Hi. It's time to read the noise and separate signal from noise. Here's what I found meaningful or interesting in my read of this morning's Denver news. Today's roundup includes Cory Gardner on health care, Jefferson County's big debate about free money for affordable housing, a moose boom and a teacher shortage -- plus, as usual, a historical photo.
Cory Gardner's big "maybe:"
Sen. Cory Gardner, the Colorado republican, still won't say how he's leaning on the health care bill. The Congressional Budget Office projects that 22 million people would lose insurance and costs would increase for poor and old people, but Gardner wants more information from the "marketplace." He also wants more time to think, as Mark Matthews reports. (DP)
War on the suburbs?
A local group in 2016 convinced Douglas County to reject federal money for affordable housing and other programs. Today, they try for another victory in Jefferson County, which has to decide whether to accept $1.7 million. Their concern is that taking the money will play into supposed Obama-era plans to force density into the suburbs. (Denverite)
Gentrification:
Community leader Candi CdeBaca has an editorial in the Post's gentrification issue. She discusses the concentration of marijuana licenses and huge infrastructure projects in Latino and black communities. Meanwhile, economic forces are causing "a crisis of displacement." She concludes: "Nothing we are building in this city matters more than the building of people, the loyal core who will always pick up the pieces and rebuild something stronger." (DP)
Wedding cake:
Here's a quick rundown of how a local couple and a Lakewood baker ended up with a U.S. Supreme Court case. (Denverite)
Moose on moose on moose:
Well, it appears that the state's decades-long effort to reintroduce moose is working. We're now seeing more vehicle-on-moose collisions and the state moose population has nearly tripled from 2007. Bruce Finley has an interesting little story, including a picture of tranquilized moose. (DP)
Colorado's trains:
President Donald Trump's budget calls for a $630 million cut to the Amtrak train service. That would endanger the California Zephyr route through Colorado and the Winter Park Express that follows the same route, not to mention the dreams of service up and down the Front Range. Colorado legislators are trying to prevent the cut, as Gabe Fine reports. (Westword)
Teacher shortage:
Debbie Kelley took a long, hard look at Colorado's shortage of schoolteachers. Schools now have to hire year-round, and some schools report a dramatic drop in applicants. (Gazette)
Meanwhile, here's the view from a program outside Denver that's teaching teachers how to shoot and handle guns. (NPR)
Questions about a Denver jail death:
Susan Greene goes deep on the lingering questions about a street preacher's death in a Denver jail in 2010. She highlights questions about the Taser used on the man, including why a deputy first handed in the wrong Taser and later replaced it with a Taser whose internal clock showed it was fired 34 minutes after the incident. Greene reports that the case has cost Mayor Michael Hancock friendships in the black ministerial community. (Independent)
Mitisek moves:
Eric Mitisek joined the University of Denver in 2016 to lead a project to connect faculty with the startup community. Now he's off to start-up some more as the head of a new data analytics group for IMA Financial Group, as Tamara Chuang reports. (DP)
New tax:
Rooms at large hotels are set to cost 1 percent more. The local hotel association supported the change, which will be used to fund a $223 million expansion of the Colorado Convention Center, as Erica reports.
