The Home Front: An anti-slavery ballot measure, $400k average home prices in Longmont

The Durango Herald reports on a ballot measure for voters that will ask if they want to strike slavery from the state’s constitution. “While the 140-year-old language was never used, it carries symbolism, which proponents – many who are African American – say is not a Colorado value.”

The Gazette in Colorado Springs takes a look at the Amendment 71, the “Raise the Bar” initiative that asks voters to pass a ballot measure to amend the constitution to make it harder to pass ballot measures to amend the constitution. “Did they get 2 percent from each? “The secretary of state isn’t equipped to verify that,” Coolidge said. Colorado Common Cause did vet the signatures, though, and found that 91 percent came from urban areas, Executive Director Elena Nunez said. An Independence Institute analysis found that the campaign didn’t get 2 percent in at least four districts, with the lowest percentages – 1.2 and 1.4 – coming from Fort Collins and Boulder districts.”

The city of Boulder is debating how it regulates housing co-ops “as concepts of family and community evolve,” according to The Daily Camera. “Speaking to the City Council and Planning Board, some who oppose a drafted city ordinance to create up to 15 co-ops per year in Boulder have suggested that co-ops are ‘inherently intranquil,’ with unkempt yards, frequent noise violations, and residents — renters, frequently — who are less invested in neighborhood preservation and vitality than the single-family homeowners they live among. Those who live in and advocate for co-ops have gone to great lengths to dismantle such labelling, both in public forums and through numerous open houses and neighborhood gatherings organized for people curious or skeptical about how co-ops actually work.”

The Greeley Tribune reports on the death of a local 17-year-old, Derek Prescott, following a Saturday traffic crash.

The average home price in Longmont was $400,000 in September, according the The Times-Call. “That’s the highest monthly average ever seen in the city, according to Kyle Snyder of Land Title Guarantee Company, who authored the report.” And Longmont is still the most affordable city in the county.

Steamboat Today reports local college students were not impressed with the behavior of the candidates on stage during last night’s presidential debate. “I wish they would actually stick to the issues,” one of them said. “These two candidates should be the cream of the crop, and watching them debate, it’s infuriating and depressing at the same time.”

Inmates in the Larimer County jail are being moved because it’s hitting full capacity, reports The Loveland Reporter-Herald. “The problem with the facility is you can’t operate by filling every single bed we have because you have to operate according to the inmates you have,” Capt. Timothy Palmer, division commander of the Larimer County jail, told the paper. “He added that inmates have different holding requirements in order to keep themselves and everyone else in the jail safe.”

A “cannibal fundraiser” for a prison museum in Cañon City was a hit, according to The Daily Record. “The fundraiser, which was outside of the Gibson Mansion, was the first of its kind and had about 120 people in attendance. The menu featured tasty items, such as elbow macaroni salad, eyeball meatballs and spaghetti and finger ladies for desert.”

The Denver Post reports on a poll that found half of black youths face job discrimination. “This information comes from a GenForward survey of young adults conducted by the Black Youth Project at the University of Chicago with The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The first-of-its-kind poll pays special attention to the voices of young adults of color, highlighting how race and ethnicity shape the opinions of the country’s most diverse generation.”