Management of the health crisis by counties, and the responses from municipalities, NPOs, businesses and citizens has been exemplary these past months. In fact, it has been extraordinary how orderly and peaceful COVID compliance has been up until this weekend of the George Floyd killing protests around the country. As Read more…
When generations look back on this pandemic, will they see how COVID drove structural changes and innovations of substance, or just brought us more underwhelming technical advancements? Brian Elms’ article in Governing.com from April 29th, 2020 “Government’s Innovation Surge Shouldn’t End with the Pandemic” notes that “service improvements that used Read more…
What is an oath? What does it pledge? Whose idea were oaths anyhow? So why in our system of many-layered governance with counter-balanced branches and dispersed powers do local officials swear an oath to the Constitution? The very idea of an oath was a topic of much disagreement during the Read more…
COVID-19 is exposing the obvious and the despicable. First, the obvious. Let all Americans vote by mail. Congress needs act soon to secure this election’s integrity and do it the Colorado way, otherwise millions of voters will likely be disenfranchised. Today, Wisconsin is showing how NOT to do it. Voters Read more…
The March 25th headline in the Vail Daily was one any Mayor would dread, “Avon Council gets hacked, forced to reschedule meeting: Mayor ‘Deepest apologies for any disturbing content you may have witnessed.” Avon learned about video conferencing the hard way. They will not be the last local government to Read more…
Some small things are a big deal. Nancy Kerry and the Town of Frisco are doing something outstanding for businesses amid the COVID-19 crisis—providing a source of information and doing some listening. It is not lost on many municipalities that the bulk of their operating revenues come from sales tax Read more…
When now Colorado Governor Jared Polis was merely a freshman Congressman, he called a town hall at the Singletree Pavilion in Edwards on the proposed Affordable Care Act. I remember attending. It was packed. Many people listened from outside through the open doors. Palpable tensions wafted through the air. Congressman Read more…
Even as public health directives to curb COVID-19 ramp up, it is important to know that this situation will put us through both a personal and a collective journey before it passes. Before the waiting is done, time will pass excruciatingly for many of us like a kind of enforced Read more…
The Summit Daily characterizes the current dispute over the county condemning an easement on its own 6.13-acre Fiester Preserve as a “tempest in a High-Country teapot.” For those in the conservation easement/land trust business, who tout of “protecting land forever” this undoing would mark a very serious precedent as noted Read more…
Even in the rural West, it is common for humans to enjoy living in town amid wildlife. This phenomenon hasn’t played out in a historic context. Yet. Is it possible for places to tip the scales to make it possible? Many communities think so, with “bear-proof” garbage, containers, preservation of Read more…