The Home Front: Boulder splashed with a rash of anarchist, ‘Kill Trump’ and anti-cop graffiti

“A string of downtown Boulder businesses, and some residential properties elsewhere in the city, have been tagged in recent days and weeks with anarchist messaging and other profanity-laden graffiti,” reports The Boulder Daily Camera. “At least a dozen different properties have been hit by this spate of vandalism, according to the Downtown Boulder Partnership. It’s estimated that the rash features a total of at least 50 ‘large-scale’ tags, some of which have since been removed. The tags, which are often spray-painted in prominent or otherwise easily viewed spaces, have included the anarchist symbol — an ‘A’ inside a circle — and writings such as ‘Kill Trump,’ ‘Blue Lives Shatter,’ ‘All Cops Are Bastards’ and ‘To Be Governed Is Disgraceful.'”

“Western Coloradans tasked with speaking their minds to the federal Bureau of Land Management about the issues the agency faces have generally gotten the silent treatment from the government about why their work has been put on hold,” reports The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. “The Interior Department under the Trump administration has suspended meetings of BLM Resource Advisory Councils and similar groups pending a review process, mystifying some council members and also angering some of them.”

“Board members and staffers from the Glenwood Springs Center for the Arts tried to alert Glenwood Springs city government to red flags at the nonprofit starting in 2015,” reports The Glenwood Spring Post-Independent. “But until recently, city officials brushed off those concerns. Glenwood Springs police are investigating art center finances, an examination that started days after the former executive director Christina Brusig resigned in early April. Since then, the city has cut off funding for the art center, and the nonprofit has severely cut back its operations amid a forensic audit. For a couple of weeks, the organization’s board was weighing whether to shut down for good.”

“After almost two years, neighbors of the west Greeley Triple Creek drilling site will finally get what they wanted,” reports The Greeley Tribune. “All oil produced from the 22-well site will be moved out through a pipeline, eliminating the expected truck traffic that would have co-mingled with neighborhood traffic. Extraction Oil and Gas officials on Monday announced they had finally secured everything from engineering to landowner agreements to construct a pipeline to move crude oil from the Triple Creek drilling site just west of 71st Avenue between 20th and 10th streets, a process that took two years.”

“The late-May snowstorm that dropped more than 3 inches of moisture on Northern Colorado has done more than bring out the green in nearly every lawn and pasture,” reports The Loveland Reporter-Herald. “The water and ice from Thursday and Friday’s blast of spring has dislodged rocks throughout the foothills and mountains and onto roads and highways, causing delays. In addition, the weather has forced the delay of a road construction project in southeast Loveland.”

“A 22-year-old man who jumped into the frigid Yampa River to escape Steamboat Springs police officers around midnight Sunday was found dead downriver Monday afternoon following an extensive search,” reports The Steamboat Pilot. “Colorado Parks and Wildlife employees who were scouring the river by boat with several other agencies found the man’s body submerged in the river just west of the Steamboat Golf Club. His body was recovered around noon about five miles from where he jumped into the river on Yampa Street. The man’s identity has not been released.”

“As the warm months approach, the reality of the Larimer County jail is becoming more apparent,” reports The Coloradoan in Fort Collins. “Between 2014 and 2016, the 616-bed Larimer County jail saw its daily population rise from about 430 to about 540, Sheriff Justin Smith told the Coloradoan editorial board Monday. On Monday the jail’s population was at 629, with about 20 inmates being housed in Washington County, out on the Eastern Plains, where the county contracts for space.”

“Erie police on Monday again declined to say what unfolded inside the house at 1973 Gordon Court, where a man and a woman, and their 4-year-old son, were found dead Sunday morning,” reports The Loveland Reporter-Herald. “Police are deferring to Boulder County Coroner Emma Hall, who will rule on the cause and manner of death of John ‘JP’ Farrar, 48, Elizabeth ‘Stacy’ Farrar, 40, and Ian Connor Farrar, 4 — information that could come weeks from now.”

“A Durango woman who lives in the Junction Creek area northwest of downtown Durango awoke last week to the sounds of a bear trapped inside her SUV, wreaking havoc,” reports The Durango Herald. “Around 4:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Sherri Haldorson went out onto her deck at her County Road 204 home after hearing her vehicle horn go off. However, she couldn’t see inside – the windows were too steamy.”

“Almost every hand raised into the air Monday at McKinley Elementary School when Jake Skifstad started asking questions,” reports The Cañon City Daily Record. “Who here would like to become a police officer or sheriff’s deputy?” he asked a crowd filled with McKinley students. To his left, four Fremont County Sheriff’s officers stood beside a table filled with police vests, armor and helmets. “Who here likes the gear here?” Skifstad, the founder and president of Shield 616, was at McKinley Elementary on Monday to present kits with active shooter and crowd control gear to deputies Mike Fetterhoff, Coltin Miller, Clint Wilson and Sgt. Troy Johnston.”

“Voters last year rejected a sales tax increase to pay for housing,” reports Vail Daily. “Voters this year may be asked to increase the county’s sales tax, but on a specific product: marijuana. It’s very early, which means there’s still a lot of discussion to come, but the Eagle County Commissioners have started work on the idea of imposing some sort of county tax on marijuana sales.”

“More than 16 years after Jill Wells was killed on a remote ranch in Lincoln County, a central finding – that her 6-year-old son accidentally shot her – is now officially in doubt,” reports The Gazette in Colorado Springs. “Lincoln County’s current coroner, Andy Lorensen, recently amended the woman’s death certificate to reflect the doubts and suspicions that surround the conclusion that the boy was responsible. And at the same time, the case is getting a fresh look from Lincoln County’s current sheriff, Tom Nestor, who took office nearly six years after the incident and first reopened the case in 2008. Both moves come in the wake of a yearlong 9NEWS investigation into the March 28, 2001, incident.”

“Nearly four times a day in Colorado, developers, homeowners or builders hit gas pipelines while excavating or digging into the ground, sometimes with deadly consequences such as the fatal explosion in Firestone that was caused by a severed line near a home,” reports The Denver Post. “But Colorado officials have an inadequate system for preventing pipeline excavation damages, which are responsible for about a third of the state’s gas pipeline leaks, federal regulators have warned. Deaths in the state from excavation damage range from a contractor who was preparing a lot for construction to a person who hit a gas gathering line while digging a fence. Records show that in 2015, nearly 1,300 gas pipelines in Colorado were damaged during excavation. The state that year issued no civil penalties or sanctions for any pipeline excavation violations, officials with the U.S. Department of Transportation noted in a September 2016 letter to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, a copy of which also was sent to Gov. John Hickenlooper.”