rd District if Boebert isn’t the Republican nominee. The district hasn’t sent a Democrat to Congress since 2008. And when redistricting happened in 2021, the 3rd District was made more favorable to Republicans.

Boebert is the variable that best explains why the reliably GOP district moved into the competitive column. Democrats’ messaging in the district has been anti-Boebert, not anti-Republican — and there’s a big reason for that.

If you exclude Boebert’s 546-vote win in 2022, the closest 3rd District race since Republicans took control of the district in 2010 happened that year, when U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton beat incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. John Salazar by 4 percentage points. That was before the district’s boundaries were redrawn in 2011 ahead of the 2012 election cycle and made more favorable to Republicans.

(Boebert beat Tipton in the Republican primary in 2020.)

The second-closest 3rd District race since 2010 other than Boebert’s close shave in 2022 was Boebert’s 6-point victory in 2020 over former state Rep. Diane Mitsch Bush, a Democrat.

“Republicans will hold the 3rd and I’ll proudly represent the 4th and Republicans will be stronger for it,” Boebert said in her video, saying that the decision was in part because of Democratic spending against her heading into the election year.

Rocky Mountain Values, a liberal political nonprofit that doesn’t disclose its donors, began airing ads in April criticizing Boebert. The group told The Sun it planned to spend $2 million through next year to block the congresswoman from winning reelection.

“I will not allow dark-money that is directed at destroying me to steal this seat,” Boebert said in her statement.

But Boebert had intraparty problems in the 3rd District, too.

There were already several Republicans running against Boebert in the 3rd District primary, including Grand Junction attorney Jeff Hurd, who is supported by a number of big-name Republicans, including former Colorado Gov. Bill Owens and former U.S. Sen. Hank Brown.

The conservative editorial board of The Colorado Springs Gazette also endorsed Hurd over Boebert this month.

Two other GOP contenders — Carbondale investor Russ Andrews and Delta County business owner Curtis McCrackin — may be able to self-fund their campaigns.

Boebert’s departure from the race is likely to prompt other Republicans to run in the 3rd District.

On the Democratic side, former Aspen City Councilman Adam Frisch is running to represent the 3rd District after losing narrowly to Boebert in 2022. Grand Junction Mayor Anna Stout is also running in the Democratic primary.

Frisch, who raised $8.6 million for his campaign through Sept. 30, said in a written statement Wednesday night that he will stay the course.

“We have one of the greatest name ID, fundraising and district-wide relationship advantages for any challenger in the country,” he said.”From Day 1 of this race, I have been squarely focused on defending rural Colorado’s way of life, and offering common sense solutions to the problems facing the families of Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District. My focus will remain the same.”

Colorado Democratic Party Chairman Shad Murib said Boebert’s decision was a victory for Democrats. “We scared her straight and chased her out of her own district,” he said in a written statement.

Colorado’s 3rd and 4th congressional districts have big fundamental differences.

Much of the 3rd District is mountainous and its population centers are Pueblo, Grand Junction and ski and resort towns like Aspen and Durango.

In the 4th District, more than half of the district’s 721,715 population lives in Douglas County, a conservative Denver suburb. Larimer County, which is where Loveland is, has the next highest population share in the district, at 107,000.

The rest of the district’s population is spread across Colorado’s vast and sparsely populated Eastern Plains, which includes counties that border Nebraska, Kansas and the Oklahoma panhandle.

The 4th District has had just one Democratic representative since 1973 — former U.S. Rep. Betsy Markey, who was elected in 2008 and then lost her reelection bid in 2010 to Republican Cory Gardner, who went on to become a U.S. senator.

Colorado’s congressional primary elections will be held June 25.

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported news organization that covers Colorado people, places and issues. To sign up for free newsletters, subscribe or learn more, visit ColoradoSun.com

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Lost Creek Guide

Elisabeth Epps, Bob Marshall removed from Colorado House Judiciary Committee by Colorado Speaker of the House

In a statement to The Colorado Sun, House Speaker Julie McCluskie said she “took this step to address frustrations that the Judiciary Committee needed a reset due to the level of acrimony in the personal relationships”

by Jesse Paul and Sandra Fish, The Colorado Sun House Speaker Julie McCluskie on Wednesday made the extraordinary decision to remove two members of her Democratic caucus with whom she has clashed — Elisabeth Epps and Bob Marshall — from the House Judiciary Committee, one of the most influential and prestigious panels in the Colorado legislature.

“Serving on a member’s top choice of committee is a privilege — not a right,” McCluskie, D-Dillon, said in a written statement to The Colorado Sun. “I took this step to address frustrations that the Judiciary Committee needed a reset due to the level of acrimony in the personal relationships on the committee and to help deliver the progressive outcomes our caucus is looking for. My decisions on where to appoint members depend on their respect of their colleagues, ability to collaborate and adherence to decorum, which was clearly violated during our special session last month.”

McCluskie’s comment referred to how Epps interrupted the chamber’s proceedings on the final day of the special session on property tax and other financial relief as she called for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.

Epps left the House floor and joined pro-Palestinian protesters in the chamber’s gallery before proceeding to shout during a speech delivered by Republican Rep. Ron Weinberg, who is Jewish, responding to Epps’ comments about the conflict. The outburst prompted a long recess before Weinberg continued his remarks.

Epps said Weinberg had earlier directed an expletive at her during her remarks in support of Palestinians and in opposition to the Israeli military’s response to the Oct. 7 attacks. Weinberg denies that allegation.

Epps also posted on social media that she had shouted “shame on you” to Judiciary Committee Chairman Mike Weissman, D-Aurora, in a parking garage on the night before the special session ended.

In July, Epps and Marshall, of Highlands Ranch, sued McCluskie, Republican leadership in the House and the chamber’s GOP and Democratic caucuses, alleging “pervasive” violations of the state’s open meetings. The lawsuit claimed the caucuses didn’t properly provide notice of meetings and that representatives illegally used a disappearing messaging application to discuss legislative business.

The lawsuit was settled in September.

Epps didn’t immediately respond Wednesday to a voicemail and text message from The Sun. Marshall said he was reviewing the decision.

January 3, 2024

More background on the clashes between McCluskie and Epps and Marshall Epps and McCluskie clashed repeatedly during the legislative session this year that ran from January through May. Epps accused McCluskie of gatekeeping legislation, particularly her unsuccessful bill to ban the sale of so-called assault weapons, and criticized the speaker’s handling of controversial comments from Republicans on the House floor.

The tensions boiled over in the final hours of the lawmaking term, with Epps taking McCluskie to task during a House Democratic caucus meeting.

Meanwhile, the open meetings lawsuit filed by Epps and Marshall was settled in September as House leadership and other state representatives agreed to not discuss public business or take a “formal action” during a caucus meeting without first providing public notice of the gathering and promptly making minutes publicly available.

Also, according to a consent decree reached in the case, two or more members of the House “shall not discuss public business through any electronic means (including, without limitation, any instant messaging platform or application) unless written minutes of such meetings are made publicly available upon request.” Those minutes would have to be released under the Colorado Open Records Act. Finally, the legislature agreed to pay Steve Zansberg, the lawyer representing Epps and Marshall, $13,000 of taxpayer dollars to cover his fees. Zansberg is a well-known Colorado media attorney who also represents The Sun and the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition.

Fellow Democrats in the Capitol were frustrated by the lawsuit, viewing it as an intraparty attack. McCluskie and Senate President Steve Fenberg, D-Boulder, were working on changes to the state’s open meetings laws at the time the suit was brought.

Marshall faces a tough reelection bid in 2024. He won in 2022 by just 405 votes in heavily Republican Douglas County. The GOP says he is a top target in next year’s election.

Epps, meanwhile, represents one of the most Democratic districts in the state but faces a primary challenge from Denver attorney Sean Camacho.

Camacho already has the endorsement of eight House Democrats, including Dickson, who stepped down after the special session citing the “sensationalistic and vitriolic nature of the current political environment.”

While most of the Democrats who have already endorsed Camacho also backed Epps’ primary opponent in 2022, Katie March, it’s highly unusual for members of the same caucus in the legislature to publicly support pushing out one of their colleagues.

(Epps beat March, a top aide to then-House Speaker Alec Garnett, by about 1,100 votes, or 6 percentage points.)

Camacho’s new House Democratic endorsers include Dickson and state Rep. William Lindstedt, D-Broomfield, who hadn’t been elected at the time of the EppsMarch matchup, as well as Daugherty.

Epps has acknowledged her loss of support at the Capitol on social media.

“I’m lonely,” she posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, “but surely you didn’t think the apartheid defenders were ever — or ever could’ve been — my friends, right?”

The 2024 legislative session begins Jan. 10.

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported news organization that covers Colorado people, places and issues. To sign up for free newsletters, subscribe or learn more, visit ColoradoSun.com

Who is Homeless in Denver? Let’s look at the numbers.

Colorado state Reps. Elisabeth Epps, of Denver, left, and Bob Marshall, of Highlands Ranch, right.

In addition to removing Epps and Marshall from the House Judiciary Committee, McCluskie removed Rep. Lindsey Daugherty, D-Arvada, from the panel. Daugherty, who is running for a state Senate seat in 2024, asked to be taken off the committee to focus more on her work chairing the chamber’s health committee.

Epps, Marshall and Daugherty were all trained as lawyers.

Democratic Reps. Leslie Herod, Javier Mabrey and Judy Amabile were appointed to fill the vacant spots on the Judiciary Committee. Herod has advocated criminal justice reforms in the past and previously served on the Judiciary Committee, while Mabrey is an eviction defense lawyer. Amabile has worked on the intersection of mental health and the criminal justice system.

Epps remains on the State, Civic, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee while Marshall will continue serving on the Finance Committee.

McCluskie declined to comment further on the House Judiciary changes, saying “I’d like for my appointments to speak for themselves.”

The Judiciary Committee changes come as part of a broader shuffling of committee assignments in the House after the recent departures of Democratic Reps. Ruby Dickson of Greenwood Village, who resigned; Dafna Michaelson Jenet of Commerce City, who was appointed to a state Senate seat; and Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez, who was elected to Denver City Council.

“Committees are critical to the legislative process and where so much of our work gets done,” McCluskie said in a news release announcing the changes. “With session just around the corner, these committee assignments lay the groundwork to continue doing the work Coloradans elected us to do.”

In other committee news, McCluskie combined the House Health and Insurance Committee with the Public and Behavioral Health and Human Services Committee to create a single Health and Human Services Committee.

McCluskie on Wednesday also appointed Rep. Tim Hernández, a Denver Democrat who was tapped to fill Gonzales-Gutierrez’s seat, to the Health and Human Services Committee. McCluskie appointed Rep. Manny Rutinel, a Commerce City Democrat selected to fill Michaelson Jenet’s seat, to the Energy and Environment and State, Civic, Military and Veterans Affairs committees.

Dickson’s replacement will be selected by a vacancy committee on Jan. 3.

The latest homelessness count in the Denver metro area shows over 9,000 people either sleeping on the streets or in shelters. And that doesn’t even include the growing number of migrants.

by Jennifer Brown and Kevin Jeffers, The Colorado Sun Homelessness in Denver has become a top concern as tents line streets downtown, encampments have moved to the suburbs, and tens of thousands of Venezuelan migrants have arrived in the city throughout the year.

Here’s a look at data that helps answer some of the most frequently asked questions about the homelessness crisis.

Homeless population is growing The latest official count of homelessness in the seven-county Denver metro area found that 9,065 people were sleeping either on the streets or in homeless shelters on a given night. The count happens on a designated night in January by swarms of volunteers and nonprofit workers who spread across the city and suburbs. The results of the 2023 count were alarming — but not all that shocking because homelessness has become so much more visible since the coronavirus pandemic. The homeless population grew 32% in a single year.

The sheltered count includes people living in homeless shelters, while the unsheltered count includes those living outside, with or without tents.

Migrants added thousands to homeless population That report did not include the Venezuelan migrants who had only just begun to arrive by busloads in the middle of winter. Denver leaders, with some financial support from the state and federal government, stood up emergency shelters in rec centers and hotels, meal service and other resources for the immigrants seeking asylum — keeping those resources separate from the infrastructure already in place to help the existing homeless population.

But a federal report released last week included Denver’s new population of homeless migrants, bumping up the metro area’s homeless population on that night in January to 10,054.

That ranked Denver as the city with the fifth-largest homeless population in the nation — behind only New York, Los Angeles, Seattle and San Diego.

A Flourish table Denver also ranked third nationally in the increase of homelessness in one year.

And second in the largest increase, at 116%, in the number of homeless families with children.

Majority were already living in Colorado When not counting the recent influx of migrants, Denver’s homeless population is Who is Homeless in Denver? Let’s look at the numbers. continued on page 13...

January 3, 2024

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Lost Creek Guide

Who is Homeless in Denver? Let’s look at the numbers. continued from page 12... overwhelmingly from Colorado. This debunks a common misconception that most people living on Denver’s streets moved from out of state to take advantage of the social services, or as some suggested in the first years after Colorado became the first state to legalize marijuana, the easy access to pot.

Data requested by The Sun from the Colorado Homeless Management Information System found that 88% of people who provided their last permanent address were living in Colorado just before becoming homeless.

9,085 out of 10,276 People who gave their last previous address gave a Colorado address People of color are overrepresented Demographic data collected by the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative, which coordinates the annual count, has consistently found that people of color are significantly overrepresented in the region’s homeless population. The biggest outlier is the rate of homelessness among native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, which is 15 times that of their population in the area. Other racial groups are overrepresented, too, including Native Americans and Blacks.

Mental health, disabilities, domestic violence are linked to homelessness Nearly one-third of people who are homeless in the Denver area report mental health issues, and about one-quarter report having addiction issues. The population also has a higher rate of physical disabilities, and more people report having experienced domestic violence than in the general population.

Youth homelessness is rising, too Youth homelessness is rising in the Denver area. A growing segment of the homeless population in the city is teenagers who ran away from home or foster care, or were kicked out of their homes, sometimes for being LGBTQ. In the past five years, the number of unaccompanied homeless youth grew by 53%.

Tens of thousands of migrants arrive in Denver in one year Migrants fleeing political unrest and poverty in Venezuela began arriving in Denver on Dec. 15, 2022. Since then, buses have come almost daily throughout the year, bringing an average of 85 newcomers to the city per day. An unknown number of migrants are making Colorado home. Here’s a look at the numbers for 2023.

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported news organization that covers Colorado people, places and issues. To sign up for free newsletters, subscribe or learn more, visit ColoradoSun.com

A Ten Million Milestone: Non-Profit Project Angel Heart Helps Colorodans One Meal At A Time

by John Daley, Colorado Public Radio

John Daley/CPR News Denver mayor Mike Johnston visited the non-profit Project Angel Health on Dec. 7, 2023 for a tour and to help prepare the group’s 10 millionth meal. The group, and its thousands of volunteers, makes and delivers medically tailored meals for the specific dietary needs of those living with serious illnesses.

On a warm and sunny day, Diane Roybal stood outside her brick home in southwest Denver. She’s 69, with brown hair, a warm smile, and a battle with breast cancer on her hands.

“I stay positive and I’m beating it. I’m going to beat it,” she said. “I do everything I can for my body to make sure that it has what it needs to beat it.”

Roybal said her last PET scan was clear and she has to keep taking care of herself for the rest of her life in order to help avoid a relapse. That includes eating right, avoiding preservatives and additives, going for heart-healthy foods, vegetables, “and good protein too, to give me energy and stuff.”

Roybal gets special assistance with that diet from folks across town in north Denver, in a gleaming, large stainless steel kitchen operated by a non-profit called Project Angel Heart.

It’s a busy beehive of activity as a small army of volunteers stirs up hundreds of packages for delivery. On a recent day, a savory breakfast bowl, with salsa roja, rice, and zucchini were on the menu.

“If I can make one person’s day better, then I’ve done a good job,” said volunteer Jane Garmyn, a retired neonatal nurse from Westminster. “And here I get to make 1,700, 1,800 people a week better.”

Project Angel Heart doesn’t just provide vast volumes of food, at a rate of 750,000 meals last year. These are medically tailored to the specific dietary needs of those living with serious illnesses.

“It does save lives. I believe that it does,” Garmyn said. “We did a study years ago about how feeding people the right food keeps them out of the hospital, keeps them well so that they can do other things.”

Owen Ryan, CEO and president of Project Angel Heart, said the idea is that for a lot of health conditions, especially serious ones, if you return to eating the way you did before you got sick “your medicine, your treatment plan is only going to be so effective.”

Ryan used the example of kidney disease, where patients need to seriously limit

eating certain foods.

“You can’t have tomato. There’s certain potassium, phosphorus things you really have to avoid. That’s tough for people to do at home when they get that serious diagnosis,” he said. “They don’t know what to do, they don’t know how to change their food.”

That’s where Project Angel Heart steps in.

“So I like to say that when doctors prescribe a specific diet, we fill the fridge,” Ryan said.

John Daley/CPR News Project Angel Heart founder Charles Robbins hands off the organization’s 10 Millionth Meal to Diane Roybal, who is battling cancer, outside her home in Denver, on Dec. 7, 2023.

Adhering to the idea of food as medicine is a growing trend, said Dr. Wendolyn Gozansky, a researcher with Kaiser Permanente Colorado.

Chronic conditions drive the majority of healthcare costs, with one in five dollars attributable to unhealthy diets, said Gozansky, vice president and chief quality officer for the Colorado Permanente Medical Group.

“The bottom line is that food can and should be used as an intervention to improve people’s health, and we need more research in this area,” she said, noting, the current research is “incredibly promising.”

Related: Mesa County has more than 100 seniors on a waiting list to receive Meals on Wheels. It’s not alone Gozansky said most people understand the importance of having a good diet, but the key to the food-as-medicine concept is getting tailored, nutritious meals to those who will see the most benefit.

“We have to make sure that these interventions are getting to the people who need them most,” she said. “We have to match care to need.”

She said research has shown building out programs like this nationwide could avert more than a million hospital stays, generating potentially billions of dollars in savings.

Project Angel Heart touts data spotlighting its impact, examining health costs before and after clients get meal deliveries.

Medically tailored meals contributed to a 13 percent drop in the rate of hospital readmission; total medical costs for those with certain serious, chronic diseases fell by 24 percent. That’s according to Project Angel Heart, relying on data from the Colorado All Payer Claims Database.

Project Angel Heart has been living its mission for decades.

In early December, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston was on hand to celebrate a mindboggling landmark: The group recently served up its 10,000,000th meal. Johnston marked the occasion by donning a red apron and black hat with the group’s logo.

Johnston called the program’s impact “incredible,” spotlighting its reliance on donations and volunteers.

Between 5,000 and 7,000 people volunteer for the organization each year, totaling about 70,000 volunteer hours annually, Ryan said. The non-profit has a $7.2 million annual budget.

“Almost all that is a volunteer network,” Johnston said with a smile after touring its kitchen, housed in a renovated brick building on Washington Street north of I-70.

“It just shows people’s capacity for generosity is almost limitless, particularly if you give them an important cause and a chance to work together towards delivering it,” Johnston said. “So yeah, it was the city at its best for me.”

“It’s also the personal relationship,” he added, “That comes with knowing that someone loves you enough to make you a hot meal, package you a hot meal, and deliver it to your house.”

After packaging that milestone meal, the breakfast bowl with a 10,000,000th meal sticker was soon out the door and handed off by Charles Robbins to its recipient, Diane Roybal.

“We’re just delighted to be able to deliver it to you,” Robbins said.

John Daley/CPR News Project Angel Heart volunteer Jane Garmyn from Westminster is a retired neonatal nurse in Denver, on Dec. 7, 2023.

Back in 1991, Robbins got the ball rolling on what would become Project Angel Heart, putting together a group to hand out the first meals, donated by the restaurant Racines, to HIV and AIDS patients.

“We packaged up the lasagna and a salad and put magazines and roses in the bags, and drew little notes on the bags as well,” he said “And we had a small band of volunteers that delivered them that day. And that’s how it started.”

“It means a lot to me to be able to get it,” Roybal said of the 10,000,000th meal.

“It was a nice surprise that I was given the honor, and it’s an honor to get this today and a blessing to get these once a week to have them in my fridge when I need them.”

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Lost Creek Guide

Chandler: Local Governments Must Deliver Property Tax Relief

by Kathleen Chandler Because Governor Polis has failed to deliver meaningful property tax relief, he’s pressuring local governments to do the job for him. Now, only local governments can bail taxpayers out of the property tax mess he helped create. And at least some are getting it done, no thanks to him.

Energy, housing, food, you name it—the cost of everything is going up. The large property tax increases that will be locked in for 2024 add insult to injury for Colorado homeowners. Mill levy reductions at the district level can provide the only meaningful relief.

Some local governments are already providing that relief without the need for prompting from the governor.

The Tallgrass Metro District, where I serve as president, paid for infrastructure in a community of 800 homes in southeast Aurora.

Despite the very modest property tax relief passed by the Colorado legislature in a special session the week of Thanksgiving, homeowners in our community are facing approximately 40% property tax increases.

We currently have almost 11 million dollars in outstanding debt or $13,750 per homeowner. Last week the board nonetheless agreed to lower the district’s mills from 32.5 to 24.5. We understand household budgets are tight, and as elected representatives of a local government, we serve our residents’ interests first.

Other local governments can and should follow suit. Here’s what that looks like.

Your property taxes are based on three things: ▪ The actual value of your home as determined by the market, less any state exemptions; ▪ The state assessment rate for your home; and ▪ The number of mills levied by local taxing authorities.

We know that in Colorado the average home increased in value since the last assessment period. That is a good thing. We all want our investments to grow. This builds generational wealth. It may allow us to sell our property as we get older and live off proceeds in retirement.

We also know that the repeal of the Gallagher Amendment has now taken away the mechanism that helped keep a lid on the state government’s assessment rate. Senate Bill 23B-001 lowers the state assessment rate from 6.765% to 6.7% and exempts $55,000 from your home’s value for tax purposes. The changes apply to this year only. Proposition HH, which the voters rejected last month, would have used the same rate and exempted $50,000. The $5,000 difference in the exemption amount was just enough that Polis and company could say they provided more relief than HH would have.

Local taxing authorities can include your city, county, fire districts, library districts, and metro districts, to name a few. There are over 4,000 local governments in Colorado that levy and collect property taxes!

So, here we are. Three things determine your final property tax bill: your value, your assessment rate, and the mills of your local governments.

Who can “rescue you”? Your local government! Why? Because your state government has not done its job. The legislature has the power to lower the assessment rate. It doesn’t have the power to lower mill levies.

All the pressure has now been placed at the feet of local governments. Do you know the elected officers on your library district, your fire district, or your metro district? Have you ever attended a meeting of these governments? To lower your taxes, you now have to petition many more governments. You must engage each local government to lower the mill levy – one by one.

It is time to get involved. Your pocketbook has never been more at risk. You must voice your opinion to your local taxing authorities. Local taxing districts have been given until January 10, 2024, to certify their mill levy. Speak up now. The power to lower your property taxes now resides with your local taxing authorities and you voicing your concerns to your local government.

Kathleen Chandler runs the Local Government Project at the Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver.

January 3, 2024

Top 9 Seed Starting Tips

By Burpee Seeds .com 1. Don’t Take on Too Much While you learn how seed starting works, indoor sow no more than a couple dozen plants in three or four varieties. It’s not complicated or difficult once you understand the process, but it’s best to start small so you don’t get overwhelmed at first.

2. Find a Good Growing Medium Seedlings are very delicate. Start them in a fresh, sterile seed-starting mix that is light and fluffy and designed to hold just enough moisture. If the growing medium is too wet or not sterile, disease can strike. If it’s too heavy or sticky, fine new roots won’t be able to push through it. Burpee has a range of great seed-starting mixes, from compressed coir pellets (made of coconut husk fibers) that expand when wet, to bags of loose seed-starting formula.

3. Choose the Right Container Anything that will hold the growing medium and has drainage holes will work for indoor sowing, but we recommend specially designed seed starting kits because they include everything you need to grow strong, healthy seedlings. An alternative is biodegradable pots that break down in the soil.

4. Give Seedlings Plenty of Light Seedlings need lots of light or they will be spindly and feeble. A sunny, south-facing window will do the trick for a handful of plants if you are not too far north, but artificial grow lights will ensure that your plants get the light they need even during shorter winter days. Leave the lights on for 16 hours and off for 8 hours at night, keeping the lights just 3-4 inches above the plants.

5. Provide Gentle Warmth Seed starting happens in two stages: germination and growing. Germination is the sprouting stage, when the root and leaves emerge from the seed. You won’t need light at this stage because it occurs under the soil, but you will need gentle warmth (not harsh heat). You can provide heat by using special heat mats. These will keep your seedlings about 10 degrees F warmer than the air temperature, allowing for faster germination. Once you see green sprouts about ½-inch tall, you need plant lights. You can remove heat mats as long as the room temperature is between 60-70 degrees F. 6. Keep Soil Evenly Moist While water is essential for plant growth, overwatering is the most common cause of seedling failure. Sow seeds in an evenly pre-moistened mix. It should be moist but not soaking wet. Loosely cover the container to hold in humidity while seeds germinate, allowing for some air circulation. Burpee’s seed-starting kit lids are designed perfectly for this! Remove the lid after 50% of seeds have sprouted. Once plants are up, they need more light and air circulation to thrive.

7. Check Seeds Daily This is the secret to successful seed starting: you should check your seeds daily. See if seeds have sprouted so you can remove the cover when it’s time; make sure they stay properly moist but not too wet; check your reservoir if you have a self-watering kit; and monitor seedlings so you can raise lights as they grow taller. If you are starting seeds on a windowsill, turn plants every day so they don’t bend toward the light.

8. Watch the Weather Although a few crops can go outside earlier (refer to the seed packet), most should stay indoors until after the last frost date for your area has passed and your soil has warmed. If your area is having a cold spring, hold off. Gardeners are always eager, but many a carefully nurtured tomato seedling has been killed by a May frost or simply slowed down by cold soil.

9. ‘Harden Off’ Seedlings Before Transplant Finally, introduce your plants to the sun gradually, a process called “hardening off”.

Expose them to sunlight for one hour more each day for a week. During this time bring them to a protected location outside when they are not in the sunlight. If there will be a frost at night, bring them inside. After a week or so, they will have acclimated to the outdoors and will be ready to transplant into your garden!

January 3, 2024

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Lost Creek Guide

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Lost Creek Guide

In One Colorado Mountain County, Community is a Mental Health Resource

In a new behavioral health strategic plan, the Western Slope home of Winter Park and Fraser puts wellbeing in residents’ hands

by Tracy Ross, The Colorado Sun What do you say to a friend, loved one or stranger you believe is going to end their life, even if they aren’t telling you directly?

Jen Fanning, executive director of the Grand County Rural Health Network in Hot Sulphur Springs, knows the answer to that question intimately.

Seven years ago, she was at home when an acquaintance she knew to be seriously depressed came to visit. The two talked for a while and as he was leaving, he said something that set off her alarm bells.

“I can’t remember his exact words, but it was something like ‘Everyone will be better off if I’m not here anymore, so I think I’m gonna do something about it,’” she said.

Fanning jumped into action, saying phrases she’d practiced in a mental health training course she’d taken days earlier: “I need you to stop. I need you to turn around.

And I need you to look me in the eye and tell me if you have plans to kill yourself.”

When her friend answered with uncertainty, she said something else she’d just practiced: “Then I need you to come back inside. We need to talk through this. Because I can’t let you walk through that door if the answer is ‘I don’t know.’”

Fanning was able to get her friend back inside. Within hours, “We had a safety plan.

We had people he could call. We’d found a network who could support him,” she said.

And when he left, she felt confident that he wasn’t going to take his own life.

She knew what to do because she’d taken Mental Health First Aid class administered through the National Council for Mental Wellbeing. According to statistics the Rural Health Network recently released, it’s training Grand County still desperately needs.

In the first half of 2023, local EMS responded to 145 calls regarding substance abuse, and since 2020, drug-related deaths have more than doubled, with five from overdose, eight related to chronic alcohol use and nine from suicide in a county of around 16,000 people best known for its outdoor recreation.

If Fanning, Mind Springs Health, Grand County Public Health and 27 other community partners have their way, soon many more adults in their corner of the high country will go through the same training. The need for residents who can help one another alongside standard services is identified in an updated mental health and wellness action plan that relies little on outside funding and heavily on the insights of residents with “lived experience.”

Clearing confusion to streamline services Historically, funding for mental health services in Grand County has come from over 50 regional, state and federal agencies, each with their own set of rules and conditions.

The rural health network says this has made it difficult for providers to understand how individuals fit into the funding and for people seeking services to know how to get them.

In 2013, local nonprofits, government agencies, schools and health providers began discussing a strategic plan to address mental health. It started with infant and maternal services, Fanning said, and had “some significant wins.”

Chief among them were putting childhood mental health consultants in the area’s school readiness program Grand Beginnings, which serves both Grand and Jackson counties; offering regular Mental Health First Aid trainings like the one Fanning completed; and creating a one-stop mental health resource, buildinghopegrand.com, which offers everything from ways to assess a person’s mental health risk to where to go for immediate or longterm help to methods for avoiding a mental health crisis.

But there were other issues to address.

“Mental health is so big and all-encompassing, and there are so many factors that impact it,” Fanning said.

Some of the causes in the high country include an ever-growing wealth gap that starkly divides the haves and have-nots, lack of affordable housing, substance abuse issues, isolation and the stigma of admitting a mental health problem.

Meanwhile, finding therapists and professional mental health providers in mountain towns has long been an issue. Insurance practices that make providers spend more hours on paperwork than with patients are one part of the problem. And in recent years, many communities have built mental health services on marijuana taxes, which are falling.

But once the Grand County partners saw how effective they could be, they wanted to “keep peeling back the layers of the onion,” said Fanning. “We wanted to address our community’s needs and get to the core of the mental health problem.”

That led to a second overhaul of their mental health plan in 2018. Major outcomes included creating an intervention program for those experiencing acute suicidal ideation, short-term funding for transportation to services outside of the county, family visits by nurses and bringing Teen Mental Health First Aid training to West Grand High School in Kremmling.

But in 2020, the compounding effects of COVID-19 and the East Troublesome Fire “changed our mental health,” Fanning said. COVID had already created a sense of isolation along with increased substance use and abuse and had led to a spike in depression. The fire then amplified all of these, causing trauma for many. “When I hear heavy wind like what I heard the night the fire ran, I experience PTSD. I know I’m not alone,” Fanning added.

By the time the fire hit, several mental health partners had been meeting weekly to discuss how they could support each other’s agencies, said Abbie Baker, Grand County Public Health director and epidemiologist.

The group included Fraser Medical Center, Byers Peak Medicine, Denver Health East Grand, Middle Park Health, Grand County EMS, Grand County Coroner, Regional Emergency Preparedness Coordinator, Mind Springs Health and community members impacted by mental health, she added. The work continued with the fire, and many of the services associated with 2020’s most devastating events were folded into the next iteration of the behavioral health plan.

Putting the public in public health planning In 2023, Grand County wanted to include more community members in its mental health planning.

“In the world of health and the general world of equity right now, that’s one of the key ways of making sure that it’s not just a bunch of people who think they know

January 3, 2024

better coming together and making up plans,” said Fanning.

Using two small grants, they began bringing the community together with “people in power at decision-making tables to help make real change,” she added.

The planners took an all-hands-on-deck approach, aligning around initiatives and needs identified by government agencies, school districts, law enforcement, first responders, medical providers, nonprofit agencies and Winter Park Resort.

From education and outreach to provider recruitment and retention strategies, the goal was to continue increasing awareness and access to mental health and substance use recovery resources, and to ensure Grand County residents knew how to support each other in times of crisis.

Among the dozens of parties who participated was the county’s robust library district, which “kept popping up on various mental health strategic plans across different forums because it’s a hub whose role is to serve the community,” said Polly Gallagher, executive director. “We felt that if our name was going to keep popping up, we needed to be a part of the discussion.”

A library becomes a mental health resource As planning continued, Gallagher and her staff started participating in discussions.

With five libraries spread across the county, the best way to do this was by offering resources and spaces for people struggling with mental health issues to learn, connect and find alternatives, she added.

“Books. We have books,” she said. “And they can be a resource. But we also have snowshoes, so if [a business like Tame Wellness, which offers substance abuse counseling and year-round sober events] is leading an alcohol-free snowshoe hike, we can loan you those. We have meeting rooms that are free of charge from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., so it could be that organizations providing drug and alcohol counseling or drug testing could meet here.”

While some services in the new behavioral health plan are already in motion, others are on a three- to five-year timeline.

Current services include a co-response to mental health and substance abuse crisis between Mind Springs Health and local law enforcement; fentanyl harm reduction resources (including ready access to Naloxone, a medicine that rapidly reverses an opioid overdose by pushing opioids out of receptors in the brain); and fentanylawareness presentations at high schools.

Long-term strategies include establishing sober living communities and reducing barriers to in-patient treatment through discharge support coordination and financial support.

Fanning said sober living houses are popping up in Colorado’s high country, including one in Craig and another in Routt County. And although Grand County “isn’t committing to any model yet,” they are exploring the options.

The model for the Routt County house is “really amazing, because the facilitators don’t want to own the house,” Fanning added.

“They want a long-term lease. We’re talking 10 to 20 years. And studies show the model works, because it’s the residents’ job to take care of the house and surroundings.

So, you know, they’re model tenets compared to seasonal tourists, which makes it easier for the landlords to sign up for that program.” And it takes the onus off the partners to buy a house during a housing crisis.

Many say it’s time for more rural residents to step in and start playing a role in their neighbors’ mental health.

That’s happening in various places across Colorado.

Kimberly Behounek, director of behavioral health at Gunnison Valley Health, said prior to 2021, the lack of access to outpatient care and mobile crisis services in Gunnison and Hinsdale counties was resulting in people in her community going without services.

Like Grand County, their needs were revealed in community assessments. It took a partnership with many organizations to then create a “line of services,” complete with outpatient clinics in four locations, clinicians embedded in every school within the Gunnison Watershed School District and things like free peer support and mobile crisis services to help, Behounek said.

“We started tracking emergency room utilization in 2021 and continue to date in an effort to provide the right care and follow up post discharge,” she added. “From 2021 to 2022 we saw a drop by 71 admissions. Year-to-date for 2023 from 2022 we saw a drop of 50 admissions. The length of stay has also shortened each year, which is essential for a critical access emergency room with limited beds. We attribute the changes to our efforts to have peer support specialists in the emergency room and making post discharge follow-up calls to connect to the proper level of care ongoing.”

Other counties are continuing to do their part as well.

And in 2023, the Grand County Rural Health Network trained 75 people in Mental Health First Aid. Fanning said the goal is to offer the classes at least every other month, so community members can provide their neighbors appropriate support until professional help arrives. It’s just one way a community is tackling its mental health problems with the help of people who’ve felt them directly.

“One of our partners, Colorado Cross Disability Coalition, has a motto – ‘nothing about us without us,’” she added. It means “real, lasting change simply cannot occur without voices at the table of people who are impacted by the issues. Only then can policy makers, decision makers and people in positions of power and authority truly understand the issue and create solutions with minimal unintended consequences.”

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