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08_27_24_am_headlines John Kelin
Boulder Police Chief
The City of Boulder has scheduled a public forum for tonight, so that community members can meet the three finalists for Boulder Chief of Police.
That meeting is set to go from 6pm until 7:30 in the City Council chambers. It will also be livestreamed on the Boulder YouTube channel, and on Boulder Channel 8.
Interim Police Chief Stephen Redfearn, Leonard Redhorse III, and Josh Wallace were named as finalists for the job last week.
Redfearn has been interim police chief since January, and served twenty-two years with the Aurora Police Department. He was captain there at the time of Elijah McClain’s death.
Redhorse is currently the deputy police chief of the Navajo Police Department in New Mexico.
Wallace is commander of the Chicago Police Department’s Bureau of the Criminal Network Group for the Bureau of Counterterrorism.
The Daily Camera says that final interviews with the three candidates are being conducted today and tomorrow.
Property Taxes Special Session
The Colorado General Assembly will resume a special session on property tax relief today.
The session started yesterday, aimed specifically at stopping rising property tax bills. This is the second special session in a year with this focus.
Supporters of the session hope that by tomorrow, two property tax measures will be removed from November’s ballots. That’s according to The Denver Post. A conservative group backing those initiatives said they will withdraw them from the ballot if state lawmakers pass additional cuts this week.
The special session’s first day ended with the House Appropriations Committee approving a compromise bill, worked out with the support of Governor Jared Polis that would bring nearly $248 million in property tax relief statewide. Governor Jared Polis says it could take a hundred dollars off the average property tax bill, and tighten how much property tax revenue can grow.
Colorado homeowners pay one of the lowest property tax rates in the country. Still, Polis and state lawmakers have been working to grapple with increases over the past 18 months, after some communities saw increases of over 33%.
The governor and state lawmakers have been in a constant battle over property taxes since 2020, when voters repealed the Gallagher Amendment. That law had held residential and non-residential taxes at a fixed rate for decades, and its repeal caused home values to shoot up even faster than they had in the prior decade.
King Soopers Trial
Jury selection is underway in the trial of the man charged with murdering ten people in a Boulder King Soopers store, more than three years ago.
The trial of 25-year-old Ahmad Alissa is expected to last about a month. Prospective jurors came to the Boulder County Justice Center yesterday. In-person questioning of potential jurors is due to begin on September 3rd, with opening arguments beginning two days after that.
Alissa faces ten counts of first degree murder, forty-seven counts of attempted first degree murder, and numerous other felonies.
Defense attorneys have already acknowledged that Alissa was the shooter. Colorado Public Radio says that the main issue now before the court is whether he was legally sane when the murders were committed on March 22nd, 2021.
Dave Williams Voted Out
A defiant Dave Williams says he does not recognize the results of a vote to remove him as chair of the Colorado Republican Party.
A faction of the party voted overwhelmingly to remove Williams on Saturday, according to Colorado Politics, easily passing the sixty percent threshold required by state party bylaws to remove a party official. They chose former El Paso County Republican Party chair Eli Bremer to replace him.
Williams did not attend that vote Saturday, held at a church in Brighton. He and his supporters say the meeting was not legitimate, and dismissed the results.
Williams’ critics say that he improperly used party resources to support his failed congressional campaign in Colorado’s 5th Congressional District. The move to oust him intensified in June, when Williams participated in attacks on the LGBTQ+ community, which included a call to burn Pride flags.
Saturday’s vote was by no means final. Colorado Politics reports that state Republicans on both sides of the issue say it may be up to the national GOP to resolve the matter.
Boulder Camping Ban and SCOTUS
The City of Boulder is counting on a U.S. Supreme Court decision to strengthen its case for a camping ban in the city.
In a legal motion filed last Friday, city lawyers said that ultimately, it is up to elected officials to determine public policy on homelessness, not the courts. The city cited a June 2024 ruling by the Supreme Court that upheld the right of cities to ticket unhoused people for sleeping in public, even when shelter beds are unavailable.
Over two years ago, the Colorado American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit challenging the city’s camping ban. They argue that Boulder’s camping ban violates protections against cruel and unusual punishment by ticketing people who were sleeping in public places even though they had nowhere else to go.
That suit was filed on behalf of the nonprofit advocacy group Feed Forward, and several unhoused people, according to Boulder Reporting Lab.
The ACLU argues that their case is valid because it is based on provisions of the State constitution, and not the U.S. constitution.
The plaintiffs in the case will have a chance to respond to the city’s latest motion by Sept. 6.
95th Street Closed
95th Street between Valmont and Lookout Roads is closed to traffic in both directions, and will remain so for the rest of the year.
The closure began yesterday, with the start of the final phase of a roadway and culvert construction project.
The road will be closed twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, according to a Boulder County press release, although residential access in the area will be maintained.
