Headlines May 12, 2020

Headlines May 12, 2020

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The Castle Rock restaurant that opened for in-house dining on Sunday despite state regulations, was closed today. The Denver Post reports that the doors of C & C Coffee and Kitchen were closed today despite customers showing up hoping to dine there today to support the restaurant.

The restaurant garnered national attention when a video showed crowds of people dining there on Sunday, few if any were wearing masks and social distancing was not being practiced.

Tri-County Health had issued an order yesterday for the restaurant to close saying if it doesn’t obey state restrictions, it could lose its license.

Speaking yesterday Governor Jared Polis said that on May 25 the state will consider whether and how to reopen restaurants.

Lawmakers were advised this morning by the state’s joint budget committee that about a tenth of next year’s budget will be cut as a result of the pandemic.

The state will have approximately $3 billion less to spend next year. The drop is not just due to the coronavirus however, Colorado Politics reports that oil and gas revenue is declining also.

But it is the pandemic that is creating the biggest impact. General fund revenues which are made up of individual and corporate income taxes, and sales and use taxes, are estimated to be down more than $2 billion in 2020-21 as a result of the coronavirus.

Lawmakers will have to tackle the state budget when they return to the state capitol later this month.

Antisemitic incidents are on the rise in Colorado, part of a nationwide trend. The Anti-Defamation League this week released its 2019 annual report which found 61 acts against Jews in Colorado. This figure is up from a previous peak of 57 incidents in 2017. Reports of antisemitic incidents in Colorado from the past four years are the highest in the past decade, the ADL said in a news release.

The Denver Post reports that Of the 61 incidents in Colorado, 42 were cases of harassment and threats, while 19 were cases of vandalism.

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Yesterday Governor Polis announced a new learning at home initiative aimed at the youngest students in the state called Colorado Classroom, Learning at Home. Starting May 18, K-3 literacy lessons will be broadcast Monday-Friday from 8am-10am on Rocky Mountain PBS.

Speaking at a press conference yesterday Governor Polis said that public health officials are looking at the data for the last 2 weeks, since the state transitioned into the safer-at-home phase.

He said that they are seeing a decrease in the growth of diagnosed cases and a decrease in the number of hospitalizations.

The daily growth rate in Colorado is 0.9% daily growth rate, that’s the first time Colorado has been below 1% growth. Daily hospitalizations are down to 0.1% growth.

987 people have died of COVID-19 so far in the state.

Secretary of State Jena Griswold has outlined some changes for the upcoming June 30th primary in the context of the coronavirus pandemic.

The changes include cleaning all voting equipment after each use, and requiring election judges and staff to wear face masks and personal protective equipment at all times.

Observers or the media must also wear masks and must have their temperatures taken if they plan to remain at a polling site for an hour or longer.

Also, the secretary of state’s office must sign off on any changes that counties may want to make to these temporary guidelines.

Tribal nations may request that counties locate a voter service and polling center within the tribe’s boundaries.

On Monday a federal judge ruled that the U.S. Constitution requires that the Weld County provide special protections to medically vulnerable people incarcerated in the Weld County Jail. The ruling comes after a class action lawsuit was filed by a team of ACLU and civil right attorneys. The suit asked the courts to compel the Sheriff to comply with public health guidelines. These include physical distancing — for all high-risk people being held at the jail.

The suit said that the sheriff’s department had failed to identify and provide heightened protections for medically vulnerable people, in violation of their constitutional rights. The court ordered that the Weld County Jail must identify incarcerated people who are medically vulnerable, socially distance them and provide them with single cells to the greatest extent possible, monitor them for signs of illness, adequately clean communal spaces used by medically vulnerable inmates, and ensure that medically vulnerable inmates have access to face masks.

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