The Glenwood Springs Post-Independent reports on an environmental group that’s appealing a “recent Bureau of Land Management decision authorizing a new natural gas compressor west of town.” That would be Wilderness Workshop, which says “the storage field that serves the compressor station has the potential for large methane leaks such as one in Southern California in late 2015 and early 2016 that resulted in mass home evacuations,” according to the paper. “The organization filed notice that it plans to appeal the BLM’s decision last month that would allow Black Hills Energy to add a new compressor at the Crystal River Compressor Station, located a few miles west of Carbondale off of Garfield County Road 108.”
“A developer thinks his company could create a broadband network for Grand Junction that would attract enough customers to make it viable,” reports The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel today. “Grand Junction City Council had a first look at some of the numbers for the first of a three-pronged broadband plan Monday night during a workshop. The city is in a contract with SiFi/Nokia for a preliminary engineering study and Think Agency for a demand survey to determine if building a fiber network in Grand Junction would work.”
When The Steamboat Pilot & Today asked the local city council president whether he really said something he was quoted as saying in a recent news release, the president, Walter Magill, said he said it. But when the paper pressed him after doing some digging, he changed his tune. “Having heard the council president speak regularly with fewer superlatives at public meetings, Steamboat Today questioned whether Magill actually said those words,” the paper reports. “Magill initially insisted the quote was his, and he had resolved to speak with more superlatives and excitement in the New Year. But a day later, when the newspaper presented him with evidence that his quote appeared to be copied almost word for word from a years-old Steamboat Ski Area promotional pamphlet that had been produced by new city PR manager Mike Lane, Magill ‘fessed up and said Lane wrote his quote for him. ‘Mike wrote it, and I approved it,’ Magill said. ‘I should have spoken up. I didn’t get a great feeling out of it. I thought the message was something I supported, and I wanted to get behind the team and not make a big issue with this. Lesson learned,’ Magill continued.”
The Loveland Reporter-Herald reports on what the area’s House and Senate lawmakers, Sen. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, and Rep. Hugh McKean, R-Loveland, plan to do this year at the Capitol. Lundberg’s emphasis will be on the state budget, he told the paper, while McKean wants to help the Secretary of State’s office clarify reporting requirements of charities. Education, transportation and insurance all get a mention, too.
“Reprimands of Weld County commissioners, conflict of interest accusations and the Weld County Council’s role as middle man in a dispute between Commissioners Sean Conway and Barbara Kirkmeyer nearly overshadowed the growing scope of impending performance audits requested by the council for commissioners and the county’s clerk and recorder office,” reports The Greeley Tribune. “During a question and answer session with potential auditors at the Weld County Council’s meeting Monday night, councilors said they wanted the audit to look beyond current clerk and recorder Carly Koppes, and encompass part of former clerk — and current commissioner — Steve Moreno’s tenure. The audit’s scope, councilors Michael Grillos and Brett Abernathy said, should include the year before Moreno left office to see what policies were in place before Koppes took office.”
The Coloradoan in Fort Collins reports on the city eying safe, affordable housing for artists. “We see our artists living and working in substandard conditions so it’s not an unusual thing. Safety doesn’t come to the top of people’s consciousnesses until tragedies like (the Ghost Ship fire) in Oakland,” said Wendy Holmes, “the senior vice president for consulting and strategic partnerships at Artspace, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit that builds affordable living and working spaces for artists. Artspace has turned its sights to several Colorado communities, including Fort Collins.”
“Plans for a high-density apartment complex in the heart of Erie’s suburban core have drawn an unusual amount of resistance from surrounding locals within the growth-oriented town,” reports The Boulder Daily Camera. “The proposed Copper Ranch Apartment development — 13 multilevel buildings comprising 216 apartments spread across 13.5 acres of vacant land north of Erie Parkway and west of County Line Road — seeks to address a much-needed supply of affordable rental housing. The issue is amplified by the town’s population boon.”
The Durango Herald offers a dispatch on a local Martin Luther King Day march at Fort Lewis College.
A Fremont County sheriff’s lieutenant is on administrative leave after evidence from a 2006 murder case was found in his personal storage unit, The Cañon City Daily Record reports.
The Gazette in Colorado Springs reports on a looming TV contract dispute that could disrupt the way locals watch football. “The dispute comes less than a week after DirecTV dropped KRDO-TV, the local ABC affiliate, from its channel lineup and is part of a battle between local television stations and television providers that has left viewers caught in the middle, unable to watch their favorite programs or sporting events,” the paper reports. “KRDO and 24 other stations owned by its parent company, News Press & Gazette Television, remain out of DirecTV’s channel lineup, but negotiations continue, said KRDO General Manager Tim Larson.”
Colorado Democrats aren’t going to let the state’s Republicans repeal Obamacare without a fight, The Denver Post reports.
Denverite covered the MLK Day Marade in Denver.
ColoradoPolitics reports how caucus leaders at the Statehouse are taking different routes to “find common ground on transportation.”
