The Home Front: Voters will decide if these council members in Colorado will keep publicly-funded healthcare

“Steamboat Springs voters will decide in November whether their elected officials will continue to receive taxpayer-funded health and dental insurance benefits from the city,” reports The Steamboat Pilot. “Since about 1990, the city has offered its seven city council members access to the same health insurance benefits enjoyed by city employees. The city budgeted to spend up to $95,000 on the council’s combined insurance benefits this year. But city voters have never approved the compensation, as required in the city charter.”

“Glenwood Springs retail sales figures improved for the spring stretch after the city recorded a modest increase in sales activity for May,” reports The Glenwood Springs Post-Independent. “Also, additional sales tax receipts were reported for March and April. May sales were up 1.26 percent in the year-over-year comparison to the same month last year, according to the city’s latest sales tax report. Glenwood Springs reported nearly $1.4 million in sales taxes for the month on roughly $37.3 million in retail sales.”

“An advocate for wild horses is decrying a House committee amendment as providing a ‘license to kill’ tens of thousands of the animals, while a representative of two local conservation districts says it’s necessary to curb excess numbers of the animals on Western rangeland,” reports The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. “An amendment the House Appropriations Committee recently approved before passing a 2018 budget for the Interior Department removed language continuing a longstanding prohibition against the destruction of healthy, unadopted wild horses and burros by the Bureau of Land Management. It retains a restriction against their sale for slaughter and processing into commercial products, and clarifies that those products include ones consumed by humans.”

“Things are looking up for Greeley’s hotels so far this year, thanks to the steady comeback of the oil and gas industry,” reports The Greeley Tribune. “The city’s hotel occupancy rate and price per room are up compared with numbers from 2016, according to June statistics from the Rocky Mountain Lodging Report. They are exceeding numbers from June 2015, too, according to Robert Benton, who helped put together the lodging report. Benton said the comeback of the oil and gas industry is a large reason why Greeley’s hotel market also is making a comeback. Rig counts are about double what they were a year ago.”

“Chancellor Phil DiStefano laid out six goals in his quest to right wrongs committed when University of Colorado officials, including himself, failed to report domestic violence allegations against a former football coach,” reports The Longmont Times-Call. “In a public memo entitled “A culture of collaboration: Moving us beyond compliance,” DiStefano stresses a need to integrate CU’s responses to sexual assault and intimate partner abuse among all levels of the university. DiStefano was suspended for 10 days while Athletic Director Rick George and head football coach Mike MacIntrye were ordered to pay $100,000 to a domestic violence support organization after mishandling domestic abuse allegations against assistant football coach Joe Tumpkin.”

“Larimer County added more than 3,550 jobs in June as the local economy continued to soar,” reports The Coloradoan in Fort Collins. “The jobs, offset by the nearly 4,000 workers added to the labor force, resulted in a slight uptick in the county’s unemployment rate. The county’s not-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate went from 2.0 in May to 2.1 in June, the lowest jobless rate among major metropolitan areas, according to the monthly jobs report released Friday by the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.”

“The bubbling Big Thompson River flows rapidly near Narrows Park, moving past rocks and large downed cottonwood trees as willows and other vegetation grow along the banks,” reports The Loveland Reporter-Herald. “The scene looks beautiful, natural. That is exactly how it was engineered, to look completely natural, though it was specifically designed to be more resilient to floods, to create aquatic habitat, to be healthier. “We didn’t want it to look like it was highly designed and highly engineered,” said Randy Walsh, whose company Stantec designed the restoration of the half-mile stretch of the river under contract with the Big Thompson Watershed Coalition.”

“Alice Boatner returned from running errands with her boyfriend to find her cat, Tobias, cowering in a bedroom while a police officer dressed in SWAT clothes and his K-9 searched through her apartment,” reports The Denver Post. “That warrantless — and unconstitutional — search in May, along with dozens of other drug-dog searches at The Suites Supportive Housing Community in Longmont, prompted a national controversy, one that the Longmont Housing Authority admitted in a report last week had ‘coalesced into a Category 5 storm.’ ‘It was really a violation of people’s privacy and their rights,’ Boatner, 52, said in a recent interview. ‘That whole situation was appalling and rude and was weird. It left me, and I’m sure a lot of people, feeling not really good at all. It makes you feel small.'”

“Dylan Redwine didn’t want to visit his father in November 2012. But he didn’t have a choice,” reports The Durango Herald. “A court order granted Mark Redwine visitation rights over the Thanksgiving holiday, and Redwine chose to exercise those rights in 2012. Dylan, who was living with his mother in Colorado Springs, decided to make the best of it. He planned to spend as much time as possible with friends in Bayfield, where he used to live. He boarded the plane Nov. 18, 2012, with mixed emotions.”

“Lafayette’s Carden White often drove by people waving signs advertising drive-thru prayers at the City on the Hill Church at 75th and Arapahoe on his way to Boulder,” reports The Boulder Daily Camera. “He had even considered offering to help as a volunteer. But as he drove by on Sunday, he decided he could use a prayer himself and stopped. He asked for prayers to help him find a job and for help with a medical issue. ‘I’m a believer,’ he said after two church pastors prayed for him through his car window. ‘I’m trying to walk with the Lord. I’m glad I was able to receive prayer.'”

“Donald Trump’s true believers in Colorado still believe. Since taking up residency in the White House six months ago, the first family has taken on political wounds over their potential involvement with Russian operatives, a shaky health care overhaul and campaign promises that have yet to materialize, including a border wall paid for by Mexico and locking up his opponent, Hillary Clinton, over her use of a private email server as secretary of State,” reports The Gazette. “Trump was never more popular than Clinton in Colorado, though he closed a double-digit gap in the polls by campaigning consistently in the state the last six weeks. Clinton won the state by 5 percentage points in November.”

“Goats, wine, quilts and pee-wee rabbits,” reports The Cañon City Daily Record. “By the end of the 2017 Fremont County Fair, they’ll all be judged and some will hop away with ribbons. The fair, which officially kicks off Saturday, will run through Aug. 6 with 10 days of activities, including animal shows, food and craft contests and a crowd-favorite watermelon-eating contest.”