Good morning, Colorado. This morning’s newsletter was fueled by my new best friend, Spotify’s AI DJ.
Hesitant as I’ve been to embrace artificial intelligence in my entertainment mix, I have about 15 years of Spotify listening loaded into this particular algorithm, so it’s easy to trust and passively listen to this automated voice pump familiar favorites into my ears.
Check it out for yourself if you’re a Spotify listener. Oh, and be sure to subscribe to The Sun’s daily podcast while you’re there.
On to today’s news.
POLITICS & GOVERNMENT
Colorado Capitol leaders focus their message on legislative civility more than policy in kicking off 2024 lawmaking term
House Speaker Julie McCluskie, D-Dillon, delivers opening remarks Wednesday at the Colorado Capitol. (Olivia Sun, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)
The tone Wednesday at the state Capitol was a departure from the typically optimistic opening day of the General Assembly. Following the resignation of two Democrats last month who cited a toxic work environment and a formal reprimand of another earlier this week, House Speaker Julie McCluskie’s opening speech called for treating each other with kindness. Here’s more from Jesse Paul and Brian Eason on the legislative session’s opening remarks.
Colorado’s 2024 legislative session began this week. Here’s your guide to get involved. All the information you need to understand how the state legislature works as well as how you can make your voice heard and stay up to date with the process.ARTS
A Colorado Photographic Arts Center program helps veterans process emotions, experiences and photographs
“Clinical Evaluation” by Robert Grimmer. Grimmer developed his photography project during the CPAC workshop, then photographed it while volunteering as a medic in Ukraine last fall. (Robert Grimmer, courtesy of CPAC)
“Very few people leave the military with their identity intact. What that program did for me, it helped me find my identity. It helped me make sense of all of these stories, of all these ideas that I had.”
— Yvens Alex Saintill, who left the Army in January 2016
An upcoming exhibition at the Colorado Photographic Arts Center will display the work of 27 Colorado artists who served in the military. “Through Their Lens: Personal Projects by Veterans” collects and displays the works of those who participated in a free six-month program that provided veterans with instruction and resources for developing a photography practice. See some of their work and hear some of their stories in this article from Parker Yamasaki.
Criminal charges against another Colorado child welfare caseworker lead to renewed calls for reform
A child welfare caseworker in Larimer County is facing 99 criminal counts for allegedly failing to check on reported cases of abuse and neglect and filing false paperwork. It’s a case similar to one in Moffat County from 2020, and one in Denver from 2015. Jennifer Brown has more on how Colorado has failed to strengthen laws that could protect families who are the victims when caseworkers falsify records.
First year of optional Keep Colorado Wild Pass sees drivers deliver $41.1 million in revenue for parks and wildlife. Nearly 1.5 million Colorado drivers paid an extra $29 to include the parks pass on their vehicle registrations, outpacing expectations and helping fund Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Now, the question is, will Colorado’s 42 state parks see an increase in visitation from all these new passholders? Jason Blevins has that answer and more on the program’s successful first year. It was windy Wednesday. But at least it wasn’t as windy as it was in January 1982. Michael Booth asked NOAA about some of Colorado’s worst windy days, as gusts hit 60 mph in the foothills Wednesday. Here’s what they had to say.
The polar vortex is about to blast Colorado with dangerously cold arctic air. Here’s what you need to know. The storm is also bringing a “dramatic uptick in avalanche danger.”
— CPR News, Summit Daily Will Pueblo be the latest Colorado city to adopt a public camping ban? Council to decide. People would have the option to move into “sheltered bed space.” Otherwise, they could face a fine up to $1,000.
— The Pueblo Chieftain 🔑 Cost of living instills economic pessimism in southwestern Colorado residents. Local incomes have not kept up with inflation since the start of the pandemic.
— The Durango Herald 🔑 Where to find gasoline for under $2 a gallon in the Denver metro area. Gas Buddy, a website that relies on consumers to report the latest prices, listed a half dozen stations in different parts of the metro area with sub-$2 prices.
— The Denver Post 🔑
🔑 = source has article meter or paywall
— Elise Gingrich, DVM, is a veterinarian who lives in Fort Collins and is the senior director of shelter medicine for the ASPCA
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Chef Iliana Regan is known for seasonal menus that include locally foraged ingredients. After running the Michelin-starred restaurant, Elizabeth, for eight years in Chicago, Regan and her wife moved to Michigan to start an upscale bed and breakfast. (Photo courtesy of Ah Haa School for the Arts)
Cooking Classes with Iliana Regan. Iliana Regan grew up on a small farm in Indiana. You can learn this by reading the first page of her memoir, “Burn the Place,” which I did while living in Chicago last year. Regan built her culinary celebrity in the Midwest — Chicago, in fact — first by hosting an apartment supper club, then by working her way through Chicago’s finest dining establishments before opening her very own restaurant, Elizabeth, in 2012. Elizabeth earned a Michelin star in its second year of service, 2014, and continued to earn one every year thereafter until Regan backed away from it in 2020.
Now, Regan is in Colorado. She’s spending January (and a couple days in February) as a resident of Telluride’s Ah Haa School for the Arts. During her residency, Regan will teach eight cooking classes and host six pop-up dinners. Next up is a lesson on sourdough, featuring a 20-year-old yeast starter that Regan has been “tending like a pet” for two decades, as one New York Times reporter observed a few years ago.
Classes are pricey — $150 a pop — but then again, so is a dinner at a Michelin-starred restaurant. At least with this price of admission you can personally ask the chef how she did it.
$150; Jan. 14-Feb. 3; Ah Haa School for the Arts, 155 W. Pacific Ave., Telluride
First Peoples Festival. Hosted by the city of Estes Park and Nico Strange Owl, a member of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe of Montana and owner of Eagle Plume’s Trading Post in Allenspark, the First Peoples Festival features two days of music, dance, workshops and an artist’s market. Free; Jan. 13-14; Estes Park Events Complex, 1125 Rooftop Way, Estes Park Dr. King Jr. & the Radical Roots at the Heart of Justice. Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and in honor of his legacy, the Motus Theater is hosting an arts-filled and educational event featuring music, monologues and a critical discussion focused on Dr. King. Donation-based; 2:30-4:30 p.m., Jan. 15; Gordon Gamm Theater, 2590 Walnut St., Boulder “Spoiled Echoes” exhibition. ArtLab, an arts education internship in the 40West Arts District, offers high school teens a place to learn and create, while exploring relevant social issues, like mental health, climate change and housing justice. From now through Jan. 21, Edge Gallery is exhibiting the teen interns’ work. Free; Jan. 5-21; Edge Gallery, 6501 W. Colfax, Lakewood
Don’t forget to RSVP for our next free event, where we continue our coverage on the High Cost of Colorado. Join us at 6 p.m. Tuesday as we bring that series to the virtual stage to talk with panelists about the high cost of housing, food, personal entertainment, the strain on Coloradans’ budgets and what’s bothering our readers.
— Kevin & the whole staff of The Sun
Corrections & Clarifications
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Type of Story: News
Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
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