Re: “Dueling policies for data centers,” March 1 news story

The Denver Post article about two competing bills in the legislature regarding new data centers in Colorado seems to start with the presumption that we want the data centers.

Why do we want them and who wants them? Is it the politicians wanting bragging rights about our state becoming another Silicon Valley? Perhaps they want more businesses so they can collect more taxes from the new residents. Alternatively, they just want more power in Washington by increasing our population. Has anyone stopped to ask why we want to attract more people to our state?

Colorado is in a fight with other Western states to obtain more water for our growing population. Our wildlife is being crowded out by the increased urbanization. The roads are so crowded that it is not uncommon to come to a complete stop on our interchanges during rush hour. We have a serious housing shortage. The air is being polluted by the increased number of cars. These are all the result of a growing population. Did anyone stop to ask why we want more people?

During my 53 years living in Colorado, I have never heard anyone (other than politicians) say, “We need more people.” On the contrary, the conversation is more often about how we are becoming overcrowded. I would like the politicians to explain why we need more businesses and more people in our state. It should not be a presumption that more is better! Are our elected representatives truly reflecting the wishes of their constituents?

Doug Hurst, Parker

Anger and disbelief were our reactions when we read about House Bill 1030, which is under consideration at the statehouse. This outrageous corporate welfare bill would provide some of the world’s wealthiest corporations with massive state tax reductions to build monstrous resource-thirsty data centers. Analysts projected a $92.5 million tax loss in just three years if a bunch of these data centers are built. Just one 160-megawatt facility would gobble up as much power as 176,000 homes once completed. Consider for comparison that the entire DIA airport uses around 45 megawatts of power!

As the state legislature grapples with bone-deep budget cuts, we cannot afford to exempt data centers from paying their own way nor allow their unregulated construction. Taxpayer-funded corporate handouts would entail massive hits to tax revenue that should be used for our schools, roads, infrastructure, and valid state needs. What essential services will potentially be cut or axed to cover the lost revenue to the state from this corporate giveaway?

These data centers also demand massive amounts of our water. A CoreSite data center in Denver alone will use approximately 805,000 gallons of water per day to air-condition its computers. That is the same as the average daily indoor water use of 16,100 Denver homes.

I pray our state legislature will condemn HB-1030 to the corporate welfare hell where it belongs in. Instead, they should support Senate Bill 102 that will hopefully properly regulate these tax-eating, water-wasting, and electricity-gobbling monstrosities.

Terry Talbot, Grand Junction

As a pediatrician, I’ve noticed one key issue missing from the data center debate: public health.

Data centers are extraordinarily energy- and water-intensive. Nationally, they already consume about 4% of U.S. electricity — a figure expected to more than double by 2030. Much of that power still comes from burning fossil fuels. Without strong safeguards, that growth means more air pollution. In my clinical practice, I see firsthand how health is shaped by the air we breathe. More pollution means more asthma attacks, heart disease, and premature deaths, especially in communities already burdened by poor air quality.

Water use is another concern. Large data centers can use enormous amounts of water for cooling. In a drought-prone state like Colorado, this raises serious questions about long-term drinking water reliability and heat resilience.

Energy affordability is also a health issue. When infrastructure is built to serve massive corporate users, costs can shift to households. I see the effects of energy insecurity in families forced to choose between cooling their homes, buying medication, or putting food on the table.

Colorado has an opportunity to get this right. Senate Bill 102 would establish guardrails to protect ratepayers, limit pollution, and ensure large electricity users pay their full infrastructure costs. Other states, including Michigan and Virginia, are reconsidering generous tax incentives after seeing how quickly public costs can outpace public benefit.

Colorado can welcome innovation without sacrificing clean air, clean water, affordable energy, and community health. Public health must be a priority, not an afterthought.

Clare Burchenal, Denver

As the story makes clear, data centers in our communities have real impacts on our health, our pocketbooks and our quality of life. I’m a mom of two small children who are counting on the adults in the room to make responsible decisions that impact their futures. It’s dizzying to see the pace of data centers sweeping the country and confusing as to why leaders are rushing to accommodate them without taking into consideration all of the impacts these massive industrial complexes have on communities.

It’s critical that data centers are powered by clean-burning renewable energy, not fossil fuels. We are in a no-snow winter in Colorado, and we have no safeguards in place against data center water use. Energy infrastructure should be paid for by the billion-dollar big tech companies that will profit from it, not by unfair rate increases for our families and small businesses.

There is a way to do this right. Senate Bill 102 has some important protections for our families and communities while still allowing for the responsible construction and operation of data centers built in appropriate places in our state. It is unacceptable that our leaders do nothing to protect us from big tech excesses. SB-102 will protect all Colorado kids – and their parents and communities. Join me in urging our legislators to pass this important bill.

Sara Kuntzler, Arvada

U.S. women’s hockey players above the game and politics

Re: “Trump tore athletes down on the world’s stage,” March 1 commentary

Dear Megan Schrader,

Thank you for your column on how the president disrespected the U.S. women’s Olympic hockey team. Your excellent commentary hit and sent the puck into the back of the net, so to speak.

To take it a step further, I believe the women’s choice not to visit the White House was more than meets the eye. Ostensibly, they declined the invitation because of the timing, specifically the resumption of play in the professional women’s hockey league.

Yet, I would like to believe it was more an expression of contempt for the president and his policies.

The women were smarter and braver and truer to their values than were the men’s Olympic hockey team, who, with the same timing issues, chose to accept the invitation to the White House. That visit and the visit to the State of the Union Address only helped bolster the president’s optics. An exception was the Colorado Avalanche’s own Brock Nelson, who declined to accompany the men’s team because he valued his family time more than a public charade.

In sports — as in life — we need more people like the women hockey players who will elevate their values above the games and politics.

Bill Allegar, Denver

Backing up to park for safety?

Re: “Do you back into a parking spot or back out?” March 1 feature story

I read this with slight amusement. For someone who has traveled a bit, and especially in Asia (Japan in particular), backing into a parking space is a very common practice (not a new trend) and has been for decades. On my first trip to Japan, around 1992, I was told it was what most people did.

As for the company Imminent Threat Solutions recommending “tactical parking” because they should “prevail against all threats,” seems like marketing hype of the biggest kind, building fear into your daily life of running errands and going to work. Has there been bad behaviour, shootings, and whatnot in a parking lot? Sure, but let’s not build fear for something that happens rarely to the average individual.

Randy DeBoer, Denver

To add to the parking procedures article in Sunday’s paper, there is another option, one that I use and recommend; it’s the “drive-through” to an open space.

After having been hit and having a rental car damaged (a three-month hassle to resolve) by a driver who backed out of an opposite space without looking, I don’t drive into a parking space if I can help it. What I do instead is find an open space where I can drive in straight and continue to a back-to-back adjoining space where I can park and then drive ahead to depart. These parking spots are typically a longer walk to my destination, and I benefit from the additional steps.

G. E. Cole, Centennial

I enjoyed your article on discussing whether to back in or pull straight into parking spaces. Our oldest son is a backer-inner, and I am starting to be one too. What is missing from your analysis, though, is the grocery store, much less Costco or Home Depot. Almost nobody is a backer-inner in these places, since you’re typically loading stuff in your backseat, hatch, or pickup bed. I guess the backer-inners are just not going to be able to escape as quickly once they’ve picked up 50 pounds of dog food, 25 rolls of paper towels, or five sheets of 4′ x 8′ plywood. Hope they survive.

Tim Hickisch, Highlands Ranch

You can support immigrants and the law

Re: “Faith communities show support for immigrants,” Feb. 22 news story

Faith communities do show support for immigrants. I don’t agree with those who stand against the law and ICE. While we may support all people made in the image of God, we should not be for illegal immigrants. They have broken the law, and some are doing great harm while living here. Legal immigrants, please come. Illegal immigrants, please go home and come here legally.

Deanna R Walworth, Brighton

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Welcome to Colorado! We hope you enjoy your stay. And congratulations on your negotiating skills that led Colorado’s state, city and county governments to provide $70 million in relocation incentives when our competition offered $3.5 million (Utah) and $5 million (Ohio).

As we both know, Colorado did not need to hand you millions of tax dollars to relocate here. Apples to apples, Boulder outclassed the competition. Cincinnati has cheaper lodging, but attendance would plummet under grey Ohio winters. Utah could no longer accommodate the festival size in Park City, while the state had become less welcoming to your community.

As the LA Times confirmed, there was no question Sundance would choose Boulder. Ohio and Utah needed to offer tens of millions more than the competition. Colorado did not. We wildly overpaid.

So congratulations on fleecing our state, and the city and the county of Boulder for more than $70 million when the deal could have been closed for $3 million to $5 million!

But circumstances have changed. Colorado has a constitutional amendment called the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR). This limits the amount of revenue the state may retain each year. If revenue exceeds the limit, we must return the surplus to taxpayers. When lawmakers and Gov. Jared Polis promised you $34 million in tax credits to come to Colorado, we had sufficient surpluses to give you those tax credits instead of refunding the money back to Colorado’s taxpayers without cutting into the general fund.

Since then, our state has suffered a billion-dollar-per-year revenue reduction. We are one of four states that has “rolling conformity” with the federal tax code. When Congress passed H.R. 1 in July 2025, it immediately slashed Colorado’s tax revenue, blasting a billion-dollar hole in our budget.

We are now making difficult choices. Among the worst is slashing Medicaid by hundreds of millions of dollars, hitting our Intellectually and Developmentally Delayed (IDD) community particularly hard. We made promises to that community that we cannot keep.

Even worse, we receive federal matching dollars for every penny we put into the IDD program. When I ran a recent budget amendment to take $742,000 from Colorado’s film office to reappropriate that money to our IDD community, it would have doubled the investment to almost $1.5 million. Unfortunately, this amendment was reversed by claims that the film industry in Colorado would collapse and Sundance would not come to Colorado if those funds were revoked.

It’s difficult to believe a $742,000 cut could be so catastrophic to a hundred-million-dollar-plus festival. And while your attendees will generate substantial economic activity when they come here, the state cannot retain revenue from sales taxes and income taxes above TABOR limits. Your economic presence will not compensate for the funding loss caused by your millions of dollars in tax credits eating into our spending cap.

I ask, therefore, that you disclaim the $4 million in tax credits to which you may be entitled next year, contingent upon that saved revenue supporting Colorado’s IDD community (which we can double to $8 million with federal matching).

When we are slashing Medicaid provider rates and IDD support by 15% and 40%, asking our new guest to give up 3% to 5% of the lucrative deal struck in better times is not unreasonable. This request is only for years when we do not have TABOR surpluses to cover your credits without impacting the general fund. It is extremely rare that we have no surplus.

When it returns, taking the credits has no impact on our general fund or upon the most vulnerable in our state. I hope that you will choose to be as good a guest as Colorado plans to be a host and share the pain we are experiencing currently which is significantly worse for our most vulnerable. Thanks!

Colorado state Rep. Bob Marshall is a Democrat from Highlands Ranch.

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Re: “A balancing act,” Nov. 30 sports story

The Colorado High School Activities Association’s stated mission is to “create a positive and equitable environment in which all qualified student participants are challenged and inspired to meet their highest potential.” However, as Kyle Newman’s article documented, the CSHAA transfer system is increasingly strained and is failing some of the very students it is meant to support.

Our family experienced another dimension to the transfer eligibility process this past summer when we transferred our two boys from Regis Jesuit to Chaparral High School. We made this difficult decision after ongoing tuition increases of more than 14% in two years, coupled with financial aid reductions, made continued enrollment financially unsustainable for our family.

Despite acknowledgement from coaches, athletic directors, and commissioners that the circumstances were entirely outside of our control and in no way athletically motivated, our hardship waiver was denied. The justification given was based on the CHSAA Bylaws Article 1800.52 – 8, which categorically excludes “inability to pay private school tuition” from hardship consideration, despite Article 1800.51 granting the Commissioner “broad discretion in applying this [hardship] standard to specific cases.”

CHSAA’s transfer system is fundamentally flawed. The issue isn’t an enforcement problem; it’s a structural one. The bylaws contain categorical exclusions that prevent discretion in certain circumstances while allowing loopholes to be exploited in others. The association’s language promises equity, but its bylaws do not deliver. Without change, qualified students will continue to be denied opportunities to meet their highest potential.

Joel Williams, Parker

You don’t have to have a daughter to know to treat women with respect

Re: “Trump tore athletes down on the world’s stage,” March 1 commentary

Megan Schrader is absolutely correct in her assertion that President Trump has set women’s sports back several decades by failing to recognize a single female athlete, let alone a medalist, from the Milan Cortina Olympics.

I do take issue with her reasoning when she says that the U.S. men’s hockey team should have declined the invitation to the State of the Union “because someday these men may have daughters who will love the sport as much as they do.” She goes on to say that if they had done so, they could point with pride to the fact that they amplified the women’s team at a time they needed it. These men should have declined the president’s invitation simply because it was the right thing to do in response to the leader of the United States openly disrespecting the women’s team.

We need to stop exhorting men to be respectful to women because they have mothers and perhaps sisters and daughters; they need to be respectful because that’s what we do in a civilized society.

Carolyn Cantrell, Denver

Journalists shirking their government watchdog duties

So let’s see: during the US/Israeli attack, a school was bombed in Tehran, killing over 100 children. But we are told they are looking into it. Just as they are looking into the killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Just as they are looking into the millions of pages of Epstein files, finding lots of victims but only one (dead) perpetrator. Just as they are looking into government waste, fraud, and corruption in the most corrupt and fraudulent administration ever. Just as they are looking into so many IDF-committed atrocities in the Gaza genocide. Just as O.J.’s spirit continues to search for the real killers.

And where is the media? Moving on, as intended. No follow-up. No accountability. No semblance of actual investigative journalism. On to the next (short-lived) outrage, or celebrity encounter or missing white woman of the week.

As sad as it is to see the utter collapse of congressional responsibility and respect for the Constitution, it is equally disheartening to see the mainstream media continue to embrace infotainment, sycophantic adulation, and the shallowest “storytelling” imaginable. The media attention span is well-suited to the world of 50-words-or-less tweets and posts. Unfortunately, it is not well-suited to journalistic ethics and responsibility to the public. Sad indeed.

AC Dion, Westminster

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Stockholm Syndrome? Maybe that explains Gov. Jared Polis’ willingness to bow to the man who has held our state hostage.

For more than a year, Colorado has been the target of President Donald Trump’s abuse. Leaving Polis off the guest list of a recent governors’ dinner at the White House was the latest slap in the face of many that include rescinded federal grants, a vetoed water bill, rejected disaster fund requests, and the loss of two federal agencies.

Our tormentor is angry the state chose Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 and has not met his demands to stop mail-in voting and release his supporter and fellow election denier Tina Peters from prison.

Polis seemed to be bearing up okay under the strain until this week, when he inexplicably signaled that he might grant Peters clemency. The former county clerk is serving nine years for illegally granting a fellow election conspiracy theorist access to voting equipment to advance Trump’s false narrative about the 2020 election. Her failed scheme to discredit the county’s voting equipment violated multiple laws and cost Mesa County taxpayers $1.4 million. This figure does not reflect the human toll of her crimes. Election officials received death threats, and her lies continue to undermine faith in democratic processes to this day.

Polis’ attempt to compare Peters’ nine year sentence to the lighter sentence of probation and community service received by former Colorado state Sen. Jaquez Lewis does not add up. She treated her aides poorly, and when caught attempted to influence members of the Senate Ethics Committee with fake letters of support.

Peters received a tougher sentence within the sentencing guidelines because her crimes and their impact were far worse.

Matt Crane, the head of Colorado’s bipartisan County Clerks Association, told me that the symbolism behind a pardon is dangerous.

“If Polis grants Peters clemency, that would signal that it’s okay for people to undermine election integrity and break the law so long as Polis and Trump can issue a get out of jail free card. Rather than worry about appeasing the president by siding with a convicted felon, Polis should stand with election officials who uphold the law and conduct reliable elections for the people of Colorado,” Crane said.

Peters’ sentence also reflects her complete lack of remorse and contempt for the law. On Twitter, she calls herself the “Fmr Election Official Whistleblower with 7 Felonies and 5 misdemeanors for exposing the traitors of our country” and either she or someone connected to her continues to post lies about elections. Freed, she will no doubt claim exoneration and will continue to undermine confidence in American democracy as we head into an election.

A blue wave of disaffected voters will pulverize the seawall of Republican hegemony in Washington this November, and MAGA will be desperate to blame losses on nonexistent voter fraud. Sowing doubt in our election systems and division among Americans will be all the easier for election conspiracy theorists with a celebrity denier in their midst.

Better to let Peters serve her sentence until she is up for parole in 2028. Perhaps she can manufacture some remorse before the parole board and walk out a free woman.

Until then, Polis must remain steadfast in upholding justice. Trump has granted clemency to all manner of criminals from violent January 6 rioters to corrupt politicians and fraudulent businessmen. No matter how much pressure he puts on our state, we must hold out against his demands.

Krista Kafer is a Sunday Denver Post columnist.

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The debate over accountability for public officials has sharpened nationally as Gov. Jared Polis has questioned whether justice was evenly applied when comparing the length of the sentence imposed on former Republican Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters with the sentence imposed on former Democratic Colorado State Senator Sonya Jacquez Lewis last week.

In a social media post, Polis noted that Jaquez Lewis was convicted of the same exact felony as Peters, but received a much more lenient sentence. The facts differ, as do some of the legal theories, but Polis notes that the scale of Peters’ punishment has placed her sentence outside the typical range involving elected officials, raising legitimate questions about proportionality.

The legitimacy of our justice system depends on the public’s belief that the rules apply evenly, regardless of party, ideology or notoriety. From my vantage point as a former Democratic lawmaker, and a former Denver city attorney and assistant attorney general who worked on criminal enforcement matters, the Peters case is striking not because accountability was inappropriate, but because the sentence appears inconsistent with other cases and may have been influenced by her polarizing political speech.

Polis’s office has made it clear that he is not considering a pardon for Tina Peters, and neither would I. Instead, he is reviewing her application like anyone else for clemency and likely considering a modification to her sentence.

In my time as chief of staff to former Gov. John Hickenlooper, we carefully vetted many clemency cases, and the public is able to weigh in during this process. It is imperative that Peters takes accountability for her actions and is remorseful.

None of this is to excuse Tina Peters’ conduct. Peters was found guilty on seven charges, including four felonies, for her role in orchestrating a municipal election security data breach of the county’s election equipment in 2021, well after the 2020 election results were affirmed by the county and certified by the state. Peters faced 20 years in prison and was sentenced to 9 years.

Make no mistake: courts are right to treat threats to election integrity with gravity, and deterrence is a legitimate sentencing goal. However, legitimate questions were raised on appeal as to whether her political speech, not popular in Colorado, erroneously informed the trial judge’s sentencing of her.

Colorado Court of Appeals Judge Craig Welling, who served as chief legal counsel for Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter before joining the court, grilled the state’s attorney over the trial judge reciting Peters’ false statements about elections in handing down her sentence and said, “the court cannot punish her for her First Amendment rights.”

During oral argument, all three Court of Appeals judges expressed concern about the fairness of her sentence and highlighted how the district court judge’s political statements made about Peters may have unfairly and unconstitutionally influenced her sentencing. The court has not ruled yet in this case and could easily make the conversation about clemency moot.

Proportionality is not a soft concept; it is a cornerstone of justice. A review of similarly situated cases, demonstrates that Peters’ sentence is an outlier.

Lewis, a Democrat, faced serious allegations tied to her official conduct, drawing headlines and political fallout. Lewis was convicted of four felony charges (one count of attempting to influence a public servant and three counts of forgery). In January 2025, during an investigation by the Colorado Senate Committee on Ethics, Lewis forged several letters reportedly written by former aides to refute allegations that Lewis was mistreating staff. She faced up to 15 years in prison, but received two years of supervised probation and 150 hours of community service. I have yet to hear a single person opposed to leniency for Peters argue that Lewis’ sentence was too lenient or inappropriate.

In 2023, former state Rep. Tracey Bennett, a Democrat from Boulder, faced felony charges related to residency fraud and pleaded guilty to attempting to influence a public servant and perjury about lying about her place of residence to run for reelection in a more favorable political district. She faced up to 8 years but received a deferred sentence, including two years of probation. Again, no outcry about whether her sentence was too lenient. Indeed, most public official-related cases don’t end in jail time, but rather probation, deferred sentencing, community hours and fines.

Context matters, and in Colorado’s political climate, Peters is undeniably red meat for many Coloradoans who, like me, are rightfully concerned about election integrity. Peters became a figure whose actions were not just unlawful but emblematic of broader threats to democratic norms. That political reality does not invalidate the legal process, but it does make the need for visible consistency even more important. Justice must be not only fair, but perceived as fair.

Before critiquing Gov. Polis ask yourself this: would the result have been different if the Peters was the Boulder County Clerk who committed the same crime with the same result? Certainly, the political outcry to Polis’ post about a Democratic elected Boulder County Clerk’s disproportionate sentence would have been more muted.

When similarly situated officials receive vastly different outcomes, it risks creating the impression– whether accurate or not — that punishment can be shaped by the political temperature surrounding a case. And, without question, it is clear that the court itself is openly questioning the severity of her sentence.

In an era when trust in institutions is already strained, that perception carries real consequences.

Doug Friednash is a partner with the law firm Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber and Schreck.

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Vietnam Syndrome — the deep reluctance to project American power abroad after the trauma of the Vietnam War — was first widely recognized as a driving ideology within Democratic circles just as I arrived in Washington, D.C., to begin my career. The mood of the city then was shaped by the revelations of the Vietnam War, the publication of the Pentagon Papers, and the findings of the Church Committee, chaired by Frank Church, on which Colorado’s freshman senator, Gary Hart, served. Americans learned of CIA overreach, covert interventions, and hard truths about government deception. The national psyche shifted.

By the time the Iran hostage crisis unfolded under President Jimmy Carter, the Democratic Party was deeply wary of military force. Carter chose negotiation and restraint as 52 American diplomats were held for 444 days by the new Islamic Revolutionary regime. Whether one agrees or disagrees with his approach, it reflected a broader hesitancy shaped by Vietnam’s shadow.

That hesitancy has never fully disappeared.

Today, as the United States and Israel act together to degrade the military capabilities of the Iranian regime — a regime that has funded and armed proxy militias across the region for decades — I am struck by the cautious, almost antiseptic language coming from many Democratic leaders.

For example, Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet said this week: “Any use of military force must be consistent with our constitutional framework and avoid drawing the United States into another open-ended conflict in the Middle East.” That concern is understandable.

No American wants another Iraq or Afghanistan. But when constitutional process becomes the primary lens and the strategic objective becomes secondary, it echoes the old reflex: avoid strength for fear of entanglement.

Rep. Jason Crow, a former Army Ranger, emphasized that “Congress must be consulted before further escalation,” underscoring the need for oversight and warning against “another prolonged regional war.”

Rep. Joe Neguse similarly stressed that, “First and foremost, our constitution is crystal-clear: the decision to take our nation to war rests with Congress.”

Process, process, process. Deflection from the embrace of American strength to rid the world of the worst of the worst.

I write this not as a detached observer. I spent formative years in Washington working in pro-Israel politics, engaging both Democrats and Republicans, and watching firsthand how internal party debates over strength and restraint played out. In the year 2000, I ran as the Democratic nominee in Congressional District 6 now held by Jason Crow. Yet today, I view these events from the front row.

Six years ago, I became a dual U.S.–Israeli citizen and now spend most of my time in Herzliya, just north of Tel Aviv. Since Saturday morning, much of our community life has shifted underground. We move between home and reinforced shelters as Iranian ballistic missiles — fired from roughly 2,000 miles away — target civilian neighborhoods. These are not symbolic gestures; they are designed for mass casualties. The families in these shelters are not abstractions in a policy debate. They are neighbors.

From this vantage point, the debate in Washington feels tone-deaf.

When Iran’s leadership vows Israel’s destruction and arms groups who are committed to that goal, deterrence is not theoretical. It is existential. The current joint operation — undertaken by President Donald Trump in coordination with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — may be politically controversial, and both leaders are undeniably flawed. But the strategic objective of preventing a violent theocratic regime from expanding its destructive reach is neither reckless nor novel. It is long overdue.

This is where Vietnam Syndrome still lingers — not as a slogan, but as a mindset. The instinct to lead with caution rather than clarity. To emphasize process before principle. To worry first about overreach rather than about the consequences of inaction.

I do not expect unanimity. I do not expect cheerleading. But I do expect moral clarity when civilians are under sustained attack and when a regime that has destabilized a region for nearly half a century is finally facing meaningful consequences.

From Washington, these questions are strategic. From Herzliya, they are personal. The Democratic Party once prided itself on combining moral leadership with pragmatic strength. The challenge now is whether it can rediscover that balance — not abandoning caution, but refusing paralysis. History shows the costs of both overreach and retreat. The test of leadership is knowing the difference.

Ken Toltz is a 3rd-generation Denverite, long-time political activist, and a former Democratic nominee for Colorado’s 6th Congressional District. He now lives in Herzliya, Israel.

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Updated March 6, 2026 at 8:19 a.m. Due to a columnist’s error, the original version of this opinion column misquoted Rep. Joe Neguse.

You might call this unusual because Durango has access to a backup supply. In 2011, voters approved spending $6 million to buy 3,800 acre‑feet of water storage in a reservoir called Lake Nighthorse. The rationale was simple: The town could build a pipeline and ship that water into its system whenever dry times occurred.

But since then, not much has happened.

Former city manager Ron LeBlanc tried to move the project forward before retiring in 2019. An engineering study in 2023 concluded that the town should connect Lake Nighthorse to its system using one of three possible pipeline routes. Still, no construction began.

Durango’s mayor, Gilda Yazzie, says the city paid for its share of a pipe at the base of the dam, along with what’s called a manifold — a device that would split water among the four users of Lake Nighthorse. But nothing has been built to connect that manifold to Durango’s water system.

Lake Nighthorse itself is the scaled‑down result of the Animas–La Plata Project, authorized by Congress in 1968. That project would have covered the Animas and La Plata river valleys with canals, pumps and pipelines. Instead, the final plan built just one dam and one pumping station, leaving the Animas River free‑flowing.

That decision helped protect the area’s natural beauty while also attracting more people to Durango. Some of those new residents have since moved into fire‑prone areas. Many Western cities have learned the hard way about not securing enough water to fight wildfires. Fires racing through Los Angeles in 2025 wiped out entire neighborhoods. Water storage ran out and hydrants went dry.

Durango water engineer Steve Harris has 52 years of experience in the field and is known for promoting water conservation. He thinks Durango is making a serious mistake by not connecting a pipe to Lake Nighthorse.

“The city has a century of the Animas and Florida Rivers being so good to them with steady year-around flows that they don’t even know they need storage,” he said. “They may only find out during a water crisis.”

Right now, Durango has 10 to 30 days of water stored in its Terminal Reservoir, which holds 267 acre-feet. That’s annual water consumption for about 600 households; Durango has over 9,000 households. The city depends mainly on the Florida River, with large draws of summer water from the Animas River. When the two rivers flow normally, the taps run. If both rivers dry up or clog with debris from fires, the city could run out of water within weeks.

Climate change and a 25‑year drought highlight this risk. In the last eight years, on 34 days, the Animas River averaged less than 100 cubic feet per second, a low level reached only twice in the previous 120 years. Close calls have already happened. In 2002, the Missionary Ridge Fire filled both rivers with ash and debris and forced the city to cut back pumping. In 2015, the Gold King Mine spill sent millions of gallons of waste into the Animas River, stopping city pumping for a week.

When Harris spoke at a Durango Neighborhood Coalition meeting last year, residents expressed overwhelming support for more water storage. That message hasn’t reached city leaders. Mayor Yazzie said voters were happy to support a $61 million sales-tax–funded municipal building and popular new recreation projects. But she said raising taxes for a major water project would be difficult.

“We are looking at a potential water and sewer fee increase to keep the toilets flushing,” Mayor Yazzie said. As for building a pipeline to Lake Nighthorse and a much-needed new water treatment plant–an investment water engineer Steve Harris estimates at about $100 million—“it all depends on how much the citizens are willing to pay for water. “

Durango’s reluctance to invest in its water system stands out in the West, where water storage is usually characterized as urgent. Las Vegas for example, built three separate intake tunnels into Lake Mead to make sure it could keep taking water even as the reservoir dropped.

Durango’s Lake Nighthorse pipeline remains a paper concept. This winter, with snowpack in the San Juan Mountains the lowest recorded in generations, it’s time the town acts to guarantee more water. Fighting flames with empty hoses would be a sorry sight.

Dave Marston is the publisher of Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He writes in Durango, Colorado.

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Re: “Bill would ban prop bets on sports apps,” Feb. 27 news story

Colorado lawmakers are once again debating sports betting policy, focusing largely on regulation and revenue.

Those conversations matter. But another question deserves equal attention: Are we watching the rise of the next public health crisis and calling it entertainment?

Sports betting today looks familiar. Tobacco was once marketed as glamorous before we understood its harm. Social media was celebrated for connection before we reckoned with its psychological effects. In both cases, adoption moved faster than awareness.

Now consider modern gambling. It is available 24 hours a day, in every pocket. It is aggressively promoted across broadcasts and social media. It is designed for seamless engagement, with instant deposits, live bets, and constant notifications.

And the group most exposed? Young men.

Scroll through YouTube or Instagram, and you will see big wins and high-energy reactions. What you will not see are the losses, debt, anxiety and shame that often follow.

When something is always within reach, marketed as identity and success, and engineered to keep users coming back, it stops being just a hobby.

This is not about banning gambling. It is about acknowledging design, psychology, and impact, especially at a time when young men already face rising mental health challenges.

As Colorado weighs the future of sports betting, revenue should not be the only metric that matters.

Brandon Zelasko, Denver

Gambling, prostitution, drug use, unrestricted abortion? ‘Wake up, Colorado’

What is the moral and values foundation for the State of Colorado in 2026? With the passing of Amendment 79 in 2024, Colorado has one of, if not the most, unrestricted abortion laws on record. The passage of Proposition 122 in 2022 expanded the opportunity to purchase and decriminalize psilocybin. Amendment 64 (2012) allowed Colorado to become the first state to legally purchase recreational marijuana. In 2020, Colorado legalized sports betting, and in 2025, more than $6 billion dollars was wagered.

Now, Senate Bill 26-097 is being introduced to recommend that Colorado become the first state to remove criminal penalties associated with prostitution.

My assumption in passing these amendments and propositions is that hey, it’s your life and body, do whatever you want with no accountability and responsibility for others. Is this the message we want to pass along to the children growing up in Colorado? It is not the message I want to send to my granddaughter.

Wake up, Colorado! Try to be an example for the country rather than a state that is void of any moral foundation.

Gregory Wells, Fort Collins

TABOR is a protector, not a monster

Re: “TABOR is terrorizing Colorado’s townspeople,” March 4 commentary

State Rep. Sean Camacho misreads his audience when he suggests we should drive the Taxpayers Bill of Rights out of Colorado like Frankenstein’s monster.

TABOR, a constitutional amendment passed by voters in 1992, has been quite friendly to taxpayers since its inception. It is very flexible, allowing voters to override its restrictions by popular vote. When tax-and-spend liberals like Camacho are unable to persuade voters to give them more tax revenue, they cry foul and seek to change the game, rather than playing by its rules. We should be pleased that Camacho’s efforts failed in 2025. Even his fellow Democrats realized the folly of discarding a crucially important governmental safeguard.

Jim Bensberg, Colorado Springs

Loving the good news stories out of Loveland

Re: “Beekeeper sees new life for historic Timberlane Farm,” March 1 news story

Is Loveland vying to be the most inviting city in Colorado? On Feb. 23, there was an article about firefighters saving a small dog from a storm drain. Then, an article about members from the city police department buying scooters for two siblings whose own scooter had been stolen, and then following up to find the perpetrator. Now in Sunday’s paper, an article about a man looking to promote a pollinator education center on a historic farm.

These stories are bright spots for me when most of the news that I read is continually depressing.

C. Greenman, Lakewood

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Calls for universities and colleges to offer three-year bachelor’s degrees have grown steadily louder. Now institutions are answering those calls, and those that do not evolve and innovate risk becoming increasingly disconnected from both students and employers. Rather than defending the status quo, college and university leaders should treat accelerated bachelor’s degrees as an innovative offering that preserves academic rigor, aligns with workforce needs and improves access and affordability.

While some current political debate casts doubt about the value of higher education, research consistently shows that a bachelor’s degree remains one of the strongest predictors of long-term economic mobility. Bachelor’s degree holders earn a median of $32,000 more each year than high school graduates, amounting to roughly $625,000 in additional lifetime earnings.

Those figures even account for time spent out of the workforce during college. During economic downturns, unemployment rates for high school graduates are roughly double what they are for college graduates, and degree holders are more likely to have health insurance, retirement savings, stronger health outcomes and higher levels of civic engagement.

While the long-term benefits are clear, the traditional path to obtaining the degree has come under increasing scrutiny. Over the last 30 years, the average tuition for both public and private four-year colleges has essentially doubled after adjusting for inflation. As tuition and fees have risen, institutions face tough questions about time to completion and return on investment. For many Americans, particularly working adults balancing careers and families, the traditional four-year, 120-credit (or 180 quarter-credit) model can feel financially and logistically out of reach.

This matters because a narrow majority of Americans (54%) ages 25 to 34 do not hold a four-year degree. Millions of them have some college credit they either earned by starting college or taking college-level courses while in high school. What many discover after entering the workforce without a college degree is limited opportunities for advancement. For a working parent with 60 completed credits, the chance to finish their degree a year or two faster than a traditional degree could be the key incentive in returning to school.

Accelerated and reduced-credit bachelor’s programs do not lower standards. Accreditors have made clear that learning outcomes must remain rigorous and measurable. What these programs do is streamline requirements and provide coursework directly aligned with workforce needs. These programs reward those who have earned some college credit by offering a more efficient way to complete their bachelor’s degree and advance in their career.

Adoption has been slow. Of the roughly 4,000 degree-granting institutions in the country, only about 60 offer or are in the process of developing reduced-credit bachelor’s programs. The University of Denver’s new Accelerated Bachelor of Professional Studies, which will launch this fall, requires 25% fewer credit hours than the traditional four-year degree and is fully online.

The goal is to increase access and provide more options. While the Higher Learning Commission approved DU’s request to be the first institution in Colorado to offer such a program, state oversight that public institutions face is preventing them from doing the same. Other states are making progress in this area. Earlier this month, the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education voted to consider proposals from colleges and universities seeking to establish programs that would require fewer than the traditional number of credits.

These programs will never replace the four-year college experience. The knowledge, experience, and relationships that students gain all while living away from home for the first time is truly transformative. This experience is for a student at a different time in their life and career. The accelerated degree program solves a problem for the early-to-mid-career individual who may experience limitations around time and money because of where they are in their lives.

We must look for new ways to achieve the desired learning outcomes that students are looking for and develop a workforce that serves our communities and strengthens our economy. Higher education has always evolved in response to social and economic change, and these bachelor’s programs may be the next stage in that evolution. Institutions that embrace this model may help ensure the sectors’ relevance in the decades ahead.

Jeremy Haefner is the 19th chancellor at the University of Denver. Bobbie Kite is the dean of the College of Professional Studies at the University of Denver.

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Re: “Trump: Iran’s supreme leader has been killed,” March 1 news story

President Donald Trump’s call for Iranians to take to their dangerous streets to express their rights, to gain free speech and to create a new government is beyond irony when his goons beat, jail and kill Americans expressing their right of free speech in Minneapolis and across the United States. When the time comes in America, let us hope our citizens have the courage that he calls for in Iran’s citizens.

Jerry Swedlund, Denver

Another Republican war. This is the third war perpetrated by a Republican administration. In spite of what many Americans may have thought about President Joe Biden, I felt safe under his administration. And one of those reasons is because of his respect for our military and the lives and safety of our soldiers. I no longer feel safe, and I’m willing to bet I’m not alone.

Nancy Rife, Wheat Ridge

Astounding! We’re at war with Iran! Our Congress, the only branch of government with the power to declare war, didn’t declare war?

President Trump spoke for a long, long time last week on national TV and “forgot” to mention he was locked and loaded the military for immediate action. You’d think somebody would have “suggested” to our diplomatic corps to send their families back to the U.S. of A. for an overdue vacation ASAP. Now many are trapped, and the last time that happened, there were hostages held in Iran for 444 days.

Pity those service members due for discharge this week to be told to fuhgeddaboudit. I got nailed with a” for the convenience of the military” enlistment freeze back in 1961 and didn’t appreciate the surprise one bit.

Now I suppose Trump will suspend our elections until after it’s over there.

Harry Puncec, Lakewood

If anyone needed confirming evidence that America is spiraling downward into a fully fledged autocracy, President Trump’s war with Iran provides it.

After having announced in June that Iran’s nuclear program had been “completely and totally obliterated,” it seems that it is now necessary to attack Iran again to destroy its missile program. The reason for this is to prevent Iran from launching non-existent nuclear weapons against the U.S. on rockets that do not currently exist.

But then Donald Trump does what he wants, when he wants, regardless of the facts, which is the definition of an autocrat. And if you believe that the mid-term elections in November will be “free and fair,” you may want to think again.

Guy Wroble, Denver

Rep. Boebert demonstrates a new low at Hillary Clinton deposition

Re: “Boebert leaks photo of Clinton testifying, disrupting deposition,” Feb. 27 news story

Rep. Lauren Boebert’s despicable behavior at the Epstein deposition of the Clintons is an astounding new low, even for her. She is an embarrassment to all of us in the 4th congressional district and, for that matter, to all Coloradans. If it isn’t apparent already, she needs to resign or be replaced, as she is incapable of functioning as a competent adult in the halls of Congress.

Ralph Roberts, Roxborough

Everything keeps getting interesting when it comes to Lauren Boebert. Everyone on the House Oversight Committee should have known the rules for this closed-door session, as they were read at the beginning. It included no photographs.

Either she wasn’t paying attention, or she didn’t care. She took a photo or photos and passed them on to right-winger Benny Johnson. I didn’t realize that Johnson was into fashion, but  Boebert’s excuse was that she liked Hillary Clinton’s outfit, so she decided to share it with Johnson. When she wants to lie, she does it big.

Rep. Boebert should be excluded from the committee. In addition, President Trump and his wife should also be heard from under oath if the committee wanted to appear that they were not hypocrites. But that won’t happen.

Wayne Wathen, Centennial

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