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Colorado News Miner 132
Andrea Gibson, immigration, housing, Supreme Court vs. taxpayers, public media, Mount Blue Sky, festival elephants, and more.
by Ari Armstrong, Copyright © 2025
July 19, 2025
Recent Colorado Times Recorder Columns:
When Zealous Religious Rhetoric Inspires Violence
SPLC Lists Focus on the Family as a Hate Group
Recent Complete Colorado Columns:
Denver's nature museum a trip back through deep time
Colorado gender wars need dose of genitalia-based sanity
Colorado not delivering much bang for more education bucks
Appreciating the good in America means recognizing the flaws
Enjoying wild Colorado's abundance of nature
Government funding of news media inherently corruptive
Gov. Polis' housing density push sparks a local control clash
Andrea Gibson: Colorado's poet laureate has died from cancer. I watched several of their videos. Gibson got over hypochondria in getting cancer. Gibson talks about embracing life in the face of death. Here is a piece reflecting on illness and life. Interesting person, gone too soon.
Immigration Updates: Sun: "Most people arrested by ICE in Colorado and Wyoming this year did not have criminal history." Post: "Utah student arrested in Colorado is released, describes ‘nightmare’ ICE detention." Sun: "Utah student detained after ICE gained secret access to Colorado deputy's Signal chat, sheriff's office says." Post: "Man 'violently' arrested by ICE in Denver courthouse bathroom as young child watched, witness says." Post: A Montrose immigrant was on his way to work. A week later—and with no apparent court appearance—he was in Mexico." 9News: "Colorado woman [and U.S. citizen] makes emotional plea to stop deportation of husband." CPR: "ICE detains a family who showed up at Denver immigration court for a check-in." Current U.S. immigration policies are cruel, insane, and self-destructive.
Evans on Immigration: Rep. Gabe Evans said "the immigration system in the United States is broken," and he's introduced an amnesty bill. Although I haven't checked how extensive the proposed program would be, it seems to be a step in the right direction.
Housing Updates: Brian Eason: "The National Zoning Atlas . . . found that on the vast majority of land, in the vast majority of Colorado communities, it's not just difficult to build housing the average household can afford—it's outright illegal. Local zoning codes in Colorado overwhelmingly prohibit duplexes, townhouses, condominiums and apartment units, as well as single-family homes on small lots." Thornton backed a NIMBY-oriented suit through which cities are trying to sluff state rules easing local housing regulations. But Thornton also has been doing some YIMBY-friendly stuff, so it's a mixed bag. Also, there's a NIMBY group in Littleton called Rooted in Littleton (update); see the group's letter. NIMBYism is screw-the-poor socialism.
Zoning and Regulatory Costs: Zoning is not the only driver of housing costs—duh. But zoning controls and regulatory burdens are the things that government can actually fix. Check out this bit from Brian Eason's article: "Pat Hamill['s] . . . contractor refused to work in Denver because of permitting headaches, something Hamill, a longtime homebuilder, was all too familiar with. 'Out of all the different markets that we did business in, Denver was absolutely the worst,' said Hamill, the former CEO of Oakwood Homes."
Rock Church Update: Denver Post: "Castle Rock will recognize the Rock Church’s ability to continue operating its 'on-site temporary shelter ministry'—that is, the RVs parked out back—and to use its building for emergency shelter, in partnership with the Red Cross." I wrote about this last year.
Builder Sues Denver: Pacific Legal Foundation: "Rather than embrace the efforts of builders like redT, Denver enacted an inclusionary zoning program that does the exact opposite. Denver's Linkage Fee ordinance forces builders to either set aside units to sell at below-market prices or pay huge fees to help create 'affordable housing.'" See also Complete. We need a free market in housing!
Clark Defends Journalism: 9News reporter Kyle Clark condemned the Paramount/CBS payoff to Trump and praised his own (NBC-affiliated) management for protecting journalistic integrity.
Supreme Court Vs. Taxpayers: Dave Kopel has out an op-ed and much longer article explaining how the Colorado Supreme Court "has nullified the taxpayer protections of the Colorado Constitution." For example, state government just ignores the constitutional prohibition of corporate welfare. And the Court has rubber-stamped "fees" to end-run the constitutional requirement of a popular vote for tax hikes. There's much more. An important article.
Zansberg and Public Media: Steve Zansberg seems to think I was arguing in favor of Trump's attacks on public media. No. I was arguing that tax-funding of public media violates the rights of people who do not wish to fund it. Anyway, the debate over Trump's order is moot now!
Health Insurance Price Hikes: The cost of health "insurance" already is ridiculous. Now, the Sun reports, "Insurance carriers asked for a 28% increase in prices, on average." "State officials" blame federal "Big Beautiful" legislation, apparently because of a cut-back on subsidies. Due to the tax-promoted employer-pay system and myriad federal and state controls, health insurance has become a complete disaster. Related: I agree with Caldara that government ought not require people to pay for others' gender-affirming care through their insurance premiums.
Cost of Living: Coloradans are worried. They're also concerned about "political dysfunction."
Election Conspiracy Mongers: The tidbit in an article by Sharon Sullivan is that Charles "Chaz" Evanson, husband of District 51 school board member Barbara Evanson, attended a meeting featuring an election conspiracy monger. The Evansons also reject the science of biological evolution; see also my reply.
Yes Wage Controls Cost Jobs: NBER via Cowen: Yes, California's $20 fast-food minimum wage cost jobs. Relevant to Colorado discussions.
What Happens to Incompetent Offenders: According to Denver7, "A man accused of nearly kidnapping an Aurora elementary school boy during recess will have his case dismissed," due to incompetence to stand trial. The same person "has had four criminal cases throughout the state dismissed, and in all of them, the issue of competency was raised." This is despite the fact that the person is a registered sex offender due to a 2011 incident. The alternative to criminal prosecution is "involuntary mental health treatment," but that's a maximum of a year. Assuming this article accurately captures all the relevant facts, we need a way for courts to find that a person found incompetent for criminal prosecution, who nevertheless endangered the public in some serious way, may be remanded to state care for much longer periods.
Parental Notification for Abortions: Someone is suing over this; but I think existing safeguards are sufficient.
Boulder Weeky Implodes: See Corey Hutchins's report.
Douglas County Commies: Julia King: "Douglas County residents flooded a July 8 Board of Commissioners meeting to ask for apologies from Commissioner George Teal, following his suggestion that opposition to the county's failed home rule initiative might have been backed by the Chinese Communist Party."
Gang Arrests: John Aguilar: "A regional anti-violence task force has arrested 16 members of two violent street gangs." Seems great. We'll see how the court cases play out.
Pugliese Condemns Violence: I was glad to see Colorado House Minority Leader Rose Pugliese issue a statement about the assassinations in Minnesota: "Violence has no place in our politics. Not now. Not ever. This is an unconscionable act of violence. There is absolutely no justification for targeted attacks on elected officials—or anyone—based on their political beliefs. Our nation was built on civil discourse and the peaceful exchange of ideas, not horrific acts of violence. We are keeping the families of Rep. Hortman and Senator Hoffman in our prayers."
John Adams Academy: Suzie Glassman worries about the ideological orientation of the charter school, but it doesn't seem so bad to me. How is it worse than the strong leftist bias in most public schools? The financials seem concerning.
Polis Pardons Psilocybin Possession Offenders: Good.
Mount Blue Sky: Advance Colorado wants to change the name of Mount Blue Sky back to Mount Evans. See Logan Davis's report. I've indicated why Evans does not deserve to have a mountain named after him.
River Wars: See Elise Schmelzer's report about multi-state negotiations. Regions within Colorado also are fighting over river water. The river has invasive mussels. In related news, Nebraska has sued Colorado in an effort to draw more water from the South Platte.
National Park Comments: People generally have not been supportive of the Trump administration's efforts to "clean up" history as presented by national parks. See also my column.
Polis Vetoes Rent Software Controls: Good. People have the right to associate freely and to use the software and financial services they want.
Festival Elephants: Colorado Parks and Wildlife denied a permit for the inclusion of elephants to the Colorado Renaissance Festival. Olivia Prentzel reports that "the Animal Activist Legal Defense Project at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law threatened to sue CPW over the issue," saying the "traveling animal act was solely for entertainment purposes." But I've seen the elephants at the fest, and there was definitely a strong educational component. Arguably the use of elephants would have violated SB21-135. But the fact that that legislation exempts rodeos and county fairs is bullshit. If it's worth protecting some animals from being used in "performance" its worth protecting all animals equally.
Retail Delivery Fee: There was some talk of repealing it, which would be good.
Tax Dollars Flow to Rep. Garcia: Rep. Lorena Garcia works for the Colorado Statewide Parent Coalition, which collects tax dollars.
State Mandated Reports on Police Violence: Due to lack of compliance and enforcement, the reports are "mostly useless."
Furries Forever: Jeffrey Roberts: "The Colorado Court of Appeals . . . ordered the dismissal of a libel case against the Arvada Press [by] Jeffco Kids First." The "furries" story, popularized by Heidi Ganahl, might never die. Here is the 2022 article in question.
ERs Allowed: This headline should give you a pretty good indication that we are far, far away from a capitalist economy: "Wheat Ridge council to consider allowing freestanding emergency rooms."
DOJ Subpoenas Children's Hospital: Over gender-affirming care (see the Sun). I think this is a witch-hunt. That said, government does have a responsibility to root out fraud, so it's not impossible that the investigation has some basis.
Conservation Easements: A recent Sun article illustrates the complexities of conservation easements. On one hand, property owners have a right to trade away certain uses of their land. On the other hand, it can be hard to know when the restrictions no longer serve anyone's interests. Difficult!
Teacher Alleged Crimes Updates: Denver Post: "A former Denver teacher was found guilty in Denver County Court Thursday of giving pot brownies to two middle school students as an academic reward." Commerce City Sentinel Express: "A former teacher at Landmark Academy in Commerce City faces a felony sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust charge after police investigated an incident in 2016."