https://www.kunc.org/post/what-happened-when-one-colorado-business-raised-their-starting-wages#stream/0
Gazette article on red-flag gun bill
Interesting article in The Gazette about the red-flag gun bill in which I’m quoted. https://gazette.com/news/colorado-senate-committee-approves-controversial-red-flag-gun-bill/article_8d011d4e-4788-11e9-b74c-8ff2a8efca35.html
Paid Family Leave
As a former small business owner with as many as 60 full-time employees, I can attest to both the need for paid family leave and the difficulty of shouldering the expense. The Family and Medical Leave Insurance (FAMLI) bill that is being introduced this session addresses both issues. (I am a founding member of Good Business Colorado, a business organization advocating for economic mobility for Colorado workers.) While the bill details …
Living in the car
Reprinted from the Daily Camera. Councilman Bob Yates posted on the city council Hotline that he was concerned about the vehicles housing people parked at the Diagonal Plaza. He found the conditions deplorable, unsafe and unsanitary. He said, “I do not believe that these encampments reflect Boulder community values.” He then set the wheels in motion for the encampment to be shut down and the residents forced out. That got me …
Defense of New Era
Only 43.61 percent of active voters in Boulder cast ballots this year, according to the Boulder County clerk. That is even lower than the 44.9 percent turnout in 2015. Rather than be up in arms about these abysmally low turnout numbers, citizen ire has turned to the get-out-the-vote efforts of New Era Colorado. Boulder resident Patrick Murphy has lodged a complaint with the Boulder District Attorney’s Office claiming New Era …
Open Primary
Proposition 108 was passed by voters in 2016. It allows unaffiliated voters to vote in primary elections. It seems like a good measure for Colorado. Over a third of registered voters have chosen not to affiliate with any party. 1.2 million Coloradans have had no say over which candidates appear on the ballot in the general election until this year. Many of these unaffiliated voters are 18 to 30 years old, …
ME TOO and feminism
Charlie Danaher’s Daily Camera essay about feminism’s role in the recent flood of sexual harassment claims was interesting, to say the least. He suggests that there has been an increase in the amount of sexual harassment women have experienced between the 1940s and now. He goes on to suggest that this alleged increase is the result of the advent of birth control, abortion, feminism and the sexual revolution. He harkens back to …
Fracking bills
Colorado needs a comprehensive restructuring of how extraction industries are regulated in our state. The Legislature should lead the process of getting rid of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. This regulatory construct isn’t working for the benefit of the people of Colorado. It only works for the oil and gas industry. We need a regulatory structure that prioritizes the health and well-being of the people. The extraction industries play …
A shameful disregard for nature
Looking at a before-and-after map displaying the Trump 85 percent reduction of Bears Ears National Monument, I noticed a place from my childhood. Grand Gulch is a 50- or 60-mile-long canyon in Utah near Canyonlands Nation Park. In 1973, as part of my high school’s outdoor education program, 20 of my schoolmates and I hiked from one end of the canyon to the other in 10 days. That trip had …
National monuments
My family moved from the New York City suburbs to Aspen when I was in the eighth grade. That September the entire class went on a weeklong hiking and camping trip. I had never camped before. I had never forged a raging river. I had never seen the setting sun’s reflection in a crystal clear mountain lake. That week changed my life. I guess they didn’t have a trip like that …