“Voters in Colorado’s rural areas may have noticed their mailboxes are missing an important harbinger of the impending election,” reports The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. “An address-printing error caused a delay in delivery of the Blue Book, the publication distributed to every household with active registered voters in the state. Now approximately 90,000 of those books are being reprinted with the correct addresses and have been mailed to households in 36 counties.”
“Longmont City Council on Tuesday approved spending $8.2 million to buy 253 acres of farmland east of Union Reservoir to prevent future development and to preserve it as open space,” reports The Longmont Times-Call. “The six council members present at Tuesday’s meeting did not discuss the acquisition authorization documents prior to voting unanimously to approve them, although both Mayor Brian Bagley and Councilwoman Polly Christensen spoke later in the meeting about why they supported the purchase.”
“In the Yampa Valley, most of the waste that ends up in landfills can be recycled,” reports The Steamboat Pilot. “In a recent study of waste diversion in Northwest Colorado, volunteers picked through residential and commercial garbage bins and sorted items. The study found that 77.5 percent of the waste that is landfilled could be recycled or composted.”
“A division of Colorado Springs-based builder The Challenger Group on Tuesday announced plans to open a 125-worker startup plant in Pueblo to manufacture prefabricated components and units for low- to high-end houses, apartments and other buildings in a multistate region,” reports The Pueblo Chieftain. “Key Structures, a subsidiary of The Challenger Group, also the parent company of Challenger Homes, detailed its plans at a Pueblo Economic Development Corp.-hosted jobs announcement at Robert Hoag Rawlings Public Library.”
“The Loveland City Council on Tuesday night requested more information about two high-priced initiatives on the city’s horizon,” reports The Loveland Reporter-Herald. “A wide-ranging plan for restoration of the Big Thompson River after the 2013 floods and a proposal for a new library branch have neither timelines nor funding, but city staff shared their planning for each project to date.”
“Cloudy days can be gloomy. But clouds over the past week or so have brought a lot of cheer to the Vail Valley,” reports Vail Daily. “Much of Eagle County has seen more precipitation in the past week than in the previous few months. That rain — and some snow — on Tuesday, Oct. 9, prompted area fire officials to lift all fire restrictions in the county. That’s true for private and public lands throughout Eagle County.”
“Fremont County officials have taken the next step to help solve the mystery of the source of an undetectable odor plaguing residents in the Lincoln Park area,” reports The Cañon City Daily Record. “Residents in the area have reported experiencing adverse health effects, including headaches, airway irritation and dry mouth. The board of commissioners on Tuesday ratified the chairman’s signature on a memorandum of understanding between the county and Colorado Legacy Land regarding air quality assessment in the Lincoln Park area.”
“The suspect accused of attacking a Breckenridge police officer during an early morning confrontation this July was formally charged following a preliminary hearing at the Summit County Justice Center last week,” reports Summit Daily.
“A Democratic leader in the state House apologized Tuesday to two women after a report surfaced that he had been arrested twice years ago on suspicion of domestic violence,” reports The Gazette in Colorado Springs. “But state Rep. Jovan Melton also denied committing ‘any violence against the women.’ The Aurora representative, who is deputy majority whip of the Colorado House, apologized after The Denver Post reported the arrests from 10 and 19 years ago. Both took place before Melton, 41, was elected in 2012 to House District 41 in Arapahoe County. He is running unopposed for his fourth and final term in the House.”
“As the University of Colorado moves to annex 308 acres of land into Boulder, how much control should the city have over what gets built there? That was the question of the night during a Tuesday study session with CU and Boulder City Council,” reports The Boulder Daily Camera. “CU has given 80 acres to Boulder for flood mitigation work, keeping less than half the total acreage for building. Exactly what it will construct is to be determined; the university is in the middle of a master plan update that won’t wrap until 2021, and even then, plans won’t be known, Vice Chancellor for Strategic Relations Frances Draper said.”
“Hannah Lewellyn, manager of business development at a posh apartment complex in Denver’s Speer neighborhood, is tasked with ensuring the compound’s goat yoga goes over smoothly, all is flowing as it should at the building’s bar and that everything’s panning out with the in-house chef,” reports The Denver Post. ‘I handle the abnormal amenities here,’ said Lewellyn, who lives and works at the Country Club Towers II and III. As it looks to attract residents, the luxury apartment complex at South Downing Street and East Bayaud Avenue — Broe Real Estate Group CEO Doug Wells likes to call it a ‘campus’ — is trying to set itself apart from the surge in downtown luxury units. More than 55 percent of its residents are between ages 24 and 35, according to Lewellyn.”
“Tuesday marked the fourth day crews searched for a New Jersey man who went missing after hiking Long’s Peak last week, and still no clues have been found about his whereabouts, officials say,” reports The Coloradoan in Cort Collins.
“Many of Charlie Stein’s friends who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer have attempted suicide or considered it. Those feelings and attempts are not uncommon,” reports The Durango Herald. “A 2016 study found almost 30 percent of gay, lesbian and bisexual high school students surveyed across 25 states had attempted suicide in the past 12 months, while only 6.4 percent of the heterosexual students had attempted suicide, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report. As a transgender teenager, Charlie is a member of an even higher-risk group for suicide, but he has never battled those thoughts.”
“It has been a long road — or river — to recovery for Colorado’s state fish, the greenback cutthroat trout,” reports The Colorado Sun. “First, the species was considered extinct. Then it was rediscovered, reproduced and reintroduced to waterways across the state for decades, only for scientists to learn through genetic testing in 2012 that they actually had planted the wrong fish. Then, the greenbacks were found again — for real this time — in a stream on Pikes Peak. Scientists, using more-sophisticated genetic testing, confirmed the population. They believe the fish had been inadvertently preserved by a hotel owner who stocked beaver ponds on his property with the darting creatures in the 1880s.”
“As the Colorado Department of Transportation’s deteriorating former headquarters languishes on Colorado Boulevard, a developer is readying a final pitch to demolish it and plop a bunch of affordable homes and businesses down in its place,” reports Denverite. “The city government brokered a $19.3 million deal between CDOT and Kentro Group, which plans to create a somewhat walkable enclave near the sprawling strip. Kentro would build 150 units of affordable housing as part of the deal, which isn’t yet closed. Residents making 60 percent of the area median income or less would qualify (about $48,000 for a family of three).”
“In four years, Denver has become a pot shopping capital of the United States. Regulators have approved 162 recreational marijuana licenses in the city alone and a total of 286 in the metro area — nearly three-fifths of recreational licenses in the state,” reports ColoradoPolitics. “It has also grown into an epicenter of illegal marijuana cultivation, often by organized groups hoping to keep under the radar of police detection. One persistent problem with assessing the full extent of criminal activity, with whether legal marijuana has affected crime rates in the Denver area — or statewide for that matter — is the lack of consistent and reliable data from police agency to police agency.”
Under Colorado’s new “Rube Rule”, rural voters this year will be required to pass a minimum intelligence test before being allowed to vote.