But don’t celebrate just yet. The cost of single-family homes is still at an astounding mid-point price of $625,000. That price point is simply unsustainable for hard-working Coloradans.

Colorado needs more condos for sale on the market.

Multi-unit for-sale homes are a critical piece of the state’s affordability puzzle – often selling for significantly less per square foot than single-family homes or townhouses. Land has become so valuable in Colorado that anything less than multi-unit construction is a luxury. The mid-point price for metro Denver condos in October was $418,000.

But construction of condos has long lagged behind in this state. According to a new white paper put out by the Common Sense Institute, a conservative-leaning think-tank, only 515 building permits for condominium projects were pulled last year. The paper notes that for-sale multi-family unit construction has faltered nationwide with the exception of a few markets.

The white paper, written by developer Peter LiFari, blames the dearth of condo construction primarily on builders’ fears of being sued for construction flaws – leaky roofs, crumbling stucco, electrical and plumbing failures, etc. — and the resulting high insurance rates for covering construction liability.

There are of course other complexities driving away condominium builders – the lure of higher profit returns in rental apartment construction, affordable housing requirements, backlogged and dysfunctional building departments in cities and counties, and the rising cost of vertical construction, including a shortage of land zoned for high-density development.

Solving the puzzle of affordable housing in Colorado will take addressing all of these problems and then waiting years for the market to piece itself back together. During that time, it’s critical the state and local governments focus their limited resources on preserving existing affordable housing units through programs that purchase affordability easements and put land in trust for future generations.

We supported two new laws in 2017 with the hope that tort reform would rebound condo construction. That has not occurred. In part, we suspect it is because the reform did not go far enough. LiFari called for a stronger right-to-cure to be written into the law, meaning before homeowners can litigate they must give the developer a chance to correct the construction mistakes.

Tort reform will be politically much easier to sell at the General Assembly next year if proponents come armed with actual data about lawsuits and the types of abuses they are seeing, including nitpicking condos down to the studs to file every single claim possible.

The data and specific examples are critical because while everyone has heard horror stories about new homes with catastrophic failures, hardly anyone has heard stories of lawyers making a killing because they seek damages for sprinkler heads installed out of code and studs installed a half-inch too far apart.

Healthy skepticism must be met with real cases of abuse. Take a moment to Google “Colorado construction defects” and find the teams of lawyers making a living off suing builders and how they describe the work they do on their own websites.

Reforming construction defects isn’t going to solve the condo conundrum. LiFari estimates that insurance premiums account for 5.5% of the “hard” costs of building a condo compared to 1.6% for apartments that don’t run the risk of owner litigation. Could a 4% cost difference make or break a deal? It certainly doesn’t help the calculus.

Construction defect reform, especially a right-to-cure for builders, could finally click into place during the 2024 legislative session as part of a broader effort to bring the cost of Colorado housing back down to reality.

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Space Command will be headquartered in Colorado Springs after our Senators especially congressmen Jason Crow and Doug Lamborn put their foot down and refused to accept a scandalously executed basing location process that for a time threatened to take Space Command from the Centennial state. Now Crow and Lamborn are working together to create a Space Force National Guard.

Representatives Ken Buck and Joe Neguse led the delegation’s push for the U.S. Senate to finally recognize Camp Amache as a federal historic site that will be managed by the National Parks Service.

Senator Michael Bennet fought alongside Democrats and Republicans from Colorado for years for the Arkansas Valley Conduit to bring clean drinking water to thousands of Coloradans in the southeastern plains who had been promised the project for decades. Bennet and John Hickenlooper secured $60 million in Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Act to finally make the dream a reality.

Working diligently behind the scenes of this progress is Rep. Diane DeGette, the senior member of our delegation and the coordinator of a regular Colorado delegation meeting to plan just such coordinated efforts. We’ve been told by several people familiar with the meetings that Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, whose district includes southeastern Colorado and Pueblo, is the only person not to attend the bipartisan Colorado delegation meetings.

But the next frontier for the other more productive members of Congress is pushing the U.S. Army to complete the cleanup of the Pueblo Chemical Depot. The old weapons facility which until recently housed thousands of tons of chemical weapons and munitions needs an estimated $600 million investment from the Army to clean up a legacy of contamination.

The restoration of the land to industrial standards is critical for the area’s economy.

Thousands of acres of prime Pueblo real estate are tied up by a combination of toxic chemicals leached into the ground by industrial spills and unexploded ordinances that were once ignited by a lightning strike.

The Army has reduced the groundwater contamination at the facility but TNT and TCE concentrations still exceed the EPA’s standards for drinking water. So far, according to CDPHE none of the contaminants have spread beyond the site, and the Army is actively treating groundwater and returning it to the ground cleaner.

Still, local residents south of the depot in Avondale reported to The Denver Post’s Bruce Finley that they don’t drink the well water out of fear of contamination. The area faces the same problem with unsafe drinking water as much of the area. The main trunk of the Arkansas Valley goes straight through Avondale illustrating the importance of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act finally funding projects like these that have languished for years.

Cleaning up the Depot is critical not only to the environment but to the economic vitality of the region.

Russell DeSalvo, executive director of Depot’s state-created economic development group,  PuebloPlex, has been working to make use of nearly 1,000 storage structures at the site and some of the useable land, including subleases for the space, aviation, and train industries that could bring needed jobs to the area.

But an estimated 7,000 acres cannot be used because of buried munitions.

“It is unsellable if it is not cleaned up. It becomes a burden for the community and for the Army and for the state to monitor this contamination in perpetuity if it is not handled appropriately,” DeSalvo told The Post. “People could be killed if they find a piece of unexploded ordnance that may be live.”

The Depot was once a hub for jobs building chemical weapons and explosives. Then it became a hub for the slow decommission of those same weapons that had been stored. Now that the cleanup is complete, the land must be put to use for the community. A third-life of activity, and not relegated to the same fates as other military waste sites that were remediated only to the level needed to become wildlife refuges portions of which are closed to pedestrian traffic due to fear of ongoing pollution just below the surface could be disturbed accidentally.

Pueblo doesn’t need a wildlife habitat.

Our Congressional delegation should work with laser focus to ensure the Depot is quickly cleaned up to the standards for industrial use. The more quickly the Army funds and prioritizes the project the better for the community.

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Voters, focusing on the upside of finally getting a completed and connected sidewalk network in the city, passed Initiated Ordinance 307, the sidewalk repair ballot measure, with 55.9% of voters’ support.

But as The Denver Post Editorial Board noted in its opposition to the measure, this one came with implementation problems. For residents already facing increases in property taxes, groceries, insurance, trash services and other basic needs, the reality of the sidewalk fee struck hard as the calculator showed everyone just how much it would add to their mounting financial burdens.

As written, the fee is not equitable for Denver’s residents, certainly not by basing fees on home frontages and street-use types rather than income or property values. While sidewalks benefit homeowners, they benefit the residents of the city as a whole.

The city’s previous sidewalk system of holding property owners responsible for the construction and repair of sidewalks in publicly owned right-of-ways was also inequitable. Consider the irony that streets may have bus stops along them but no sidewalks or inadequate narrow sidewalks to reach those stops. At least the new ordinance will add sidewalks that would allow our streets to be more navigable by pedestrians and transit users whether along the Monaco St. Parkway or the neighborhoods of Elyria Swansea and Globeville.

The fees by street type were laid out in the ordinance, campaigned for by a group known as Denver Deserves Sidewalks. It created a sidewalk construction and repair program to be managed by the city’s transportation department. The annual fee ranges from $2.15 to $4.30 per linear foot of property frontage, depending on the street’s designation with residential collector streets at $2.15 and residential arterial streets at $3.58. At least discounted rates are planned for historically low-income neighborhoods.

As with most taxes, these fees need to be progressive and not regressive. In this case, even a flat rate would be more equitable than the complicated tax structure voters approved.

On the city’s webpage where the sidewalk-fee calculator had been, there is now a notice that states in part:

“The city’s sidewalk task force is reviewing the sidewalk ordinance and may refine the current fee structure to ensure it is applied in a way that is as fair and reasonable as possible. DOTI has removed the sidewalk fee lookup tool it previously offered on this webpage while that assessment is underway.”

The fees were defined in the ordinance based on linear footage of frontage on private or business property. The rate per foot would be determined by the type of street on which the sidewalk runs. So a homeowner living on a corner would pay at least double what interior homes might pay. A homeowner already dealing with the noise of mixed-use roads would have to pay more for the luxury of the noise and busier traffic. A homeowner living in a modest house would pay more than those living in a high-rise luxury condominium building where the fee is split among the stacked homes.

Basing the fee rate on whether a homeowner’s property is adjacent to a busy street, which may lower their property’s value, is flawed. Especially for homeowners who have recently invested in their sidewalks to bring them up to code or to repair broken slabs.

After hearing feedback from residents who realized the amount of fees they were facing, the city council decided unanimously on Oct. 2 to delay the fee until after the summer of next year. Councilwoman Amanda Sandoval requested the delay. Property owners would be charged semiannually along with the city’s storm drainage billing.

In a story reported by The Denver Post’s Seth Klamann, Sandoval said, “I’m responding to constituents’ concerns, property owners’ concerns and basically inequity that was baked into the ordinance. I don’t feel like it’s equitable to base sidewalk fees based on your street type classification. I feel there needs to be a more nuanced approach to this.”

We still believe the city needs a plan and the funding for sidewalk repairs and installation, especially in underserved neighborhoods. But as is often the case, this sidewalk plan lacked a sound financial solution and instead created a different burden on Denver’s residents.

It is like being taxed on how much more snow you get to shovel. We are pleased the City Council members recognize this burden and are working to make it more reasonable for their constituents.

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On a recent Friday evening in LoDo, a man was shot and killed during what police suspect was a road rage incident. The shooter remained on scene according to police. The incident — in broad daylight on the corner of Wazee and Park Avenue West just north of Coors Field — barely registered with a community inundated with news about anger, violence and death on our roads.

One must just look at recent Denver Post headlines:

“Denver DA drops one of two murder charges in I-25 road-rage killings,” Oct. 18.

“2 shot in Aurora during Sunday morning road rage incident,” Oct. 8

“Man pleads guilty in fatal Interstate 70 road rage shooting,” Sept. 26

“One injured suspect sought in Jefferson County road rage shooting,” Sept. 19

Road rage shooting incidents in the nation injured 413 people last year, according to a report released by Forbes Advisor in August.

In the Forbes report, a survey of Colorado drivers found 10% say they have been forced off the road, nearly 60% were blocked from changing lanes, 26% were cut off on purpose and 63% were “yelled at, insulted or threatened.”

It is not uncommon now to hear horns honking as angry and entitled drivers meet on our public roads. Mix the anger with our heavily armed society and add in undereducated, distracted, timid, tired drivers, and you have a recipe for disaster. The mix of social causes makes the problem intractable.

The Denver Post is drawing attention to this issue so Colorado authorities, including police and fire, state and city leaders, will take the lead in both improving driver behavior on our roads and ridding the streets of the criminal drivers. Officers need to be seen patrolling high-traffic areas and making stops.

The National Cooperative Highway Research Program recommends an emphasis on enforcing all traffic laws to address aggressive driving. “Such a strategy increases respect for all laws and the public’s expectation that traffic laws should be obeyed,” according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Yes, driver education in public schools has fallen by the wayside. Drivers under 18 are now required to have a driver’s education and to find it and pay for it themselves. Some high schools are incorporating driver’s ed for a fee in the schools.

But we can’t blame teenagers for what is endangering us while we are out running errands or commuting to work.

A different type of driver’s ed is needed. Call it a re-education. Denver’s transportation department has electronic signs now in parts of the city, reminding drivers that violence doesn’t solve their problems. On the corner of South Monaco Parkway and East Evans Avenue in Denver, there is an electronic billboard that states: “Road Rage: No one wins.” Video emerged on social media this year showing a driver shooting at another car near the intersection and circling back to shoot some more.

More public messaging like this, stressing patience and reminding us of common rules of the road would help. Armed drivers need to be made acutely aware of what is and is not considered self-defense in Colorado, and as we’ve been calling for recently, lawmakers need to update the state’s self-defense laws to raise the bar. Before people shoot and kill out of fear, they must be required to take reasonable steps to ascertain that there is an actual threat. The legal standard now for claiming self-defense is much lower.

Two shooters have yet to face charges for their actions in separate local incidents as police try to collect evidence to determine whether they were justifiable shootings or not. One incident was the shooting on Wazee and the other occurred months ago at an electric vehicle charging station after it is suspected two Tesla drivers had some kind of an altercation while driving that led to a shooting.

We need drivers to switch their mentality from aggressive driving during a conflict to defensive driving (anticipating trouble that lay ahead and keeping an eye out for drivers who are aggressive or dangerous).  We all make mistakes and no one should die for cutting someone off. No one should die because they decide not to turn right on red.

Most Colorado drivers are calm, careful, and even courteous, and a neighborhood watch mentality is needed for our mean streets.

Dash cams are more common and affordable these days. Know the proper way to notify law enforcement of dangerous driving and road rage. Call 9-1-1 in an emergency or your police non-emergency line to report non-emergency crimes. In Denver, the number is (720) 913- 2000. Don’t try to pursue the bad actors, but try to be able to identify them. If more people reported aggressive (criminal) driving and more technology was implemented, these drivers could be tracked down and shut down.  I

In a press release, the Colorado State Patrol reported that in 2022, its officers responded to 31,760 road rage or aggressive driving calls, up 4.5% from 2021. The CSP has a number for reporting aggressive drivers on our highways, star-CSP (*277).

The CSP cites examples of behaviors to report as “moving violations that put other motorists at risk.” This includes speeding, following too closely, weaving, and passing on the shoulder. Some of the behaviors seem obvious, such as showing a weapon and getting out of a vehicle to confront another driver. But honking in anger and making angry gestures are also examples of aggressive driving, according to CSP.

Colorado’s roads no longer feel safe, and road rage is a big part of the reason. Doing nothing in response to this problem is no longer an option.

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You only need to see the past results of The Denver Post’s annual Season to Share campaign to know our readers support their communities. The Denver Post Community Foundation is so grateful to live in such a generous community – our subscribers are making a difference for our neighbors in need with their donations. More than 50 metro Denver nonprofit organizations focusing on children and youth, health and wellness, homelessness, and hunger will benefit from this year’s campaign. If you are able to share, donations will be accepted through December 31.

Our community also supports The Post’s commitment to journalism by subscribing and participating in our opinion forums by writing letters and guest commentary submissions.

Dedicated journalists across this city work to inform readers on the issues that most affect Coloradan’s lives. Recent projects include regional VA hospital workers reporting issues of delayed or canceled care for veterans, and the ongoing in-depth coverage of the Colorado River’s shortage and its effects on agriculture, recreation and growth.

From crime to education, The Denver Post’s reporters and editors work with passion and commitment to keep the state informed.

When Denver Post reporter Meg Wingerter notified the public that about a dozen kids were waiting at Children’s Hospital for a pediatric liver transplant, readers did not disappoint. The hospital credits Wingerter’s story almost exclusively for inspiring selfless Coloradans to step up despite the hurdle of having a portion of a vital organ surgically removed. Every child in need will receive a transplant this year.

“We have just been overwhelmed by the generosity of the Denver community,” Dr. Amy Feldman told The Post. So are we.

Reporters worked over the weekend alongside lawmakers to report on a special session to solve the looming property tax crisis when the 30% to 40% average increases were estimated for Colorado homeowners’ property values. From the failed Proposition HH ballot issue to local officials examining mil levy rates, it is good to see that the hardship is recognized as being more important than the flood of tax dollars pouring into government budgets.

Democrats did a good job of crafting legislation that immediately reduced property taxes. We appreciate the effort to also bring tax relief to those who are less likely to own property via an expansion of the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit and an equalizing of TABOR refunds.

However, Democrats could have worked across the aisle — acknowledging instead of rejecting almost immediately some of the good ideas Republicans offered — for a smoother three days of work. Republicans, had they been offered a token of participation, would have been far less likely to use delay tactics to stretch the session into the Thanksgiving week.

A small but important example was the bipartisan legislation to increase a property tax break called the Homestead Exemption for seniors, disabled veterans, and the surviving spouses of veterans with disabilities. The expansion would not have been cheap — the fiscal note estimated it would cost almost $100 million a year — but lawmakers made a similar expenditure with the Earned Income Tax Credit and the $30 million provided to rental assistance programs. Thank you, Rep. David Ortiz and Rep. Ron Weinberg for setting a good example. And especially to Ortiz for his service to this nation in the U.S. Army.

Denver’s Imam Muhammad Kolila and Rabbi Joseph Black wrote a commentary for our pages together, uniting during the devastating Israel-Hamas war to show there is no limit to love and service in the name of peace.

If these two faith leaders can call for unity and peace today, we know no issue is too intractable. We urge everyone to read their words.

There is so much to be grateful for in this state and nation — our generous communities, our freedom of the press, our veterans, our liberties, and our peace and tolerance. Nothing is beyond our ability as long as we unite for a common cause.

But despite a $2 billion new facility, increased funding, and years of promises, the Department of Veterans Affairs isn’t even offering competent and consistent care in the Eastern Colorado Health Care System at this point.

The Denver Post’s Sam Tabachnik reported Sunday on a vast scandal of incompetence, cover-ups and misconduct at the VA system headquartered out of Aurora’s new hospital.

The allegations lodged by a dozen current and former employees are alarming and depressing.

And the real victims in this story are the estimated hundred thousand veterans relying on this system for their health care – veterans who were put on waiting lists by doctors for necessary medical equipment only to have the head of the department order employees to erase the orders to lessen the backlog.

The problems in the Prosthetic and Sensory Aids Service could be just the tip of the iceberg of dysfunction, given the level of complaints Tabachnik was able to track down and the culture of fear and reprisal described by employees.

The VA must act quickly.

Removing the system’s director and chief of staff pending an investigation from federal oversight officials is a start, but the VA cannot scapegoat two or three people for this scandal and call it good. Whistleblowers described a system in collapse where basic necessities were being intentionally unfilled and leaders were obsessed with protecting their image and reputation above all else.

The Denver Post documented an incident where early doses of the COVID vaccine were stored improperly after a fridge door was left open. An employee told The Post that rather than putting out a public plea so older at-risk veterans living nearby could come to the facility to get shots, the system’s leadership covered up the mistake, gave the shots to mostly hospital staff and urged employees not to say anything. One brave employee filed a report with the VA’s Office of Inspector General.

That the employee was never contacted erodes our confidence that the Department of Veterans Affairs will able to right the ship in Aurora without significant outside oversight and assistance. The VA also refused to comment about the investigation further eroding transparency and trust.

The scandal unfolding is painfully similar to the 2014 revelation that wait times for care, particularly in Arizona, had become dangerously long and worse, officials were keeping two logs of patients in order to disguise the magnitude of the problem.

That crisis resulted in real reform from the Obama administration, or at least so it seemed.

Here we are again, nine years later.

Republicans have long threatened to privatize the VA in response to these scandals and reports of substandard care. Today more veterans than ever are able to access care outside the VA free of charge using a successful waiver system called Veterans Choice.

That system must be opened up — cutting out the expensive middlemen — so that any time a veteran fails to get the care they need – whether it’s a needed prosthetic, a hearing aid or access to a specialist – he or she can immediately get the care outside the VA without going through a broken bureaucracy.

Veterans cannot be trapped in a system where they are forced to pay out of pocket for care that has been promised to them as part of the contract for their services. An escape hatch already exists, but it must be widened.

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No, hell hasn’t frozen over.

Rather, Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, recognizes that voters trusted both Republicans and Democrats in 2020. Failure to reduce property taxes in the face of this unsustainable increase is a betrayal of that trust. He called lawmakers back for a special session to act quickly before tax bills are set for March.

Three years ago, Coloradans supported Amendment B voluntarily giving up the only thing insulating Colorado homeowners from the crushing housing inflation — the Gallagher Amendment. Inflation in home prices leads to higher home values which, in turn, increase property taxes. The amendment kept property taxes low for homeowners by ratcheting down the residential assessment rate while holding the commercial assessment rate the same. Without the amendment in place, property taxes are set to increase by as much as 40% in some communities when tax bills arrive in March.

Luckily, a fair number of Republicans in the General Assembly helped approve the resolution asking voters to repeal the Gallagher Amendment with Amendment B. The campaign promised future help for taxpayers. The onus of action is shared by a broad bipartisan segment of lawmakers.

We expect support to emerge for a stop-gap solution to this crisis when lawmakers convene Friday for the special legislative session. The session is expected to last only three days, which means lawmakers are working out the details of a proposal now, behind closed doors, and will unveil it to the public in a much accelerated public forum over the course of three days.

Some Democrats have questioned the need for property tax relief given the state has some of the lowest property taxes in the nation. The argument looks like this: homeowners are generally more financially secure than other Coloradans and giving them a tax break now, especially when Colorado’s schools are still underfunded, should not be a priority.

We argue that keeping middle-class Coloradans in homes that they purchased when homes were half the price of today’s market should be a top priority for lawmakers. Most homeowners are not in  multi-million-dollar mansions and many are struggling to afford a home in today’s economy. Unable to move because interest rates have soared and closing costs take such a chunk of equity that an average of about $30,000 cash is required for a lateral housing move, homeowners have hunkered down, attempting to float with the market.

Maintaining existing affordable housing means keeping homeowners in their legacy affordable homes, which are often no longer affordable even for the upper-middle class.

Republicans, having run the campaign to tank Proposition HH at the ballot box this month, have their own compromises to make.

One aspect of Proposition HH was to provide greater tax relief to lower-income Coloradans, a nod to the fact that renters receive little direct benefit from the property tax reduction, by giving out TABOR refunds on a per-capita basis (each Colorado taxpayer gets the same amount and those married filing jointly get double). Using the tax refunds required by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights to provide more of a tax break to lower-income folks would pair nicely with legislation reducing property taxes.

In exchange, Republicans can demand that the money the state will legally owe schools due to the property tax decrease come from the general fund. The money is there, depending on how large the property tax reduction is, but unfortunately, it will mean schools will not see an increase in state revenue that was proposed by Gov. Jared Polis in his preliminary budget proposal. Instead of using that money to increase state funding for schools, lawmakers will have to use that money to hold local funding for schools steady. Again, Proposition HH offered a better solution to this problem by proposing a reduction in TABOR refunds so the state could do both for Colorado students.

Finally, Republicans can support bigger property tax reductions for seniors (increasing the Homestead Exemption and making it portable for seniors who move to downsize) and targeting the reduction to primary residences, refusing to let second-homes often owned by out-of-state millionaires in our mountain towns receive the full effect of a reduction.

Polis has a tough road ahead selling both sides on such a plan, but a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers can put aside their disagreements to bring fair and necessary property tax relief to this state.

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And now, after the first prosecutor on the case refused to take the homicide to trial, Coloradans know another truth: There was not enough evidence to convince a jury that two of those officers’ actions were criminal. Only Aurora police officer Randy Roedema was convicted, and even then, jurors found him guilty of the lesser charges he faced — criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault.

As we await the trial of the two paramedics who injected McClain as he lay restrained and unconscious on the ground with an overdose of ketamine, Coloradans may begin to wonder if the initial prosecutor, District Attorney Dave Young, was correct in his decision not to press charges.

Was this outcome really worth the time, effort, and expense put forth by Colorado’s Attorney General Phil Weiser who empaneled a grand jury to consider the evidence and issue the indictments?

We respond with a resolute yes.

America’s justice system demands that when prosecutors have clear and convincing evidence – in this case video and audio of the assault on Elijah McClain – charges be brought. Whether those charges end in a plea deal, trial, conviction or exoneration depends on how jurors view the evidence when taken as a whole. The legal standard for a conviction is rightly extremely high: “proof that leaves you firmly convinced of the defendant’s guilt.” The complicating fact in McClain’s death is that reasonable people could assign blame to any of the five people charged to varying degrees based on the evidence.

Jurors on Monday essentially determined that the neck hold employed by Nathan Woodyard, 34, was not responsible for McClain’s death, although there could be other reasons they doubted Woodyard’s guilt. Jurors found Woodyard not guilty of reckless manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. Woodyard was the first officer to contact McClain after someone complained to the police that the young black man was acting suspiciously. There’s no denying Woodyard needlessly escalated the situation by putting his hands on McClain who was not suspected of any crime and was simply walking home from a convenience store with tea he had purchased. But Woodyard walked away after McClain was restrained and other officers took over.

Last month jurors also acquitted Jason Rosenblatt, 34, for the role he played in McClain’s death, finding the officer not guilty of reckless manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, and second-degree assault.

But that same jury found that Roedema, 41, had contributed to McClain’s death. Roedema was convicted of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault.

No one has been accused of intentionally killing McClain – murder charges were likely never on the table – but even in terrible accidents, our justice system demands we hold people accountable for reckless behavior. These are some of the most difficult cases to prosecute.

Rosenblatt’s attorney spoke out after his client was found not guilty last month.

“I’m saddened, quite honestly, that Mr. Roedema was convicted. But ultimately, I always felt that my client should never have been charged. The government spent literally millions of taxpayer money to go after my client, and I think they did that inappropriately. And I’m glad the jury saw through it,” said attorney Harvey Steinberg.

Steinberg, as a criminal defense attorney, should know taking a difficult case to trial is not only appropriate, it is what the legal profession demands of prosecutors who ethically and fairly build a case around the evidence.

Roedema and Rosenblatt were indicted by a grand jury – normal people seated by Colorado’s attorney general to consider new evidence in the case that centered around the question of what caused McClain’s death.

“A forensic pathologist opined that the cause of death for Mr. McClain was complications following acute ketamine administration during violent subdual and restraint by law enforcement and emergency response personnel, and the manner of death was homicide.” That is from the grand jury report, which was a scathing assessment of the officers’ indifference to McClain’s life and their poor decision-making that led to violently detaining an innocent man.

McClain begged the officers for help, told them he couldn’t breathe, and yet the men did not assist him. When paramedics arrived, instead of helping McClain, they injected him with too much of a drug intended to subdue dangerous patients – there was never any evidence that McClain was dangerous, other than one officer claiming McClain attempted to grab a gun.

Two of the paramedics will go on trial next month.

Weiser rectified a grave injustice by bringing the people responsible for McClain’s death before a jury to assess the evidence and determine if their actions were criminal.

Two acquittals and a conviction of lesser charges were not the outcomes Elijah’s mother and the community supporting her had hoped for, but after four long years, it was justice. The trials aired all the evidence, exposed the tragedy in a legal setting with strict parameters for guilt and innocence, and let a jury weigh the decision.

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For the last 23 years, this beautiful short-grass prairie land has been ranched and managed by Duke Phillips and his family’s Box T ranching business, but that will change in two years if the Colorado Land Board sustains a staff decision to lease the land to a different ranching operation.

In a public hearing on Wednesday, Nov. 8, the Colorado State Land Board will consider an appeal from Phillips and his family that is asking the board to consider more than just money when awarding a new 10-year lease on the land.

The appeal is a last-ditch effort to maintain operations on the land that the family has invested heart and soul into over the last two decades, generating grants to improve the land’s ecology and increase the ranch’s recreation, hospitality, and agricultural output.

We find it impossible not to empathize with the Phillips family for their pending loss – the family’s dedication to the land, their cattle and upholding the mission of the Land Board to generate long-term sustainable revenue for K-12 schools is admirable. The family invested time and grant money in the land and now is at risk of losing one of their ranching operations.

“When we had an opportunity to make a presentation to the commissioners last year, in that meeting, Bill Ryan (the Land Board agency director) and others stated publicly that we have exceeded all expectations,” Duke Phillips said.

The problem, of course, is that the Phillips family was out-bid, by quite a bit, in a competitive request for proposal sent out by the land board.

Enter Will Johnson of the Flying Diamond Ranch who bid $2 million more over 10 years to operate the agricultural lease on the Chico Basin land.

The Johnsons have operated a ranch in southeast Colorado for generations, but according to the bid documents, this will be their first ranching lease with the Colorado Land Board. The family has won two prestigious awards for their land stewardship in recent years.

“We’ve been on the same ground, the same acres since 1907,” Johnson told The Denver Post. “You’re just caretaking for the next generation. Stewardship is the guiding principle out here.”

This is not the first bid they have submitted for a land board ranching lease, having lost out on the recent request for proposals process for the Lowry Ranch and the Chancellor Ranch.

So how should the board approach such an appeal where a second-place finisher in a bid process is asking them to put less weight on the money and more weight on less easily weighted factors, including ties to the community and sustainability?

The answer is in the land board’s voter-approved mission statement: “to produce reasonable and consistent income over time, and to provide sound stewardship of the state trust assets.” The intent of this language is clear – the board is not tasked with maximizing revenue at all costs. Instead, the board must put equal weight on making sure the land granted to Colorado by the federal government to raise money for public schools is cared for in a manner that assures it will continue to generate revenue for generations to come.

Also, the Phillips family bid on two other leases on the ranch land — a hospitality lease to continue running a two-bedroom ranch house as a dude-ranch experience. The hospitality lease will go unfilled now (the Phillips can’t run it without also having an operating ranch to share with visitors) despite the Phillips having sold out the previous season to visitors. The Phillips were also the high bidder on the hunting rights on the ranch and would have taken fewer big game animals while diversifying the type of hunting than the second-highest bidder that was awarded the hunting lease.

Under the Phillips family’s stewardship, the Audubon Society and Bird Conservancy of the Rockies began using the ranch for bird-banding, a partnership so successful that the Land Board issued a separate free lease to the two agencies to ensure the practice continues no matter who won the bid.

Finally, the Phillipses partner with schools up and down the front range and have more than a thousand kids a year come out to the ranch to assist with bird banding and learn about ranching and conservation. To help the next generation of ranchers take root, the Phillipses also offer an apprenticeship program that helps train young ranchers with real-world experience.

Can all of that combined overcome a deficit in their bid of over $2 million in 10 years?

The board had better make certain if it’s swapping horses midstream that the gamble is worth the money. We’re eager to hear deliberations Wednesday night as the board appointed by Gov. Jared Polis grapples publicly with this difficult decision.

The former president’s actions following the November 2020 election were so egregious that returning him to office could pose a serious threat to our democracy, but unfortunately, his insidious lies still carry a following of voters hoodwinked by Trump’s outlandish tale of election fraud. There is a real risk of him becoming the Republican nominee for president again.

Several brave and principled Coloradans, at great personal cost, are suing to keep Trump off the Colorado ballot in 2024 under the 14th Amendment’s Section 3. The trial began last week in Denver with Judge Sarah B. Wallace hearing evidence in the juryless proceeding. (One of the plaintiffs, Krista Kafer, is a regular opinion columnist for The Denver Post.)

The intent of the disqualification clause could not be clearer – anyone who has sworn an oath to the Constitution (required for federal public office holders) and then engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States shall be prohibited from becoming a senator, representative, president or vice president.

The legal question before Wallace is whether Trump’s attempts to stay in office, including fomenting a violent attack on Congress, after losing a free and fair election, were “insurrection” or “rebellion.” Neither term is explicitly defined in the U.S. Constitution.

“The main thing that prompted Section 3 was that they wanted to keep officials who had left to join the Confederacy from returning to office unless they showed that they deserve a second chance to return to office,” Indiana University law professor Gerard Magliocca said Wednesday in his testimony as a constitutional law expert. “There was a proposal by the Joint Committee on Reconstruction to do something to exclude people like that from positions of authority unless they demonstrated some repentance or, you know, deserved forgiveness.”

Trump maintains to this day that the 2020 election was stolen and vocally supports those who attacked the Capitol, including calling for their pardon and saying that their criminal convictions are fraudulent.

Magliocca said Section 3 was not intended as punishment but was rather adding another qualification for office. The intent among those discussing the clause during the drafting of the amendment was to exclude people who had used their official position to engage in “moral perjury” by violating their oath to uphold the Constitution.

“According to the historical sources, an insurrection was any public use of force or threat of force by a group of people to hinder or prevent the execution of the law,” Magliocca said. He cited laws, historical dictionaries from the time, and judicial records referring to treason and insurrection. Magliocca also cited historical events like the Whisky Insurrection or Rebellion where President George Washington pardoned two men convicted of treason who attempted to prevent taxation by using violence or threats. The president’s pardon specifically used the term insurrection.

Are legal scholars and attorneys fallible? Certainly, we’ve seen evidence among Trump’s close circle of confidants, but Magliocca presented the court with a calm, strong legal argument backed with original source documents that insurrection has long applied to any act using violence to interfere with government proceedings, whether it’s as small as a sin tax in the 1790s or seating the next president of the United States in 2020.

Trump used his power as president to organize and promote the “Save America March” where he and his attorneys, including Colorado’s former legal scholar John Eastman, told thousands of supporters that the election had been stolen. Trump told the crowd they would lose their country unless they “fight like hell.”

“Republicans are constantly fighting like a boxer with his hands tied behind his back. It’s like a boxer. And we want to be so nice. We want to be so respectful of everybody, including bad people. And we’re going to have to fight much harder,” Trump told the crowd. “And after this, we’re going to walk down, and I’ll be there with you … we’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them. Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated.”

Trump took no action to quell the uprising for three hours after his speech, despite pleas for him to intervene and to mobilize the National Guard to protect members of Congress and the U.S. Capitol building. In fact, as Senators and Representatives went into hiding, Trump was still sending angry tweets aimed at Mike Pence.

So, was it an insurrection? Defense for Trump called a witness who had captured video of the crowd at the Ellipse rally who described the crowd as being peaceful. Defense attorney Scott Gessler asked the witness if he saw people wearing BLM shirts — which we assume refers to the organization Black Lives Matter. The witness said he later saw two people in BLM shirts acting aggressively. It was a baffling line of questioning.

In response, the attorneys attempting to keep Trump off the ballot showed a clip from the end of Trump’s rally where people in the crowd began yelling “Invade the Capitol.”

Even if you don’t buy that Trump’s ultimate goal was to overthrow the government — we think it’s clear that he fabricated the election fraud as an excuse to steal public office — there is no question that he organized his supporters and called directly for them to interfere by use of intimidation with one of America’s most crucial legal proceedings, the peaceful transfer of power that occurs once the electors are counted.

Trump’s behavior in 2020 crossed a line. He didn’t just gripe and complain about the election results; he didn’t just use violent rhetoric; his words, plotting, schemes, and organization directly resulted in an insurrection. Unless Congress votes by 2/3rds majority to forgive him of this transgression, Trump is not eligible to be president.