-
play_arrow
06_17_25_headlines Ainsley Coogan
Grocery strike widens
The strike against Safeway grocery stores in Colorado has expanded to include outlets in Denver and Castle Rock.
Safeway workers in those cities went on strike yesterday, according to the Denver Post, joining workers at stores in Estes Park, Fountain, Pueblo and a distribution center in Denver, who went on strike Sunday.
Strike authorization votes are expected soon at other Safeway stores. The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Local 7 president told the Post that if the strike against Safeway and its parent company Albertsons widens to all participating stores, it would affect about 7,000 workers.
Union members at numerous other Safeway stores have authorized a strike, although they remain on the job. Those include stores in Boulder.
The union is accusing Safeway of unfair labor practices. They say starting a strike against just a few of the stores is meant to give the public time to understand the seriousness of their resolve, and to minimize the strike’s impact on shoppers and workers.
Safeway officials say that since bargaining began seven months ago, they have been committed to productive negotiations.
Meanwhile contract talks are still underway between the union and King Soopers and its parent company, Kroger.
Boulder budget deficit
The City of Boulder is implementing a hiring freeze through the end of this year, due to a budget deficit.
Boulder officials have frozen hiring for most vacant positions and asked departments to rein in spending for the rest of the year in the face of an $8 to $10 million budget shortfall.
Over the past year, sales and use tax revenue, which is the city’s main source of revenue, has slowed. Revenue from marijuana and vaping taxes have decreased as well, with revenue from property tax projected to decrease, according to Boulder Reporting Lab.
Tariffs enacted by the Trump administration have also led the city into some financial uncertainty, with city officials saying that a large amount of federal funding still “remains in limbo.”
In order to avoid disruptions to deeper services by implementing wage cuts and mass layoffs, the city is asking departments to identify savings. An estimated 85 positions could be impacted by the freeze. Critical roles, such as public safety or water quality, will be considered for exceptions.
Boulder City Council will start to review the 2026 budget later this summer.
Sanctuary city deportations
Donald Trump is telling federal immigration officers to focus their deportation efforts on so-called sanctuary cities.
Trump posted on his social media site that these cities are “the core of the Democratic power center, where they use illegal aliens to expand their voter base.” He followed that unproven allegation with other unproven charges, such as immigrants are “robbing good paying jobs and benefits from hard working American citizens.”
In his post, Trump name-checked Los Angeles, Chicago and New York for prioritized deportations. Denver was not mentioned by name, but has been included on a Department of Homeland Security list of what have been termed “sanctuary jurisdictions,” where immigrants have more legal protections than in other areas.
Colorado public lands potential sale
More than 14 million acres of federal public land in Colorado could be eligible for sale soon.
If Congress passes the current version of the federal budget bill, a fraction of the nation’s public lands would mandatorily be for sale. That’s according to an analysis by The Wilderness Society.
Over the weekend, lawmakers expanded which lands would be eligible for sale. Now, land with grazing leases would be up for grabs, which covers millions of acres across the West.
The lands potentially affected include a popular mountain biking area outside of Grand Junction, a hiking area in Durango, thousands of acres of forest near Brainard Lake and Indian Peak Wilderness, and more across the Front Range and Western Slope.
The Republican-led budget draft would require the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Forest Service to sell between 0.5 percent and 0.75 percent of the nearly 500 million acres the agencies manage across the West. Some national monuments, parks, conservation areas, and recreation areas are exempt, as well as public lands with existing mining or drilling rights.
Nearly all the proceeds from the sales would go to the U.S. Treasury, allegedly to generate revenue and make more land affordable for housing.
Wildfire resistance program
The city of Boulder has reopened its Wildfire Resilience Assistance Program, or WRAP, to help property owners fund projects that reduce wildfire risk. The program offers financial assistance of up to $2,000 per property.
WRAP first launched in 2024, funded by the city’s Climate Tax. That voter-approved tax will support wildfire resilience projects through 2040. For the 2025 protection projects, the city of Boulder has expanded eligibility to more areas of the city as well as more property types.
Eligibility for WRAP can be checked on the city of Boulder’s website, and applications need to be submitted by Dec. 15 or before the funds are exhausted, whichever comes first.
David Lowrey, the division chief of community risk reduction, said in a press release that it is important that community members remember that wildfire resilience can begin with clearing debris from gutters, using non-combustible landscaping and signing up for emergency alerts.
