Statetap: In Colorado Springs, the unemployed simply leaving

(Image/North American Aerospace Defense Command)

The unemployment rate in Colorado Springs has been steadily declining, but that’s not as good a piece of news as it sounds. The rate is dipping because more than 3,500 residents have moved away. Where have all the workers gone? The Gazette‘s Wayne Heilman reports.

statetap This Christmas Eve, like every one since 1955, dozens of volunteers at Peterson Air Force Base fielded calls from inquisitive children wondering about Santa’s progress through the night sky on his busiest night of the year. Some of the most common responses the NORAD volunteers give is that “you have to be asleep for Santa to come” and “no, you can’t talk to him personally because he doesn’t bring a cellphone onto the sleigh.” Via the Pueblo Chieftain.

According to a SurveyUSA poll conducted for the Denver Post, more than 90 percent of respondents who voted on Amendment 64 in 2012 said that, if given the chance, they’d vote exactly the same way again. Though most haven’t changed their own minds, more than a third of survey respondents said legalizing pot has hurt the state’s reputation. And when asked about the state’s efforts to educate youth about marijuana, nearly two-thirds rated the efforts as fair or poor. All kinds of charts and graphs and visual aids, courtesy of the Denver Post.

True to form, Westword‘s year in review is… strange.