The Home Front: The Cheyenne Mountain Resort in Colorado Springs cancels a white nationalist conference

“The Cheyenne Mountain Resort announced Wednesday that it is canceling a three-day conference next April planned by the white nationalist group VDARE,” reports The Gazette in Colorado Springs. “The group’s planned conference drew outrage and planned protests in Colorado Springs in the wake of the racially charged, deadly rally in Charlottesville, Va., on Saturday. A writer for VDARE.com organized that rally by Ku Klux Klan members, neo-Nazis and white supremacists. The Gazette repeatedly requested a response from the resort over the past two days, and resort spokeswoman Guadalupe Hirt apologized Wednesday for the delay. She said the business is ‘committed to respecting the privacy of guests at the resort.'”

“A toxin painted onto floor joists of new homes in Colorado is at the center of a lawsuit filed last week in Weld District Court,” reports The Greeley Tribune. “A Denver attorney, on behalf of two Firestone families, filed a lawsuit against Seattle-based Weyerhaeuser Company for distributing floor joists coated with a formaldehyde-based resin. The resin was meant to make the joists flame-resistant, but it resulted in residents breathing in the toxins, requiring a hasty exodus from their homes. “For anyone who’s been in a home that has this toxin on their joists, you smell it immediately,” said Mark Nelson, the Denver attorney who filed the lawsuit. “It’s a pungent smell, but more importantly, it’s not the smell that is so obvious, it’s the effect on your eyes, nose and throat. It’s immediate.”

A local crime story and a university health sciences facility pushed a free speech ethics complaint story off the front page of today’s Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. “Three Grand Junction residents filed an ethics complaint Tuesday with the Colorado Senate against Sen. Ray Scott, R-Grand Junction,” the paper reports. “The three — Anne Landman, Claudette Konola and Martin Wiesiolek — have asked Senate President Kevin Grantham, R-Canon City, to convene an ethics investigation of Scott. They say Scott has improperly infringed on their free-speech rights by blocking them from ‘one or more of his official social media accounts.'”

“The president and CEO of Longmont United Hospital is resigning, having completed a two-year management transition following the hospital’s purchase by Centura Health. Mitchell Carson, president and CEO of Longmont United, said in the news release that he had committed to leading the hospital through that changeover after Centura Health bought it in 2015,” reports The Longmont Times-Call. “‘Even though there have been several challenges along the way, I feel LUH is now better positioned to meet the health care challenges ahead. I believe my departure to be a natural part of the transition and will allow our new leadership the best opportunity to build a solid and successful team for this hospital,’ Carson wrote in the release.”

“Over the protests of advocates for the homeless, the Fort Collins City Council late Tuesday passed regulations aimed at keeping busy sidewalks passable for pedestrians,” reports The Coloradoan in Fort Collins. “The council voted 5-2 in favor of an ordinance that prohibits blocking passageways as well as access to public fixtures such as benches, water fountains and crosswalk buttons. Councilmembers Bob Overbeck and Kristin Stephens opposed the ordinance. Stephens said she was worried the regulations could be used to discriminate against the homeless.”

“A Berthoud High School senior will use a telescope to watch Monday’s partial solar eclipse, and he will do it without any eye protection,” reports The Loveland Reporter-Herald. “Paul Miller won’t be burning his retinas, however, because the telescope he will use does not gather visible light from the sun. Miller will be using a radio telescope positioned at the Little Thompson Observatory in Berthoud to gather data about the energy produced by the sun that goes undetected by the human eye but very much announces its presence across the lower wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum.”

“For the first time in 14 years, Boulder will restore funding to anti-speeding road treatments in residential areas,” reports The Boulder Daily Camera. “In a unanimous vote just before midnight Tuesday, the City Council approved the terms for what will be known as the Neighborhood Speed Management Program. This program, unlike others aimed at making streets safer, will focus exclusively on reducing speeding in Boulder, where neighborhood limits generally run at 25 mph or below throughout the city.”

“A parody of a parody is what audiences can expect from an upcoming dinner theater at the Historic Rialto Theater in Florence,” reports The Cañon City Daily Record. “Ghost in the Political Machine” is a melodrama that will premiere at the end of the month. The show was written by Florence’s own Tom Bruno, owner of Papa’s Pizza. Bruno not only wrote the story line, but he also wrote the lyrics to the melodrama’s musical numbers.”

“A new Denver City Council proposal that has Mayor Michael Hancock’s backing would heighten the city’s resistance to federal immigration enforcement in most of the same ways as a previous disputed version, but with one key compromise,” reports The Denver Post. “Hancock got his way on allowing the Denver Sheriff Department to continue notifying federal immigration authorities when jails are about to release immigrants wanted on a detainer. In part, his administration feared the White House might see the cut-off of that communication as an invitation to step up immigration arrests in Denver. In the new proposed ordinance unveiled Wednesday, the two council sponsors dropped a provision from their previous version that would have ended the jail release notifications to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in most cases. Hancock, meanwhile, agreed to require the jails to advise inmates affected by those ICE notifications of their legal rights and to collect more information to track what happens.”