Colorado Springs Receives Anti-Terrorism Grant; Aurora Moves Forward with Ordinance Again Predatory Business in Low-Income Communities; Voters Approve Vibrant Denver

Headlines Thursday November 6, 2025

The Springs Receives Anti-Terrorism Grant

The city of Colorado Springs qualified for a federal anti-terrorism grant. The city announced that they received $2.3 million from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The grant, known as the Urban Area Security initiative, is designed to secure designated quote ‘high-risk’ cities against acts of terrorism.

Colorado politics spoke with Andrew Notbohm, emergency management and recovery director for the Pikes Peak Regional Office, a city standards and codes office. He told the publication that the city has been on the edge of needing the grant for the past four years or so. 

The city told Colorado Politics that a work group has been set up to distribute the funds, the 30 partners included in the group include region-wide firefighting stations and law enforcement, as well as the Colorado Springs Airport, School district 11, and multiple Colorado Springs hospitals.

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Aurora Moves Forward with Ordinance Again Predatory Business in Low-Income Communities

The Aurora City Council is moving ahead with a motion that would restrict so-called “high risk, predatory” businesses.

Those types of businesses include cannabis stores, convenience stores that sell alcohol and tobacco, bail bond businesses, pawn shops, and vape shops. If passed, the ordinance would prohibit those businesses from opening too close together, or too close to extended occupancy motels, transit stations, low vacancy strip malls, or retail centers exhibiting blight.

Council documents said those businesses can quote “trigger a downward spiral of blight.” Similar ordinances are in place in cities across the US, from California, to Florida, to Mississippi, and are aimed at bolstering those cities’ economies. One of the two Aurora councilmembers who opposed the ordinance, Steve Sundberg, said the permit is anti-business and anti- free market. The council will decide whether to pass the ordinance at their November 17th meeting. 

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Voters Approve Vibrant Denver

Voters in Denver approved all five ballot measures that made up a nearly $1 billion bond package nicknamed “Vibrant Denver.”

The bond package is slated to fund several projects. The most notable project entries include $70 million set aside for park hill park, reworking roads surrounding the Burnham Yards Broncos campus, 39 million put towards backstage expansion and accessibility improvements at Red Rocks Amphitheater, $75 million towards a first responder and public safety training center and $32 million in affordable housing development.

At his celebration party Tuesday night, Mayor Mike Johnston thanked his campaign and city workers. He told the workers, “Enjoy tonight because tomorrow we go back to work. All that we won. Tonight is the chance for us to deliver on the dream of what’s possible for the future of Denver.”

There were five proposals for the ‘vibrant Denver’ bond package. All the proposals had at least 60 % of the vote as of late Tuesday night.

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Coloradans in Need will not See Benefits of Prop MM Soon Enough

On Tuesday, Colorado voters overwhelmingly approved proposition MM, the measure approved a tax hike that would fund the Healthy Meals for All school meal program. Voters were assured that the measure would help SNAP beneficiaries weather the cuts in funding to the program, but Colorado budget officials say the incoming cash is slated to cover administrative costs of SNAP and the money may not reach Colorado’s most vulnerable for the foreseeable future.

A provision in Proposition MM told voters that unused funds going toward the Healthy Meals for All program would go to fund SNAP. But Colorado Politics says that just like the budget proposal that dedicated $10 million to helping SNAP beneficiaries, there are no guarantees that Proposition MM money will actually go to feeding a family in need.

The Main co-sponsor of the ballot measure, Democratic Senator Dafna Michaelson Jenet from Aurora, told Colorado politics yesterday that most of the surplus revenue made from the Healthy Meals for All program will help to fund SNAP administrative costs.

The actual ballot language of Proposition MM did not officially disclose MM money would be paying for state administrative costs of SNAP.

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Hickenlooper honors Retiring UTE Tribe Chairman

Colorado Senator John Hickenlooper paid tribute to the retiring chairman of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, on the Senate floor Tuesday afternoon. Chairman Manuel Heart is stepping down this Friday. Hickenlooper says Heart has been a successful, insightful and diligent leader.

Heart has led the Ute Mountain Ute for 15 years and was a council member for 12 years prior. Heart helped strengthen tribal relations with the state, including starting the State of Tribes annual address with the leader of the Southern Ute tribe three years ago.