Steamboat Today has the latest dispatch from the front lines of Colorado’s affordable housing crisis: A ski resort offering cash incentives for local landlords to house chairlift operators. “The resort is hoping a new cash incentive will help it find homes for up to 50 of its seasonal workers who are stuck on a waitlist in a very tough housing market where rents have exploded,” the paper reports. “The ski area announced this week it will pay an additional $200 a month to qualifying landlords who can house a ski area employee for under $500 a month.Landlords would receive the $200 monthly incentive for each ski area employee it houses.”
Meanwhile, The Pueblo Chieftain pegged Veterans Day to a story about housing veterans. “In 2009, the federal government set a goal to end veterans homelessness in five years. While that deadline has passed, additional housing programs have reached veterans across the region,” the paper reports.
Local minorities in Fort Collins are shocked and devastated after Donald Trump’s surprise presidential victory, reports The Coloradoan. “This is a country I know and love, and I thought it loved me back,” Maritza, an undocumented immigrant whose Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals told the paper. “It doesn’t feel good.”
“Trump election gives momentum to secession idea,” reads a headline from a wire report in today’s Greeley Tribune. “YesCalifornia, which is pushing for California to secede and become a separate country, staged a daylong ‘informational session’ Wednesday outside the State Capitol in Sacramento.”
The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel has the story of a local 25-year-old expectant mother who was “killed in a Nov. 6 shooting died when she was shot by her common-law husband, who was firing repeatedly at a gunman outside the couple’s car, investigators believe.”
“Mead Mayor Gary Shields was censured upon the unanimous approval of the Board of Trustees on Thursday night, following an outside investigation that revealed his behavior “crossed the line” and contributed to a “broken” government culture,” reports The Longmont Times-Call.
The Glenwood Springs Post-Independent reports how improvements separate Valley View hospital from other rural hospitals. “Before 2007, if you had a heart attack, the only options for treatment were Denver or Grand Junction,” electrophysiologist and interventional cardiologist Frank Laws told the paper. “Now, you get to Valley View and you’re going to have the vessel open in 35 to 40 minutes. The national standard is 90 minutes, so we take great pride in that statistic.”
La Niña is here and may last through winter, reports The Loveland Reporter-Herald. “This is a weak La Niña and it’s now in place, which could mean that the impacts may not be as strong as a typical La Niña winter. Generally, in a La Niña winter you would expect warmer and drier than average conditions in the southern tier, while the northern tier experiences cooler and wetter conditions.”
The Pueblo Chieftain reports on how a measure to allow pot stores in the city looks like it’s passing. “Question 2B had 23,249 yes votes and 22,681 no votes, according to a count that was released by the Pueblo County Clerk and Recorder’s Office at 5:30 p.m. The result had flipped overnight.”
Weather and its affect on local ski companies beat out a story in The Aspen Times about “more” swastikas found at a housing development on the front page today. “Three more swastikas were discovered, this time on the wall of a bus stop at the Burlingame development, Aspen police Officer Seth DelGrasso told the paper. “The swastikas were drawn in brown chalk and appeared to have been scribbled out with the same color chalk, he said.” The officer said, “They appeared to be childish … They did not appear to be menacing, though the subject content is very offensive. It seems like kids.”
The Denver Post reports how “for nearly 20 years, the life sentence without parole has haunted those who helped put Giselle Gutierrez-Ruiz behind bars for his role as a 17-year-old in an Adams County murder. Jurors, lawyers and the investigators who helped arrest the teenager were stuck on what one person called an injustice that made him physically sick. Even the widow of his victim strained as she thought about the young man whose life was lost to a mistake he made before he was really given a chance to live. On Thursday, they all came together in a courtroom to petition for Gutierrez-Ruiz’s early release. Nineteen years and 19 days were more than plenty, they said, and the then-teenager from Mexico should be freed.”
A 113-year-old church in Manitou Springs might close, The Gazette reports.