Mason Tvert, a key figure in the passage of Amendment 64, the 2012 measure that legalized limited recreational marijuana sales, and the Denver pot-legalization regulation that preceded it, is leaving his post as communications director for the national Marijuana Policy Project in favor of a similar position at VS Strategies, a Denver-based consulting firm that’s become a national powerhouse.
Drivers traveling between Boulder to Denver using express lanes on Interstate 25 and U.S. 36 could be paying more depending on the time of their commute mere weeks from now under a new proposal by Plenary Roads Denver, the private concessionaire that manages the lanes for the Colorado Department of Transportation. The price tag for people who don’t use Express Toll, the service that automatically assesses fees rather than mailing bills based on license plates, could be as high as $21 to travel the route, more than $5 higher than the proposed toll rates less than two years ago.
CU-Boulder student Sam Forgy was shot and killed by police in July 2015 when he was naked, on acid and armed with a hammer. Afterward, Forgy’s friends raised questions about the use of lethal force in the incident, and now, his father, Glenn Forgy, is suing the City and County of Boulder and Officer Dillon Garretson, who shot Sam four times, including in the middle of the forehead. In the suit, Glen argues that the death of his son was completely unnecessary.
As expected, Denver has been named the new home of the Outdoor Retailer shows thanks to a five-year pact confirmed at a press conference this morning. And the advocacy group Conservation Colorado links this economic coup with controversy over public lands policies in Utah, Outdoor Retailer’s previous home, and the plan to shrink Bear Ears National Monument pressed by President Donald Trump’s administration.
Approximately 3,200 school counselors from across the country and the globe are expected to descend on Denver for the annual conference of the Virginia-based American School Counselor Association, which gets underway on Saturday, July 8. And while ASCA assistant director Eric Sparks expects the event to be a lot of fun, plenty of serious topics will be discussed, and that’s appropriate. Sparks enumerates ten of the biggest challenges facing school counselors in 2017, and his run-down collectively illustrates how these educators are on the front lines of major societal changes whose impacts will be felt on young people for many years to come.
Although Colorado establishes the age at which you can legally consume alcohol at 21, state statutes include five exceptions that allow underage drinking that would otherwise be illegal. Moreover, none of the exceptions sets a minimum drinking age, although one of them comes close.
Rick Wainwright, whose acquittal in a 2009 criminal case helped cement the concept that Colorado’s six-plant threshold for medical marijuana patients can be expanded, is suing Colorado governor John Hickenlooper and state attorney general Cynthia Coffman over a new law that tries to limit large home grows under the theory that they may be part of the illegal gray and black markets for cannabis. Wainwright sees the legislation as a stealth effort to target and criminalize law-abiding MMJ caregivers like him.
Representative Jared Polis is among the biggest names to enter the race for Colorado governor in 2018, and in the following in-depth interview, he cites his experience in business, the nonprofit world and Congress, as well as proposals related to education, energy, infrastructure and more, as reasons voters should cast a ballot for him.
Rent in Denver continues to rise at a rapid clip as measured both month-to-month and year-to-year. But rent prices are going up more quickly in at least six metro suburbs than it is in Denver proper.
Russ Zieglowsky, a 52-year-old former city councilman from Washington, Iowa, has added to the disturbingly high death toll at Colorado water attractions this season. Counting his death during a commercial rafting trek along the Taylor River in Gunnison County, at least nine people have lost their lives on a Colorado lake or river since late April.
The Jackson Lake drowning of Cord Carpenter, 45, who was reported missing on Saturday, July 1, adds to the already high death toll at Colorado water attractions this season. Carpenter is the fourth person to die at a river or lake in the state over a five day period, with three of the deaths taking place on a single day.
More than 325,000 people have so-called special Colorado license plates honoring various groups in the state, with the numbers of the ten most popular ranging from a few thousand to nearly 100,000. Because of rules set up by the Colorado Department of Revenue, fourteen less popular special plates seemed likely to be eliminated either this year or next year because not enough people have requested them. But all of them will survive thanks to a last-minute reprieve.
Jamaal Edwards, who had previously been found guilty of second-degree murder for killing John Shoeboot in January 2015, has now confessed to culpability in the death of James Clyde Brown during the same incident. But his plea in the Brown case was to manslaughter, not murder, and the admission doesn’t add one day to his sentence for actions that he summed up to investigators by using the two-word phrase, “Shit happened.”
On Last Week Tonight with John Oliver’s July 2 edition, host John Oliver took on Sinclair Broadcast Group, a media firm that’s little known around the country but extremely powerful in markets such as Denver, where SBG recently purchased sister stations Fox31 and CW2. In a jeremiad against corporate consolidation in local news that’s on view below, Oliver warns that the stealthy way Sinclair forces its hard-right ideology on its affiliates has the potential for turning regional outlets like the ones in the Mile High City into arms of a media empire with the potential of becoming a conservative force rivaling Fox News.
At a press conference that ended moments ago, a Denver Police Department commander confirmed that the two people shot by Englewood or Littleton officers on Santa Fe Drive after a suspected carjacking and chase early this morning were both women. One is dead, while the other is in critical condition at this writing. In addition, a spokesperson said it’s unknown at this point if the suspects shot at police before cops on the scene opened fire or if a weapon was found in or near the stolen vehicle.
Heather Balogh Rochfort, the woman behind the adventure blog JustaColoradoGal.com, was once a dance specialist whose interest in nature fell well short of obsession. But now, she’s the author of Backpacking 101, a guide to those who want to better acquaint themselves with the great outdoors, and she offers her top ten tips for getting started in Colorado.
More than a decade has passed since the still-unsolved murder of Denver 420 Rally founder and groundbreaking Colorado marijuana activist Ken Gorman. But he hasn’t been forgotten. Indeed, current rally organizers meeting to talk about appealing the City of Denver’s three-year ban of the event brought along Gorman’s ashes, treating them like the equivalent of holy relics. And the mere mention of Gorman triggered both deep emotion over his loss and anger that his killer or killers have yet to be held responsible for their actions.
A carjacking in Littleton prompted a police chase that crossed multiple jurisdictions before culminating in an exchange of gunfire in Denver that left one suspect dead and another injured. Part of northbound Santa Fe Drive, where the shooting took place, remains closed at this writing.
The most prominent anti-marijuana group in the country is touting the absence of language in a key Congressional funding bill that has protected the medical marijuana industry in Colorado and beyond from federal prosecution in recent years. But a cannabis advocate dismisses the suggestion that this development could soon unleash a law-enforcement blitzkrieg against the MMJ biz.
This week, Boulder police found approximately 31 pounds of marijuana in an open space area, not far from where three people were camping in violation of local ordinances. But none of them were hit with charges related to the pot, because officers couldn’t figure out to whom it belonged.
Seth Kienzle disappeared in Boulder on February 19, 2016, just over a month after Ryder Johnson vanished elsewhere in the county. More than a year later, both remain missing. Now, one of Kienzle’s longtime friends, who’s frustrated by the decision of law enforcement to stop searching for him based on a theory she doubts, is sharing his story in the hope of finally solving a mystery that grows deeper and more heartbreaking with each passing day.
June 27 will go down as one of the deadlier days at Colorado water attractions in state history. On that day, three men drowned at different locations within hours of each other, including two rafting deaths and an incident involving a man who fell off a paddle board into an ice cold lake.
